by E. G. Scott
I make it about halfway around before I see something. One of the metal hooks meant to secure the cover is undone. I crouch down to try to lift the taut material to shine my flashlight into the pool. It is too tight, so I unhook the next three fixtures, which make up the rounded corner of the cover. With the metal railings above and stairs into the pool below, I think I can leverage an entry point. It is a bit of a struggle to unmoor the hooks, and I hold on to one of the railings while I work to avoid inadvertently pitching myself into the tepid water I don’t actually expect is waiting below.
With the fourth hook undone, I can peel back enough of the cover to shine light into the pool. The stairs and the space surrounding are completely dry. The pool has been drained. I step down into darkness in a crabwalk and have to crouch once I reach the bottom step because it is too shallow to stand where the cover is still firmly in place. I move to hands and knees and feel a momentary coziness in the dark enclosure. I move the light against the far end and see that as the pool deepens, the space is filled with a large mass. I’m too far to make out what exactly I’m moving toward, so I half crawl to the midpoint of the pool, where I’m able to stand without having to crouch too much. By the time I reach the six-foot mark, I identify two stacks of Rubbermaid tubs and I’m able to stand completely. My heart is racing so hard and my hands are shaking, the light bouncing around like a strobe. I steady it enough on the tub closest to where I’m standing to unlatch either side easily. When I lift the lid, I nearly swoon.
Stacked in beautiful piles before me are five-hundred-tablet bottles of every painkiller I could imagine, and some I didn’t even know to imagine. I wish I’d brought a bigger purse as I jam as many of the giant bottles into my bag as possible and then crack one of the seals on another bottle and pour as many loose pills into my hands and fill one of my dress pockets. I open another tub and find box after box of liquid morphine and meperidine. The tub after that is a treasure chest of antianxiety-laden jewels. I have to get through two more tubs before I find what I’m looking for. I’m not surprised Mark has put this all the way in the back. Given the potency and body count from the trials, it’s amazing that he’s still holding on to the stuff. But I knew he would. He’s probably banking on the fact that someone will eventually figure out how to dilute it enough to sell it without every dose being fatal. For my purposes, it is exactly the right strength and form.
I take one tube and wrap it in a piece of paper from my purse. I slide it carefully into the loose pocket of my dress as though it were a grenade. I won’t need more than a fraction of that, and once I use it I will have to figure out how to dispose of the remaining cream in a way that no one could ever accidentally come upon it. I close the tubs and stack them the way I found them, although I wonder if Mark will ever be back to claim his buried treasure.
As I shimmy back into the shallow end and up the stairs, I hear cars approaching. I can’t tell if they are aimed at the driveway or just passing, but I don’t waste time trying to refasten the pool cover and instead run as fast as I can back in the direction of my car, weighed down by the many pounds of life and death in my pockets.
fifty-one
SILVESTRI
“YOU’RE KILLING ME, GUYS.” I’m giving a pep talk to the team of cops currently sledgehammering the walls of Mark Anders’s pool house. “We’re not in a museum. Put a little elbow grease into it. And remember, in addition to the drugs, we’re looking for a .22-caliber firearm.”
A uniform leans over the railing of the loft space above us. “Nothing up here, Detectives.” We’ve been at it all morning, and the collective enthusiasm is ebbing. We’re standing inside a pile of rubble with no more answers than we walked in with.
Wolcott has that faraway look in his eye. He visually scans the remnants of the walls, the ceiling, and the floors. He absently nudges the rolled-up carpet with his shoe as he takes the walkie-talkie from his belt and calls over to the main house. “Anything cooking in there?” The radio crackles back. “We got nothing.” My partner’s nostrils flare as he frowns at the floor.
* * *
WOLCOTT AND I STAND on Anders’s back deck. The satisfying sounds of destruction from inside the house have wrapped up, giving way to frustrated confusion. The uniforms are milling around aimlessly.
“At this point,” says my partner, “I’d take the drug stash or the ballistics match on Sasha’s murder weapon. Either one’s a slam dunk.”
“Well, we know Mark Anders has a Bersa .22 registered in his name. What are the odds it’s not his gun that did her?”
“Circumstantial.” He shrugs.
“This shit’s gotta be right under our noses,” I say. “This guy ain’t that clever.”
Wolcott wrinkles his nose and looks in the direction of the swimming pool. “Wait a second. Why is the pool cover on in the middle of summer? And if the pool’s closed, why are there fresh chlorine burns on the grass?”
We exchange looks and cross the lawn.
As we near the pool, I notice that the hooks on one corner of the cover are undone. I crouch down and peel back the corner, revealing a drained enclosure. “Well, this is a waste of a recreational opportunity.” I begin to unhook the rest of the cover running down the side of the pool as my partner attends to the hooks along the shallow end. He finishes with the hooks and descends the stairs. I chuckle as Wolcott’s moving head causes the pool cover to ripple, as if a sea monster is lurking beneath. Halfway along the length of the pool, I watch his head stop in place, then double back. He ascends the stairs, walks over to me, and leans down. He places his hand on my shoulder and smiles heartily.
“You want some good news, partner?”
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” I ask.
“DEA gets to give us a hand with the paperwork now. This case is about to go federal.”
fifty-two
SHEILA
WHEN YOU KNOW, you know.
Daniel was the love of my life. He was my person, my best friend, my missing piece. This I knew as soon as I met him. He was also a lying cheater and apparently a fucking sociopath. This I didn’t find out until much later.
We were three weeks from our wedding. Everything was bought and paid for. Our registry had been pillaged; many pounds of fat and tears had been shed. We were absurdly close to being married. Nothing was going to get in the way of that.
I’d just gotten a makeup and hair trial for the big day and was walking to my car with a full face of eyeliner, mascara, and blush, and an armful of wedding dress, when the text came in from a college friend.
I thought you should see this. Sorry.
In my hand was a screenshot of my fiancé’s Tinder profile, active within the last hour. There was no mistaking him. He had a very particular scar on his forehead from meeting the wrong end of a tree branch skiing as a teenager. Like most things in life, something that would have otherwise been disfiguring made him more attractive and desirable. He was a bastard like that.
I’m not entirely sure how long I stood in the middle of the intersection reading his profile, but it was long enough to miss my plastic-wrapped dress blowing in the street and the honking cars speeding around me when the light turned.
Headline: “Looking for adventurous sexy fun and zero crazy.”
His likes: I was aware of all of them.
His dislikes: Even more aware.
Relationship preference: “Unethically Polyamorous.” This was news.
The full face of makeup and coiffed hair are important because the woman who pulled me out of the intersection responded to my desperate plea of “What do I do?” with a compact mirror and a pack of Kleenex. “At least your hair looks good, honey.” When I inspected myself, I saw a grotesque mess of black mascara streaks bleeding into crimson cheeks and seemingly bloody lips. I was the saddest, scariest bridal clown ever to cry over a man.
I gathered my dress from the asphalt,
washed my three-hundred-dollar face, and didn’t cancel the wedding.
* * *
I WOULD DESCRIBE myself as passionate and focused. The medical professionals throughout my life would describe me as obsessive-impulsive. But I’m generally cautious of people who give advice for a living.
I was a widow at thirty. I inherited all of Daniel’s money once his death was ruled an accident. Since we were only a week into our marriage when he drowned, his family and his friends were outraged. Daniel had never been forthcoming about how profitable his company really was, so that was never a motive for me, just an unexpected bonus. It was one of a number of major aspects of his life he hadn’t been honest about.
I had the means to do basically whatever I wanted, but no idea what to do with myself. I’d joined Tinder leading up to our wedding to try to hook Daniel and keep tabs on him. Funny, I checked all of his boxes in my fake profile, but we never matched. Instead of deleting my profile, I deleted him. After the honeymoon and the autopsy, I started swiping.
Enter Mark Anders.
He was on a business trip in Palm Springs and was looking for some company while he was in town. We had an amazing sex-fueled week together. He referred to me as his “dream woman” more than once. He boasted about his perfect house and utopian town on the East Coast.
We texted for a few weeks after he left and I was infatuated. I learned everything I could about lovely Stony Brook, Long Island, and rented myself a house by the beach without leaving my desk chair. I was going to surprise Mark with the gift of me.
When his wife opened the door, I only got to see the inside of his perfect house for a moment before I realized my mistake. His subsequent text was not open to interpretation.
Stay the fuck away from me, you crazy bitch.
* * *
I HADN’T REALLY LOVED MARK, so the sting of that rejection didn’t last long. But the first six months in Stony Brook were lonely. All I had was my daily routine, which I modeled after Sasha’s. Since Mark didn’t want me, I decided to observe how the only other person I knew in town was spending her time. Lotus Pedal, spa treatments, happy hours, shopping, repeat.
To blend in, I changed my look to be less West Coast and to mitigate the chances of Sasha recognizing me as the random woman who’d shown up on her doorstep months earlier. I liked being chameleonic and fully embraced my new style. I traded out my boho clothes and naturally wavy waist-length hair for athleisure wear and a sleek shoulder-length keratin-straightened cut. And then I met Paul.
Everything about my new life improved when I met him. I forced fate’s hand a little on that one, but only after it brought us together in a restaurant the same week I’d heard Rebecca complaining about him. From my usual corner of the bar, I saw them sitting at a table, barely talking. There was something about him. I just knew he was the reason I’d moved east.
I went out and adopted a dog the next day and began a new daily routine.
* * *
I DIDN’T INTENTIONALLY keep Daniel’s death from Paul for as long as I did or purposely mislead him. I hadn’t been able to take my wedding rings off yet. When we spoke for the first time, I sensed his relief in thinking I was married, so I didn’t correct him.
I’d planned on telling him my story when the time was right. But the longer I’d gone acting like Daniel was alive, the harder it became to explain my behavior. I’d gone as far as to put some of his clothes in the closet and leave his watch and cuff links on the dresser, knowing Paul would see them when he came over. It was morbid, I guess. But I was committed to his comfort.
We had an amazing year together. My love for him was much deeper than what I had with Daniel. I felt him falling in love with me as much as I was with him. I could see that he was growing unhappier in his marriage and pensive about how to end things with Rebecca. I didn’t push him to talk about his feelings and I waited to tell him my story. I figured the longer we were together, the more forgiving he’d become. I saw him whenever I could and pedaled beside her every day, hating her silently. I knew he needed to plan how he was going to get away from her, and I would be patient and not try to manipulate the situation.
Paul dumping me was a heartbreaking curveball, but I held out hope that he was just confused and would make the decision I knew he really wanted to make, eventually. I decided to be an adult and not act too hastily in doing something I might regret.
But then they killed me, and the fear of regret was replaced with the force of revenge.
fifty-three
PAUL
WITH THE HEAT of summer ebbing, Dana and I sit on her back porch enjoying the setting sun. She looks at me tenderly. “Paul, I really want to thank you.”
“For what?”
“All of your help selling the house. It’s a big part of a whole new start for us.”
“It was nothing.”
“I just really appreciate it.” She cups her hands and shakes her head gently. “You’re a good man, Paul Campbell.”
“Dana, stop. I should be thanking you. I hope you know what these last months have meant to me. To have my life back again. I just . . .” I feel my throat catch.
“I know. I know.”
“Thank you.”
“You never have to thank me.”
We sit in silence for a long while, looking out over the fence at the pastel-hued sky. I turn to her, and she returns my smile.
“So,” she asks, “the house is almost ready?”
I can feel my cheeks burning. “Yeah, just putting the finishing touches on. Nearly there.”
“Oh, Paul.” She beams.
“It’s amazing, just seeing this thing that I’ve built for us with my own two hands. Watching it come into being, day by day. I’m really thrilled.”
“Well, I can’t wait to see it.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be perfect.”
“So, when are you going to tell Rebecca?”
I peer at the line of clouds lit underneath by the escaping sun. I inhale deeply and catch a whiff of burning charcoal from a neighboring grill mingling with the scents from the flower beds next to us. I smile at Dana. “Oh, don’t worry,” I assure her. “I’ve got that part all figured out.”
“Oh, Paul! I almost forgot. Thank you so much for the beautiful necklace.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her.
She smiles at me conspiratorially as she shakes her head. “Of course you don’t.”
fifty-four
WOLCOTT
I’M SITTING IN the deli parking lot lost in thought when Silvestri piles into the cruiser with a grocery bag packed to the gills. It looks to contain enough chow to feed a modestly sized island nation.
“Have you named him yet?” I ask.
“Who’s that?”
“Your tapeworm.”
“That’s a hoot, pal. You been hitting the Tuesday night open mic at the coffee shop with that gold?”
“Seriously, are we getting lunch for the entire station house?”
My partner shakes his head and chuckles. “Fuckin’ Sal, man. He made our sandwiches and then just kept stuffing extra shit in the bag. ‘For you two heroes, on the house!’ he says. Oh, and he wanted me to give you his best. We may not have gotten the collar, but it’s starting to look like we’ll never pay for lunch in this town again.”
“Yeah, Abby told me she was down at McNamara’s picking up a prescription from everyone’s favorite pharmacist, and he was actually cordial. I was amazed.”
“Hey, these guys have kids, and businesses,” says Silvestri. “Getting a guy like Anders out of circulation helps make the town a safer place. And with the number of manslaughter and negligent homicide charges that the feds are gonna bang him with for the fentanyl, the guy’ll never see the outside of a cell again. Doesn’t even matter we haven’t turned up the piece.”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, glad we nabbed him,” I say. “But it’s bigger than just Anders. They hit a stash house over in Riverhead the other day and grabbed up a boatload of the stuff.”
“Flowing down-island, eh?”
“That’s right. I’m afraid this shit is here to stay, partner.”
“I hear you. But you’ve gotta start somewhere.”
“I suppose you do,” I say.
“Plus, it’ll keep the two of us out of trouble. ‘Idle hands’ and all.”
“Idle hands.” I snicker.
We dig our sandwiches out from the bounty of chips and baked goods, place them in our laps, and begin unwrapping the deli paper. We eat lunch to the sounds of passing cars and the occasional crackle of the scanner.
fifty-five
SHEILA
WHEN SASHA TOOK my place in the plastic coil, I took her place outside of it.
Given the amount of cash on her, it seemed like she was planning to skip town at any moment. All signs indicated that she wanted out of her life with Mark as much as I had once wanted in. I’d done her a favor spiriting her away. But it wasn’t her death I was really interested in. It was Paul’s and Rebecca’s.
Using cash and easily passable documents ordered online and shipped to a PO box, I rented a small apartment a few towns over under my new alias and found someone on Craigslist looking to unload a car, sans paperwork. I was tempted to cruise around in Sasha’s Jag but thought better of it and stashed it in a parking lot at the mall under a cover. I knew they would find it eventually, but I also knew it would take a while.
I only allowed myself the basics to live on. It felt good to live unburdened by stuff. If I needed anything, I could take it from Sasha or Rebecca.
