The Hellfire Club(77)

“I could see that decision not being so simple,” she finally allowed. “I mean, what if he ends up being a Communist and it comes out that you sat on the file? It would be easy for me to judge. But who knows if it’s wrong or right? It’s not as if there aren’t Communists infiltrating the world of defense contractors.”

Charlie nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s how I rationalized it, but it wasn’t a proud moment. And I don’t trust LaMontagne.”

Margaret was less understanding when he told her about McCarthy asking him to steal the file on NBC’s investigation into Strongfellow from his father’s study.

“Why on earth would you do that?” she asked.

And that was when he had to tell her the worst of it: the car accident. He didn’t know who knew what, and he was terrified to disobey anyone lest that person ruin his life.

As calmly and clearly as he knew how, Charlie recounted the events of that awful night—those he remembered, at any rate. He watched his wife’s face closely as she tried to understand what he was telling her: waking up in the mud, LaMontagne’s arrival, the discovery of the dead woman, LaMontagne carrying her corpse to the car, Charlie refusing to take part in it but also refusing to stop it, the two of them driving off, how he’d collapsed later that morning from the guilt of it all, his terror that he might have killed an innocent woman.

When he was finally done, the tiny room was silent. Outside a chorus of crickets chirped.

Margaret looked at her husband with an expression that suggested both shock and revulsion, and then, without a word, she stood up from the bed, walked to the door, opened it, and took in great gulps of fresh air. The crickets’ refrain grew louder and seemed almost taunting to Charlie.

He sat, helpless, while she stood ramrod straight in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest, her chin thrust out defiantly.

He feared he had lost her, that this had been a bridge too far. Had telling her been a selfish decision? Had he blown up his marriage in the name of saving it?

Charlie didn’t know what to say. His heart pounded with desperation.

“I know you’re disappointed,” he said. “I am too. I know I should have stopped him and called the police.”

Margaret stared up at the sliver of moon. She was silent.

“All I can say is that at the time, I was toxically drunk. And in some sort of shock. And when I finally understood what had happened, the thought of leaving you and the baby on your own seemed atrocious. That’s not an excuse and it makes me sound as if I think I’m some selfless hero, but you have to believe it’s not like that at all. I am disgusted with myself.”

“I’m actually bothered about something else more than that,” she said.

Uh-oh, thought Charlie. Jesus. I shouldn’t have told her.

“How did you drive the car?” Margaret asked.

Charlie was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

She turned around and faced him, standing in the doorway. “You were blackout drunk. Strongfellow told you later that you were knocked out.”

“Right.”

“Charlie, you don’t just shake off that sort of thing and go drive. That’s not you. You go full coma. You’re impossible to wake up from something like that. I can’t even get you to stop snoring. And that’s from mere martinis, forget absinthe.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t think you were driving the car. I don’t think you killed that young woman. And then LaMontagne just happens along? And now you’re indebted to him? I mean, really?”

Charlie looked at her eyes, as clear and green as emeralds, her expression as sincere as a child’s. She meant this. And in her certainty, he began to believe it might be true. It hadn’t even been a full week since the crash, but it felt like six months. He’d carried the guilt of that night with him as a constant companion; the thought that he might not have been responsible was something he barely allowed himself to consider, to hope for. He started to offer a protest, but Margaret, silhouetted in the doorway, silenced him with a stern shake of her head.

“There’s just no one who knows you like I do, Charlie, and I’m telling you that you weren’t responsible for that car crash. Not for any moral or ethical reason; I mean, just pure metabolism.”

She reentered the room and shut the motel door behind her.

“I think it was all a setup,” she said.



At nine that morning, Isaiah Street’s 1952 green Plymouth Cranbrook pulled up in front of their motel room, its brakes screeching and gravel spraying.

Charlie had called him a few hours earlier. He knew it was a big favor to ask, but he believed that Street had some idea of how high the floodwaters were rising around him, a sense confirmed when Street immediately agreed.

The Marders were waiting and ready when Street arrived, giving him no need to honk or even turn off the car as they climbed inside, Charlie up front, Margaret in back. Street nodded his appreciation: “No reason for someone like me to be in one place for too long in rural Maryland,” he said drily as he made a U-turn out of the parking lot and got back on Rural Route 32, keeping five miles an hour under the speed limit, as always.

“I’m guessing you went faster as a Tuskegee Airman,” Margaret joked.

“All I had to worry about up there was the Luftwaffe,” Street said.