Helen took another drag of her cigarette and went on: “The more she drank, the more wired she got. Manic almost. She was pacing around the kitchen. She started picking up glasses and vases and asking me how much they cost, opening cabinets and slamming them shut. She was getting angry. Then suddenly her version of events was that it was my fault she’d been in prison. And all that time I’d been getting rich off her story.”
“She knew about the book?”
“Yes, it had made its way into the prison, and people were talking. As soon as she heard what it was about, she realized it was her life. She said I stole it.” Helen rolled her eyes.
“Well, you did, didn’t you?”
“All great writers steal. Dostoyevsky. Shakespeare. Everyone. Anyway, it was our story. It was always ours.”
“So what happened?”
“She went crazy, that’s what happened. She said she wanted the money I made from the book, that it was her money. This went on for hours: screaming, yelling, weeping. I finally got her to go to sleep in the carriage house at around four in the morning. The next day, we both slept late, and we actually had a nice time. We went for a walk, we talked, I made us lunch. But then I told her I thought she should go back to Mississippi. That it was a mistake to violate her parole. I even offered to help get her back on her feet. But she just…I don’t know. She snapped. She came at me.”
“What do you mean she came at you?”
“She grabbed a knife from that wooden block on the kitchen counter and she just rushed at me. I didn’t know what to do. Instinct took over. I grabbed a pot and I hit her as hard as I could. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? It’s like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. I thought she was going to sit up all dazed and cross-eyed, with a little halo of stars dancing around her head. But she didn’t. She just lay there. Dead.”
“Jesus.”
Helen said nothing.
“So then what happened?”
“I panicked. You have to understand. I saw it all coming out. They’d find out who I was. That I wrote that book. God, can you imagine the publicity? It would have been so awful. So vulgar. I couldn’t stand the idea of it.”
“Helen.” Florence looked at her in disbelief. “You killed Jenny to protect Maud Dixon’s identity?”
“No,” Helen said, eyes narrowed. “I killed her in self-defense. I buried her to protect Maud Dixon’s identity. I mean, really, who cares what happens to a dead body? It didn’t make any difference to her.” Florence remembered that she had made the same argument to herself when she’d thought Helen was dead. As if reading her thoughts, Helen said, “Did you tell anyone about my dead body after you thought you’d killed me?”
“It’s not the same thing,” said Florence unconvincingly.
“Of course it is. Anyway, it all happened so fast. It wasn’t like it was a rational decision. I was high on adrenaline and all I was thinking was that I couldn’t let that body be found in my house. I couldn’t bear the scrutiny. I didn’t want the questions. I’m a very private person, Florence, you know that.”
Florence found herself nodding, as if this were a good reason for burying a body.
“So you put her in the compost pile?”
“Well, it was February. In a snowstorm! Do you know how hard the ground was? Besides, a compost pile is actually the perfect place to dispose of a body. A whole cow will break down in under six months—teeth, bones, everything. I learned one useful thing growing up on a farm.”
Florence remembered Helen telling her that she’d learned how to chop off a chicken’s head when she was eight years old. Maybe she hadn’t been lying.
Helen went on: “Of course the next morning I realized what a colossal mistake I had made. But I couldn’t exactly call the police at that point. What, drag her out of the compost pile, brush her off, and lay her back on the kitchen floor? Seems a little harder to claim self-defense after you’ve buried the fucking body.”
Florence said nothing. She tried to imagine Helen shoveling kitchen scraps and dirt and wood chips on top of the body of her oldest friend. Somehow it seemed like it hadn’t really happened. Like Helen was just telling a story.
“So that’s when I started to think about running,” Helen said.
“Running?”
“Just giving up on Helen Wilcox. Walking away from it all. I was ready for a change anyway. I hadn’t been able to write anything worthwhile in ages. You’ve read the new book. You know it’s not as good as Mississippi Foxtrot.”
Florence shrugged. She thought of telling Helen about her discovery in the Paul Bowles book, but she didn’t want to interrupt the story.
“It was just a thought experiment at first, a game I played with myself—how would I disappear? Where would I go? How would I get a new identity? Could I continue to publish as Maud Dixon? How would I get paid? Should I tell Greta?
“I settled on Morocco because there’s no extradition treaty. And it seemed like a nice place to live. Nicer than North Korea anyway. Good weather, good culture, good food, lots of expats, but also enough corruption that I could easily establish myself with a fake name. But it was all just speculation until I got that phone call.”
“From Jenny’s parole officer?”
Helen nodded. “She called in early March. She said Jenny had missed their first meeting and asked me if I’d heard from her. I said I hadn’t. And then she said, ‘Well, isn’t that interesting’ because she’d received a voicemail from Jenny and the call had come from my house.” Helen shook her head. “My god, what an idiot. Only Jenny would call her parole officer from an out-of-state landline.”
“And the parole officer sent the local cop?”
“You know about that too, do you? Well, of course you do, you were there. Yes, he showed up after they finally issued an arrest warrant for Jenny. She’d missed a few appointments by then. This cop clearly thought I was harboring a fugitive. But he didn’t have a warrant, so I told him to leave. That was a mistake. I realized it afterward. If he came back with a warrant, he could tear the place apart. Maybe even the backyard. Maybe even the compost pile. I should have just cooperated and given him a nice little tour. But I didn’t. That’s when I realized I was actually going to have to start laying the groundwork for running. Remember? I suggested we go to Morocco the very next day. If and when he came back, I wanted to be out of the country, with a new identity ready to go. And if they found the body, I’d put the plan in motion. I’d leave Helen Wilcox behind and become someone else.”
Florence shook her head. Something wasn’t clicking. “But why did you bring me?”
“Honestly? Because I was scared. I didn’t know if I could go through with it alone.” Florence watched Helen’s face. She felt a pool of warmth welling up inside of her. She pushed it back down. “Bullshit, Helen.”
Helen let out a small laugh. “Okay, fine. I needed you to report me missing. I couldn’t just disappear without a trace. I knew they’d assume I’d run and come looking for me. But if you reported an accident, that would at least allay their suspicion. I needed you to truly believe I’d died. Really, it was for your own protection. I didn’t want you to be an accessory to a crime. Your ignorance was your alibi.”