The Perfect Couple

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “And so now the wedding has been canceled,” Karen says.

  “Yes,” Bruce says. “And the police are conducting an investigation.”

  “Does the girl have family?” Karen asks.

  “Not much, I guess,” Bruce says. “She hasn’t spoken to her parents in seven years.”

  Seven years? Karen thinks. She’s nearly as upset about that as she is about Merritt’s passing. And yet, Karen could tell from the girl’s demeanor that no one had been looking out for her, not even from afar.

  So now there will be no wedding. Karen understood this last night, but she had thought the reason would be different. She thought Celeste would call it off.

  And then Karen’s visit to the psychic comes flooding back in vivid detail.

  The psychic’s studio was in downtown Easton, half a block from the Crayola factory; Karen used to pass it all the time on her way to and from work. She had looked at the sign with only mild curiosity. KATHRYN RANDALL, PSYCHIC: INTUITIVE READINGS, ANGEL WHISPERER. Kathryn Randall was such a pretty name, such a normal, field-of-daisies name; this had been part of what triggered Karen’s interest. Her name wasn’t Veda or Krystal or Starshower. It was Kathryn Randall.

  Karen visited Kathryn Randall two days after she received news of her metastases. She wasn’t looking for Kathryn to predict her future—she would live for weeks, months, a year, and then she would die—but she had to know what life held for Celeste.

  Kathryn’s “studio” was just a normal living room. Karen sat on a gray tweed sofa and stared at Kathryn’s diploma from the University of Wisconsin. She handed Kathryn a photograph of Celeste and said, “I need to know if you have any intuitive thoughts about my daughter.”

  Kathryn Randall was in her mid-thirties, as pretty as her name, with long light brown hair, flawless skin, a calming smile. She looked like a kindergarten teacher. Kathryn had studied the photograph for a long time, long enough for Karen to grow uncomfortable. She was thrown by the conventional surroundings. She had expected silk curtains, candles, maybe even a crystal ball, something that suggested a connection to the supernatural world.

  Kathryn Randall closed her eyes, and she started to talk in a slow, hypnotic voice. Celeste was an old soul, she said. She had been to the earth before, more than once, which accounted for her serenity. She didn’t ever feel the need to impress. She was comfortable with who she was.

  Kathryn stopped suddenly and opened her eyes. “Does that sound right?”

  “It does,” Karen said, growing excited. “It really does.”

  Kathryn nodded. “She’ll be happy. Eventually.”

  “Eventually?” Karen said.

  A concerned look passed across Kathryn’s face, like a breeze rippling the surface of a pond. “Her romantic life…” Kathryn said.

  “Yes?” Karen said.

  “I see chaos.”

  “Chaos?” Karen said. Here she had thought Celeste’s love life was rock solid. She was engaged to Benjamin Winbury. It was a real-life fairy tale.

  Kathryn offered a weak smile. “You were right to come to me,” she said. “But there’s nothing either one of us can do about it.”

  Karen had paid the thirty-dollar fee and left. Chaos. Chaos?

  After that, Karen had avoided walking by Kathryn Randall’s studio. She started parking in the lot on Ferry Street, even though it was farther away.

  Now, Karen’s mind starts to grind. Kathryn Randall was correct about chaos. The wedding has been canceled. Merritt is dead. She drank or took pills, Bruce said, then drowned.

  Pills, Karen thinks, and she suddenly feels as nauseated as she did after her first round of chemo. Karen had caught Merritt coming out of this very bedroom last night. Merritt had said she was looking for Celeste, but that sounded like a fabrication. She hadn’t been looking for Celeste; she had been looking for pills. Had she gotten as far as the third drawer in the bathroom? Had she found the bottle of oxy and the three pearlescent ovoids mixed in? Had she been curious about those pills and taken one to see what happened?

  The notion is too appalling for tears. It is a dense, dark, soul-destroying thought: Not only is Merritt dead but it’s Karen’s fault.

  She needs to check her pills.

  She can’t check her pills.

  If she checks her pills and finds one or more of the pearlescent ovoids missing, what will she tell Bruce? Celeste? The police?

  Her thoughts are a soundless scream.

  She can’t continue another second not knowing. Karen gets to her feet. Her pain is still at bay, which is impossible, she knows. She hasn’t taken an oxy in nearly twelve hours, so something else is at work in her body. The shock.

  Bruce falls back on the bed, his eyes open. He is there but not there, which is just as well. Karen closes the bathroom door, locks it. She sits on the toilet and slides open the third drawer. She takes out the bottle of pills.

  She clutches the bottle in her fist.

  Then she lays out a clean white washcloth and empties all of the pills onto it. She stares at the pile, smooths them out.

  One, two… three pearlescent ovoids, present and accounted for. And then, for good measure, she counts the oxy. All there.

  The rush of relief Karen feels nearly knocks her unconscious. She sways; splotches appear in her vision.

  Karen staggers back to lie down on the white bed. The shape of her body is still imprinted in the sheets and blankets, like a snow angel. She fits herself back in like a piece of a puzzle and closes her eyes.

  Saturday, July 7, 2018, 2:47 p.m.

  THE CHIEF

  He’s prepared to give Valerie Gluckstern one hour with Shooter Uxley, but after only twenty minutes, she tells the Chief that her client is ready to answer questions.

  In the interview room, the Chief sits down across the table from Shooter and Val. The Chief feels infinitely better since eating his lunch but he needs to come up with something here because Barney from forensics called to say they found nothing in the shot glasses, on the cigar, or in the bottle of rum.

  “Are you sure?” the Chief asked. “There has to be something in one of the glasses.”

  And Barney, who did not like having his expertise questioned, had sworn at the Chief and hung up.

  “My thinking has changed substantially from this morning,” the Chief says. He knows Nick likes to ease into things, build a rapport, and allow information to flow organically, but the Chief isn’t feeling it. A girl is dead, this guy made a run for it, and the Chief wants answers. Now.

  “Mr. Uxley is prepared to answer all your questions, as I said,” Val says. “He has nothing to hide.”

  The Chief stares at the kid. He’s too damn good-looking to pity, although he seems pretty shaken up.

  “Tell me where you were coming from this morning,” the Chief says.

  Shooter spreads his fingers out on the table in front of him and stares at them as he speaks. “The Steamship,” he says.

  “What were you doing at the Steamship?” the Chief asks.

  “I was trying to leave the island,” Shooter says.

  “But you missed the boat?” the Chief says.

  “I didn’t miss the boat,” Shooter says. “I just changed my mind.”

  “You changed your mind,” the Chief says. “You’d better start explaining yourself, son.” The Chief looks at Val. “Your client lied about being at the Wauwinet. He lied about his alibi. Then he tried to board the Hy-Line with a stolen ticket. Now I’m hearing that he was at the Steamship this morning to board the six-thirty boat, presumably without anyone’s knowledge, since the groom told Sergeant Dickson he was missing. The ME put the time of death on the girl between two forty-five and three forty-five. She was dead, and then he decided to flee. On the basis of these facts alone, I have probable cause to hold you for murder one.”

  “You do not,” Val says.

  The Chief turns to Shooter. “You’d better cough up one hell of a believable story.”

  Shooter taps his fing
ers one by one, starting with his left pinkie, proceeding all the way to his right pinkie, and then going back again.

  Val puts a hand on his forearm. “Tell the Chief what you told me,” she says. “It’s okay.”

  “I left the Winbury compound early this morning,” Shooter says. “I walked all the way to the rotary and caught a cab down to the Steamship. I was going to the Steamship because…” He hesitates, looks at Val. She nods. “Because I was running away with the bride.”

  Running away with the bride, the Chief thinks. This was one hell of a wedding.

  “I’m in love with Celeste and she said she was in love with me,” Shooter says. “Last night a bunch of us went out after the party and Celeste and I peeled off to get some pizza and I asked her to run away with me.” He pauses, looks down at the table, takes a deep, shaky breath, then continues. “I told her that I would take care of her, that I would love her forever. All she had to do was meet me at the Steamship at six o’clock this morning. We were going to hop on the six-thirty slow boat to Hyannis, rent a car, drive to Boston, fly to Las Vegas, and get married ourselves.”

  Val says, “Mr. Uxley waited at the Steamship for Miss Otis until six thirty-five.” She turns to Shooter. “Is that accurate?”

  “When I saw the ferry pulling out, when I heard the foghorn, I knew she wasn’t coming,” Shooter says. “I had figured there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d be there. When she didn’t show, I thought she’d decided to marry Benji. So I took a taxi back to the house. Because I was the best man. And there was going to be a wedding after all.”

  “That’s when I saw you?” the Chief asks.

  “And you told me Merritt was dead.” He shakes his head. “You know, Celeste was afraid to follow through with our plan because she thought something bad would happen if we did it.” He swallows. “I’m sure she’s blaming herself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place?” the Chief asks. “Instead of coming clean, you lied to me, then you ran off. You understand the light that puts you in? Why should I believe a word you say?”

  “I was rattled,” Shooter says. “I thought I was coming back to a wedding and instead, you tell me that Merritt is dead? I couldn’t add our drama on top of that. Celeste would have had to corroborate my story, and I wanted to protect her from that. And I didn’t want the Winburys to know. I was agitated and confused and I figured it would be easier to just say I’d been with Gina. I didn’t think you’d actually check it out. Then, once I knew I’d been caught in a lie, I figured my only course of action was to bolt.” Shooter looks at the Chief. “I realize I handled this poorly. But I didn’t kill Merritt.”

  “Did Merritt know the two of you were running away?” the Chief asks. “Do you think Celeste confided in her?”

  “We agreed not to tell anyone,” Shooter says. “We were going to make a clean break for it, get off the island, then tell everyone later. Celeste wasn’t even going to say anything to her parents. So, no, I do not think she confided in Merritt.”

  The interview room is quiet for a second. The Chief is combing back through the story. Does it make sense? Does it have any holes? Nick is a strong believer in intuition when it comes to questioning. The story may make sense, but do you believe the guy?

  Yes, the Chief thinks. He recalls Roger saying that when Celeste found the body, she had a bag packed. She was headed to meet Shooter and she… what? Caught a glimpse of something in the water as she was leaving? It wasn’t impossible.

  She had a bag packed. For that reason, and that reason alone, the Chief is going to choose to believe Mr. Uxley.

  He stands up and nods at Val. “You two are free to go,” he says. He has to move on—and quickly—to Tag Winbury and the Dale woman, whoever she is.

  August 2017

  CELESTE

  Her mother’s cancer has metastasized to her bones. There are tumors on her spine. The cancer isn’t curable. They can, however, do another course of chemo, which will buy her a year to eighteen months.

  Benji’s response to the news is to pull Celeste closer and hold her tighter. They are now engaged, and this has inspired him to become the spokesperson for we. He wants Karen to get a second opinion at Mount Sinai. His parents know “influential people” who sit on the board of directors. They’ll be able to get Karen an appointment with the “best doctors, the very best doctors.”

  Celeste resents Benji’s involvement. She and her parents are an insular unit: Mac, Betty, and Bug. They are the we. It feels like Benji is horning in with his connections and his optimism. In Benji’s world, every problem has a solution, thanks to who the Winburys know and how much money they have.

  Celeste says, “My parents can’t afford to get a second opinion at Mount Sinai. My father’s insurance was maxed out long ago.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Benji says.

  “I don’t want you to pay for it!” Celeste says. “My mother has a doctor she likes and trusts. Dr. Edman at St. Luke’s—which is a real hospital, by the way, not just some clinic in a strip mall.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Benji says, though Celeste knows exactly what he’s thinking. He’s thinking that St. Luke’s isn’t as good as Mount Sinai. How could it possibly be as good when it isn’t in New York City and Tag and Greer don’t know anyone who sits on the board? “I’m only trying to help.”

  “Thank you,” Celeste says as sincerely as she can. “I’m very upset and I want to handle this my own way.”

  Because Celeste is just back from her Nantucket vacation, she can’t take any more time off; it’s the end of summer and the zoo is simply too busy. But in the middle of her first week back, Celeste rents a Zipcar and drives out to see her parents after work. When Celeste reaches the house on Derhammer Street, she finds her mother sitting at the kitchen table with a coloring book for adults and a deluxe set of sixty-four pencils. Celeste walks in, and she holds up the page she’s been working on. It’s a mandala.

  “Not bad, huh?” Karen says. She has colored the mandala in shades of green, blue, and purple.

  “Pretty,” Celeste says, but her voice is shaky and her eyes well up. Karen has worked at the Crayola factory gift shop for over a decade. Some people sniff at what they see as a menial job selling boxes of crayons, but Karen has always taken pride in it. I bring color into children’s lives, she says.

  Karen stands up and lets Celeste hug her. “I’m going to win this battle,” she says.

  “You’re not supposed to call it a battle,” Celeste says. “I read that somewhere. It’s a violent word and some survivors find it offensive.”

  Karen scoffs. “Offensive?” she says. “So what am I supposed to call it?”

  “A journey,” Celeste says.

  “Bullshit,” Karen says. Celeste blinks in surprise; her mother never swears. “It’s a battle.”

  They go for a quick dinner at Diner 248 and make a point of ordering the Fudgy Wudgy, though Celeste and Bruce manage only one bite apiece and Karen doesn’t have any. Karen makes a big fuss over Celeste’s diamond ring: It’s the most beautiful ring she has ever laid eyes on. It’s the biggest diamond she has ever seen. A full four carats! And set in platinum!

  Celeste says, “I’m thinking of postponing the wedding. I’m thinking of quitting my job and moving home until you get better.”

  “Nonsense,” Karen says. Her voice is sharp and loud, and people at nearby tables turn their heads. The three Otises sit in silence for a second; they aren’t people who draw attention to themselves.

  Celeste knows better than to say anything further. Her mother has spent Celeste’s entire life claiming that no mortal man would ever be good enough for Celeste, but that’s because she didn’t have the imagination to dream up someone like Benjamin Winbury, a real-life Prince Charming. Celeste’s future will be blessed. She will never have to worry about money the way that Bruce and Karen did.

  Celeste looks at Mac and Betty sitting across from her in the booth the way they always do, her father’s arm
draped across her mother’s shoulders, her mother’s hand resting on her father’s thigh. Celeste envies them. She doesn’t want money; she wants what they have. She wants love.

  In case you have any doubts…

  “If anything,” Karen says in a lower voice, “I was thinking you might get married sooner. Maybe in the spring or early summer.”

  …I’m in love with you.

  Sooner? Celeste thinks.

  She nods. “Okay,” she whispers.

  Shooter has disappeared back into his own life—steak houses, downtown clubs, the U.S. Open with clients, Vegas with clients to draft fantasy-football teams. Benji shows Celeste the pictures but she barely gives them a glance. She can’t think about Shooter; she can’t not think about Shooter. Part of her suspects her desire for Shooter is what caused Karen’s cancer to spread. Celeste knows life doesn’t work like that but she still gets the nagging sense that the two things are connected. If she stays with Benji, if she marries Benji, Karen will get better. If they get married in the spring or early summer, Karen will live forever.

  Celeste drops five pounds, then ten. Merritt expresses envy and tells Celeste how wonderful she looks.

  Celeste is irritable at work. She finally loses her temper with Blair the hypochondriac. One more missed day and Blair will be fired, Celeste says. Blair threatens a lawsuit. She has legitimate reasons for calling in sick. Celeste, in a rare fit of rage, tells Blair she needs to stop with the bullshit, and the next thing Celeste knows, she’s getting called into Zed’s office for a lecture on professional attitude, appropriate workplace language, blah-blah-blah.