Page 21 of Kill Your Darlings
What was most concerning to her was Thom’s face when she had mentioned the woman’s death.
Nothing in his expression had changed, but he’d turned white, the blood just draining away.
And in that moment she wondered if he had not told her everything that had happened in 1992.
A door opened inside of her, a door to a room that had a hundred possibilities.
They were meant to tell each other everything, Thom and her.
No secrets. And now she had to wonder if there had been a witness?
And if there had been, why hadn’t Thom told her about it?
She felt her body tensing, so she dropped her shoulders, took a breath, and told herself that it was entirely possible that the bloodless expression on Thom’s face had more to do with how much he’d had to drink the night before.
She’d seen him on enough hungover mornings to know that he spent half the day fighting nausea until it was time for his first drink.
Still, that version of events was not as convincing to her as the version in which Thom had concealed something major about what had happened in Texas.
Wendy thought about getting back in her car, driving to the house, and demanding that he tell her everything.
That was what she would have done ten years ago.
They were in it together, after all, for better or worse.
But some part of her was worried that Thom couldn’t handle whatever it was that might have happened.
And she wasn’t quite sure that she even wanted to hear the truth. She’d rather just solve the problem.
She dug into her purse and pulled out the card she’d gotten the night before. All it said was: “Stanley Benally, Security
Consultant,” and then a phone number. She wondered if he was an actual accredited private investigator. His title seemed to
suggest otherwise. She called him and arranged a meeting.
That afternoon, Thom now at the university, Wendy went home early from work and opened their bedroom safe. She took one of
their gold bars, a kilogram’s worth, then decided to grab two more items she thought she might need. She’d bought the gold
bars during the 2008 recession after watching their stock portfolios crater to almost nothing. She’d often thought that the
bars were her version of the envelope of cash that her mother used to keep hidden in the back of the freezer.
Stan was staying at the only cheap place left on the peninsula, the Shoreview Motel, room number 19.
Wendy parked across the road in the lot of a strip mall that included a convenience store, a dance studio, and the worst Chinese restaurant Wendy had ever ordered food from.
She crossed the road, her purse heavy at her side, and knocked on Benally’s door. He let her in.
She’d never been inside one of the Shoreview Motel’s rooms, but it was exactly as she’d imagined it. Dark, musty-smelling,
with ancient seaside prints on the wall. She sat on the single chair and Benally sat on the edge of the bed. He was wearing
gray suit pants and a white shirt with a yellow sheen to it.
“I think I know what happened, but your client isn’t going to like it,” she said, hoping it didn’t sound too rehearsed.
“What’s that?”
“I was out of town, as you know, on the night that Bryce drowned. I was happy to get away from him, and he was probably just
as happy to be alone. He was a piece of shit. And there’s no doubt that he was probably involved with prostitution.”
“So you do think they’re connected?”
“I have no idea. I’d never heard of the woman you mentioned. All I’m saying is it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Bryce had
been out that night, in town, drinking. I don’t think he was some kind of murderer, that he would have that in him, but maybe
she accidentally died and he tried to make it look like a murder. I have no idea. And if that’s the case, then maybe he came
home and drowned himself in the pool.”
Stan smiled at her, showing his terrible teeth. “Yeah, I thought of that. But that’s not what my client thinks happened.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“My client thinks that Alexandra Fritsch was a witness to what happened to Bryce and that’s why she was killed.”
“What happened to Bryce was that he stupidly fell into his own pool and couldn’t get out. Your client is grasping at straws. And trust me, my husband had nothing to do with this. He can’t even remember he ever went to Texas.”
“Well, I think he probably can remember,” Stan said. “Why don’t you tell me why you really came here.”
“You can do what you want, obviously,” she said. “But I’m here to ask you a favor. I want Sloane Barrington out of my life.
She’s been dogging me with this for years because I got more of the family money than she did. That’s what this is all about.
Nothing more. And I don’t want my husband, who is going through some tough times right now, to be bothered. That’s all I want.”
“Your husband seemed fine to me.”
“You saw my husband when he was drinking. That’s the only time he’s fine.”
Stan uncrossed and recrossed his legs, then said, “Yes, my client did mention to me that you walked away with quite a lot
of what she called her money.”
Wendy took a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t visible. Stan was willing to negotiate. It was what she had been hoping for, and
she said, trying to make it sound casual, “So, what’s it going to take to get you to return to Texas and tell her you found
nothing?”
Back outside of the motel room thirty minutes later, Wendy had to squint her eyes against the bright sunshine. Had it been
this sunny earlier? She couldn’t remember.
Walking across the tarmac, a male voice spoke to her from her left. “Is that Wendy Graves?”
She turned to see Alex Deighton, her husband’s disgusting coworker, coming from around his midlife-crisis Mustang with an
enormous grin on his face.
“Well, well, well, it is you.” He turned back to look at the door she’d emerged from. “What are you doing here, Wendy?”
“None of your business, Alex, and I could ask the same of you.”
“The difference is I’d tell you all about it, if you were interested in hearing.”
Wendy shook her head. “Not interested, I’m afraid. And I have to get going.”
“Where’s your car?” he said, swiveling his head to look around at the parking lot, and then noticing the strip mall across
the road. “Oh, your car is over there. You really are up to no good, Wendy. If I was a different sort of man, I could blackmail
you with this information.”
“Alex, I’m not in the mood right now. I’m late. Goodbye.”
As she crossed the road to retrieve her car, she could feel his eyes on her, making her feel helpless and exposed. And by
the time she’d pulled back into her own driveway, those feelings had morphed into something else entirely. She’d never liked
Alex—no one really did—but what she felt now was pure hatred. And a little bit of fear that he had something on her.
Back at home she fed Samsa, then took her purse with her to the upstairs bedroom. She’d brought along several items she thought
she might have to use in the motel room with Benally. The first was a condom she’d managed to find deep in the top shelf of
the medicine cabinet, which she returned unopened. Then she opened up the safe and put back both the stun gun and the leather
sap. Those had been more for self-defense than anything, although a plan had briefly formulated in her brain that had Stan
Benally dead in his shower as though he’d taken a bad fall. But she was happy it hadn’t come to that. She had no real issue
with the detective, who was just doing his job.
Before shutting the safe, she looked at the remaining gold bars, six of them, and didn’t think that Thom would ever notice
that one had disappeared.
She was exhausted and lay down on the bed, Samsa sidling up to her, hoping for attention.
She closed her eyes while idly stroking his back.
What she was thinking about was Alex Deighton and his smarmy smile, the pleasure he’d felt that he’d learned something about her.
There had always been a part of her that felt bad that her husband Thom was the one who had to live with the memories of the murder he had committed (that they had committed).
Now, at least, she had a perfectly good candidate for a murder of her own. Just the thought of it made her
feel better.