For Better and Worse

by Margot Hunt

  “Stop being dramatic. And, just so you know, in the state of Florida, attempted murder is a first-degree felony. I have just as much at risk as you do.” Nat swept the diced vegetables into the large wooden salad bowl and began slicing a red onion.

  “Well...if it ever comes down to it, I’ll take the fall,” I said, regretting the words almost as soon as I’d spoken them. I would? Why would I do that when this was all her fault? But it seemed like the right thing to do. “If we get caught, I’ll tell the police that you were home that night. That I was the only one there.”

  If I’d expected Nat to swoon at this chivalrous statement, I would have been disappointed. Instead, she pointed her chef’s knife at me and said, “You need to get your shit together. Jesus, Will. Never tell the police anything. Do you hear me? Nothing. They’ll never figure out it was us, as long as we keep it together and don’t start behaving like every two-bit drug dealer I’ve represented, ready to spill their guts for the best deal possible. That’s how we get through this. Acting normal and keeping our mouths shut.”

  I took a slug of my bourbon, appreciating the warmth as it slid down my throat.

  “What about Charlie?” I asked. “Should we tell him about Robert’s death? Talk to him about it together?”

  “I already did,” Nat said.

  “Oh.” I tried not to feel slighted by this. “What did he say?”

  “He handled it really well. He got quiet, but then he finally said, ‘Well, I guess that means he won’t be able to hurt other kids.’ And he seemed relieved that he wouldn’t have to see him at school again, although he couldn’t really put that into words. He has an appointment with Camilla, the child therapist, this week. I’ll let her know what happened, so she can talk to him about it.”

  “You’re going to tell her what happened?” I asked, my head snapping up. “All of it?”

  “Of course not. What’s wrong with you?”

  I tried to give her a withering look, but either it wasn’t particularly effective or Nat was impervious to it. Then something occurred to me.

  “You know, Charlie still hasn’t talked to me about what happened to him. I should probably try again, shouldn’t I?”

  Nat lifted one shoulder. “I suppose so. But at our first appointment, Camilla told me not to bring it up too often... I think it’s like salting the wound. We’re supposed to be open to Charlie talking to us and create a calm and safe environment where he feels he can do that...but we also want to make sure his life doesn’t narrow to only being about the abuse.”

  “So you’re saying I shouldn’t talk to him?”

  I stared at my wife, suddenly flooded with misgivings. I had killed a man because she told me he’d hurt our son. But could I even trust her now? What if she’d had another motive for wanting Robert dead? Yet almost as quickly as these suspicions flared up, they died away. Of course Natalie wouldn’t make up a story about Charlie being abused. I was just exhausted, worn down by the stress of the past few days.

  “You should definitely talk to him,” Natalie said calmly. “Maybe just let him know that you’re sorry this happened. You’re there for him if he ever wants to talk about it or if he has any questions. He may find it easier to talk to you than to me or Camilla if he has any anatomical questions.”

  “Jesus,” I said, and took another long sip of bourbon.

  “We just have to be there for him. That’s the most important thing right—Oh, hi, sweetie!”

  “Hi,” Charlie said, wandering into the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Baked chicken, roast potatoes and salad.”

  “What am I having?” Charlie asked.

  “Ha ha, very funny.”

  “Can I have a grilled cheese instead?”

  “Nope, but good try,” Nat said.

  I watched my wife joke around with our son, as if everything were normal. As if our lives hadn’t been turned upside down and shaken around like a snow globe. And then I drained my glass.

  * * *

  By Thursday, the only other news I’d been able to find online—and I obsessively searched the internet several times a day—was from a person on a crime enthusiast message board who went by the handle @flnewzie. On Wednesday, he posted,

  Post by @flnewzie on the message board NewsieNews.com:

  February 28th, 10:42 a.m.

  My newziesenses are tingling about the report that a Shoreham private school principal was found dead in his house a few days ago. I did a little digging, and found out that a few days before this guy died, there was an announcement on the school’s website that they’d brought in some chick to be the acting principal...which means that this guy was either fired or quit or placed on probation just a few days before he died. So now I’m thinking, what if this guy was a kiddy diddler. There’s no other reason why it would all be so hush-hush. Amirite? I wonder if he offed himself...or if he was offed by an angry parent? Either way, I bet there’s a lot more to the story.

  I stared at this post, aghast. It had taken all of a few days for someone who didn’t have any actual knowledge of the facts—a random message board poster—to figure out what had really happened. How long would it take a police detective to work it out? I picked up the phone to call Nat.

  “Hey, I only have a minute,” she said by way of greeting. “I have a client out in reception.”

  “This is important. I have to read you something.”

  “What?”

  “I was researching Robert’s death up online, and—”

  “Wait, where are you?”

  “My office.”

  “You’re looking that up on your office computer?” Natalie sounded incredulous.

  “It’s fine,” I said, wondering if it was, in fact, fine. I had no idea what Barry, our IT guy, tracked or was able to track. Probably every key stroke in the office. But still, it couldn’t be that big a deal. Every school parent had probably run an internet search on Robert’s death.

  Although maybe not every hour.

  “This is a conversation we should have in person,” Nat said evenly. “I’ll talk to you about it tonight.”

  She hung up without another word.

  * * *

  That night, after Charlie was asleep, Nat and I huddled in the living room. We’d started doing this nearly every night since it happened. I worried out loud about everything that could go wrong, while Nat dismissed most of my concerns, and insisted that we go over the timeline of that night again and again. It was more time than we’d spent alone together in years. I was drinking a very large glass of bourbon—my second of the evening—and Nat had a glass of wine she was mostly ignoring.

  “We really can’t talk about any of this on the phone,” Nat said. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about something. It’s not a problem exactly...but a potential problem.”

  Even though she looked and sounded calm, terror coursed through me. Nat and I had very different ideas about what constituted a problem.

  “Oh, my God, what?”

  “Don’t panic. But you do know they track phone calls now, right?”

  “Who?” I asked.

  She gave me an exasperated look, which was now becoming unpleasantly familiar. It was as though she had suddenly realized she was married to a complete moron. Like she was going to have to slowly walk me through information that should be obvious to anyone of normal intelligence.

  “All phone calls are captured and stored digitally. At least, all cell phone calls are. It’s been going on for awhile. It started as an antiterrorism program.”

  “How is that even possible? And who’s doing this?”

  “Who knows? The FBI, Homeland Security, the NSA, the CIA. Maybe all of them. It’s not like they’re open about their spying techniques.”

  “That’s not legal, is it?”

  Natalie shrugged. “It doesn�
��t matter. The fact is, they’re doing it. And here’s the thing—if they ever focused their investigation on us, it’s not inconceivable that they could attempt to subpoena transcripts of our cell phone calls.”

  “Including the one I made to you on Friday night?” I tried to remember, through my rising alarm, exactly what Nat had said to me that night. I had been sitting at a corner table with Jaime at Rockbar Oysters, having cocktails, when Nat had called. I’d ignored the call—it was an unknown number—but she texted me a moment later. I’d been a little buzzed and had felt a thrill of alarm when I saw it. I’d immediately assumed it had something to do with my affair, that she had somehow found out about Jaime...although I was less clear on why that would involve her texting me from an unknown number. I’d been so alarmed, so sure we’d been caught, that I jumped up from the table, signaling to Jaime that I’d be right back before hurrying outside. I stood in the parking lot in a pool of blue light shining down from a streetlamp and called Nat back, my heart hammering in my chest.

  But what had she said during that conversation? Between the cocktails and my anxiety over being caught, I wasn’t entirely sure. Had she said something about being in trouble? Yes, that was it. She had definitely used the word trouble.

  “So if the police can access our conversations...they’ll know that I called you and you said you were in trouble...and Jesus Christ, on the night when Robert died!” More of the conversation came back to me then. I groaned. “And then you told me to go home and leave my cell phone there, so I couldn’t be traced.”

  Nat nodded calmly, as though she’d already thought through all of this. “Yes, I mean it’s possible. But they would have to specify phone numbers in the subpoena. There’s no way to tie that number to me.”

  “But it’s tied to me! I got a text then called it back,” I said, staring at my wife.

  “If they pursue it. But why would they? If the police did pull the GPS tracking for our phones, they’ll see that I was at home that night, and you were at a restaurant, before returning home. And then we didn’t leave for the rest of the night. I’m assuming your colleagues will be able to provide an alibi that you were with them. There’s no reason to think they’d suspect us.”

  At the word alibi, I’d felt a cold rush of dread. Of course my work colleagues wouldn’t be able to alibi me. Except for Jaime. It occurred to me with dizzying horror that this could all go so wrong, so quickly.

  “Unless they find out about Charlie,” I pointed out. “That would give us a motive. It would make us suspects.”

  “They’re not going to find out about that.” Nat lowered her shoulders, bending her neck to one side and then the other, as if working out a kink. “Oh, and you really need to stop researching Robert’s death online, especially at your office. That can be tracked, too. For all you know, your IT guy is a total creeper, monitoring what you all do.”

  I took another large swallow of bourbon, soothed by the heat of it against my throat. I’d never really understood before why people turn to alcohol. Staying comfortably anesthetized had its benefits, sure, but lurching drunkenness just looked bad. Now that I was in the middle of this horrific crisis, I was quickly starting to appreciate the impulse. I had taken to gulping my liquor, craving the numbness to come faster, last longer. It didn’t work, of course. The numbness was hard to hold on to. Already my thoughts were starting to become slippery, fuzzy on the edges.

  “This is a fucking nightmare,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Really?” Natalie gave up trying to stretch out her kink and began massaging her shoulder with one hand. “I think it’s actually going okay. I mean, obviously it would have been better if we’d stuck to the original plan. But we couldn’t, and for having to improvise as much as we have, it’s going great.”

  “Great?” I repeated, dumbfounded. “How is any of this great?”

  As Natalie frowned, three vertical lines appeared between her eyebrows. When we were dating, I used to find this adorable. “So far, we’ve totally gotten away with it. No one’s come forward to say that they saw us near his house on the night of his death. No one suspects us of anything.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Trust me, we would know. The police would have already shown up at our door.”

  “So, we just sit and wait to see if they come for us? How long will that go on for?”

  Natalie shrugged. “It depends. I’m still hoping they’ll get the toxicology screen results back and determine his death a suicide.”

  “How likely is that?”

  “It depends on how incompetent the medical examiner is. I think when someone dies from suffocation, they can usually detect signs of asphyxia. But I think it really depends on how hard they look. If they find the drugs in his system and the drugs on the coffee table...that might be enough.”

  “And then we’re home free.” I took another long drink of my bourbon. “Hopefully.”

  “We may find out more tomorrow.”

  “Why, what’s tomorrow?”

  “We’re going to Mandy and Dan’s house for dinner. Mandy’s always a good source for what’s going on in town. She hears everything. You didn’t forget, did you?”

  I tried to make sense of her words in my bourbon-steeped haze. “Dinner?”

  “Yes, I told you about it yesterday. Charlie’s coming, too. He and Beatrice have plans for a movie marathon. Something involving superheroes, I think. He’s very excited.”

  “We’re going to a dinner party, like nothing’s happened?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s the general idea. We’re going to act normal. Avoid suspicion.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “Okay.” Natalie nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you have two choices. You can either stick with my plan, which is the one designed to keep us both out of jail. Or you can run around, melting down, basically behaving as if there’s a large neon arrow pointing at you with the word guilty emblazoned on it. Which option do you want to pick?”

  I tried to think of a withering comeback and realized I didn’t have one.

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, standing. I was swayed a little and hoped Nat didn’t notice.

  “Good idea. Oh, and Will?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Stop drinking so much. It’s going to make you sloppy.”

  Chapter 23

  “This is delicious, Mandy,” Nat said, eating another bite of her coq au vin. We were sitting in the Breens’ dining room, eating at their formal cherrywood table. We’d also rated the good china and lots of candles, which was unusual. Normally, dinner at the Breens’ meant barbecue and sitting out by the pool.

  “I’d love to take credit, but Dan made it,” Mandy said. “His cooking skills are the main reason I keep him around.”

  “True story,” Dan said.

  “I can see why. This—” Nat pointed at the coq au vin with her fork “—is insanely good.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” Mandy chided. “Compliments go straight to his head.”

  “You two are so cute,” Lauren David exclaimed.

  Lauren and her husband, Bret, who lived across the street, were the third couple at the Breens’ dinner party. Their presence was possibly the reason why Mandy had gone to so much trouble with the place settings that night. I hadn’t met the Davids before. Lauren was blonde with a very white toothy smile and whose favorite adjective was cute. She was wearing a strapless turquoise top and a necklace made out of giant beads of the same color. Bret had a head shaped like a potato, which their twin nine-year-old boys had unfortunately inherited. The twins, along with Charlie and the Breens’ two daughters, were all outside, eating dinner on the patio. I could see Charlie through the glass doors. He was sitting next to Beatrice, and they had their heads bent toward one another as they laughed about something. It was good to see him smiling. The previous night h
ad been rough. Charlie had woken up after having a bad dream that upset him so much, he was up for hours.

  “How are you, Will?” Mandy asked. “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

  I looked up at my hostess and hesitated for a few beats too long. I glanced over at Nat, who raised her eyebrows. I realized the silence was stretching out awkwardly.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to be. It’s just been a long week at work,” I said.

  “What do you do?” Lauren asked.

  “I’m an attorney,” I said. “Trusts and estates.”

  “Oh, I thought you were the attorney in the family,” Lauren said, looking over at Natalie.

  “We both are,” Nat replied. “We actually met in law school.”

  “Cute!” Lauren exclaimed.

  I didn’t know exactly how to respond to that, so I took a bite of my potatoes. They had been sliced thin and cooked in cream and cheese. They were pretty good, or would have been if I’d had any appetite at all. I couldn’t understand how Nat could sit there, eating and chatting, as if one week earlier, we hadn’t killed a man. She seemed completely at ease, asking Lauren about whether she liked the Catholic school they sent their twins to, if Bret enjoyed his work as a financial planner, whether Mandy had heard that Franklin School was going to hold a fund-raiser at the local build-your-own-burrito joint next week.

  I stared at my wife, listening to her talk about how much she loved school fund-raisers that got her out of cooking dinner for a night, and I wondered for the hundredth time since we’d killed Robert Gibbons—since I’d killed Robert—if it was possible that the woman I’d been married to for fourteen years was normal. I was a wreck. How could this not be affecting her in some way?

  “We almost sent the twins to Franklin, but I’m so glad now that we went with St. Mary’s instead,” Lauren said. “Bret wasn’t sure at first. Right, sweetie?”

  Bret had just taken a bite of food, so all he could do was nod and make an indistinct grunting sound. He actually hadn’t said much of anything that evening, mostly staying quiet while his wife filled every silence with her burbling chatter. I wasn’t sure if he was naturally quiet or if he was actually as dim-witted I suspected he was. Then again, I wasn’t being very talkative myself.