Bev has taken the realization that Hank may not be responsible for the killings very badly.
“We were there from ten until two,” Elsie explained. “Kate’s murder happened sometime just before midnight. It just can’t have been Hank who killed her.”
Beverley tried to argue the toss. “This could have been a blip,” she suggested weakly, “a separate case entirely. Maybe Hank was decompressing, getting ready to kill again.” But Elsie could see that she wasn’t even convincing herself.
Now she looks crestfallen. The case has taken it out of all of them, but Bev looks more harried and wrung out than Elsie has ever seen her.
“It’s not your fault, the Hank stuff,” she says gently.
Beverley’s eyes close briefly. She shakes her head, looks away.
“It’s not your fault, orourfault, that someone else got killed, Bev.”
“We were looking in the wrong direction,” Beverley argues. “Someone else got killed because we got it wrong.”
“The police got it wrong!”
“Weshould be able to find this guy.”
Elsie can see that Beverley is shaking.
“I thought that if we examined all the pieces and put them together, we would find the guy, and that would be it. I was so sure. Sharon was so sure.”
“He’s just another useless husband,” Elsie counters.
“We should have stopped this from happening.” Beverley’s cheeks are wet, and she clenches her fists in frustration. Then she seems to come to, half stands as if about to spring into action. “We should be considering more options. Maybe we need to look at Sean Wilson again, Chris Appleton, that guy across the street. I’ve been trying to convince Detective Greaves—” Her words are rushed.
“I know why you’re saying this.” Elsie pulls Bev back down onto the couch. “But you couldn’t have stopped Henry, and you can’t stop this guy. It’s not your job to do that. Stop punishing yourself.”
“I could have stopped Henry.”
“No, you couldn’t. None of us could have stopped what they did.”
“No, Elsie. I could have.” Beverley is holding her gaze. “I could have stopped Henry. I had a chance—there was one time—and I didn’t do it.”
Elsie shifts awkwardly on the couch. Beverley is just agitated, upset after everything: the argument with Margot, another murder, finding Sarah’s body, this whole mess.
“It was when I was pregnant with Audrey.” Elsie wants to interrupt, to stop her friend from harming herself in this way, but she letsBeverley speak. “I was having a rough time. I was constantly nauseous, and I meanallthe time. I spent all day hanging over the kitchen sink or with my head in the toilet. I couldn’t keep food down, couldn’t look after Benjamin. It was just a blur.”
Elsie swallows. She can feel brittle fingers grazing the back of her neck.
“Henry was never there,” Beverley continues. “He was always working late or on jobs out of town. Then, when he was here, he’d leave early in the morning. He’d be out of the house before Benjamin and I were up. He said he was working hard to get overtime, to save money for when the baby came. I couldn’t be mad at him. He was doing it for us, to give us a better life.”
There’s always something oddly tender in the way Beverley speaks about Henry, even when she’s trashing what he did. Elsie knows Beverley is no longer in love with him, that she knows what he did was monstrous, but it is as if she has separated him into two men: a father and husband—a protector, a breadwinner, a hard worker—and the killer who came after him. As if the real Henry died somewhere in between.
Elsie was not as shocked as Margot to discover that Beverley had been to visit him at San Quentin. She always thought it was simply a matter of time before she would. Elsie has no desire ever to breathe the same air as Albert, but Beverley is different. Henry had a hold over Beverley that Albert had never had over her.
“What happened?” Elsie prompts softly. Beverley is inspecting a couch cushion.
“It was one night,” she continues. “I was sick as a dog. I’d been in bed, a washcloth on my forehead, vomiting every twenty minutes. Henry was out. He’d been out for the past few nights. It had got to the point where I didn’t even ask where he’d been. He got so tetchy when I did, so I’d stopped mentioning it. I remember checking the clock andit was ten past three in the morning. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I didn’t switch on the light. The moon was out, and I didn’t want to wake Benjamin. So I went to the sink, poured myself a glass.”
Elsie shifts her tongue in her mouth. She feels as if she is there in the kitchen with Bev, gulping down the cool water.
“That’s when I saw headlights, and a car pulled into the driveway—Henry’s car, our car. I ducked—I still don’t know why I didn’t want him to see me there in the window—but I peered just over the counter, through the glass, watched as he parked. I could have flicked on the light, greeted him at the door, but I didn’t. I just watched as he got out and stood there in the driveway. Just…staring at his hands.” She lifts her own palms to her face. “He was turning them over, this way and that, inspecting the nails. Then he looked around him, like he was checking to see if anyone was watching him, and he just pulled off his shirt, right there, in the driveway. Then he unbuttoned his belt and took his pants off, too. It crossed my mind that he must have been with another woman, that he smelled of her and he wanted to hide it. I remember gripping the edge of the sink. I felt even more sick at the thought of him with someone else. Isn’t that pathetic? Then he crossed the street in his underwear and work boots and tossed his clothes in the trash can outside our neighbor’s house.”
“What did you say to him when he came in?”
“I didn’t.” Beverley shakes her head, her fingers flickering at her temples. “I hid. I held my belly and I ran up the stairs and slid into bed, waiting for his key in the lock. About a half hour later he crawled under the sheets. I rolled over, pretended to be asleep, and he draped his arm over me. I was sure that I could smell something—someone—on him.”
