The sour cherry surprise

“So the Red Sox trounced Toronto eight-zip the night Richard died. At no time during the game did the Sox ever trail. Yet when I showed up here in response to Amber’s nine-one-one call you told me the Jays were killing them. You weren’t watching that game on TV at all, were you? You were out in the lane slashing Richard’s throat. Then the two of you carried him down to the river together and dumped him there, figuring he wouldn’t wash up for days and days. And when he did that any and all suspicion would land on Clay Mundy and stay there. Then you cleaned yourselves up and hid the evidence, quick like bunnies. Which Molly never saw because she was too scared to climb down from her tree house until I got here. She didn’t see anyone leaving the crime scene either. No one did. That’s because you didn’t have to leave. You were already home. Still, you two were very careful. Amber, you called nine-one-one just in case one of your neighbors had heard Richard scream-figuring it would never occur to anyone that you were involved if you were the one who reported it. Especially the way Keith kept insisting he hadn’t heard a thing.” Des shook her head them disgustedly. “Clay was telling me the truth yesterday. He had nothing to do with Richard’s death. Hell, Clay was no killer at all. A killer would have shot Molly dead the instant she started for that kitchen door. He just tried to scare her with a warning shot. The poor bastard didn’t realize how gutsy she is. Not that I’m saying I feel the least bit sorry for him or Hector. They get no love from me. Those two sold dope that messed up thousands of people, a lot of them kids. They trashed Carolyn’s life. Terrorized Molly. Tied me up and threw me in that root cellar. No, no, I will not be mourning them. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to pin Richard’s murder on them so his real killers can go free. No one deserves that. Do they, Keith?”

“Des, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in a steady, earnest voice. “It’s a total fabrication. Insane. And you can’t prove any of it.”

“Sure we can,” she promised him. “If we have to. But I don’t think it’ll come to that. I know both of you and you’re good, decent people who love each other very much. Most of the time, you can barely take your eyes off of each other. Yet right now you’re afraid to so much as make eye contact. Would you like me to tell you why? Because you did something horrible together and you both know it. The guilt is already eating away at you. I know it’s eating away at me.”

“At you?” Amber frowned at her, puzzled. “Why you?”

“Because I should have seen this coming and headed it off. It was staring me right in the face, damn it. Richard told me what the deal was. Put it right out there when I found him out on Big Sister that day. He kept muttering it over and over again: ‘They both threw me out. They both threw me out.’ I thought he was referring to Clay and Carolyn. My bad. He meant Carolyn and you, Amber. Both of the women in his life. When he took that afterdinner stroll from Mrs. Beckwith’s he didn’t head for his old place to see Carolyn or Molly. He showed up here to beg you to leave Keith. He was still crazy about you, wasn’t he? Couldn’t get you out of his system. It’s like a very wise person said to me last night: You can’t turn it on and off like a faucet.”

Amber gazed at her searchingly for a long moment. “Keith and I… weren’t married yet.” Her voice was soft and trembly. “When Richard and I got involved, I mean.”

“Do not say another word,” Keith ordered her.

“Oh, screw that,” Amber shot back. “I’m tired of keeping quiet. Keeping quiet has done nothing but send us straight to hell.” She drew in a ragged breath and continued. “Keith and I got into this huge fight at Thanksgiving last year because I wanted to set our wedding date and he didn’t. He wanted to wait a while longer. You know how scared off men can get.”

“Sure,” Des said. “Not like us.”

“Things got so out of hand between the two of us that I threw him out. He moved back in with his brother Kevin. We were through, okay? It was over between us. Not for long. We patched things up over Christmas and Keith moved back in. We were married soon after that. But during those few weeks we were apart I was real lonely and hurting. Vulnerable, too, I guess. Richard knew right away that Keith wasn’t around anymore. And one night he stopped by. Confessed that he’d been madly in love with me ever since I was a sophomore, barely nineteen. I’d never known how he felt. I mean, sure, he helped me get into Yale and found me this cottage and all. But I thought he was just interested in me as a promising young scholar. I realize now how incredibly naive and stupid that sounds. An older man taking an interest in a female protege-it has to be about sex, right?”

Des didn’t answer. It wasn’t really a question.