Page 111 of One of Us Is Guilty

And . . .

The black tires of a gray panel van rumbled over the gravel outside the East Hampton house. Slow, unhurried. The driver was a tall young man with blond hair so light that it was almost white. The man in the front passenger seat was older, smaller too, judging by how low he was in the seat, with dark hair.

The van came to a stop. The passenger door opened. The small man with black hair got out and his boots crunched their way up to the front porch. He wore gray coveralls, way too big for him. At least, they were once gray, and maybe he’d lost weight. The overalls were covered in different colors of paint, mostly pale but some yellows, greens and reds too, and the same smattering of paint was on his boots.

He had a hard face, weathered and full of experience. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal thick forearms. For a small man, he was well put together. Not stocky, but thick. Years of working paint brushes and rollers will build a certain physique. The sticker on the side of the van saidPerfect Finish, We Paint Houses.

The small man walked up the porch steps as Corbett opened the front door to greet him.

‘You took your time,’ said Corbett. ‘I think he’s finishing up in the kitchen, but he’s made a goddamn mess of the wall. Look, our client is super important to us, so we need you to match the paint and make sure it looks like nothing happened in there. You got it?’

‘Got it,’ said the small man as he took blue gloves from his hip pocket and put them on. ‘So the guy’s finished?’

‘Almost,’ said Corbett. ‘I saw him packing up about ten minutes ago.’

‘Is the owner here?’

‘No, just those two. The realtor and the investigator from the wife’s law firm. They’re getting the house valued and their valuer was checking for dry rot or some shit. It looks terrible. We can’t risk pissing off this client.’

The tall, blond driver got out of the panel van.

Bloch had been wrong when she’d assumed he was tall.

When he stood on the gravel, his head was above the roof of the van. He was gigantic. Thin and wildly pale, like a corpse that had been stretched on a rack. His overalls and boots were similarly stained with paint and were comically too small. The bottom of the pants swayed around his ankles, three inches from the top of his boots. He walked around the van and opened the sliding side doors to reveal tarpaulin wrapped in rope, buckets and brushes, aluminum poles and lots of large paint cans inside.

Another man climbed over the cans in the back and leapt out onto the gravel. Average height, shaven head. Tattoos from his neck snaking up behind his ears. Tanned and muscular.

The giant picked up the tarpaulin, tossed it aside and lifted a roll of thick blue rubber sheeting out and dumped it onto the gravel. He then took a five-gallon bucket of paint by the metal handle and together they walked over to the porch.

Following him, the bald man hauled the rubber sheet over, then dumped it on the porch and rolled it out.

Corbett stood by the open door, the small dark-haired man beside him. The tall blond put the bucket on the porch and opened it. From inside he took out a length of rope, which he placed in his teeth, and then he took a roll of plastic garbage bags from his pocket. He tore off a bag, opened it and then whipped it through the air, fanning it out, and walked around the porch, coming up behind Corbett.

‘How long is this going to take?’ asked Corbett.

The small man said, ‘Not long at all.’

The giant flung the bag over Corbett’s head, cinching it tight at the neck. Corbett’s arms flailed uselessly, his cries muffled. The giant then took the rope from his teeth, and wrapped it round Corbett’s neck, holding the bag in place.

The small man casually drew a silenced pistol from his overalls and shot Corbett once in the head.

But his body didn’t drop. The tall man, his fists holding the rope around Corbett’s neck, ducked low and turned and then leaned forward, hauling Corbett’s body up so that it rested on him, back to back, so he was carrying Corbett. The giant’s fists clenched over his left shoulder, holding the rope.

Suspended on the back of the giant, Corbett’s feet dangled in mid-air.

The small man with the pistol watched the front door, listening to any movement inside.

‘Hurry up,’ he said.

On command, the bald man bent down and undid Corbett’s right shoe and then took off his sock. He brought the five-gallon bucket over and rested Corbett’s bare foot inside it. Then he produced a knife and sliced the sole of his foot.

Blood hissed into the bucket.

‘Keep him steady,’ said the bald man.

Makes sense, thought Bloch.

A recently deceased human still has a high-pressure blood system inside them. The heart would still beat for a few seconds, even afterbrain death, and there are no major arterial sprays from the bullet wound in the skull to alleviate that pressure. They were using gravity to drain the system. After ten seconds, the bald man took the still-bleeding foot out of the bucket, but the blood flow had drastically reduced. The giant arched his back, dumped Corbett’s body on the tarpaulin.