Stop it, he told himself. That’s a lie. His hands held a phone, he was capable of dialing the number. He just didn’t do it.
* * *
• • •
While Donna was passed out on the couch, Edward entered Penelope’s room. The hardwood floor lay shiny and perfect in a herringbone pattern and he stared at that awful gaudy Victorian dollhouse she had loved more than the others, more than the garden cottage, more than the princess castle. The floor was sturdy and solid, yet Edward felt the ground underneath his feet give way.
That dollhouse. Inside was a small and tidy world where everything was in order, eagerly arranged and consciously moved about, organized to perfection. The only world Penelope ever had control over. Why didn’t he catch on earlier? How everything had its rightful place in those houses, how she maintained order while her mind slipped. She was his. His DNA. Whatever happened to her happened to him, always had. As he raised his arms and folded his hands behind his neck, a small gasp left his lips. He began to cry. It felt good, like a release, like guilt was flowing out of him.
Penelope was asleep, her breathing deep and peaceful. He stared at her, thought of many things, in rapid succession, tidbits of images, never long-drawn-out scenes, then his mind switched to a faint childhood memory. Ashes deter snails and slugs in gardens—his mother was an avid gardener—and after sprinkling ashes on a compost heap, he watched worms slink along his palm and up his fingers. What had become of that part of his life? His family didn’t see a need for three cars or ten bedrooms, they were pragmatic and salt-of-the-earth people who didn’t understand the concept of housekeepers and staff and had declined everything he had ever offered them: cruises and houses and vacations. This was a gloomy memory altogether, and he tried to stay in the moment, think about his next move, but the corners of his mind were not nearly sharp enough.
Get on with it, a voice said in his head.
“Penny,” he said and stroked her cheek until she opened her eyes. “Penny, I need you to listen to me.”
“Don’t yell at me.” Her speech was slurred.
“I’m not, I won’t.”
“Mom doesn’t understand.”
“I know, Pea, I know.”
“This will never go away.”
“Everything goes away, Pea.”
“I’ve been thinking about this. I just know it, it will never go away.”
“You can’t go to the police, you just can’t.”
“I have to, you don’t under—”
“You can make amends, Pea. We’ll figure it out. But you can’t go to the police. You can’t.”
“We’ve been over this. Over and over—”
It went on for a while, neither one of them making any headway.
“This is madness,” Edward said. Madness. Madness. Madness.
“I’m going to go to the police. With or without you,” she said.
Penelope never wavered, and the amalgamation of things, her steadfastness and his fear combined, made him edgy, his heartbeat accelerated when she said with or without you.
“They’ll crucify you,” Edward said but what he meant was us. They are going to crucify us.
“Everyone is going to do what they’re going to do,” Penelope said, in a tone that was so matter-of-fact, so final.
“Go to sleep, Pea,” he said. He stroked her cheek like he had so many times when she was a child as he watched her eyes close.
Her breathing slowed and everything shrunk into nothingness, his throat constricted, he began to choke. What else could he possibly do? Waiting this long to call the police had been a mistake but maybe, maybe he could still remedy it? He ought to try. That’s all he could do. Try.
Edward hugged Penelope and told her he loved her. He tiptoed past Donna on the couch. He got into the jeep and drove off with the dead woman next to him.
* * *
• • •
He didn’t so much as wipe away the blood. He draped a blanket over the body, tucked it underneath the woman’s chin so she appeared as if she were sleeping. He didn’t speed, he stopped at every stop sign.
His heart was beating out of his chest. He had been taught to react because seconds make a difference between life and death and he recalled once a healthy young body going into V-fib; recalled the hearts of vigorous men deciding to be temperamental on a moment’s notice just when he performed the simplest of procedures; recalled a bleeder hidden so deep in the body that he had hoisted an entire colon out to find the source. He had kept composure all those times but this was different. The images played on repeat like a broken record but the blood was what got to him, his training in bodily fluids and the contamination, the impurity of it all.
Before he knew it, the park sign appeared. The parking lot was deserted but for a car abandoned with the front tires over the white line. A pack of gum in the street, a comb. A travel-size hairspray. An inhaler. A plastic casing that more than likely contained a mirror, more items women carry in their purses. To the careless eye it was just stuff but he knew better, he knew those were the woman’s belongings. He looked around but there were no clues as to what had transpired here, what had happened. If he were forced to render a conclusion he couldn’t come up with an explanation. While he tried to connect the dots, he imagined the headline.
Disturbed socialite . . . fails to render aid . . . stores body in wealthy parents’ garage . . . parents cover up . . .
He looked down onto the asphalt. He hadn’t brought a flashlight, hadn’t thought that far, but had left the headlights on. There was no blood, not a single drop. Judging by the jeep’s interior, the woman had entirely bled out in Penelope’s car. The police would find a bloodless body and they’d scramble to explain that but that was none of his concern.
Edward moved quickly. He hoisted her body over his shoulder, didn’t want to pull it along the asphalt, didn’t want to leave drag marks on her. His spine curved under the weight of the body and he had to stop from time to time, gauging the distance to the spot where he wanted her to end up. He dropped her next to the package of gum, the compact, and the comb. He hadn’t thought about anything beyond that. Not fingerprints. Not hair. Not fibers. There was blood all over his hands. What sprang to his mind were the dangers of infectious bacteria, like enterococci and vancomycin-resistant strains. He had watched all the TV shows, he was knowledgeable in DNA and the many ways this could go wrong, the evidence the smallest of pieces could render.
He stepped back to a vantage point where he could view the scene with ease. His eyes zoomed in on the lighter. A cheap and disposable lighter among the blades of grass by the curb. He stared at it. An accelerant. He needed an accelerant. The hairspray. Spray cans contain propellant chemicals, a liquid solution held under pressure within the can, butane and propane, two flammable chemicals. If it was still full, it might work.