Chapter 28
“She was your sister?” Erin shrieks.
I nod.
“But he doesn’t know,” she says.
“No. Like I said, I was in jail and I didn’t want her to tell him about me. Then when I got out, I changed my name.”
Her head moves in slow motion, this way and that, like her brain is trying to compute what I’m telling her, but it just can’t.
Then she focuses back on me. “But why were you in jail?”
“I made a mistake,” I say, dragging the plate with my cake back to me. I cut a corner of it. “A long time ago. It’s followed me ever since.”
“What did you do?”
Two police officers walk in and take a seat at the counter. They’re far enough that they wouldn’t hear me, but I lower my voice anyway.
“I was only eighteen and had just gotten my first boyfriend. His name was Beau and he was a few years older. I was head over heels in love. He wasn’t even particularly handsome, but I never expected anyone to like me, let alone want to go out with me.
And here was this guy who thought I was worth asking out, so I was, like, this is my chance, you know?
Also, his parents owned the local auto repair and body shop, so I knew he’d always have job security. ”
She nods slowly.
“Anyway, one night, Beau and I were on our way back from a party and we were going back to his place. He was driving. It was really late, and the road wasn’t very well lit. Neither of us saw him until it was too late.”
“Who?” she asks.
“The man walking on the side of the road. We should have seen him, but we were laughing and the radio was on loud, and suddenly we felt it. We’d hit something and ran over it.
Beau stopped the car and I got out to look.
There was a man on the ground, his leg all mangled.
He was bleeding from the head, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get up in a hurry.
Beau was crying, pulling at his hair, and he said, ‘You have to say you were driving.’ He’d had too much to drink, you see, whereas I barely drank anything.
He promised me nothing would happen to me because it was an accident and we hadn’t done anything wrong, not if I had a blood alcohol level of zero.
So I did. I told the police I was the one driving. ”
“Oh my God.” She slaps her hands over her mouth. “What happened then?”
I shrug. “The man died.”
She gasps. “But you told them, didn’t you? That you weren’t driving? That Beau told you to say you were?”
“By the time I realized my mistake, I was in much bigger trouble than I’d thought. I told them the truth, but by then nobody believed me. I’d already confessed, so…”
She stares at me, a look of disbelief on her face. “So what happened?”
I push a forkful of cake into my mouth. “I was charged with manslaughter. Felony 2.”
“Oh my God. Jodie!”
“They said I was driving too fast. I mean, it’s true. Beau was going really fast. They can tell from skid marks, apparently.”
I’ll never forget the look on Deb’s face when she came to the county jail where I was being held the night of the accident. She looked crushed. She was wiping tears off her face with her sleeve. She couldn’t stop. “I can’t help you this time, Jo.”
“You don’t have to!” I said. We were holding onto the bars of my cell. I hated seeing her like that. I hated it more than being on the wrong side of those bars. “I’ve got this, Debs. I swear. And I wasn’t the one driving, Beau was.”
She clicked her tongue. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not!” I whined. “It’s the truth!”
“Don’t you get it?” she cried. “I can’t make it right!”
I put my hand through the bars. “Hey. It’s okay.”
She didn’t even take it. “You shouldn’t have done it,” she whispered.
“I didn’t,” I hissed. I took a breath. “I’ll be fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
“Did you go to jail?” Erin asks, yanking me out of my memories.
I pick up a crumb of cake and lick it off. “I most certainly did. Five years.”
She gasps. “Did you ever see Beau again?”
“He texted me the day after the accident and said his parents didn’t want him to see me again. That it would be bad for their business. The only time I saw him after that was at the trial, where he apologized to the man’s parents for letting me drive.”
Erin blinks a few times. “I’m so, so sorry. That sounds horrible.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. But to go back to the matter at hand…”
“Yes,” she says, nodding. “Right. So you are your husband’s first wife’s sister, and you suspect that he killed her.”
“I know he killed her,” I say, wondering how many times I’m going to have to say it, because I can tell she’s not sold yet.
I tell her the details of the case. I read everything I could find online about this, so I know that (a) the security cameras were never triggered, meaning nobody came to or left the house around the time she died; and (b) the estimated time of death was between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. Roy was consulting with a client at the time. Suicide, case closed.
“There’s a lot, okay?” I say. “A lot I’m going to tell you that will absolutely convince you. But here’s the other thing.” I glance around and lean forward. “Did you know that women never shoot themselves in the face?”
Erin blinks. “Why not?”
“Beauty. They don’t want their face to look like Mount Etna after the eruption. I heard that on a true-crime podcast. They shoot themselves in the chest because they don’t want to ruin their face.”
She frowns. “Do you listen to a lot of true-crime podcasts?”
“All the time,” I say.
“You don’t think that’s likely to feed an overactive imagination?”
I think about this for a moment. “I don’t have an overactive imagination, or any kind of imagination for that matter.
But I believe you should teach yourself about the world.
If I told you I was addicted to fairy tales, you probably would think that was cute.
But here’s the catch, Erin. Sleeping Beauty did not sleep for a hundred years because had she, she’d be long dead by the time Prince Charming discovered her.
And considerably older than him, by the way, so right there, young man falls for much older woman, classic Oedipus complex behavior on Prince Charming’s part, and a necrophiliac to boot.
“The Boston Strangler, however, killed thirteen women. And yet if I choose to learn more about the Boston Strangler and his ilk—who are very real—rather than Sleeping Beauty, you’ll tell me that I have an overactive imagination.
I think it’s your logic that’s flawed, Erin.
No offense, but I am not the one with the problem here. ”
She twirls her spoon in her tea, looking a little sullen, I think. With an intake of breath, she opens her mouth to speak but I have no interest in pursuing the topic, so I speak over her.
“My point is, it’s kind of strange that my sister shot herself in the face, especially considering how beautiful she was. She bucked the trend, you could say. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“I have no idea. Maybe.”
“It’s not just me saying so, everyone does. But let’s say for a moment that she did want to look like lava. It’s actually quite hard to do with a rifle. If you have short arms. Like I do. I know this because I tried.”
A beat. “Did she have short arms?”
I shrug. “She was very tall, so probably not. But still, just saying. On the difficulty score, it’s like a nine.”
“Right…” She lowers her voice. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why would he want to kill her?”
“He was having an affair with this other woman named Veronica. He calls her Vee. And for some reason I cannot begin to understand, he wanted to leave his wife for Vee. She was writing to him, these weird letters about birds shitting on windowsills, whatever. Anyway. The problem was that my husband and his first wife didn’t have a prenup.
So, he locked her up, convinced her she was crazy, made her ugly, then hired a hit man and made it look like suicide.
Convoluted, certainly, but cheaper than a divorce lawyer. It happens all the time.”
And for some reason, after everything I’ve just said, the only question Erin has for me, is: “They didn’t have a prenup?”
“No.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because he told me.”
“Wow. Do you have a prenup?”
“Yes, we have a prenup. Ten years.”
“Ten years?” she asks, eyes big and round. “So if you split up before the ten years are up—”
“That’s completely irrelevant, Erin. My point is, he was in love with this Veronica woman, he killed his wife, or had her killed, and here we are.”
Erin blinks a few times. Then she says, in a very soft voice, “So why didn’t he marry this Veronica woman after his wife died?”
“Because I came along. I’m an amazing cook.
Everyone says so. I make sure to be attractive for my husband, no matter the time of day.
I am a fountain of cleaning tips and tricks.
Red wine on carpet? White wine vinegar and baking soda.
Your dishwasher could do with a little sparkle?
Add a few lemon wedges to your wash. Also, I can whip up a four-course luncheon for a party of twelve with no warning in a matter of hours. Oh, and I was pregnant.”
She tilts her head at me, her gaze a little cold, I think. “So where’s the baby?”
I shake my head impatiently. “I wasn’t actually pregnant. I just needed to get inside the house so I bought one of those fake tests, but my point is, he lies, Erin. All the time. Every day. He … What’s wrong?”
“You faked a pregnancy test?” She’s gone pale suddenly. For a second, I think she’s going to cry. “You faked a pregnancy test so that he would marry you?”
I flap a hand. “I just told you. I had to get inside that house. What do you care anyway? My point is, he pretends that he really loved her.”
Again, she twirls her spoon in her tea. “Maybe he did.”
“Please. And what about what I said about shooting herself in the face? A Winchester 70 has a mighty long barrel, Erin. And you have to hold it as well as shoot it. My sister might have been tall, but she was no octopus.”
She looks away, considering this. “She must have found a way. You said yourself she was alone in the house and he had an alibi.”