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Chapter 40
40
Ellen drives home in a fog of disbelief. She’d had to pretend it didn’t disturb her as much as it did, what Audrey told her. But it was awful, truly awful. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to look at Audrey the same way ever again. Audrey had gone along with it. She covered up the murder of her father. Ellen reminds herself that Audrey was only eleven years old, a child.
Ellen realizes she’s been sitting in her car in her driveway, staring straight ahead, without moving. She gets out of the car, enters the house, and kicks off her walking shoes. Then she goes into the kitchen and leans against the counter, trying to process what she now knows.
She tries to reconcile what Audrey has told her with the Fred she knew. According to Audrey, Fred was a cold-blooded killer. Why would she lie about it? She has nothing to gain by making the story up. And there had always been a coldness, a selfishness, about Fred. Ellen had thought him a narcissist. She’d never known him to be violent, even when angry, but he was relentless in pursuit of his own interests. And after what Audrey told her—now she knows he was almost certainly a psychopath.
Audrey is convinced this taint of psychopathy, as she calls it, is present in one of Fred’s children. Is it an inheritable trait? She must Google it. Audrey says it is. She said her and Fred’s great-grandfather had been a murderer too.
Ellen remembers clearly the first day she met Fred Merton, because it was the day that changed her life. Fresh out of school, she’d been intimidated by the manner in which he’d conducted her interview. He shot her a few questions, then said he liked the look of her. She hadn’t been sure how to take that—was he being inappropriate? In those days, it was just a passing question, not thought about too deeply. And she needed the job. He offered it to her and she accepted. Over the ten years that she’d worked for him, she’d come to know him well. Fred was all about himself—other people were simply a means to an end. He had great charm, even charisma, but she knew what that charm was—something he used to get what he wanted. So when he tried it on her, she resisted. She resisted him for years. When she finally gave in, it was on her terms, and for her own ends, although she didn’t let him know it. Not then.
But what Audrey told her has unnerved Ellen. Only now does she realize the risk she took. She pours herself a glass of wine, although it’s barely noon.
• • •it’s a warm spring day and after her long walk with Ellen, Audrey goes straight to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. She pulls out a plastic jug of premixed iced tea, pours herself a tall glass, and gulps half of it down, still thinking about what she’d revealed to Ellen, after all these years. Ellen had seemed shocked. Well, it was shocking. Ellen has lived a rather sheltered life, compared to Audrey. She tops up her glass and carries it into the living room. She sits down and pulls her laptop off the coffee table onto her lap.
As she scans her email, and then reviews the online news, she begins to feel a bit light-headed. She gets up, goes to the bathroom, and splashes cold water on her face. She returns to her computer, still feeling a bit off. She tries to ignore it, until she starts to feel unwell. She has a headache now and is nauseated. She wonders if she’s caught something. But then she notices that she’s clumsy as she tries to use her mouse, and as she reaches for her glass of iced tea. Something is very wrong. Her vision is blurred. Alarmed, she uses her cell phone to call 911, then vomits all down the side of the sofa.
• • •it’s around noon on Sunday when Catherine answers the door and registers the people assembled on her doorstep. Detectives Reyes and Barr are there with a search warrant and an entire team behind them. Ted comes to stand beside her.
She wants to protest but tells herself she has nothing to worry about. She lets them in. What else can she do? There’s nothing for them to find.
As the search proceeds, she and Ted remain in the background. She grows increasingly uncomfortable as they go through her personal things. She blushes as they rummage through her underwear drawer, the dirty laundry hamper. They carefully photograph everything, including the contents of her jewelry box. They take her electronics, even her cell phone.
She’s beginning to understand what Dan must have felt when they searched his place. She’s unnerved and furious, but there’s nothing she can do.
• • •ellen puts the wineglass in the sink and leaves the kitchen. The alcohol has steadied her a bit. She’s about to go upstairs to lie down when the doorbell rings. She turns back to answer it.
It’s her daughter, Rose. She looks worse every time she sees her, and Ellen’s anxiety increases at the sight of her. “Rose, honey, come in. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” Rose says, clearly lying. She looks like she hasn’t slept. Or eaten much either lately. Her clothes look big on her.
“You don’t seem fine,” Ellen says, worried. “You look tired. And you’re getting so thin. Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong! It’s just work, Mom. It’s stressful, that’s all. I just came over for a visit. I don’t need the third degree.”
Ellen throws up her hands in a peace gesture. “Sorry. Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat? A sandwich?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Rose follows her into the kitchen, where she starts making a couple of tuna sandwiches.
“It’s too bad you missed the funeral yesterday,” her daughter says.
“I’d promised your aunt Barbara that I would visit.”
“I know. But you should have seen it. Dan—it was pretty upsetting, what he said. I felt so bad for Catherine.”
Ellen turns around and looks at her daughter, the awful things Audrey had told her on their walk still clear in her mind. “I read about it in the paper this morning.”
Rose looks troubled and tells her the details the newspaper left out. “I’ve always known from Catherine that things weren’t great in that family, but I didn’t realize they were that bad.”
Ellen shakes her head. “Have you talked to Catherine? You guys are such good friends.”
“I went over to see her,” Rose says. “She’s a mess.” She concentrates on her sandwich.
“You should try to see more of her,” Ellen says. “She’s one of your best friends, and I’m sure she could use your support.”
• • •catherine watches as they spray her house with chemicals, focusing on the kitchen and bathroom sinks and the basement laundry room, looking, she assumes, for signs of blood, like they did in Dan’s house. They don’t find any.
They search the grounds outside, front and back, which Catherine finds mortifying. Neighbors are watching from the street and from behind windows. The press is there. She hides inside.
It takes several hours, but at last they’re finished. The detectives and their team have taken away Catherine’s car. She’s furious about that too. At least they still have Ted’s car, but it’s a two-seater, and not the most practical. She asks one of the technicians how long it will be before she gets her car back, but he doesn’t answer her.
When they’re finally gone, she shuts the door firmly after them, feeling like she wants to break something.
“At least that’s over with,” Ted says. He seems relieved. “Now maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
She looks back at him with narrowed eyes. Why is he so relieved? Surely he didn’t expect them to find anything. She forces a tight smile. He can’t be doubting her. Everything’s just getting to her. It’s getting to all of them.
