Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 823 & 824, March/April 2010

Death by Misadventure by John Buchanan

In 1964 EQMM published John Buchanan’s story “Direct Hit,” which was subsequently chosen for inclusion in the Mystery Writers of America anthology for that year, as was another of the author’s stories, “The Journeymen,” in 1965. He then turned his attention to nonfiction works on the Revolutionary War and Andrew Jackson. He has finally gotten back to fiction and we’re very pleased that he chose to kick off this new phase with a short story for EQMM.

Her mother’s looks and my brains, Jake thought, as he watched his sixteen-year-old daughter Kate wave goodbye before getting into the day-camp van that would take her and her sister Mimi, who was ten and nicknamed Ditto, upstate on a special Saturday outing to Bash Bish Falls. Kate was still a bit gawky, but the promise of becoming a long-legged beauty like her mother was definitely there, and she already had that sweet sweep of neck that had first attracted Jake to Lucy, who stood beside him as they waved to their girls.

“Watch out for Mimi,” Lucy called.

The door closed and the van pulled away from the house and down the circular driveway. Jake and Lucy waved again just before it drove out of sight on the winding, wooded, suburban road. People often remarked on what an attractive contrast they made. Jake lean, dark-eyed, and craggy; Lucy fair, blond, blue-eyed.

Jake looked at his wife and said, “Why don’t you come with me.”

Annoyance crossed Lucy’s face, and she turned away and walked toward the house. “I told you, Jake, there are things to do around the house, and the garden needs weeding.”

Jake followed her. “C’mon, Lucy, this tour promises to be—”

She stopped and spun around, blue eyes icy as she snapped at him. “I said no. I’ve been on the go all week. I don’t feel like tramping around the woods all day.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to take my head off. Is it so terrible that I love having you with me?”

Her features softened. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that I’m a bit tired and I’d like to stay home.”

He smiled. “Okay, honey, I understand. Look, how about if I pick up a pizza on the way back? The girls would love that.”

“They’ll love even better what I’ve made,” Lucy said, as she turned and continued on to the house.

“What?”

“Lapin a la moutarde.”

On their honeymoon, crisscrossing France in an old Citroen, they had lingered in Lyons to sample its bistros, and for the first time Jake had eaten rabbit in mustard sauce. Lucy had charmed the chef-owner with her looks and Middlebury French and he’d given her the recipe.

“Great. When did you make it?”

“Yesterday, while you were in the city telling all those boring Wall Street types what they should already know in the first place.”

“That designer dress you wore to the Costume Institute shindig this year was paid for by boring Wall Street types willing to fork out my hefty fees.”

“I don’t need to be reminded what a wonderful provider you are,” she said tartly, over her shoulder, as she entered the house.

Inside, Jake asked, “Is something bothering you?”

Once again she whirled on him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything, I’m simply asking a question. You’ve been on edge ever since we got up.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Her blue eyes were icy again, challenging.

Something was definitely wrong, but Jake couldn’t fathom what it might be. It was as if she were waiting for something to happen but didn’t quite know how it would turn out.

“Okay. I’m off, then.” He stepped forward and kissed Lucy full on the lips, but her response was half-hearted, her smile strained.

“Have a wonderful time, darling. And say hello to Andy and Maggie.”

On the drive to the meeting point Jake thought about their exchange. They’d had spats, of course. Who hadn’t after twenty-one years of marriage? But he’d never seen her like this. She had definitely been edgy this morning, and now that he thought about it, she had seemed lost in thought last night. He and the girls had to repeat remarks and questions to get her attention.

Jake put it aside when he pulled into the reserve’s parking lot. About a dozen cars were there and people were standing around chatting and drinking coffee from thermos bottles and Starbucks cups. Jake parked, grabbed his day pack, and walked over to his very best friend, Andy, a short, roly-poly man with an infectious smile who stood with his equally plump and smiling wife and a few other people.

“Didn’t think you were going to make it,” Andy said.

“Had to wait until the kids got off.”

“I’m going to miss Lucy,” Maggie said.

“She had a load of stuff to do.”

A man at least ten years younger than anyone else in the group stepped forward and called out, “Listen up, folks. Let’s get squared away. We have a lot of territory to cover, so we’d better get going so we can get out of here before the gates close at five o’clock.”

“This guy is really good,” Andy said.

“Columbia, right?” a man nearby asked.

Andy shook his head. “Yale. Yale School of Forestry. I took one of his tours in the Catskills. This is going to be a treat.”

An hour later everyone agreed. They had just emerged from woods into a broad meadow that skirted a wetland, where the tour leader stopped to allow stragglers to catch up. Jake and Andy and Maggie were walking together. Andy suddenly stopped.

Jake looked at his old friend and became alarmed. “You okay?”

“Honey, what is it?” Maggie asked

Andy raised a hand to his forehead, said, “I feel dizzy,” and collapsed.

Jake caught him and lowered him gently to the ground, at the same time shouting for help. There was a doctor in the group and he immediately began CPR. Andy, eyes closed, lay as if dead. The tour leader called 911 on his cell phone. Jake, who was quite familiar with the lay of the land, volunteered to run to the service road about a mile away on the other side of the wetland and guide the ambulance in over passable ground. The doctor was still working on Andy when the paramedics arrived and took over.

The doctor and Maggie accompanied Andy to the hospital. Everyone else hurried to the parking lot to follow. Jake arrived at the hospital first and hurried to the emergency room, where he found the doctor from the group talking to the resident, whom Jake knew. Their expressions were grim. As Jake approached, the doctor looked at him and shook his head.

“He didn’t make it, Jake. It was massive. I think he was dead while I worked on him.”

Jake just stared at him, and finally asked, “Where’s Maggie?”

“We gave her a sedative,” the other doctor said. “She’s lying down.”

“Anybody with her?”

“A nurse who knows her well.”

Jake walked to a nearby bench and sat down. He still couldn’t grasp the enormity of losing his best friend so quickly, so unexpectedly. The rest of the group began arriving. Some wept when they heard the news, but Jake couldn’t cry. He was too stunned. Tears might come later, but now all he could do was sit there and stare at the opposite wall. It was eleven a.m. before he finally looked in on Maggie, but she was sleeping. Two close women friends who had been on the tour were sitting in the room. They assured Jake that they would tell her of his concern when she awoke. They were going to take her home then, and Jake told them that he would be over to see her later. But he would call first.

He didn’t want to break the news to Lucy over the phone. She had really liked Andy and Jake wanted to be there to comfort her and receive comfort when he told her of the tragedy. His mind reeled, emotions churned as he drove away from the hospital. He still could hardly bring himself to believe what had happened. He turned off the radio. He wanted nothing but silence.

But on the interstate, when the traffic suddenly began to back up, he turned on the radio to traffic news and learned that there had been a fatal accident on a bridge a few miles ahead. All lanes were closed until further notice. An exit came up just as he heard the news and he turned off and began thinking of what route to take home. There were three obvious choices, but he saw ahead and behind that others had also turned off, and he expected that those roads would soon become clogged. Jake was an expert on the side roads in his own county and several surrounding ones. He decided to take a roundabout way, via Digby Road, that would add several miles to his trip, but he reckoned that once he got beyond the Great Hudson Mall the roads he intended to take would be lightly traveled and he would make better time than if he stuck to the standard routes.

Digby Road was busy, but that was because it was a direct route from the east to the Great Hudson Mall. He finally came down a long hill to the six-lane highway that bordered the mall and just missed the light. He was in the left-hand lane with his turn signal on, ready to turn onto the highway and head south. As he looked about he spotted on the highway a Jeep Cherokee the same color and model as Lucy’s. It was stopped in the left-hand lane, the driver waiting for the green light to turn into the mall. There was a woman behind the wheel.

Jake’s eyes narrowed. She was a considerable distance away. He couldn’t make out her features but her profile was familiar. It couldn’t be Lucy, though. They never shopped here. It was too far away. Fairview Mall, much closer to them, had everything the Great Hudson had plus a Filene’s. Besides, she wanted to work around the house and the garden. Still... that profile. He opened the day pack on the seat next to him and took out his powerful military- type field glasses and zoomed in on the woman in the Jeep Cherokee.

He was dumbfounded. It was Lucy. What in God’s name was she doing over here? His surprise drove Andy’s death at least temporarily from his mind. Lucy’s light changed and she wheeled into the mall. Other cars in her lane followed. Jake strained to keep her in sight. He flicked off his turn signal and kept an impatient eye on his traffic light. Dammit! He was going to lose her. Then his light changed and he shot forward in pursuit, cutting off the car next to him. When he entered the mall, most of the cars ahead of him were turning into the entrances to the parking lot of the Walmart Superstore. He craned his neck for a sight of Lucy’s car and finally saw it far ahead of him. She had passed Walmart. He jumped a light that had just turned red, drawing angry horn blasts. There were now only two cars between him and Lucy. Home Depot, Target, Staples, and Sam’s Club were ahead. Which one was she going to? She passed the entrances to Home Depot, Target, and Staples. Sam’s Club, then, she was going to Sam’s Club. But why here, a good thirty miles out of her way? And why wasn’t she home where she said she’d be?

At the entrance to Sam’s Club, which was a right-hand turn, she signaled left and turned into the back parking lot of the big Riverview Motel. A chill settled over Jake. He sped up and made a left into the lot of a Dollar Store directly behind the motel and drove parallel with Lucy, but behind her. There were half a dozen cars parked behind the motel. Lucy slowed and started to pull in beside a dark green Jaguar. Jake’s eyes narrowed. The owner couldn’t be the man who came immediately to mind. Impossible. It had to be somebody else. There was more than one dark green Jaguar in the county.

Lucy stopped halfway into the parking space, backed up, and drove six units down before parking. Jake glanced at his watch. Almost noon. Early for motel business. That is, normal motel business. The chill had not gone away. Now it was joined by a sense of disbelief. Not Lucy. Not his Lucy, love of his life. He parked facing the motel, facing the dark green Jaguar, and raised his field glasses.

Lucy got out of her car, slung her Louis Vuitton bag over her shoulder, paused momentarily, seemed to square her shoulders. She looked smart in her Ray-Ban sunglasses, well-fitting Prada jeans, and a delicate blue blouse by Hanae Mori that matched her lovely eyes. She strode with quick, nervous, long-legged strides down the walkway to the door opposite the dark green Jaguar.

The drapes of room 453 were closed. Lucy paused again and seemed to take a deep breath before raising her hand and knocking on the door. Jake’s hands squeezed the field glasses until his knuckles turned white.

The door opened wide. The man in the doorway was tall, bronzed, muscular, and appeared to be naked.

“Jesus!” Jake said loudly.

Smiling broadly, the man stepped aside as Lucy entered the room. He wasn’t naked, but his skimpy briefs barely covered him. He put an arm around Lucy’s shoulder bent, and nuzzled that sweep of her elegant neck so sweet and dear to Jake. The door closed.

Jake lowered the field glasses to his lap. He felt as if he had been poleaxed. There was a great empty feeling in his stomach. He could not believe it. He pounded the steering wheel. “No!... No! No! No!” His breathing was loud, harsh. He thought he was going to be sick to his stomach and quickly unbuckled and got out of the car and leaned against it. His breath came fast. He felt weak. Was he going to have a heart attack? Was he going to die here, this morning, not fifty yards from where his wife was undressing for another man? Or was she being undressed?

“Damn!... Damn! Damn! Damn!”

He clenched his hands and walked away from his car. When his breathing slowed he stepped over the low concrete barrier between the parking lots and walked quickly toward room 453. His Vibram-soled hiking shoes were quiet on the concrete. He slowed as he approached and tiptoed up to the door and put his ear to it. At first he heard nothing, then Lucy laughed. No. No, she had giggled. Giggled like a schoolgirl.

He stepped back quickly, stung, anger rising, regretting that he had eavesdropped. Visions of what was going on behind the closed door of room 453 assailed his imagination. The wife he adored rutting with a man he held in contempt. He wanted to smash the door down. He thought about getting the car and driving full speed across the lot into the big picture window. He trembled. He felt the tug of the towering rages of his youth that he had willed himself to control as he matured. The urge to violence almost overwhelmed him. But that masterly self-control for which he was widely admired among those who were aware of his naturally high-toned nature restrained him.

For one thought took precedence and kept him from unleashing violence on Lucy and her lover. The children. Kate and Mimi. Innocent, trusting, loved, and loving. They must never know. There must be no violent confrontation that would bring attention, police, publicity. Above all, the children must be protected. They must not be publicly shamed.

Which is why he did not knock on the door and interrupt Lucy’s tryst. For he knew that if he came face to face with them he would not be able to restrain himself. At this moment, he could kill. And whether she committed the act or not was now irrelevant. Her intention was treachery itself. Besides, he knew what he was going to do. Not how he was going to do it, not yet, or when. He would have to think about that. Until he was ready, for the children’s sake he must control himself.

Jake walked away from the sounds coming from room 453. For a moment he stopped by the Jaguar and considered gouging deep scratches in the surface with a key. Instead, he went to Lucy’s car. At least he could inconvenience them. He and Lucy carried keys to each other’s car in case of emergencies. He got in, started her car, and sat there for a few minutes, watching the door of room 453. When no one appeared or peeked out from behind the drapes, he backed out to the edge of the lot and drove slowly away and up the exit road, turned into the parking lot of the Walmart Superstore, and drove around until he found a parking space deep in the crowded lot. Then he walked back to his own car. He was tempted once again to approach the door of room 453 and listen but decided not to torture himself anymore or risk releasing the fury banked within him. He pulled out and drove away. He was overpowered by a sense of massive betrayal. On the way home he broke down and wept.

In good weather, he and Lucy always left their cars in the driveway during the day, but now he parked out of sight in the garage. In the entrance hall he stopped and looked at the handsome credenza of Chilean oak they had bought when they were first married and really couldn’t afford it and agonized together over the price, but had gone ahead anyway and never regretted it. Friends and visitors often admired the piece, and Jake loved it. Now he wanted to take an ax to it and chop it into pieces and smash the heirloom china inside that Lucy had brought to their marriage.

He dropped his day pack in his study but set his field glasses aside. It was a large room furnished in oak and leather and lined with bookshelves containing hundreds of volumes in English, French, German, and Arabic, mostly history, geography, science and technology, and contemporary affairs, but also some well-selected fiction. They were arranged by subject matter, and within subjects alphabetically by author, so he could immediately lay his hands on exactly the book he wanted, for he knew every book in his collection. His own books, ten of them, including three bestsellers, and his leather-bound collected articles were shelved behind his desk. The desk was well ordered, on it a few neat piles of papers related to an article he was writing. Their cleaning woman was not allowed in Jake’s study. Jake vacuumed the room and dusted the books and furniture. Lucy had helped him until some papers he had sworn were on the desk disappeared and he accused her of throwing them out by mistake. She had fetched a feather duster and thrown it at him and told him to clean the damn inner sanctum himself.

On the only free wall space were family pictures and photographs of Jake with world leaders, including the signed photographs of four Presidents. There was also a photograph of Jake in boxing gloves and trunks standing over the fallen opponent he had knocked out the day he won the Big 10 middleweight championship. He still weighed the same and worked out every day in the exercise room in the basement, finishing up each session with the punching bag. Jake walked over and looked at one photograph in particular, his favorite of Lucy, taken before Kate was born. They had gone backpacking in the Adirondacks. Lucy was half turned to the camera, sunglasses perched on top of her head, thumbs hooked into the straps of her rucksack. Her lips were slightly parted, and her enigmatic half-smile was the stuff of Renaissance paintings. Jake wanted to snatch it from the wall and smash it and tear the photograph to bits.

He went to his desk and called Andy’s house. A close friend of Maggie’s answered and Jake asked if it would be all right to come over later and she suggested after dinner. He left the study to make himself a light gin and tonic in the small bar off the living room, then returned and pulled a leather armchair to the window. He kept the drapes closed in the morning so the sun wouldn’t damage his books, but now he opened them a few inches so that he had a clear view of the circular drive. He tried to think of Andy, but Lucy’s betrayal drove the terrible events of the early-morning hours to the recesses of his mind. He sat and waited, brooding, sipping his gin and tonic so slowly that the melting ice diluted the drink.

Were there signs he had missed? He had certainly spotted her edginess this morning, and now he knew the reason for it. Her behavior this morning and the signs of nervousness and hesitation as she had approached room 453 and before she knocked on the door made him think it was the first time she had cheated. Or was it? That sharp, incisive mind so many had praised over the years thought long and hard about their marriage. Had she seemed restless lately? Not that he’d noticed, and he considered himself sensitive to her moods. Out of sorts? He didn’t think so. She was a bit high-strung, but he had always found that trait endearing. They made love often and passionately. Money worries were well past them. She loved to travel, often accompanied him on his expense-paid trips abroad, her style and beauty and gift for small talk on social occasions fitting accompaniment to Jake’s gravity. It was a good, well-ordered life, exactly the opposite of the home and neighborhood he had grown up in. He liked that old saying: a place for everything, and everything in its place.

Jake sat back and closed his eyes. He could think of nothing that should have led her to this incredible act of treachery, and that was precisely the word for it. Treachery. The opportunities presented to Jake for infidelity over the years had been legion. He was a well-known man, much in demand in chancelleries and boardrooms around the world, his insights valued, his predictions, often against the grain, of sharp turns in national and world affairs uncanny. Several smart, lovely women, well known and obscure, had either blatantly or subtly revealed their availability. He had politely spurned them all, for his love for Lucy was deep, and he was not a man for one-night stands or casual affairs. What, then, had gone wrong? What had driven her to this? And why that cretin? A man he held in deep contempt, a man who flitted from one job to another, always regaling friends and acquaintances with tales of big deals that never materialized, a man who would have had trouble holding a clerk’s position had he not been anchored by a sizeable trust fund and the old-boy network. And a notorious womanizer. How could she? His smart, beautiful, fastidious Lucy. Mother of their children. How could she?

The dark green Jaguar pulled into the circular drive and stopped directly in front of the house a little after four-thirty. Jake raised his field glasses and watched as Lucy and the man embraced and kissed. Watched as the man left her lips to nuzzle the elegant sweep of neck no longer sweet and dear to Jake. He would never again be able to do the same. Watched as Lucy pulled reluctantly away only to thrust herself eagerly back into the man’s arms when he reached out and cupped her breast. Finally, she pushed away, shaking her head. She seemed to be laughing. She opened the door and got out of the car but remained bent at the open door as they talked.

Making plans for the next assignation?

Jake left the study quickly and went to the front door, opened it quietly, and stepped outside. Her back was to him and she blocked the driver’s view. Leaving the door open, Jake approached silently and stopped within a few yards of Lucy.

He heard her giggle, then say, “Steve, you’re awful.”

“Lucy!”

She jumped as if she had received an electric shock. She swung around to face him, eyes wide, panicky.

Wondering whether I saw you, kissing, being caressed?

Jake’s expression was grim. With a mighty effort, he held himself in check.

“Jake... What are you doing—”

He cut her off harshly. “Where’s your car?”

“S-stolen. It... it was stolen.”

“Stolen?”

“Yes.”

The man, tall, bronzed, muscular, got out and watched them over the top of his dark green Jaguar. His expression was wary.

“Hi, Jake.”

Jake ignored him and said to Lucy, “Where?”

“What?”

“Where was it stolen?”

“Fairview. I was over at Fairview.”

“I thought you were going to stay home.”

“I needed a few things. I went over to Fairview and parked, and when I came out the car was gone.”

“Did you report it?”

She had recovered some and began to assert herself. “Of course I reported it. Stop barking at me. And why are you home so early?”

Jake jerked his head at the house. “C’mon in. I have something to tell you.” He turned and walked towards the open door.

“Tell me here.”

“No, I’ll tell you in the house.”

“Has something happened to the children?”

“No. C’mon.”

“Well... aren’t you at least going to thank Steve?”

“For what?”

“For coming by quite by chance while I was looking for my car. He waited for me at the Fairview Police Station so I could report it. Then he brought me home. I could still be over there waiting for a taxi.”

Jake waved vaguely, and though it stuck in his craw, said in a half-hearted voice, without looking back, “Thanks, Steve.”

As he entered the house, he heard her thanking Steve in an unnaturally loud voice. She slammed the door when she came in.

“How could you be so rude?”

“Rude? What do you mean?”

“You were unspeakably rude to Steve.”

Jake snorted. “Him? That cretin. He’s too dumb to know what rude is?”

Lucy flushed. “What is wrong with you? I’ve never seen you like this.”

Jake was usually a soft-spoken man, gentle in speech and action. Perhaps too gentle, he thought, perhaps an athletic coupling with the likes of Steve the Stud, the slob, the bastard, was more to her taste. He examined her closely. Her lips were swollen.

Jesus!

“Why are you home so early? You said it would be close to six.”

“Andy’s dead.”

She was taken aback. “What?... Dead?... Oh my God. How?”

“About an hour into the hike he had a heart attack. He was standing right next to me. I caught him and lowered him to the ground. I think he was dead before I laid him down. Harry was there and worked on him, the paramedics got there quickly, but there was nothing anybody could do.”

“Oh, Jake, I am so sorry.”

Jake knew she was sincere. She had liked Andy and knew how much the friendship had meant to Jake.

“Poor Maggie,” she said. “Is anyone with her?”

“Louise and some other friend. After the kids get home, we’ll eat and then all of us will go over.”

“Is Maggie in shape for that?”

“Yes, I checked.”

“The children are likely to be beat.”

“Well, they’ll have to suck it up. We’re going as a family.” He looked directly into her blue eyes. “That’s what families do, in good times and bad. They stick together and comfort each other when things go bad. Go clean up. I’ll set the table.”

He had to get away from her, had to busy himself. He left her standing there in the hallway, an anxious look on her face, and walked quickly to the kitchen. He had never struck a woman, but it had taken enormous will power to stop himself from hitting her. He wanted to hit her hard, knock her down. And when he had seen Steve outside he had almost exploded.

Kate and Mimi got home just before six. They were tired, especially ten-year- old Mimi, but after Jake explained what had happened they wanted to go immediately to “Aunt” Maggie. Jake and Andy had been so close that the children had come to call Andy and Maggie aunt and uncle. But Jake sent them upstairs to shower and change. Afterwards they all sat down to Lucy’s rabbit in mustard sauce. Lucy was a superb cook. Jake had often told her that she should try her hand at a cookbook. With his connections in the publishing world, he could easily get her a serious reading. Tonight, however, the meal, one of his favorites, tasted like straw to him, and he picked at it. The girls dug in, though, and Lucy also ate heartily.

Why not, after your athletic tryst with Steve the Stud.

He caught Lucy sneaking anxious glances at him, obviously wondering, does he suspect... did he see us... in the car? Jake forced himself to grin at her now and then while asking the girls questions about their outing.

Later, on the drive over to Andy’s, he thought again of how he would deal with Steve. A plan was taking shape.

At a tearful meeting with Maggie, Jake broke down. They all did, but Jake sobbed so that he had to leave the house and walk around a bit, his emotions conflicted, a jumble of sorrow and regret and bitterness for Andy, for Lucy, for himself.

That night, in bed, Jake and Lucy lay sleepless for a long time. Normally Lucy would have tried to comfort him, but not tonight, and he bitterly resented it, even though he didn’t want her touching him.

“Can’t sleep?” he finally asked.

“No... poor Maggie.”

You’re not thinking of Maggie, it’s your afternoon with that phony slob that’s roiling your mind... How could you?... How could you?

“I’ll get you a sleeping pill,” he said.

He came back from the adjoining master bath with the pill and a glass of water.

“Thanks, honey,” she said as he gave them to her.

Don’t you dare “honey” me.

When he could tell by her deep breathing that she had fallen asleep, he got quietly out of bed. Her sleeping pills were strong. She’d be out for hours. He got fresh running togs from the closet, and underwear, shorts, and a polo shirt from his drawer, and went downstairs and left them in his study. He went to the shower off the kitchen that a previous owner had installed. There he sat on the floor of the shower for a long time and let the hot water beat on him. Once more he wept. For the shocking suddenness of Andy’s death? For the enormity of Lucy’s betrayal? Perhaps both? He wasn’t sure. But of one thing he was sure. Steve had to be dealt with. Lucy’s act of infidelity, as crushing as it was, magnified beyond comprehension when he thought who she had committed it with. That phony, that total, absolute phony womanizer. How could she? Yes. Steve had to be dealt with. Steve had to pay. But it had to be foolproof. The children. Think of the children, their vulnerability, their need for him, his need of them. So don’t get fancy, keep it simple. Quick and simple.

He finally rose and turned off the hot water and got up and turned on the cold and stood under it for a while. When he turned the shower off he felt fresh. Back in the study he checked the time. A few minutes after four a.m. He put on a jockstrap and his sweatsuit and running shoes. From the closet in his study he found a pair of kid gloves and put those in the rear pocket of his sweatpants. His house keys went in the zippered pocket of his sweatshirt.

He let himself quietly out the back door, made sure it was locked, then walked across the back lawn, past Lucy’s kitchen herb garden, down the winding gravel path through the English flower garden he and Lucy had made. How exciting it had been. They’d gone to see the gardens at Sissingurst on one of their trips to England for a week-long seminar Jake was giving at Sandhurst, and once home they had played the roles of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. Jake designed the garden, and Lucy with her green thumb had planted and nurtured and weeded until today their splendid garden was described in garden books by well-known writers and was always on the county’s annual garden tour. The old-fashioned roses with their marvelous aroma were in full bloom. Lucy and Jake scorned the modern scentless roses and favored even more the old-fashioned, aromatic peonies, but their two weeks of glory had long passed. Now he wanted to rip up roses and peonies along with everything else and leave their prize-winning garden in ruin. He savored the thought. Every morning after Lucy got up she walked through the garden, checking this and that, pulling a weed here and there, before breakfast, before anything. But he mustn’t. He must go on pretending that, except for Andy’s death, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

At the edge of their property he climbed the narrow trail he had cut through the woods to the public jogging path that followed the twisting turns of the Gallatin River far below. He could hear distantly the rushing waters as they tumbled over the rocks. At the path he turned left and began jogging.

He ran until he reached an opening in the narrow band of trees between the path and the cliff edge overlooking the river. He had passed several such unofficial openings, frowned upon by the trustees and staff of the Gallatin River Reservation, of which he and Lucy were members, but insisted upon by the public to provide views of the wild river that ran as free as it had for centuries. A proposal to build a fence along the cliff edge was still being mulled over by the trustees. Steve walked to the cliff edge and looked down. This was a good spot, a little over 100 feet to the river and only about fifteen yards from the path. He returned to the path and resumed jogging.

Jake was counting on Steve sticking to his normal schedule of rising early and hitting the jogging trail by five a.m. Did he sleep in on Sundays? Jake didn’t know. But Sunday was good, because most people slept in and jogged later than on weekdays. He came to a slight rise and stepped off the path and stood quietly among the trees and waited. The path sloped gradually about 100 yards before rising again, and he could see Steve’s back deck nestled at the bottom of the slope. Five o’clock came and went and he wondered if Steve would show. After he had been there fifteen minutes he peeked up the path from the direction he’d come but saw no one. He’d give it another fifteen, twenty minutes. By six other people would be out, and then it would be too risky.

At 5:25 Steve emerged from his deck in shorts and running shoes and began some stretching exercises. Now all he had to do was come in Jake’s direction. The stretching exercises seemed to take forever, and Jake grew fidgety. But Steve finally left the deck and approached the jogging path... and turned in Jake’s direction. Jake peeked behind him. No runners on the path. He took off in a half-sprint, passed the opening he had chosen, rounded a bend so he was out of sight of anyone behind him. Still no runners on the path. He turned and began jogging slowly back, towards Steve.

Steve came in sight just before Jake reached the opening. Jake slowed opposite the spot. Steve, about forty yards away, also slowed. He became wary, alert. Jake noticed something that he had missed when he had Steve in the field glasses in the doorway of room 453. He was getting a paunch. Didn’t he realize it? Running without a shirt, showing off his bronzed, aging, athletic body — with a paunch. How could she? Jake raised a hand in greeting.

“Steve. Glad I caught you. I need to talk to you.”

Steve stopped five yards away, now really wary. His body was tense. He sucked in his paunch.

“Oh. What about?”

“I have to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“I was pretty rude yesterday. I’m sorry.”

“Rude? I didn’t notice.”

You lying bastard.

“Yes, I was, but I was pretty upset. You heard about Andy, didn’t you?”

“Andy Reid?”

Jake nodded. “He died yesterday.”

Steve was obviously surprised. “Andy died? What happened?”

Jake told him what had happened. At the same time he was getting nervous. This was taking too long. Other people might already be on the path. Steve, however, had visibly relaxed and looked genuinely concerned.

“So that’s why I wasn’t myself yesterday. Andy and I were really close.”

“Oh, I know, Jake, I know. I am sorry.”

Jake held out his hand. “Forgive me.”

Steve smiled and shook his head as he walked over and took Jake’s hand. “Nothing to forgive, Jake. I understand, I really do.”

“Thanks, Steve. I figured you’d understand.”

“Of course I do.”

Jake dropped Steve’s hand. Standing flat-footed, he put his whole body behind a powerful left hook to that inviting paunch. The solar-plexus punch for which he had been famous in college. Steve grunted loudly and jackknifed. He would have fallen, but Jake grabbed him under his arms and propelled him to the side of the path and well into the opening, where he threw him to the ground. He ran back and looked up and down the path. They were still alone. He ran back to Steve, pulling out the kid gloves as he went and drawing them on. Steve was still lying flat, his legs shaking. Jake came down in the middle of Steve’s back with one knee and planted the other firmly on the ground. Steve grunted. Jake hooked his left arm around Steve’s neck and took a firm grip on his wrist with his right hand. He bent to Steve’s ear.

“Yesterday. Room 453, Riverview Motel. Was that the first time with Lucy?”

“Jake, I—”

“Answer me or I’ll kill you. And don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth and you live.”

“Yes... Yes... first time... please, Jake.”

“Were you planning another?”

“Jake, please—”

“Dammit, tell me or I’ll kill you now.”

“Wednesday.”

That made sense. Jake was going into the city on Wednesday to give a talk on the Middle East situation to a business group.

“Same time, same place?”

“...yes... Let me up, please.”

“You won’t be seeing her Wednesday, Steve. You won’t be seeing her again. You won’t be seeing any woman again.”

Steve had begun to revive. He struggled. Jake tightened his grip and pulled up hard and fast and broke Steve’s neck. He heard the crack. He let go and Steve’s head flopped crazily to the ground. Just like a chicken’s. As Jake rubbed Steve’s arms where he had gripped him to wipe off fingerprints he might have left, he was assailed by a powerful stench as Steve’s bowels evacuated. He rose, hurried back to the path, and looked up and down. No one. He rushed back and dragged Steve’s body to the edge, looked across at the heavily wooded land on the other side. He saw no one among the trees and at that hour on a Sunday he didn’t expect to see anyone. He tipped Steve’s body over the edge and watched as it tumbled, arms and legs and head flopping, to the river, watched as it spun downstream in the current, banging against rocks, toward the falls about two miles below. He left the bank and checked the hard ground where he had dragged Steve. There were no signs of a struggle. He resumed jogging, in the direction Steve had come from.

Jake passed a couple on the way whom he knew and they all smiled and waved before disappearing in opposite directions. Two solitary runners passed him on the way back. He knew them too, and smiled and waved. Jake got home just before seven o’clock. He fetched the Sunday New York Times from the front stoop, glanced at the headlines, and dropped it on the credenza in the hallway. He showered in the unit off the kitchen, dressed, and thought about breakfast. Jake always made Sunday breakfast, pancakes made from scratch and breakfast sausage. But that would be later, when Lucy and the girls got up. He was hungry now. It was the first time he’d had an appetite since Andy had died. He was not only hungry, he was exhilarated.

But he wasn’t out of the woods. He knew that. He was sure that the damage done by the rocks and the falls would mask any human involvement in Steve’s death. But the police would surely ask anyone who had seen Steve on the jogging path to come forward, and he would do that. He mustn’t lie about things like that. Yes, he passed him a little after 5:30. Did he see him on the way back? No, but people often took the Slocum Woods path that joined the river path and made a circuit instead of retracing their steps. Lots of people did that. He’d done it himself. Did he see anyone else? Yes, and after thinking a bit he could name them. Did he always jog that early on Sunday? No, he usually didn’t even jog on Sundays, but his best and oldest friend had died in front of him the day before and he couldn’t sleep that night and finally got up and went jogging.

As Jake drank orange juice and ate oatmeal, he thought that part through and reckoned he had it covered. But the county police were not stupid. A desk sergeant or patrol cop might mention to the investigating detectives that Steve had brought a woman not his wife to the Fairview Mall substation to report her stolen car. Did Steve go in with Lucy or wait outside? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to ask Lucy. Jake grimaced. He shouldn’t have moved the car. On the other hand, Lucy’s shocked expression when she arrived home with Steve and found Jake there... that was worth the risk.

The local paper might print Steve’s picture, and if the clerk at the Riverview Motel saw it she might ask herself, wasn’t he here the other day? Surely, Jake thought, Steve wouldn’t have used his real name or written down his real license number on the check-in card, and surely he must have paid in cash. Somebody they knew might have seen Steve and Lucy in Steve’s car, which could prompt that person to come forward. The motel angle was tricky. If the police suspected foul play and found out about Steve being at the motel, they might examine the room and fingerprint it. Of course, it would have been cleaned by then, perhaps even occupied by somebody else, but a lingering print might be found. He was sure that Lucy’s prints were not on record anywhere, but if the police made the connection between Lucy reporting the theft of her car and Steve...

He wasn’t worried for himself, though. He’d come straight home from the hospital. He had listened to local radio and heard that the bridge had been closed by the accident. He had taken side roads home, but not, of course, Digby Road. If it came to the police suggesting that Lucy and Steve had been involved, he would stare at them in wide-eyed disbelief. Not a chance he would tell them. Not his wife.

Jake shook his head. It would probably never come to that. Steve was well known as a daredevil from his youth. He loved to tell a story from his undergraduate days at St. Lawrence University. After seeing a movie of a mountie and his prisoner shooting rapids in the Canadian wilds, he and a friend drank several pitchers of beer, then tried to shoot the falls on the Oswegatchie River in the middle of town while students lined the bridge egging them on. They wrecked the canoe, almost drowned, and had to be rescued by the police. He had tried to shoot the rapids on the Gallatin River a few years ago in a kayak, had overturned, met a rock with his head, and again had to be rescued by police and ended up in the hospital with a concussion. And then there was the time he went across the river to the Shawangunks to rock climb and tried a climb out of his class, fell a short distance, and broke his arm. This time one could easily speculate that he leaned too far over to look down and lost his balance.

The telephone interrupted his thoughts. It was the police. During the night an officer driving slowly through the Walmart Superstore parking lot at the Hudson Mall had looked at the license plate of Lucy’s car, checked his list of stolen cars, and bingo. It had been towed to the police compound, where it could be picked up on Monday upon showing proper identification. Jake thanked the officer and told him they would be by in the morning.

By eleven o’clock, everybody was up and ready for Jake’s Sunday breakfast. He had already made his pancake mix and slowly heated up the old soapstone griddle that he and Lucy had bought years ago for a few dollars in an antiques store in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Lucy and the girls were finishing up their first heap of pancakes when the phone rang. Jake got up and answered it.

“Hi, Charley... What?... Good Lord... Are you sure it was him?... I see... Right, just like him... Thanks for letting us know, Charley... Right, right... Okay. Talk to you.”

Perfect, he thought. Unplanned, unexpected, just perfect.

Jake turned to expectant looks from Lucy and the girls.

“What is it?” Lucy asked.

“Steve van Schaick,” Jake said, looking directly at Lucy. “He’s dead.”

She paled. Her eyes widened. “What? How?”

“Drowned, apparently. Or was killed going over the falls. Charley Gentile was out in his backyard and saw the body hung up on a downed tree near his side. He went out and pulled it in. The cops are there now. Charley’s sure he went over the falls, ’cause he was pretty banged up. Broken leg, broken neck. He said the cops seem to think that’s what happened. I wouldn’t be surprised. He probably got too close to the edge at one of those overlooks and lost his balance. He was always pulling dumb stunts like that.”

Lucy’s hand had covered her mouth. Her expression was pure shock.

“Anybody want more pancakes?” Jake asked, before reaching down and picking up a piece of sausage and popping it into his mouth.

“More pancakes,” Lucy said, her voice shocked. “A friend is dead and you expect us to go on as if nothing has happened.”

The girls looked at their mother, then at Jake, who finished chewing his sausage and swallowing it.

“First, my dear, he was definitely not a friend. A least, not of mine. Second, to be brutally candid, I won’t be losing any sleep over Steve’s demise.”

“Me neither,” Kate said.

“Ditto,” Mimi said.

Jake gave his daughers a surprised look, then smiled, delighted to have unexpected allies.

Lucy, however, was furious. “How dare you,” Lucy said to Kate. “A good man has died. I won’t have you talking like that.” She glared at Jake. “You shouldn’t say things like that in front of the children.”

“He was not a good man,” Jake said evenly, watching Lucy as he spoke. “He was exactly the opposite of a good man. He was a phony, and a chronic womanizer.”

“I hated the way he looked at me,” Kate said.

“What do you mean?” her mother asked.

“You know what I mean, Mom. Like he was undressing me with his eyes.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re making it up to side with your father.”

Kate got that stubborn look on her face she had inherited from Jake. “I am not. I saw him looking at you that way, too.”

“Ditto,” Mimi said.

“Young lady,” Lucy said, “you keep quiet.”

“He looked at you that way?” Jake said to Kate, then switched his gaze to Lucy. “And your mother? He looked at your mother that way?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “I couldn’t stand to be around him.”

“By God,” Jake said, “if I’d known that, I’d have horsewhipped him.”

“I don’t believe any of this,” Lucy said.

“Lucy,” Jake said, “are you really going to sit there and pretend you didn’t know that he was a serial adulterer?”

“What’s a serial adulterer?” Mimi asked.

“Ask your sister later,” Jake said.

“Well, he may have had a few flings,” Lucy said.

Jake laughed. “A few? C’mon, Lucy. He was a rabbit. But you know what has always puzzled me? Why any decent, self-respecting woman would have anything to do with that cretin? Doesn’t that boggle your mind?”

Flushing deeply, Lucy sat straight in her chair, spine rigid, trying to compose herself. Jake stared at her. Kate and Mimi, aware of tension in the air but uncertain what it might be about, kept looking back and forth between their mother and father.

“Anyway,” Jake said, turning his eyes toward his daughters and smiling warmly, “Steve the slob is no conversation for the breakfast table. Who wants more pancakes?”

“Me.”

“Ditto.”

“Coming up,” Jake said, and turned toward the stove, then stopped, looked thoughtful. “But I wonder if I should call the cops first.”

“Call the police,” Lucy said. “Why?”

“I saw Steve this morning.”

Her eyes widened again. “Where?”

“On the jogging path.”

“You were jogging this morning?”

“Yes.”

“You never jog on Sundays.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night. All I could think of was Andy. I lay awake for hours staring at the ceiling. Finally I got up and went jogging. Passed Steve on the path. Waved, said hi, that was it. I probably should tell the cops. It might help them figure out what happened. But first — pancakes.”

“Yea!” the girls cried.

As Jake headed for the stove, he was conscious that Lucy was staring at him. He glanced at her, then began spooning the batter onto the griddle. When he finished he looked at her again. She was still staring at him, a troubled expression on her face.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

Suspicious, aren’t you? But not really sure.

Lucy rose and headed for the back door.

After Jake served the girls their pancakes, he went outside and watched Lucy She had put on knee pads and was weeding. She often weeded when under stress. But as Jake watched she stopped and looked up at the woods that bordered the jogging path, her head cocked to one side, as she did when she was thinking, revealing that sweep of neck once so dear and sweet to Jake but no longer. Perhaps she had heard him step out on the back porch, perhaps she sensed his presence. She half turned and looked behind her and for long seconds they stared at each other. Finally, Jake smiled, not the tender smile family and friends and neighbors knew so well, but that superior little smile of victory reserved for opponents in public-policy debates. Then he turned and went back inside to call the police while Lucy, pale and shaken, stared at the door he had gone through.

Late that week the local paper reported that the medical examiner had declared Steve’s death an accident. Death by misadventure, the local paper called it. The following week the trustees of the Gallatin River Reservation voted at a special meeting to put up fencing on both sides of the river.

Jake had decided that he would have to wait for some time, a good deal of time, but he was already giving serious thought to how he could dispatch Lucy to join Steve and get away with it.