The Kind Worth Killing Read online

  To my surprise, she seemed thrilled to see me, and we spent most of the party together, drinking warm beers on the hill, then exploring the abandoned base. We wound up on a low flat roof that we reached by a rusted fire escape. We stared at the stars, the beer we’d drunk making them slide in and out of focus, then we started to kiss. It was a warm spring night, and Rebecca wore a midriff-baring halter top and a short denim skirt, and she let me touch her everywhere, at one point whispering to me that we should slow down unless I had a condom. I didn’t, but, lying in bed later that night, I told myself that I needed to get one as soon as possible and definitely before prom night. It was an exhilarating thought, but more exhilarating was the fact that I had my first girlfriend.

  On the evening of the prom I picked Rebecca up at her parents’ modest house near Middleham pond. While Rebecca’s mother took pictures, her father leaned against his Dodge Dart, smoking a cigar and giving me icy looks from under a Patriots cap. I was glad when we were safely in my car on the way to the Holiday Inn where the prom was being held. Rebecca wore a light blue dress with a low neckline. Her hair was French-braided, and she smelled like vanilla.

  Despite some bad nerves on my part, the first few hours of the prom went well. Rebecca was chatty and flirty. We ate the dried-out chicken cordon bleu, and danced several times. During one of the slow dances, I gently kissed Rebecca on the side of her head. She pulled me in closer to her, and I thought about that foil-wrapped condom hidden behind my driver’s license in my wallet.

  It wasn’t until about twenty minutes before the end of the prom that everything fell apart. I’d gone to the bathroom, and when I returned, Rebecca was no longer at our table. I spotted her on the far side of the ballroom, leaning up against the wall and talking to a junior I recognized as Bill Johnson, a linebacker on the school football team. I stopped in my tracks, my limbs turning cold and my throat tightening. Instead of crossing the endless yardage of the room to confront them, I went back to my table, and it was from there that I watched Rebecca and Bill hug, then kiss, then leave the prom together.

  I saw Rebecca in the hallway of the high school on Monday afternoon. I thought she might apologize, but I watched as her eyes skidded over me, and she turned away. I learned that week that she and Bill were definitely an item. I don’t know if it was easier or harder that very few of my fellow students seemed aware that I had been humiliated on prom night. I do know that if Rebecca had at least attempted to apologize to me, things might have turned out differently.

  I plotted my revenge for over a year. It made sense that if I was going to do something to Rebecca, I should wait for some time to pass. Otherwise, I’d be a natural suspect. I devoted my senior year to getting the best grades I could, keeping my head down, and not allowing myself to get into any more potentially humiliating situations. I was accepted at Harvard, surprising even my guidance counselor, and while this acceptance felt like one kind of revenge, I still wanted to pay Rebecca back. Ideally, I would find a way to humiliate her in the way she had humiliated me, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do that. I opted for my second choice—I would scare her very, very badly.

  A week before graduation I parked my Ford Escort at the back parking lot of Arnie’s Liquors on a sunless afternoon, then walked through a brief stretch of state forest that led to the back of the Rasts’ house. If anyone saw me, they would have seen a kid wearing a denim jacket and a baseball cap pulled low, something I would normally have never worn. But no one saw me. I had brought a crowbar in my backpack to break through the back door, but it was already open. I knew that no one would be home, that Mr. Rast had left months ago, and that Mrs. Rast worked day shifts at the CVS. And I knew, I hoped, that Rebecca would be coming home alone after school let out at three o’clock. I hid in her bedroom closet and waited.

  Thinking back on it now, I remember the terror and excitement I felt in the small, dark space, Rebecca Rast’s clothes rustling up against me, the ski mask on my face starting to make me sweat. I had the closet door cracked a little and was able to hear Rebecca’s car pull into the driveway, to hear her enter the house and walk slowly up the stairs. She went to the bathroom first for what seemed a long time, then the toilet flushed, and she entered her bedroom, humming tunelessly to herself. My heart was thudding so loudly in my chest that I wondered how she hadn’t heard it. I had planned on leaping out of the closet in my ski mask, but I didn’t need to. She came straight to the closet door and slid it open along its tracks. I stepped toward her, scissors in one hand, duct tape in another. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. I watched all the color drain from her face, and I was sure that she was about to faint, but instead she turned to run. I tackled her from behind, realizing as I did it that she had stripped to just her underwear. I held her down and managed to wrap duct tape first around her face and mouth, and then around her hands and ankles. It wasn’t easy; I got kicked several times but refrained from making any noise, from letting her know who I was. After she was securely bound in duct tape, I dragged her into the closet, and before I shut the door, I ran the edge of the scissors along her neck. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears coming out of them. I could smell the sharp tang of urine.

  I dumped the coat, the ski mask, the scissors, the crowbar, and the backpack into the Dumpster behind the liquor store. I drove home shaking, my emotions alternating between enormous satisfaction that I had paid Rebecca back for the pain she had caused me, and a sickening shame that I had gone too far. Those feelings lasted through the summer, the shame temporarily replaced by the horrible fear that I was going to get caught. I would be publicly shamed, and sent to prison, and I wouldn’t get to go to Harvard. But the police never showed up, and, as the summer progressed, I began to believe I’d gotten away with it. I did hear about the incident once, from a gossipy friend of mine named Molly. She told me that Rebecca Rast—“You know her, right? Oh my God, you went to the prom with her, didn’t you?”—had been assaulted in her own home, tied up and left in the closet, and that everyone thought it was her own father, that creepy dude who used to work at a gas station. That was all I ever heard about it.

  I still dream about Rebecca Rast. In these nightmares—and they are definitely nightmares—Rebecca dies the night I duct-taped her and left her in the closet. In these dreams I am plagued with guilt, and terrified of being caught, and I can never remember whether I meant to murder her or whether I meant to just scare her. But either way, I am a murderer, and that knowledge has taken over my life.

  On the Friday morning that Miranda was flying down to Miami Beach for a bachelorette party, I woke, having had one of these dreams. I was alone in the bed, and I lay there for a moment, the images from the nightmare flashing in my brain, then disappearing. At first I thought it was a Rebecca Rast dream, but then I realized that the person in the dream that I had killed had been Miranda. I’d trapped her in Rebecca Rast’s closet and she had died there. Other images from the dream came back to me. A funeral where no one would look at me. The terrible fear that I forgot to hide the body. An image of my father, water coming from his nose. A field that I was frantically digging in. For one terrible moment, I thought that these weren’t pictures from my dreams, but recent memories. I’d had this feeling before, always when I was in the half state between sleep and wakefulness—this dreadful feeling that what I was dreaming about was in fact real, that I was a murderer, and it was only a matter of time until the whole world knew it. I shook my head and told myself I’d been dreaming, then rose from the tangled sheets and picked up my phone from the dresser. It was past eight, much later than I usually slept. Miranda’s car service was coming at eight thirty to take her to Logan. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a cotton sweater and went downstairs.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” she said when I’d found her in the formal dining room. She was sitting at the long Stickley table, her luggage by her side. She wore a short blue dress and a pair of red cowboy boots and was avidly studying her phone.

  “Aren’t
you cold in that?”

  She looked up. “Yes, but not for long. I’ll tell the driver to turn the heat up to Miami temperatures.” She turned her phone off, slid it into her purse, and stood. “What are you going to get up to while I’m away?”

  “First of all, you’re always away, so this is nothing new. And second of all, work, obviously.”

  “You should have dinner with Mac tonight. I’m sure he’s around.”

  “He’s not, actually. He’s at his aunt’s funeral. Remember, I told you about that? No, I’m going to take that lamb out of the freezer. Special dinner, just for me.”

  “Please. Eat it all. Casey said we’re going to Joe’s Stone Crab tonight.”

  I brought her luggage to the foyer, resisting the urge to comment on how heavy it was for a three-day weekend. Miranda peered through the front door’s leaded window. “Limo’s here,” she said, and pulled me in for an unusually tight hug. “I’ll miss you, Teddy,” she said.

  “How long exactly are you going for?”

  She slapped my chest. “Don’t make jokes. I really am going to miss you. You’re a good husband, you know.”

  “I’ll miss you, too,” I said, trying to get some feeling into my voice. The way Miranda was acting I wondered briefly if the bachelorette party was made up. Was she meeting Brad down in Miami?

  Miranda pulled the front door open, and the driver jumped out of his Town Car, bounding up our steps to collect the luggage. Miranda followed him down to the car, a sharp wind plucking at the hem of her dress. She turned to wave at me, and she looked frail and cold in her inadequate clothes. Before I shut the door she pulled her huge sunglasses out of her purse and put them on, then blew me a kiss.

  The day loomed before me. I had phone calls to make and a prospectus to proofread, but that would only take about half a morning. I gathered a cup of coffee, then went to my computer. I Googled the name Lily Hayward for about the hundredth time but nothing came up that seemed like her, besides her job listing at Winslow College. I Googled the town of Winslow and mapped a route from my house to a promising-looking restaurant in the town’s center. What harm would it do if I drove out there for lunch? It was going to be a beautiful October day; after a hot, extended summer the leaves were just now at their peak. I could take a walk, eat some lunch, see the town that Lily lived in. And if I saw her—and the chances of that were slim—then what would the harm be? We wouldn’t need to say hello, and if we did, would it possibly make a difference?

  I did my work, then showered and dressed. At my garage I decided, on the spur of the moment, to take out my vintage 1976 Porsche 911, the car I’d bought after I’d made my first big deal, instead of the Audi. I avoided the Pike and drove toward the river, getting onto Storrow Drive. The river was filled with college rowers, prepping for the upcoming Head of the Charles weekend. The day was perfection, the sky only creased by the vapor trails of airplanes. I looked up, wondering if I was seeing the remnants of the plane that was taking my wife to Florida.

  From Storrow Drive I got onto Soldiers Field Road, then wound my way through Waltham and Newton till I found Boston Post Road, and headed west through the suburbs toward Winslow. Shifting gears, I wondered why I had ever gotten the automatic transmission on my Audi. The next car I bought would be a standard.

  I drove down Main Street in Winslow center, looking for parking in the surprisingly busy downtown. Students were crossing the street in large groups. Mostly girls in jeans and boots, with hair pulled back in ponytails. Waiting for several to cross the walkway, I peered through the abutting metal gates toward the college campus. I could see three low brick buildings that bordered a carefully manicured lawn. A line of oaks marked a path across the campus. Was Lily in one of the buildings I could see? Was she the type who brought a sensible lunch and ate in her office or did she walk into the town center for lunch? It was a Friday, after all, a sunny October day. The car behind me honked and I put the Porsche in gear, then turned off Main onto a side street with metered parking. I found a spot, and walked back toward the group of restaurants I’d passed earlier. The place I’d read about—the Carvery—was there, but I chose a restaurant called Alison’s, that had an open outside table that faced both the high midday sun and Winslow’s campus. I ordered a Bloody Mary and a Cobb salad from the college student waitress, and watched the pedestrians pass by. The students had the scrub-faced look of earnest young feminists. They hauled backpacks that looked as though they’d put a football player into traction. The nonstudents were mostly middle-aged housewives out for shopping and lunch. They wore handmade scarfs and flouncy clothes that hid their hips. I saw a few professor types—men with bad haircuts and tweedy jackets, and women who looked like older versions of the solemn young students. But I didn’t see Lily, even when, after lunch, and a second Bloody Mary, I took a walk through Winslow’s campus.

  It was a pretty college, its campus gently sloping away from Winslow center down toward a pond that was circled with a walking path. I sat for a while on a wooden bench in the botanic gardens, next to a conservatory with a high peaked roof. There was no one around, and I imagined that this might be the type of place where Lily would bring her lunch. To this very bench maybe. I stayed seated until clouds appeared in the sky and the sun disappeared and suddenly it was cold.

  I’d forgotten to refeed the parking meter after lunch and I had a Town of Winslow parking violation under my wiper. Fifteen dollars. I slid it into my jacket pocket and lowered myself into the Porsche. I was tired all of a sudden, and took the Pike all the way back to Boston, arriving at home just as I received a text from Miranda that she had safely landed in Miami and the festivities had begun. I texted her back, then went to my computer to check my e-mails. It was a slow period for me, not that I needed the work. The stock market, after years of stagnation, was surging again. My portfolio was healthy, and work was just a matter of filling my time.

  Another text from Miranda: don’t forget take the lamb out of the freezer.

  I wrote back, thanking her for the reminder.

  I had actually forgotten and walked down to the basement kitchen, taking the loin chops out of the freezer and putting them under running water. The text from Miranda was strange, as was the overly sentimental good-bye. Was she up to something sinister? Or was it possible that she had broken it off with Brad and was suddenly contrite? Even so, that didn’t take away from what she had already done to me.

  I went into the adjoining wine cellar and picked an Old World Syrah that would go nicely with the lamb. I opened the bottle and decanted it. The chops were starting to soften so I left them in their plastic wrap in a bowl of cold water, and went upstairs to the living room. I hadn’t seen the paper yet that day, so I sat in the leather recliner and read the day’s news while sipping a gin and tonic. After a while, I put the paper down and just thought about Miranda and Brad and Lily and everything that had happened, or that was about to happen, since meeting Lily on the plane from London. I kept involuntarily flashing back to the dream I had awoken from that morning. That awful feeling that once you’ve murdered someone you can never go back and unmurder them. You will never again awake from a dream and be able to lie there, telling yourself that your life may be a catalog of sin, but that you are not a murderer. And I suddenly realized that my plan to kill Miranda and Brad had become a means to an end, had become a way to get closer to Lily, and that I didn’t necessarily need to commit murder to get there. I could simply tell Miranda I wanted a divorce, then e-mail Lily and ask her if she were free for dinner. No one but us would ever know about the plans we had made. Miranda could have Brad, and I’d have Lily, and the world would keep on spinning. I had always been good at compartmentalizing, and I would put all my rage and shame over what had happened with Miranda into a box and close it. I would hand my marriage to the lawyers; half of all my money was more than enough. A feeling of relief swept through me. It was like waking from a bad dream and realizing that it was just a dream, that it hadn’t actually happened.
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  The doorbell chimed, and I jumped a little in my chair.

  Walking to the door I instinctively looked at my watch. It was just past six. Who would be stopping by? I told myself it was probably a deliveryman, and tried to remember if I was waiting for a package.

  I put the chain across the door and swung it open five inches. It was Brad Daggett, a slightly embarrassed smile on his face. It took me a moment to register that Brad, from Maine, was on my doorstep in Boston. It felt incongruous, like seeing a man in a tuxedo at a country fair.

  “Ted,” he said, and he sounded a little breathless, “I’m glad you’re here. Can we talk?”

  “Of course,” I said, undoing the chain and opening the door. “Come on in.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. There was no good reason for Brad to come all the way from Maine to see me. He was halfway into the house and I pushed slightly against the door, stopping his progress. “Brad, what are you doing here?”

  “Just let me in, Ted. I’ll explain.” His voice quivered, and I could smell the booze on his breath. Our eyes met, and I was suddenly scared. I pushed a little harder against the door, but Brad wasn’t moving. He fumbled in his jacket pocket and I looked down at the gun he had removed. “Let me in, Ted,” he repeated, and I stepped back as Brad entered my house.

  CHAPTER 14

  LILY

  “Addison, what’s the matter?” I asked.