jealousy that our mother had contacted Jacob that last night rather than myself; surprise that he'd managed to keep the whole thing so secret from me for all this time; grief over the possibility that our parents -- good, hardworking people -- could've been driven by their need for money to such a hopeless act, literally sacrificing their lives and risking that of an innocent bystander to save themselves and their children from their debts.
Jacob started to stamp his feet, trying to stay warm. I could tell that he wanted to leave.
'Jacob,' I said.
He turned toward me, looked me in the face. 'What?'
Mary Beth moved around us in the darkness, clinking, like a tiny ghost wrapped in chains.
'Sarah knows about the money. I had to tell her after Lou came looking for it.'
'That's all right,' he said. 'She's probably the safest of us all.'
I shrugged. 'The thing is, she's terrified of Lou. She's scared he'll end up getting you and me put in jail for killing Pederson.' I waved off to the left, toward Pederson's grave. Jacob followed my gesture with his eyes.
'Lou's okay,' he said. 'He just wants to make sure you give him the money. Once you do that he'll leave you alone.'
'I'm not going to give him the money. Sarah and I talked about it, and we agreed we shouldn't.'
Jacob stared at me for several seconds, pondering the implications of this. 'Then I guess we'll see if there's anything behind his bluff.'
I shook my head. 'It's not going to come to that. We're going to do something first.'
He glanced at me, a quizzical look on his face. 'What do you mean?'
I told him about Sarah's plan. He listened all the way to the end, his shoulders hunched in his jacket, his hands sunk deep in its pockets.
When I finished, he asked, 'Why're you telling me this?'
'I need your help,' I said. 'It won't work unless you help.'
He scuffed at the snow with his boot, frowning. 'I don't think I want to do it. Lou isn't a danger.'
'He is a danger, Jacob. He always will be.'
'It's not like--'
'No,' I said, 'think about it. Even if I were to give him his split, it wouldn't stop. There's no statute of limitations on murder. Ten years from now, when he's wasted his share, he'll be able to track you down and blackmail you with what he knows.'
Jacob didn't say anything.
'Are you willing to live with that?' I asked. 'Year after year, just waiting for him to come and find you?'
'He wouldn't do that.'
'He's already done it to me. He's done it twice. I'm not going to let him do it again.'
Mary Beth reappeared from the darkness, wagging his tail, his breath coming fast and hoarse, as if he'd been chasing something. He jumped up on Jacob, and Jacob pushed him down.
'You had your chance, Jacob. You were responsible for him, and you let it get out of hand. Now I'm going to take responsibility.'
'You're blaming me?'
'He found out about Pederson through you, didn't he? That's what got us into this position.'
'I didn't tell him about Pederson.' It seemed very important to him that I believe this, but I ignored it. 'If it's anyone's fault,' he said bitterly, 'it's yours. You were the first one to act suspicious. You soured all our relations with it. Lou's only acting like you expected him to right from the start.'
I turned to face him. I could tell from the tautness of his voice that I'd hurt his feelings. 'I'm not blaming you, Jacob. I'm not saying it's anybody's fault. It just happened, and now we have to deal with it.' I smiled at him. 'It's fate, maybe.'
He frowned down at the grave.
'It's either this or burn the money.'
'You're not going to burn the money. That's an empty threat.'
It was true, of course, and I nodded. 'It's not that big of a deal, Jacob. It's not like I'm asking you to kill him.'
He didn't respond to that. He flipped up the collar of his jacket so that it covered the lower half of his face, then turned from the grave and glanced back across the parking lot toward Main Street. I followed his gaze. I could see Raikley's from there, could see my office window. I could see the town hall, the post office, the grocery store. Everything was quiet.
'I need your help,' I said.
'I can't trick him like that. He'd never forgive me.'
'He's going to be drunk, Jacob. He's not going to remember how it happened.' I realized as soon as I said it that this was the hook I needed. It wasn't the idea of betraying Lou that bothered my brother, it was Lou's knowing about it. 'You can pretend to be surprised if you want,' I continued quickly, reeling him in, 'like you didn't know about the tape recorder. You can pretend that it was all my doing, that I was tricking both of you.'
Jacob debated for a second. 'It would only be a threat?' he asked. 'We'd never actually use the tape?'
I nodded. 'It's just to make sure he doesn't turn us in.' I could tell he was wavering, so I put my finger on the scale. 'You told me that if it came down to it, and you had to make a choice, you'd choose me.'
He didn't say anything.
'It's come down to it now, Jacob. Are you going to stand by your word?'
He was silent for a long time, watching me. The dog rolled in the snow at his feet, grunting, but we both ignored him. Jacob wrapped his arms around his stomach, stared down at our parents' headstone. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out his face now, could see his eyes behind his glasses. He looked cold and anxious. Finally he nodded.
I tried to think of something to say, something reassuring.
'Why don't you come for dinner tonight?' I asked him, surprising myself. 'Sarah's cooking lasagna.' Even now I'm not sure why I said it, whether it was out of pity for him or fear that if he were to go home alone that night he might call Lou and warn him about our plot.
Jacob continued to stare down at the grave. I could see what was happening inside him: his core passivity, his traditional mechanism for dealing with stress, was rising to the surface, and I knew now that if I could just keep ahold of him, I'd be able to make him do whatever I wanted. I took a step toward the parking lot. Mary Beth came up out of the snow, ears erect. He wagged his tail, thumping it against Jacob's pants.
'Come on,' I said. 'She uses Mom's recipe. It'll be just like old times.' Then I put my hand on his arm and turned him back toward the path.
SARAH was in the kitchen when we got home.
'Jacob's come for dinner,' I yelled as we stepped into the entranceway.
Sarah leaned out through the doorway to give us a wave. She was wearing an apron and had a metal spatula in her hand. Jacob, looking large and sheepish, returned her wave, but he was a second too late: she'd already disappeared back into the kitchen.
I took him upstairs to the bedroom. Mary Beth followed at our heels. The room was dark, the curtains pulled. When I flicked on the light, I saw that the bed was unmade. Sarah, though she'd recovered with remarkable rapidity from her delivery, was still a little run-down, and she'd spent much of the previous six days prone beneath the sheets, the baby sleeping at her side.
I shut the door behind us, guided Jacob toward the night table. I sat him down on the edge of the mattress, then picked up the phone, carefully untangled its cord, and placed it in his lap.
'Call Lou,' I said.
He stared at the phone. It was an old one, black plastic with a rotary dial. He didn't seem to want to touch it. 'Now?' he asked.
I nodded. I sat down beside him, leaving about a foot of space between us. We were on my side of the bed, facing the windows. The sound of pots clinking together came faintly up the stairs. Mary Beth moved about the room, sniffing. He inspected first the bathroom, then the crib. When he reached the bed, he stuck his head beneath it. I pushed him away with my foot.
