Beverley nods. Sharon mentioned film school. The camera. The posters. “There is a pattern.Thisis the pattern.” She feels as if she wants to shake him, to squeeze him. The police can’t contest this. “The killer is taking inspiration from what he sees on-screen.”
Then it hits her. The letter—the one left in the grocery store parking lot, on the windshield of the truck.Why can’t you guys see the big picture?The big picture. How could she have missed it? The clues were there all along.
Now she has it. She has what she needs. Peter Farrer will be arrested.
But for that to happen, she needs to ruin a life. She needs to tell a mother that her son is a killer.
Forty-Three
“What if Peter’sin there? Or Hank?” asks Elsie, eyeing the Farrers’ house.
“You bring that knife, Bev?” Margot leans forward from the back seat.
“It’s in the bag, but I’m not going in armed, like a cop. It’s going to be enough of a shock for her.”
“Did you call Greaves?”
“The cops are too busy to chat, apparently.”
“And it was ever thus,” Elsie quips.
“It doesn’t matter,” Beverley replies. “I want her to hear it from us before the cops wade in anyway. Maybe she’ll agree to come with us to the station once she knows.”
They approach the familiar driveway. There are lights on inside the house, but it takes a while for Beverley to work up the courage to knock on the door.
She cannot imagine being in Sharon’s position. Knowing that your husband is a killer is one thing, but a son? Your own flesh and blood?Someone you held in your arms and rocked to sleep in the middle of the night, his tiny eyelids drooping, his fingernails like the smallest, most beautiful translucent half-moons? She thinks of Benjamin and Audrey when they were newborns, their powdery baby smell intoxicating.
She almost doesn’t want to do it, almost turns away, but then Margot steps forward and knocks.
They wait, the three of them abreast on the doorstep, Margot with her bold red hair, her lipstick; Elsie with her bookish glasses, her neat cardigan; and Beverley, who never really knew how much she had lost until she saw another woman going through the same pain as she had.
Soon enough, the door opens and Sharon is standing there, still in her pink sweater from the previous night’s shift, her hair in rollers. She always looks so worn down and so childlike at the same time.
“What are you ladies doing here?” Sharon asks in that high, girlish voice.
Dread drops into Beverley’s stomach.
“Gosh, I would have fixed myself up nicer if I knew you were coming around. You always look so glamorous.” She’s doing that thing with her scalp where she tries to give her hair volume at the roots, but she can’t quite make it past the rollers. It makes Beverley want to howl with pity.
“Can we come in, Sharon?” Beverley asks.
“Sure, sure. Let me get you ladies a cup of coffee.” She’s going through the motions, but Beverley can hear the nerves in her voice. She must have sensed something in the way they held their shoulders, the way they waited at the doorstep, politely, to be asked in. People do that only when they are trying to put off giving bad news.
Sharon makes small talk as she sets about brewing coffee. She chatters about the weather, about the rowdy kids at the drive-in during her shift last night, asks the women if they’ve been watchingDark Shadows. “She’s such a great actress”—she smiles hopefully—“Lara Parker, a real knockout.”
“Come and sit down, Sharon,” Beverley says softly. She knows those are the worst words to hear—the ones that come before the real thing, the ones designed to soften a blow but do the job of delivering it anyway.
Sharon nods like a scolded schoolgirl and pulls out a chair to join them at the table. Her eyes are jittery, pinballing between them as if she might glean some clues from their tight expressions, their avoidant glances.
“Has something else happened?” she asks. “Are you here to talk about Hank again?”
Beverley feels Elsie flinch in the seat beside her.
“No, Sharon, we haven’t come to talk about Hank today. We’ve come to talk about Peter.”
“Peter?” Sharon frowns, confused. “You want me to get him? Wait—let me give him a holler.” She goes to scrape back her chair, but Beverley grips her arm, holding her tightly in place.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Beverley keeps her voice low. The last thing they want is for Peter to come out of his room. Sharon still seems confused.
