The Kind Worth Killing Page 21

  I had plenty of time, and walked slowly, only turning on the penlight once, when the footpath passed below an alcove of twisted trees. As stunning as the walk had been two days earlier on that blustery afternoon, it was more beautiful now—the vistas of the ocean were silver beneath the high white moon. I felt as though I’d stepped into a black-and-white movie from the 1930s, the ocean and the sky some fantasy projection of a perfect glittering evening, romantic and moody at the same time. I kept moving, all my senses prickling, as though I were a small animal that had emerged from its burrow into a giant world. Something rustled in a bayberry bush, and I paused, waiting to see if it was another animal like me, or just the pulsing wind from the ocean. I heard nothing else and kept moving. When I reached the end of the path, I crouched and looked at the looming house. In moonlight, it looked finished, its three-gabled roof outlined against the sky. The stretch of land between the ocean and the back of the house, which in daylight looked like chewed-up dirt, was transformed by moonlight, resembling the sloping magisterial lawn it was destined to become. I looked behind me at the sky; a scrap of cloud was moving quickly, about to pass in front of the moon. I watched it progress, and when it blanked out the moon, and the world turned temporarily darker, I took a deep breath and crossed the property toward the house, making sure to skirt the half-dug hole where the swimming pool was supposed to go. I took the two wide steps up to the finished patio, crouched again, and removed the backpack from my back and unzipped it. I took out the stun gun and the knife, my pair of leather gloves, and two plastic bags, then rezipped the backpack and stood back up, putting the knife in one front jeans pocket and the stun gun in the other. I pulled the plastic bags on over my hiking shoes, tucking the ends down into my wool socks, then put on my gloves and tested the sliding glass doors that Brad said would be unlocked. They were, and I entered the pitch-black house.

  I pulled the doors closed behind me and just stood for a moment, listening intently, and letting my eyes adjust to the blackness. It took a while, but they eventually did, the interior of the house becoming gray and fuzzy. I could make out the finished floors, piled here and there with stacked tiles, or large unopened boxes of Sheetrock. I moved forward into the foyer toward the front of the house, the plastic bags whispering along the floor. Something batted at my head and I jerked involuntarily, looking up at a pair of dangling wires where a light fixture would go.

  I walked toward the south-facing kitchen, its wide windows helping me to navigate, hoping that one of the windows would look out onto the front driveway. There wasn’t one, so I turned back, moving in what felt like slow motion through the grainy light. The air in the house was as cold as it was outside, and smelled of sawdust and glue. I found the front door, twice the height of any normal human, and peered through one of its side windows. All I could see was the large Dumpster, something fluttering from its edge in the breeze, but no car yet. The window stretched from the floor to the ceiling, so I sat cross-legged and waited. I was an hour early.

  I told myself several times during that hour that I could simply get up and leave, retrace my steps along the cliff walk, get back into my car and drive back home to Winslow. I had done nothing illegal yet, done nothing that would implicate me in any crime. I was untouchable. But I also told myself that if I did that, if I got up and walked away, I would be living in a world in which Miranda Hobart was allowed to get away with murder. Ted was dead. Eric Washburn was dead. And both might still be alive if it hadn’t been for Miranda.

  I heard Brad’s truck before I saw it. He’d turned his headlights off, but the large pickup was crunching along the gravel driveway. He parked between the Dumpster and the house. It was still bright outside under the cloudless sky, and I could see Brad in the driver’s seat and Miranda on the passenger side. They were a little early by my watch, and Miranda stayed in the truck for about a minute. I wondered what they were talking about. When she opened the door the truck’s interior light popped on, and I watched Brad, an unlit cigarette in his lips, quickly put his hand over the light while Miranda swung down out of the truck onto the driveway. She walked toward the house, in that hip-swinging way I remembered, her hair tucked under what looked like a newsboy cap. As she neared the door, I stood and took a step backward into the deeper darkness of the house. My heart thudded a little faster in my chest, but I also felt an electric charge running over my skin.

  I listened to a key being inserted, the lock snapping open. The door swung inward, Miranda taking a half step into the house, then pausing. The wind outside had picked up. I knew that she was letting her eyes adjust to the darkness as I had and that, for the moment, she couldn’t see me. Her face was gray in the light, her eyes opened wide in an attempt to see, and her lips slightly parted. I looked at her hand on the doorknob. She also wore gloves.

  “In here,” I said.

  She turned, and I turned on the penlight, pointing its beam at the floor so she could see where I was standing. As soon as she located me I flicked it off.

  “Lily?” she said.

  “Come in. Your eyes will adjust.”

  She shut the door behind her. “Isn’t this dramatic?” she said, and Faith the college girl came flooding back to me. Sarcastic, slightly loaded, talking to me in the dim lights of some St. Dun’s party, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  “Did Brad tell you what I wanted?” I asked.

  She took a step forward. She wore a three-quarter-length coat, and her right hand was in its large pocket. I instinctively touched the stun gun, which was in my front pocket, its end protruding.

  “He did,” Miranda said, stopping about a yard in front of me. I wanted to move backward a little bit, but I didn’t want her to hear the rustle of the plastic bags on my feet. “I was surprised.”

  “Surprised by what?”

  “Well, surprised by everything. Surprised you’re here. Surprised you knew Ted. But mostly surprised that you want money from me. It just doesn’t seem like you. Does it have something to do with your father?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “He killed someone, right? In England. He must have legal fees.”

  “No, the money is for me.”

  “Fine. It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “You know that I can’t get you money right away. The estate has to be settled. These things take a lot of time.”

  “I know. I just wanted to meet here tonight so I could hear from you directly. After this, things can go through Brad.”

  “Can I ask you? Were you sleeping with Ted? How did that happen? How did you two even meet?”

  “We were on a flight together. He knew everything about you, you know? He knew you were cheating on him with Brad. You didn’t fool him.” In the fuzzy light I watched Miranda shrug. She was close enough so that I could smell her. Tobacco. Expensive lotion.

  “So why didn’t you just turn me in,” Miranda said, “if you’re so sure I’m this awful person?”

  “I will turn you in, Faith, if you don’t do everything I say.”

  “Is this really about Eric?” she asked. I heard a door rattle somewhere in the house, the wind outside picking up.

  “No,” I said. “It isn’t. This is all about you.”

  Miranda turned first. Brad had emerged from the darkness to stand between us, a long heavy-looking wrench in his right hand. He must have come in through the patio doors, and had moved so quietly in the house that I wondered briefly if he’d taken his shoes off. His face in the half light was twisted, his jaw working back and forth, as though something was stuck in his throat. He was looking at me. I watched him lift the heavy wrench above his head and start to bring it down.

  CHAPTER 25

  MIRANDA

  It took two hours, and a pot of coffee laced with whiskey, but Brad had told me everything. He told me how he’d spotted the sheriff’s car in front of his place early in the evening. He’d panicked, driving straight by his cottages, then heading out to his dad’s fishing cabin in Leban
on. He’d nearly decided to stay the night there, but then began to think that it would look strange, like something a guilty man would do. He’d driven back to Kennewick, going straight to Cooley’s instead of going home, and that’s where he’d found Lily Kintner waiting for him in Cooley’s parking lot. They’d talked in his truck; she’d told him that she knew all about the murder. She knew that Brad and I were having an affair and that we’d planned on killing Ted together. She knew that Brad had driven down to Boston, had broken into a neighbor’s house first to make the murder look like a burglary gone wrong, then knocked on Brad’s door, asked to be let in, and shot him.

  “How’d she know all this?” I asked.

  “I didn’t ask, Miranda. She just knew. She knew everything.” Brad’s voice had risen an octave, and his hand was shaky as he drank from his coffee cup.

  “Shh. It’s gonna be okay. I’m here now.”

  “I know. I was going to call you first thing in the morning, let you know all about it.”

  “Baby, I know you were. But it’s good I drove over tonight. It will give us more time to figure out what to do about her. What does she want?”

  Brad hesitated. “I’m supposed to tell you she wants money.”

  “What the fuck does that mean, you’re supposed to tell me?”

  “Just listen. I’m telling you everything. I’m supposed to tell you she wants money from you, a million a year to keep quiet, and that she wants to meet with you tomorrow night at the house on Micmac. She wants to hear from you that you agree.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah. At ten. I drive you over, and you two meet in the house, one-on-one.”

  “Jesus.”

  “No, Miranda, you’re not listening to me. This is only what I’m supposed to tell you. She wants to kill you. She’s planning on killing you. That’s what she told me.”

  “How?” I asked. It was the first question that popped into my mind.

  “She has a stun gun, and then she said she was going to strangle you.” Brad swiped at his nose with the back of his hand.

  “I don’t understand why she told all this to you.”

  “She hates you. She said she’s known you since college and you’re an evil person.”

  “Wow. Jesus,” I said.

  “You look happy about this.”

  “Do I? No, I’m freaked out.” I was freaked out, but I had another feeling I couldn’t quite define. It was like being in high school and finding out that the cutest boy in class had been talking about you to his friends. I’d gotten under Lily’s skin and I hadn’t even known it.

  “How did she think she was going to get away with it? How did she think you were going to get away with it? They already suspect you. There was a fucking witness down in Boston. Someone saw you, Brad, going into my house. That’s why the sheriff was at your house tonight. You’re going to be questioned.”

  “What are you talking about?” Spittle flew from his lips, some of it striking me in the face.

  “Relax, it’s no big deal,” I lied. “You have an alibi, remember? But that’s why I drove up here in the first place. You’re going to be interviewed by the police. I don’t know when, but it’s going to happen. You just need to remember everything we talked about. Stick to the story and everything’s going to be fine.”

  “But now this other person knows.”

  “I know. Give me a moment to think.” I took two deep breaths, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Lily knew everything, that Lily wanted to kill me. “Did Lily say how she knew Ted?”

  “No. I thought you’d know. But she knew everything about what had happened.”

  “How does she think she’ll get away with it, get away with killing me?”

  “She said she’s going to hide your body and your car, and that it will look like you skipped town. She said that it’s the only way I won’t get caught by the police. I’m supposed to drive you to the meeting tomorrow night, and then I’m supposed to help her get your body back to your car. She’s got it all figured out.”

  “And what? You told her you’d be happy to do this for her?”

  “I was having a goddamn heart attack, Miranda. She knows everything. I told her I’d think about it. I’m supposed to call her phone from Cooley’s tomorrow if it gets set up. Just let it ring a couple of times so it shows up on her caller ID. Obviously, I was going to tell you all about it, but I went along with her. What else could I do?”

  “No, you were right. You did the right thing. I’m proud of you. Let me think for a moment.”

  Brad tugged at a sideburn. “I know what we need to do,” he said. “I know what I need to do.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll kill her, Miranda. It will be easy. She’s sneaking up here to see you. No one knows she’s involved in this. She told me. I’ll take you to the house. You go in the front door and I’ll go around and come in the back. Keep talking to her and I’ll sneak up and hit her with something. I can bury her in the yard.”

  “You’d do that for me,” I said.

  “I killed your husband for you, Miranda. I love you. Of course I’d kill this bitch.”

  It made perfect sense. I knew that it was the only way out. If Lily knew everything, then she needed to die. But it worried me. “Won’t she expect that?” I said, speaking my thoughts aloud. “It’s so risky for her to come up here to meet with me—”

  “She’s not coming up to meet with you. She’s coming up here to kill you. She told me that.”

  “That’s what I mean. How could she be so sure that she could convince you to do this for her. She just met you. She did just meet you, right?”

  “Look. She was convincing. She told me it was my only way out—that you were going to throw me under the bus, that when the police came it was going to be my word against yours and there wasn’t going to be any proof that you conspired to murder your husband. You could say that I was deranged, that I became obsessed with you. No one, besides me, could say otherwise.”

  This was, of course, my plan if Brad was arrested for killing my husband. I would say that we’d gotten physical once, in a moment of weakness for me, but that there had never been any talk about killing Ted. Now that I think of it, I did mention to Brad Daggett that I was going down to Florida for a long weekend. He must have thought . . . He must have thought I was telling him because I wanted . . . Oh my God. They might suspect me, but there was no way they could convict me. “And you believed all this shit she told you?” I said to Brad, a look of disgust on my face.

  “No, I don’t. I believe you, but I told her that I’d help her out. I pretended to believe her. We’re in trouble, Miranda. She knows everything.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll meet her at the house, and you’ll kill her. It will all work out. It needs to be done.”

  We talked some more that night, but Brad was drunk, and starting to not make sense, and he needed to sleep. I was paying the price for enlisting a gutless alcoholic to help me kill my husband. Before I left, about an hour before dawn, I told him that he should disappear the following day. Take a drive up the coast and not answer his phone. “You’re not in any condition yet to be questioned by the police,” I said.

  “I know,” he said.

  “This is going to turn out fine. They might suspect us, but they won’t catch us. We knew this all along.”

  “I know.”

  “If you wanted to, baby, you could leave after tomorrow night. Skip town. Skip the country. Go down to the islands, and I’ll come and find you when this is all over.”

  “They’d know it was me.”

  “They would, but they wouldn’t be able to find you. I could give you money to run with, and I’d meet you later, bring more money. You’d be free.”

  “What about my kids?” he said, his voice cracking. He raised his big fat head toward me, and I saw that his eyes were genuinely wet. We’d never talked about his kids. Not even once.

  “Shh,” I said. “Let’s not talk
about it now. You need to get somewhere and sleep, and we can talk about this tomorrow night. Remember: stay away from your house and off your phone. Drive somewhere in your truck and sleep there, okay? Just in case the cops come early in the morning. I’ll meet you in Portsmouth outside that restaurant that Ted and you and I went to way back when. Okay? At nine at night.”

  I arrived back in Boston just as the rising sun was beginning to edge the city roofs in a thin cold light. I entered my house, taking Tuesday’s newspaper in with me, and made a pot of coffee. While it brewed I showered and changed. I would try and nap later in the day but knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep right now. I was in a shit storm. The police hadn’t bought the burglary angle, and they were closing in on Brad. And now, this craziness with Lily. I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. There had always been something freakish about Lily Kintner. She was watchful. I remembered that. I’d met her when she was probably eighteen, but she seemed much older at the time. Composed, and sure of herself, and definitely not like other freshman girls.

  Had she known that I’d stolen Eric from her that one summer before he died? I hadn’t stolen him, not really, but we were sharing him without Lily’s consent. Had she found out and been stalking me ever since, waiting for an opportunity to kill me? If Eric were still here, I thought . . . and suddenly I went back to that half-formed thought. Had she killed Eric in London? He’d died of an allergy attack, but she could have been the one to give him the nuts, knowing he couldn’t get to his medicine. It was crazy, but it was also possible. I tried to remember back to what I’d heard around that time. All my friends in New York had been talking about it. He was drunk and went out for Indian food and the chicken dish he got had nuts in it, and he died. Something like that. One thing I remembered for sure was that Lily had been right there with him, probably watching him die. Had she kept his medicine away from him? It now seemed entirely possible that she had.

  The day passed, in slow chunks of time. I kept changing my mind about what to do that night. I wanted Lily dead, but what worried me was being present at the scene of a crime. I’d been so careful to make sure that I would never be convicted for Ted’s murder, that there would be no evidence connecting me to any crime. Picturing the night ahead, I felt like I was walking into a trap. I was walking into a trap—Brad had told me that much—but even knowing what Lily had in mind, I felt unsettled, unsure of myself for the first time in a long time. But I also knew, without a doubt, that if Lily somehow knew everything she said she knew, she needed to be eliminated. With Lily gone, I’d be able to breathe a little easier. And then I could focus on dealing with Brad.