“I’ll let you know,” you say. “I have to think it over.”
“Of course.”
You have finished your tea.
You stand.
She stands.
“You know the way out,” she says.
She remembers, too, the times you spent here, in this house, when her parents weren’t home, after her older sister went off to college.
“Goodbye,” you say with an appropriately small smile and a little nod, and head through the dining room and into the living room. You realize she’s following and is watching, from a distance, and she says nothing, obviously doesn’t see, when you pat the piece of duct tape over the latch before you close it.
You walk around back, where the darkness conceals you.
You wait.
Within five minutes the kitchen light goes off. Your eyes go to the upstairs windows, where no lights are on. Your gaze bounces back and forth from the master bedroom window to Astrid’s old bedroom, not sure where she will land.
The light in her bedroom window goes on.
You wait awhile longer, not very long, not even five minutes this time. The light goes out. No reading lamp light either, apparently, unless it’s really weak. You figure it’s unlikely she would read, as late as it is. She did have a few drinks, this you know from observing her at the reunion. She should go right to sleep.
You wait, and this is the hardest part, a good half an hour longer. You go from a certain reluctance about what must be done to an acceptance and even irritation, as what she suggested is a sort of blackmail. She’s disappointed you.
Then you go back around to the bushes where you hid the grocery bag. You retrieve the bag and take out the black hooded raincoat and get into it. This is a new one. You threw the other one down a gutter in Clearwater, knowing not to wear it again. The blood would glow in the dark under certain light, if TV could be trusted.
You put on the fresh pair of kitchen gloves. Flex your fingers. As before, it’s awkward but not terribly.
You have a butcher knife in the bag, but you decide not to use it. Maybe somebody could trace that knife to where you bought it, across the river. You leave it in the bag. You will collect it later.
You go in through the taped-latch door, removing that tape and pocketing it, before going deeper into the house. Returning to the kitchen, you withdraw a perfectly suitable butcher knife from the countertop wood-block knife set and smile to yourself. You glance at the two teacups on the table; you can deal with those on the way out. Then, because you are here, you go up the back stairs off the kitchen to the upper floor.
Kind of strange being back here after all this time. You feel like a ghost haunting the place. Outside Astrid’s room — will it still have the Katy Perry poster, you wonder, and that Beyoncé one? — you pause and listen. Gentle snoring. Much like the snoring of the someone in bed you left behind.
You enter quietly. Some distant street light filters in, just enough to show Astrid on the bed. Funny — maybe she’d been a little drunk. You hadn’t noticed that. Hadn’t perceived it. But here she is, not under the covers, just flopped on top of them, though the room isn’t warm. Not cold, but not warm. She’s on her side, still in the black silk robe. You gently move her onto her back, and she goes with the motion, not waking. Settling. Still sleeping.
That’s all right with you. You loved this girl once. Maybe you still love her, a little bit. You don’t want her to suffer. You’re pretty sure she doesn’t wake, although her body jerks and kind of convulses when you bring the butcher knife down again and again into her chest.
At this angle you hardly get any on the raincoat, but soon the ceiling is dripping.
Eleven
After showering, including shaving her legs and shampooing, and generally getting ready for her day, Krista had wardrobe considerations to deal with.
But as she stood staring at the contents of her bedroom closet, those contents stared back at her in bland indifference, as she asked questions of herself.
Uniform?
No. This was Sunday, her day off (though as chief she was always on call), and while wearing her uniform to the reunion brunch might be a nice way to quietly brag... no. That would just be sad.
What about the reunion brunch?
That was another no. She’d had a good time last night, perhaps short of a wonderful evening but she certainly wasn’t sorry she’d gone. But neither was she anxious to spend any more time with her old friends.
The local ones she saw frequently anyway, at least in passing, and the reminiscing with out-of-towners had exhausted itself. Of course, the brunch had been set at 11:00 a.m., to give anyone who wanted time to go to church — and Galena was a big church town, historic ones lining much of Bench Street — but...
Are you even going to church?
Not today. She had gradually gotten out of the habit of attending regularly. She tried to make it once a month, out of respect to her late mom and, frankly, because her position in the community meant at least a little of that was expected from her. Since moving in, her father had said he’d go to church, “now and then,” which meant maybe Easter and Christmas. Maybe.
Since you’re going over to Astrid’s, do you need to make a fuss? Select something special?
No. Already she’d decided not to do anything fancy with her hair. Why try to compete with the star of Chicago TV news? She would either fail... or succeed only by way of embarrassing herself.
She got into new jeans and a black pullover sweater. Also tugged on the snazzy red-and-black cowboy boots, not to impress but because they were comfortable. She snugged her pant legs over them. As was her off-duty habit, she snapped the holstered Glock 21 on her hip, smiling to herself, knowing Astrid couldn’t compete with that kind of accessorizing.
Her father was still sleeping. That had been a late night for him. Usually she made breakfast, but she’d told him she was going to Astrid’s this morning, and he’d have to fend for himself. She set out a couple of yesterday’s muffins anyway, then got into her bomber jacket and headed out.
When she drew her Toyota up behind the silver Jag, Krista smiled and shook her head at the conspicuous success her friend and onetime rival had achieved. But that was momentary, because the sight of the ordinary brown-frame house — with its narrow sidewalk cutting through a modest rock garden to a one-step-up porch under an overhang — took her back in time.
How often had she been here? As a grade-school kid? As a junior high girl? As a high school classmate coming over for a slumber party or an all-nighter before a final? Those memories made a warm blur and she felt such a wave of nostalgia for so many fun times, good times, that Astrid stealing Jerry away from her almost faded into nothing. Or almost nothing.
She knocked at the front door and got no response. She knocked again and still no response. She checked her watch: 8:00 a.m. Right on time. Thinking maybe Astrid’s night had gone on longer than hers, she tried her friend’s cell number. From inside the house, muffled but distinct, came a ring. And three more rings.
When the ringing stopped and Astrid didn’t pick up, Krista figured her call had gone to voice mail. She knocked again, still nothing. The Lunds might have a landline, lots of older people did, so she punched in “Information,” and Astrid’s parents did have a number.
She tried that.
Again, she heard a ring, more distinct, somewhere on the first floor beyond the closed door. It rang ten times, an eternity, and then, faintly, came Astrid’s mother’s voice informing people (apparently very uninformed people) that they should wait for the tone before leaving a message.
A dozen dire things coursed through her mind, but she shook them away. It’s hard for a cop to take things in stride. Probably Astrid had just slept through those cell phone rings, even if her phone had been on a nightstand table; and those landline calls were on the first floor. Krista knew the bedrooms were upstairs. Maybe her friend had slept through those, too, or hadn’t heard them.