The Kind Worth Killing (31 page)

I started the truck, and drove out of the driveway and back onto the road, keeping the headlights off till I turned on Micmac. I checked the fuel gauge, the needle hovering somewhere between three-quarters and full, and I thought it would be enough gas to get us down to Connecticut. I had been prepared to get gas at a self-service station, paying with cash inside, but was glad that I didn't have to. So far, no one had seen me in Maine, and I was planning on keeping it that way.

I drove north, toward the entrance ramp for I-95. I got off Micmac before hitting Kennewick Beach, knowing that if the police were onto
Brad already, they were probably staked out in front of his cottage. I would have loved to go back there, get a few of his things to make it look like he'd truly made a run for it, but it wasn't worth the risk. Before hitting the interstate, I pulled into a closed auto shop called Mike's, one of those backwoods garages surrounded by junked vehicles. With my lights off I pulled into a row of junkers and got out of the truck. I found a car that looked as though it hadn't been moved through at least two winters and, using my Leatherman, I removed its Maine license plate, then swapped it with the license plate from Brad's truck. It took about five minutes, no sound except for that steady wind that rustled the remaining leaves in the trees. Licenses swapped, I got back in the truck, the cab light briefly illuminating Brad, his head now lolling unnaturally to the side. I turned away from him, and my eye caught the plastic E-ZPass transmitter glued to the inside of the windshield. There were tolls on the interstate, two in Maine, then another when the highway briefly passed through New Hampshire. I debated whether it was better to zip through tolls with the E-ZPass, and possibly be tracked, or whether I should remove it and go through cash tolls. I decided that paying cash was better and pried the transmitter off the windshield, throwing it into the woods next to the garage. Brad really did just look like someone's husband sleeping off a drunk, and I would take my chances on anyone recognizing me. My hair was my most distinctive feature and it was hidden under my hat.

I didn't need to worry. The tollbooth operators barely looked at either Brad or me on the entire four-hour drive to my old neighborhood in Connecticut. There was no one on the roads, and I could probably have made the trip in three and a half, but I kept strictly to the speed limits, staying in the right-hand lane while cargo trucks rumbled past me in the passing lanes. I kept the radio off, but somewhere around Worcester Brad's body shifted and made a gas-expelling moan. I'd been prepared for this, telling myself that dead bodies make sounds, but I still jumped about two inches in my seat
when it happened. After that, I turned on the radio, flipping between crappy stations until somewhere in Connecticut I found a late-night jazz show on a commercial-free station way left on the dial. I didn't particularly like jazz, since it reminded me of my parents, but I could recognize a number of standards. “On Green Dolphin Street” by Miles Davis segued into Nat King Cole's “Autumn Leaves.” I listened to the words, trying to keep my mind away from the fact that I was driving through the night with a dead man as my passenger. Even with the radio turned up loud, I heard two more expulsions, and the cab of the truck filled with the smell of both urine and excrement. I thought about that black stray cat I killed years ago when I was a girl, and the way I'd been shocked by the presence of shit. I remembered how the disgust over that dead cat had made me feel even happier that I'd killed it. It was the same with Brad Daggett next to me in the truck. He'd gotten what he deserved, maybe even better than he'd deserved. He was dead now, and couldn't hurt anyone, but I still had to deal with his disgusting body. And I had to survive the remainder of this trip. I put a little more weight on the gas pedal, thought it couldn't hurt to go a little bit over the speed limit. The miles ticked by, through “There's a Small Hotel” and Chet Baker's “Almost Blue” and Dinah Washington singing “This Bitter Earth.” The songs began to fuzz in and out of range as I got closer to home, but I didn't flip away, preferring snatches of old music to furniture warehouse ads and bad talk radio.

I turned the radio off when I reached Shepaug, listened to silence as I wound along the familiar tree-lined streets. I passed the driveway for Monk's House, instinctively turning my head and seeing a single second-floor light still burning. I guessed that my mother had fallen asleep reading, the way she did every night, book splayed open across her chest, lamp still on. I took the next right, down the weed-choked driveway that led to the empty farmhouse. I killed the truck's headlights and slowed to a crawl. Just as it had been in Maine, it was a cloudless night in Connecticut, the black sky crowded with bright
stars. The farmhouse, unadorned and colorless, rose up out of a yard that had become a pasture. A single tree, planted too close to the house, seemed to be enveloping the structure, one of its branches having punctured the roof. I stepped out of the truck, and was flooded with the familiar piney smell of the surrounding woods. I took my penlight and waded out into the adjacent meadow, its dried-out grasses crackling under my feet. I had been back to this meadow a few times since childhood, but this was the first time I'd been here at night since that summer evening when I'd killed Chet. I walked toward where I thought the well was, only turning the penlight on when I thought I was close, pointing the beam down at the ground. It took five minutes, but I found the well cover, covered by the grass I'd flattened over its top so many years ago. I propped the penlight on the cover's wooden edge, angling it slightly up so that I'd be able to see its weak beam, then walked back to the truck.

Except for the rainfall of the day before, it had been a dry September and October in New England and the ground of the meadow was soft but not muddy. Keeping my eye on the penlight's beam I drove the truck from the driveway onto the meadow, bumping up and over a few rocks that were all that remained of an ancient stone wall. Brad Daggett jolted back and forth on his seat, emitting another expulsion of gas. My window was rolled down, my head halfway out. I pulled the truck up to the left of the well and kept it running while I got out and circled around to the well cover. With my gloves still on, I ripped away at the meadow grass and loosened the cover. I pulled it away gently, trying not to break the rotten wood, and laid it next to the well opening. I picked up the penlight; in its beam I could see worms writhing in the bare earth where the well cover had laid. I pointed the beam down the well, seeing only the rocks and dirt that covered Chet. I imagined what was left of him down there—a withered corpse, some paint-splattered clothes, a few rotted picture frames, a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. The world turned suddenly dark, and a slight jolt of fear went through me. I looked up, and it was a single scrap of
cloud that was blanking the moon. I watched it pass by, and the world was flooded again with moonlight.

I opened the passenger door of the truck, unbuckled Brad, and he tumbled out on his own accord, landing face-first onto the ground, one of his feet, in his large work boots, snagging on the edge of the door. I loosened his boot and his leg followed his body down onto the ground. He was about three feet from the well hole, but even so, it was not easy to move his bulk. I wound up rolling him over several times till his head and torso were flopped into the well, then I lifted his heavy feet till he slid over the edge. He hit the bottom of the well with a splintery thump, sending up a rush of acrid air.

Brad, meet Chet. Chet, meet Brad.

I pulled the cover back onto the well, tapped down its sides, and replaced the meadow grass, sweeping it over like hair across a bald spot. I checked my watch. It was nearly 3:00
A
.
M
. It was all going just as I had planned. Before I got back into the truck to drive to New York City, I took a moment just for myself, standing under the starry night, surrounded by nothing but darkness and nature. “Rare breed of animal,” my father had once called me, and that's what I felt like. Totally alive, and totally alone. My only companion at that moment was my younger self, the one who tipped Chet down that well. I imagined she was there with me. We locked eyes, not needing to speak to each other. We understood that survival was everything. It was the meaning of life. And to take another life was, in many ways, the greatest expression of what it meant to be alive. I blinked, and my younger self disappeared. She came back into me, and together we drove to New York City.

I was back in Shepaug by ten in the morning. I had driven the truck into the city, cruising around the Lower East Side till I found a place to park not too far from a subway station. It was a litter-choked block filled with shuttered shops. It was nearly dawn but loud music blasted
from a parked car half a block away. I parked under a flickering streetlamp. I had worn gloves the entire night so there were no prints to wipe off, but I did it anyway, using a small towel that I found in the truck's glove compartment. After wiping everything down, I spread the towel out and draped it over the soiled passenger seat, then I gathered any paperwork that had Brad's name on it in the truck and took it with me. There was a nearby trash bin and I pushed the papers down into the stew of pizza crusts and coffee cups. Then I dropped the keys to the truck on the pavement next to the driver's side, where they would catch the light. I hoped that the person who first spotted the dropped keys would not be some do-gooder who would alert the authorities. I was counting on the likelihood that the truck would be in several pieces in a chop shop by the time the sun came up.

I took the subway to Grand Central, bought a ticket on the Metro-North Commuter Rail to Shepaug. It was an hour wait and I drank coffee and ate a greasy doughnut, and watched as the station slowly filled with early-morning commuters. I managed to doze a little on the train ride to my hometown, and woke up shivering from the cold that had gotten into my bones from the long sleepless night. From Shepaug station I walked the three miles to Monk's House, staying on a trail that skirted an unused portion of rail line. I hadn't lived in Shepaug for close to ten years, but I didn't want to risk getting spotted by someone I knew.

When my mother opened the door to me, a large mug of coffee in her hand, she said, “Darling, there you are,” and for a brief moment I wondered if I'd told her I'd be there, before realizing that she was covering for herself in case she'd forgotten about a visit from me.

“Were you expecting me?” I asked, walking into the house.

“No. Was I? He's not coming
today,
is he?”

The
he
she was referring to was my father, who was moving back to America and back into Monk's House. I'd arranged it over my last trip to London. Long story short: my father needed to live with someone who would look after him in his fragile mental state, and my mother needed money to pay her bills. I'd brokered a deal, and had no
idea if it would work or not, but it was at least worth a try, or that was what I was telling myself.

“This weekend, Mum,” I said, making my way to the coffeepot in the kitchen.

“What are you doing here, and what are you wearing? You look like a cat burglar.”

Over coffee I told my mother that I had been traveling for work, picking up college archival material, first in Maine, then in New York City. I told her that I'd left my car in Maine and flown from Portland down to New York City but that I missed my flight back. I told her I'd decided to come out to Shepaug, see my mother, maybe get a ride up to Maine to get my car. It was a ludicrous story, I know, but my mother, for all her supposed instinct, was incredibly gullible, for the simple reason that she wasn't interested enough in other people's stories to properly process them.

“I don't know, Lily, I have my pottery group today . . .”

“It's only about a three-hour drive to Maine,” I lied. “Afterward, I thought maybe you could follow me back down to Winslow. We could have a mother-daughter dinner. You could spend the night.”

She thought about it, but I knew she'd agree. For some inexplicable reason my mother was always trying to get invited to my house up in Winslow. She liked the university setting, and my “tiny cottage” (her words), and she liked that I cooked for her. I knew that she'd drive me to Maine if it meant she could come to Winslow.

“Okay, darling,” she said. “How exciting. A spontaneous trip to Maine, just you and me.”

It took a few hours to get her ready but we were on the road by noon, me driving her old Volvo. I hadn't properly slept in about thirty hours, and the thought of spending another four hours behind the wheel of a car was not a pleasant one, but everything had gone perfectly. And it was nearly over.

We spent most of the trip talking about my father. “I hope he doesn't expect conjugal relations,” she said, not for the first time.

“You're not even married, so it would hardly be conjugal,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

“I wouldn't worry about it. You're not even going to recognize him. He's not the same as he was before going to prison.”

“I should hope not.”

“He can't be alone in the house. Not at night anyway. He has panic attacks. You don't need to be near him at all times, but he needs to know where you are.”

“Yes, you've told me.”

I had told her, several times. Still, I knew she wasn't prepared for what had become of her ex-husband. He had always had quirks and phobias. He was scared of the dark, scared of crossing city streets, scared of sitting in the backseats of cars. It was hard to understand, because he was also a man who had zero fear of speaking in front of large audiences, a man who would sneak out of his wife's bedroom after she had fallen asleep, and let his mistress into the house, and have sex with her on the living room couch, a man who had climbed halfway up the outside of the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown on a bet. But that side of my father, the reckless side, had disappeared after what had happened with Gemma, his second wife. He'd met her after the divorce with my mother had been finalized; he'd been living at a hotel on the Old Brompton Road in London. Gemma Daniels was an aspiring novelist, one year younger than me, who had probably come to my father's favorite pub for the sole reason of meeting him. They became inseparable, marrying only six months after they'd met. One of the drawbacks to living in London for my father was that the English tabloids cared about the bad behavior of writers almost as much as they cared about the bad behavior of footballers and pop stars. My father and Gemma were photographed having screaming matches on the street; they were chided in headlines such as “Dirty Davie and His Child Bride.” This was all before the accident, before my father plowed his 1986 Jaguar into a tree after drunkenly leaving a weekend house party late on a Saturday night. Gemma was in the
passenger seat and broke her neck when she went through the windshield. My father, who always wore a seat belt, was uninjured. He managed to call for an emergency vehicle, but he didn't manage to exit the Jaguar to check on Gemma. It wouldn't have made a difference. She had died instantly. Still, word got out that he had been found cowering in his vehicle, his wife sprawled across the roadside hedge. It was deemed manslaughter by gross negligence, and my father was sent to prison for two years. The sentence was cut to one year on appeal, and he'd been released in early September. I visited him where he'd been staying at a friend's house in the Cotswolds and asked him to come back to America, to live with my mother. David still had substantial money, and my mother, after leaving her teaching because of a disagreement with her department head, had been struggling to pay the bills. Monk's House was in a reverse mortgage. My father, tears in his eyes, had agreed to move back to Connecticut. “And you're not far away, Lil. You'll come and visit all the time, won't you?” My father, who was sixty-eight years old, had sounded like a small boy speaking to his mother before being sent to boarding school.