Dead to Her(97)

“Michael didn’t steal anything.” Jacquie looked up. “Jason did.”

“But he couldn’t have—he didn’t—” Marcie couldn’t process it. It couldn’t be true. Could it? “Jason’s always so upset when he talks about his father’s death. The loss. How he had to build himself back up and get everyone’s respect again.”

Jacquie shook her head. “Jason was the only child. The golden child. Michael blamed himself for spoiling him, for the whole County Day lifestyle that can be great for those kids with drive, but for the few like Jason who are mainly arrogance and no substance, it can make them greedy. Jason was greedy, but it wasn’t Michael’s fault. It was just his nature.”

“So why . . . I mean, he killed himself. Surely he wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t guilty?”

“He took the blame for Jason. His wife moved back to Jacksonville and wanted nothing to do with him. She died in a car crash shortly after. Drunk at the wheel. Her family said it was the shame of it all. Michael was alone and I think when he realized the enormity of what was going to happen to him, he couldn’t face the jail time and wasn’t sure he could maintain his story without buckling and telling the truth. Or getting caught out in lies and accidentally revealing his innocence. I think he came to believe that suicide was the only way to really protect Jason.”

“Oh God,” Marcie said.

“It gets worse,” Jacquie said. “Jason knew he was going to do it. He told me his father was talking about it. The day he hanged himself? He rang Jason, drunk, to say he loved him and would always protect him. It was a goodbye phone call. I knew it. Jason knew it. I told him to go around right away, to make sure his dad was okay, but he didn’t. He finished his coffee. Let another half an hour go by before he went. I think on some level he was happy his dad had taken his own life. He didn’t have to worry anymore.”

The creaking rope. Moments too late.

“And nobody suspected Jason at all?” Could this still be part of some twisted plan of Jacquie’s? Marcie wanted to cling to that idea, but somewhere inside everything she said felt true. The dead look on Jason’s face sometimes. The way he lied so smoothly. Sociopath sprang to mind. She felt a sudden, mildly hysterical urge to laugh.

“Eleanor maybe. She’d known Michael since they were young and she liked his gentleness. I don’t think she ever trusted Jason after Michael’s suicide. Eleanor was perceptive. Maybe Michael had even said something to her about it. They had been close. I think she saw Jason’s relief when his father died. It stank of guilt.” She looked up at Marcie, suddenly seeming a lot younger than her years. Vulnerable. “I told you we were going to need something stronger.”

“And you knew all this? And never told anyone?”

“I thought I could get past it. I couldn’t. Why do you think I was so bitter during the divorce? I’d carried this shit around with me for years. So much guilt. He didn’t feel it at all. He sailed through life while I couldn’t ever sleep, trying to run away from it all at night gyms. So yeah, when he decided to trade me in for you I was angry. I wasn’t jealous—I didn’t love him anymore—but I hated that he thought he could end it so easily, as if what I knew didn’t matter. And I guess it didn’t, because I never told anyone. I was too scared of implicating myself. But now”—she smiled, momentarily joyful—“he was arrogant enough to do it again and now he’s going to get his comeuppance. He’s finally going to pay in some way for what happened to Michael.”

“So you had nothing to do with what happened to William?” Marcie was still struggling to get her head around the wider picture.

“God no!” Jacquie said. “I mean, I didn’t like William very much and Eleanor deserved better, but then don’t most women? I had already been planning to talk to the police, or at least William, about my suspicions that Jason might be stealing, but then when William was poisoned I obviously suspected Jason of that too. That’s why I went to the hospital. To fish for information. That’s where I heard there’d been some tension and then I knew I had to say something.”

Marcie had to admit that after hearing all this, she’d suspect him too if she hadn’t spoken to him face-to-face. Sociopathic liar or not, she still thought he’d told her the truth. “I don’t think he poisoned William,” Marcie said.

“I don’t actually care,” Jacquie countered. “I’d still be happy for him to go to jail for it. Karma and comeuppance and all that shit. But I’ll settle for the embezzlement charges. Who knows, maybe they’ll look back at what happened with Michael and reinvestigate.”

The ghosts will always come for you. Marcie was learning that. “So you didn’t send the yearbook to Jason?”

“Your crazy past? No.” Jacquie smiled. “I never liked you much, but you also didn’t interest me enough to want to know about you. My hate was directed at Jason. Have you considered that maybe he sent that to himself? To keep you quiet? Or to keep you as a backup plan? If the police started suspecting him, he could throw your past at them, they’d see the coincidences in the deaths, and then no death penalty for Jason?”

“That would only work if he was guilty,” Marcie said. “And, as I said, I don’t think he is.”