All the Beautiful Lies

by Peter Swanson

Caitlin nodded, picturing it. She said, “She could be like that.” And then she found herself telling Harry, this stranger, the story of their father leaving, and how Grace had reacted, going to his new house and vandalizing it.

  “So it sounds like maybe her affair with my father had something to do with your own father.”

  “You think?” Caitlin said, and laughed a little.

  Harry smiled back.

  “Actually,” Caitlin said, “I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think anything’s that simple. People aren’t just defined by a single moment in their life, even if it’s this huge moment.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “I don’t. I’m sure Grace was susceptible to an older man because she felt betrayed by our dad, but it’s not like she would have wound up with just any older man. I think she was in love with your father, probably because of who he was, and not just his age.”

  “I guess so. I don’t know anything anymore. I thought I knew my father better than anyone, and now I find out that he was having at least two affairs behind his wife’s back. It’s hard for me to imagine.”

  “You don’t know that he was having two affairs. Grace was sure that he wasn’t.”

  “I know she was, but think about it: if he was willing to deceive his wife with your sister, then why wouldn’t he deceive your sister and be with another woman?”

  Caitlin sipped her tea. She’d left the tea bag in too long and it was bitter. She added more sugar, while saying, “You’re right, of course. Grace could be stubborn. If she wanted to believe something, then she’d keep on believing it.”

  “I’m sorry she ever got involved with my father,” Harry said. “If she hadn’t, then none of this—”

  “I know.”

  They were quiet for a moment. The diner’s front door swung open, and a loud group of young girls in soccer uniforms entered, escorted by a few parents. Caitlin watched as a hostess seated the group in three adjacent booths.

  “What are you going to do now?” Caitlin asked Harry.

  He shrugged, frowning, and for a moment Caitlin thought he was going to start to cry. Instead, he said, “I don’t really know. I guess it depends on what happens next. Since the second murder, since what happened to your sister, Alice is terrified. She doesn’t want to be alone, and I guess I feel some responsibility toward her.”

  “Just some?”

  “She’s all that’s left of my family, and I don’t want to just abandon her. I’m sure she’s freaking out, right now, that I’m not home.”

  “But she is a suspect?”

  “No one has said that to me except for your sister.”

  “What do you think?”

  “The night your sister was killed, I was home, and so was Alice. She couldn’t have killed Grace.”

  Caitlin watched Harry shift in his seat, itching to leave. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Harry placed both hands on the table, and said, “I should go, I think.”

  “Okay.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Either tomorrow night or the next morning, depending on when Grace’s body is getting shipped back to Michigan. She can either go in a cargo plane and the funeral director will pick her up at the other end, or she can also go on a passenger plane, and I can ride with her. Not with her with her, but on the same plane. I know it doesn’t make a difference, but I kind of want to be on the plane with her.”

  “I think it will make a difference.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure. Maybe you’ll feel better.”

  “My mom will feel better, that’s for sure. It’s silly, I know.”

  “I think you should travel with her.”

  Caitlin felt something loosen in her chest, hearing from this stranger what she’d been hoping to hear. “Okay, I probably will. That means I’m here for at least another whole day, though. That’s what they said.”

  “Do you know anyone here?”

  “What, here in Kennewick?”

  “Is anyone here with you?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe we could see each other again. I mean—”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” Caitlin said.

  They exchanged phone numbers, and Harry got up to leave. She watched him through the greasy window of the diner as he walked to his car. In her head, she spoke to Grace. He’s not your type, she said, and Grace laughed.

  Too young, right?

  Far too young.

  He’s all yours, Caity. Besides, as you now know, I’m dead. She laughed again, and the sound was perfect in Caitlin’s head, exactly how Grace laughed, loud and breathless, and usually at something she’d said herself.

  Chapter 25

  Then

  After college Jake Richter worked at a succession of banks, first as a teller and eventually graduating to branch manager, before deciding to go back to school for his MBA at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. After graduation, most of his fellow students went to New York City or Boston to look for jobs, but Jake stayed in Rochester, accepting a job as an investment manager at a local bank. He stayed there ten years, buying a brand-new town house and working out at least five days a week at one of the new gyms that had cropped up downtown. He was in his midforties but looked younger, slim but muscled, and with a full head of hair. He left the greying temples alone because he thought they made him look even more handsome.

  Some of the women who worked at the bank, mostly married bank tellers, would interrogate Jake on why he wasn’t married yet. “Still having too much fun,” he would answer, winking. It was essentially true. But the twentysomething girls from the gym that he dated were becoming less and less interesting to him. They were as experienced as he was, already cynical of the dating realm in which they existed. Jake was most attracted to the high school girls who traipsed through downtown after school let out, fantasizing about introducing them to sex.

  Sometimes a group of teens, led by Joan Wilkes, the daughter of one of those married tellers, would come into the bank to get lollipops from the dish that sat on the lacquered table in the waiting room. Joan had flawless skin and natural blond hair, and she was always pestering her mother to take one of her fifteen-minute breaks to give her a ride home. On a cold and rainy November day Jake came out of his glassed-off office while Joan was lingering around, waiting for her mother’s break. He said, loud enough so everyone could hear, that he had a few errands to do, and did anyone need anything.

  “Ooh, Mr. Richter, can you drive me home?”

  Emily Wilkes, currently unoccupied at her station, said, “Joan! That’s not appropriate.”

  Jake laughed. “That’s fine. I don’t mind her asking. And I don’t mind taking her, but that’s up to you, Emily.”

  “Please, Mom.”

  Jake watched Emily think about it. He knew that what she really liked to do on her fifteen-minute breaks was go to the beat-up couch in the employee break room, put her feet up, and read her latest romance novel.

  “I guess if Mr. Richter doesn’t mind . . .”

  After that first time driving Joan home, Jake knew that seducing her would not be a problem. It was clear from her flushed cheeks and stammered answers that she already had a crush on Jake. It was just a matter of figuring out how to begin an affair without getting caught. The answer came around the third or fourth time Jake, always claiming errands, drove Joan home from the bank. She told him how much she liked going to see old movies at the local university’s campus theater, how her friends thought it was lame, and she always had to go alone. Jake knew enough to not suggest a date, but he did start haunting the theater, finally running into Joan during a screening of Shadow of a Doubt on a wet spring evening. She’d taken the bus to the theater, so Jake gave her a ride home, but only after bringing her to his town house, parking in the first-floor garage, and taking her virginity in the back seat of his Quattro.

  They managed to see each other occasionally during the remainder of that schoo
l year, and much more frequently during the summer between Joan’s junior and senior years of high school. Sometimes they’d meet at the town house, but more often than not Jake would take her to a roadside motel three towns away, occasionally bringing her to a nearby Chinese restaurant that had low lighting and high booths, and would serve Joan mai tais despite her obvious age.

  Jake figured that it was at the Chinese restaurant where they were spotted.

  In September, the president of the bank, a jowly man named Charles Fitch, called Jake into his office and gave him a terse ultimatum. Jake would leave immediately, not just the bank, but the city of Rochester. Preferably, even, the state of New York. If he did that, and if he did that right away, then the bank would supply a letter of recommendation. If it became clear that Jake had any more contact with Joan Wilkes, then the authorities would be alerted.

  “Does Emily know?” Jake asked.

  “If Emily knew it would be Mr. Wilkes talking to you, or the police. I’m cutting you a huge break and I suggest you take it.”

  Jake did as he was told, selling the town house quickly, and at a loss, then relocating to Kennewick, Maine, a town that reminded him of all the good things about Menasset, but with none of the squalor. Charles Fitch made good on his promise, and the bank supplied a reference that allowed Jake to get a job at a bank two towns over, about a third of the size of the bank he’d worked at in Rochester. He slowly rebuilt his life, telling himself that he should find some nice girl, not too young, and settle down. He briefly dated the events manager from a nearby hotel, a lusty divorcée on the wrong side of forty. It was a mostly unpleasant affair, except that Karen Johnson knew everyone in town, and helped him build his client list at the bank. Not that the year-round residents of southern Maine had much money to invest. But some did, and after a year, he got a raise at the bank and was able to move out of the basement apartment he was renting. He bought a condo, much smaller than his previous town house but with a view of the ocean.

  All was going well until the first hot day of Maine’s brief summer, when he took a walk on Kennewick Beach and spotted Alice Moss in a green one-piece coming out of the frothing surf. Looking at her body, he thought she was probably sixteen, but her face—its blank inwardness, the wide-set eyes that reminded him of Emma Codd—made her look younger. He pivoted, checking his watch as though he had just remembered an appointment, and followed her to where she flopped onto a beach towel on her stomach. He walked past, trying hard not to look at the way her bathing suit had ridden up along the firm buttocks, and sat on one of the rocks that separated the beach from the road. He lit a cigarette, watching her, aware that she didn’t know she was being watched. Did she have any idea what her body was doing to all the men in her vicinity? He finished the cigarette, crushing it out on the rock he was sitting on, and watched her flip onto her back, rustle through her beach bag for a book. She was clearly going to stay for a while, and Jake knew he couldn’t linger around too long. He wasn’t dressed for the beach, didn’t have a towel or a beach bag with him. He took a chance and left. It was a Saturday, and the weather was supposed to be hot the following day as well. She’d be back, he told himself.

  That night he barely slept, the image of the pale girl in the green bathing suit whipping through his mind like film through a projector. If she wasn’t at the beach the next day, then it was a sign that it wasn’t meant to be. But if she was there, then it would also be a sign.

  The next morning he drove to the outlets in Kittery, where he bought himself a new bathing suit, plus a towel and a beach chair. After lunch back at his condo, he walked to the beach. The girl wasn’t where she was the day before, but he positioned himself nearby. He’d brought his Walkman with him, and a book. It’ll be a blessing, he thought, if she doesn’t show up. But she did show up midafternoon, the temperature tipping over ninety, in a different suit, a black bikini this time. He hadn’t seen her with dry hair and was shocked by how blond it was, straw colored almost, hair color that only the very young possess. She found an empty spot less than ten yards away. She was close enough that he could see the fine white hairs on her arms.

  He watched her all afternoon. Clouds built up in the sky during the evening hours, white and fluffy at first, but darkening. Soon there were distant rumbles of thunder, and a few fat drops of rain began to patter onto the sand. The girl packed up her things, peering with annoyance at the sky. After she left the beach, Jake made himself count to thirty before getting up and donning a Panama hat he’d brought in his beach bag. He left the chair where it was and scrambled up the wooden walkway to the road, just in time to see the girl turn off onto a side street. He followed her at a distance, the major rain holding off, and saw her enter a small, nice house. He noted the number as he walked past, then doubled back to the beach.

  Finding out who lived in the house was surprisingly easy. Recent real estate transactions provided the name of the resident. Edith Moss, originally from Biddeford, Maine, and apparently unmarried. Jake called her from the bank, introduced himself, and asked if she’d like to open an account locally. She said she’d come in the next day at noon. Jake identified her right away, as she pushed through the bank’s glass doors at half past one: an older, worn-out version of the perfect girl from the beach. As he helped her open an account, he could see the past prettiness in her features, now submerged under puffy, alcoholic skin and sun damage. He studied her as she filled out the paperwork, seeing his future life unfold. How natural it would seem that Jake Richter, the newly arrived bachelor, would court and marry an age-appropriate woman who just happened to have a teenage daughter. The thought of living with the girl from the beach, sleeping down the hall from her, was intoxicating.

  He called Edith Moss again that night. She answered the phone, her voice thick and slurred, clearly drunk. He thanked her for opening the account and asked her if she’d have a drink with him sometime. She agreed, but sounded confused, as though that day’s events had already begun to fade in her memory. Jake made a note that in the future, any plans he made with Edith would need to be made early in the day.

  They were married the following summer, and Edith and Alice moved into Jake’s condo near the beach.

  It was part bliss and part torture. Alice, more perfect than he had ever imagined, paraded sleepily through the condo in too-small pajamas and, during the summer, still-damp bathing suits. And as Edith became more and more addled from the alcohol, and from the pills that Jake persuaded her to take, Alice and he began to form a silent partnership, a family unit stronger than anything he’d felt before. It wasn’t just lust anymore, it was love. And Jake now knew that his original plan, to seduce Alice while still married to Edith, was not enough. He wanted more than a cheap affair with his wife’s daughter. He wanted to be together with her, in their own place, without Edith. Jake also knew that Alice did not love her own mother. Her disinterest more than anything else showed that to him. It reminded Jake of his own childhood, his own worthless parents, and how he’d felt nothing for them, then or now.

  Jake decided that Edith, half dead already, needed to die, and he wasn’t willing to wait for nature to take its own course.

  He killed his wife the night of Alice’s graduation dinner party. Alice brought a friend, that leggy girl who was bound to end up as some rich man’s mistress in some city far away from Maine. Edith, taking more pills than usual, had been speedy all day long. But she began to drink before dinner, and by the time that Gina and Alice were leaving to go to a party, she was her usual self, a drunken, slurry mess. After the girls left, Jake made Edith a brandy and ginger ale heavily laced with crushed Valium. She drank the first one down before he’d even cleared the dinner plates from the table, so he made her another. He didn’t know how many pills and how much alcohol it would take to kill her, but if it didn’t work, he could always try again later. And if it did work, if tomorrow was the morning she didn’t wake up, then it couldn’t be more perfect. Gina had been over to dinner, a perfect witness to Edit
h’s inebriated state in case there was any kind of investigation.

  When he was done with the dishes, he came into the living room to find her sprawled on the couch, head tilted back, passed out. The glass that had held the brandy and ginger ale was on the coffee table. It was empty, except for three slivers of ice and one swallow of liquid. He swirled the glass, and was able to see the dregs of the crushed pills. He had done a poor job mixing the Valium into the drink, but it hadn’t mattered. Edith had drunk it anyway.

  He rinsed the glass in the sink, then put it in the dishwasher and started the cycle. He was planning on watching television, waiting to see what would happen to Edith, but he was too keyed up. He turned the television on, just for the noise, then straightened up the living room, returning to the kitchen to do a thorough clean of the junk drawer, something he’d been meaning to do for a while.

  He was consolidating rubber bands, twisting them into a tight ball, when he heard the gagging sounds coming from the living room. He entered to find Edith’s body bucking slightly on the couch, vomit bubbling up from between her lips. Her head was tipped back, and she was choking. He watched, dispassionately, then heard footsteps on the outdoor stairs, and the click of a key in a lock. He hesitated, not knowing if he should bolt from the room, or try to start reviving Edith. He bolted, going halfway up the stairs into the shadows, as Alice entered the condo. He heard the door shut behind her, her steps, and then heard another wheezing breath from Edith. He thought he’d hear Alice rush to her side, maybe she’d shout for help, but he heard nothing. He moved down the steps as quietly as he could, and watched Alice watch her mother die. There was a peculiar look on her face as she watched—it wasn’t indecision or happiness. It looked like pity, and something else. Disinterest, almost. Or disgust.

  She turned and caught Jake watching her, and for a sliver of a moment Jake felt like there was a telepathic acknowledgment of what was happening. Then Alice said something about an ambulance and Jake ran to the wall phone.