Chapter 16

16

Ted is only moments behind Catherine, following in his own car. He’s grateful for the time alone. There’s so much to get his head around. Fred and Sheila dead. A murder investigation. His wife lying to the police. Why would she try to hide that she went back over there that night? Why wouldn’t she just say so? Her parents were obviously fine when she left them.

So why doesn’t she want anyone to know?

He parks in the driveway and lets himself in the house. Catherine is waiting for him in the living room, sitting on the sofa, her eyes downcast.

He stands still at the entry to the room and says, “Catherine, what is it? What’s going on?”

“Sit down,” she says.

He comes in and sits down on the sofa beside her, looking at her in concern.

“I—I think I might have made a mistake,” she says. She’s gripping her hands tightly; the composure she showed at Dan’s house is deserting her. “The detectives asked me if I had any contact with my parents after we left the dinner on Sunday night, and I told them no.”

“Why would you do that?” He doesn’t understand.

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head as if she can’t understand it herself. “It was a knee-jerk reaction. I just said no. I guess—I guess I didn’t want them to see me as a suspect.”

He stands up now in consternation and looks down at her. “Catherine—that’s ridiculous. Why would they suspect you? It was a robbery.” She looks up at him, and she’s more distraught than he’s ever seen her.

She says, her voice rising, “You weren’t there when they told me. The way they looked at me, as if they were suspicious.” She starts talking faster, rushing her words. “They’re going to think it was one of the family, they’re going to suspect all of us, sooner or later, because of the money. I didn’t want them to know I went back over there that night—it would look . . . bad.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t look bad. You wanted to talk to your mom. You have to tell the police.”

“No, I don’t.” She looks at him a bit wildly. “I can’t tell them now. Not after I lied to them!”

“What if they find out anyway?” he protests, genuinely worried now. “That will just look worse.”

“So, what, I tell them I just forgot that I went over there that night? That it slipped my mind? Tell them that everything was fine, I spoke to Mom and left? What if they don’t believe me?”

“Catherine! Why wouldn’t they believe you? Think of what you’re saying! You can’t honestly think they would suspect you of murdering your own parents!”

She gets up then and walks nervously around the room. She finally turns to him and says, “Irena told me something, at the car when we were leaving. She wanted to give me a heads-up.”

“What? What did she say?”

“She said the detectives seem to think it might be someone my parents knew.”

“Why would they think that?” he asks, concerned.

“She overheard them say they thought it looked personal.”

Ted says, “She told us that they thought it was a robbery gone wrong.”

She pauses. “She said they seem to be very interested in the inheritance.”

His mind, unbidden, turns automatically to Dan. Surely . . .

She fastens her eyes on him, and she looks deadly serious. “I don’t want those detectives to know I was there that night. And Dan and Jenna—they can’t know I went over there that night, that I kept it from the police.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t trust them,” she says, averting her eyes.

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•   •   •after audrey is gone, Ellen Cutter sits in the kitchen for a long while, staring at her cup of coffee, thinking about the murders. Now, she gets up and pours her cold coffee down the sink. It’s so dreadful that the Mertons have been murdered that she can hardly come to grips with it. She’s never known anyone who’s been murdered before. It’s something that happens to strangers on the news.

It’s nice for Audrey, of course, that she’s going to be rich. She didn’t have to go on about it quite so much, though.

Ellen’s mind turns to Catherine Merton, who is one of her daughter’s closest friends. What a shock this must be for her and her siblings. They will all be wealthy now, although not quite as wealthy as they expected.

Ellen wonders if Rose has heard the news. She picks up the phone to call her.

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•   •   •at the aylesford police station, Reyes and Barr establish a team to handle the Merton homicides. The two detectives will get some help from patrol division, but the investigation will fall mostly to them. It’s not a big department. Reyes assigns a small team to search the area surrounding the Merton house for any sign of discarded bloody clothing from the killer, or the ligature used on Sheila Merton. They will gradually widen the search to include the nearby Hudson River, wooded areas, local dumpsters. They put out a police bulletin about the pickup truck they are trying to locate.

They review all the background information on the family they can find, but there isn’t much. Fred Merton was an extremely successful businessman, and he and his company have been covered extensively in the media. But there’s very little about the family. They seem to have been very private. Reyes wonders what secrets they might have.