The Pact. Jennifer Sturman

I was hoping for easy enlightenment, something that could explain—without implicating anyone I knew or cared about—how Richard had ended up floating facedown and lifeless in the pool.

      “Did everything seem normal?” he repeated thoughtfully, his hand on the door’s brass handle. “Yeah, as far as I could tell. Nothing strange happened that I noticed. Nothing out of the ordinary. That’s what’s so weird about this whole thing. I mean, Richard seemed like his same old self.” Sean was too nice to say what Richard’s same old self was like. He’d known Richard longer than any of us—they had both lived in Eliot House while at Harvard, an enclave that prided itself on its reputation for preppy elitism. “Lowest GPA, highest starting salary,” bragged the house T-shirt one year, only partly tongue-in-cheek. They also belonged to the same finals club, one of a handful of exclusive fraternities housed in discreet redbrick buildings around campus. Neither Eliot House nor the club really suited Sean, but he was reluctant to be the first Hallard in five generations to stray from tradition. Both of these venues gave Sean ample opportunity to get to know Richard, and I knew from comments that Jane had let drop that his opinion of Richard was no higher than my own.

      Sean continued, “It’s so bizarre to think that there we were, just a few hours ago, talking about how the Yankees are doing this season and other nonsense, and the next thing you know…” His voice trailed off. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

      “No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”

      “I keep wondering what could have happened. There must be a good explanation, but for the life of me, I have no idea what it is. I thought for a moment that maybe he committed suicide, but Richard was as far from suicidal as…” He didn’t finish his sentence, unable to find the appropriate simile.

      “Was he really drunk?” I asked, trying to mask the hopeful tone in my voice. It felt awkward and inappropriate to probe like this, but I desperately wanted to believe that it had, in fact, been possible that Richard could have had so much to drink that he could have fallen into the pool and been too far gone to save himself. Matthew’s assessment and Richard’s well-documented ability to hold his liquor notwithstanding, I was definitely rooting for accidental drowning as the cause of death. If suicide was out of the question, the only other alternative was less than appealing.

      Sean considered this for a moment and then gave a decisive shake of his head. “Well, he seemed to have had a good bit to drink, but we all had. And he’s always been able to drink even the most serious drinkers under the table. I think the rest of us were far worse for wear than he was. I was practically ready to pass out by the time I went in to bed.” He flashed me a self-deprecating smile. “Quiet married life hasn’t done much for my level of alcohol tolerance. I only have a hazy memory of Jane coming in, although, according to her, I really distinguished myself on the snoring front last night.”

      I had to laugh. Sean’s snoring was legendary, capable of raising roofs and setting windowpanes to shaking in their frames. Then I thought about what he’d said. If Sean had gone to bed before Jane, he must have come in before 2:00 a.m., which was when I’d arrived in the bedroom I was sharing with Emma, also a little worse for wear from several hours of steady drinking, after my friends and I had decided to call it a night. Almost unconsciously, I started putting together a mental chronology of the early morning’s events.

      “Did the other guys go to bed when you did?” I asked.

      “No,” Sean said with another shake of his head. “I was the first to go. Jane and I were going to take advantage of being up in the country to take a long run before all of the wedding action began.” Some people, myself included, exercised for normal reasons like wanting to look cute in one’s clothes. Jane and Sean, however, actually thought exercise was fun. I’d always prided myself on being able to stay friends with people who enjoyed marathons but didn’t find them sufficiently challenging.

      “Still,” Sean went on, “everybody was getting tired. I don’t think they lasted that much longer.” Especially not Richard, I couldn’t help but think with morbid humor.

      “So, let me get this straight,” I summarized, “you all were drinking by the pool while we were out on the dock, you then came in before two, we all came in around two, and you’re not quite sure when the rest of the guys went to bed but you think it was pretty soon after that.” That meant that whatever happened took place sometime between two and six, which was a big window for foul play.

      He gave me a quizzical look and then grinned again, more fully this time. “What’s going on, here, Rach? You thinking of tossing in your banking gig to become a private investigator?”

      I gave him a sheepish smile. “I don’t know. Do you think I’d be any good?”

      “Good or not, I don’t think it pays enough to keep you in the style you’d like. You might want to stick with Wall Street.”

      “Thanks for the tip,” I said.

      “Any time. Now, assuming you have no more questions, Madame Detective, I’m going to go make myself useful.”

      “That’s Mademoiselle, to you. And you’re dismissed.” He gave me a mock salute and I waved him out the door.

      CHAPTER 8

      I found my friends upstairs in Mrs. Furlong’s sitting room, where the air seemed infused with palpable relief. Or perhaps I was just projecting my own emotions. Mrs. Furlong was bent over her desk, sorting though piles of papers, while everyone else looked on expectantly, still dressed as they’d been when we’d discovered Richard’s body.

      “Hi,” I said to announce my presence.

      Mrs. Furlong looked up at me, a pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose. Her usual air of gracious composure appeared to be firmly back in place, as if the woman who’d emitted the bloodcurdling shriek at the pool had been someone entirely different. I wondered if she’d learned how to deal with situations like this one in finishing school along with French and needlepoint.

      “Hello, Rachel, dear,” she said. “The girls and I realized that it’s going to be a scramble to cancel all of the arrangements for this afternoon. I’m trying to get everything together so that we can get on the phone and start calling the various tradespeople and the guests. It’s nearly eight, and I think it would be all right to start making calls around eight-thirty or so.”

      “Where’s Emma?” I asked. “How is she doing?”

      “This is such a shock for her, poor thing,” said Mrs. Furlong. “We gave her a sedative and put her to bed in my room. It seemed like the best thing to do.”

      “I just checked on her again and she’s asleep,” added Jane. “It’s probably better this way than making her deal with everything right away.”

      “Wow,” I said, at a loss for any but the most banal words. “I can’t imagine what she must be feeling right now.”

      Hilary rolled her eyes. She was standing behind Mrs. Furlong and safely out of her line of sight. Fortunately, she omitted the snort that usually accompanied this familiar expression of impatient disgust.