by E. G. Scott
“I know. But this isn’t a mistake. Just hear me out, okay?”
She sighs. “Go on.”
“Unless we’ve both completely lost our shit, it was Sheila who was in our bedroom that night, correct?”
Her eyes dart to the side, then back to mine. She lets a nervous laugh sneak out. “I could have sworn it was.”
“Right. I left here that night and stashed her body myself.”
Rebecca bolts upright. “Wait, stashed her body?”
“The ground was frozen when I tried to bury her. I had to stash the body and wait until it thawed before I could put her in the ground.”
My wife has crossed over into full-on panic mode. “Paul, you left her fucking body out for—”
“Madoo, I had no—”
“Don’t you ‘Madoo’ me! You left the body of a woman that we . . . Oh God.” She folds forward and dry heaves.
I take her by the elbows and prop her back up. “Rebecca, look at me.” She eyes me defiantly, her stare boring a hole into mine. “Baby, breathe.” She takes a deep breath. Then another. “You okay?” She narrows her eyes, then nods. “Okay, listen to me. I was very careful. I put her where no one would find her, then went back as soon as I could and buried her.” I catch my tone and realize I’m talking to her as if she were a small child.
Her eyes narrow again, but this time her tone is much calmer. “Paul, I’d feel much better about the situation if she were still buried.”
It’s my turn to feel like the stupid kid, but I power through it. “I know. But here’s where we’re in good shape.” She looks at me, daring me to make that last sentence make sense. I desperately hope I’m about to. “That body was rotting away in the ground for long enough that they couldn’t tell who they dug up, so when they couldn’t get an ID, they realized that they’d hit a dead end. They had two missing women, the story was all over the news, so they had to make it look as if they’d solved the case. They must have figured they had stronger motive and a weaker alibi with Mark, so they ran in that direction.”
“But you said there was a gunshot wound?”
“They’re fabricating details, to make the story more dramatic.”
Rebecca looks away, and I can see her adding things up in her head. Her body seems to relax. “Okay.”
“Think about it; when the cops spoke with us, we both painted a picture of a fraught marriage between Mark and Sasha, with money issues and all. They kept asking us questions and digging around deeper. But when they brought me in for questioning, they referred to Sheila as kind of a loner and someone who went unnoticed. The kind of person without roots, with a suspicious past, who might just up and skip town.”
My wife has shifted her body toward mine. She listens intently. “Yeah, okay.”
“So, you see, you and I both know that I buried one woman, but the police managed to dig up another. Because Sasha is a much more likely—and compelling—story. There’s money, there’s motive, there’s a villain. I mean, babe. With all these stories in the news about prescription abuse and ODs and junkie crime, who better to pin things on than a Big Pharma bigwig? Think of all the papers that that version will sell.”
Rebecca looks at me, and I’m brought back to that morning in bed, just before those idiot detectives showed up. The last moment we felt safe. She has a look in her eyes that tells me she’s back to believing that we’re going to get away with this. She grabs the back of my head, kisses me hard, and rolls over. Her shoulders relax, and I think she might be able to find her way back to sleep again.
As I lie in bed, a profound sense of relief takes over my body and I find myself regretting that I can’t share this part of my life with Dana. I’ve opened up to her so fully, bared the contents of my being so completely, been so utterly naked and vulnerable around her, that it seems a shame that I have to disguise this aspect of my life. But, of course, this is how it has to be, for both our sakes.
I roll onto my back and close my eyes. The image of the house in Cold Spring Harbor appears before me. I can see the rest of it taking shape, and the end product looks exactly as I’ve been envisioning it. The details pop. I can see two pairs of slippers sitting on the cherry floors, next to the fireplace. I can feel the crisp autumn breeze as it blows through the open window, rustling the curtains. I can smell the scent of geraniums riding in on the breeze. It’s perfect. And it will soon be ours.
forty-two
REBECCA
THE FACT THAT MARK has stopped leaving his house altogether has posed a major problem with getting inside. After driving by his house every day for a week and seeing no signs of his car moving from its spot in the driveway, I’ve become desperate. I’ve decided to try a different approach and pay him a condolence visit.
He looks like death when he opens the door. “Rebecca?” My name falls out of his slack mouth as part question, part plea. I can see that he’s in terrible shape on every level. His sour alcohol breath smacks me hard. He’s got a full beard and a life’s worth of bad news hanging in his eyes.
“Mark. How are you?” I try not to overdo it with my forced concern. I feel awkward and weak standing at his doorway with the increasingly heavy condolence basket in my arms. I regret opting for the substantially heavier wine-and-bourbon variety over fruit and flowers.
“Come . . .” He doesn’t finish his thought before turning inside, leaving the door ajar and the terry-cloth belt on his ratty robe sadly trailing behind him as he disappears somewhere into the dark house. Like him, the robe has seen better days. This may be easier than I thought.
I’ve always wondered what the enormous Federal held within. My invitations to Sasha’s annual pool party had apparently gotten lost in the mail over the years, and even when we’d started communicating at the studio, there were no mentions.
The grand foyer is so extremely on brand with Mark and Sasha’s unabashed wealth, I have to staunch a gasp and the urge to snap a picture. The marble floor, twenty-foot-high ceilings, and gold-accented double staircase feel more like the mouth of an opera house than a residence. I place the basket next to a sad pile of wilted flower arrangements and restaurant takeaway bags, no doubt containing hot meals in various stages of spoilage.
I venture into the house in the direction of Mark’s path, guided by the sounds of televised debate. He barely looks up when I enter the living room, which is roughly the size of our entire house. He is sitting on one end of a white horseshoe-shaped couch that could comfortably seat twenty. He shakes the ice-filled glass in his hand in a gesture that I can’t determine is an offer or a request. I take the tumbler and tip a generous pour of Lagavulin single malt from the drink cart immediately next to him. I don’t make myself one, knowing clarity is more vital than self-medication right now, no matter how rough the edges feel. I am three hours into withdrawal and declining rapidly. Sitting on the couch next to Mark with mixed motives is officially my new bottom, but my depleted store had made my choice for me.
“Rebecca. How have you been?” The absurd nicety hangs between us. I’m obviously not going to share that I’ve been cycling at a regular rate from strung-out to homicidal. I can’t possibly admit that I’m so deep into my drug dependency that I’ve quite literally lost track of time, space, and supply. That when I went to bed last night, I had half a bottle of Percocets—a miraculous find in one of my hiding places that I swore was pill-less in a tweaked-out search—that was completely empty this morning. I can’t even level how “I’ve been” with myself.
Instead I put my hand on top of his free one and pat it. He doesn’t move or appear to register the contact. The feel of his hand under mine draws a surprising wave of tenderness toward him. The feeling is fleeting and my contempt for him returns squarely to the front of the line.
“Mark, I’m so, so sorry about Sasha. I wanted to come over sooner, but I . . . I don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I didn’t know what to say. I guess
I just can’t quite believe she’s dead.” This last bit is the only truthful crumb in the lot.
He doesn’t say anything, and the talking heads on Fox News fill the silence with unbelievable news that feels so far outside of the life I’ve found myself in, I don’t even register the words. Mark takes a long draw from the crystal tumbler and clears his throat.
“She’s been dead for a long time, you know. But they won’t let me bury her yet. Not until they get everything they need for the investigation. I never knew how long autopsies actually take. You never see that on TV.”
He appears to be on substances other than scotch.
“I didn’t realize how much I depended on her, Rebecca. I didn’t really know how much she did for me until she was gone. I know I wasn’t a perfect husband, but I did love her. I needed her.”
“I know you loved her very much. She was a special woman.” My lies continue.
He snorts and sits back, regarding me with a head-to-toe once-over, his gaze lingering on my breasts. “Please, Rebecca. You are so full of shit your eyes are brown. Sasha was a raging bitch who thought you were a wannabe, if she thought about you at all.”
His sharp words come out in an impact-softening slur, and I can tell that he doesn’t really expect a response. He’s looking out the window now. I see an enormous in-ground pool and a fire pit and what looks to be a crematorium before I realize it is a grill. He appears to be engrossed in the beautiful spread before him, but I suspect he’s folded himself deep into his own head, far away from where we are sitting.
I scan the room around me for any signs of the information and/or substances I’m after. The surroundings are free of pill bottles or photographic evidence of Sasha’s exhumed body. The latter I know is illogical, but I expected the former to be as present and likely as the bottles of booze within arm’s reach.
My surveying stops short when I see a gun sitting on top of a pile of unopened mail like a deadly paperweight. Mark owning a gun doesn’t shock or surprise me, but leaving it out so casually and carelessly makes me worry about his mental state.
I look from the Glock to Mark and back to the dark metal and feel a pulse of genuine concern for the guy. I picture him sitting in the dark in his misery and filth, with the constant stream of badness in the world playing on a loop in surround sound, with a drink cart, a loaded gun, and a dead wife. There is no doubt in my mind that this is very much a man whose wife is dead.
“Mark, are you doing okay? Do you have anyone looking in on you? Do you need anything?”
He raises his eyebrows and moves his gaze to my breasts again, and then down my body approvingly.
“Unemployment suits you, Rebecca.” Before I can fully reconcile how much I’m willing to degrade myself for what I need, his eyes move back in the direction of Hannity and a bleached-blond pundit in a low-cut crimson dress and matching Restylane lips. He speaks without returning his gaze to me.
“You know, Rebecca, when the news about Sasha came out, not one of those ass-kissing bitches she kept on retainer reached out. Neither did their boring husbands who I pretended to like and shared my good scotch and my eighty-two-incher with.”
It takes me a second to realize he’s referring to his flat-screen.
“Her family is barely speaking to me. And everyone at work has been radio silent. I’ve gotten a whole lot of flower arrangements and lasagnas, but not much in the way of actual human outreach. So, to answer your question, aside from our housekeeper, and the two jerk-off detectives investigating Sasha’s murder, you are the only one ‘looking in on me.’ Funny that.”
The iciness of his monotone is deeply unsettling. Mark has never been the warm-and-fuzzy kind, but all evidence of the playfulness and teasing that kept his sarcasm from being outright meanness is absent.
“Mark . . . I’m really sorry. I should have come over sooner. Or at least called.”
“You were one of the last people I expected to hear from. I wouldn’t have blamed you either. I fired your ass, or made you quit, I guess. I figured you hated me. To be honest, Rebecca, I didn’t give a shit if I ever saw you again. You always caused more problems than profit.
“But the funny part of it is, the thing I need the most right now is something you can actually give me.
“The cops think that Sasha was murdered on Thursday, March fifteenth. They haven’t made it public, but they are pretty confident about that date. The night in question is one that I was alone. If it had been a few nights earlier or later, I would have had some alibis that wouldn’t have won me any husband-of-the-year awards but would have provided one or two female companions who could have put me somewhere other than alone in my house, unknowing that someone was snatching my wife between spin class and happy hour and shooting her. I happened to look back at my texts from that evening to confirm, and wouldn’t you know it, you reached out that evening for a bit of the good stuff. I’m willing to bet that you were alone and in the neighborhood that night. I didn’t respond to your text because I was having a solo party that evening and wasn’t feeling that generous or in need of company.”
I try to compute the developing leverage ahead of what I know he’s going to ask. The raging itch for a hit of something doesn’t help matters, or any confidence in negotiation power I might otherwise have. A cold sweat breaks and I feel the prevomit bile hit the back of my throat. I see Mark looking at my shaking hands. I clasp them to regain steadiness.
“Mark, can I use the bathroom? I’m not feeling so well.”
“Careful, Rebecca. Your habit is showing.” A smug, pursed smile settles on his lips. He gestures toward a door in the opposite direction from where I entered and resumes his drink and glazed news viewing without missing a beat.
I take off in the direction of the bathroom and barely make it in the doorway before I lose my stomach’s contents into the bidet, a space of inches closer to the door than the toilet opposite it. When I compose myself and rinse with a swig of Listerine from under the sink, I let the faucet run on full blast to mask any sounds of the medicine cabinet reconnaissance I’ve been planning since I discovered my empty stash this morning.
There’s nothing stronger than Advil, and I shut the cabinet, frustrated and nauseous again. I take a deep breath and smooth my shirt, procrastinating about what I know I need to agree to.
Mark is standing in the hallway inches away from me when I unlock and open the bathroom door. He’s got a familiar orange bottle in hand and he shakes it like a rattle. My saliva glands flood and my heart races.
“Looking for these?” He looks haughty in his grimy pajama pants and stretched undershirt and robe.
My arm is outstretched before the thought to reach fully processes.
“Not so fast, honey.” He takes my hand in his, not gently either.
“Okay, Mark.”
“Okay, Mark, what?”
“Okay, I’ll be your alibi. I’ll tell the detectives we had to work late. I’ll tell them I came over to go over a marketing presentation and ended up drinking too much and needed to sleep on your couch. Paul was working late that night, I’m sure. I’ll think of something to tell him if I need to.” As I say this, I can’t remember if he was, but I pray. “I’ll show them the text I sent you asking if you were home.” I don’t have to search my texts to know I absolutely hit him up that night.
He doesn’t break eye contact as he uncaps the bottle and pours five hydrocodones into my hand. They are the good kind, the 750-milligram dosage. Before I can protest that the drugs in my hand are nowhere near fair compensation for a fabricated alibi, he places the index finger of his free hand on my lips.
“These will get you back to functioning enough to convince Columbo and Kojak that you were with me the night Sasha was killed. Once you do that, I’ll set you up to cure what ails you for a good long while.”
He knows the checkmate is his. I don’t fight the defeat. My mind
is on one thing and one sweet thing only. I’m nodding as I take one of the pills in my sweating hand and swallow it dry. I put the balance of the meds in a Kleenex and wrap them tight before pushing them into the pocket of my jeans.
I don’t say anything to Mark as I brush past him and toward the grand foyer and out the front door. I also don’t realize until I’m a few paces from my car that Mark hasn’t once said that he didn’t actually kill Sasha.
forty-three
SHEILA
SOMETIMES THE PEOPLE who become most important in our lives show up in the least significant ways. Paul came into my life by way of an overheard conversation while I was on line for the shower, sweaty and half-naked.
The postclass Lotus Pedal locker room was teeming with red-faced women in various states of undress. Rebecca was two people ahead of me. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know her as Rebecca; I knew her as the hard face and body who spun next to me in the dark countless times and never returned my smile or acknowledgment. Just another rich bitch.
She was talking quietly to a woman with frizzy carrot-colored hair who I’d seen around the studio a couple of times. I didn’t think they were even friends, mostly because Rebecca didn’t give the impression that she was a woman who had female friends. The two spoke to each other in the way that people who feel obligated to talk to each other do. Overly friendly to conceal a general lack of enthusiasm over the interaction.
“Rebecca! I forgot you came to this studio! It is really too far from my house, but when I heard that Chad B. was teaching, I had to book!” And conspiratorially: “And my derm is here and is so worth the drive for his magical syringe.”
The redhead was shrill in her too-small towel, her breast implants disproportionate to her otherwise petite build.
Rebecca looked trapped. She kissed her on the cheek quickly. “Erin, so nice to see you. How’s the new house? How’s Wes?”
