She took a long draw on her cigarette and stared absently at the silent, flickering motel television. She let a small smile rise to the surface of her lips. She hadn’t missed a thing. Now it was just up to the cops to make the obvious deductions.
But the smile drifted away as her thoughts returned to those goddamned boots. She felt a tightening in her gut at the memory from that day only a month ago when he’d bought the boots. When he’d come home happy.
She’d been sitting at the kitchen table smoking when he’d come in from the garage.
“See my new hiking boots?” He held them up by their heels and let out that godforsaken deep-barrel growl of laughter. The only time since the diagnosis that she’d actually heard him laugh.
“What the hell did you buy those for?” she said, her elbow on the table, her arm straight up, a fuming cigarette resting on top between two lazy fingers.
“They were on sale. Two hundred bucks.”
Her arm dropped to the table, knocking ashes onto the Formica. “For one pair? You could have gotten them for half that price.” She stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Besides, you won’t even get a chance to use them. You’ll be dead first.”
Tom’s face had turned to stone. He’d simply tossed the boots into the mudroom and walked stiffly to his bedroom. And there the boots had sat, irritating her every time she tripped over them. Or saw them. Or even thought of them.
The tightness in Doreen’s gut grew sharper as she eyed the TV. She’d hated the man, and hated the boots, but she knew what she’d said had hurt him. Even more than she’d intended. Why was that bothering her now when she hadn’t thought twice about it up to this moment?
A loud double ring rattled the telephone next to the bed. Doreen jumped at the sound and her heart began to throb in her chest. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins. Everything seemed to startle her now. Everything a potential threat to her two-hundred fifty thousand dollar gambit. An all-or-nothing gambit.
She tried to calm herself. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” she said out loud, hoping the sound of her voice would carry with it some reassurance. It didn’t. It sounded harsh and worn-out. Vulnerable.
Maybe, she thought, the worst thing would be an insurance fraud claim against her. But wasn’t that just a fine? She could sell the house. Live in an apartment. Pay the fine and keep the rest for herself. Not so bad.
The phone double-rang again. She looked at the clock radio on the nightstand. Ten fifteen P.M. Too late for a call from most people. But she was staying in a motel because her husband was dead. There were no rules for phone calls when someone has died. Maybe it was one of the kids.
Earlier, she’d called each of them from the bedroom as the cops had searched her house and photographed the scene. Jenny had taken it better than Michael. He’d started crying immediately and had had to get off the line. Just like his father. Weak at heart. Useless in a moment of crisis.
Jenny, on the other hand, had immediately started asking questions about the break-in. A stay-at-home mom with a journalist’s heart. Who, what, when, where, why. Jenny would cry when she was alone. But when the chips were down, she’d step up and do what had to be done. Just like I had, Doreen thought. I’d stepped up. Outsmarted the old son of a bitch and taken back the money he’d tried to keep from me.
The phone continued its double ring.
Maybe it was Michael. Maybe he’d gotten himself together and wanted to talk about it.
Doreen reached for the phone. But it stopped ringing before she could pick it up. She stared at it as if it were a bomb, waiting for it to go off again. Realized she wasn’t breathing. Took a deep breath. Everything will be okay, she thought. I covered everything. I did it perfectly.
Then the red message light began flashing. She picked up the handset and punched in the numbers to retrieve it. It was Jenkins. The detective with the unstyled hair of a ten year old. His voice sounded distant, tired, formal.
“Mrs. Martin,” he said. “Sorry to call you so late, but I just wanted you to know that you are welcome to return to your home. We’re finished with the investigation and have transported Mr. Martin’s body to the morgue. You’ll have to contact a cleanup crew to take care of the... what was left behind. In fact, I would suggest you contact the cleaning crew in the morning and wait until they’re finished before you return home. We may want to contact you in the next few days if we have any further questions, so please don’t travel anywhere for the next week or so. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. Call me if you have any questions.” He recited his own number and the number for the cleaning crew, then the message ended.
Doreen dropped the handset into the cradle and watched the red light blink. Waited for it to stop. Was there another message? She reached for the phone again, but then the red light went out.
She stared at the phone, sitting there on the motel nightstand next to the clock radio. Sitting there coldly, as if nothing had happened, as if no one had died and nothing was at stake. An indifferent messenger.
She picked it up and left a message for the cleaning company. She wanted them to get started wiping away whatever was left of Tom. Whatever was left of her past life.
At her house the next afternoon, Doreen picked up the debris she’d spread to make the house look ransacked. The cleaning crew had taken care of the human mess, but not the household debris. But they’d done a hell of a job on what they had cleaned up. The kitchen floor and the sliding glass doors were spotless. No blood stains, no spatters, no lingering evidence that Tom Martin had sat at the kitchen table and put a bullet through his own head. The smell of death had been replaced by the smell of disinfectant.
She was mopping the kitchen floor when she heard the doorbell ring. Her heart jumped at the sound. No one ever seemed to ring the doorbell anymore, not since the kids had moved out and their friends had stopped coming by. She leaned the mop against the refrigerator and stepped warily into the hall. A man was peering in the side window, one hand against the glass to block out the glare of the sun. When he saw Doreen he leaned back and gave her a friendly wave.
She recognized him — was it from church? — but couldn’t come up with a name. He was thirty or so, with a baby face. The kind of face you only find on adults who, as kids in high school, had been active in church. Those socially awkward kids who had enjoyed organizing pizza parties with the youth pastor. It was a face that was at once smiley, perpetually blemished, and vaguely insincere. One that seemed to thrive on spotting the sinner inside you. A face that at that moment made her very uncomfortable.
Doreen opened the door. “Yes?”
He dropped the smile and replaced it with something that resembled a sour mixture of compassion and pity. “Mrs. Martin?”
“Yes?”
The smile returned, boosted by amused surprise. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Doreen thought about answering, but he didn’t give her the chance.
“Bill Yates, your insurance agent. I’m the one who sold you and Tom your life insurance policies eighteen months ago.”
Doreen tried to keep her mouth closed. Tried not to show the alarm that was ringing in her ears. How had he known? She hadn’t made a claim yet. Wasn’t going to make a claim for a while. Not until the cops had finished their investigation and suicide had been officially ruled out.
Yates broke through her panic. “I was driving by yesterday and saw all the commotion. And if there’s one thing I’m known for it’s staying on top of my clients’ needs.” More sour compassion replaced the smile. “And I was saddened to find out about Tom’s passing. My deepest condolences to you and your wonderful children, Michael and Jenny. My only hope is that as your insurance agent I can help in some small way to begin the process of healing.”