The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [132]
“Why did you bring Gwen? Do you think it makes you look less pathetic?”
“I don’t think I’m the pathetic one in this situation. I mean, I’m not the one who had to make up a lie about a golf date so I could cheat on my wife.” He walks over to her coffee table. Gwen sees a bottle of wine, two glasses, both with some dregs.
“I thought you were in AA,” Gwen says stupidly. It’s easier to focus on this small detail than the larger one, the buzz of words from Tim, the details that don’t track. Two glasses. Cheat. Golf date. That robe.
“I was,” McKey says. “Then I realized I’m not an alcoholic, that I was just a little unnerved by some episodes before the holidays. I can drink in moderation.”
“Yeah, two glasses is really moderate,” Tim says. “Look, let’s not drag this out. His phone is here. We heard it ring.”
“He stopped by earlier today. I didn’t realize he left it here. This is awkward. I’m entertaining.”
“I bet you are,” Tim says, holding his phone out at arm’s length. Gwen understands. He can’t read the screen close up without reading glasses. “Here’s Vivian’s number—I wonder if I can set up a conference call among our three phones.”
Sean comes into the living room, fully dressed. Gwen wants to laugh at the silliness of it, this odd little moment straight out of a bedroom farce. Sean proper and composed, as if the fact of his clothing, his combed hair, proves he’s innocent. Yet she’s sad for him, too. Oh, Sean. I wish you had told me what you were thinking. Because I would have talked you out of it. Not out of jealousy, although she admits to herself that she is jealous, that she does feel as if McKey has seized something that was hers. But mainly she’s sad because he’s done something he can never take back. And she knows he’ll want to take it back, whatever the outcome, even if there is no outcome. Her father may be right about people being too honest. But the problem with cheating is that you can never be spared that knowledge about yourself, whether you tell or not.
“We forgot our prop,” she says to Tim, not wanting to think about what’s happening here and now.
“That’s okay. We won’t need it. We might all need alcohol, though.” McKey has no intention of playing the hostess, so Gwen goes to the kitchen, finds it stocked with wine and beer and a healthy array of whiskey, although no food. She brings a selection to the table, with a choice of glasses. She herself selects bourbon. She’s not driving in any sense of the word. Let Tim take the wheel.
“Over the past twenty-four hours, Gwen and I, separately and together, have learned a lot of things that change everything about what we thought we knew about the night of the hurricane.” Tim is in his professional mode. “First—and this is going to be hard to hear, Sean—Gwen’s father says that Chicken George was probably alive when they got to him, but our father killed him, beat him to death with a flashlight. And our father told Mom as much the night he died.”
Sean shakes his head. “If that’s so, it would have been reported at the time. There weren’t so many bodies dumped in Leakin Park that such a thing would have gone overlooked.”
“It didn’t. But the body was out there for a very long time, much longer than anyone could have guessed, washed into a culvert. It was months before it was found, but it happens that there is an open case from the winter of 1980.” Tim looks at McKey. “Was it hard, going back and seeing him there, or had the stream already washed him away?”
Gwen understands that Tim is testing McKey. There’s no reason to believe that she took the guitar, but the accusation might shake something loose.
“I didn’t go back.”
“Someone did. I found the guitar in my family’s attic today. And it’s hard for me to imagine Go-Go going back by himself, to see the body of the man who allegedly molested him.”
Gwen sees Sean’s head snap up at the adverb allegedly. McKey has no reaction, and that’s reaction enough.
But all she says is: “I don’t know why Go-Go did what he did. He’s dead, so I’ll guess we’ll never know.”
“Want to know something interesting