by Leah Konen
After that, when Davis and I argued, I’d frequently discover the faucet running in the bathroom. A tiny little “fuck you,” just for me. A reminder that should I criticize, should I make a request, I would pay. His signature.
Was this proof? Had he tracked me down? Had he killed John, left me this to let me know he was here, just in case I didn’t put it together on my own?
Or was I actually being paranoid this time, like he always said I was? Had all the chaos and the grief and the fear and the shame of losing—and loving—John scrambled my brain?
I felt like I was coming undone, unable to tell up from down. Whether Davis was actually here, he’d succeeded in that, at least.
There was a sudden knock at the door, and I jumped instinctually, every muscle in my body going taut as blood rushed to my head.
Maybe it’s Vera. God, let it be Vera. Please don’t let it be Davis. Please let me be wrong.
I switched the faucet off and ran to the bedroom, grabbing my dad’s hammer from the nightstand as the knock came again, more urgently this time.
I ran to the bedroom, pulled the drapes back, and peered through.
The relief was intense, my pulse instantly slowing, my body practically going limp.
I set the hammer down and opened the door. “Rachel?” Her coat was a mossy green, and a multicolored tasseled pashmina snaked around her neck, dancing in the gusts of wind coming down from the meadow. In the misty, diffused light, her handful of gray hairs shimmered like fine silver. She held a clear vase full of yellow roses, tied with grosgrain ribbon and twine.
“Sorry. I hate to just show up at your door like this, but Maggie told me about what happened to John, and—” She paused, then lifted the vase like some sort of offering. “I brought flowers, but Vera’s not home, and Maggie isn’t, either, and I didn’t want to leave them on her porch. It’s supposed to rain, and then they’ll be ruined, and I don’t want to give her ruined flowers after, after . . .” She pushed the vase toward me, as if she couldn’t bear to hold it anymore. She looked almost sick to her stomach.
As I took them from her, Dusty squeezed through my legs and pawed at Rachel’s ankles, eager to see her again. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She held on to the doorjamb, steadying herself. “Yes,” she said, but her voice cracked. “No. I don’t even know.”
I reached for her arm, and she grabbed on so tight; I couldn’t just leave her like this. “Come in,” I said.
“No, I shouldn’t. You’ve lost him, too. I shouldn’t even be here—”
“Just come in,” I said. “Sit down. Warm up.”
Reluctantly, she did, and, eager to relieve my own nerves, I made us both tea, using tea bags that had been left behind, that must have once been hers. Dusty curled into her lap as soon as she sat down, begging for pets.
I took a sip, but the tea was too hot, the tip of my tongue going numb.
“I’m sorry to just barge in,” she said. “I know it’s way too soon for flowers, I just, it was such a shock, when Maggie called me yesterday. Murdered . . . my god. Right here in Woodstock. I mean, I know that people were mad at him, after . . . but god, murder.” She fidgeted with a windswept curl before sinking her hand into Dusty’s fur. “I was friends with John, too, you know, and I couldn’t just sit there, alone, wondering how Sam, how he—” Her voice broke. “I just had to do something.”
“Sam Alby?” I asked.
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t even know. I just know Sam was so mad, after what happened with Claire. I guess he was the first person I thought of.”
I nodded, and in a crazy way I hoped she was right. That it was Sam, that the police were questioning him—arresting him—right now. That Ellie had kept her promise and hadn’t told Davis. That the awfulness of what had happened had not been caused by me.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m not trying to play detective, I swear. I’m just in shock.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Really. We all are.”
“Thank you.” She adjusted herself on the sofa, tugging at her pashmina. It was hard to imagine her and Vera being friends—they seemed so different: Vera precise, perfect, almost hard, everywhere that Rachel was soft and forgiving.
“You were with him, the day it, the day it happened?” Rachel asked, reaching for her tea. “On a hike?”
I nodded. “Yes, Vera too. Both of us were. John disappeared, and we thought he’d fallen.”
“God, it must have been awful. That hike. It’s terrifying in that spot.”
My eyebrows knitted together, and Rachel immediately picked up on my confusion.
“Sorry,” she said. “My ex always told me I had a sixth sense for these things. Was it not up on that hike they always went to? The one off Chapel Road? We must have gone, god, countless times. When Maggie said he disappeared on a hike, I mean, before he was found, I just assumed . . .”
I swallowed slowly, my eyes never leaving hers. “Sorry, yes, that’s where it was. I forgot you guys were so close.”
Rachel blinked back tears. “We were close, and it’s crazy how fast that can change. I wish I could be the sort of friend Vera needs right now.” Her eyes caught mine and she raised her cup to her lips, printing the rim with color. “I’m glad she has you.”
Her words fell flat. She swallowed, took another sip of tea. “You’ve probably wondered why we aren’t friends anymore. Unless Vera already told you.”
“I did wonder,” I said. “But Vera wouldn’t tell me.”
Rachel swiped tears away with the back of her hand. “Rumors were circling us, too, you know, as absurd as that sounds, me and John.” She laughed bitterly, and her eyes found her hands. “He and I were working on this project together, and we were close, but I never—we never—if you ever thought that, if it so much as occurred to you, or if it ever occurred to Vera, I just want you to know that it’s not true. John was like a brother to me, I swear to god. I would never, ever, ever have done anything to hurt her.”
She looked up, as if begging for some sort of mercy that wasn’t even mine to give, and John’s words, that first night, echoed in my head.
Vera can be very black-and-white in the way she sees the world.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
Rachel set her cup down. “When people started talking, about him and Claire, I guess I didn’t react to everything like Vera thought I should.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Her lips drew into a thin, even line. “I mean that I believed what people were saying about John and Claire. Vera didn’t.”
“Oh,” I said as my cup dropped from my hand, spilling tea all over the floor. Already, Rachel was jumping up, rushing to the kitchen, grabbing a towel. Before I could do anything, she was down on her knees, sopping up the spill, lifting the cup, which had split in two.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to do that.”
She stood, shaking her head. “Don’t be sorry. It doesn’t do anyone any good. What happened, happened. Shit,” she said, her eyes catching mine. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted you to know. And if Vera has any doubt, any doubt in the slightest, that something happened between me and John . . . if she ever asks you, I hope you’ll tell her the truth. It was never like that.”
“Okay,” I said, brushing moisture from my eyes. I was the one who had betrayed Vera, not Rachel, and yet I was the one who was still in Vera’s good graces. It wasn’t fair. The realization stung.
“Why did you believe what people were saying about that girl, though? About Claire? You and John were friends. And there were rumors about you, too, which you clearly knew were false. Do you really think . . .”
Rachel swallowed, carefully taking a seat as she set the two halves of my teacup on the table between us. I spotted Dusty’s white hairs on the knees of her jeans. “At fir
st I didn’t. Like you said, John was already part of the gossip mill, and the whole thing just sounded ludicrous. Only later, I found out things about them that made me change my mind. And when I really thought about it, about how much he used to talk about her . . . ‘Claire’s a real artist,’ he was always saying. Looking back, it was like he was almost, I don’t know, obsessed with her. It was just strange.”
“But what did you find out?” I asked, heart beating quickly and Pandora’s box tempting. “What made you change your mind?”
Rachel stood abruptly. “I’m truly sorry. I never meant to come over here and speak ill of John, especially now that he’s gone. I know that’s an awful thing to do.” She grabbed her bag, and I followed her to the front door.
“There had to be something,” I said. “Something that changed your mind.”
She cleared her throat. “It was always all talk, talk I don’t need to be repeating to you. Not now that he’s dead. Please give the flowers to Vera.”
Rachel opened the door and a gust of cold whooshed in, but before leaving, she turned back to me. “The thing is, I always told myself I was going to believe these sorts of stories. No exceptions.”
“But Claire never even made that claim,” I said, suddenly defensive.
Rachel sighed, pulling her jacket tighter. “Trust me, she didn’t have to.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is Vera couldn’t handle it,” she said. “Not when it came to her husband.”
* * *
• • •
I didn’t keep the flowers.
After Rachel had gone, I broke every stem, thorns scratching the skin on my hands. Then I buried them deep in the trash, beneath expired milk and leftovers. I felt awful, but I couldn’t have Vera knowing I’d met Rachel and never told her, not now, not when I was about to leave; it would hurt her too much. The flowers would only upset her anyway.
I called Ellie three more times, never leaving a message, but hoping she would answer, then went over all my outstanding freelance invoices, tallying up the money that would eventually reach my bank account, when I had a chance to get it. I was still too scared to go to the bank, even an ATM, just in case Ellie hadn’t told Davis and he was somehow able to access my activity, but as soon as I left town, I would cut back through the city. The bank would be my first stop. There was a few thousand in there, and a couple of the invoices would be direct deposited soon. Not loads, but better than nothing. If Davis somehow saw the withdrawal, he still wouldn’t know where I actually was.
When there was little left to do, when I’d checked the items beneath the bed again and made sure every window was locked tightly shut, I grabbed a change of clothes, leashed Dusty up, and headed to Vera’s.
Her chimney was smoking, puffing along like an out-of-breath runner, a sure sign she was home, and I found myself wondering who would chop wood now when she ran out.
She looked even worse than she had yesterday, her hair limp and greasy, eyes ringed as if she hadn’t slept in a decade. She led me into the living room and took a seat. “You went to the police station today,” she said.
“Yes.”
A nervous quiet stretched between us, unusual and foreign, John’s absence heavy, almost clinging to the scent of cigarette smoke in the air. “What did they ask you?” Vera said.
“I don’t want to upset you.”
Her back straightened. “I’m already upset, Lucy. You don’t need to protect me. What is it?”
I paused, picking at the cuticle of my thumb.
“God, just say it!”
She wasn’t supposed to yell—not at me. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was just one of those microscopic changes, like chopped wood, that seemed small but somehow meant everything.
“They asked about that girl—Claire?”
Vera nodded.
“They think it was true. Everything they asked was about whether John was unfaithful.”
Vera didn’t say a word, only released a breath through her nose. After a beat, she let out a cold, mirthless laugh. “So the police are chasing those rumors, too? That’s what they wanted to talk to you about? It figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember what you said to me?” Vera said, crossing her arms. “You teased me about not having watched enough movies.”
I shook my head. “I don’t follow.”
“The wife,” she said. “It’s always the wife . . . right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“If they paint me as this woman scorned, that’s motive, Lucy. That, and this lawsuit business. It all adds up to a hell of a lot. So yes, of course, it figures. It’s the easy conclusion. It means they aren’t doing their jobs.” Her voice wavered. “It means no one is working to find out what actually happened to John. Find out who hurt him, who killed him.”
I stared at her then—at my protector, my friend. For a split second, I found myself wondering again. Could the rumors about Claire be true? Could Vera have somehow seen John and me together—and that was the last straw? Gone to the cabin that morning, pretending she only wanted to say goodbye one more time, and just—lost it?
No. If Vera wanted to leave John, she could have, so many times. She’d stuck by him through thick and thin, through a miscarriage she didn’t even know I knew about, through his very public fall from grace—everything. I’d seen the way they nuzzled together. Yin and yang. She’d even stuck by him when her duty as a woman required her to believe a certain sort of rumor. When Rachel, his friend and colleague, hadn’t. She loved him. I knew this deeply. Even if she was angry, she wouldn’t have hurt him. Not like that.
Her eyes caught mine. “Do you really believe John was unfaithful to me?”
A vision of him in my bed. Of John’s lips pressed against mine. “No,” I said, and it was only half a lie. “No, of course I don’t. But Vera,” I said, knowing I had to chance it, “maybe you’re looking at this all wrong.”
Her eyes narrowed—angry?—and for an awful second, I wondered if she suspected me. Then her gaze softened, and I knew it was okay. If the thought had entered her mind, it had left just as quickly. “What do you mean?”
“They asked specifically about Claire Alby,” I said. “Maybe Sam is the main suspect. Wouldn’t that make sense? I didn’t tell the police anything about him, because I knew you already had and I didn’t want to make it seem like I knew too much in case they put together what we were trying to do, but surely they know. You’ve made reports before.”
Vera nodded, like she only half believed me.
“Maybe this is actually a good thing,” I said, clinging to the hope that Davis hadn’t done it, that it wasn’t my fault. “Maybe they’re looking exactly where they need to be looking. Sam must’ve known where the studio was, since he was so concerned about his daughter being there alone with John. Maybe he heard about the accident, went there, found John, and—” I couldn’t bear to finish the thought.
Vera paused, her eyes glistening. “That makes sense, when you say it like that, and I should have thought of it before. I just—it’s so hard, losing him, and then immediately having them dig into my marriage, spread it out for all to see. It’s not fair, Lucy. It’s not fair to us. To who we were.”
I shook my head. “It’s not.”
Tears dripped down her cheeks again, and I knew it then, deep in my heart.
She hadn’t done this. She couldn’t have. And I should never doubt her again.
* * *
• • •
We spent the afternoon making arrangements. She didn’t resist when I suggested we hold a memorial soon, grieve John on our terms, not the police’s, and together, we agreed to two days from now. We didn’t go to the funeral parlor or anything, like they do on TV. We didn’t look at a laminated book of flowers and caskets. W
e did it all online, like true modern women. I called a place I found on Yelp and helped her complete the obituary. It would be printed in the Daily Freeman tomorrow morning. She told me, again and again, “Thank you so much for staying, I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
When we were finished, we didn’t talk about John or the police or anything that had transpired over the last few days. Instead, we parked ourselves on the couch in front of Netflix, devouring movies without much of a plot, without even a hint of romance or familial obligations. Noir wasn’t fun anymore, when it felt like you were living it. Vera and I weren’t ingenues in hazy lighting with finger curls and penciled lips. We were real humans, and our worlds were falling apart.
When we hit our second eighties comedy, I ordered pizza and made her eat a slice. We queued up Airplane!, and Dusty nuzzled between us, and it almost felt like we were a family again, even if I knew this family couldn’t last.
When we began to get tired, we checked every lock in her house, more than once, and I followed her to her room, Dusty at our heels.
She fell asleep first, and as I listened to her breathe, I made my plans, tracing maps in my head, mentally packing away my things, and trying not to think of a killer out there—of Sam Alby contemplating his next move.
Or of Davis. Somewhere out there in the meadow, waiting. Watching me, watching us.
Deciding how best to complete his revenge.
TWENTY-FIVE
The funeral parlor smelled like Pine-Sol.
Up front, the silver-haired minister had a rogue drop of sweat climbing down his forehead. It seemed rude and insubordinate, that kernel of body sweat, as if it didn’t give a shit about John, it was only doing its thing.
“The Lord has a plan for all of us,” he said as Vera stifled a sob and I pressed a tissue into her hand. I hated when people said things like that, as if it were all part of some cosmic agenda; the only people saying that were the ones who’d won the cosmic lottery.
