The Perfect Couple

by Elin Hilderbrand

  Saturday, July 7, 2018, 12:30 p.m.

  THE CHIEF

  He has to drive from Monomoy to the station, where they’re holding Shooter Uxley. He has two state policemen back at the scene to make sure nothing is tampered with and no one else flees. He could use two more guys, quite honestly. Nantucket just isn’t equipped for a murder during a busy holiday weekend. That is the stark truth.

  The Chief inhales through his nose and exhales through his mouth, his takeaway from the stress management course he’s required to attend every three years. He’ll question Shooter himself and that will likely shed some light on things. He’ll hear from the ME about an exact cause of death. If he still hasn’t figured out what happened, he has the father, the brother, and the groom himself.

  But frankly, the Chief likes the best man for this. Why else would he run? Then again, after he’d disappeared last night, why would he come back? What is going on here?

  The Chief talked to Nick briefly before he left the compound. Nick said the mother of the groom, Greer Garrison, the mystery writer, had misled him about her timetable. Intentionally, he thinks.

  I didn’t like the way our interview went, Nick said. It had a funny smell.

  The Chief calls home. Andrea answers. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, fine,” Ed says. Andrea will know he means the exact opposite. He wants to tell Andrea that Finn’s girlfriend, Lola Budd, was the one who ended up finding their main suspect. It’s a good story and it will hearten Andrea to know that Lola has had a chance to shine, but there isn’t time to get into it now.

  “How’s Chloe?” the Chief asks. “Is her stomach feeling any better?”

  “Not sure,” Andrea says. “She’s locked herself in her room.”

  “No locked doors,” Ed says. This has been a rule since back when his own kids, Kacy and Eric, were growing up.

  “You come home and tell her that,” Andrea says. “Because I’ve tried and she won’t budge. She’s upset about the girl. The Murdered Maid of Honor, everyone is calling her now.”

  “Everyone?” Ed asks. “Is it that bad already? People talking? People giving this story a name? We aren’t even sure she was murdered. Not sure at all.”

  “It’s a small island, Ed,” Andrea says. She pauses, and he realizes she has just lobbed his favorite line right back at him. “Would it be awful if while you were out solving this murder, I went to the beach?”

  He’s investigating a murder, not solving anything. “Go to the beach,” he says. “But please be careful.”

  “You’re sweet,” Andrea says. “Love you.”

  He hangs up just as a call comes in from Cape Cod Hospital.

  “This is Ed Kapenash,” he says.

  “Chief, it’s Linda.” Linda Ferretti, the medical examiner. “Prelims indicate our girl died by drowning around three a.m. The blood work shows someone slipped her a mickey, or maybe she self-medicated. A barbiturate seems to be the culprit. The cut on her foot was the source of all that blood but it was just a surface wound. She has one fingerprint-size bruise on her wrist; my best guess is someone yanked her or pulled on her arm. There are no other signs that she was strangled or smothered and then dumped. She either took pills or was given something. She went out for a swim, passed out, drowned. Could have happened in a bathtub.”

  “Okay,” the Chief says. “What was her blood alcohol content?”

  “Low,” Linda says. “Point zero-two-five.”

  “Really?” the Chief says. “You’re sure?”

  “Surprised me too, at first,” she says. “The contents of her stomach were minimal. Either she didn’t eat much last night or, what I think is more likely, she vomited up what she did eat.”

  “What makes you think that?” the Chief asks.

  “She was pregnant.”

  “You’re kidding,” the Chief says.

  “Wish I was,” Linda says. “Very early stages. My guess is she was six or seven weeks along? She might not even have realized it.”

  “Wow,” the Chief says.

  “The plot thickens,” Linda says.

  The Chief hangs up and his phone rings again. This time it’s the Nantucket hospital.

  “This is Ed Kapenash,” he says.

  “Chief, it’s Margaret from the ER.”

  “Hey, Margaret,” the Chief says. “What’s up?”

  “We have the bride from that wedding,” Margaret says. “Kind of strange? She says she wants to talk to the police here at the hospital rather than at the house. Her fiancé came to check on her. They had words, then he stormed out.”

  “Keep her there, Margaret,” the Chief says. “I’ll send the Greek the instant he’s free.”

  “The Greek?” Margaret says. “My nurses will be thrilled.”

  The Chief smiles for the first time that day. “Thanks, Margaret,” he says, then he turns into the station.

  They are holding Shooter Uxley in the first interview room. When the Chief enters, Shooter is fast asleep with his head on the table. The Chief watches him for a second and listens to him snoring. Whatever anxiety he might be feeling is clearly overridden by exhaustion.

  Didn’t sleep much last night, buddy? the Chief wonders.

  Mr. Uxley has taken off his blazer and untucked his shirt. The Chief looks at his paperwork: Michael Oscar Uxley. New York driver’s license, Manhattan address, West Thirty-Ninth Street. Also from New York City, like the deceased. He wonders if Uxley was the father of Ms. Monaco’s baby.

  The Chief nudges his arm. “Hey there, wake up. Mr. Uxley, sir?”

  Shooter groans and raises his head. He seems disoriented for a second, then he straightens up.

  The Chief says, “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m Chief Kapenash, Nantucket Police. You put on some nice moves out there.”

  Shooter blinks. “I want a lawyer,” he says.

  Thursday, June 22–Friday, June 23, 2017

  CELESTE

  She doesn’t meet Shooter until she and Benji have been together for nine months. Shooter is Benji’s best friend—so why does it take so long? Well, Shooter is busy. He owns and operates a company called A-List, which provides American retreats for foreign businessmen. What this means essentially is that Shooter has made a career—lucrative, Benji says—out of partying. He takes executives from Asian and emerging Eastern European countries and shows these gentlemen (for his clientele is 100 percent male) an old-fashioned American good time. Much of the “work” is centered in Manhattan. The executives are fond of the long-established steak houses—Smith and Wollensky, Gallagher’s, Peter Luger’s; they like the Intrepid and Times Square; they like the clubs, especially the gentlemen’s clubs on Twelfth Avenue. Shooter also spends a lot of time in Las Vegas. He is, Benji says with a straight face, a Vegas regular. He divides his time between the Aria Sky Suites and the Mandarin Oriental. Shooter himself plays only craps; in prep school at St. George’s, he ran a late-night dice game, and that was the source of his nickname.

  “You all gambled in high school?” Celeste asks Benji. She herself has never been to a casino, but if she went, she would steer clear of the craps table. The name alone.

  “Shooter made it impossible to resist,” Benji says. “I always lost, but it was fun.”

  When Shooter isn’t “working” in Manhattan or Las Vegas, he is at the Kentucky Derby, the Masters, the Super Bowl, the Indy 500, Coachella, or Mardi Gras. He is sunning in South Beach or skiing in Aspen. Wherever you wish you could be on any given weekend, Shooter is there with a group of his executives.

  On the weekend of June 23, however, Shooter is coming to Nantucket with Benji and Celeste. Celeste is excited to finally meet him. She’s also glad he’s coming because this is Celeste’s first time to Nantucket, her first time to any summer resort, and it’s her first time spending the weekend with Tag and Greer, Benji’s parents. Celeste met Tag and Greer on three previous occasions. The first was a dinner at Buvette, then a few weeks later there was Sunday church at St. James’s followed
by dim sum in Chinatown. The third occasion was a dinner at the Winburys’ apartment on Park and Seventieth to celebrate Benji’s twenty-eighth birthday.

  The Winburys are less intimidating than Celeste expected. Tag is gregarious and charismatic; Greer is high-strung and a bit imperious until her second glass of champagne, when she relaxes into someone quite funny and warm. They are wealthy beyond Celeste’s wildest imagination but as she strove to seem cultured and well bred, they strove to seem down-to-earth, and they all met in the middle. Neither of the elder Winburys flinched when Celeste announced that her father sold suits at the mall and her mother worked in the gift shop at a crayon factory. Greer asked several questions about Karen’s health that revealed her concern without seeming phony or overbearing. They made Celeste feel comfortable. The Winburys made her feel acceptable, which she found a pleasant surprise.

  Despite this, staying with them for a long weekend on Nantucket is a daunting prospect and Celeste is glad for Shooter’s presence to take some pressure off her.

  They are leaving late afternoon on Thursday and returning on Sunday evening. Celeste has taken Friday off work, her first vacation in a year and a half; the last time was when she took a week to care for Karen after her double mastectomy. They are flying from JFK on JetBlue. The flight is only forty minutes long but it’s another source of anxiety for Celeste. She has never been on an airplane. Benji couldn’t believe it when she told him.

  “Never been on a plane?”

  She tried to explain to him that she grew up sheltered, more sheltered than the most sheltered person he knows. She knows that sheltered makes it sound like Bruce and Karen were trying to keep Celeste from the evils of the wider world, but the truth was that Bruce and Karen didn’t have the money to explore the world beyond their own neat pocket of it. They didn’t have relatives in Duluth or St. Louis to visit, and when Celeste came home from school in sixth grade asking to go to Disney World, Bruce arranged for a Saturday excursion to Six Flags in New Jersey. Over spring break in college, when everyone at Miami of Ohio went to Daytona or the Bahamas, Celeste took the bus home to Easton. There had been no junior year abroad. After college, there had been New York City, her job at the zoo, her life right up until meeting Benji. When would she have boarded a plane?

  Celeste is so concerned about arriving at JFK in a timely fashion that she forgoes public transportation and springs for an Uber from the zoo. It’s $102. Celeste ignores the tight knot of dread in her gut as she adds this expense to the many others this weekend away has incurred. She needed a whole new summer wardrobe—two bikinis, a cover-up, three sundresses to wear out at night, shorts and flip-flops, and a straw bag. She needed a pedicure and a fresh haircut. She needed sunscreen and a hostess gift for Greer.

  “What do you get for a woman who has literally everything?” Celeste asked Merritt.

  “Bring her really good olive oil,” Merritt said. “It’s more interesting than wine.”

  Celeste bought a forty-two-dollar (gulp) bottle of olive oil at Dean and DeLuca. Transporting the olive oil to Nantucket cost her another twenty-five dollars in checked-bag fees.

  Celeste goes through airport security, a soul-shredding experience where she has to stand barefoot among strangers and put her drugstore toiletries on display in a clear plastic bag for others to comment on. The woman behind her points to Celeste’s Noxzema and says, “I thought they stopped making that in the eighties.”

  As Celeste is walking to the gate, she gets a text from Benji. Accident on 55th Street, midtown at a standstill, I may miss the flight. You go, I’ll meet you there tomorrow.

  Celeste stops and rereads the text. I’ll just wait and go with you tomorrow, she texts back. But she imagines undoing all the steps she has just taken only to reiterate them tomorrow. Unchecking her bag, Ubering back to Manhattan, rebooking her ticket for a Friday.

  Just go now, Benji texts. Please. It’ll be fine. Shooter will take good care of you.

  When Celeste gets to the gate, there is a man in jeans and a white linen shirt who breaks into a grin when he sees her.

  “You’re as pretty as he said.” The man offers his hand. “I’m Shooter Uxley.”

  “Celeste,” she says. “Otis.” Celeste shakes Shooter’s hand and tries to manage the emotions careening around inside of her. Ten seconds ago she was despondent about having to get to Nantucket and endure an entire night and half the next day without Benji. Now, however, her insides are swooping and dipping like a kite. Shooter is… well, the first word she thinks of is hot, but she has never described anyone that way and so she switches to handsome. Objectively handsome; his handsomeness is a matter of fact, not opinion. He has dark hair with a forelock that falls over one of his blue eyes. Celeste’s eyes are also blue, but blue eyes look better on Shooter with his dark hair. But what Celeste is responding to is more than Shooter’s looks. It’s his gaze, his grin, his energy—they grab her. Is there a better way to describe it? She’s in thrall. This, she thinks, is love at first sight.

  But no! It can’t be! Celeste loves Benji. They have just started saying it. The first time was five days earlier, Sunday evening, as they drove back to the city from a visit with Celeste’s parents in Easton. Benji had met Bruce and Karen and seen the modest house on Derhammer Street where Celeste grew up. Celeste had shown Benji her elementary school, her high school, the Palmer pool, downtown Easton, the Peace candle, the Free Bridge, and the Crayola factory. They had supper with Karen and Bruce at Diner 248. Celeste had thought about making a reservation somewhere more refined—Easton had a crop of new restaurants; Masa for Mexican, Third and Ferry for seafood—but Celeste and her parents had always celebrated family milestones at the diner, and to go anywhere else would feel phony. They all ate vegetable barley soup and turkey clubs, and Karen, Bruce, and Celeste split the Fudgy Wudgy for dessert as usual and Benji gamely tried a bite. After supper, they drove back to the house and said their good-byes at the curb. Bruce and Karen waved until Celeste and Benji turned the corner and Celeste shed a few tears as she always did when she left her parents. Benji said, “Well, now I’ve seen Easton. Thank you.”

  Celeste had laughed and wiped tears from the bottom of her eyes. “You’re very welcome. It’s not Park Avenue or London, of course…”

  “It’s a sweet little town,” Benji said. “It must have been a nice place to grow up.”

  Celeste flinched at this assessment; something about his tone sounded patronizing. “It was,” she said defensively.

  Benji reached over to squeeze her knee. “Hey, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I liked Easton, and your parents are true gems. Real salt of the earth.”

  They’re people, Celeste had thought. Good, honest, hardworking people. She had never understood the phrase salt of the earth, but it sounded like something you said about someone you knew was beneath you. To make the moment even more humiliating, Celeste started to cry again and Benji said, “Wow, I’m making things worse. Please don’t cry, Celeste. I love you.”

  Celeste shook her head. “You’re just saying that.”

  “I’m not,” Benji said. “I’ve been wanting to say it for weeks, months even, but I’ve been afraid because I wasn’t sure you felt the same way. But believe me, please, when I say I love you. I love you, Celeste Otis.”

  She had felt emotionally goosed. He loved her. He loved her. Celeste didn’t know what to say, and yet it was clear Benji was waiting for a response. “I love you too,” she said.

  “You do?” he asked.

  Did she? Celeste thought back to the first time she met Benji, how wonderful he had been with Miranda, how exasperated with glamorous Jules. She thought of the flowers and the books and the restaurants and his mind-boggling apartment and the homeless shelter. She thought about the ease she felt in his presence, as though the world had only good things to offer. She thought about how much his opinion mattered to her. She wanted to be good enough for him.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  If Celeste love
s Benji, then what is happening now, with Shooter? Celeste knows her parents’ story by heart: Karen came marching up the pool steps and introduced herself to Bruce, who was sweating off water weight and staring at his orange. Karen had stuck out her hand and said, I admire a man with willpower. And those, apparently, were the magic words, because they both knew instantly that they would get married and stay together forever.

  I wasn’t even hungry after that, Bruce said. I threw my orange away, I made weight, I won my match, but it barely mattered. All I wanted was a date with your mother.

  That’s how love works, Karen said.

  Does love work only one way? Celeste wonders. She has spent the past nine months carefully, cautiously getting to know Benjamin Winbury and has just decided to call that experience love. But only five days later, she’s pretty sure she has made a mistake. Because in meeting Shooter, Celeste has been swallowed whole by the world. Goner, she thinks. I’m a goner.

  No. She is a scientist. She believes in reason. What she’s feeling now is as ephemeral as a shooting star. Soon enough, it will fade away.

  “The old boy isn’t going to make this flight,” Shooter says. “He gave me very strict orders to take care of you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Celeste says. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Can you?” Shooter says. His eyes flash with blue sparks. Celeste can’t look directly at him, then she decides that she’s being silly, of course she can look at him, and she does. The bottom drops out of her stomach, whoosh! He is so painfully attractive. Maybe she just needs to build up a tolerance. Even the best-looking men in the world—George Clooney, Jon Hamm—might seem run-of-the-mill if you looked at them long enough. “What seat are you in?”

  “One-D,” she says.