The Winter Girl (18 page)

“What do you call that silly knife that used to be on TV?” Carmelita said. “They'd give you an extra one for free to chop tomatoes.”

Elise, unable to work up the nerve to enter Swain's home by herself, was now knocking on the sliding glass door of the living room again. This time, a little more insistently.

“I have no idea,” I said, walking up the basement stairs. Carmelita stayed where she was, and when I glanced back at her, she made a quick chopping motion with her right hand.

Of course, Victor had told her about his $2.8 million. Hung it over her head so that she'd do the little things he needed.

“Walk up the stairs faster,” Carmelita said, giving me advice as I ascended the steps and caught sight of Elise cupping her hands and peering inside. “You've just heard her knocking. You were exploring the empty basement. You found nothing. And zip up your pants, Captain.”

I did just as I was told, which seemed to delight Carmelita. I could still hear her gently laughing as I closed the basement door behind me.

E
lise saw me at the last moment and lurched back, turning toward the sea, as if she might run all the way down the hill.

I pulled open the sliding door and joined her on the patio.

“She's gone,” I said, glancing back at the house. “No sign of her anywhere and I've been in every room.”

“Did you hear me calling you?”

“I was in the basement. You have no idea how much junk I had to wade through down there.”

I was explaining the many potential hiding spots in the dank basement when Elise flung her arms around my neck, pulling my head down until my forehead touched hers.

“I thought I was going to get sick,” she said. “You don't even know how fast my heart was beating. I thought she had killed you. I thought I'd find you lying on the floor in there somewhere.”

I kissed her on the lips, quickly, because I thought she might somehow smell Carmelita on my skin. Then I squeezed her hand and started to lead her away from the house, but she wouldn't budge.

“I thought I just heard someone call my name,” she said anxiously. “Did you just hear that? Like sort of mockingly?”

“No,” I said, using a little more force to drag her away from Swain's home. “Believe me. You didn't hear anything.”

E
lise had found an ancient cigarette she had tucked away in a small velvet-lined box on the sideboy, and we shared it on the deck. We stooped forward, passing the Marlboro Red like a joint, exhaling through our teeth. The temperature had dropped below freezing again, but it was still early in the day.

I handed Elise what remained of the cigarette and we both turned toward Swain's house. I breathed a little more easily when I saw that Carmelita was not standing and watching us from the window.

“I heard her voice,” Elise said, crushing out the cigarette against the railing. A few sparks flared away, and she flicked it into the dark.

“There was no one there,” I said, staring across the gully.

“Where is she?”

“I told you I searched the whole house. Why would I lie to you?”

“I don't know, Scott. We're not getting along. You just watched me poison my father. Maybe you're hedging your bets.”

Little thief,
I was thinking, picturing her as a young girl, stealing money from the wallets of guests who had come for dinner.
Little murderer.
What had happened to her half sister? What were the other ninety-eight secrets Carmelita had promised?

“I'm telling you,” I said. “I searched everywhere. The basement. The closets.”

“You fucked her.”

“Elise.”

There's something I always do when I'm lying and I need time to think. I repeat the first name of the person I'm lying to. It's just one of the reasons I'm a terrible liar.

“Just tell me the truth. Get it over with.”

I listened to myself tell her the truth, chipping away at any unnecessary detail. It had been quick and disgusting. I felt fucking terrible. I was a stressed-out mess. I wasn't thinking right.

“I'm a mess,” I said again. “I'm so sorry.”

I waited for her to scream at me or slap my face, but she did nothing. When she opened her mouth, her frozen breath curled toward me and vanished, curled toward me again.

“It's freezing,” she finally said in a voice that sounded much too calm. “Let's go inside.”

I opened the door and followed her in. On the dining room table she had spread out all of Victor's old papers. Heaps of correspondence that she had started to separate into distinct piles before seemingly losing interest. There was a single Christmas card, looking very regal in a large red envelope, Victor's name ornately handwritten on the front. I tucked my index finger underneath the flap and tore it open.

It was a photo of Richard and Martha Swain, sitting in two large armchairs and tilted lovingly toward each other. Her white hair is cut short, but she looks remarkably healthy. It's Dick Swain who's gained weight, his face a sunburned red. On a table in front separating them were two porcelain statues of Mr. and Mrs. Claus, about the same height as the porcelain pig.

On the back was written:

Merry Xmas from the Capri Rehab (skilled nursing, Victor! Martha says this is
the
place for you!). Here's to visiting the real Capri next summer and swimming in the Blue Grotto. Thanks for watching over the house. I know it's been an eternity. We shall return! Yours R&M.

“Who's it from?” Elise said.

“The Swains,” I said, stretching out my hand so she could see it. “Apparently, they're alive and well in Phoenix.”

She took the card from me and silently read it, then neatly ripped it up in four exact quarters and tossed it into the fireplace.

“So much for your blackmail idea,” she said.

“Whose blood is on the bed, then?” I asked her. I felt my back muscles getting rigid, the pain spreading outward toward my shoulders. I saw myself tearing off the comforter, and I saw the shape of that bloodstain again, turned yellow at its farthest edges.

“How do I know?” Elise said. “You think I'm one step ahead of you? Finding ways to make this even more terrible?”

“All right, all right,” I said, looking at what remained of the convalescing Swains in the fireplace. Were their bags packed? Were they on their way back? Would we have to kill them if they started to find evidence in their own house? The house that Victor had bought from them. Did they think they'd get it back somehow? Was Carmelita staying put because she thought it had been promised to her? One last sadistic empty gesture.

“They'll be there for months,” Elise said, crouching near the fire and striking a match. The remains of the Christmas photo turned black as they caught fire. “She still looks like death warmed over.”

“H
ow about a drink?” Elise said, glancing at me over her shoulder as she walked toward the kitchen. “There must be a bottle of something left.”

“Sounds good,” I said morosely, sitting down on one of the dining room chairs and picking up a single flimsy yellow invoice from the stack. It was for one pair of Magnanni Medallion-Toe Oxfords, two hundred and ninety-five dollars.

“Why don't you make sure that fire doesn't go out?” Elise said from the kitchen. “And we'll get drunk on whatever's left.”

I had pretty much polished off whatever was left, including the last of the Cutty Sark. But Elise announced that she had found a bottle of old Cognac deep in the cabinet.

“I think it's VSOP,” she said. “The label's kind of ripped off.”

“How about one of those skunky beers in the back of the fridge?” I said, unable to prevent myself from picturing the spiked Ensure she had handed Victor.

I heard the clunky rush of ice cubes spilling from the dispenser, then one skittering across the floor. I put my hands on my knees, stood up, walked to the fire, and did as I was told. There was a stack of fresh newspapers that Victor had tried to read the week before. Sandra adding each
New York Times
and
Wall Street Journal
to the stack on the right of the fireplace. I tore off a sheet of Thursday's
Journal
and crumpled it up, adding it to the two logs that were already sitting on the andirons.

I was reaching for the box of safety matches when I heard the ice clinking in the glass behind me. I listened to Elise set it down on the dining room table, and then I heard the distinct metallic snap.

When I turned around, I had just enough time to see her tuck the second red shotgun shell into Victor's old Browning, and then she snapped the gun shut and aimed it at the general vicinity of my chest.

I was already crouched by the fire, which was a fortunate thing, because I suddenly felt so light-headed I thought I was going to pass out. I wanted to say something important to Elise that would change her mind, but the back of my tongue felt as if it had doubled in size. I couldn't speak.

“This is the one thing Victor left you in his will. Isn't that funny?” she finally said.

I nodded. I thought it was vital that I laugh, but all I could manage was two small coughs. Elise took another two steps toward me, close enough now that she could safely aim the gun at my skull and be sure she would blow off the top of my head.

I love you,
I wanted to say. Or
Holy shit.
Or
Please don't.
But all that came out of my tongue-trapped throat was another boyish cough. On the verge of bursting into oblivion, it was as if I was becoming younger and younger. And then that familiar shaking began. My legs, my arms quivering. Then my whole jaw doing the sewing-machine bit. My eyes welling up. I didn't want to stare at her finger, my wife's slender familiar index finger curled around the trigger, so I bowed my head. On my knees, I bowed my head, and I waited.

“Scott,” she said. “What the fuck are you doing?”

When I looked up at her again, she had taken another step to my left and now she was carefully resting the gun against the wall. She took the box of matches from my hand, knelt next to me, and struck one, holding it to the edge of the newspaper until it caught fire. I could suddenly feel the spit in my mouth again.

“I thought,” I said to her softly, “that you were going to shoot me.”

I waited for her to answer me and provide some kind of clarification, but she just leaned back and sat on the carpet, watching the flames spread.

“I need to know everything that woman said to you,” she said.

I sat down on the couch and softly punched one of the flowery pillows near the armrest. Once, when we had first arrived here after Victor's hospitalization, I had gotten a little drunk and spilled wine all over the couch. I thought it was a tragedy until I realized Victor had Scotchgarded the whole thing. It wiped off as easily as water. Which was more than could be said about the blood on the bed next door.

Elise poked at the fire a little more and then sat down in the armchair across from me.

“She says she's got a hundred secrets about you, Elise,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse, and I lamely punched the pillow again. Elise had changed position and had crossed her legs. Her face framed by the
L
of her fingers. She seemed to be sizing me up like one of her speech patients. One of those blubbering kids who couldn't wait for the candy to be doled out at the end of the session.

My throat was dry. The sun hadn't even gone down and I was slurring my words a little because I was drunk. It occurred to me that only one woman was telling the truth. Carmelita or my wife.

“So tell me some of them,” Elise said.

“Just,” I said, trying to begin. But how do you broach the subject of your wife being a child thief? Or having a half sister? I resolved to start with the bigger secret. Number ninety-nine.

“Just what?”

“How many members are there in your family, exactly?” I finally managed to utter.

“Well, my father and mother are dead,” she said. “So that leaves my brother. Who's in a halfway house.”

“Is there a half sister?” I said. My voice had a higher pitch than I wanted it to. If there were secrets to excavate, I couldn't start asking them this submissively.

“Half sister?” Elise said. “Is that what she thinks she is?”

“No,” I said, startled. “She says your half sister disappeared. Was never heard from again. She used to follow you around like a puppy.”

Elise closed her eyes and hit her forehead with the heel of her hand.

“Wait, it's coming to me,” she said. “I know it's in there somewhere. Some girl with big brown eyes following me into a forest. Holding my hand. I'm throwing breadcrumbs.”

“This isn't funny, Elise. You have to tell me the truth.”

“Why do I have to tell you the truth? What will you do if I don't?”

She knew I was powerless, and when she saw how helpless I looked, it seemed to mildly cheer her up for a moment.

“I'm your husband,” I said in a weak voice. “Can't you just clue me in a little?”

And there it was: I wasn't even demanding basic respect anymore, just a one-minute head start before everything caved in.

“I'll tell you,” Elise said, shaking her finger at me and using a fake drunk slurring voice I hadn't heard in ages, “because I like you, butternuts.”

“I'm all ears,” I said, glancing through the window at the darkening blue of the sky, the motionless black spines of the scrub pine. The usual platoon of seagulls hovered and drifted along the bay until they became hard to see. Black scraps of paper, floating higher and dipping wildly again.

“My half sister? You know what? I do remember her. One of my father's great ideas. Forced me to spend the summer with her and her family when he had to go on a business trip. I wanted to kill her the second I saw her stupid, trusting face. This idea that he had another kid and didn't even tell me until about three minutes before he dropped me off. I finally had someone to hate more than myself.”