Perfect Family (12 page)

He looked back to the shore he'd come from. Fond du Lac, the next-to-last house in a loose string of large houses with wide lawns and separated by thick clusters of tall pine trees. And to the left of that, the Bells' A-frame jutted up from the lake like an arrowhead. William turned and swam the breaststroke for a while. He was headed for the Nicelys' house, a white bungalow with a screened-in porch running the full width, close to the water. The houses on this side of the lake were newer, closer together, and more cheerful. There were several boats tied to the Nicelys' pier. A car was parked close beside the house.

He hoped Katherine would be home. He hoped her parents wouldn't be. The parents were okay. He was a lawyer, and she was some big deal in a software company in Boston. But he didn't want their pity, their very formal pity, which was what it would be.
William, darling, we're so terribly…and how is your family? How is Jasper? Poor dear man.

Forget that.

When he could touch bottom, he saw Katherine heading down the path toward him at a near run, wearing a bright yellow sundress and a baseball cap facing sideways so the bill was on one side and her ponytail bobbed through the hole in the cap on the other. A goofy look on anybody else, cute on her. He had always thought of Katherine as a bandy-legged little tomboy; now she was a woman, and he was startled by it, as if time had zipped past without his noticing.

Before he was even out of the water, she threw herself at him and was embracing him and sobbing so hard he almost had to hold her up to keep her from slipping into the water. “Oh God,” she kept saying, clutching at him. He held her while she heaved sobs into his shoulder. “I thought you were
her,
” she wailed. “It keeps happening. I see somebody swimming out in the middle of the lake. I hear a car in the driveway. The telephone rings, and I think,
Oh, it'll be Pony,
and then Jesus, it's this hit to the solar plexus all over again when I realize no, of course it isn't. It can't be. She's dead. She drowned. And then I can't believe it all over again.”

She pulled away, shielded her eyes with one hand, and punched him in the shoulder with the flat of her other hand. “And what are you doing swimming the lake without a boat, William Carteret? You want us to lose you, too? Goddamn. When I realized it was you—” She pushed his shoulder again. “You
know
better.”

The ghost of loss swept through him again. He couldn't remember being alone with Katherine. Where Katherine was, Pony was. He looked about as if he might find her. They were all doing that, it seemed. A personality as strong as Pony's took a while to leave this earth. Up at the house, on the screened porch, a young woman was watching them. Her arms crossed over her chest. He waved.

“She's watching, isn't she?” Katherine lowered her head.

“Who is she?”

“Annie.” Katherine sounded weary.

“Annie who?” He had to smile. The drama. Everything about Katherine ran hot or cold, like Pony. Never an in between.

“She is jealous of everything. I had no idea. None at all. Now she'll be pissed about you. About the hug. You wait and see. Any minute she'll be down here.” She flopped down on a wooden bench overlooking the lake. “She's jealous of Pony, for Christ's sake. Pony!”

William turned to take another look.

“Don't!” Katherine snapped. “She'll know I'm talking about her.”

“Um, Katherine?” William said. “What's—”

“You do know I'm gay, right?”

“Didn't get that memo,” he said.

She let out a whoop. “To hear Mom talk, my coming out was the shot heard round the lake.” Katherine put her feet up on the fence. She had brown feet and long sinewy toes. “There are some e-mails you need to see.” A door slammed. She looked beyond him up toward the house. “Oh, brother.”

The girlfriend was heading down the path toward them.

“She'll be loaded for bear,” Katherine said.

“Women,” William said. “Can't live with 'em, can't—”

“And who might you be?” The girlfriend's voice was high-pitched. She also wore a baseball cap.

“I might be William, from across the lake.” She was tall and lanky. “I'm an old friend of the family. And you?”

“Anne Foster.” She had a dynamite handshake and was less pretty up close, which had to do with worry lines and a certain nervous, darting quality. “So what would the two of you be all in ca-hoots about?”

“William is Pony's brother,” Katherine said.

“Oh.” Anne brightened. “I'm so terribly sorry,” she said.

“I need to show William some e-mails, Anne,” Katherine said. “We'll be up at the house.” She led the way past Anne, back up the path to the house. William followed. Halfway up the path, he turned to see what Anne was doing, and she was right behind him.

Katherine led the way to a small study off the living room where a laptop was set up. “Sit,” she told William. Leaning over him, she hit
buttons and scrolled down until she had a screen full of e-mails. “Read. They start three weeks before she died.”

“That's the end,” Katherine said. “Two days before she died. She was worried about the possibility of incest.” She crouched beside him and looked up. “Does any of it ring a bell? Does it mean anything at all to you?”

“I'm not the father, if that's what you're thinking.” William pushed his chair back sharply and stood. The chair clattered over. Anne was watching from the open door. “What are you looking at?” he said. Anne sighed in disgust and disappeared.

“I wasn't thinking that at all.” Katherine got to her feet. “For some reason, she was worried about Andrew's father.”

“I have to get going,” he said.

“You can't walk home in bare feet, William.”

But he left. He felt lousy. He thought of the way Pony had watched him from the turret when he'd first arrived. The whole cat and-mouse feel that afternoon. He shivered. How could he help remembering what Pony had done that day? Her aggression had been disturbing as hell.
Face it,
he told himself.
She invited you up with seduction in mind, and you blew her off. You rejected her.
He stopped, feeling sick to his stomach. Was that it?
No way,
he thought.
No way. She was just being her usual self.
It had never bothered her to show her body. It was who she was. It was something else.

He strode up the short drive to the lake road, gravel pressing into his bare feet. So then why the big worry about incest? Unless she'd found out something about the father. The guy's mother was his sister. But later for that. Right now he wanted to tackle the Denny thing. That held more promise. Make the kid talk. At the very least, maybe he could find out what Pony had done after he left, and that would be something, wouldn't it?

He walked faster, breathed deeper. He was coming to a bend in the road, heading toward the town beach, past the general store, traffic picking up. People slowed and waved to him. He knew what they must be saying to one another.
Isn't that William Carteret? The one whose sister drowned?
He stopped waving back. Something nagged at him. Something he couldn't put a finger on. He left. She died. He kept seeing the way she'd looked coming up the beach toward him as he backed his car out of the drive.

And again the feeling that he was missing something. The phone call came to mind. The phone call and the photograph of his mother, of their mother. There was more to this. There had to be. Another car came from behind and slowed, then bumped along the shoulder. He turned. Katherine had pulled to the side of the road and stuck her head out the window. “William, get in,” she said. “Honest to God, you can't walk all that way barefoot. You'll tear up your feet. Just get in.”

She was a lousy driver. She stripped the gears, gave it too much
gas, lurched. “I feel awful,” she said. “I didn't realize it would upset you so.”