Page 5 of Not a Word

I got up. I needed to move around, but I wasn’t heading back into the house. I couldn’t go in there. I didn’t know when I’d be able to. I’d have to at some point, of course. The place would have to be cleared out, put on the market. I didn’t want to live there, and I was pretty sure Holden wouldn’t. He’d be more interested in the windfall its sale would produce, and then the bets would be on how quickly he could blow it on meth or crack or whatever it was he was on these days.

My mind went over the detective’s questions, particularly those about whether my parents had been having any serious problems. I’d said no, but clearly I’d had no idea what was going on between them. What signals had I failed to pick up on? What could have been going on right in front of me that I was too blind to see, that could have led to something this tragic?

I left my half-finished coffee on the bench and walked out onto the lawn, turned and looked back at the two-story house where I’d spent so much of my life. My parents had bought this place when I was eight, when Dad was making a fortune working for that pharmaceutical giant. I’d never lived here again after I’d left to attend university in Kingston, where I’d met and fallen in love with Diana. We got married and set up house much sooner than we’d planned. That can happen when somebody gets pregnant.

My cell rang. I felt the simultaneous vibration of it in my sports jacket pocket. Diana, I was betting. I didn’t feel ready to break this to her yet, but there was never going to be a good time. I reached into my pocket to answer, but I was so on edge I fumbled the phone and dropped it onto the grass.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath. I leaned over, picked up the phone, and looked at the screen, then felt my heart stop as I saw the caller ID. It wasn’t Diana’s name on the screen.

MOM.

I blinked a couple of times, not believing what I was seeing. I slid the bar across to take the call and put the phone to my ear.

“Hello,” I said tentatively.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice. “You at home? Can you drop by the house and see if your dad’s okay? I’ve been calling and he’s not picking up.”

Two

Yorkton Hill Police Detective Janice McCabe did another walk-through of the house before returning to the upstairs bedroom. The coroner was there, and once she was done, McCabe could have a closer look at the bodies, move them as necessary, then have them sent to the forensic science center in Toronto.

A nice house, she thought to herself. Nicer than what she could afford on her salary. She had not yet asked the son, Reece Chartwell, what his parents did for a living, or if they were both retired. She had the sense Brent Chartwell was, given that Reece believed he’d find his father home on a Friday.

McCabe found on a console table in the front hall the two books Reece had brought to return to his father, both hardcovers. A Richard Russo novel, Everybody’s Fool, and an early John Irving, A Widow for One Year. So that part of his story checked out.

Judging by the house and the furnishings—tasteful, modern, leaning toward minimalist—it was clear the Chartwells had money or, at least, had had it.

She took out her phone, opened a browser, and did a search on Chartwell’s name. Up came a Yorkton Hill–based consulting firm called Chartwell Strategies. Scanning information about the company, she learned the firm run by the Brent Chartwell who lived at this address had wound down operations two years ago.

Consulting evidently had been good to him. McCabe wasn’t surprised. She’d seen enough of politics and the business world to know everyone was terrified to make decisions and happily threw hundreds of thousands of dollars at consultants to make choices for them. Then, when things went south, they could always blame the consultant.

Not that any of this had much to do with the matter at hand. This investigation, at least so far, did not look overly complicated. Husband shoots wife, turns gun on himself. And while Janice McCabe liked to solve life’s mysteries, her job here was simple. Who did it? That gun on the floor, a 9mm Beretta just inches away from Brent Chartwell’s dangling arm, was a glaring clue. It might be nice to know why he did this, but even if she learned his motivation, it wasn’t as though she could charge him with anything.

Nearby residents might be shocked when they found out what happened here, but it wasn’t anything McCabe hadn’t seen before. Behind some of this idyllic community’s closed doors lurked drug dealers, white slavers, child pornographers. But they were careful not to bring attention to themselves. They had Mercedes and Range Rovers in their driveways, kept their lawns cut, didn’t have wild parties on Saturday night.

It wasn’t likely this case would keep her up at night. Truth was, if McCabe could put her head on a pillow right now she’d be as dead to the world as those two upstairs. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, Moira, had ignored her ten o’clock curfew and didn’t respond to her mother’s texts asking where she was and why she wasn’t home. When you’re a cop, and all too aware of the trouble a teenager can get into, there’s no sleep until that kid’s home. Shortly after eleven McCabe had pulled on her clothes, slid her sockless feet into a pair of Skechers, grabbed her car keys, and headed out. She found Moira, close to midnight, on the back deck of a friend’s house where the smell of pot was wafting through the air.

Lost track of time, Moira’d said. Forgot I’d muted my phone. The interrogation that followed once they got home went on till well past one. And the weekend grounding would begin that evening.

Still, McCabe thought, bringing herself back to the moment now, due diligence was in order. She’d want to know, for example, where Brent Chartwell got that gun, whether it was registered, why he’d believed he needed one.

In the kitchen, she noted a half-full carafe in the coffee maker. She put the back of her hand to it, feeling it for warmth. Stone-cold. There were a few dishes in the sink, but otherwise the place was tidied. She opened the fridge, looked inside. Plenty of provisions there. A just opened container of half-and-half. An open bottle of wine, a temporary cork in the top, stood upright in the door. Some leftover lasagna on a plate under plastic wrap.

Do you save that bottle of wine, cover up unfinished pasta, when you’re planning to end it all?

Maybe. Especially if you’re the wife and don’t know what’s coming.

McCabe looked out the window over the sink to the backyard and beyond. Saw the pond and woods Reece had referred to.

How tranquil.

In the hallway out of the kitchen was a door to the basement. Down there, McCabe found no surprises. A large sectional couch, a huge screen on one wall, a home theater projection system hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the room, a pool table, balls perfectly set up in triangular form, waiting for a game.

There was a basement bathroom and utility room, where McCabe found a washer and dryer combo. She lifted the lid on the washer and found a load of washed, damp clothing. The dryer was empty.

Janice McCabe said, “Hmm.”

If gender stereotypes were in play here, and Catherine Chartwell did the laundry, this was more evidence to suggest she didn’t know what plans her husband had in store for her.