A Noise Downstairs(94)

She hurried up the stairs after him. “What are you talking about?”

He went straight to the fridge, took out a bottle of beer, twisted off the cap, and took a long drink.

“Is there anybody else here?” he asked warily.

“No.”

“The way you were talking on the phone, I thought maybe—”

“I was being careful. But the house is safe. Say what you have to say.”

He leaned up against the island. “Okay, you’re gonna be pissed, because this is my fault, but you’re going to have to move past that so we can deal with the situation.”

“Just tell me, for Christ’s sake!”

His eyes looked upward. He couldn’t face her. “Someone heard me. What I whispered.”

“Whispered when?”

“In the church. What I said when we were walking out. That what we did, that it worked.”

“For fuck’s sake, Bill! Jesus! Who? Who heard you?”

“The therapist. Anna White.”

“How do you know?”

“She came and saw me. She came to my fucking house. Started talking about this and that, worked her way around to the fact I talked Paul out of going to the hospital. Asked if that was what I was referring to when I told you it worked.”

Charlotte shook her head disbelievingly. “You’re an idiot.”

“All right, all right, I’m an idiot.”

“And putting my hand on your cock in the middle of—”

“Okay!” he bellowed. “I get it! I’m a fucking moron. Can we get past that and deal with what’s happening right now?” As he shook his head in frustration, his eyes landed on the typewriter. “Jesus, you brought that back into the house?”

“I needed trunk space,” she said, waving her hand at the boxes that still covered up much of the island. “Look, let’s think about this.” Her voice was calmer. “What does Dr. White really have? She heard you say two words, and she’s suspicious that you didn’t want Paul to go to the hospital. It’s nothing. It’s absolutely nothing. What did you tell her when she asked what you meant?”

“I said it was about getting the office printer to work.”

“What?”

“If she asks, I called you about that. That I was trying to print out the eulogy.”

Charlotte looked exasperated. “She’s supposed to believe that the first thing you told me after the funeral for my dead husband is that you got a printer to work.”

“I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with something. Important thing is, I think she bought it. I’m more worried about the other thing, about talking Paul out of going to the hospital.”

Charlotte was thinking. “No, that’s okay. What you said made perfect sense at the time. Why would you want your friend to be locked up in a psych ward? Those places are horrible. You had a natural reaction. You’re worrying about nothing. Let it go.”

“She said she came to see you, too.”

“Yeah. But she came by to say she was sorry, that she misread the signals. She was feeling all guilty. That’s probably why she came to see you. She wants to lay this off on you so she doesn’t feel responsible.”

He took another long pull on the bottle. “I guess. But I didn’t like the way she was asking questions. I had a bad feeling about it.”

“Well, get over it. Even if she went to the police, what does she have, really? You think Detective Arnwright is going to give a shit about something like that? The medical examiner’s report, all the statements from us and the doctor and Hailey? It all points to suicide.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It does. Okay.” He grinned. “And wonder of wonders, that’s what actually happened.”

Charlotte took a step closer. “What?”

“Well, unless you dragged Paul into the water yourself and drowned him, he really did it. What’d you think I meant when I said it worked? He actually fucking offed himself.”

Charlotte stared at him, open-mouthed.

“All this time,” she said, “I wondered why you didn’t give me any warning that you were going to do it that night. We’d talked about that. So I’d be ready.”

“Why do you think I was calling you so often before the funeral?” Bill asked. “I was as stunned as you.”

“Oh my God,” Charlotte said softly. “You didn’t kill Paul. We didn’t kill Paul.”

Bill grinned. “Sometimes things just have a way of working out.”





Fifty-Eight

Anna White walked out of the Milford Police headquarters feeling like a fool.

“Idiot,” she said under her breath as she got into her SUV.

She headed home. She’d canceled so many appointments over the last week that there were still clients she’d been unable to reschedule. It was already late afternoon—God, she had to get home so Rosie could make her eye appointment—so she wasn’t going to be able to see any of them today. But she could start sorting out the next few days.

Despite being dismissed by Detective Arnwright, Anna still believed something was very wrong. She’d spent her professional lifetime reading people, and the story she believed she’d seen developing between Charlotte and Bill was one of deception.