The End of Her

by Shari Lapena

  “He’s going to dissolve the partnership.”

  “Can he do that?” she asks.

  “Of course he can, according to the terms of the partnership agreement.” He adds, “He’ll buy me out.”

  She feels a stab of fury. “With friends like that,” she says bitterly, “who needs enemies?”

  * * *

  • • •

  ERICA SITS IN HER APARTMENT, nursing a cup of coffee.

  Undetermined. Now the ball is in the sheriff’s court. He will have to do something, after hearing the evidence. Patrick must be terrified. She thinks for a moment about his wife, Stephanie. She’d looked awful at the inquest. Thinner, but not in a good way. Her face was hollow. She must be going through hell, Erica thinks now. She tells herself that’s not really her problem. She’s doing Stephanie a favor. She should know what she married. She hopes they arrest him.

  She tells herself that every cloud has a silver lining. She certainly thinks this one does.

  40

  For Stephanie, that first day back is a blur of fatigue, caring for the twins and worrying ceaselessly about the future. The weather has turned dark and wet, and people have begun preparing their yards for Halloween.

  Stephanie can’t stop thinking about the bruises on Lindsey’s body. Did Patrick push her down the stairs? Could he have? She’s seeing signs of stress in him, cracks in the façade that make her wonder. He’d snapped at her that afternoon for allowing them to run out of milk. She’d snapped right back.

  Late that night, staring into the dark, she finds herself wondering what it was like for Lindsey, to marry so young, to be pregnant, to be alone all day in a place away from her family. They didn’t have much money. Love flies out the window when the wolf is at the door. Did she know he had cheated on her? Did she suspect? Did she accuse him? Maybe she did, and he didn’t like it. Maybe that’s why he pushed her down the stairs. . . . No. She can’t think this way, she can’t. It’s just anger making her think like this, anger at him, at everything. Anger that he cheated on his first wife and brought all of this on himself, on her, and their beautiful daughters. They could lose everything because he slept with an attractive woman a couple of times when he shouldn’t have. She’s angriest of all at Erica—for sleeping with a friend’s husband, for persisting with this crazy story about murder. For lying on the stand about the blackmail.

  She tries not to blame Patrick for what he’s done. Sleeping with his wife’s best friend is unforgivable. So why has she forgiven him?

  Has she forgiven him?

  She still hasn’t decided. She goes back and forth. He hasn’t cheated on her, as far as she knows. Should she leave him anyway, on principle? Because once a cheater always a cheater? Even if nothing more happens with the case, and it all just goes away—the best they can hope for—people will look at her for the rest of her life and wonder if she’s married to a murderer. She remembers the expression on Hanna’s face when she offered to take Teddy.

  If she left him now it would look like she didn’t believe him, that she thought he was a murderer. She can’t do that to him. And she has the babies to think of—he’s their father. They can’t grow up thinking their mother believes their father murdered his first wife. Especially since it isn’t true.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING Patrick is out picking a few things up at the grocery store when the phone rings, and Stephanie reluctantly answers. “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Patrick Kilgour?” a man asks. Immediately her body tenses. The voice is serious, authoritative.

  “He’s not here. May I ask who’s calling?” she says, her heart racing.

  “It’s Sheriff Bastedo with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. Could you please have him call me as soon as he gets in?” He gives her a number, and she writes it down, her hand trembling, her mind panicking. When she hangs up the phone she walks into the living room and collapses onto the sofa. It’s happening—they’re going to arrest him. She feels dizziness wash over her. She puts her head down between her knees before everything goes black.

  Moments later she hears Patrick return home. He must see her, she thinks, bent forward in what looks like a faint, but she can’t lift her head.

  “Stephanie, what is it?” Patrick cries. And then he’s kneeling in front of her, his voice worried. “Are you all right?”

  But she can’t catch her breath. It feels like there’s a band across her chest and black spots are dancing in front of her eyes.

  “Breathe,” he tells her.

  The moment passes. The black spots recede and she’s able to lift her head and look at him. He brushes a lock of hair away from her face. “What’s wrong, what happened?” he asks, his voice tense.

  “You had a call,” she says. “From the Grant County sheriff.” She sees the fear settle on his face; they’re both terrified. “He wants you to call him back. He left a number.”

  Patrick stands up quickly and looks down at her with frantic eyes. “What did he want?”

  She looks back at him, frightened. “He didn’t say. He just wants you to call back.”

  He begins pacing the room. “Fuck. Fuck.”

  There’s no way out of this, Stephanie thinks, starting to panic. They’ll arrest him. He’ll go to jail. He’ll go to trial. She doesn’t think she can survive a trial. The inquest was almost more than she could stand.

  “I’m going to call Lange. Ask him what to do,” Patrick says. She nods as he takes out his cell and makes the call.

  Stephanie watches as Patrick talks to the attorney. It’s a short conversation.

  “What did he say?” she asks nervously.

  “He told me not to panic,” Patrick says with heavy sarcasm. “Easy for him to say. He wants me to find out what they want and call him back.”

  Patrick paces around the room a few more times, too agitated to phone the sheriff. She watches him go into the kitchen, hears him pouring himself a drink. He comes back into the living room with the glass of liquor and downs it in two gulps. He waits for a long moment and then says, “Where’s the number?”

  She finds him the piece of paper with the number on it. He swallows and then calls. She can only hear one side of the conversation, but it’s easy to piece together what’s happening.

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Patrick says. “Are you arresting me?”

  She watches as his face takes on a new pallor. “Fine, sure.” He hangs up. Slowly, he turns to her. “They want me to do a polygraph test.”

  * * *

  • • •

  PATRICK STANDS COMPLETELY STILL, his cell phone still in his hand. He can feel the sweat at his hairline. He reaches up automatically as if to loosen the collar at his neck, but he’s only wearing a T-shirt—he doesn’t have to dress for work anymore—and he lets his hand fall.

  His wife looks at him. “That’s all right, isn’t it?” she says tentatively. “They’re not arresting you. They’ll do the polygraph, and when you pass, maybe they’ll drop the whole thing and leave us alone. They’ll know you didn’t do it!”

  He turns on her, his voice tense. “It’s not that simple, Stephanie.”

  She falters, her face pale and drawn, “What do you mean?” There’s a long, fraught pause.

  “Those tests aren’t reliable. They aren’t even admissible in court.”

  “Then why do them at all?”

  He looks back at her, rage building inside him. Those bastards. He tries to remain calm. “I’ll tell you why. The police can manipulate them. They’ll make me come off badly.”

  “Surely they can’t make you fail—not if you’re telling the truth.”

  He turns away; he doesn’t want to look at her. He turns to his cell. He needs to talk to his attorney.

  41

  The following day, Thursday, Stephanie wakes early. She l
ooks over at her husband, still sleeping. The babies aren’t even awake yet. She stares at his sleeping form, the familiar shoulder, his dark hair, his classically handsome profile. She thinks about how much she once loved him. It wasn’t even that long ago. It makes her wonder if love is just an illusion, one that disappears when reality gets too dark. No, she decides. Love is real. The love she feels for her baby daughters is real. But romantic love—maybe that’s all an illusion.

  She must pack up the twins early and take them back to Hanna. They have a flight to Denver today. They will meet at Lange’s office in Denver, and then together they will go to the Sheriff’s Office in Creemore. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen. She finds the tension almost unbearable. There was an awful moment, booking the tickets online, when Patrick didn’t know whether to book two same-day return tickets or just one. Lange had warned him that he might not be coming back. In the end, a return ticket wasn’t much more expensive than a one-way fare, so he booked himself a return ticket too.

  She knows that she, at least, is coming home on the evening flight. She’s assured Hanna of that. She’ll be home late that night to take the twins off her hands.

  Patrick had argued with her about whether she should go at all. He’d been quite insistent—even adamant—that she not go. There was nothing she could do to help; she should stay home and take care of the twins. It wasn’t like the inquest, where appearances mattered. They were going to go to the Sheriff’s Office, as requested, and whatever was going to happen would take place outside of the public eye. There was no need for her to be there, he’d assured her.

  But she’d stood her ground. What he didn’t seem to understand was that she wanted to be there. She wanted to hear for herself what the attorney had to say.

  Most of all, she wanted to be there when Patrick took the polygraph at the Sheriff’s Office.

  She slips out of bed quietly and goes downstairs to put on the coffee.

  The time goes by in a blur—she feeds the babies, dresses them, has toast while Patrick showers, and takes the twins across the street just before they leave. They’re in the car by 6:00 a.m. for their 8:35 a.m. flight. They don’t speak during the entire long drive to the airport.

  Stephanie spends her time leaning against the window, her mind blank. She’d told Hanna that they were going to see the attorney in Denver, and that the police wanted to question her husband. Hanna hadn’t known what to say. She’d just given her a big hug.

  The flight lands on time and soon they are in a cab on their way to the attorney’s office. Stephanie stares stoically in front of her. She has no interest in Denver.

  The law firm is sleek and modern and hums with a discreet energy. Lange meets them at reception. “How was your flight?” he asks. It’s small talk and none of them are in the mood to engage. “Follow me,” he says and directs them to his office. They were here before, to prepare for the inquest.

  Once they’re inside his office, settled in their chairs, he gets right down to business. “I’m sorry about this, but I’m not surprised. As I told you after the inquest, after a verdict of undetermined, they have to be seen to be doing something. Questioning you is the next step. They have to do it. And, in Colorado, it’s pretty common to ask a suspect to come in and take a polygraph.”

  “What if I don’t do it?” Patrick asks.

  Stephanie looks at him in dismay.

  “Then they might arrest you,” the attorney says.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Stephanie says. “Why do the polygraph if they can’t use it?”

  Lange looks at her. “Let me explain about polygraphs. The way they work is by measuring various physiological changes—in heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, breathing, and so on—when the examiner asks each question. Based on the results, the examiner may conclude whether the person is lying or not. They are often unreliable. And yes, for that reason, they’re generally not admissible in court.”

  “Then what purpose do they serve?” Stephanie asks.

  The lawyer says carefully, “Although they may not be admissible in court, the police think they provide valuable information.”

  “So the police believe them, they just can’t use them in court,” she says, reading between the lines.

  Without answering, he turns to her husband. “If you pass, that will probably be the end of it. It usually is. And it would be next to impossible to prove murder at trial.”

  Stephanie glances at her husband, who has his attention fixed on the attorney.

  The lawyer leans forward at his desk. “Let me tell you something else about polygraphs. They are very risky. We never let our clients take a police polygraph without doing one with our own examiner first.” He lets that sink in, regarding them both with a serious expression. “In any event, agreeing to come in and take a police polygraph test amounts to the same thing as giving an interview to the police. You may be manipulated or tricked into giving incriminating information—because although the results of the polygraph aren’t admissible in court, the questions and the answers you give are. Sometimes it’s better not to talk to them at all. It’s an important decision, not to be taken lightly.” He adds, “In most cases, a police polygraph is not helpful, but sometimes it can be.”

  There’s an uneasy silence, into which Patrick says, “So what are we going to do?”

  “Like I told you on the phone, we’re going to get you hooked up to the machine and do a polygraph right here,” the attorney says. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

  Patrick hadn’t told her that they would do a polygraph at the law firm first. Stephanie sits in her chair, reeling. The attorney doesn’t seem to think Patrick will pass the polygraph. Fair enough—most of his clients are probably guilty; they probably routinely fail. But surely Patrick didn’t murder his wife. This is going to help them. It has to.

  She looks at Patrick, sitting nervously in his chair; he refuses to meet her eyes. A chill creeps over her, like cold fingers running over her body.

  When the attorney returns, he’s accompanied by a man carrying equipment. They quickly get everything set up on a table in the corner of the large office. Soon Patrick is sitting across from the examiner. He has two rubber straps across his chest and a clip on his index finger.

  Stephanie and the attorney watch from the side. “Just relax,” Lange tells Patrick. “Roddy here is one of the best in the business, a retired police officer. He knows what he’s doing.” Her husband flicks a nervous glance at the examiner. “Roddy is going to ask you a series of questions that we have prepared. Just answer yes or no,” the attorney says.

  The examiner nods at Lange, and the attorney says, “Okay, let’s begin.”

  The examiner, when he speaks, has a calm, measured voice.

  “Is it the month of October?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to answer all my questions truthfully?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever lied to get out of trouble?”

  A slight hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Were you living in Creemore, Colorado, in January 2009?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before your wife, Lindsey Kilgour, died on January 10, 2009, did you know that it is dangerous for a person to be inside a running car if the exhaust pipe is blocked with snow?”

  “No.”

  “On the day that your wife died, did you tell her to wait in the car while you shoveled it out?”

  “No.”

  “Before your wife died on January 10, 2009, did you know that the exhaust pipe of your car was blocked with snow?”

  “No.”

  “Do you currently live at Seventeen Danbury Drive, Aylesford, New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever push your wife Lindsey Kilgour down the stairs?”

  “No.”

  “Did you
intend for your wife Lindsey Kilgour to die by having her stay in a running car with the exhaust pipe blocked with snow?”

  “No.”

  “Before January 10, 2009, had you ever heard of an instance where a person died inside a running car because the exhaust pipe was blocked by snow?”

  “No.”

  Finally, the examiner turns off the machine and looks up at Lange. He shakes his head, his mouth turned down.

  Stephanie sees black spots dancing before her eyes.

  42

  Patrick, stunned, remains seated in the chair, bolt upright, arms on the armrests, his heart hammering. No. This can’t be what it looks like. But Lange is standing beside the examiner, studying the results. His face is serious.

  Suddenly he hears Stephanie gasping. She’s sucking in air, her hand clutching at her chest, and everyone’s attention is pulled toward her. He watches her, unable to move. Lange bends down toward Stephanie. Patrick’s still hooked up to the equipment, as if he’s already in the electric chair. He watches his wife in disbelief; she’s having one of her panic attacks.

  The attorney is telling her to breathe; her head is bent forward, down to her knees. This is what she does, Patrick thinks, when things get rough. He knows about the panic attacks. She’s told him all about them, described what they feel like. He knows he has failed the polygraph—he can tell by the reaction of the examiner and his attorney.

  They are all focusing on his wife. What no one seems to realize is that he’s in just as much shock as she is.

  Gradually, the distressed noises coming from his wife subside and she starts to breathe more regularly. “That’s it,” Lange says, his voice steady. Patrick feels the examiner’s hands on him, undoing the equipment. Patrick wants to speak, but he can’t seem to make his voice work.

  The mood in the room has shifted, he can feel it. He stares at his wife. He hadn’t wanted her to come. She should have stayed home, like he told her to, he thinks, and she would have been spared this.