The Pact

by Jennifer Sturman

  “That’s for sure,” said Luisa.

  “Here’s what else I don’t get,” said Hilary. “Even if Emma’s been suckered by Richard, I can’t imagine her parents falling for him. They’re much too savvy. And Emma’s so close to them—if they had any objections, she would have taken them seriously. But they—well, especially Mrs. Furlong—seem completely gung ho about this wedding. It sounds like it’s going to be a real three-ring circus, what with the hundreds of guests and two bands and champagne flowing out of fountains.”

  I wondered if I should say anything about the exchange I’d overheard earlier between Emma and her father. It was bad enough that I was guilty of eavesdropping. Surely I shouldn’t compound the sin by gossiping about things I hadn’t been meant to hear. “Maybe her mother’s doing the entire parental reverse psychology thing,” I replied while I was internally debating the merits of full disclosure. “You know, where they don’t want to tell you exactly what they think because they’re afraid that that will make you do exactly what they don’t want you to do? Or that if they tell you what they think and you go ahead anyway, the situation gets really awkward?”

  “Is that how they handled these things when you were growing up in Ohio?” asked Hilary. My midwestern childhood had provided almost as much amusement to my friends as my romantic history, particularly after they discovered that Leave It to Beaver was set in my hometown. In fact, Ward Cleaver had once boasted to his sons about having been the best kite flyer in all of Shaker Heights in his youth. That my parents, with their thick Russian accents and bookish ways, bore not even the faintest resemblance to the archetypically all-American white-bread Ward and June Cleaver didn’t seem to matter.

  “No need to be snotty,” I said, but even I recognized that my reverse parental psychology hypothesis was fairly lame. I decided to go for full disclosure. “Besides, regardless of what Emma’s mother thinks, I’m pretty sure her father’s not too happy about Richard.” I briefly told them about the argument I’d overheard. I felt slightly guilty, as if I’d betrayed a confidence, but I was so worried about Emma. Perhaps I was hoping that somebody could explain what I’d heard in a way that would make everything all right. I was out of luck, however; my friends found this information just as disturbing as I had.

  “What could possibly make Emma talk to her father like that?” asked Jane, shocked.

  “I don’t know. They’ve always had such a good relationship. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her raise her voice to him before.”

  “He was really telling her to call it off?” Luisa asked.

  “He was practically begging her to,” I confirmed.

  “Unbelievable,” said Hilary.

  “I know.”

  “It must feel awful to be about to get married and to have so many people expressing their concern to you,” reflected Jane. “Marriage is scary enough when you’re confident you’re doing the right thing and so is everyone around you.”

  “Yes, but you were doing the right thing when you married Sean,” Hilary pointed out.

  “I really wish I could feel as good about this as I felt when you two were getting married,” I added wistfully.

  “I wish I could feel as good about this as I did when we were getting married. Still, we should be supportive of Emma. She must have some good reason. Maybe she really loves Richard. And whatever her reason, we’re Emma’s best friends. We should try to give him the benefit of the doubt.” Jane’s voice, however, betrayed her lack of conviction. She’d never been a good liar; even the simple white lie was beyond her.

  “What doubt?” asked Hilary. “There is no doubt. Richard is a complete and utter snake.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Luisa agreed. “But it still doesn’t explain why Emma’s going through with this.”

  “She’s making a major mistake,” said Hilary.

  “She really is,” I agreed.

  “He is a disaster,” said Luisa.

  Jane sighed. Her optimism was tapped out. “He sure is.”

  We lapsed into an unhappy silence, sipping the chilled wine. The light from a half moon glossed over the gentle ripples on the water’s surface, and clouds moved slowly across the black sky. I breathed in the clean air, taking in the quiet brilliance of the night. In Manhattan it was probably well over eighty degrees, and so humid that the sounds of traffic and sirens would seem muted by the oppressive heat. Still, even with the heat and humidity, I would rather have been there than in this beautiful spot, dreading the day to come.

  Hilary was the first to break the silence. Her voice was calmer now, and she spoke casually, as if she were picking up on a discussion that we’d started a few minutes ago but hadn’t finished.

  “So. Is this a pact we’re going to keep?”

  CHAPTER 5

  I woke up early the next morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep. This was highly irregular—I was famous in certain circles for my ability to sleep deeply and at great length, no doubt as a result of my usual work-induced state of sleep deprivation. Perhaps on some level I already knew what had happened and my curiosity to know yet more nudged me awake.

  My mouth was dry and my head fuzzy from too many drinks the previous evening. All that champagne, and then the vodka tonics, and then even more champagne, had seemed like such a good idea at the time. But now I had a pounding headache, and every muscle in my body ached, and I had only myself to blame.

  I was sharing Emma’s room, but she was still sleeping in the other twin bed, and, eager as I was to talk to her, it seemed criminal to disturb her peaceful slumber. Careful not to wake her, I slipped out from under the down-filled comforter, exchanged my nightie for a pair of cutoffs and a cotton sweater, grabbed a few Advil from my bag, and tiptoed down the stairs in flip-flops to search for something to wash the pain relievers down. The house was quiet, and the hands of the kitchen clock told me it was only half past six, a time of day that I hadn’t seen on a weekend in at least two years.

  I reached into the refrigerator, took the pitcher that the Furlongs’ housekeeper kept filled with freshly squeezed orange juice, and poured myself a tall glass. I swallowed the pills down with a generous slug. Then I stepped through the kitchen door and onto the porch that wrapped around the house. Between the Advil, the juice, and the fresh air, I hoped I would shortly feel brand-new.

  I strolled past the long oak table and wicker chairs where the Furlongs ate their meals during the summer and paused at the railing. Sipping my juice, I took in the panorama before me. While money couldn’t buy everything, it could most definitely purchase beauty and access to beautiful places. The view from the porch was breathtaking. Beyond the mirrored surface of the lake, the distant hills were thick with pine, and while the sky was still hazy, the early morning fog was beginning to recede, yielding to an intense, cloudless blue. In the foreground, the lush green of the lawn and gardens led down to the water’s edge. The tapestry was marred only by the billowing white tent that had been erected to one side, an ominous reminder of the ceremony that was to take place that afternoon.

  It was gorgeous weather for a wedding. Richard had probably insisted on it when he made his pact with the Devil. I sighed, dreading the day ahead.

  From the corner of my eye I could see the glint of the pool, which Emma’s mother had installed around the other side of the house the previous summer to better accommodate some of her more squeamish friends from the city. Emma and her father had argued with her about this for years, saying it was absurd to put in a pool when the cool expanse of lake stretched only a hundred yards away, but Lily had ultimately won out. Not everyone, she’d protested, was comfortable swimming with the water snakes and other slippery creatures that made the lake their home. And what Emma’s mother wanted, she inevitably got. So the pool had gone in beside the house, along with a pool house that contained changing rooms, a sauna and two guest rooms, each of which undoubtedly could have swallowed my New York apartment in one gulp.

  I continued along the porch to ge
t a better look at the additions. We’d arrived just in time for the wedding rehearsal the previous day, and after that we had to rush to change for dinner. This was my first chance to check out the pool and the pool house in the clear light of day.

  Maybe it was the lurking possibility of wildlife that caused my heart to skip a beat when I glimpsed a dark shape floating on the water’s surface. I don’t know what I thought it could have been—a bear or some sort of mountain lion, perhaps?—but living in Manhattan had rendered me both alert to danger and skittish about animals that weren’t on a leash. I reminded myself that the porch stood several feet from the ground and gingerly made my way around the corner and toward the pool for a better look.

  I noted with relief that the shape was neither furry nor moving before I registered that it was Richard. One of the custom-made shirts that usually hung just so from his lean frame was plastered to his torso, and his wet black hair gleamed in the sun. His face was in the water, but I knew it was him and I knew he was dead. It seemed somehow unjust that he should go just like Gatsby, when he had none of Gatsby’s charm or surprising innocence. That was my first thought. My second thought was muffled by my own deafening shriek.

  Matthew came running out of the pool house in boxer shorts and a faded T-shirt, toothbrush in hand. “Rachel—what is it? Are you—” He stopped short when he caught sight of the body. Before I could respond, he dropped his toothbrush and dove into the water, flipping Richard over with the practiced moves of a lifeguard. I watched, paralyzed, as Matthew hoisted the body up out of the water and checked for a pulse. “Call 911!” Matthew yelled to me, already beginning CPR.

  “I just did,” I heard a calm voice say behind me. “They’re on their way. I gave them the gate code, so they’ll be able to get in.” I turned, startled. Luisa was standing in the open French doors that led to the downstairs sitting room. Her curvy figure was wrapped in a silk kimono, and her dark hair hung nearly to her waist, freed from its usual thick knot. She pulled her silver cigarette case and lighter from a pocket. Her expression was almost bemused, and she dropped her voice, speaking as if to herself. “It looks like it’s too late, though, doesn’t it?”

  The click of her lighter melted my paralysis, and I ran down the steps to the pool. I crouched next to Matthew, listening to him counting under his breath as he pumped Richard’s chest. “Come on, you bastard, breathe already,” he muttered.

  I watched him for what felt like hours but was probably only a minute or two. Finally, he sat back on his heels and shook his head. “He’s dead,” he told me. He glanced at the back of his hands, lightly freckled and sparsely covered with light-brown hair, as if in disgust at their inefficacy. He seemed unaware of the water streaming from his drenched clothing to puddle at his feet.

  I looked at the body stretched on the flagstones before us. In death Richard looked a lot like he had looked in life—just paler and wetter. His icy blue eyes stared unblinking at the sky, and his thin lips were bloodless and tinged with purple. I shivered as Matthew leaned over and gently smoothed his eyelids shut.

  I heard footsteps and voices as other members of the household appeared, awakened by the uproar. Hilary stepped onto the porch dressed in a leopard-print negligee. She rubbed sleepily at her eyes, visibly grumpy at the disturbance. There was some distance between us, but from where I was I could have sworn she brightened considerably when she got a good look at the scene before her. “What have we here?” she asked in a tone that sounded more excited than distraught. She leaned over the wooden railing to get a closer look. Luisa grabbed her elbow and admonished her in a low voice.

  Hilary was followed by Jane and Sean. I knew that happy couples frequently tended to start dressing alike, but surely their matching striped pajamas were a little much, even if they hadn’t deliberately intended to match? They joined Hilary at the railing and made a quick assessment of what had happened. “Dead?” Sean asked, his arm grasping Jane around her waist. I nodded.

  Emma’s mother was right behind Jane and Sean, her petite form swathed in a simple terry bathrobe that she wore with the same unstudied elegance as the Chanel suits she favored in the city and the designer sportswear she wore in the country. Absent her usual subtle makeup and with her dark gold hair hanging loose about her shoulders, Mrs. Furlong looked like an eerily faded version of Emma. “What—?” she started to ask. Then she took in Richard’s body and let out a shriek that made mine seem distinctly amateur.

  Emma ran out after her mother, a long T-shirt hanging halfway to her knees. She looked no older than she had freshman year. “Mother—what’s wrong?” she cried, her voice trailing off as she followed her mother’s gaze. “Oh. Oh. Is he…is he…?” A wave of white washed the color from her face.

  Matthew looked up at her wordlessly, his expression blank. Hilary and Mrs. Furlong caught her as she crumpled to the floor.

  I wasn’t sure when, exactly, Emma’s father arrived, but I remembered that he was panting, having run from his studio in the old stables. He stopped short at the edge of the pool area where the grass gave way to flagstone. I’d just noted his presence when I heard cars pulling up the drive toward the house. Their sirens echoed in the quiet morning air, the sound ricocheting from hill to hill.

  I had a strange sense of déjà vu, as if I had woken up in an Agatha Christie novel. The only missing pieces were the vicar and Miss Marple.

  CHAPTER 6

  The first question to ask was whether Richard had committed suicide. But I knew the chances of that were all but nil.

  Richard had treated the world, and everyone and everything in it, like his oyster. He was far too self-important to even play with the idea of putting an end to himself. And even if he had, he would never have arranged to die by drowning. He had been a varsity swimmer in college, before practices and meets began putting too much of a damper on his playboy aspirations. There was no way he would ever do anything that would call into doubt his erstwhile athleticism. Much less expose his handmade English shoes to chlorine. No, Richard would write a long and vindictive suicide note before blowing his brains out in such a way as to keep his handsome face intact while splattering enough blood and guts and gore to make cleaning up after him a royal pain in the ass.

  I couldn’t have been the only one thinking such thoughts as the paramedics went through the appropriate motions over Richard’s body. The local police officers who’d arrived shortly after the ambulance had immediately roped off the pool area with bright-yellow tape. They now spoke in low voices off to the side, trying to look as if possible foul play was a staple of life in this remote corner of the Adirondacks. Sean had picked up Emma after she fainted and carried her inside, escorted by Mrs. Furlong and Jane and followed by Luisa and Hilary.

  Matthew had disappeared into the pool house, but he quickly reemerged in a dry T-shirt and shorts and came to perch beside me on the steps leading up to the porch. We watched Mr. Furlong talking to the paramedics, his lined face inscrutable.

  “What do you think happened?” Matthew asked me in a low voice.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “If he were anyone else, I would guess that he had too much to drink or something and fell in. But Richard could always hold his liquor. Maybe he slipped, and hit his head, and then fell in?” I was angling for death by accident, and I was eager for Matthew to validate my hopes with solid medical evidence.

  Matthew was quiet for a moment, as if carefully choosing his words. “I don’t think he drowned, Rach. I think he was dead before he hit the water.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  “I don’t know, at least not for sure, but I was doing CPR on him, pumping his chest. If Richard were breathing when he went underwater, he would have water in his lungs. If he had water in his lungs, it’s almost impossible that some of it wouldn’t have come up. But none did.”

  I considered this. A police photographer had arrived to record the scene for posterity and, I would assume, for evidence of a crime. She asked Mr. Furlo
ng and the paramedics to back away from the body.

  “There’s something else,” added Matthew. “His pupils were dilated.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He sighed. “I see a lot of ODs—overdose cases—at the clinic. And their eyes look a lot like Richard’s did.”

  “He OD’d?”

  “Possibly.”

  “But Richard didn’t use drugs.” In fact, I remembered him holding forth in a nauseatingly self-righteous way on the topic, complete with several ideas about how the war against drugs should be fought. That most of his suggestions would violate the civil rights guaranteed by a number of constitutional amendments hadn’t seemed to bother him.

  “I’m not necessarily talking about heroin or cocaine.”

  “Even pills. He didn’t even like to take aspirin when he had a headache—he thought it was for wimps.”

  Matthew shrugged. “This is all speculation, Rach. I don’t know anything for sure.”

  I ran my hands through my disheveled hair. Had Richard been drugged, poisoned in some way, without his knowledge? Did someone kill him, perhaps slipping something into his drink, and then push him into the water in an attempt to mask the crime?

  And while part of me wanted to know the answers to these questions, part of me was scared to find out.

  I’d thought that nothing could be worse than Emma marrying Richard, but maybe I’d been wrong. If Richard had been killed, it meant that someone here—one of this close-knit circle of family and friends—was a murderer. And that was an idea I didn’t like one bit.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to think about Emma’s pained exchange with her father the previous evening, or Luisa’s rapid appearance on the scene this morning and surprising composure, or Hilary’s ill-contained excitement, almost bordering on glee. And then, of course, there was Matthew.

  I opened my eyes and looked over at him. He was silently watching the paramedics and police, his expression neutral. I’d realized long ago, however, that Matthew wore his plain, unassuming face like a mask. This wasn’t the first time I’d wondered what he was thinking.