The Pact

by Jennifer Sturman

  “He was, quite literally, raised by a medley of household help,” Peter concluded.

  “How sad,” I said, feeling a pang of unwelcome sympathy for Richard.

  Peter picked up another tomato and continued slicing until it, too, had been transformed into a neat mound. He then slid the cut tomatoes into the bowl of freshly rinsed greens Jane had left next to the cutting board. He looked up to meet my eyes. “Let’s just say that, whatever faults Richard may have had, and whatever unfortunate decisions he may have made along the way, he was dealt a bad hand at the start.”

  I nodded. It was so much easier when issues were black-and-white. Someone should be evil or good, innocent or guilty. Thinking about the whims of fate that helped to mold Richard into the nefarious creature I’d known made it harder to so easily shrug off his death with some banal words and a couple of stiff drinks. And Peter’s stoic calm drew me into the emotional undercurrents of Richard’s life and his death in a way I’d managed to resist thus far.

  Before I could stop myself, I reached over and wiped off the speck of shaving cream from under his ear. He caught my hand and gripped it lightly. “Thanks,” he said. “I still haven’t mastered the shaving thing.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “If you two are done over there you can set the table on the porch,” Jane called out to us.

  “Sure,” I answered, turning away quickly before Peter could notice the flush staining my cheeks. Although, by this point he probably thought the natural tone of my complexion was beet-red. I gathered place mats and napkins from a drawer in the pantry and showed Peter where the silverware was. We went out to the porch and began setting the long oak table.

  We took our time about it, and I was relieved that I could at least set a table without further demonstrating my utter lack of domestic ability. In fact, Peter seemed impressed by my one kitchen-related trick—folding and twisting the cloth napkins into the shape of a fan. I promised to teach him at some point, provided he remained on his best behavior. He appeared suitably excited by the prospect.

  We came back in to get glassware, and Peter boasted on my behalf about what a lovely job I’d done.

  “Let me guess,” said Hilary. “She wowed you with the napkin fans.”

  “It’s a very challenging maneuver,” I protested.

  “She definitely gets high marks on both technical and artistic merit,” said Peter, coming to my support. Chivalry was alive and well, at least where he was concerned.

  “Rachel skipped all of the beginning and intermediate steps and went straight for the advanced,” teased Jane. “She’s a whiz at napkin folding and hors d’oeuvres assembly.”

  “Just don’t ask her to make toast or scramble an egg,” added Sean.

  “Not a lot of respect for genius around here, is there?” Peter commiserated, loosely draping an arm around my shoulders.

  “Did you ever read The Fountainhead?” I asked. “Just call me Roark.”

  Hilary snorted.

  As if on cue, Emma’s mother walked in. “What is it that you’re making, Jane?” she asked in her gracious hostess voice. “It smells wonderful.” The words were right, but she sounded as if she were on autopilot.

  “Oh, we’re just whipping together a frittata and some salad,” said Jane.

  Mrs. Furlong nodded absently and crossed directly to the refrigerator. She removed a bottle of white wine and then reached into a drawer for a corkscrew. Her manicured hands fumbled with the foil. Peter went to help, taking the bottle from her and deftly inserting the corkscrew and pulling out the cork. Fantasies about Peter and me touring the California wine country together, or perhaps the Rhône Valley, quickly started germinating in a corner of my mind. I took a goblet from the cabinet, and he poured the chilled liquid into it and handed it to Lily.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, accepting the glass with hands that trembled. She downed its contents quickly, and Peter topped it off for her. She strolled over to the table where Luisa and Hilary sat. “Do you mind, darling?” she asked Luisa, gesturing to her silver cigarette case.

  “Of course not.” Luisa proffered the open case, and Mrs. Furlong removed a cigarette with shaking fingers. Luisa lit it for her and she inhaled deeply, exhaling a stream of smoke with a practiced air.

  “Just like riding a bicycle,” she said. “You never forget how to do it. This is fabulous. Why did I ever give it up?” She took another deep drag.

  “Because it’s really bad for you,” said Matthew, entering the kitchen.

  “Dr. Weir to the rescue,” said Hilary.

  “No lectures today, please, Matthew. And please don’t tell Emma. She was the one who made me quit in the first place.”

  “I’ll overlook it this once,” he agreed. “I was just going to grab some food for the detectives.”

  “We’ve made them some sandwiches,” said Hilary, proudly displaying the platter. “I’ll help you take them in.”

  “That’s all right, Hil. I can handle it.” He tried to take the plate of sandwiches from her hands, but she continued to hold on.

  “No, you don’t. If you bring in the food, how will O’Donnell know that I prepared everything especially for him? And they’ll need something to drink. Do you think they’d like some Bloody Marys?”

  “You take incorrigible to a whole new level, Hil,” said Matthew.

  “Come on, work with me here. Do you want me to die a virgin?”

  “How, precisely, are you defining virgin?” I asked.

  “This is not a joking matter,” said Hilary, drawing herself up to her full, imposing height. “Matthew needs to get his priorities straight.”

  “Never fear. Furthering your romantic pursuits is, as always, my first priority.”

  “You could at least say it like you mean it,” she grumbled.

  “I’ll just grab some sodas and we can go together.” He took a couple of cans of Coke from the refrigerator.

  She sighed. “Okay. Sodas, then. Now, let’s go.”

  Lunch on the porch was a strange affair. Mr. Furlong was still in his studio, and Mrs. Furlong oscillated between playing the gracious hostess and staring into space. She left her food almost completely untouched but drank liberally and helped herself to several more of Luisa’s cigarettes. The rest of us did our best to keep up a stilted conversation.

  I’d realized a long time ago that people’s parents were individuals in their own right, with their own passions and problems and quirks of character. Still, I’d always found Emma’s parents to be such glossy, larger-than-life personalities. Mr. Furlong had always played the avuncular host, assiduously remembering the details of my life that Emma shared with him and asking after my family and career, and Mrs. Furlong had always made me feel warmly welcome on my constant visits to their home, her charm so great that it made anyone in her presence feel charming by simple association. Still, their fame and wealth and style seemed to cocoon them; I’d always felt as if they operated on a different frequency than most people I knew.

  Between my disturbing thoughts about the Furlongs’ relationship and my even more disturbing concerns about my friends’ various motives for doing away with Richard, it was hard for even a talented professional like myself to eat much. Nobody else seemed to have much of an appetite either, although everyone was probably getting a bit tipsy, between the Bloody Marys and then the additional wine we’d opened with lunch. However, Mrs. Furlong seemed to have polished off the better part of a bottle on her own. Still, she sat at the head of the table with her back ramrod straight and the hand that was not gripping her wineglass placed neatly in her lap. She’d complimented Jane and Sean effusively at the appropriate moments on the food she hadn’t eaten. So when she made her next remark, in the same sort of tone most people used to discuss the weather, it took a moment to sink in.

  “Any guesses as to who did this? Murdered Richard, I mean.”

  Jane, ever the calm voice of reason, was the first to recover. “But, Mrs. Furlong, it must have been an accid
ent. Nobody killed him.”

  Mrs. Furlong let out a crystal peal of laughter. “Jane, darling, that’s so sweet of you to try to pretend, but that’s clearly not the case. Apparently the police think so as well, or they surely would be long gone by now.”

  Even Jane lacked a ready answer for this.

  Mrs. Furlong continued, her voice maintaining the same gracious tone amidst everyone else’s stunned silence. “What’s striking is the number of motives among us.

  “Why, you girls—I know you’re all like sisters to Emma. And you’ve all done your best to be polite and hide your feelings, but it’s obvious that you detested the man. Matthew’s mother was my dearest friend—she had been since we were children, and there was hardly anything I wouldn’t do for her. Of course, Matthew’s father was an absolute angel, but I wonder how I would have felt if she’d been about to throw her life away by marrying a man like Richard. I wonder if I would have taken matters into my own hands? If I would have had the courage to do so?”

  “Mrs. Furlong—” I began to protest, but she cut me off.

  “Then there’s Peter, here. Were you aware of Richard’s new will, darling?”

  Peter met her gaze with a frank, open expression. “I wasn’t aware of any will, old or new.”

  “How odd.” She smiled slightly. “You didn’t realize that you were the primary beneficiary of the old will? Of course, Richard’s assets were hardly as substantial as one would hope, but they were still nothing to make light of. The new will, of course, would leave everything to Emma. It’s probably contestable now, since the marriage wasn’t consummated.”

  “Mrs. Furlong,” said Peter, “I’m afraid I knew nothing about any will.”

  “Of course you didn’t, darling. I didn’t mean to offend you—I’m just trying to analyze the situation objectively.

  “Let’s also not forget Matthew, here. He’s been in love with Emma since she was a baby, practically.” Matthew opened his mouth to speak, a strange, hard look in his eyes, but she hushed him with a quick hand gesture. “You’ve always been so sweet to her. You taught her how to swim and how to sail the little sunfish we used to keep up here. And the two of you would make such a nice couple. The very thought of Richard marrying Emma must have made your blood boil.

  “And finally, of course, there’s Jacob and me. Richard was hardly the son-in-law we would have chosen, what with his rather unattractive background and his questionable business dealings. Jacob was particularly distressed—after all, fathers are always a bit overprotective of their daughters, aren’t they? And he’s always been a man of action.”

  She looked around the table, a bright smile lighting up her features.

  “There’s a certain beauty to it, isn’t there?” she mused. “Why, practically everyone here had a reason to want Richard out of the way.

  “But I’m neglecting my manners, aren’t I? Would anyone like some coffee? Or dessert? There’s an enormous wedding cake just sitting in the pantry. Angel food with meringue and raspberries between the layers. And a heavenly butter-cream frosting. It’s from the most exquisite bakery—this little place on East Sixty-Fourth Street in the city. They do the most lovely work, and everything is always delicious. It would be a crime to let it go to waste.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Not surprisingly, we all demurred on the offer of wedding cake. Somewhat disappointed, Mrs. Furlong disappeared upstairs for a postprandial siesta, while we began clearing the table and putting things away in the kitchen. Peter excused himself as well, explaining that he needed to call into his office and take care of some work. I couldn’t blame him; anyone would want some time alone to absorb that his hostess had just suggested he might be a murderer and supplied him with a motive in one fell swoop. Nor had Mrs. Furlong’s little soliloquy done much to calm my own anxieties.

  Matthew went to the library to check in on the police and returned with the now empty plate of sandwiches. Hilary started to ask him if O’Donnell had said anything about her or the fine quality of food preparation, but Matthew silenced her with a rare, stern look. His sense of humor had disappeared about halfway through lunch. With the exception of Hilary, whose high spirits were just about invincible, we were all considerably less cheerful than we’d been an hour before.

  “Who do they want to see next?” Luisa asked Matthew.

  He shrugged, his expression tired. “How about you? Are you up for it?”

  “Not especially, but I may as well get it over with. It’s probably more fun than washing dishes.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Matthew.

  “You don’t know how I feel about dishes,” said Luisa, with a half smile. “Besides, just think what all that scrubbing would do to my nails.” She squared her shoulders and headed for the door with her usual regal bearing, which always made me think of a queen off to greet her adoring subjects.

  The rest of us busied ourselves rinsing plates and glasses and loading the dishwasher. Nobody was very talkative, except, of course, for Hilary, who chattered on, oblivious to the fact that nobody was paying any attention to her. With so many helping out, we were done in a matter of minutes. The afternoon stretched before us, alarmingly empty. It was barely 1:00 p.m. I realized that we’d forgotten to cancel the reservation we’d made at a café in town for the bridesmaids’ lunch. Well, I thought with resignation, that was the least of today’s problems.

  “Now what?” I asked. I felt like I should be doing something to figure out what had happened to Richard, but I wasn’t sure what that something would be.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” said Jane. “I was thinking it would be nice to take a swim.”

  “In the lake, I’m assuming?” asked Hilary. “I have a feeling the pool’s off-limits for now.”

  “Ugh, Hil,” I said.

  “The lake sounds good to me,” said Jane. I agreed, thinking that it might give me time to collect my thoughts until I could figure out a better plan of action.

  Matthew begged off, saying that he had to attend to the police, and Sean said he’d stay behind to talk to them after they were done with Luisa. Matthew asked Jane not to stay out too long, noting that she still had her own police interview to go through. “I’ll bring Peter in after Luisa and Sean are done, but after that I expect you’ll be up. The police spoke to the Furlongs this morning, and Rachel, Hilary and I have spoken to them already, too. I thought I’d try to save Emma until last, and I should probably keep an eye on her while her mother’s resting.”

  “That’s probably wise,” said Hilary. “I think Lily needs some time to recover from her liquid lunch.”

  He sighed. “Has Jacob come back to the house?” he asked. “Has anyone seen him?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answered. “Should we try to track him down?”

  “No. I’ll go get him if the police want to see him again.”

  Back in Emma’s room, I took off the old locket of my grandmother’s that I always wore and placed it on the dresser. I quickly exchanged my sundress for my bathing suit, an emerald green one-piece, and wrapped a Thai silk sarong around my hips. I hadn’t actually had time to hit the beaches when I’d been in Thailand a few years ago on a deal, of course. I’d been shut up in conference rooms during the day and busy rerunning numbers in my hotel room at night. But I’d had just enough time to purchase some lovely beachwear in the duty-free at the Bangkok airport before my flight home.

  I was almost out the door when I remembered that I’d forgotten sunblock. I stepped into the bathroom and began rummaging through Emma’s medicine cabinet. We both shared an astonishing inability to tan, hers derived from her pure stream of Anglo-Saxon blood and mine the product of a childhood spent in a land where if you blinked you could easily miss summer. The contents of the medicine cabinet made me laugh. Where other people kept their aspirin and mouthwash, Emma stored a set of watercolors and an array of paintbrushes. I found a bottle of lotion claiming unparalleled sun protection power lurking behind some linseed o
il and a mortar and pestle. I pulled it out and applied it liberally to the exposed parts of my body before rewrapping myself in the sarong.

  I went back down the stairs and headed out through the kitchen door. I retraced the steps we’d taken the previous night out to the dock, delighting in the feel of the summer sun on my bare shoulders. My flip-flops slapped gently against the soles of my feet, and the path was covered with a thick carpet of loose pine needles. What with the sunshine, blue skies and chirping birds, it really was an idyllic day. I couldn’t help but be glad that I wasn’t spending it watching Emma make the biggest mistake she possibly could.

  I left my flip-flops and the sarong on an old upturned canoe that rested on the grass and stepped onto the narrow strip of beach that edged the water. The sun had warmed the sand, and the heat felt welcoming to my bare feet. The lake stretched out before me, a gentle breeze stirring some mild ripples along its surface. In the distance I could see a few lonely sailboats dotting the horizon.

  Jane was already standing waist high in the water, a navy-blue maillot hugging her lean frame and broad swimmer’s shoulders. Not only had she been a world-class sailor in college, she’d also been one of the stars of the diving team, single-handedly compensating for the utter lack of athleticism among her friends. “Come on in,” she called. “The water’s great.”

  I knew that she was lying. No matter how I chose to enter the water, I would find it shockingly cold. It was one thing to dabble your toes as I had the previous evening; total immersion was a different matter altogether. Even in August the lake retained an Arctic tinge. I gingerly poked a foot in and then jumped back. “What are you talking about? It’s like ice!”