Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [89]
“Thank you for the brownies,” he said, getting up.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
He turned to leave.
But she touched his arm to stop him. “You know, Dick, the next time you come here, you should bring your swim trunks.”
“Sorry?”
“You could swim at our beach after you’re finished and have a chance to play.”
Eberling looked out at the beach and back at Marilyn. “Really?”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“You would?”
“I like to know someone’s enjoying our place.”
“Well,” he said, “I come next Wednesday to clean.”
“I’ll plan on that then,” she said.
“I’ll see you,” he said.
In the van, watching the Sheppard house, Eberling imagined next Wednesday for about the hundredth time since he and Marilyn had talked. He saw himself change into his swim trunks in Dr. Sam’s study and then walk through the house to the patio, out the door, and down the steps to the water. Then he’d wade in, aware of Marilyn watching him from her bedroom window, and swim until his arms ached and all the work smells were washed off him. Then he’d dry himself off down at the beach and be sure to sit and wait for the wind and sun to dry him more so he wouldn’t seem too eager. Then he’d make his way back up to the house. Once inside, he’d find the downstairs empty. Then Marilyn would call to him from the bedroom upstairs. And if that happened, he wouldn’t fail himself like he had on the patio. He’d be ready. The house would be dark and cool, his hair and trunks damp from swimming but his body dry, and he’d walk up the stairs to where Marilyn was waiting. She’d be in her bed, the one nearest the door that he knew was hers because he sniffed the sheets whenever he stripped it. She’d be lying in them waiting for him. Then he’d take off his swimsuit and lie down next to her and take her in his arms and fit himself against her back, spooning her tightly. Her body would be warm and his cool. They’d listen to the breeze off the water, the leaves rattling the window screens. And that was when he’d tell her his secret.
“You know, Dr. Sam,” Mobius said, “there’s this funny thing that happens to some men before I kill their wives. Kind of a buyer’s remorse, I guess, because occasionally after the money’s changed hands and I’ve got my mark’s brakes set to fail, her patio rigged to collapse, or the furnace ready to blow CO2, every so often the husband will phone me in a panic the night before to call the whole thing off. He’ll be apologetic. A little embarrassed. He claims he doesn’t care about the lost deposit. Just abort, he says. And I’ll agree—it’s a substantial sum of money—but when I ask why he doesn’t want to go through with it, he says the same thing every time: ‘Things,’ he says, ‘are getting better. Things,’ he says, ‘have improved.’ There’s real optimism in his voice, practically newlywed glee. Sometimes he’ll even say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Mobius. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think my wife and I would’ve gotten to this point in our relationship. We’re happier now than ever. I owe you more than you know.’ We hang up, and I smile a little smile to myself, because a week or two later, the same guy calls back and says the exact same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“‘Kill the bitch.’”
“You’re demented.”
“And you didn’t answer the question.”
“You didn’t ask me one.”
“Can you tell the story of your marriage?”
Because Sheppard was a detective, he often reviewed the history of his relationship with Marilyn, jotting down his thoughts on a series of yellow legal pads, especially during the months he spent in prison before his trial and the ten years afterward until his verdict was overturned. Beginning sequentially, he then examined every last facet of it, uncovering every dark place, in an attempt to prove his own guilt or innocence and his degree of complicity, because at times he saw her death as being inextricably intertwined with their love, the terrible and logical conclusion of their togetherness, the culmination of a pattern of behavior on his part that he’d been conscious of but waited too long