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As for why he married me, well…
I could flatter myself here. I did still look very good atforty-five, my figure unchanged, my hair just as dark and lustrous. I was exciting and good in bed (sorry, darling), and I suspect there was a little dark glamour clinging to me with that trail of dead husbands, and that was definitely the sort of thing Roddy would have been drawn to.
But again, we’re being honest here. While the above attributes probably didn’t hurt, the real draw was the eight-figure trust fund Roddy could access once he was married.
One flight to Los Angeles, a short cruise down to Mexico, and I became Mrs. Roddy Kenmore. It was the first of my marriages to make national news, do you know that? A little feature inPeoplemagazine, me in that off-the-shoulder white dress with the floppy sun hat (it was the eighties, darling, don’t roll your eyes), Roddy in a white suit with a shirt unbuttoned to his navel and all that red hair blowing in the breeze.
Did I think we’d be happy? Did I think it could last?
I’m not sure I was thinking at all, honestly. I know Roddy wasn’t. It’s hard to think of much when you’re coked out of your mind every waking hour.
I’d known he enjoyed the occasional sniff recreationally. Everyone he hung around with did. What Ihadn’tknown was how finally having access to all that money would make Roddy decide that every single dollar of it should go straight up his goddamn nose.
Christ, it was irritating. A nonstop partysoundsall fine and good until you’re faced with the reality of it. The sweaty nights, the late mornings—afternoons, really—waking up with strange people still in the living room, the constant headache at the base of my skull from too little sleep and too much noise.
Now, you’re reading this and thinking, “Yes, that all sounds annoying, but surelythisone you could’ve divorced.”
That’s fair. I could have, yes. It would have been a hassle, and the money would’ve been a nightmare, but you’re right that I did nothaveto kill Roddy Kenmore.
I wanted to.
Why? I still wonder myself. I think there was a part of me that felt that after killing Andrew, it would be disloyal to let Roddy live. How could I kill the man I’d loved so much and then just divorce someone who hadn’t meant anything to me?
What can I say? It made sense at the time.
So. A midnight sail. My idea, whispered in Roddy’s ear at dinner on Avalon.
Wouldn’t it be nice, just the two of us?
For all his faults, Roddy really was a beautiful boy, and I can still remember the sleepy smile he’d given me there tucked into our red leather booth, the flickering votive on the table playing along his freckles.
Just the two of us and Captain Bart,he’d replied, and I’d looked over at the bar where the man who actually did the sailing on theRude Roddywas pushing his sun-bleached hair out of his face and attempting to buy a deeply uninterested brunette a drink.
We don’t need him,I’d purred in his ear.You can sail us around just a little bit, can’t you?
Oh, the arrogance of rich young men. It’s far more fatal than I’ve ever been, if you ask me.
So we left Captain Bart to his fruity drinks and his bored brunettes, and headed out into the night.
I didn’t expect it to be quite as easy as it was, but Roddy was, as usual, out of his mind on something or other. He was also possibly the most impatient person I’ve ever known, the kind of man who hated to sit still, so when the wind wouldn’tcooperate, he’d marched to the stern of the boat where the engine was.
I can still see him there, shirtless and wearing jeans with holes in them, his foot bare where he braced it against the side of the boat.
“Fucking piece of shit!” he yelled as he yanked at the pull start, the motor spluttering.
Worse last words than Duke’s, darling.
A push. That’s all it took.
I can still see it so clearly. The sky overhead spangled with stars, the water below black and murky, Roddy precariously balanced, and me in a Pucci caftan of all things, wedding rings glimmering as I placed my hands on his bare back and shoved.
He couldn’t swim, you see, despite wanting to sail theRude Roddyto Australia at some point in the near future. Or maybe Thailand? I can never remember. I never quite understood why someone who couldn’t swim took up sailing as a hobby, but then his father had sent him to some boarding school in Maine, so that may have had something to do with it.
An aside: I’m still irked about all that “Mrs. Kill-more” nonsense. I wouldn’t have even gotten the fucking nickname had I not married a man named Kenmore, and now his name and mine are linked forever by something even more binding and eternal than wedding vows—gossip.
Roddy is the one I thought I wouldn’t get away with, if I’m honest. It was hardly all that sneaky or subtle, my husband of two months drowning off the coast of Catalina Island and me, his new wife, the only other person on board. (This was in 1985, by the way, only a few years after that poor actress also found herself in those same dark waters, so Roddy’s name is often linked with hers. That Idoregret. No one deserves such a fate.)
(To be linked with Roddy for eternity, I should clarify. As has been previously implied, there are some people who I clearly believe deserve drowning, although she was not one of them.)
