and unaware of her new status. She’d been completely in the dark when it came to that status—her status as a future murderer, a charter member of the Future Murderers of America. And then the next time she saw the dinner guests was at the funeral. The murder had been done.
She didn’t remember talking to them then, though she might have, probably had—she’d been polite at least, she hoped. She recalled almost nothing outside the blur and only knew she had caught sight of them from the podium and been indifferent to their presence. But it was impossible to miss them entirely because they had stood out from the crowd, apart in their chairs at the ends of the pews. The support group had made a good showing—Sal, for instance, had barely known Hal and though clearly lacking in most social skills had come to the funeral to, as he put it, “like be there for Casey.” On his muscled upper arms, often shown off by grubby tank tops, he had many tattoos including weeping roses, shamrocks and daggers; but at the funeral, though still garbed in the camouflage pants and combat boots that were his signature, he had worn long sleeves.
•
T. arrived at the big house early, with his mother in tow. Well-dressed and coiffed at the hands of a live-in maid who hailed from the former Communist bloc, she could pass at first for a businesswoman or socialite—the latter of which she almost was, Susan thought, except that she had no friends.
“Susan, dear,” she said, coming into the kitchen with T. behind her and holding out a frail hand. T. must have prompted her on the name.
“I’m so glad you could come, Angela,” said Susan, and put her near-empty wineglass on the counter to clasp the thin hand in both of hers. The last time she’d seen Angela, Hal had been there too. They’d gone to her townhouse apartment to break the news that T. was gone, T. had been lost in the tropics and was unresponsive. She had served them Earl Grey and told them not to worry, vaguely protested that her son could take care of himself, and Susan had felt sorry for her.
But in the end she had been right in her confidence; Susan had been wrong. Come to think of it, if Susan had believed her—if Susan had not manifested a fussy, hen-like worry for her employer when even his mother remained unconcerned—Hal would never have flown down there. Hal would be alive now.
“I’m so very sorry for your loss,” said Angela. Her soft lower lip trembled.
Susan felt a surge of fondness. The woman was a wounded doe—the straggler on the edge of the herd, the slow-moving one a wolf would select to bring down with sharp teeth. Though not a trophy hunter.
But before she had time to act on the passing fond impulse, Casey was there.
“Come with me,” she commanded, reaching up to touch Angela’s hand. “I’ll show you things,” and Angela smiled briefly at Susan and turned to follow.
The house was far too large for the small party so they had tried to set it up in the first-floor rooms that opened onto the pool—the music room, the dining room with its wolves and foxes, the long hall. At certain junctures, she realized, a tall man would have to bend down to avoid the antlers of moose or elk. The mounts were a hodgepodge in the corridors, hung without regard for the obstacles they might make. She opened the row of French doors between the terrace and the rooms, let their floor-length drapes flutter, and walked around surveying. The old hardwood gleamed, the faded rugs stretched at her feet . . . she checked the nearest ground-floor bathroom, which had been grimy when she moved in, the floor an ancient and torn-up linoleum in avocado green. Now the old flooring was replaced with tile and the walls had been painted.
The room’s small window was open to the back of an oleander hedge, pink blossoms that could be lethal, someone had warned her when she was pregnant—vomiting, diarrhea, if a kid even touches an oleander he could sink into a coma, the woman had said. And never come out. You didn’t hear that from a man, typically. As an expectant mother, or the mother of a young child, you heard many warnings from females but not so many from males. The females were protective, true, they spread their downy wings over the eggs