Depth of Lies

by E. C. Diskin

  Kat didn’t know what to say. She looked around at the space that had appeared kept and tidy just days ago but was now beginning to fall apart. Suddenly, she heard Ryan breathing deeply. “Ryan?”

  He was asleep. She stood and quietly walked out of the room and into the kitchen. Dishes were piled high in the sink. Food meant for the refrigerator sat out on the counter. She returned the cereal boxes and chips to the pantry, put the juice back in the fridge, and moved a half-eaten casserole to the trash. It was impossible to know how long it had been sitting out.

  Kat pushed her shirtsleeves up to her elbows and washed the dishes, then moved on to the kitchen table, the only remaining sign of chaos in the room. Even the mail was scattered around, the condolence cards no longer in a neat pile. She stacked the junk mail and gathered the cards. It was amazing how many people had reached out. Kat wondered what would happen if she died suddenly. She had a few good friends in the world, and certainly counted some of these neighbors among them, but she could probably count on two hands those who might mourn her. She shook off the thought, feeling silly. How could she continue to look at Shea as if her life were better? She was dead. And, obviously, Shea’s life had been far from ideal. All these years, Kat’s lens had been distorted. Shea’s endless positivity, her smile, her breezy, flowing dresses and bare feet projecting this laid-back, “life’s a beach” persona. But everyone wore a mask of some kind. No one escaped life’s rough waters.

  She noticed a card from Dee and Charlie. Their return address label was on the back of the envelope: Charlie and Dee Goldman, but Charlie’s name had been scratched out. The front of the envelope, addressed to Ryan, was obviously Dee’s handwriting. Kat opened the card and skimmed past the prepackaged well wishes from Hallmark, to Dee’s personal message: Regardless of everything, I’m here if you need me. Dee.

  Suddenly, Ryan was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. “Hey again. Boy, you’re seeing me at my best.”

  Kat tossed the card onto the pile, embarrassed to be snooping, and walked over, hugging him before he could resist, holding on tight. “You’re gonna be okay. I know it’s not the same, but when my father died, I fell apart for a while. We never get over it, but we do get on with it.”

  “I wish this was about my dad dying,” he said, pulling out of the embrace. “He’s the one that’s supposed to die, for Christ’s sake. The fucker’s still holding on, though.”

  Kat smirked, assuming this was an attempt at humor. “Well, that’s good, right?”

  “Not really. But that’s another story,” he said, walking toward the fridge. He pulled out a tinfoil-covered Pyrex dish and put it on the island. “At least I’m not starving to death,” he added. “Anyway, I know you’re right. I’ll be fine.” He looked around the clean kitchen. “Thanks for doing this.”

  “No problem. Ryan, I know that nothing is going to make any of this better, but if there’s even a small chance that someone out there did something to Shea, I don’t want them to get away with it, you know?”

  “Kat, no one did anything to Shea. You’ve got to let this go.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but before you fell asleep you said you had no friends. I’m guessing that means you and Charlie are on the outs.” He didn’t disagree, so Kat pressed on. “Dee thinks Charlie may have been obsessed with Shea.” She stopped to gauge his reaction, and he looked away, staring vacantly out the window.

  “I’m not sure you should trust what Dee has to say,” he said.

  “Shea had been drinking with a man at the bar on the island, you probably heard that. But they left together, and the man told the bartender they were going to the inn. The innkeeper saw her walking in with a man, who was her other registered guest.”

  Ryan didn’t speak, so Kat pressed on.

  “She didn’t assume they knew each other, but the man used cash and said he’d lost his wallet. The innkeeper’s description of that guest sounds like—”

  “Kat, what are you doing?”

  She said nothing.

  “Charlie’s a piece of shit. Yes, that friendship is done. But to suggest that she was there with Charlie? That she’d ever let him into her room? You’re dead wrong. She wanted nothing to do with Charlie.”

  “I’m sorry. I just keep hearing these things. Evelyn said you didn’t know Shea had been looking at real estate on the island. It seems like there was a lot more going on with her than any of us knew about. And if there’s any chance some man out there killed her, we can’t let him get away with it.”

  “Evelyn doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Shea and I were both looking at real estate listings. I didn’t know she’d looked at Put-in-Bay, but we were looking. They were for us, for our plan to start over.”

  “So, you didn’t think . . . ?”

  “Shea was not having an affair with Charlie. Don’t go starting some crazy rumors, Kat.”

  “No, of course,” Kat said, her eyes welling. She didn’t want to make it worse.

  “I told you before,” he said, his voice louder. “I never cheated on Shea. She never cheated on me. We were fine. It was an accident. I’m sure of it. Now, stop, please.”

  But Ryan had cheated on Shea. He’d told Mack. She stepped back. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, his tone softening. “I’m sorry to snap. I’m just tired.”

  It was none of her business, and even if he had once cheated, how could that matter now?

  He began walking to the door, and Kat took the cue to follow.

  CHAPTER 22

  March 29

  SHEA WAS SITTING ON THE window seat in the living room, cradling her warm coffee. Ryan had just replaced the storm windows with screens, and the house could now breathe. She could finally enjoy the cool breeze and the sounds of birds gathering in the trees outside, their conversations filling the house with life. Living in Maple Park during winter felt like walking through an old movie—nothing but black and white and gray. In spring, it was as if someone hit the switch, as if she’d landed in Oz: green lawns, blue skies, tree buds, perennials breaking through the hard sod, magnolia blooms. It all seemed to happen overnight. It was enough to confirm the beginning of their fresh start. Things were finally turning around.

  When the doorbell rang an hour later, and Shea found Tori standing outside her door, she suddenly realized how long it had been since she’d seen her friend. Other than sitting with Lina at a chemo treatment a couple of weeks ago, she and Ryan had spent the last month in their own cocoon. She’d stopped making plans with friends, not wanting to make small talk, not wanting to share anything about what was really going on in their lives.

  “Hi,” Tori said. “I haven’t seen you in ages, Shea. I miss you.”

  “Me, too. I’ve just been busy. Come in.”

  Shea led Tori to the living room. She’d dumped everything from cabinets and shelves onto the floor. After nearly two decades in the house, there was a huge amount of purging they needed to do.

  Tori looked around. “Wow, what’s going on here?”

  “Spring cleaning. It seems things get worse before they get better, right? I decided to dump everything on the floor to figure out what I really needed. Maybe not the best method, but it’s mine.” She wasn’t about to tell Tori what was going on. No one needed to know the dire straits she and Ryan were in, or why. It never helped if word got out that a couple really needed to sell their house. When it was time, they’d tell everyone about their plans. But not now.

  “I should do that, too,” Tori said. “We have so much stuff we don’t need.”

  “Don’t we all. Anyway, what’s up?” Usually, when a friend popped in without warning, she was out for a walk, but Tori was in jeans and heels.

  “Actually, I just got back from Catawba yesterday, and I was thinking of you,” Tori said.

  “Oh?”

  “Can we sit?”

  “Okay,” Shea said, gesturing toward the sofa. “Wh
at’s going on?”

  Tori climbed over the piles on the floor and sat on the sofa. Shea sat beside her. “Remember that guy you met when we all went to Put-in-Bay before Thanksgiving?”

  Shea instinctively looked toward the hall, looking out for Ryan, who was in the basement storage area working on his own sorting and purging. “Yeah.” There was no chance Shea would ever forget that night, as much as she wanted to, but reminding Ryan of the pain they’d caused each other in the last several months was the last thing she wanted.

  “Well, I saw this in the paper when I was out there. Isn’t that him?” Tori asked, handing the paper to Shea, folded to show the man’s picture and the story she’d read.

  Shea looked at the picture of Blake. His smile, those unmistakable dimples. “Why?” she asked before answering.

  “He disappeared the night we were there. That’s him, isn’t it?”

  The last moments with Blake were right there in her head. His face, the blood, the screaming. She’d just wanted to get away. Something inside Shea told her to wait, not to share with Tori. “I don’t know,” she said, staring at Blake’s picture. “I’m not sure I remember exactly what he looked like.”

  “Really? Because as soon as I saw it, I thought of him. I didn’t remember what his name was, but I could have sworn that was the guy you hooked up with.”

  Shea looked toward the hall again before chiding her friend. “Tori,” she said, lowering her voice. “I didn’t hook up with him. I just flirted.”

  “Okay, flirted.”

  “I don’t really remember him all that well, honestly. This guy is good-looking, and so was he, but that’s about it.”

  “Oh, okay. I just thought—”

  “What’s the article about anyway?”

  “Dangers of Lake Erie. Several deaths that occurred last year. This guy disappeared, and his boat washed up on one of the islands. He was last seen the night we were there. I thought it looked like your guy.”

  “He wasn’t my guy,” Shea said, glancing away. “I don’t know if it’s him.” She tossed the paper onto the coffee table. Heat rose in her face as she thought back to those last minutes with Blake. He’d been knocked down, but she thought he’d get up. Did he get up? “Hey, I’m sorry to push you out, but I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in like thirty minutes. I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “Oh, no problem,” Tori said, rising from the couch. “Anyway, let’s get together soon. Coffee? Happy hour? Whatever works.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll call you.”

  After Tori left, Shea went to the couch and read the story about Blake. No amount of alcohol could protect Shea from remembering every detail of what had happened on that boat.

  Ryan appeared then, looking filthy. And cute. “Was that Tori?” he said, looking toward the front door. “I thought I heard her voice.”

  “Yeah, she was just stopping in to say hi.”

  “How’d you explain all this?” Ryan waved at the disaster they called a living room.

  “Spring cleaning.”

  “Good one.”

  “How’s it going in the basement?” she asked, folding the paper as if it were just another item in the mess needing organization.

  “I think it gets worse before it gets better. I’ve really made a mess of things, though.”

  “So have I,” she said.

  “Wanna take a break? I never ate lunch.”

  As he stood there, covered in dirt, looking thinner than he had in years, wearing that work belt Shea had bought him back when they first married, back when he’d pledged to be a Mr. Fix-It around the house—which he never became—she smiled, feeling more connected than they’d been in a long while.

  They’d been waking each day with purpose, planning the endgame to get top dollar for the house, and despite the uncertainty of the future, she’d felt . . . hopeful. It reminded Shea of when they were young and she was pregnant with Stephen and they were trying madly to get the old house fixed up before the baby arrived. They were finally getting back to who they used to be. And Tori had just casually dropped a grenade in the living room. She’d pulled the pin and walked out, leaving Shea to wonder if it would destroy everything.

  “I can’t eat right now,” Shea said. “I’ve got to run some errands. I’ll see you later.”

  She brushed past him, but Ryan grabbed her and pulled her close. “Wait a second,” he said. “How you like my work belt?” He raised his eyebrows like he stood before her in a tux.

  “Love it.” Shea kissed his cheek. “Total turn-on, but I gotta run.”

  She went upstairs, got dressed, and grabbed the newspaper article before she went over to Georgia’s.

  CHAPTER 23

  April 13

  BACK AT LINA’S, KAT WAS making some dinner when the doorbell rang. Before Lina had the chance to get up, Kat answered the door.

  Tori came barreling into the house. She saw Lina on the couch and leaned in for a quick air kiss before collapsing onto the seat cushion beside her. Kat followed her into the living room. “What’s going on?”

  “I spoke to Dee,” Tori said. “Charlie was not in Maple Park when Shea went to Ohio. He’d been staying at their Michigan cottage a lot of the time, ever since asking for space. And guess what?”

  “What?” Kat and Lina asked in unison.

  “Charlie asked Dee for a divorce the day before Shea was found on Put-in-Bay.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Lina said.

  “But Dee drove to their Michigan house to speak with him about it,” Tori continued. “That was April first. She was devastated and not ready to give up on them.”

  “And?” Lina asked.

  “He wasn’t there. She called his cell, and he didn’t answer. She sent texts, he didn’t answer. She sat around waiting, and he never came back.”

  “But it doesn’t mean that he was on Put-in-Bay with Shea,” Kat said. “If he wanted a divorce and wanted space, he may simply have been avoiding Dee.”

  “True, but she stayed the night. He never came home. Dee said she felt like a fool, certain he was with another woman. She assumed it was Shea.”

  “I still don’t see how Dee was so certain Shea had been with Charlie.”

  “Actually, she said she found a wineglass in the dishwasher at the cabin. It still had remnants of lipstick on the rim. One of those bright shades Shea always wore. Dee took it as proof.”

  Kat sat on the arm of the sofa. “What are you saying?”

  “Two thoughts. One, Charlie and Shea went to Put-in-Bay together, or two, Charlie somehow found out Shea was going to Put-in-Bay and followed her. If he was obsessed like Dee said, and Shea had been rebuking his advances, then I’m thinking he’d want to tell her that he was leaving his wife.”

  Kat and Lina looked at each other. Neither commented.

  “Think about it,” Tori said. “He secretly checks in to the inn under a false name, shows up at the bar, they drink, he brings her back, lets Mary assume they’re strangers and that he found her outside, and then later knocks on her door. Who knows? Maybe she finally succumbs to his advances, being slightly drunk. We know she may have been upset by Blake’s memorial. Maybe Charlie was sleeping in the room with her when she accidentally drowned in the tub and he panicked and left. It would certainly explain his over-the-top blubbering at her memorial. Or maybe she refused his advances and he snapped and held her under the water . . .”

  “Take a breath,” Kat finally interjected. “Your imagination is in overdrive. I spoke with Ryan earlier today. He said there was no way Shea was having an affair with Charlie. I got the sense that he might have even known more about Charlie than he wanted to tell me. They are obviously on the outs, but he bit my head off at the suggestion that Charlie could have been there. Ryan certainly knows him better than we do. If anyone would have a reason to suspect Charlie, it’s Ryan, and he doesn’t.”

  “You should talk to that innkeeper again,” Lina said. “She’s the only one who saw the man who
stayed at the inn.”

  “Yes, and the bartender,” Kat agreed. “We’ll get a picture of Charlie and settle this.” She got up, grabbed her laptop, logged on to Facebook, searched for Charlie’s profile page, captured a picture, cropped, and saved. “Here,” she said. “We’ll send this.” She found the website for Humphrey House and drafted a message to Mary, attaching the photo. She found the website for the bar and sent an e-mail to the attention of Doug Avery, along with the photo, and asked him to call her.

  “And now,” Kat said, hitting “Send,” “we wait!”

  Lina put the dinner Kat had prepared in the oven and went to the sofa and collapsed. “Well, chicas, that’s about all the excitement I can handle today. You two are making my head hurt.”

  “Sorry,” Tori offered with a smile. “I blame Kat. She got me started with all this craziness. How about some tea?”

  “Perfect.”

  Tori put a kettle on the stove, and Kat brought a blanket to Lina and sat in the chair beside her, browsing Facebook. She hadn’t looked at her feed in nearly a week, and she had several notifications of posts from friends. The first one was the picture that Tori had taken after the memorial, while the women sat on her back deck in Catawba, toasting Shea.

  “Oh, look, that’s a great picture,” Kat said. Kat had been tagged, as had Dee, who had posted a comment. “To Shea, a true friend. We’ll miss you.”

  Tori piped in from the kitchen, “I hear sarcasm.”

  “I think you’re reading into it,” Kat said over her shoulder.

  Tori set a tray on the coffee table. She gave one mug to Lina, one to Kat, and picked up the last before sitting. “Am I?” she asked. “According to Dee, Shea was a true friend who might have destroyed her marriage, so—”

  “Stop,” Kat said. “I think we should cut Dee some slack. How would you feel if you were in her shoes?”

  “I would never be in her shoes,” Tori said. “If my man ever came to me and wanted to spice it up with other women, I’d tell him to hit the bricks. He wants more than one, he can jump on a plane to Utah and become a polygamist. I’m no sister wife.”