by Shari Lapena
But what he can’t understand is how she was able to come home that night and climb into bed beside him and whisper, “Everything’s fine,” before kissing him on the cheek and going to sleep.
30
Early the next morning, Thursday, Reyes sits back in his chair, deep in thought. It’s two days since the bodies were discovered. He taps his pen against the blotter on his desk. There’s no sign of the Mertons’ credit cards being used, no attempts to take money out at ATMs. No sign of the stolen jewelry or silver anywhere. Overkill on Fred’s death. A very careful killer—no shoes, for Christ’s sake. Somehow he doesn’t think it was a simple home invasion. And they’re no further ahead on that mystery truck. They’re still going through the auto body paint shops in an attempt to track it down.
What they do know is that Dan Merton and Catherine Merton lied about their alibis.
Reyes calls Dan Merton in for a formal interview. This time he brings his attorney. The two of them show up at ten a.m., and Merton is in a suit. Reyes wonders if his lawyer advised him on what to wear. Is he expecting to be arrested? Dan is looking unrested and unwell.
After being cautioned, and after formal introductions for the tape, they begin. Reyes says, “We have a witness who swears he saw you go out in your car the night of the murders at around ten o’clock, and another who says she saw you come home later, around one in the morning.” Reyes sees the attorney give his client a sharp glance.
Dan looks even more ill and closes his eyes.
“Maybe we could have a minute?” the attorney says.
“Sure.” Reyes turns off the tape and he and Barr leave the room and walk down the corridor to wait. When the attorney signals for them to return and they resume the interview, Reyes asks, “Is there something you want to tell us, Dan?”
Dan takes a deep, shaky breath and says, “I went out for a drive. I had a lot on my mind and driving helps me clear my head. I often go for a drive at night.”
“Three hours is quite a long drive. Where did you go?”
“I don’t know, nowhere special. I can’t remember.”
Reyes raises his eyebrows at him in disbelief. “You didn’t go back to Brecken Hill to see your parents?”
“No. I went nowhere near their place. I wasn’t in Brecken Hill.” There’s a vein pulsing visibly under the pale skin of his temple.
“Why did you lie to us, Dan?”
“I didn’t want to be a suspect,” he says tightly.
“Did you ask your father for money, perhaps, at Easter dinner?”
Dan gives Reyes a vicious glance.
The attorney interjects. “I think that’s it for questions for now.” Dan looks like he’s crumpling inside his suit. “Unless you’ve got something else?” Klein asks, turning to Reyes. “Some kind of direct physical evidence, for instance?” Reyes shakes his head. “Let’s go,” the attorney says and leads his client out.
After they’ve gone, Barr says, “If he did it, even if he’s managed to dispose of all his bloodied clothes somewhere, there might still be traces of his father’s blood somewhere in his car, no matter how well he thinks he’s cleaned it.”
Reyes nods and says, “We’ll get a search warrant.” He exhales heavily. “We need to find those bloody clothes. In the meantime, let’s have another chat with Catherine Merton.”
* * *
• • •
hungry for information, Audrey shows up at the police station again. This morning, there’s a media presence as well, waiting around patiently by the front doors. Audrey decides that this time she’ll get out of her car. She blends in with the reporters and cameramen and waits to see what will happen.
She’s soon rewarded by Dan coming out the glass doors with a tall man in a good suit—she realizes he must be an attorney. The media swarm in and pepper the two of them with unwelcome questions, as the lawyer tries to fend them off. Audrey is glad she made the effort. She hopes they’re really putting the screws to him. She tries to catch Dan’s expression, but he’s got his head down and his hands up to his face as he scurries away with his protective lawyer.
A short time later, Audrey’s patience is rewarded again when she sees Catherine arrive with a woman in a suit, carrying a briefcase. They run the gauntlet of reporters, trying their best to ignore them. Things are getting serious, Audrey thinks. She’s beginning to enjoy herself.
* * *
• • •
catherine merton looks much different today than she did the day before, Reyes notes. She’s had to pass through the media scrum to get in here, and perhaps it’s put her off her game. She doesn’t appear to have slept much, and although she’s taken pains with her outfit and her makeup, her fatigue still shows. She’s brought an attorney with her.
Once he’s cautioned her and the tape is running, Reyes says, “Ms. Merton, you told us yesterday that you were home all night on Easter Sunday, after you got home from your parents’.” She doesn’t say anything, but she looks as if she’s prepared for the worst. “We have video of you in your car leaving your driveway at eleven oh nine that evening and returning at twelve forty-one in the morning. One of your neighbors has a security camera.” Reyes asks, “Where did you go?”
She takes a deep breath and glances at her attorney, who gives her a slight nod. “I went to my parents’. When we were there for dinner, my mother told me there was something important she wanted to talk to me about, but we were interrupted. I never got a chance to talk to her about it and I was worried about what it might be. So I called her cell shortly after eleven, but there was no answer.”
“Yes, we know,” Reyes says. “We have your parents’ phone records.” He asks, “Why didn’t you try the landline?”
She hesitates briefly. “I thought my dad might already be asleep and I didn’t want to wake him.” She continues. “So I drove over—it’s not far. When I got there, I spoke to my mother. She wanted me to intervene with my father about my sister, Jenna. He wanted to cut off her allowance.” She adds, “This happened from time to time. He never did it.”
“So why the lie?” Reyes asks.
She looks him right in the eye and says, “Why do you think? I didn’t want you to think it was me.”
Reyes stares back at her and wonders if she and her brother were both there, at the same time.
31
Lisa watches with dismay as the detectives arrive with a search warrant and a forensics team only a couple of hours after Dan returned from the police station. Some of them head inside the house, while Reyes and Barr and the rest of them open the doors of Dan’s car, which is sitting in the driveway. They take their time studying it, in full view of the entire street, while a police truck waits to take it away to someplace where they will pull it apart for a clue that her husband is a murderer.
She feels queasy, even though she knows Dan didn’t do it. Dan didn’t come home that night covered in blood. He couldn’t have done it. She remembers what he was wearing when he went out for a drive—the same jeans and shirt, loosened around his neck, that he wore at dinner. And he probably put on his casual windbreaker when he left, the one he always wears in the spring. It’s hanging in the hallway closet. She’s seen it since and there’s not a spot on it. She doesn’t remember him coming home, but the next morning, she found those same jeans and shirt, and his socks and underwear, on the floor by the bed and put them in the laundry basket. That was Monday. She did the laundry that day and put everything away. She never saw bloodstains on any of it. She knows she has nothing to worry about. So why is she so tense?
Dan comes up beside her. His lawyer was just here, checking the validity of the search warrant. Then he left, telling Dan privately to keep his chin up, his mouth shut, and to call him if there are any “developments.”
“This is an outrage,” Dan complains.
“Just keep your cool,” Lisa says. She doesn’t want him
to become emotional now, with everyone watching. He’s been so volatile lately—it worries her. “They’re not going to find anything.”
* * *
• • •
jenna’s cell phone buzzes and she looks at it. It’s Jake again.
“Hey,” she says. She’s standing outside Dan and Lisa’s house; Dan had called her in a panic when the police arrived. She’s standing on the street, a distance from where Dan and Lisa are watching Dan’s car being examined.
“How are things going up there?” Jake asks.
She likes the sound of his voice, low and husky. He lied for her yesterday. She wonders if it’s just a matter of time before he asks for something in return. He’ll probably want money, once she gets some. Now that she thinks of it, Jake is actually quite difficult to read.
“It doesn’t look good for Dan. They’re searching his house now.”
* * *
• • •
audrey had followed the detectives when they left the station—had recognized them, watched them get into a plain, dark sedan—and followed them straight to Dan’s house. There, on Dan’s quiet, affluent street, they were joined by a forensics van. A team in white suits got out with all their equipment. Two of them started examining the car in the driveway, and the others went inside the house. The detectives stopped to look at the car.
Audrey is delighted. This is getting better and better. Dan is obviously the prime suspect, she thinks. She wants to get out and help them tear Dan’s place apart. Instead, she sits in her car on the side of the street and wishes she had a pair of binoculars.
There are neighbors watching from their lawns and driveways, and there are media in the street. She recognizes that reporter, Robin Fontaine, among them. Audrey has her card in her wallet.
She turns her attention back to Dan, who’s standing at the end of his driveway with his wife, Lisa, watching them search his car. As if he feels her eyes on his back, he looks over and spots her. He starts walking rapidly toward her, his face set. Audrey braces herself for a confrontation. To hell with him, Audrey thinks, the street is public property, and she’s not the only one here watching what’s going on. Dan approaches her window, his face twisted in anger, and Audrey powers it down halfway.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dan spits. His face is strikingly pale against his dark hair.
Audrey sees the wildness in his eyes and falters. For a split second he reminds her of Fred when he was younger. Then the illusion is gone, and all she can think is that she might be looking into the eyes of a murderer. She hastily powers the window up again. He glares at her then turns and smashes his fist on the front hood of her car as he strides away, making her jump.
* * *
• • •
the day wears on and Dan watches coldly while the detectives and the forensic team search his house thoroughly. His heart is racing, but he tries not to show his distress. They have questions that he doesn’t know if he should answer. His lawyer has gone, and told him to say nothing. But when they ask him what he was wearing that night, he feels he has to tell them. He and Lisa supply the jeans and shirt he wore on Easter, the blazer, and the jacket he wore when he went out later. He doesn’t know which underwear and socks he was wearing—they all look the same in the drawer. They take everything.
Outside, they find freshly turned earth in the garden. Detective Reyes is alerted, and they all go out to the backyard, quite secluded, where a technician is indicating the newly disturbed soil, an area of about four feet square, underneath some hydrangea bushes. Reyes looks at him.
“I buried my dog there a few days ago,” he tells them. “She died of old age.”
To Dan’s dismay, they begin to dig. Lisa stands beside him, clutching his hand. Soon they uncover a black plastic garbage bag. They lift it out of the garden carefully while Dan looks on in distress. They open the bag and a foul odor assails them. Inside they discover the decomposing body of a dog. Nothing else.
“Satisfied?” Dan says, barely concealing his fury.
“Keep digging,” Reyes tells them, “deeper.”
* * *
• • •
detective reyes had been disappointed when he studied the inside of Dan’s car. It looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years. There was dust all over the dash, food wrappers on the floor. Dog hair on the seats. The fact that the car obviously hadn’t been cleaned suggested that Dan might not have done the killings after all. There would be blood everywhere after a murder as violent as Fred Merton’s. Even if he’d scrubbed himself clean and changed his clothes, he would probably still scrub down the car. But maybe they’ll get lucky. Maybe he changed his clothes after the murders and didn’t think he had to clean the inside of the car.
As the hours go by and nothing incriminating is found, Reyes’s frustration mounts. They’ve obtained the clothes that Dan claims to have worn the night of the murder—confirmed by his wife, who they know has already lied to them once. They bag the clothes despite their having been laundered, and the windbreaker, which appears to be spotless. Reyes doesn’t trust either one of them to tell the truth. If Dan committed the murders, whatever he was wearing at the time is at the bottom of the Hudson River or in a dumpster somewhere. It’s not hidden below the dog’s grave—Reyes has made sure of that. They take all of his electronics, over his protests. They use luminol in the bathrooms, the laundry room, and the kitchen, but find no traces of blood anywhere.
But then, in the two-car garage, they find something interesting. Inside a large plastic bin, they find an opened package of N95 masks; a package of white, hooded, disposable coveralls; and an opened package of booties. The package of disposable coveralls is open, and there’s only one left in the package of three.
Of course, Reyes thinks. A murderer who’s canny enough to wear gloves, socks, and no shoes, who leaves no trace evidence—he might have been wearing a protective suit, just like the one he and Barr are staring at. It’s very similar in appearance to the ones used by the forensics team. It would explain the complete lack of physical evidence at the scene. The lack of evidence in the car and house. And it would show premeditation. He lifts his eyes to meet Barr’s. “Over here,” he calls to the closest technician.
He turns to Dan, who is hovering at the entrance to the garage with his silent wife, and beckons him over. “What are these for?”
“I bought them when I was insulating the attic with spray foam, a couple of years ago,” Dan says, flushing. “You’re supposed to wear them. And the mask. The chemicals are dangerous.”
A member of the forensic team photographs the package of disposable coveralls and the package of booties beneath it, then gathers them up carefully. Reyes stares at Dan, who shrinks from his gaze.
Reyes knows they need some physical evidence connecting the killer to the crime scene. The fact that they’ve found an opened package of disposable coveralls in Dan Merton’s garage won’t be enough. They need more. They need to find the discarded clothes, or possibly the disposable coveralls.
But so far, they’ve found no trace of them.
32
Irena is anxious as she arrives at Catherine’s house late that afternoon, having been summoned. As Irena greets everyone, she tries to read the room. Catherine looks tense, and so does Ted. Dan is emotional, saying wild things. Jenna watches everything warily. Irena’s own nerves are beginning to fray.
She observes Dan closely. There’s sweat along his hairline. Lisa looks ill, alternately staring at her husband and then glancing away. Irena remembers them as children, Dan, Jenna, and Catherine, squabbling and crying, and her trying to make everything better. She can’t make this better.
Dan says, “They’re going to arrest me—and I didn’t do it!” He tells them about the search, how they even dug up his dead dog. Lastly, he tells them about the discovery of the disposable coveralls in his garage.
&nbs
p; At this, the room goes very still.
Dan says, “They think I wore a disposable suit, and that’s why they can’t find any evidence at the scene, or anywhere else. I told them I got them to spray foam the attic, but they’ve already made up their minds. They think I’m guilty and I didn’t do it!”
This is met with an appalled silence.
Then Catherine says, “It doesn’t matter what they think, Dan. They need evidence, and they don’t seem to have any. The fact that you had a package of disposable coveralls in your garage doesn’t matter. You explained why you had them.”
“But they know I went out that night,” Dan says nervously. He glances at Lisa. “Lisa tried to cover for me, but they have witnesses who saw me go out. I just went for a drive. I go for drives all the time. I didn’t go over there and kill them!”
Irena fights a wave of nausea.
“That’s not enough,” Catherine says after a moment. “They know I went out that night too.”
Irena, startled, turns to stare at her.
“What?” Dan says.
“I went out that night too,” Catherine repeats. “They caught it on camera—the neighbor across the street has a porch cam.”
“You lied to the police?” Dan says, incredulous.
“Yes, I lied to them, just like you,” Catherine says sharply.
