“Why did you kill Rebecca Weaver?” I asked her.
“I didn’t mean to.” Her voice wasn’t much louder now than a hoarse whisper. “She made me do it.”
“How did she do that?”
“Real sweet at first, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But then she started ragging on me about hurting Mitch. I told her to shut up, go away, but she wouldn’t. Just kept ragging, calling me names, bitch, gambling slut. You know what she told me then? Take a guess.”
“That she had an affair with your husband six months ago.”
“That’s right. You know about that?”
“I know. But you didn’t until she told you.”
“Stupid. I should’ve known. Right next door, always looking at him like he was a piece of candy. She was the bitch, not me. Dirty little bitch.”
“So you killed her.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. She … I was hung over, sick, and she kept ragging and ragging, saying how much better she was for him than me or that cunt he’s sleeping with now. I told her she could have him, welcome to him, but that didn’t stop her. Kept screaming at me, breaking my eardrums, and then she grabbed my arm and I … I don’t know, I must’ve picked up a knife that was on the sink …” She shook herself, the way a dog does when it comes out of water. “I don’t remember stabbing her. I don’t. She was just… lying there on the floor, blood all over her, eyes wide open. Dead. She … I was sick, shaking so bad I couldn’t think … I don’t know, I don’t remember”
“What did you do then?”
“Had a drink, a big one. Wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I would’ve called nine-eleven if she hadn’t been dead. I would have. I thought about doing it anyway. But the police … I couldn’t face them. I was scared … real scared … You know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I know what you mean.”
“I sat in the living room with another Scotch and tried to calm down. I don’t know how long it took … a long time.”
“And then?”
She licked chapped lips. “I need a cigarette. Give me one, will you?”
There was an open pack next to the computer. I got up to fetch it and a booklet of matches and the overstuffed ashtray. The smoke in there was bothering my chest, but I could stand it for the few minutes it would take to get the rest of the story out of her. Her hands trembled as she lit one of the cancer sticks; it bobbed between her lips, sending up smoke in erratic patterns around her head.
“All I could think about was getting her out of there. You know? No idea what I’d do with her, not then, but I wanted her out of my house. I… dragged her into the laundry room and out through the back door. The gardener, he’d left a wheelbarrow on the lawn. I wheeled it over and lifted her into it. Like a sack.” She laughed, a sudden bleating sound that showed how close to the edge she was. “Like a big bloody dead sack.”
“Then you wheeled her into the garage and put her into the freezer.”
“No. I went back inside and washed the blood off the knife. I don’t know why I did that. Blood all over the floor, but the knife, on the counter … I don’t know why, I just did.” She blew smoke in a ragged stream. “That’s when I got the idea. While I was washing the blood off the knife.”
“Moving in here, using her money to gamble with.”
“She didn’t need it anymore, did she? She was dead and I’m alive and I … why shouldn’t I use it? Use her house, too, the goddamn bed where she fucked my husband.”
I didn’t say anything.
“She had her purse with her, she was going out somewhere after she finished ragging on me. I looked in her wallet. Credit cards … my God, she had a dozen! Big credit limits on every one, I checked later to make sure. So much money. Why shouldn’t I spend it?”
“And that’s when you put her into the freezer.”
“I had to empty all the frozen stuff out first, so she’d fit. It wasn’t easy getting her in there. A dead person weighs a lot.”
Yeah. “How long did you plan on leaving her there? Until you gambled away all of her money?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think about that. One day at a time, that’s the way I’ve always lived. Thinking too much makes you crazy.”
“Why didn’t you clean up the kitchen before you came over here? The blood smears on the floor.”
“Didn’t I? Jesus, I must’ve been too distracted. And Mitch found them and called you. That’s why you’re here.”