Apples Never Fall

“Oh, Steffi,” said Joy.

“The dog eats paper,” Stan explained to Christina as Joy bent to pick up the keys she’d dropped and was suddenly transfixed by something she saw on the floor.

“Stan,” she said.

She put her hands flat to the floorboards and looked up at him.

“You like it?” He beamed.

“It looks beautiful,” she said rapturously. “Oh my goodness, it looks beautiful.”

Joy straightened up again, her eyes still on the floor. “We had this awful purple carpet in here.” She corrected herself quickly. “Well, it wasn’t awful, it was just—not really my style.”

Stan said, “It’s okay. It was awful.”

“Anyway, while I’ve been away, Stan pulled up all the carpet and polished the floorboards! Doesn’t it look beautiful!”

“I sanded the floorboards myself,” said Stan.

Christina looked at Ethan, and knew that he too was replaying the CCTV footage they’d seen, not of a man carrying his wife’s body but a man struggling to carry a roll of old carpet, a man finally doing a particular task his wife had probably been asking him to do for years. She thought of the witness who had seen him with bloodshot eyes and covered in dust, not because he’d buried his wife but because he’d been sanding back hardwood floors.

Joy’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, did you say you were about to arrest Stan? Arrest him for what?”

There was a moment of silence. Right now Stan Delaney couldn’t look any sweeter or more innocent if he’d tried. He couldn’t take his shining eyes off his wife.

Christina reminded herself that every one of her colleagues would have made an arrest based on the facts at her disposal.

“Speeding?” guessed Joy. “He has got a terrible lead foot.”

“No, not speeding,” said Christina evenly. She closed her eyes and tapped a fingertip against her forehead. Her mother had recently got into “tapping” for stress relief. “We were arresting him for your murder.”

“Murder?” said Joy. Her eyes widened. “You thought he murdered me?”

“The evidence was compelling,” said Christina, almost to herself.

“But how could it possibly be compelling?” Joy held out her arms wide. “I’m alive!”

“Yes,” said Christina. “You certainly appear to be.”

“Surely you spoke to our children,” said Joy to Christina. “They would have set you straight. Didn’t Stan give you their telephone numbers?”

“They had that T-shirt.” Stan spoke to Joy as if they were alone. “The one we used to wrap up your foot when you cut it on the oyster that day at the beach. Remember? They found it ‘buried’ out the back. They thought I buried it.”

“Of course I remember,” said Joy. “I thought I put it in the bin. I bet Caro’s damned cat ran off with it. Otis steals laundry all around the neighborhood.” Her voice trailed. “I don’t understand. Are you saying you thought it was…” She looked at Christina with a sick expression. “You thought it was my blood?”

“Well, it was your blood,” said Stan reasonably.

“But for goodness’ sake, Stan, surely you explained! It was very simple to explain!”

“Of course, I was going to explain, but by the time they found the shirt, it was obvious I was in trouble. I decided not to say anything until I had my lawyer with me,” said Stan.

“Your lawyer?” scoffed Joy. “What lawyer? You don’t have a lawyer!”

“Brooke found me a criminal lawyer. Nice young fella. Turns out his father was that Ross Marshall, who used to play at the club back in the eighties, remember him?”

Watching Stan talk, Christina was reminded oddly of herself. She wasn’t a big talker. Nico was the talker. But when they were back together after any time apart, she suddenly became Chatty Cathy, desperate to tell him everything she’d been saving up.

“The one with the underhand serve?” asked Joy vaguely.