Page 40 of Old Money
I ’m only half-convinced by the time we leave the bar.
“Sleep on it,” Jamie says in the parking lot. “We’ve got a couple weeks to find the holes.”
One comes to mind right now.
“What if they change their minds and move it indoors?”
“Doubtful.” He points his key fob at his car, unlocking it.
“Really? They changed the wedding date.”
“Fair point.” He taps the hood of his car and shrugs. “Yeah, like I said, it might not work. But let’s figure it out tomorrow. I have to check in at the club before heading home—make sure they’re pushing water. No one ever remembers.”
Who cares! I think. But then I see how beat he is.
“Go.” I wave him off. “Tomorrow.”
***
Jamie’s idea is way beyond bad. It’s high-risk and comically improbable—chock-full of potential holes. But I’m pretty sure we’re doing it.
“The rehearsal dinner,” Jamie explained in the booth. “That’s how we’ll get in the archive. Well, you will. I’ll have to be—”
“Wait, wait,” I said, coughing on beer. “Back up. A lot.”
“Okay. You would work the rehearsal dinner.”
“What?”
“Quit interrupting. Yes, it only works if you’re on staff that night. I could put you in the break room—for shirt changes and touch-ups.” He grew more animated. “I’ll need someone for that anyway. The guys are gonna melt out there”
He sat back, thinking it through.
“We’ll need hairspray, maybe an iron.” He pointed at me. “Do you know how to tie a tie?”
“Slow down.”
“It’s fine, I can teach you.”
“Stop!” I peeked out of the booth. “For starters, why would I try to sneak into the archive during the rehearsal dinner? When all the Yateses are in the clubhouse—literally, everyone and their relatives?”
“Because,” Jamie answered, grinning, “they’re not having it in the clubhouse. They’re having it outside. Sunset dinner, on top of the hill.”
I turned my head, dubious.
“Outdoor dinner, at sunset? Who thought that was a good idea?”
“I know, mosquitos and glare, super romantic—but c’mon, think. No members in the clubhouse, and we’ll know exactly where they are. Everyone will be right outside where we can see them.”
“And if someone comes in to use the bathroom? Or get away from the bugs?”
“Then you’ll have a minute or two while they walk from the hill to the clubhouse. That’s why it’s perfect—they’re close, but not too close.” Jamie pointed across the table at me. “Shouting distance—that’s what made me think of it. You’ll be able to see them coming.”
“Great, but Jamie, even if all this works, we still don’t have a key.”
Jamie heaved a breath, nodding.
“That part—yeah. That part’s harder. I’m going to have to get Mr. Brody to give me his keys.”
“ Give them to you? Voluntarily?”
Jamie nodded.
“It’s the only way. We’ll never be able to steal them. He wears them on this key-clip thing like a fuckin’ latchkey kid. He’d never give them to you, obviously, but he might give them to me in an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” I asked, doubtful.
“I don’t know—something with the freight elevator? I’ll just have to fake some random crisis and tell him I lost my elevator key.”
I shook my head.
“Not random. It has to be something specific and urgent, so he won’t have time to fiddle around and get that one key off the ring.”
We both sat, silently staring at each other. Then, the answers hit us simultaneously:
“Gin,” said Jamie.
“Lemons,” I said.
***
I call Jamie from the car, five minutes after leaving the Martha. He answers on the first ring.
“What if it rains?” I ask without preamble. “Then they’ll have to move the dinner inside.”
“It won’t,” Jamie answers, not missing a beat. “Where are you anyway?”
I roll down my window, letting in the fragrant, grassy breeze.
“Still on Revolution,” I answer. “I’m not even at the lake yet. Where are you ?”
Most nights we both take Revolution Road to the intersection by Rippowat Lake, one of us following the other in a kind of unofficial escort on the rambling, unlit backroad.
We usually wave good-night at the turn-off, Jamie heads toward his place in Ashborough’s town center and I turn back into Briar’s Green.
“Heading for the highway,” says Jamie. “Aren’t you? I’m not messing with Route 9 tonight.”
Down the road ahead of me, a cop car shoots across the intersection, siren whooping—on its way to confiscate some sparklers.
“Shit. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Good luck, soldier. Have fun driving on the shoulder. Anyway, it won’t rain at the rehearsal.”
“Right, but what if it does?”
“It won’t,” he repeats simply. “We don’t get rained out. Not since Roosevelt left office.”
“Oh—wow, you’re not serious.” I hear him chuckle on the other end. “Don’t tell me they’re still saying that.”
“Of course they are!” Jamie cackles. “Club tradition!”
Club myth is more like it—one of the silliest. It starts with some ancient beef involving FDR and an ill-fated club luncheon he attended, the summer before his fourth term.
I don’t know what faux pas he committed (perhaps a comment about socialized healthcare or women’s rights) but it was bad enough that he was allegedly never invited back.
That, or he was too tied up with WWII to attend every country club lunch.
Either way, the story goes, the club was rained out for the rest of the season—every terrace dance and golf tournament ruined.
The bad streak continued the following spring, when the Easter Hunt was canceled by an off-season hurricane, and everyone feared another spoiled summer.
But when FDR died three days later—“Left office” as the members like to say—the clouds instantly parted.
“And hasn’t rained on a club party since,” I finish.
“It hasn’t!” Jamie comes back, indignant. “Look it up!”
My laughter trails off into a sigh. The more doable this plan becomes the more anxious I get.
“You there?” Jamie asks.
“Yeah, but— Hey, listen. I don’t want you to do this. It’s too—”
“Alice—”
“No,” I say sharply. “It’s my call, and I’m saying it’s not worth it. I know you want to help, but you live here. You work here. You’ve made a whole life, and I don’t want you jeopardizing it for me.”
He waits a moment, letting me finish.
“Hey, egomaniac?” Jamie says lightly. “What if I want to help because I live and work here?”
I blink, my cheeks warming. I can hear him smiling.
“Just—you sleep on it too. Deal? If I get caught, you’re my accomplice.”
“Ooh, say that again?”
The heat spreads from my cheeks to my neck. I reach the intersection and hang my arm out the window into the velvety cool air.
“You know, there’s one thing I never really understood,” says Jamie. “About the murder.”
I idle at the stop sign, listening.
“Why do you think he did it?” Jamie continues. “They hadn’t even been dating that long, right? I don’t get the motive.”
A memory rises unbidden—one of those split-second dioramas: Caitlin stumbles slightly leftward, briefly unbalanced by Patrick’s grip around her wrist. He lifts his free hand, pausing—not even for a second, but long enough to notice—then he knifes it down across her head.
“Do you know the term malice aforethought ?” I ask, my foot still on the brake.
“What?” Jamie answers. “Is that like premeditation ?”
“Not quite. It’s broader than that—it’s from the Middle Ages. It’s the term they used to distinguish murder from other kinds of killing.”
“Like manslaughter.”
“Will you just listen?”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, no one could really define it, but everyone agreed that malice aforethought was what made a homicide a murder.”
I pause, waiting for Jamie to interject again. He keeps quiet. I hear the distant rush of a car passing him on the highway.
“The strange part is that it stuck. Malice aforethought is still in the criminal code, and people are still arguing over what it means.”
“Are you going to tell me?” Jamie asks carefully.
“ No , that’s the thing. The current legal definition is basically intent to kill or seriously hurt someone, or to act with reckless disregard for human life—something like that.”
“Sounds about right.”
“But it’s not. Malice is a feeling—a desire. It’s like love, right? This massive, powerful thing that can swallow up your whole life. You can’t boil it down to a simple definition. But you know it when you see it.”
I bite down on the inside of my lip, cringing at myself in Jamie’s silence.
“Okay,” he answers evenly—eventually. “I get that, I guess. I’m still lost on Patrick’s motivation.”
“Yeah,” I say, shrugging. “Me too. But I don’t think it’s worth trying to make sense of it. Malice isn’t logical.”
Don’t make me ramble on about love again. Please just get it.
“But you know it when you see it,” Jamie repeats. “And you saw it.”
“Yes,” I say, relieved. “Unmistakable.”
He pauses again, longer this time.
“Jamie?”
“I’m here,” he says. “Alice, I n—”
“What?” I wait. “Jamie? You cut out for a second.”
I glance at my phone screen. Full service.
“You’re in a dead zone,” I say louder.
Jamie’s voice cuts in again, garbled and choppy.
“—if he did. Okay? Are you—”
“I can’t hear you.” I’m nearly shouting now. “Jamie, hey. Jamie. ”
A string of high-pitched beeps comes screeching through the phone so loudly that I flinch, my foot briefly lifting off the brake pedal.
I slam down on it again, holding the phone an inch from my ear.
The beeping stops and there’s a strange whoosh , followed by a second of dead silence.
I hear a muffled thud, a distant, arcing howl and then two soft clicks. The call cuts out.