The Housewife(46)

“He killed her.”

“You think he killed her?” she asks in hushed tones.

“I know he killed her.”

“How?”

I take a breath. “You’re right. I guess I should start at the beginning.”





28





“She was your sister?” Erin shrieks.

I nod.

“But he doesn’t know,” she says.

“No. Like I said, I was in jail and I didn’t want her to tell him about me. Then when I got out, I changed my name.”

Her head moves in slow motion, this way and that, like her brain is trying to compute what I’m telling her, but it just can’t.

Then she focuses back on me. “But why were you in jail?”

“I made a mistake,” I say, dragging the plate with my cake back to me. I cut a corner of it. “A long time ago. It’s followed me ever since.”

“What did you do?”

Two police officers walk in and take a seat at the counter. They’re far enough that they wouldn’t hear me, but I lower my voice anyway.

“I was only eighteen and had just gotten my first boyfriend. His name was Beau and he was a few years older. I was head over heels in love. He wasn’t even particularly handsome, but I never expected anyone to like me, let alone want to go out with me. And here was this guy who thought I was worth asking out, so I was, like, this is my chance, you know? Also, his parents owned the local auto repair and body shop, so I knew he’d always have job security.”

She nods slowly.

“Anyway, one night, Beau and I were on our way back from a party and we were going back to his place. He was driving. It was really late, and the road wasn’t very well lit. Neither of us saw him until it was too late.”

“Who?” she asks.

“The man walking on the side of the road. We should have seen him, but we were laughing and the radio was on loud, and suddenly we felt it. We’d hit something and ran over it.

Beau stopped the car and I got out to look. There was a man on the ground, his leg all mangled. He was bleeding from the head, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get up in a hurry. Beau was crying, pulling at his hair, and he said, ‘You have to say you were driving.’ He’d had too much to drink, you see, whereas I barely drank anything. He promised me nothing would happen to me because it was an accident and we hadn’t done anything wrong, not if I had a blood alcohol level of zero. So I did. I told the police I was the one driving.”

“Oh my God.” She slaps her hands over her mouth. “What happened then?”

I shrug. “The man died.”

She gasps. “But you told them, didn’t you? That you weren’t driving? That Beau told you to say you were? ”

“By the time I realized my mistake, I was in much bigger trouble than I’d thought. I told them the truth, but by then nobody believed me. I’d already confessed, so…”

She stares at me, a look of disbelief on her face. “So what happened?”

I push a forkful of cake into my mouth. “I was charged with manslaughter. Felony 2.”

“Oh my God. Jodie!”

“They said I was driving too fast. I mean, it’s true. Beau was going really fast. They can tell from skid marks, apparently.”





I’ll never forget the look on Deb’s face when she came to the county jail where I was being held the night of the accident. She looked crushed. She was wiping tears off her face with her sleeve. She couldn’t stop. “I can’t help you this time, Jo.”

“You don’t have to!” I said. We were holding onto the bars of my cell. I hated seeing her like that. I hated it more than being on the wrong side of those bars. “I’ve got this, Debs. I swear. And I wasn’t the one driving, Beau was.”

She clicked her tongue. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!” I whined. “It’s the truth!”

“Don’t you get it?” she cried. “I can’t make it right!”

I put my hand through the bars. “Hey. It’s okay.”

She didn’t even take it. “You shouldn’t have done it,” she whispered.

“I didn’t,” I hissed. I took a breath. “I’ll be fine. Everything is going to be fine.”





“Did you go to jail?” Erin asks, yanking me out of my memories.

I pick up a crumb of cake and lick it off. “I most certainly did. Five years.”

She gasps. “Did you ever see Beau again?”

“He texted me the day after the accident and said his parents didn’t want him to see me again. That it would be bad for their business. The only time I saw him after that was at the trial, where he apologized to the man’s parents for letting me drive.”

Erin blinks a few times. “I’m so, so sorry. That sounds horrible.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. But to go back to the matter at hand…”

“Yes,” she says, nodding. “Right. So you are your husband’s first wife’s sister, and you suspect that he killed her.”

“I know he killed her,” I say, wondering how many times I’m going to have to say it, because I can tell she’s not sold yet.