She slid her hand over toward him and squeezed his thigh, then took his hand in hers. Richard felt the surge of electricity, almost a flood of heat, that he’d always felt every time he and Joan touched. She looked him in the eye and said, “I do. But only if you really want to help.”
“Of course, I’ll help. I remember Richie Whalen, and he was a total creep.”
Joan smiled, and said, “Yeah, he was a creep, and he’s still a creep.”
“I know I already asked you, but why exactly did you marry him?”
Joan thought for a while, then said, unfolding her fingers, “One, he pursued me, and he was a different person then than he is now. No, that’s not true. But he acted like a different person at the time. He took me to great restaurants and paid a ton of attention to me. You know what’s funny? He kept telling me how he couldn’t believe he was dating the hot girl from his high school, that it was like a fantasy come true. I mean, I never thought of myself that way.”
“You did a little bit,” Richard said, remembering Joan in high school, how confident she was, how other students, and teachers, even, seemed to watch her. “You were the queen bee.”
“I don’t know about that. Anyway, those days are long gone. Now I’m married to a man I can’t stand who cheats on me with one of my friends.”
“You know that for sure?”
Joan paused, and Richard thought she was considering not telling him something. But then she said, “The woman who’s sleeping with my husband is named Pam, and she’s the office manager at the company he owns. I know Pam pretty well. We became friends when she first started working there, and she used to complain about how lonely she was and how great my husband was, et cetera, so I talked her into it . . .”
“You talked her into sleeping with your husband?” Richard said.
“I did, actually. I told her she’d be doing me a favor, that I would find out if he was a cheater, and that she’d be doing herself a favor because believe it or not Richie Whalen might be a creep, but he’s pretty good in bed. So it happened. There was even a time when Pam would tell me about the things he’d say to her, and what they did, and then I guess it got a little awkward—a lot awkward—even though I told Pam I was happy to have the asshole off my hands. I’m a little worried, though, right now, because I get the sense that she wants to end it, and I don’t want to lose the opportunity.”
“You want to kill them both when they’re together?”
Joan squeezed Richard’s leg again like he’d just told her he’d brought her a present. “It’s so perfect. And they’re so predictable. They’ve been going to the same overpriced house that’s for sale on Friday for a while now. You could be there waiting for them, and I’ve thought of a way to make it look like Richard shoots Pam and then himself. And I’ve even got a witness, or I’m planning on getting a witness.”
“Why do you need a witness?”
“Because I want this to be perfect,” Joan said. “I want someone to say that he saw Richard and Pam go into an empty house together. That he heard gunshots, and then he finds the body. I’ll have an alibi, and, of course, no one in the world knows that we have ever even spoken together. It’ll be perfect, Richard, just like it always is. We do have a track record to protect, don’t you think?”
“We do,” Richard said. He was only questioning her about the plan because he was excited to hear the details. It had been too long since he’d had a purpose. “A very perfect track record,” he said.
“I still think about Maine, about being out on that jetty with you and with Duane . . .”
“I think about it, too,” Richard said. “All the time.” He wanted to tell her that he was born on that night, out of that storm, that he came alive on the earth, but he didn’t want to overdo it. He knew she felt the same way but putting it into words might be too much.
“So you’ll help me?” Joan said.
Richard didn’t immediately answer because the librarian’s voice was echoing through their wing, telling them that the library would close in fifteen minutes.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
“Oh, good,” she said, and bounced a little in the chair. And he could see the high school student again. She had been queen bee. And the way she just acted was probably the way she’d acted when she’d talked one of her dimwit friends into helping out with prom decorations. “Do you remember Mr. Kimball, the English teacher?” she said.
“I never had him, but of course I remember him. He was there, in the classroom, during the shooting, right?”
“Yeah. He panicked, you know? I watched him when it was all happening, and you could tell he was frozen, and I remember thinking at the time that that had been a stroke of luck. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t have some Arnold Schwarzenegger type who pulled out a gun from his desk. Did you know that he quit teaching after that, and he became a policeman, which he must have done because of what happened?”
“No,” Richard said.
“He got fired because of stalking some woman.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar,” Richard said. “Did she stab him?”
“Yes. He was following a suspect in a murder case, and she became paranoid and stabbed him.”
“I remember that, but I never realized it was Mr. Kimball from our school.”
“I didn’t at first either, but I put it all together, and, the thing is, he’s now a private detective. And he’s going to be our witness.”
“Okay,” Richard said, nodding his head. Joan’s eyes were bright, and she had sucked her upper lip underneath her lower one, something she only ever did when she was very excited.
Lights were going out in the library, one after another. “Can we meet in a week?” Joan said. “Here. Same place, same time.”
“Yes,” Richard said, and Joan got up and left.
Richard stayed in his chair for a minute, in the suddenly dim light of the alcove, then got up and left the library too. Once he was outside, he didn’t want to go directly to his car. It was late September and there was a cool breeze, so he walked for a while down past the church, then past the small cluster of shops, all closed now, that made up the entirety of Fairview’s commercial district. A ragged dog emerged from between a gas station and a house with a mansard roof. It stood on a gravel driveway, and Richard realized it wasn’t a dog, but a coyote, its eyes reflecting yellow in the moonlight. He lifted his arms silently to make himself look bigger, and the coyote turned and trotted away. Richard felt a flush of power, and had a sudden urge to do something animalistic, or crazy, like howl at the moon, or get down on all fours. He stopped himself, knowing that even if no one saw him, it would still be a sign of some form of insanity.
Chapter 18
Kimball
David Kintner, Lily’s father, had made me a very stiff whiskey and soda, about twice as dark as the one he was holding, and we were sitting across from each other in the living room, a coffee table stacked with books between us.
“Remind me, Henry,” he said. “Last time you were here was right after . . . soon after Lily returned from . . . from . . .”