Page 70 of Not a Word

“Mr. Chartwell,” she said. “How are you doing?”

I shrugged.

“I need to speak with your mother. Is she here?”

Fuck it.

“Yes,” I said.

Twenty-Five

1999

“Catherine,” Brent said, no longer screaming, but struggling to regain his composure. “Catherine, look at me.”

His wife was still kneeling over the body of Evelyn Corby. The rose of blood on her back was expanding. Catherine turned her head and said to her husband, “You fool.”

“Have you lost your mind? Do you realize what you’ve—”

“I’ve saved us, that’s what I’ve done,” she said, standing. “You would have helped her? Helped her ruin us?”

“I’d have talked her out of it. Made her forget the whole thing.”

“No. No. I heard you. You’re weak.”

“Where did you get that gun?”

She shook her head, ignoring the question. “Crane.”

“What?”

“We have to call Crane. He fixes things.”

“Catherine, we have to call the police. We’ll . . . we’ll tell them it was self-defense, that she attacked you or something. We just . . . we just need to come up with a story.”

“That I was defending myself by shooting her in the back as she ran away?” Catherine asked him. “Crane,” she said again.

“I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”

“I have his number.”

That stopped Brent cold. Before he could say anything, Catherine said, “Do you want to get into that now, or do you want to solve this problem?”

Brent wasn’t sure which way to go. “How’s he supposed to make this go away?”

“It’s what he does. He solves problems.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“He told me.”

Brent looked at Catherine as though she were someone he was meeting for the first time. He glanced back at the dead woman, then focused again on his wife.

“You’re fucking him,” he said.

Her eyes danced. “Would you even believe me if I said no?”

Before he could respond she started leading him toward the house. As they crossed the yard, she said, “I’ll find the number, you call him, and then I have to talk to Holden.”