The Other Mrs.(98)

I find the pills high above the kitchen cabinets. I use the mortar and pestle to crush them. I run the sink to lessen the sound. The pills aren’t exactly easy to dissolve, but I have my ways. Sadie has never been averse to a glass of wine after her pills. Thought she should know better because such things don’t mix well.

What I’m anticipating is some form of respiratory distress. But who really knows. There’s a whole host of things that can go wrong with a lethal overdose.

I draft a suicide note in my mind. It will be easy enough to forge. I can’t live with myself. I can’t go on this way. I’ve done a horrible, horrible thing.

After Sadie is dead it will be just the boys, Imogen and me. This is quite the sacrifice I’m making for my family. Because as the breadwinner, Sadie is the one with the life insurance policy. There’s a suicide clause in it, which says the company won’t pay out if Sadie kills herself within two years of the policy going into effect. I don’t know that she’s had it two years. If she has, we’re due a lump sum of five hundred grand. I feel a ripple of excitement at that prospect. What five hundred thousand dollars could buy me. I’ve always thought I’d like to live in a houseboat.

If she hasn’t had the policy for two years, we’ll get nothing.

But even then, I reassure myself, it’s not as if Sadie’s death will be for naught. There’s still much value in it—most important, my freedom. There just won’t be any financial gain.

Momentarily I stop crushing the pills. The thought of that saddens me. I think that perhaps it’s best to shelve Sadie’s suicide until I’ve looked into the policy. Because a half a million dollars is a lot to waste.

But then I reconsider. Silently I scold myself. I shouldn’t be so greedy, so materialistic. There are more important things to consider.

After all that Sadie has done, I can’t have my boys living with a monster.



SADIE


Why would Will bury a knife in the backyard? And what reason would he have to dig it up and hide it from the police?

If he took the knife, did he take the washcloth, too? The necklace?

Will lied to me. He told me he picked Tate up from school and then came home, but it happened the other way around. Will knew about my condition, this way I have of transforming into someone else, and he didn’t tell me. If he knew there was a potentially violent side of me, why didn’t he get me help? You were never boring, he said, such a glib thing to say in light of what I know now.

Will is hiding something. Will is hiding many things, I think.

I wonder where the knife is now. Where the washcloth and necklace are. If the police did a thorough search of our home, then they’re not here. They’re somewhere else. Unless Will had these things on his own person while the police searched our home and he hid them afterward. In which case, they may be here.

But if I’m the one who killed Morgan, why would Will hide these things? Was he trying to protect me? I don’t think so.

I consider what Officer Berg told me, that Will called him and retracted his alibi for me that night. Will said he wasn’t with me when Morgan was killed.

Was Officer Berg lying, as Will said he was, trying to pit us against each other?

Or did it happen as Officer Berg said? Was Will incriminating me?

I consider what I know about Morgan’s murder. The boning knife. The threatening notes. You know nothing. Tell anyone and die. I’m watching you. This is helpful, but unthinkable. Because I can’t get the idea of Erin and Morgan as sisters out of my mind. It’s the most damning evidence of all. Because they’re both dead.

My mind gets lost on our wedding day, the days we welcomed our babies into the world. The idea that Will, that ever gentle and compassionate Will, whom everyone likes, whom I’ve known half my life, could be a killer cripples me. I begin to cry. But it’s a silent cry because it has to be. I press my hand to my mouth, lean against the bedroom wall, my body nearly collapsing. I press hard, stifling the cry somewhere inside. My body convulses. The tears stream from my eyes.

I can’t let the others hear me. I can’t let them see me. I steady myself, tasting Will’s dinner as it moves back up and into my esophagus. By the grace of God, it stays there.

I know now that Will had a hand in Morgan’s murder because he was in on Erin’s, too. Erin’s murder, I think, and not a horrible unfortunate accident. But why kill Morgan? I go back to the threatening notes and decide: she knew something he didn’t want the rest of the world to find out.

With Will downstairs, I begin to search our bedroom for the missing things: the knife, the washcloth, Morgan’s necklace. Will is too smart to hide these things in obvious places, like under the mattress or in a dresser drawer.

I go to the closet. I search the inside of Will’s clothing for secret pockets, finding none.

I drop to my hands and knees, crawling across the floorboards. It’s a wide plank floor, which could conceivably house a secret compartment beneath. I feel with my fingers for loose boards. With my eyes, I scan for subtle differences in the height of the boards and in the wood grain. Nothing immediately catches my eye.

On my haunches, I think. I let my eyes wander around the room, wondering where else Will could hide something from me if he wanted to. I consider the furniture, the floor register, a smoke detector. My eyes move to the electrical sockets, where one is placed evenly in the center of each wall, totaling four.