Twenty-Five
“Catherine,” Brent said, no longer screaming, but struggling to regain his composure. “Catherine, look at me.”
His wife was still kneeling over the body of Evelyn Corby. The rose of blood on her back was expanding. Catherine turned her
head and said to her husband, “You fool.”
“Have you lost your mind? Do you realize what you’ve—”
“I’ve saved us, that’s what I’ve done,” she said, standing. “You would have helped her? Helped her ruin us?”
“I’d have talked her out of it. Made her forget the whole thing.”
“No. No. I heard you. You’re weak.”
“Where did you get that gun?”
She shook her head, ignoring the question. “Crane.”
“What?”
“We have to call Crane. He fixes things.”
“Catherine, we have to call the police. We’ll . . . we’ll tell them it was self-defense, that she attacked you or something. We just . . . we just need to come
up with a story.”
“That I was defending myself by shooting her in the back as she ran away?” Catherine asked him. “Crane,” she said again.
“I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“I have his number.”
That stopped Brent cold. Before he could say anything, Catherine said, “Do you want to get into that now, or do you want to solve this problem?”
Brent wasn’t sure which way to go. “How’s he supposed to make this go away?”
“It’s what he does. He solves problems.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“He told me.”
Brent looked at Catherine as though she were someone he was meeting for the first time. He glanced back at the dead woman,
then focused again on his wife.
“You’re fucking him,” he said.
Her eyes danced. “Would you even believe me if I said no?”
Before he could respond she started leading him toward the house. As they crossed the yard, she said, “I’ll find the number,
you call him, and then I have to talk to Holden.”
Brent grabbed her arm and made her stop. “Why?”
Her eyebrows tilted in the direction of the upstairs window. “He saw.”
Brent had no words.
She shook off his arm. Once they were in the kitchen, she found her purse, brought out her wallet, and found a yellow Post-it
note tucked inside. On it was written a phone number with no name attached. She handed it to her husband.
“Tell him exactly what happened. He’ll know what to do.”
Catherine left him standing there, stunned, as she headed upstairs. She went straight to Holden’s room, found the door closed,
and rapped softly on it.
There was no sound from inside. She quietly turned the knob, entered the room, and closed the door behind her. Holden was
under the covers, the blanket pulled up far enough to cover the lower half of his head.
“I know you’re awake,” his mother said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Holden didn’t move.
“Stop pretending. I saw you at the window.”
Holden pushed down the covers with his arm and rolled over to look at his mother.
“What did you see?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he whispered.
“Don’t lie to me.”
Holden was silent. “It’s okay,” she said soothingly. “It’s okay to tell me what you saw.”
“The lady was running.”
“And what else?”
“And you were running after her, and then I heard something, and then she fell down.”
“Okay,” she said, worry creeping into her voice. “That’s what you saw. What is it you think actually happened?”
“You shot that lady.”
Catherine nodded slowly. “Did you tell your brother what you saw?”
His head moved back and forth on the pillow.
“Are you sure?”
A nod.
Catherine was inclined to believe him. Reece was a sound sleeper. One night, when the smoke alarms went off by accident, everyone
woke up and leapt out of bed, except for Reece.
“You must never tell him what you saw.”
“Okay.”
“And not just your brother. If anyone were to find out what happened here tonight, it would destroy this family. You wouldn’t
have a home anymore. You’d lose your father, you’d lose me, you and your brother would be sent to live with different families.”
Holden, tears forming in his eyes, said nothing.
“That woman was a very bad person. She came to hurt us. She was going to hurt me and your father and Reece and you. So she
had to be stopped. Whatever you think you saw me do, it was done to save this family.”
Holden managed a nod.
Catherine felt she needed to drive her point home one more time. Up the stakes.
“You can’t ever tell anyone about this. They wouldn’t understand. It’s very complicated.”
“Okay.”
“And if you ever did tell anyone . . . and this might be the worst thing of all . . . you know what would happen?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t love you anymore. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“No.”
“Okay, then. Now give us a kiss.”
Crane was there in forty-five minutes.
He stood over the body, hands gloved, looking down, thinking. He was up to speed. Evelyn’s plan, Catherine shooting her with
the gun Crane had provided.
Mixed feelings, to be sure. A fuckup, giving Catherine that gun, while at the same time, if she hadn’t used it, Evelyn might
be across the border by now, pedal to the metal all the way to The New York Times. Crane had given the documents a cursory glance. A nuclear weapon, no doubt about it.
“I need a tarp, a large blanket, something that will make it easier to move her,” he said.
Brent stood there, frozen, still trying to get his head around it all.
“Did you hear me?” Crane said. “A tarp?”
Brent came out of his trance. “I-I might have something in the garage. I rake the leaves onto it so I can drag them—”
“Go. And find yourself a pair of gloves first.”
Brent ran off, leaving behind Crane and Catherine, who was still glancing up occasionally at Holden’s window.
Catherine said, “It just . . . happened. I had no choice.”
“The gun.”
“What about it?”
“Give it to me.”
“I don’t have it.”
He looked at her, blinked. “Where might it be, Catherine?”
She pointed.
“In the pond,” Crane said, sounding defeated. “You threw it in the fucking pond.”
“Brent was trying to take it from me and I just—”
“Shut up.” With only the deck light and the stars to help him, he looked out over the pond, assessing its size. “How deep?”
“In the middle? Maybe five, six feet.”
“What’s the bottom like?”
“Muddy,” she said, glancing back to that upstairs window again.
He paused a moment, coming to a decision. “The police would have to already know a lot before they’d think to drag the pond.
If they’ve gotten to that point, you’re probably already in their crosshairs. So we can’t let it get to that point. Why are
you looking at that window?”
“I’m not.”
“Oh shit,” he said quietly, figuring it out on his own. He closed the distance between them, grabbed her wrist firmly and
drew her in, face-to-face. She tried to shake him off but he was locked on.
“Tell me.”
“He’s just a boy.”
“Your son?”
She nodded.
“Which one?”
“Please . . .”
“Which one?”
“Holden.”
“You’ve talked to him?”
“He doesn’t know what he saw. He’s a kid. You don’t have to worry about him. I made it very clear.”
Crane stared at the window.
“He’s not there now. He went to bed. It was dark. Crane, please.”
He was breathing in and out, slowly, hand still clamped around her wrist. “What did you tell him?”
“I put the fear of God into him. That if he ever told, we’d lose everything. He and Reece would be taken away from us. I told
him . . .” And at this point, she choked on her words. “I told him I wouldn’t love him anymore.”
Crane’s face seemed to crack. He relaxed his grip.
“I had to . . .” Catherine said, turning away. “He had to know this was serious . . .” Her head was down, her shoulders hunched,
as though closing in on herself. “I would never really . . . I never would have said that to Reece . . .”
Brent was returning, a black plastic tarp rolled up under his arm. With gloved hands, he handed it to Crane, who unfurled
it onto the grass.
“Shoulders,” he said to Brent.
Brent got hold of Evelyn’s upper body, planting both his shoes—an expensive pair of Florsheims—into the water at the edge
of the pond. Crane took the feet. They moved her body onto the center of the tarp, which was more than big enough to roll
up her body and tuck in both ends.
Carrying her like a carpet, they went around the side of the house, through the gate, then set the body down at the back end
of Crane’s car. He popped the trunk, and together they stuffed Evelyn in there. He walked over to Evelyn’s Porsche, tried
the door, and found it unlocked. He glanced inside, then turned to Brent and said, “A purse?”
“On the deck.”
Brent disappeared around the back of the house, returned with a handbag and the leather case Evelyn had brought. “She had
the documents in this.”
Crane had already taken the copies Evelyn had given Brent. He rooted around in the purse until he had found a set of keys
for the Porsche.
“Tell me you can drive a stick,” he said to Brent.
He didn’t understand the point of the question at first, then said, “Yes.”
“You’ll follow me. But first . . .”
Crane opened the front trunk of the Porsche. “You said she had another set of docs.”
“Right.”
Crane hauled out an overnight bag, placed it on the driveway, unzipped it, rooted through, finding only clothes, a makeup
bag, a hair dryer, and shoes. There was a shallow pouch on the outside of the bag. In there, a manila envelope. He opened
it, peered inside, nodded to himself, and set it on the driveway while he closed up the bag, returned it to the car, and shut
the trunk. He put the envelope in his car, then tossed the Porsche keys to Brent. He fumbled them and they hit the ground.
“God help me,” Crane said under his breath as Brent scooped up the keys. “I’ll lead the way,” Crane said, opening the door
to his own car. To Catherine, he said, “You stay, look for anything—anything—that says she was here. Anything she touched.”
Catherine nodded and watched as the two cars—Crane’s first, and then Evelyn’s, with Brent behind the wheel—backed out onto
the street and drove off.
Catherine stayed up until Brent returned.
Almost three hours later, Crane’s car came down the street, stopped in front of the house long enough for Brent to get out,
then did a three-point turn and disappeared. Brent came up the drive like someone who’d just run a marathon.
Catherine had the door open before he got there. He walked past her without saying a word or looking at her. He went to the
kitchen, poured himself a scotch, downed it, poured himself another.
“Brent,” she said.
He ignored her.
“Brent, talk to me.”
He didn’t acknowledge her as he headed for the stairs and up to their room.
He stripped down, walked into the bathroom naked, and turned on the shower.
He stayed in there ten minutes, hands on the tiled wall, head bowed, letting the water rain on his back.
Finally, he came out, toweled off, put on a pair of boxers, Catherine watching him the whole time.
“It had to be done,” she said.
He went back to the kitchen, opened a lower cupboard door where they kept garbage bags, grabbed one and returned to the bedroom,
where he bagged everything he’d been wearing. He knotted the top of the bag, pulled on a bathrobe, then went back outside,
where two metal garbage cans were already at the curb. He lifted the lid of one, stuffed the bag inside, then came back into
the house.
“Brent . . .” Catherine, who had followed him downstairs, began.
He stopped, eyed her, and said, “Evelyn won’t be the last. Someone else will come forward. Maybe not this week, or this month,
or even this year. But it will all come out eventually.”
Catherine eyed him warily.
“Don’t worry. It won’t be from me. But I’m quitting. I’ll wait a few days, wait for things to die down. Don’t want it to look
suspicious, me walking out the same week one of the company’s star employees is found murdered. And then I’m selling all our
stock while it’s still worth something. We’ll be okay until I find something new.”
He had one last thing to say.
“For the sake of the boys, I’ll stay with you. But we’re done.”
And he went to bed.