Page 27 of The Wives of Murder Club
32
BERNIE
There was only one solution.
“We’ll put her in the lake.” Bernie had thought about it carefully, her surgical mind plotting the cleanest cuts in the fabric of reality. “You know those maps downstairs? I think we can use them to locate a spot where we can sink her body deep. Bodies in cold water decompose at a rate that is—”
Marta interrupted with a groan. “Je-sus.”
“Save it for church, Marta,” snapped Imogen. “You agreed, right? Just because you were the last one on board doesn’t mean you have some kind of moral high ground.”
“Let’s go.” Bernie turned on her heel and headed for the stairs, confident the others would follow. In the dining room, she approached the wall of maps and took her time studying each one. “Okay, this one here.” She pointed at a large image blotched with blues and greens. “This one’s a depth map. And our cottage—oh look, Rick helpfully circled it—is right here.” She pointed to Snakebite Island. “I think we’re looking for this area right here.” She tapped on a spot in the upper left quadrant. “It looks like that’s the deepest area we can reasonably access from our location. That other map is currents, and I think they should be favourable to us based on where we want to drop her.” Bernie turned to face Imogen and Marta. “What do you think?”
Imogen nodded grimly. “I think it’s the best we’re going to be able to do.”
“How long did it take you to come up with this?” Marta asked, arms akimbo.
“Not that long—it’s a pretty obvious option when you think about it,” Bernie replied. “But that’s not what you’re asking, is it? You’re trying to imply that I’ve been scheming this all along.”
Marta held out her hands as if warding Bernie off, then seemed to change her mind and put them on her hips. “I guess I’m saying that it seems like you’ve thought about it too much for this to be some random plan.”
“I’m a pretty fast thinker.” Bernie inhaled deeply through her nose. “And I am highly motivated to solve this problem. Because it’s not only my professional reputation and promotion that are on the line.” Bernie had learned a long time ago that when talking about something uncomfortable, most people tended to stare off into the distance (the rules of eye contact had been the hardest for her to master). She cast her gaze toward the kitchen island and focused on a hair clip that had belonged to Celeste. “I, uh . . . I don’t like talking about this, but my ex recently brought a motion for sole custody. He’s mad that I tried to get more child support, so he’s really trying to screw me.” Steven was, in fact, trying to get more time with the kids. Sometimes Bernie wondered whether she should just let him take them, but she could never let him win.
“Oh no, Bernie, that’s terrible,” said Imogen. “I would have killed Ari’s father if he tried something like that with me.” She choked on the last half of her sentence. “You know what I mean. Not actually. But that’s so crazy, you’re such a good mom.”
Bernie knew she wasn’t, and she was fine with it.You’re such a good momwas the kind of phrase that other mothers flung around with all the finesse of a baby splatting food on the floor. “Thanks for saying that, it means a lot. I can’t imagine my life without them. It feels really shameful, to have him come at my parenting like this. So obviously, I absolutely cannot have any association with a murderinvestigation.”Why isn’t my work enough?Turning to Marta, she asked, “Now do you understand why my mind went there so fast? I could lose mykids.”
Marta’s cheeks turned pink. Bernie knew she had her then.
With Imogen and Marta on board, Bernie began to feel a bit more in control. The three of them sat around the dining table and hashed out a plan. Marta was the one who suggested the campfire, and Bernie was surprised that she’d come up with such a good idea.
“I guess it serves two purposes,” said Marta. “We can show we were trying to help, like, it would be a beacon that Celeste could follow if she was lost out on the lake.” Marta was sitting as far away as possible from Bernie and Imogen, and she was addressing her remarks to the wall of maps. “It also gives us a way to get rid of that rope.”
“Yes. Yes, absolutely,” Bernie agreed. “Okay, so the first thing we need to do is the text to Milly around 6:30 p.m. It won’t go through for ages, but that doesn’t matter.”
“No, first I want to delete those texts to Mark,” Imogen interjected. “I don’t want those on her phone. And if anyone ever pulled her records, who’s to say she didn’t delete them herself?”
Bernie nodded. “Sure, delete them. Okay, phone stuff first. Then after dinner we’ll do the fire. We’ll wait until it’s late before we take her out—we need to be sure that we’re not going to run into anyone else on the lake. Are we all agreed?”
33
MARTA
Marta hadn’t had a choice. She needed to believe that.
The lure of banding together with Imogen and Bernie had pulled at her in unbearable tension with the knowledge that one of them had killed Celeste. Marta told herself that she hadn’t wanted to go along with the plan, but when they’d ganged up on her, she’d caved almost immediately. They could set her up—my prints are on that rope—and sell her out, and they could go even further and tell the cops they thought she had something to do with Derrick’s disappearance as well. They could make her life hell. Worse than any of their threats to point the finger at her, Marta feared that she was in danger of ending up like Celeste.
The cozy cottage atmosphere was now oppressively heavy, and Marta found that every room held a reminder of Celeste: her shoes by the door, hergua shatool in the washroom, her liquid collagen supplements in the fridge. After the planning session with Bernie and Imogen, Marta remained at the table and stared at the maps. The dark-blue circles demarcating the deepest parts of Venom Lake stared back at Marta from the dining room wall, accusing her with their inky glare.
Marta avoided the other women for the rest of the afternoon, loitering first in the dining room, then in the kitchen, gazing vacantly at the dreary slate sky. The lake was now an ominous gunmetal grey; it held not a trace of yesterday morning’s sparkly blue joy. Eventually, Marta decided to start making dinner, if only to keep her hands busy. Bernie and Imogen soon joined her in the kitchen—lured by the smell of sautéed garlic—and they began discussing how to word the text to Milly. Marta tried to tune them out, concentrating on rinsing each cherry tomato individually, drawing out the task. Before pressing Send on the message from Celeste’s cellphone, Bernie passed it around so that both Imogen and Marta could read it.
Hi Milly! Hope you’re having a good time with Auntie Paige. I wish you could come out with me for a paddle, you’d love this lake. If I see a baby goose I’ll think of you! Xoxo
Marta nodded her approval, unable to speak. The cover-up was in motion.
As she had the first night, Marta took charge of the fire. Rick had left a stack of logs for their use, but they needed more kindling. As she walked away from the cottage toward the trees, Marta cast quick glances over her shoulder. She didn’t like being alone like this, exposed. Previously, she’d appreciated the island’s secluded beauty, but today it felt claustrophobic despite the wide open sky and vast expanse of water. Marta looked back at the cottage again and started when she saw a figure in the window, gazing out at her.Imogen.After a beat, Marta raised her hand in a tentative wave. Another beat, and Imogen mirrored her. The hairs on Marta’s arms stood up.
She quickly gathered up an armload of twigs and branches, scratching herself in her haste, and raising faint red lines along her wrists and the backs of her hands. She carried her load to the firepit, dumped it in a heap, then began arranging a square base of sticks around a pile of smaller twigs in the centre. After lighting the kindling, Marta fed the photographs of Derrick and Imogen to the hungry flames. It took her about ten minutes to build a roaring blaze, by which time Imogen and Bernie had joined her outside. They sat wordlessly around the fire, woodsmoke stinging their eyes, stray embers dancing in the air. For a brief moment, Marta fantasized that she really was trying to light Celeste’s way home through the dark.
