AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’s watching me like I’m a snake, coiling back and ready to strike.
“You know where Philip keeps his guns. You drive up from Arkansas, you take one, and you shoot him.”
At the word “shoot” she flinches. Then she swallows the rest of her tequila.
“You wear a big coat and those very lovely red gloves. Security had put in cameras outside the condos recently. Luckily for you, all they could tell was that the person who entered Philip’s apartment that night was a woman.”
“What?” She sits up and stares at me like I’ve finally surprised her. She presses both her hands to her mouth. “No. There was a camera?”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “After, you toss the clothes and the gun someplace where you figure they’ll be safe. My house. Mom’s out of jail, after all. You figure she’ll be hoarding again in no time. A garbage house really would be a great place to hide evidence—under so much crap that even cops aren’t going to have the patience to sort through it all.”
“I guess I’m no criminal genius, though,” she says. “You found them. And I had no idea about being taped.”
“There’s just one thing I didn’t figure out,” I say. “When I talked to the Feds, they said they spoke to you in Arkansas the morning after Philip’s murder. That’s at least a twenty-hour drive. There’s no way you shot him and got back in time to take that call. How did you do it?”
She smiles. “You and your mother taught me. The agents called my house. Then my brother called me on a prepaid cell phone with an Arkansas area code. He conference-called me and then called back the federal agents. Simple. It looked like I was returning their call from home. Just like how I had to help your mother make all those calls from jail.”
“I am all admiration,” I say. “I actually thought the coat and gloves and gun belonged to Mom, until I saw the amulet I gave you. The one you left in the pocket.”
“I made a lot of mistakes. I see that now,” she says, pulling a gun from underneath the covers and leveling it at me. “You understand I can’t afford to make any more.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I say. “So you sure don’t want to kill the guy who just framed someone for his own brother’s murder.”
The gun wavers in her hand.
“You didn’t,” she says. “Why would you?”
“I tried to protect Philip when he was alive.” I’m sincere, although I’m sure she’s used to sincere liars. “I don’t think he believed that, but I did. Now that he’s dead, I’m trying to protect you.”
“So you’re really not going to tell anyone,” she says.
I stand, and the gun comes up.
“I’ll take it to my grave,” I say, and grin. She’s not smiling.
Then I turn and walk out of the hotel room.
For a moment I think I hear a click, and my muscles stiffen, anticipating the bullet. Then the moment’s past and I keep moving—out of the room, down the stairs, and into my car. There’s this old Greek myth about this guy named Orpheus. He goes down to Hades to get his wife back, but he loses her again because on the way out of hell, he looks behind him to see if she’s really there.
That’s how I feel. Like if I look back, the spell will be broken. I’ll be dead.
It’s only when I pull out of the parking lot that I can breathe again.
* * *
I don’t want to go back to Wallingford. I just can’t face it. Instead I drive down to Carney and bang on Grandad’s door. It’s well past the middle of the night, but eventually he answers, wrapped in a bathrobe.
“Cassel?” he says. “Did something happen?”
I shake my head.
He waves to me with his good hand. “Well, get in here. You’re letting in all the cold air, standing in the doorway.”
I walk into his dining room. There’s some mail on the table, along with a bunch of wilted flowers from the funeral. It seems like it happened so long ago, but really it’s just been a few weeks since Philip died.
On the sideboard are a bunch of photos, most of them of the three of us kids when we were little, doing a lot of running through sprinklers and posing awkwardly, our arms around one another, on lawns. There are other photos too, older ones of Grandad with Mom in her wedding dress, Grandma, and one of Grandad and Zacharov at what looks like Lila’s parents’ wedding. The thick wedding band on Zacharov’s finger is one I haven’t seen him wear before, but it looks familiar.
“I’m going to put on the kettle,” he says.
