I was astonished and tried to parse what this might mean. Was Dr. Benallie in on the murder somehow?
Sarah came into the living room, scowling at her sister. “It was your day to do breakfast and there are dishes all over the house now. What’s the matter this time? Feeling under the weather again?” She sneered. “Looks to me like you’re well enough to get out of bed and sit talking with your daughter and her new family.”
I was horrified at the rudeness under the circumstances, but before I could say anything, Rebecca said bluntly, “Stephen is dead. In our bedroom.”
Sarah’s reaction was very slight. She seemed to deflate for a moment, then raised her head so that her chin poked out. “So you left him there?” She didn’t ask how he’d died. What did that mean?
“Yes, I did,” Rebecca said. “Dr. Benallie is coming to certify his death before we bury him. Will you criticize me for that, too?”
The antagonism between the two sisters had never been more painful to watch. I wished they could have come together in this moment of sorrow, but it wasn’t to be.
“I criticize you when you do something wrong. It is not my fault that it happens so often,” Sarah said sharply.
“How nice it must be never to do anything wrong,” Rebecca said, but her voice was faint. She wasn’t really arguing back. It was as if she was accepting that she had done things wrong, even if not this thing.
“Nice is not a word I would have used to describe any part of my life for a very long time,” Sarah said. She turned on her heel, but I caught her before she could leave.
“Rebecca is calling the other wives here to tell them the news,” I said. “I’m sure you want to be there.”
“I’m sure I don’t,” Sarah said mulishly.
I knew her marriage to Stephen had been miserable, but I still didn’t understand her hostility to her sister. I didn’t have a sister myself, so maybe I didn’t know what it was like. I kept thinking they should be more natural allies.
“Can’t you sit with your sister for a little while and offer her some comfort?” I said, pulling Sarah aside and making no effort to temper my critical tone.
“For what? For the death of the man I hated?” Sarah said.
“Hated?” I echoed, and saw Naomi wince
“Yes, I hated him. I think I’ve hated him since the day I married him and found out who he truly was. And she—helped him keep the secret,” Sarah pointed an accusing finger at her older sister. “She colluded with him to lie to me.”
I began to see Sarah’s side of the story. I don’t know why I hadn’t before. She must have been quite young when she married, and trusting in her sister’s judgment perhaps more than she should have. And this was where it had gotten her. No wonder she was bitter.
“I never lied to you,” Rebecca said tiredly.
“You lied to me and you lied to yourself. You lie to everyone every minute of your life!” Sarah shouted.
Naomi had looked away, unable to bear this. Kenneth was stroking her shoulder gently.
“Well, he’s gone now,” Rebecca said, flinging up her hands in disgust. “Lucky you. You’re free.”
Sarah’s eyed flared with anger. “Free? You call this free? With the children he’s chained to me? I’ll never be free. But at least I won’t have to hear his voice or think about him breathing next to me in bed ever again. I can be happy about that.” Sarah jerked her arm out of my grip, crossed the living room, and went out the front door, letting it slam closed. Through the front window I could see her walking angrily down the gravel drive.
Even if I understood her anger a little better now, that didn’t mean she hadn’t done it. In fact, it might mean she was more likely than ever, both to have killed Stephen with a kitchen knife and to have left him in her sister’s bedroom, for her sister to find.
Chapter 16
“If we’re going to do the funeral tonight,” Rebecca said to Kenneth, “you need to get out there and start digging.”
I swallowed hard. It was time to face the reality. I was colluding in this now, whether I’d intended for it to go this far or not. Kenneth looked at me, and I nodded to him. This was his family now, and by extension it was mine, too. We were bound forever, even if Kenneth and Naomi didn’t plan on marrying in the temple.
Kenneth let go of Naomi and straightened. “All right. Tell me where,” he said to Rebecca.
“The graveyard is past the shed, a couple hundred yards down the hill,” Rebecca said. “Just follow the stream.”
“And a shovel?”