The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives

Chapter One

One

There’s something about hot weather that makes Beverley Lightfoot think of finding her husband’s clothes in the trash.

It was sweltering, just like today, when she locked eyes with a skinny coyote, lifted the lid of her neighbor’s garbage can and saw her husband’s shirt—the plaid one she’d got him for his thirty-fifth birthday—flecked with old eggshells, discarded coffee grounds and bloodstains.

She blinks away the image, tilts the rearview mirror and splays her hands across the steering wheel, lifting her fingers to inspect nails she carefully painted just this morning, an innocuous carnation pink. She frowns, leans in, sure she can see the polish bubbling in the heat.

The surrounding sidewalks are fringed with gasping palms and packed tightly with bodies in capri pants and sleeveless sweaters.

This type of insistent heat—so stubborn that it radiates from the buildings, the crosswalks—sends folks’ heads into a spin, especially in Berryview, where there is no coastal breeze, not even the mildest gust to shoo off the muggy stink of summer.

It has been this way for weeks: a meteorological standoff, the papers running headlines of record temperatures alongside stories of planes bombing Hanoi. City Swelters! they cry hysterically. Thousands More Killed in ’Nam.

Salesmen have taken the weather as a cue to knock on Beverley’s door.

They come with freestanding fans, with bulky Coleman coolers, with ice machines balanced on their hips, their damp hair palmed back, their grins twitching with the knowledge that they have access to treasure.

Once Beverley has politely dismissed them, she will lean out of the porch.

In every manicured front yard, behind white fences and blowsy hibiscus, she will see the same thing: men standing wide legged, with open shirts—just like the one she found in the trash that day—soaked through by the spray of their garden sprinklers.

Beverley adjusts her white sunglasses to repel the glare of the parking lot.

Slick asphalt and expensive cars—she’d expected nothing but wealth today.

She shifts in the driver’s seat of her Cortina, her thighs tacky against the old vinyl.

Her dress—cream twill, belted narrow at the waist, tied with a silk bow at the neck—is already damp with sweat.

There’s nothing she can do about it now; she only hopes the spotlights won’t be too bright when she makes it inside.

She checks her rearview mirror again. The sun is spiking through the trees, glancing off windows, a blazing wash of light.

Her teeth find the soft insides of her cheeks and bite down hard.

She resents the oafish predictability of her own memory, as if she’s some dumb Pavlovian mutt thinking of helicopter blades and red flashing lights whenever the temperature rises above ninety degrees.

She reaches forward and snaps off the car radio, then pulls the bow from her neck, purses her lips and blows a stream of hot air down to her chest. Twill. Really? In this heat? Bravo, Beverley.

She’d taken the dress from the back of the closet and had it dry-cleaned especially.

Deciding on her outfit had been a ritual enacted over several days—hours in front of the mirror, holding each garment against her body to study it.

She had to consider whether it struck the right balance.

Nothing too stern. Nothing playful, for obvious reasons.

Nothing short. No cleavage. Absolutely no red.

She’d layered on makeup before removing it bit by bit as if a sweep of blush in the wrong shade of peach or mascara applied too thickly was the thing people would focus on, the thing that would validate their hunch that they had been right about her all along.

Outside the car window, a well-dressed crowd streams toward the entrance of the hotel.

Silver badges and tenderly polished buttons glint in the sun.

There are hundreds surging in: run-of-the-mill cops, detectives and sheriffs, and wives in their own uniform—pearls, skimmer dresses and earrings plump as Christmas tree baubles.

Beverley glances down at her legs, sighs. There’s a snag in her new pantyhose.

She checks her makeup once more, and the car fills with her mother’s voice.

With a face as round as yours, Beverley, you really should reconsider whether bangs are the best option.

Mascara has congealed beneath her bottom lashes, and her new Coty lipstick is bleeding out from the corners of her mouth. She looks unhinged.

She grabs for her purse and pulls out a tissue, realizing as she does that her hands are trembling.

In fact, her whole body is vibrating, her veins electric with dread.

She dabs the sides of her mouth, reaches for the lipstick to reapply, unsure which is worse, the infernal heat or the infernal nerves.

There will be people inside, important people, and they’ll all be watching her, listening only to her, thinking to themselves, Of course she knew, or She didn’t know?

The woman’s a floozy, a total waste of space.

If there’s one thing Beverley has learned over the past five years, it’s that other women think they would know if their husband were out doing what Beverley’s husband had been out doing.

They wouldn’t, but they like to comfort themselves with the notion just the same.

Beverley has the grace to allow them that.

She glances at her reflection again, lipstick poised, and instantly she sees him across the parking lot. She shrinks down as far as she can, her shoulders brushing her earlobes.

“Shit.” She loses her grasp on the lipstick, and it tumbles into the footwell. “Shit, shit, shit!” She realizes, with horror, that it has swiped a crimson smear across the front of her dress.

Risking another glance, she judges that Roger Greaves is some way across the lot. Even from this distance, she can recognize his silver hair, swept to one side, his crisp, pressed uniform and his imposing height. His wife, Enid, clings to his elbow.

Beverley holds her breath as the couple passes the car at a distance and pushes through the double doors of the hotel. Her eyes linger on the sandwich board out front, with words scrawled in chalk.

3rd JULY

LAPD GALA EVENING

WELCOME OFFICERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Hurriedly, she presses powder onto her face, trying to beat back the blush that crawls upward from her neck.

If she doesn’t go in now, she’ll never go in.

If she doesn’t go in, they’ll know it’s because she’s got something to hide.

Before she can stop herself, she reaches toward the glove box and nudges it open.

She pulls Henry’s old hip flask from the compartment.

She knows she shouldn’t still use it, but it feels like a small act of rebellion to sip from the steel.

The liquor’s warm, and it burns exquisitely as it goes down.

After a while, she notices that she’s sitting a little taller in her seat.

When that familiar TV static arrives in her gut, she puts the flask away, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and steps out of the car.

Outside, the air is thick enough to slice.

Her fingertips crackle as she checks each of her car doors in turn, then repeats the well-worn routine.

She resists the urge to check a third time.

If she doesn’t go in now, they will start to make connections that aren’t there. They will tell her story for her.

She turns toward the gold-framed entrance doors, but something makes her pause. A young woman steps out of a Plymouth Barracuda and slams the driver’s-side door behind her. Her Mary Janes slap the asphalt as she hurries toward the entrance.

“Excuse me.” Beverley bolts after her. “Miss, excuse me. Wait!” She draws level and seizes her shoulder.

The girl—a Jean Shrimpton type, sleeveless turtleneck, late twenties, just like Beverley—turns and raises a plucked eyebrow.

“I’m sorry for the hollering, but you forgot to lock your car.” Beverley smiles.

“Oh.” The woman’s hands flicker to her collarbone, brushing a crucifix so delicate that it’s almost translucent. “Thank God,” she exhales. “I thought you were going to sell me insurance or something.”

Beverley forces a laugh. “Just wanted to help.”

The woman smiles as if Beverley has said something odd. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she eventually replies, then half turns back to the gala, waves a pretty little hand. “There must be three hundred cops in that building right there. This is the safest parking lot in the city right now.”

She may be pretty, but pretty doesn’t keep you alive.

Beverley fixes her own smile in place. “If you don’t lock your car, someone could climb in and conceal himself behind the driver’s seat.”

The woman blinks at her, visibly appalled.

“It’s always safer to lock your car.”

The woman’s eyes have narrowed to disgusted slits. Without a word, she stalks back to her car, locks it pointedly and then shoulders past Beverley into the hotel, her purse clutched to her chest.

—

The ballroom is crammed with a hothouse fug.

Ushers have distributed paper fans, and the wives flap them, lifting ponytails from their necks, revealing clasps of expensive auction-house jewelry.

The space is cotton-wooled with chatter, the low baritone of men telling unprompted stories about themselves—broad shoulders, brilliantined hair, a heady waft of Aramis.

Some of the officers are in uniform. Others smooth the lapels of tuxedo jackets, fix bow ties.

It’s dark, a welcome contrast with the migraine blare of the sun outside.

The walls are veiled with black drapes. Chandeliers jitter above in a wash of kaleidoscopic glass.

Beverley glances down, fingers the lipstick stain on the front of her dress.

Well, that’s it. She is absolutely making it worse.

Perhaps she should have asked Margot to accompany her, or even Elsie. That would have given people a spectacle. You want a murderer’s wife, ladies and gentlemen? Here. Have three.

She moves through the room, her eyes trained on the floor, and hopes nobody recognizes her from the papers.

Beverley has always envied the officers and their wives. For them, murder is merely six letters scrawled in a hastily written report. It’s discussed over meat loaf at the dinner table. It’s crime-scene evidence shut away in a locker at the end of the day.

A waiter with Lee Marvin eyebrows glides past and she plucks a glass of champagne from his tray, then stretches behind her to grab another.

Clutching one tightly in each fist, she turns to face the wall and downs the first in several gulps, discarding the glass on a nearby table.

She tips the other to her lips, then thinks better of it; she’ll keep hold of it so her hands have something to do.

“Mrs. Lightfoot.”

She almost jumps out of her skin. The young guy in front of her looks like something from a TV commercial. He is about the same age as Beverley, much younger than most of the officers in the room. She can’t help but imagine him playing tennis, all tanned legs and snug white shorts.

“It’s Miss Edwards now, actually,” she says, holding his gaze longer than feels comfortable. She refuses to use Mrs. Mrs. Edwards is her mother.

“Miss Edwards.” He shows his teeth, and she feels the tips of her ears growing hot. “Our speakers are invited to relax backstage.” He has two beads of sweat above his lip. “There’s a room, a bit quieter, where you can wait, if you’d like, before your”—he blinks a few times—“appearance.”

She nods as he leaves. After a moment, she sets off in the direction of the stage.

Down its right edge, flanked by high, black partition walls, she finds a corridor and steps into it gratefully.

The thrum of the ballroom is immediately muffled, barks of laughter and machismo dulled to a quiet, ignorable buzz.

She pauses in the darkness and takes a breath, moving a hand to the tight muscles at the back of her neck, tipping her chin upward, draining the nerves.

Her skin suddenly prickles.

Someone is watching her.

She can feel it like the soft scrape of fingernails.

“Good to see you again, Mrs. Lightfoot.”

The prickling stops. She knows that gruff voice. She turns.

“Chief Cornwell.” Her shoulders tense. “You surprised me.”

“Probably shouldn’t do that, right?” He raises an eyebrow but does not smile. Tom Cornwell was never the sort of guy to smile—not when he caught Henry, not when he accused Beverley of knowing more than she let on. “How have you been?”

“You know…” She shrugs.

He nods, runs his fingers down either side of his mustache. “So, you ready for this?” He gestures to the stage.

No, she wants to reply. She’ll never be ready. But if she doesn’t do this, he and others will continue to suspect her of having protected Henry, of shielding his crimes long before they came to light.

“As I’ll ever be, I guess.” She pictures herself up there, in front of all those scrutinizing faces, and she reaches for the wall to keep herself upright.

“It’s a good thing you’re doing.” Cornwell purses his lips briefly, as if it pains him to be polite. “It’s going to help a lot of people.”

“Sure.” She closes her eyes, battling the part of her that wants to tear down the corridor and race back out into the parking lot. But she has little time for escape fantasies. Cornwell glances at his watch just as the feedback squeal of a tapped microphone rips through the air.