So close.
Charlotte wondered, should she feel guilty, thinking that way? Because she didn’t. What she felt, overwhelmingly, was frustrated. It was a bit like checking your lottery ticket, thinking you have every number, then double-checking and finding that you’re off by one.
Paul had lived. Therapy had followed. He had to take a leave from West Haven while he recovered, and that recovery was slow with numerous setbacks. There were the nightmares. Waking up at three in the morning in a cold sweat, screaming.
Paul Davis was a broken man.
“You can’t do it now,” Bill said. “You can’t tell a man who’s coming back from a fucking attempted murder that you’re divorcing him. Think what it would be like for us. At the agency? In this town? You, the woman who left a guy at his lowest point, when he needed your support more than ever before, and me, the guy you left him for.” He shook his head. “I can tell you one thing for sure. We’d never sell another house in this market.”
Charlotte considered all of his points. She went very quiet.
“What?” Bill asked her. “What are you thinking?”
“Maybe,” she said, “there’s another way.”
Fifty-One
Anna White kept wondering whether she could have heard it wrong.
Maybe Bill Myers had not whispered the words “It worked” into Charlotte’s ear as they were walking out of the church together. But what else could it have been? What sounded similar to “It worked” but was not “It worked”?
Surely not “It sucked.” Bill wouldn’t have said that about the service, unless he was being self-deprecating about his own words honoring Paul’s memory. Yes, perhaps that was it, Anna thought. He believed his eulogy was inadequate. He should have said more. And he’d whispered those two words to Charlotte as an apology. He could have done better. Maybe he was looking for some reassurance, hoping that she would then tell him he was wrong, that his words about Paul were from the heart and that they definitely did not suck.
Yes, Anna thought. That could have been what she heard.
But even if he had said what she initially believed she’d heard, so what. “It worked” could have referred to any number of things. The service worked. What the minister had said worked.
And yet Anna couldn’t shake the feeling the words meant something very different.
If all she’d heard were those two words, she might have been able to let it go. But it was what she saw in the seconds before Bill leaned in and whispered in Charlotte’s ear.
The way he took her hand.
He did not simply hold it. He entwined his fingers with hers. Gave them a squeeze.
Anna told herself she was reading too much into the gesture. At times like these, people did strange things. Charlotte had lost her husband. She was grieving. It made sense that she would accept comfort from a friend.
But then Bill Myers did something Anna could not explain. He withdrew his hand quickly and thrust it into his pocket.
It was as if he feared someone might have seen what he did.
Anna continued to walk along behind them as they exited the church. As Charlotte and Bill emerged into the daylight, they encountered people who had been waiting for Charlotte so they could offer their condolences. Charlotte found herself in the arms of one person after another. Bill stepped back, gave her some space.
As Anna came out of the church, she moved slowly past those paying their respects to Charlotte, down the steps, and toward the sidewalk. But instead of heading for her car, she stood close to the street and watched.
She thought more about what “It worked” might have meant.
It means nothing.
Yet Anna could not shake the feeling there was something conspiratorial in the way Bill had said it. That it was their secret.
That they had pulled off something.
No, Anna thought. I’m just looking for a way to ease my own conscience.
She’d barely slept since Paul’s death. She had not been able to shake the guilt she felt. Paul’s suicide was proof she’d failed him. She should have pressured him to go into the hospital that night. She should have told him his friend Bill was wrong to talk him out of—
Bill talked him out of going to the hospital.
“It worked.”
The words suggested the successful execution of a plan. What plan? Some kind of plan that would result in Paul’s death?
Could you really make a man take his own life?
No, impossible.
Unless you could somehow drive him to it. Push him to the brink of madness. Make him believe something that was unbelievable.
“It worked.”
Anna had accepted that there was only one explanation for the notes in that old Underwood. Paul was writing them. He might not have known it, but he was. His memory lapses were evidence that it was possible.
There was, however, something about Paul’s typewriter delusion that left her troubled. Simply put, it was insufficiently elaborate. It was not wide-ranging. It was too specific. It did not live up to the standard set by other patients she’d seen over the years who’d endured hallucinations. She’d had clients who’d spun out conspiracies of great intricacy. One man she had seen three years ago was convinced Russian president Vladimir Putin was trying to brainwash him into turning over U.S. government secrets. Putin was communicating with him through various household appliances, including his toaster oven. That part was strange enough, but why would this man be tapped to hand over top secret information, when he worked at Dairy Queen?
That job was just a cover, he explained to Dr. White. He was, in fact, in touch with people from the CIA and the NSA. That’s why it all made sense.
No matter how much she challenged his fantasy with logical questions, there was always an answer. She finally had him see a psychiatrist, who wrote out a scrip to keep his delusions in check.
But Paul, well, Paul was not like that.
His delusion was not immersed in multiple hallucinations and conspiracy theories. It was far from elaborate. It was specific. In every other respect, Paul Davis presented as a completely sane individual.
He didn’t fit the pattern.
He didn’t behave like a delusional man. Believing that Paul wrote those notes required some forcing of the proverbial square peg into a round hole.
What if, Anna wondered, there was no delusion at all?
The notes were real. But they were not coming from those two dead women.
“It worked.”
How would you do it? Anna wondered. How could you make someone believe something so fantastical?
The crowd was breaking up. Word had quietly spread that Paul was to be cremated, so there would be no trip to a cemetery for burial. Everyone who had wanted to pass on a few comforting words to Charlotte was now heading to the church parking lot. Doors opened and closed, car engines came to life.
The minister came out to say a few words to Charlotte. Bill had rejoined her, standing alongside, nodding earnestly as the minister spoke.
And then it was over.
Charlotte thanked the minister and shook his hand, then turned and headed for the parking lot. Bill walked with her. Maybe he was going to drive her home.
No. Charlotte took a key from her purse, unlocked her car. Bill opened the driver’s door for her.
A true gentleman.
They were talking. Bill said something that prompted Charlotte to shake her head. Then she seemed to cast her eye beyond them, as if checking to see whether anyone was looking their way.