The Better Sister Page 7

  I was still opening my eyes when my hand grabbed for the cell phone I had tucked beneath the throw pillow. According to the screen, it was two in the afternoon. I had gotten a response to the message I had sent before finally drifting off to sleep.

  You were up awfully early. How was the party last night? I’m out here, too. Let me know if you can find time.

  He obviously hadn’t heard the news yet.

  I sat up, already feeling the crick in my neck from sleeping on the hard, narrow daybed in the pool house.

  I clutched the phone to my chest and said a silent prayer of thanks that he had insisted on being so careful. He had given me the tiny black flip phone five months earlier, right before Christmas.

  “What are we, spies?” I had asked.

  He held up a second one that he had purchased for himself. “My regular phone’s billed through the firm. Someone might recognize your number. I figured you should have one, too. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but Adam will never shake that former prosecutor bug.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s organically suspicious. He notices everything—and interprets every detail in the worst light. Am I telling you something you don’t already know?”

  I remember pulling the sheet over my chest, pinning myself down beneath it with my elbows as I studied the burner phone. I couldn’t disagree with what he was saying, but I also didn’t want him talking about my husband—not like that.

  He turned on his side and brushed sweat-damp hair from my brow. “Hey, where are you right now? Is it the phone? Am I being presumptuous to assume this might keep happening?”

  The first time, I had insisted afterward that it was a mistake. A one-time thing that we could never allow again. Then it kept happening, and we both knew it was going to continue.

  Are you home now? I typed.

  Yep. My aspiration for the day is to see how long I can sit next to this pool. Unless you come over. Then I will move.

  I made my way off of the daybed and looked up at the sleeping loft. Ethan was on his side, his back facing toward me. His breathing was slow and deep. I hoped he was actually sleeping and not just pretending.

  I peered through the edge of the white curtains that covered the sliding doors out to the pool. Crime scene tape ran the width of the backyard, starting at the edge of the swimming pool closest to the house. I could see the movements of police personnel inside.

  I slipped on a pair of old flip-flops I found under the bench that stored the beach towels and slid the door shut quietly behind me. I kept expecting an officer to catch my attention as I made the trek past the pool, down my driveway, and halfway down Pudding Hill Lane, but no one came. With my test run complete, I ventured back to the pool house and dropped both of my phones in the front pocket of the beach cover-up I was wearing. I donned my Chanel aviators as a final touch, just in case they stopped me this time and asked me why I had returned to the house so quickly.

  As I stepped outside once again, I thought about the headline-of-the-moment crime stories I had covered over the years and the formula that had ensured top-of-the-hour billing on all the cable stations. White victim. Good teeth. Female preferred, but not essential. At least three photographs to suggest a seemingly perfect life. But the real kicker for a local crime story to go national? You needed a suspect. It couldn’t be a slam dunk, because then the police would have an arrest, and there’d be nothing much to talk about until trial. No, you needed someone who seemed guilty enough to deserve the public’s scornful attention, without quite enough evidence to back up the speculation. A chicken to stew in the pot.

  A sure way to land in the Dutch oven was to fail whatever stereotypes the true-crime junkies held for family members of the victims. The stepmom who went to the gym the same day of the kidnapping. The husband who smiled during the heart-wrenching interview. Too many social media posts was always a no-no. I remembered every single name I had helped grind through the mill, based on nothing other than the failure to meet fantasy expectations.

  I hated myself for even thinking about it, but the fact of the matter was that I now had a role to play. My husband’s murder would be noteworthy, and I was his widow. If I had absolutely nothing to hide, what would I do?

  I assured myself that a lonesome walk to Main Beach made perfect sense. If anyone were ever to ask, I could recite from memory all the reasons that the beach had been special to Adam and me.

  When I reached the end of Ocean Avenue, I opted to turn left, away from the pavilion where a couple of women appeared to be setting up for some kind of party, based on the balloon bouquets they were struggling to tie to picnic tables. I walked east until I passed the lifeguard stand, and then kicked off my flip-flops and let the waves wash over my shins. When I was certain I was alone, I put my right hand in my pocket, retrieved the burner phone, and sent one final message. When I was done, I pulled out the SIM card and let it slip away with the current.

  I continued to walk east, pausing to retrieve a paper bag that was caught in the brush. When I reached Egypt Beach, I placed my defunct burner in the bag and tossed it into a trash can in the parking lot for the Maidstone Club as I made my way north to Further Lane.

  On the way home, I stopped by his house to tell him that I no longer had the phone he gave me. My husband had been murdered, and we couldn’t see each other again. Not any time soon, at least.

  As I approached the turn to my house from Ocean Avenue, I noticed a small group gathered at the corner, their collective gaze focused north. They had to be watching the police activity, wondering what had brought so many cars to the house at the middle of Pudding Hill Lane.

  My remaining phone—the real one—rang in my pocket. I checked the screen. It was Catherine. She’d already called once before when I was still at his house, saying goodbye. It was so like her to call the day after a party, wanting to kibitz about every moment. I hit the call-decline button and tucked the phone back into my pocket.

  As I neared the intersection, I noticed a young woman in a white hoodie and black yoga pants nudge the woman next to her. I had been spotted. She raised her cell phone as if she were checking messages, but I recognized the move. I turned my face away on instinct, hoping it was fast enough to avoid her camera. I picked up my pace, but not so much that I could be described as running away from onlookers.

  To my knowledge, the news of Adam’s death hadn’t broken yet, but it wouldn’t be long. And once it did, I knew the speculation that would follow. After all, isn’t the spouse always a suspect?

  When I turned the corner, I saw a Porsche 911 heading in my direction. It pulled suddenly to the left side of the street and parked directly in front of my house. Catherine was at the wheel of the convertible, her cell phone in hand.

  In all the years I’d known her, I had never seen her without makeup, let alone in a Pretenders T-shirt and jeans. She was all limbs as she climbed out of the tiny car and rushed toward me.

  “Is it true? About Adam?”

  Apparently the news was out.

  I nodded, tears pricking my eyes. “Last night. I found him when I got home from your place. I couldn’t bring myself to call anyone yet.”

  “I found out from Grace Lee.” Grace Lee was a reporter with the Daily News. Her husband was NYPD, and she was always at least an hour ahead of the rest of the press when it came to the big crime-beat stories. “Apparently ‘out of respect’”—Catherine made air quotes—“the official editorial response was to place a call to your lawyer instead of you directly.”

  “Bill?” I asked. I checked my phone. No other calls besides Catherine’s.

  “This is the problem with having such ancient friends,” she said. “He’s probably calling his secretary right now, trying to find your cell phone number. I can’t believe that geezer didn’t call me.”

  She stopped speaking and pulled me into a tight hug. The curls of her humidity-soaked red hair tickled my cheek. It was the first time since I’d heard the news about Adam that I�
�d been able to let anyone comfort me. I sank into her embrace.

  “Do they know what happened?” she asked.

  “They think it was a burglary. Still the off-season. But . . .” I shook my head. They didn’t know a damn thing.

  “Love, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to do a press release. Through the magazine would be best.”

  My instinct was to hold up a hand, but I reached for hers instead and gave it a squeeze. “I really can’t deal with that right now, Catherine.”

  “Stay ahead of this,” Catherine warned, “or the true-crime crowd will make you their newest black widow by bedtime.”

  I looked up at the cloud cover and sighed. “Or . . . I’ll put out a press release like you say, and they’ll tweet about the selfish bitch who worried about burnishing her public image before her husband was in the ground. I’m not playing their game.”

  “Well, I told Grace I’d reach you. Let me at least get back to her. I can be an anonymous source. Someone close to the family.”

  “No.”

  Her lips—I’d never seen them without lipstick before—opened, but no words came out. I couldn’t remember a time that I hadn’t been grateful for her advice. The truth is that she was probably my closest friend, but it had always been about the work. She didn’t know the parts of me that mattered right now.

  And she must have felt that, too, because even though she had driven to my house, she didn’t follow as I marched across the gravel driveway. “Call me if you change your mind,” was her last attempt. She’d done enough so she could tell me—and everyone else—later that she’d tried her best.

  How would it look that I was at a party without Adam when he was killed? Or that he had barely made it to the awards banquet on Thursday night? They were only two innocuous scheduling details, but could easily be twisted into a headline-grabbing, trouble-in-paradise narrative. And if they found out about the affair? Forget it, I’d spend the rest of my life a tabloid villain. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  12

  I had almost reached the pool house when I heard a voice behind me, calling out my name. I turned to see Guidry on the opposite side of the pool, standing at the threshold of the main house’s open sliding glass door. I resisted the urge to scold her about bugs getting inside.

  “I was waiting to call you in case you had managed to fall asleep, but I see you’re up.”

  “I walked down to the beach. It usually calms me, but . . . not enough. You’re still on duty?”

  “I went home for a bit, but, yes, I’m back at it.” She walked to my side of the yard, closing the distance between us so we didn’t need to raise our voices. “If you’re up for it, we’re ready for you and Ethan to do a walk-through of the house with us.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I looked back toward the pool house. “For Ethan to see that, I mean. Or me, for that matter.”

  “We don’t need you to view the actual spot where your husband was found. But you know the house, and we don’t. If you could help us identify anything that’s missing . . . what’s out of place . . . that sort of thing. And Ethan, too, I’m afraid. It’s important.”

  The house felt like a bizarre replica of the home we had once called our little slice of paradise. Same three bedrooms and 2,700 square feet. Same white-slipcovered sofas and driftwood tables. But our house had always been notoriously tidy. Both Adam and I were naturally fastidious; even when Ethan was little, we had a rule that he had to pick up his toys and put them away each night. When he started to slack off as a tween, Adam threatened to take anything that was left out and donate it to charity. Every night for the next week, I had found the talking Jar Jar Binks doll my mother had given him for his birthday posed conspicuously at the bottom of the staircase.

  I had since grown accustomed to the fact that—at least for the time being—my son was a teenage Tasmanian devil, incapable of maintaining any kind of order when it came to his personal possessions. I had trained him, however, to confine his chaos to his own bedroom. The rest of the house looked ready for a real estate showing, which Adam and I considered the highest compliment.

  But now, in the new, weird world in which Adam was gone, our meticulously maintained slice of paradise was a giant garbage bin. Even from the dining room at the back of the house, I could see that kitchen drawers and cabinets were open. Entire bookshelves had been emptied onto the floor in the family room. Chairs were overturned. The police had used numbered yellow cards to document the havoc.

  Standing next to me, Ethan reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Jesus Christ. Your OCD must be going crazy right now,” he whispered.

  It wasn’t just the mess that had altered the house. All the light was gone. It felt like the entire house was covered with a gray filter. It even smelled different.

  I walked over to my dining room table and futilely righted the three ceramic vases that had been knocked to their sides on the tabletop. At least they weren’t broken.

  I realized how my fussing must have looked in that moment from Guidry’s eyes. “Sorry,” I muttered, wiping away a tear. “Sentimental value.”

  My friends James and David ran a pottery studio and had designed these especially for me as a wedding gift. Three different vessels—representing me, Adam, and Ethan—each beautiful on its own, but which fit perfectly together in a single form.

  “Of course,” she said.

  As I moved farther into the house, I forced myself to gaze toward the living room. Adam hadn’t even looked like a real person by the time I found him. More like those wax statues of celebrities at Madame Tussauds. But now the room was bare, the furniture pushed into a corner next to the fireplace.

  Ethan seemed to shrink next to me. “This is where . . .”

  I nodded.

  “We cleared that area before you came in,” Guidry explained quietly. I pictured the rug Adam had been so proud to find in the ABC clearance basement, now bloodied on a table somewhere in a crime lab.

  “So what do you need to know?” I asked.

  “What looks different?”

  “Are you kidding?” Ethan blurted out. “Like, everything?”

  “It’s been ransacked,” I said quietly. “You already told me at the police station.” I had been so focused on Adam after I found him, I hadn’t even noticed.

  Guidry placed her hands on her hips. “Okay, but please try to take a closer look. What do you think they were looking for?”

  I shrugged. “Valuables, I guess. Not that we have any. The only jewelry I have of any value is my wedding ring and these.” I tucked my bobbed hair behind my ears to reveal the diamond studs that permanently occupied my earlobes.

  “Files? I didn’t see a home office.”

  I told her it was in the pool house—pretty much only for my use—and that she could look there if she wanted, but there was no sign of a break-in.

  “What about cash?” she asked. “A lot of people out here keep a stash in a dresser drawer or closet.”

  I shook my head. “We’re just regular wallet people.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Guidry made her way back to the kitchen and gestured toward a man wearing a uniform. He handed her a Ziploc bag, which she in turn gave to me. “We already took photographs, so you can have these back for now. It might take a couple days before we’re completely out of your hair.”

  There was something about the way she said it, like we both knew it wasn’t true. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  I immediately recognized the bag’s contents. Hermes wallet. Tag Heuer watch. Platinum wedding band. Pieces of Adam.

  She also handed me a slip of paper torn from a spiral notebook. It was a list of credit cards written in big bubble letters—the style of print I associated with young girls—plus a notation of “$253.”

  She asked me if all our cards were there. They were the ones found inside his wallet. I did a mental count and confirmed nothing was missing.

  “If it was a robb
ery, why didn’t they take this stuff?” I asked, circling my husband’s ring with my index finger through the plastic.

  “The wallet and watch were on a nightstand in the bedroom.” She was leading the way to the open master bedroom door. It felt odd to follow someone else in my own house. “This is how we found the room. Does anything look out of place?”

  My side of the bed was still made, covered in part by the blanket that had been tossed from Adam’s side.

  I shook my head. “Other than the covers. It looks like he was in the bed and then got up.”

  “That’s what we’re assuming, too. The intruder—or intruders—may have thought the house was empty. They hadn’t reached your room yet. He heard the noise while he was sleeping, went to the living room. After the . . . confrontation, they panicked. They leave.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to share information,” I said, “but it’s a lot to process. Like you’re asking us to look at things from the perspective of whoever did this. This isn’t a project for us, a puzzle to be solved. Do you understand that?”

  Ethan had one hand masking his eyes, the way he did when I made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t groaning, which was a sign he knew I was right, but I supposed it wasn’t easy to have parents who always spoke their mind, no matter the circumstances.

  “You’re right,” Guidry said, because, of course, I was. “I have no idea what you’re going through right now. But I know you want me to do my job well. So I’ll stop trying to sugarcoat it for you, and ask you to do the work I can’t do on my own. We need a list of anything that’s missing, as well as your thoughts about anything else you might notice as you do your walk-through. Fair enough?”

  I nodded, and Ethan and I began the work of conducting an inventory of a house we hadn’t been to for weeks when we were still trying to process the reality of what had happened here only the previous night. Because the master bedroom was untouched, we started in the bedroom next to ours—the guest room where they’d gained access by smashing the window, and then unlocking it and sliding it open. The nightstand and dresser drawers were open, but they’d all been empty to begin with. There was nothing to steal there.