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Years ago, in this same neighborhood, something happened that went unresolved. For years I’ve dwelled on that iniquity. I’ve thought about the rot that hides behind this pretty community’s walls, the ugly secrets people keep. It’s why I went into my particularcareer: To draw the truth from people. To tell things others are afraid to. To expose people for who they are, no matter how prominent they might be. Greg’s murder occurred in the very same town where, all those years ago, something else happened that changed—damaged—someone forever.
That someone is me.
14
LYNN
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2017
My husband and I don’t attend the reception for Greg Strasser. I’m curious about it—it seems like something interestingalwayshappens at funeral receptions—but Patrick reminds me that our kids have a soccer game today, and it’s the first time since the season started that both of us can attend. I can’t argue with him: Our family comes first.
The games take place on a large swath of ground in a sports complex that also houses an ice rink and a climbing wall. “Take her down, Amelia!” I scream to my nine-year-old daughter, who’s running toward a girl on the opposite team like a charging bull. I scan the field to my left: Connor, my six-year-old son, is a flash in yellow mesh. My kids are the best players out there. I used to be an excellent soccer player when I was young, and I taught them everything I know.
Marion Cummings unpacks the juice boxes I’ve brought for team snack. We might be new in town, but I’ve made sure to volunteer for parent duties in sports and school. It’s a little trick I picked up when I was a new mom in Maryland: It’s always the same group of four or five mothers showing up and signing up for everything, but because of that, they’re perceived as better, more selfless parents.When you’re perceived as better, you start tofeellike you’re better. It’s quite an empowering cycle, and I’ve found it’s worked for me like a charm in this new city. See, when my kids were really young, I felt I had no handle on anything. I envied the calm, graceful women who just breezed through motherhood. In high school, college, my twenties,Iwas always the one people looked up to. Patrick announcing the move was a boon, actually, because here, I get to start over. And here, I’m nailing motherhood... nailing life, really.
“What was the service like?” Marion asks.
I look up. Patrick and I stopped home to change into more comfortable clothes, but all the other parents seem to sense that we’ve just come from the funeral regardless.
“Well, I don’t want to criticize, but...” I chew on my lip. “They showed these inappropriate photos from the guy’s family vacation during the pastor’s eulogy. His daughters were practically naked. I had to cover my kids’ eyes.” I hated bringing my kids at all, but our nanny wasn’t available on such short notice.
“Aren’t you freaked-out?”
Marion is looking at me with such intensity that my skin starts to crawl. “Freaked?” I finally say, my voice a note or two higher than normal.
Marion rips open a Costco box of mini pretzel pouches with her stubby nails. “I’m considering moving us all into Gil’s parents’ house in the city until the murderer is caught.”
Ah yes. The murderer. I raise my eyebrows, feeling a tug in my chest—because, after all, itisterrifying. “Well, we have a security system. And I’m not letting my kids out of the house for asecondwithout Patrick or me watching.”
“Or maybe the wife did it?” Marion moves closer, an excited expression on her face. She, like the rest of us, is taking advantage of the warm weather and has her mom-hoodie tied around her waist. She really should do something about those “bingo wings,” as my mother used to call flabby arms. “Someone told me she was actingverydrunk at that party. Then again, if my husband did that to me, I’d get wasted, too.”
Your husbandshoulddo that to you, considering you’re only having sex with him once a year,I think. That was a little gem I read about Marion in the hack e-mails. Lucky for me, her husband is an Aldrich employee, and it’s all there.
I plop the last juice box into the cooler. “I haven’t really kept up with the news.”
This is a lie. I’ve read every story about Greg’s murder that’s been reported in the local news. Even a few bigger affiliates have picked it up because of the hack ties. I’ve stared at the surveillance image showing Kit’s car leaving the benefit. I’ve speculated the math. Based on the severity of Greg’s wound and the time of his death, the coroner placed the time of his stabbing at between 11:00 and 11:15. Kit left the lot at 11:06. If she drove fast, shecouldhave gotten home quickly enough to kill him...
Marion drops the empty pretzel box beside the trash bin because it’s too large to place it in the bin itself. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about putting together a community watch program until they catch the killer. Do you think Patrick would be willing to take a shift?”
“Absolutely.” My husband is just coming back from the bathroom. I loop my arm around his waist.
“Huh?” Patrick jolts up. “What’s that?”
“I said you’d take a shift during community watch,” I repeat.
Patrick squints. “Communitywatch?”
“Of course he’ll do it,” I tell Marion cheerfully. And then I turn back to Patrick. “There’s a murderer on the loose. We need to keep our children safe.”
Patrick looks like he wants to protest, but then says, resignedly, “Okay. Sign me up.”
We turn back to the game. I glance to my left to make sure Marion isn’t paying attention, then whisper, “You were in the bathroom for twenty-five minutes.”
He looks startled. “It was more like five.”
I make a harrumph noise that says I know otherwise, but it’s as if Patrick has no idea what I mean. Does he really not see how bizarrely he’s behaving? At the funeral, he kept swiveling around, looking at people, though when I asked whom he was searching for, he didn’t give me an answer. And then there’s the night of the benefit. It was strange enough that he left abruptly only an hour into the thing. I stayed for a few more hours, fulfilling all my work responsibilities; when I got home, the house was dark, so I’d figured Patrick had gone to bed. But then I noticed his car wasn’t in the driveway. Or in the garage.
I let myself in. Patrick’s suit jacket was slung over one of the counter stools in the kitchen, which means he’d at least stopped at home. I tried his cell phone, but it rang inside his jacket pocket. I found it and unlocked the screen—I’d figured out Patrick’s password long ago. There were no illicit texts. No indication of what he was up to.
