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Chapter 37
37
Catherine listens, her body rigid. Dan’s voice is trembling with nerves, but he seems determined to go through with this.
“Many of you know my father as a good man, a decent man. He was a successful businessman—and he was very proud of his success.” He looks out at the crowd, avoiding the faces of the family in the front row. “But he was different at home. We saw another side of him that you never saw. He was a difficult man. He was hard to live with. Demanding, hard to please.” He pauses.
Catherine senses people shifting uncomfortably in their seats behind her, but she’s frozen, staring at her younger brother, afraid of what’s coming next.
Dan continues. “I was bullied mercilessly—not at school, but by my own father. He was cruel and vindictive. He was especially hard on me, as the only boy, and probably because I disappointed him the most. I was the biggest disappointment of his life—he told me that, often.” He stops, as if to gain control of himself. “We were taught to keep quiet about these things.” Then he seems to change his tone, and his delivery, as if he’s going off script. The words come faster. “He was abusive. I recognize that now. When I was a kid, I just thought I deserved it, but I know now that no one deserves to be treated that way. He must have suffered, at the end. It was a horrible way to die. You’re probably going to hear things about me, but I want all of you to know that I didn’t do it. Even after all the terrible things he did to me, I didn’t kill him. And I would never kill my mother. I hope she didn’t suffer too much. I hope she died quickly.” He’s rambling.
Catherine is horrified. He’s gone from being flushed to very pale. She can see that he’s losing his grip. He’s holding on to the lectern as if he might fall if he doesn’t. She can see a sheen of sweat on his face. She has to put a stop to this. She lurches to her feet and walks up the center aisle the short distance to the lectern. He’s stopped speaking and watches her approach warily, as a hush falls over the church. She takes his arm gently. He tries to shake it off but then suddenly gives in, as if he’s forgotten anything more he wanted to say, and goes with her back to the pew, where they all shift over and he sits down beside her. As Catherine takes her seat, she can hear the low hum of people starting to whisper. People will talk about this; it will be in the news. She’s furious at Dan but trying hard not to show it. She tries, once, to meet Lisa’s eyes, but Lisa is staring at the floor.
• • •reyes considers what he’s just seen. It makes him wonder if Dan Merton is a rather disturbed young man. Reyes turns around and searches out Barr behind him and to the left. She meets his eyes, raises her eyebrows. The service is over. Reyes checks his phone as he rises. There’s been nothing. If they’d seen the pickup truck they would have buzzed him. He swallows his disappointment.
• • •rose cutter rises from her seat at the back of the church and thinks about sneaking away quietly without getting in line to speak to the family. Catherine would expect to see her. But there are so many people; it’s going to take a long time. She doesn’t want to talk to the family. She just wants to get away. She slips out of the church.
• • •irena hovers nearby, keeping an eye on things as the family gathers at the entrance to the church for people to pay their respects on the way out. She was deeply disturbed by Dan’s speech. Now Dan is there, straitjacketed between his two sisters, who’ve told him to say nothing but thank you for coming. They are all worried about what people will think, about what the detectives will think.
Irena longs for this ordeal to be over. The funeral, the gathering afterward, the investigation. It’s all so exhausting. She hasn’t been sleeping well. She feels like she has vertigo, as if she’s standing on the edge of a precipice, about to fall. She watches Dan.
He turns to his right and leans across Jenna to Jake, and says, “Jenna says you were with her all night the night Mom and Dad were killed. Is that true?”
He hasn’t lowered his voice, and Irena can hear him from several feet away, and the people close by glance at him.
Jake looks embarrassed and says something she doesn’t catch.
Dan smiles unpleasantly. “Right. Like you’re not lying for her.”
Irena notices then with a sickening jolt that Detective Reyes is standing beside her, observing, listening. She feels uncomfortable with him so close, hearing everything. She watches in dismay as a disaster unfolds in front of them. She’s helpless to stop it.
Jenna turns to her brother and hisses something she can’t quite hear. Probably telling him to shut up.
“Why?” Dan says angrily. “What did you ever do for me?”
Irena holds her breath. She’s furious at the detective standing beside her, seeing everything. Lisa appears to be coaxing Dan to leave. She’s speaking to him quietly, pulling on his sleeve.
But Dan looks in Irena’s direction and spies Detective Reyes standing beside her. He calls, “Detective!” and waves him over. “There’s something you should know.”
Irena sees that everyone in the family except Dan has gone rigid at the sight of the detective. The people in the line fall away awkwardly. Reyes takes a few steps until he’s standing near Dan. “Maybe we could go outside?” the detective says quietly.
Dan waves his suggestion aside and says, loudly, “My sisters don’t have alibis either. You know Ted lied for Catherine. And I bet Jake here is lying for Jenna.”
Reyes looks at Jake, who averts his eyes.
“And Catherine and Jenna both knew about the disposable suits in my garage.” His voice is sly now. “Either one of them could have taken one; I don’t even lock the garage most of the time. You need to know that. I didn’t kill them—but maybe one of them did.”
It seems as if everyone still inside the church has stopped moving, riveted to the scene. Irena sees Audrey and her daughter on the periphery. Audrey is avidly taking it all in, a smirk on her face.
Irena knows this family. They’re going to turn on one another. That’s what they do, these kids. It’s what they’ve always done. Irena suddenly becomes aware of the sound of photographers furiously taking pictures.
• • •exhausted from the events of the last week, Reyes collapses into his favorite armchair in the evening, thinking about the funeral earlier that day, while his wife gets the kids ready for bed. He should really give her a hand, but she’d taken one look at him and told him to go put his feet up, he looked worn out.
Is it true, Reyes asks himself, that both sisters knew about the disposable coveralls in Dan Merton’s garage and had access, as he claimed? Might one of them have committed the murders, hoping he’d take the fall? And to get a bigger portion?
Catherine lied about going back to the house that night. Did she kill them then? She might have taken one of those suits, rather than risk purchasing one somewhere herself, and possibly to cast suspicion on her brother. Maybe she’s only pretending to be the protective sister. Audrey claims that Fred or Sheila must have told one or more of the kids about their father’s plan to change his will in Audrey’s favor. If that’s true, who knew? Would losing half of the estate to their aunt be enough to drive one of them to murder?
And Jenna . . . well, Jake isn’t a very good liar. What really happened in that hour while Jenna and Jake were in the house with Fred and Sheila? Did they come back afterward and commit the murders together? Or did Jenna possibly do it on her own? For now, Jake is standing by her alibi.
He must talk to both sisters again. And he wants another crack at the former nanny, who probably knows that family better than anyone.
