Chapter 11

11

As Lisa departs for the kitchen to make coffee, Dan says to Catherine and Ted, “Poor Irena.”

“It must have been awful, finding them,” Catherine agrees, staring into space. Then she looks up at Ted, and Dan sees his hand squeeze her shoulder reassuringly.

“What happens now?” Dan asks.

“I don’t know,” Catherine says.

Her uncertainty makes him feel momentarily unglued. If Catherine doesn’t know what to do, how will they manage?

But then Catherine seems to pull herself together. “We have to plan a funeral.”

“Right,” Dan says. He hadn’t thought of that.

“And the detectives will want to talk to all of us,” Catherine says.

“Talk to us,” Dan repeats. “Why?” Why is she looking at him like that? “I didn’t do it,” Dan protests. They look at him in surprise. Why did he say that? He needs to get a grip. Catherine is watching him closely and Ted is regarding him uneasily.

Suddenly exhausted, Dan collapses onto the sofa and leans his head back. He falls into a sort of pleasant reverie. His parents are dead. No more family dinners. No more asking for money and being told no. No more demeaning digs from his father in front of other people. And, once the funeral is over and things settle, there is the estate to be dealt with. He wonders who the executor is. Probably Catherine. Or maybe his father’s lawyer, Walter. One thing is certain, it won’t be him.

All that lovely money coming their way. He can feel his chest expanding with happiness. Catherine can pretend all she wants, but he’s sure she’s as happy about this as he is. She can have the house now; she can take it as part of her share. He wants his in cash. Lisa will be relieved that they’re out from under his father’s crushing heel at last, out from under all this debilitating financial stress. They can be happy again. And Ted—Dan has no doubt that Ted is as delighted as the rest of them, despite the fake look of concern on his face. He couldn’t stand their father. And Ted appreciates the finer things; Dan has always been rather jealous of Ted’s sports car, a BMW Z3 convertible. But he always told himself that that’s what dentists do—they buy sports cars to compensate for how boring and unpleasant their job is. Now Ted can retire if he wants to. And Jenna—she won’t even pretend to be sorry they’re gone.

The truth is, they’re all so much better off now that their parents have been murdered. No long years—perhaps decades—of waiting for their inheritance. No more jumping to their father’s tune, no endless years of depressing, dutiful visits to old-age homes. They’ve been spared all that. They can start to live. If it wouldn’t be so unseemly, they really ought to be having a celebration. He feels like popping a bottle of champagne into the fridge.

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•   •   •ted is distracted from his study of Dan when Lisa returns with a tray of coffee cups, milk, and sugar. There’s a weird vibe in the room and it’s making him uncomfortable. Also, he’s been thinking about what Catherine said to him on the phone. Why does she not want anyone to know that she went over there later that night? Surely she’s being foolish about this. Of course she must tell the police—it will help them to better establish a timeline of what happened. He’ll have to talk to her about it as soon as they get home.

He tries to read Lisa’s face as she places the tray on the coffee table, but it’s hidden by her thick, brown hair swinging forward. Dan is being a bit odd—he seems overexcited, and Ted wants to know if he’s the only one who’s noticed. He looks from Dan to Catherine, wondering how well he understands either of them. They shared an unusual childhood, Catherine, Dan, and Jenna. A childhood of privilege and pain. Of their parents withholding love and playing favorites. From what Catherine tells him, it has caused long-standing rifts and rivalries among them, but it also binds them in some strange way too. Ted doesn’t have any siblings, he doesn’t know how it works. Catherine has tried to explain her relationship with her brother and sister to him, but as an only child, it’s hard to grasp. There are things going on here that he just doesn’t get. Catherine reaches for a coffee, and they each busy themselves with their cups for a moment.

Dan says, “We should call Irena. Ask her to come over.” He picks up his coffee—his cup trembles a little as he brings it to his mouth. “After all, she’s family, she should be here at a time like this.” Then he looks apprehensive and says, “It’s strange that she didn’t call us, don’t you think?”

“I’ll call her,” Catherine says, digging in her purse at her feet for her cell phone.

This is another thing Ted has never really understood—the relationship of the rich to their hired help. They say Irena is like family. But from what he’s observed, Fred and Sheila treated her like a domestic worker and not much else. Irena had left with the rest of them when Easter dinner blew up—she’d sided with the kids. They, at least, seem to think of her fondly. Catherine has told him that Irena practically brought them all up. She was much more hands-on than their own mother. He wonders if Irena, too, will be secretly pleased at the turn of events, once she’s over the shock. She will be out a client, but maybe there is something for her in the wills.

The wills. That’s what they’re all thinking about. Even though no one has mentioned it yet. He wonders who will be the one to finally bring it up. Jenna, probably.

Being pleased that someone is dead isn’t something you admit to, but Ted knows you can be glad when someone dies. When his own father died of cirrhosis of the liver, Ted was twelve years old and mostly relieved. His mother was perfectly appropriate as the grieving widow, but when they were home alone at night, and he was in his bedroom, he would hear her humming about the house, sounding happy for the first time in years. He’d be the first to admit that the world is better off without certain people in it.

Catherine puts down her phone. “Irena said she’ll come right over.” She adds, “And when Jenna gets here, we can start making plans for the funeral.”

Dan nods and says, “Since she found them, maybe Irena can tell us what’s going on over there. What the police are saying.” He looks back at them all, at their silence. “What, aren’t you curious?”

Ted is curious. He suddenly wonders who killed Fred and Sheila, if it was a robbery at all. He wants to know what Irena can tell them—he’s sure they all want to know. He finds himself looking at Dan and wondering. He remembers the exchange between Dan and his father Easter Sunday in the living room, the flush of impotent rage creeping up Dan’s neck. Ted knows about Dan’s financial troubles—Catherine has told him. Lisa has been confiding in her about how strapped they are for cash. And he knows Catherine has been worried about Dan lately.

He wonders when, exactly, Fred and Sheila were killed. He thinks back to Sunday night, after that miserable family dinner. Catherine had gone back over there, and he’d gone to bed. When she got home, he doesn’t know when, he was asleep. He woke briefly as she crawled into bed beside him.

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered.

“Everything all right?” he murmured.

“Yes, everything’s fine.” She kissed him and turned on her side.

The next morning she’d told him at breakfast that she and her mother had talked the night before. She explained that her mother had left her cell phone downstairs, and that’s why she missed her call.

“What did she want to talk to you about?” he asked.

“She wants me to talk to Dad about Jenna. He wants to cut off her allowance, and she asked me to intercede. She doesn’t want Jenna moving home.” Now, Ted looks at his wife and feels his stomach curdle a little. It’s just occurred to him that she might have missed the murders by a short time. What if she’d arrived there in the middle of it?

She’d be dead too.