by Merry Jones
Wait—who the real killer was?
Susan faced me, smelling of Burberry. She spoke slowly, eyes misty. “Elle. I believe you saw Charlie’s murder. That seeing him killed was your trauma, the source of your amnesia. We need your brain to unlock what it knows. And this whole nightmare will end.”
I tried once more to remember Charlie’s murder. And once more couldn’t. All I could envision were jail cells and bars. “I’ll try.”
“Of course you will.” She looked disappointed. Or maybe sad. She took a breath, straightened. “Look—I don’t want to sound negative, because I don’t feel that way. But, whatever happens, Elle, remember, I’m with you all the way. You are not—and you never will be—in this thing alone.”
Whatever resentment I felt instantly vaporized. Ashamed of myself, I hugged her, thanked her. Realized how completely she believed in me. How she’d never dream that, even now, I was hiding something from her. Damn. I should have told her about Sherry McBride right away. Now it was too late. The window of opportunity had passed. I’d committed to secrecy, to hiding inconvenient truths. Just like Charlie. I was no better than he was.
She offered to drive me to the bank to arrange bail money, and we went to the car. But on the way, I changed my mind. Bail money could wait, and I had a few hours before my appointment with Dr. Schroeder.
Before I went to jail, there was somewhere else I needed to go.
I told her not to wait. I’d walk or get a cab home. For a while, Susan refused to leave, but I insisted. Told her I appreciated her devotion to me, but for now, I needed solitude. So, reluctantly, promising to see me later and go with me to the bank in the morning, she pulled away, leaving me alone at the gate of the cemetery.
The quiet felt like an embrace. I stood at the entrance, absorbing it. Admiring the brilliant red-and-yellow foliage of the trees. Releasing the tensions of the morning. And, surrounded by graves, I began to walk.
I remembered exactly where Charlie was. It had only been a few days since I’d left him there. I followed the hilly path, crossing the oldest part of the grounds, passing crowded, often crooked headstones weathered by time, the carvings fading, almost illegible, covering bones of lives forgotten. Came to a newer section where monuments were more elaborate, more evenly spaced. Ornate obelisks, carved columns towered overhead. Heavy mausoleum doors marked rocky slopes of hills. The only sounds were my footsteps, rustling leaves, and occasionally the chirping of birds, and I kept walking, aware that, for as far as I could see ahead and to either side, I was the only person still breathing. I walked between, around, and over bodies, throngs of them, stepped directly above their bones. A cool breeze tickled my neck, maybe the protest of a soul I’d disturbed. Maybe just a breeze. I passed through a sea of sculpture and stillness until I came to the newest section, where graves were marked with uniformly tasteful granite slabs that lay at their heads like stone pillows. Some were dotted with flowers or flags, photos or mementos, but there was one so new that it still lay bare without a slab to mark it, the grass above it newly sodded. No flag. No name. No flowers. No mementos.
The grass was thick and moist, flittered in the breeze. I let myself sink down on it, stretched out right on top of Charlie. And began to sob.
I couldn’t sense him.
“Charlie?” I wiped my face. Listened for his voice. Heard nothing. I closed my eyes, tried to feel his touch. Felt nothing. Just damp grass on cool, indifferent ground. Another breeze, a cloud covering the sun. A chill, hinting of winter.
All around me were headstones. I lay among them, aware of Charlie’s body beneath me, and wept. “What happened?” I whispered into the ground. “How did this happen to us?”
I listened. Heard nothing. Of course I heard nothing. I’d told him to leave me alone. “Go wherever dead people go,” I’d demanded. “And don’t come back.” For once, maybe Charlie had listened.
Or the pills were helping. Making me hallucinate less. Either way, Charlie was gone.
I let my head sink onto the grass. Closed my eyes, willing those same pills to help me find my memory. To replay what happened the day of the murder. I saw Charlie in the study. The knife in his back. Opened my eyes.
Why couldn’t I see what happened before that? I tried. Went back to the morning, the day at school, Benjy’s birthday party. Coming home. Writing the note about birthday snacks. And then—nothing. Until I was at Jeremy’s with Becky.
And Charlie was dead. Lying in the earth, beside the plot of ground where someday I would lie, inside the casket I’d picked out, encased in concrete to keep him dry. I ached for his hug. His scent. His quick wit. His surprises. Despite everything, I still loved him. But how? Maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was just habit. Or an illusion.
An illusion. I thought of Joel. Heard him talking about illusion at dinner. Oh God. Why was I thinking of Joel while I was lying over Charlie’s body? In fact, why was I thinking of either of them—I was going to go to jail in a day and a half. I saw myself locked in a windowless cell, much like a coffin. Unable to see the sky. To feel the breeze or hear the rustle of autumn leaves. Oh God. I’d go crazy there. All because of Charlie. I sat up, angry.
“And what about Sherry McBride?” I demanded. “Did you have an affair with her?”
Silence. Charlie wasn’t even defending himself anymore. I’d banished him. I wanted him to answer. To swear, You were the love of my life.
He didn’t. I couldn’t conjure him up. But I talked to him anyway.
“Did you get her involved with that kiddie porn? Is that why someone killed her?”
I wondered if he knew she was dead. If she’d come after him, stalking him through heaven or hell.
I wanted him to talk to me, but wasn’t sure what I wanted him to say. What would have helped? Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. Hearing nothing, I stayed there, lying down, sitting up, thinking, remembering, wondering, worrying, talking, regretting, crying. Even laughing. Almost forgiving him. Definitely missing him. But finding out nothing new about who’d murdered him.
When I finally checked the time, it was half past one. Almost time for Dr. Schroeder. I didn’t know how to say goodbye. So I whispered that he should save my place. Then I stood, brushed myself off, straightened my clothes, called a cab, and retraced my steps to the cemetery gate.
Dr. Schroeder understood the time constraints, and, assuring me that I should relax, began to hypnotize me.
“Sit heavily in the chair.” He droned in monotone. “Let your body sink into the cushions and relax.”
I tried to listen, but images and voices kept interrupting him: Sherry McBride lying bludgeoned and bloody. Charlie slumping, knifed in the back. Children posing for sex photos. Stiles warning that I had forty-eight hours to surrender at the Roundhouse. Susan insisting, “We need you to have a breakthrough, and we need it now.”
The interruptions didn’t help. They distracted and pressured me. I told myself to ignore them. To follow the doctor’s suggestions and relax my body parts. So far, my toes and feet were cooperating, but my mind wouldn’t. It bounced from image to image. The taxi ride from the cemetery, blue tape on the seat, the smell of cigarette ashes and sweat. The awareness of Sherry McBride lying in her apartment, waiting to be discovered. The ringtone of my phone. Becky’s cries.
“Oh God, Elle. This can’t be true. Susan told me not to tell you that she told me, but I can’t help it. They’re actually going to arrest you? You? While that maniac McBride walks around free, killing hamsters?”
Stop thinking, I scolded myself. Empty your mind of thoughts. Let your muscles relax. Your ankles. Your calves. Your knees.
But I was back in the cab again. Hearing my phone again. Answering it.
“I had a wonderful time last night.” Joel sounded untroubled. Cheerful.
“So did I.” Dear God. My voice was weak. A whimper.
“Why don’t we have another, even more wonderful time tonight?”
He was asking me out. Fabulous. I’d met a sexy, eligible
, irresistible man just in time to be locked up for murder. I thought about bail, that I needed to arrange the money. Must have hesitated too long, messed up the conversational rhythm. Joel had gone on without me.
“How about La Buca. Eight o’clock?”
And so we had another dinner date. And Sherry McBride would soon be in rigor mortis—might be already. Who would find her? And why couldn’t I remember the hours around Charlie’s murder? What was my mind hiding from me? I had to stop thinking. Had to focus on my session with Dr. Schroeder.
And on my thighs—I had to relax my thighs. My hips. Had to let the tension out.
But was I crazy? What was I doing, accepting a date? Visiting the cemetery? Even sitting in this beige toneless room, trying to get hypnotized? I should be packing, getting on a plane, taking off for—what countries wouldn’t extradite me back to the U.S.? I didn’t know. Should be finding out, Googling the question on the way to the airport.
My eyes were teary again. Dr. Schroeder was telling me that all my troubles were lifting away, lightening my weight. That my back was relaxing, feeling lighter. And my shoulders. And my arms. That nothing could hurt me. I was going to a happy place, where there were no worries. Where it was safe. Where I would be without fear, without grief, without pain.
I was completely relaxed, mentally transporting myself to my father’s study, sitting in his big leather easy chair. Surrounded by his books and papers. His musky scent. Safe and protected from all harm.
But I couldn’t sustain the illusion. Somewhere down the hall a memory surfaced. Charlie was yelling. Odd, because he almost never yelled. Even when we fought. When he was angry, he kept his voice maddeningly calm and controlled, as if he were a mature rational adult and I a premenstrual, chemically imbalanced hysteric. But now, Charlie’s voice was raised. Furious.
I stood and followed it, walking toward the study. It was Sunday. Late morning. Warm—maybe summer? Yes, mid-July. I was in tan shorts and a yellow tank top. Barefoot. Toenails painted hot pink. Charlie was in the study with the door closed. Why was the door closed? It was just the two of us in the house. Maybe he was on the phone? No—someone else was there. Another voice, yelling back.
“Go fuck yourself, Charlie, you self-righteous son of a bitch—”
Derek?
“You have no idea what you’re messing—”
“Oh, but I do.” Charlie’s voice trembled, thundered. “I know exactly what and exactly who—and how to get to them.”
“What are you talking about?” Derek tried to outshout him. “You’re not—”
“And where. And why.”
“—talking about blackmail?”
Silence. They both stopped at once. I stood in the hallway, watching the door.
“I said nothing about blackmail.”
“You said everything but the word.”
More silence.
“God Almighty.” Charlie’s voice quieted, sounded grave. “This is ruinous. What have you gotten us into, Derek?”
“Me? I believe it was you who hired that bimbo—”
“Sherry’s not a bimbo—”
“And you who had the genius idea that she could back up all the files.”
All the files—Did he mean the files of the pornographic pictures? I tried to make sense of what I was hearing. But I had to listen—they’d stopped yelling, spoke softly. I strained to hear, could make out only small random phrases. Nothing that made sense. Something about dates. Decisions. Papers. Weeks—or maybe leaks? And adoption?
Adoption?
Then a third voice spoke up. “Look, I’m out of here. You two settle this between you. Just make your minds up soon. Because, if you cancel, there’ll be fees.”
The door opened in my face. A man stepped out, nodded my way, hurried down the hall to the door.
Dr. Schroeder was telling me that I’d remember everything I wanted to, that I would awaken refreshed and renewed. That I would remain relaxed all day, able to unlock my memories at will as the day progressed. And then, he counted to three.
I felt refreshed and renewed, remembering Charlie’s argument with Derek. And the third voice, too. It was probably just business, not necessarily anything nefarious. But, over dinner, I would ask Joel why he hadn’t mentioned meeting me months ago, in the hallway of my house.
I spent the next hours at home, swallowing extra pills, sitting in the room where I’d found Charlie’s body, trying for a breakthrough. Sometimes my mind tickled, as if a featherlike memory was touching it ever so lightly, just beyond the range of my consciousness. Too many fragmented images. Who would have wanted to kill Charlie? The investors, to conceal their child prostitutes? Derek, to protect the business? Sherry McBride, to protest his rejection? Or maybe, if she’d indeed copied the photo files, to blackmail the investors? Maybe Joel? No, I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to think so. But possibly. He might have sold something besides travel packages. So, even with Somerset Bradley and Sherry McBride dead, there were still at least four people with possible motives.
But the police weren’t arresting them.
I sat in the study on the new sofa, leaned back, trying to rest. Letting thoughts surface on their own. Hoping my memory would offer up something new. I sunk into the cushions, relaxing my body à la Dr. Schroeder, starting with the toes. Took slow deep breaths. Watched dust floating in the air. Saw a knife glimmer in my own bloody hand.
I stood up, releasing a groan of self-pity. Hugging myself. Forget relaxing or trying to remember. Nothing was going to save me. I was going to jail. And, for all I knew, I deserved it—I might have killed Charlie. Please, I told my brain, let go. Let me see what you’ve hidden, no matter how bad it is. I’m going to jail anyhow. If I killed him, I might as well know it. Tell me what happened.
My brain didn’t react. I remembered nothing. Head in hands, I slumped back onto the sofa. My chest was tight. Breathing hurt.
I sat for a while. Minutes. Leaned back against the cushions. Hopeless. Drifting. Remembering my last talk with Charlie. Before we’d fought about his affair.
The money. He’d seemed to think I’d understand. You get all of it, Elle. Because I had no will.
I’d been appalled. “You think I killed you for your money?”
You were pissed as hell about your inheritance.
I’d explained that it hadn’t been just the inheritance.
You said the money was the last straw. And if I’m dead, you get it all, not just the half you’d get in a divorce. Unless you get convicted of killing me. Then you get nothing.
Charlie seemed to think I’d get nothing. That I’d be convicted. And, if Charlie thought I’d killed him for his money, certainly a jury would. But Charlie didn’t think that—he didn’t think anything. He was dead. I’d hallucinated that conversation, imagined it, gone over the edge. Well, why shouldn’t I? In my situation, what was the point of staying sane? And why was I thinking about Charlie’s money?
I walked in circles, worrying my hands. Stomach knotted. I pictured the blood that by now would have gravitated to Sherry McBride’s back, turning it purplish-gray. Heard the phone rang but ignored it, afraid to hear that she’d been found. Afraid to hear anything from anyone. Pacing, I finally began to replay the argument I’d heard at Dr. Schroeder’s. Derek and Charlie yelling about blackmail. About the mess they’d gotten into. Maybe I was thinking of Charlie’s money because of that conversation—the mess the business was in. Blackmail.
The faces of the dead spun through my mind. Somerset, Sherry, Charlie.
And the face of the one person connected to them all.
I didn’t like Derek, had avoided him all week. But I’d known I’d have to confront him sooner or later. It was time.
His secretary’s name was Roxy. She was about twenty, had short red hair, blue eye shadow, pearl-polished nails. Roxy was generally spunky, but she slunk away when I burst in and demanded to see Derek. I was, after all, the partner’s widow.
Derek stood as I stormed
in. “Elle, what a surprise!” He opened his arms for an embrace. I must have glowered. He aborted the hug, offering me a chair instead.
I sat. I glared.
“M and M’s?” He took a dish off his desk, held it out.
I narrowed my eyes.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all week,” he popped a handful of candy into his mouth, took a seat opposite me on a plush leather chair that matched mine.
“I know.” I’d ignored his calls.
“How are you doing, Elle?” Derek paced himself, trying to sound sincere.
“How would you expect?”
He nodded, looked at his lap. An exaggerated expression of sympathy. “It’s been hard for me, too. But I’m glad you’ve come by. We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do.”
He waited a beat, leaned forward. “This is difficult for both of us, Elle. I don’t know where to begin—”
“How about with the naked kids?”
He started, recovered quickly. “What did you do with the—”
“With the flash drive? You mean the kiddie porn. That’s what you were looking for, right? The files you said Charlie took from the office. The confidential client information.”
Derek’s eyes shifted just slightly. He crossed his legs, put his hands together, fingertips forming an arch at his lips.
I kept going. “That was all bullshit, wasn’t it, Derek? The truth was that you were taking your clients on perverted sex trips—a pedophiles’ holiday.”
“Oh Jesus, no.” His hands slapped the arms of his chair as he cut me off. “Elle, you are dead wrong. Absolutely, completely off base. Although, given the pictures in those files, I can see where you got that impression.” A slow, snaky smirk.
I said nothing, waited for him to slither into his hole.
“Okay. So you looked at the images on the flash drive.” He tilted his head. “And you saw—what exactly? I’m not sure how to address this unless I know what you’ve seen.”
I mimicked his position, crossing my legs, placing my palms on the arms of my chair. “Enough. I saw enough to get you and your friends arrested. And you will be.”