The Pact (19 page)

E
mma was still sequestered in the library with the detectives when we arrived back at the house. Jacob took up a position outside the library door to wait for his daughter to emerge, and I headed upstairs to the fax machine.

I quickly replaced the toner with the fresh cartridge and called in to OS yet again. Cora had been replaced by the evening supervisor, who agreed to dig up the fax and resend it. She sounded harried and cautioned that she had a couple of rush orders to deal with so it might take a while for her to get to it. I told her that was fine, hung up the phone, and went downstairs. My own late night, early morning and midday cocktail hour was beginning to take its toll, and I was in dire need of some more caffeine.

I took a can of Diet Coke from the refrigerator in the kitchen and stepped onto the porch, hoping for some quiet time to figure out the very simple, very innocent explanation for why Jacob had suspected his own daughter and to remind myself of all of the other reasons that there was a very simple, very innocent explanation for Richard’s death.

I started to turn back when I saw Hilary sitting on the wide old-fashioned bench swing that overlooked the lake. Her nose was buried in a thick book, but I’d known Hilary long enough to recognize that the odds of finding quiet time with her around were about as slim as the odds of winning the lottery. But the spring on the screen door foiled my retreat, drawing the door shut with a small bang. Hilary turned at the noise.

“Hey, Rach,” she called, motioning me over. I went to sit beside her, the swing rocking with my weight. I flipped open the can of soda and took a sip.

“What’re you reading?” I asked. She showed me the title, something dry-sounding about oil, Islam, and politics in the Middle East.

“Prepping for my next assignment,” she explained. “I pitched a series of articles about fundamentalism in Egypt, and there are a couple of magazines that have expressed an interest.”

“That’s great. And there’s lots of indoor plumbing in Egypt, isn’t there?”

“More than most of the places I go.”

“That’s not a very high bar,” I commented.

“So, have you heard any news?” she asked, gesturing in the vague direction of inside, and, presumably, the library where the detectives were ensconced.

“No. You?”

“No. I brought some iced tea in to the police a little while ago, when they were between interviews, but they weren’t very talkative. I’m beginning to think that O’Donnell must be gay.”

“You know, Hil, it’s possible that he’s just busy doing his job. I’d imagine that most police detectives aren’t very flirtatious when they’re conducting an investigation.”

“True, but do most of the people police interview for a murder case look like me?”

There didn’t seem to be a good answer to that. I shrugged and took another sip of my soda instead.

“What’s wrong, Rach?” asked Hilary. “You seem a bit cranky.”

“I’m just stressed. We are in the middle of a murder investigation,” I reminded her.

“Maybe you should take something. I’ve got some Xanax upstairs. It’s great for anxiety.”

“What’re you doing with Xanax?” I asked, alarmed. Hilary was a handful all on her own; Hilary on drugs was too much to contemplate.

“Oh, I’ve got a whole arsenal of stuff in my bag. You can get pretty much anything over the counter in Asia, so I stock up. Xanax, Halcion, Ambien. Nothing too serious. Just the sorts of things that help me sleep on red-eyes or deal with jet lag.” It occurred to me that if I hadn’t been so intent on convincing myself that there was a very simple, very innocent explanation for everything I might have found it disturbing to discover yet another person besides Matthew with the means to knock Richard out.

“I think I’ll be all right,” I said, demurring on the Xanax.

“Okay. But let me know if you change your mind.”

“I’ll beep you. All drug dealers have beepers, right?”

“Funny.”

“I try.” I nursed my soda, and Hilary fell into an uncharacteristic silence. It lasted for a good thirty seconds, probably a record for her.

“Rach?” she said, with a rare tentativeness.

“Hmm?”

“There’s something you should probably know.” Her words reminded me with a jolt that Luisa had said something remarkably similar before Matthew had interrupted her. That combined with Jane’s account of Hilary and Luisa’s nocturnal activities made me loath to hear what was on Hilary’s mind. I had a feeling that anything she might say would do little to contribute to finding a very simple, very innocent explanation.

“What?” I asked, my heart beginning to beat faster. I took a bracing swig of my Diet Coke.

“Here’s the thing—” began Hilary.

“Do I want to hear this?” I interrupted.

“I don’t know. And what I’m struggling with is if anyone wants to hear this. Or if anyone
should
hear this. But Luisa and I discussed it and we’ve chosen you as the guinea pig.”

“Lucky me.”

“Be quiet already and just listen,” she demanded. “We want to know what you think. Luisa tried before but she said she didn’t get the chance, and we agreed that the next one who got you alone would try again. You’re the analytical thinker in the group. Jane’s too eager to believe that everything was all an accident, and when you hear what I have to say you’ll understand that we couldn’t talk to Emma about it.”

“So just tell me already.” Like the icy lake water, the best way to get this over with was probably to plunge right in.

“Well, after we came in from the dock last night, Luisa and I went up to our room and were talking for a while about how horrifying the entire situation was. You know, about how Richard was such a pig and how incredibly unhappy Emma seemed. And eventually we decided to come back down. It was around four or so. We were just going to go into Richard’s room and give him a bit of a talking-to. We felt like we owed it to Emma.” She paused, as if she were reluctant to say what happened next. This was peculiar. Hilary hardly ever paused for breath when she was telling a story in which she played a leading role.

“And…?” I asked, impatient. “Then what?”

“Well, we found him sprawled out on a lounge chair next to the pool. We thought he’d just fallen asleep, and we tried to wake him up. It took us a few minutes to realize he wasn’t breathing.” She gazed before her, as if she were reliving the scene in her head, and shivered. “It was really creepy.”

It may have been creepy, but it was nice to hear that she and Luisa didn’t seem to be the reason Richard wasn’t breathing, especially now that I knew about Hilary’s arsenal of dubiously obtained prescription drugs. “And…?” I prompted again.

“It was also worrying, for another reason. You see, when we came downstairs, we heard someone coming in from outside, and we ducked into the library so we wouldn’t be seen. We only caught a glimpse, reflected in a mirror in the hallway, so it was hard to be sure who it was, exactly.”

“Who did you think it was?” I asked with a sinking sensation. I had a bad feeling about what she was going to say next.

“We’re pretty sure it was Emma,” she continued. “So there we were. We’d just seen Emma on her way in from the pool. Then we found Richard dead, and there were two empty glasses beside him. It looked really, really suspicious. We couldn’t be sure of what had happened, and we knew that Emma would never have done anything to him, but it still didn’t look good for her. So we thought we’d try to make it appear as if Richard had had an accident of some sort. We picked him up and slid him into the pool. We were very careful to wipe away any fingerprints we may have left. Then we took the glasses into the kitchen, put them in the dishwasher, and ran it. On the superscrub function. And then we went back upstairs and waited until somebody found him.”

“Geez,” I said. “You could have warned me. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him.”

“It never occurred to us that you would be up at the crack of dawn. There’s no precedent whatsoever for such behavior on your part. You usually sleep until noon on weekends. And I guess you managed to sleep though Emma leaving your room and coming back in, too.”

I thought about this. I really was a deep sleeper; Emma
had
managed to sneak out without waking me. And it fit with what Peter had told me.

“Maybe Emma thought he’d just passed out and went back to bed.”

“Maybe. But do you really think that’s likely?”

“Are you suggesting that Emma killed him?” I asked, an accusing note in my voice.

“Look, Rach. I know that Emma wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a cockroach like Richard. But how can you explain it?”

“I don’t know. But Emma couldn’t have done it. Come on, Hil. We’ve been friends with Emma for half our lives, practically. Can you really imagine her killing someone so cold-bloodedly?”

“Is cold-bloodedly a word?”

“Hilary,” I replied, in my most threatening tone of voice.

“Okay, okay. I don’t want to think Emma did it. But, for chrissakes, explain to me who did.”

“God, Hil. I don’t know.” I was trying to sort through the logistics in my head. Peter said he saw Emma with Richard at the pool around three. And Hilary and Luisa had seen her around four. What could have happened in that one-hour window of time?

“So. Now what?” Hilary asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Luisa and I decided that we shouldn’t tell anyone about this. But we wanted a second opinion. And, as I said, you’re the guinea pig.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

I thought for a moment, looking out at the still waters of the lake. “I don’t think you should tell anyone else.”

“Really?” Hilary sounded relieved. “We didn’t think so, either. But it’s reassuring to hear it from someone else.”

Reassured was the last thing I felt, but I laid out my reasoning anyhow. “You and Luisa destroyed whatever evidence there might have been that would have proven who
did
kill Richard by cleaning everything up. You probably got rid of any fingerprints, and you washed the glasses. It’s a good news-bad news scenario. On the one hand, you made it hard to tie Emma to any crime. On the other hand, you also made it difficult to tie anyone else to it, to exonerate Emma by getting at who really killed him.”

“So what will happen? If the police can’t tie anyone to it?”

“I don’t know. Won’t they just have to chalk it up as an accident?”

“Sounds good to me.”

It sounded good to me, too. But I still wanted to know what had happened during that mysterious, unexplained hour when Emma was alone with Richard.

Somehow, that very simple, very innocent explanation seemed to be getting more and more elusive.

D
inner that evening was about as pleasant as lunch had been. After Emma finished with the police, she met Lily’s suggestion of another sedative with an acquiescent nod and let Matthew and her parents lead her up the stairs to bed.

I couldn’t see how Emma’s time with the police could have been anything but excruciating. O’Donnell seemed too thorough to cross her off the list of suspects simply out of courtesy. Between fighting off lines of questioning that called into doubt her own innocence and trying to protect the family and friends of whose innocence she was unsure, Emma, who was not an extrovert under the best of circumstances, must have been tested to the utmost. A deep, drug-induced sleep was probably a treat for her at this point. I, for one, would have been delighted to excuse myself from dinner and hop immediately into bed.

Alas. I knew enough about being a houseguest to recognize that dinner was a mandatory event. O’Donnell and Paterson left for the night, but at their request, we were all staying on—in fact, we were all staying until we were given notice that we were free to go. The situation created a bit of a Catch-22, given that we all wanted to seem cooperative. To protest would suggest having something to hide. Nor could any of us claim we had anything else to do—we’d all planned to be here through the weekend for the wedding and the Sunday morning brunch.

Jane and Sean once again took the lead on the culinary front, whipping up a gourmet feast of chicken marsala and asparagus risotto with their usual effortless grace in the kitchen. However, the quality of the cooking, the nice way Peter held my chair for me as we sat down, and even the fine Italian wines Mr. Furlong brought up from the wine cellar couldn’t begin to mitigate the tension and gloom that hung over the table like an uninvited guest. Mr. and Mrs. Furlong positioned themselves at opposite ends of the table and did their best to imitate how genial, well-mannered parents would behave when hosting a dinner for their daughter’s circle of friends, but few of us were feeling particularly talkative.

Fortunately, Hilary was capable of talking at great length with minimal support from her dining companions. She had taken advantage of the downtime that afternoon to sneak in a nap and had materialized at dinner thoroughly refreshed, radiating so much energy that it made me tired just to look at her. She danced from one topic to another, drawing on her extensive travels as a journalist, delighting in unraveling for her captive audience the Byzantine political intrigues of countries I’d never even seen on a map. The only participation required from the rest of us was an occasional murmur of wonder or assent.

Probably only a few people at the table caught the sharp edge in Mrs. Furlong’s voice when she commented that Hilary traveled even more than Matthew’s sister. “How is Nina?” she asked Matthew. “It seems as if she’s always gallivanting about from one exotic locale to the next. What a fascinating job your sister has, but it does seem to make for a difficult schedule. We were so sad that she couldn’t be here this weekend, although I guess, given the way things turned out, it’s just as well.” I snuck a peek at Mr. Furlong’s face to see how he reacted to the mention of Nina’s name. But his expression betrayed nothing as Matthew updated everyone on Nina’s trip overseas to cover the designer shows in Florence.

I wondered again if Emma was right about her father’s affair; if he truly was involved with Nina, he had one of the best poker faces I’d encountered, even in my years of negotiating with some of the wiliest, most poker-faced deal makers on Wall Street. But Emma wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, and she’d seemed very sure of what she’d told me.

Hilary neatly regained control of the conversation after this divergence, steering it away from Nina and back to herself. I found my mind wandering as she held forth. I was having that strange feeling again, as if we were trapped in an Agatha Christie novel gone wrong. I was confident that Emma was innocent, and I was trying to hold firm to my resolve to stop meddling, but the way every new piece of information seemed only to strengthen a case against Emma made it hard to sit silently by while events ran their course. I kept trying to take comfort in the knowledge that all of the things I knew—that Emma was so unhappy at the prospect of marrying Richard, that she’d been alone with him around the time he must have died—the police didn’t.

The convenient thing about Hilary’s monologue was that it gave me the opportunity to collect my thoughts, to think through what could have happened in a structured, analytical manner. I still didn’t know what I would do if I got to an answer, but anything had to be better than being both anxious and clueless. One by one, I considered the options—or, more accurately, the potential suspects.

Of course, the first, most obvious person to address wasn’t at the table but safely tucked away in one of the twin beds in her bedroom. From what Emma had said to me that afternoon, and from what I’d witnessed of her relationship with Richard, she had agreed to marry him under some form of duress. I couldn’t even begin to think of what he must have held over her; Emma, unlike most people I knew, led a remarkably blameless life. I briefly considered the idea that she might be pregnant, but then discarded it just as quickly. Beyond the fact that her birth control pills were sitting out in plain view on the counter next to her bathroom sink, she’d had several glasses of champagne the previous evening. And in this day and age, pregnancy wasn’t enough of a reason to marry someone, particularly if you were independently wealthy and had a strong emotional support network of family and friends.

Regardless of how Richard had coerced Emma into their engagement, it was becoming increasingly clear that she had been desperately unhappy about it. So I guessed that was motive right there. And, according to Peter, she’d had opportunity. She, of all people, easily could have snuck something strong into Richard’s drink when she met him out by the pool. But on the amorality and sheer guts front, Emma just didn’t stack up. I’d once seen her trap a fly in a jar and set it free outside rather than simply swat it with a magazine, like a normal person would do. That was hardly the act of a person who could murder her fiancé in cold blood.

Across the table from me sat Matthew, another high-potential suspect. His motive was abundantly clear. As for opportunity, Matthew was a doctor—he probably had easy access to something that could have been used to knock Richard out. And, staying in the pool house with Richard, he probably had the opportunity to act once Emma had returned to bed. But, once again, I just couldn’t picture it. Matthew had dedicated his life to healing others, not to harming them. He’d shunned offers to join prestigious Park Avenue surgical practices in order to devote himself to a free clinic in one of the worst neighborhoods in South Boston. I was confident that I had more potential for evil in my little finger than Matthew had in his entire body. Besides, he of all people would realize that the medical examiner would be able to trace any drugs or poisons found in Richard’s bloodstream.

I turned my gaze to the head of the table, where Mr. Furlong sat. His relief at my reassurances that Emma had been asleep the previous evening might have been relief that he didn’t have to worry that she’d witnessed any treachery on his part rather than suspicions about what she may have done. Since he was staying in his studio last night, it would have been easy for him to move about without fear of being seen by someone in the house. The argument he’d had with Emma last night, the one Peter and I had overheard, left no doubt that he, too, was intensely opposed to the imminent marriage. He was also a fiercely protective father. Still, lots of fathers were unhappy about their daughters’ choice of husbands, but that didn’t mean they killed the groom before the wedding could take place. And I couldn’t help but think that if Mr. Furlong was going to kill someone, he’d do it in a far more violent and direct manner than poison. He probably wouldn’t even use a weapon but rely on his bare hands and ferocious will.

Mrs. Furlong sat opposite her husband at the foot of the table. I wondered what she had really thought of Richard. Before today, I had never heard her express anything but enthusiasm about Richard and the wedding. Except for her momentary lapse at lunch, she was usually so unfailingly polite that it was impossible to know what was really going on in her head. While her delicate exterior belied extraordinarily strong resolve, as well as a great deal of inner turmoil, surely her rigid sense of decorum would rebel against anything as inappropriate as doing in her daughter’s fiancé the night before the wedding? It would be the ultimate social faux pas, not to mention the way it had created a logistical nightmare, what with all of the plans we’d had to cancel that morning, the gifts to be returned, and the wedding announcement to be pulled from the
New York Times
at the very last minute.

Next to me sat Peter, who was eating with a gusto that I found very appealing. I was confident that Peter had no motive to kill Richard. Why, he’d clearly been just as shocked to learn about Richard’s will as any of us. So what if Peter’s company needed money? Richard could hardly have had enough to make a difference, especially if Peter needed to get his hands on it quickly. I guessed he’d had the opportunity, although he would have had to wait until after Emma and Richard’s rendezvous, which would have involved a lot of lurking around in an unfamiliar household without being seen. Besides, what kind of person would travel three thousand miles across the country to kill off his oldest friend? Peter was far too cute to be capable of such deceit. I crossed him off the list of suspects.

That left only my four roommates and Sean, an equally unpleasant set of potential candidates. Sure, we had made a pact many years ago, had joked about “wasting” a guy if he proved unsuitable. But like the pact we’d made to give up caffeine, it wasn’t actually practical. And when I considered my friends, I couldn’t believe that any of them had really seen fit to act on that long-ago promise.

What Hilary had told me out on the porch explained the noises Jane had heard coming from the room she and Luisa shared as well as their lack of surprise this morning. Still, Hilary also hated Richard, not only on Emma’s behalf but because he’d had the gall to break up with her, something that undoubtedly had made her blood boil. But if Hilary killed every man with whom she’d had a failed romantic encounter, there would have been a long and gory trail of bodies in her wake. While she was usually the one doing the breaking up, she was confident enough to take the occasional rejection in stride. Murder in a fit of passion, I could almost picture, but the way this had been carried out didn’t mesh with anything I knew about Hilary’s style or character.

Luisa, of course, had the best reason of any of us to hate Richard. There would have been a lovely sort of poetic justice, as she herself noted, to turning the tables, putting something in his drink and doing him harm, just as he had done to her. But more than a decade had passed since he had, by her own admission, raped her. And even if revenge was a dish best served cold, Luisa’s mantra of laissez faire when it came to the affairs of others would have prevented her from intruding on what was now Emma’s business.

I recognized that Hilary’s and Luisa’s account of finding Richard already dead could have been a cover story on their part, but I doubted this was the case. And while I knew that Jane and Sean hated Richard as much as the rest of us, murder, no matter how you sliced it, was not playing fair. Jane and Sean, with their athlete’s code of honor, were all about fair play.

Finally, there was me. It would be unfair not to turn my analytics inward. I had as much of a motive as anyone at the table, after all, between the professional harm Richard had done me and my friendship with Emma. And poison would have been right up my alley, given my inability to stomach any form of blood and guts. I’d once even passed out watching a particularly gruesome episode of
ER.
And that was just ketchup.

One of my favorite Agatha Christie’s had always been
The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd,
in which the narrator ultimately revealed himself as the killer. I was the first to confess that I was deeply ambitious, and the embarrassment Richard had caused me in my professional life was great. And I would do just about anything for Emma, who was the closest thing to family I had, with the exception of my actual family. I might have a killer instinct at work, but could I have a killer instinct in any other part of my life?

I laughed to myself. If Agatha Christie were writing today, would she replace Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Terrence and Tuppence with an overworked, admittedly avaricious investment banker? Many of the contemporary mysteries and thrillers I picked up in airports to sustain me through my business travels had female heroines, but they were usually FBI agents, private detectives or at least district attorneys. But Yuppies? I doubted that there was much of a market for MBAs turned amateur sleuths.

Besides, I didn’t even know how to knit.