The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty (9 page)

Jack nods. “Still, I’d like to get the opinion of a forensic handwriting expert to make sure this letter really is from Gabriel.”

“Good idea,” Georgia says.

“But what if Jack is the killer and has a motive for creating a false report?” Penelope says. “You would trust his ‘expert’?”

“We can get a second opinion, if you want,” Georgia tells her. “Why don’t you find us a second expert and ask him or her as well?”

“Okay, I will,” Penelope says.

“I doubt the letter’s forged,” Georgia says. “I think what’s more important is figuring out who KAY is.”

I continue reading the letter from where I left off:
“A few weeks after confessing this crime to me, KAY said, ‘I don’t want you to think this will be a recurring thing I do, but there’s someone else I’ve decided to put an end to. I’m going to kill Strad.
’
”

“Wha—?” Lily gasps. I carefully observe her reaction.

I continue reading:

KAY said to me, “I’ve made up my mind that in two years’ time, if Lily still loves him and he still doesn’t love her, I will try to kill him. But I will leave it partly in the hands of fate. What I mean by that is that in two years, on the evening of October 27th, sometime between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight, I will kill him if I get a chance. I may even plan it in advance. I will put a fairly serious amount of effort into it. But if I don’t succeed during those four hours—like let’s say there are constant obstacles—I will take it as a sign from fate that Strad should not be killed, and I will not continue trying. See, I’m easygoing and flexible.”

I did my best to dissuade KAY from this plan, but nothing worked. I even threatened KAY, said I would call the police and tell them about the first murder. KAY said that was my right, and that I should do it if I wanted to.

My dear friends, I’m sorry to be keeping KAY’s identity from you, but I’m afraid that if I don’t, you’ll turn KAY in to the police. You may judge me harshly, but I care too deeply for KAY to send him/her to prison.

I need to take a break from my reading because Lily is crying.

“Are you okay?” I give her a sympathetic look and hand her tissues.

“Please finish the letter,” she says, wiping her nose.

I continue reading:

I’m sorry to be leaving you with this burden, but your job now is to protect Strad on October 27th (next Friday), between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight. If you succeed in keeping him alive during that time, KAY will never again try to harm Strad or anyone else. KAY promised. And I believe KAY.

Just because Georgia may be the likeliest candidate, don’t assume it’s her. Or that it’s not. Just because Lily may be the least likely one, don’t assume it’s not her. Or that it is. Any of you might be the killer, except you, Barb. I’m exempting Barb because all of you will have an easier time protecting Strad if at least one of you has been cleared of suspicion.

You should know that KAY loves you all and would never harm any of you. In addition, KAY promised never again to kill anyone, other than Strad. This was a solemn promise. You may wonder why I choose to believe a homicidal maniac. I don’t have an easy answer. I’m sure you know, though, that I would not leave you in the hands of anyone I thought would ever harm you.

“Oh my God, he’s insane,” Georgia says. “How can he trust a psycho? I think we’re in grave danger.”

Jack looks at her and nods grimly.

I continue reading the letter:

If, on the day you read this letter, Lily is no longer in love with Strad, or if she is and he loves her back, then you can disregard this letter.

There are some rules you need to be aware of:

1) KAY will not hesitate to kill Strad in front of any of you. If the attempt is successful, KAY will leave it up to you to decide if you want to help KAY hide/dispose of the body or turn KAY in to the police. KAY trusts that you will make the right decision.

“Oh, how horrible,” Georgia groans. “How could you put us in that position, whoever you are?” she says, looking at Jack, Penelope, and Lily.

After duly noting her reaction, I resume reading the letter:

2) KAY will not go so far as to kill Strad in front of anyone other than you guys because KAY would then without question get turned in.

3) KAY has agreed not to set up a lethal situation that would kill Strad outside of those four hours. For example, KAY can’t give Strad a package between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight that will explode after midnight.

I don’t want to explain to you in great depth KAY’s motives for wanting to kill Strad, mostly for fear of inadvertently revealing KAY’s identity. So I will limit myself to saying that KAY feels that Strad’s existence is ruining Lily’s life. I assume you will try to present arguments to change KAY’s mind, and perhaps you’ll have better luck than I did, but don’t count on it.

I told KAY that I would warn you of KAY’s murderous plan before it’s meant to happen. So don’t think that my letters to you are much of a surprise to KAY. I told KAY I would instruct you all to do everything in your power to protect Strad during the four dangerous hours. KAY accepted this, said your success or lack of it would be part of what KAY will interpret as destiny’s will.

In case you’re wondering why I revealed to KAY that I would alert you, I had no choice. I was afraid that if KAY felt betrayed by my letters, KAY would decide to change the rules and would make an attempt on Strad’s life at another time, on another day, when Strad wasn’t protected.

If you ever find out who KAY is, I hope you will be compassionate and able to forgive her/him.

I wish I could say “My thoughts will be with you,” but I will have no thoughts. And that’s what I’m looking forward to. Please be happy for me and love one another as I love each of you.

You will never hear from me again. Barb, this is my final letter.

Much love,

Gabriel

I fold the letter, my eyes moist despite my anger at Gabriel.

Lily is the first to speak. “If one of you kills Strad and if the cops don’t get you, I will hunt you down myself and kill you and then kill myself.” She pauses. “Is that clear?”

“What a charming day,” Jack says.

Georgia says, “I think we have to settle one question: Do we want one of us, a friend, to go to prison? I mean, Gabriel was afraid we would, which is why he didn’t want to tell us who it is. But is he right?”

We all look at one another.

“Maybe it depends on who it is,” Georgia adds.

“Oh?” says Jack. “And which of us would you feel good about sending to prison?”

“No one. I’m just throwing the question out there. Maybe some of you would feel okay about sending someone like . . . oh, I don’t know . . .
me
, for instance, to jail, and not someone like, um . . . Lily. Or Penelope.”

A little impatiently, I say, “Please, Georgia, we don’t have time for your insecurities and paranoia right now. Of course we don’t want to see you go to prison, what’s wrong with you? Especially if you’re not the killer. Now, let’s focus! The 27th is only five days from now.”

The truth is, I would sooner die than see Georgia go to prison.

But I can tell she’s offended by my tone. I brace myself for her favorite retaliation technique: gently demonstrating to everyone that her intelligence is superior to the offender’s (we all know she can dwarf us intellectually without effort, and it baffles me that she still feels the need to prove it).

On this occasion, she goes about it in the following insidious fashion. Adopting an innocuous tone, she says: “It was smart of you, Barb, not to read us the letter as soon as you got it. Did you use that valuable time to try and test us to figure out who the killer is?”

“No,” I reply, truthfully.

And the reason I didn’t is because even though I spent most of my time since yesterday afternoon trying to come up with ideas of how to test my friends, I failed to come up with any good ones (except for one little test I intend to try later, but which I doubt will work).

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she says. “The best time to figure out which of us is the killer would have been between the time you received the letter and the time you read it to us—when only
you
knew the situation. It’s a shame not to have made some use of that precious window of opportunity.”

“No, it’s not a shame, because there’s really nothing I could have done,” I say, with some confidence considering the nearly twelve hours I spent thinking about it. I feel pretty sure that even Georgia, with her superior intelligence, could not have thought of how to uncover the killer’s identity.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” she says. “I’ve no doubt there’s something one might have thought of.”

“Like what?”

“I’d have to think about it.”

“Why don’t you. And let me know how you make out.”

“Okay.” A split second later she says, “Oh, I just thought of one.”

“What is it?”

“Not worth mentioning now. The opportunity’s gone.” She shoos the idea away with her hand.

“But please do. I would be very interested.”

“It’s really nothing special. I’m sure you would have thought of it yourself if you had spent even just twenty minutes trying to come up with something. And plus, as you so rightly pointed out, don’t we have more important things to talk about?”

I have an impulse to slug her. “Just tell me what you thought of.”

“All right. Here it is. You could have sent a letter to each of us, pretending to be Gabriel.”

I look at her sternly, waiting for her to elaborate. She doesn’t. I cave in: “Elaborate.”

“Each letter would have to appear to be a single, unique, confidential letter. The letters could say something like, ‘As you may or may not already know, I have sent a letter to Barb announcing your plan to kill Strad. In it, I do not reveal that you are the killer. I’m protecting your identity. But let me entreat you now, one last time, not to kill Strad.’ Blah, blah. End of letter. It’s obvious what would happen next. The three of us who are not the killer would be utterly baffled and freaked out by the letter. We’d be calling you up, shrieking: ‘Oh my God, Barb, I just received this crazy letter from Gabriel saying I have a plan to kill Strad, but I don’t!’ The killer would be the only one who wouldn’t call. Simple.”

I could indeed have done that, I realize sadly. It would have been brilliant. I’m deeply demoralized by this huge missed opportunity. I feel as though I’ve let Lily down (assuming she’s not the killer). Georgia is a worthier friend than I am (also assuming she’s not the killer). She’s a smarter friend.

“Barb, you can’t compare yourself to the queen of convoluted thinking. None of us can,” Jack says, as though he’s read my mind.

Georgia, too, has sensed my distress. She backpedals, her entire tone softening: “Jack’s right. And anyway, I wouldn’t wish this ability on anyone. It makes my life wretched, feeds my paranoia, makes me overly complicated, irritating to others, including to myself, but on some rare occasions, such as this one, it comes in handy.”

I gaze at my friends. “There’s something I’d like to say to whichever one of you is the killer.” My tone is chilling. I have their full attention. “If you, KAY, were so close to Gabriel and were his confidant to the degree that he even told you of his suicidal thoughts, why didn’t you prevent his death?” I start shouting at them, shooting them furious glances. “You could have sought out help! You should have told us. At least you should have told me of his love for me. I would have done something, acted differently, been more attuned to the situation. But most of all,
you
could have stopped him from killing himself. How could you let him die? Are you so incompetent, so lame, so selfish, what? Didn’t you care enough about him to save his life? You certainly
are
a murderer.”

I haven’t taken my eyes off of them for a second. My words were painful. Yet they had to be said—because they were the test I came up with last night. I wasn’t very optimistic that it would succeed in its purpose of provoking the killer into betraying him/herself. And I think I was right. The only purpose it seems to have served is to make us feel really awful.

I scrutinize my friends’ faces to try to catch any trace of emotion, any quivering lip, any distress, because I know the killer cared deeply for Gabriel and I’m certain my words must have inflicted particularly acute pain on him or her.

But as I contemplate these people, no single reaction stands out. They all display attitudes that could be used against them. Jack sighs and looks down. I ask him what’s up. He says he agrees with me, that the killer should have prevented Gabriel’s death, but that it can be hard to prevent such things.

Georgia also looks suspicious because she’s staring at me fixedly, her jaw clenched.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

“Because I agree with you, too. You would think the murderer could have stopped this suicide if he cared about Gabriel.” But she says this a bit stiffly, which makes me narrow my eyes. Yet I move on.

Penelope acts perfectly normal, which is questionable in itself.

And Lily is wiping tears from her face, which is either shady or completely understandable.

We discuss whether or not we should request the help of the police.

“We can’t tell the police,” Georgia says. “KAY is sick and needs to be protected by us. I know you may take offense at this, Lily, and I’m sorry about it, but I care much more about KAY not rotting in prison than Strad staying alive.”

“You’re right, I do take offense at that,” Lily says softly.

Jack, who—perhaps because he’s a cop—has been looking especially glum since hearing me read the letter, says, “Telling the police would be one easy way to find out which of you is the killer. Unless the killer took extreme precautions, all the police would have to do is match each one of you against the forensics from that crime scene two years ago. But the price of finding out would be high—not only for KAY, who’d end up in prison, but for the rest of us, who’d lose her. I can’t see myself sending one of you to prison for life.”

Georgia exhales loudly with relief and clasps her hands. “You feel as I do, sweet Jack!”