Chevy Chase
Winter was almost over now. Days longer, sun chasing away the cold. Spring coming.
In Brian’s mind, a seed taking purchase. Laying down roots.
A wooden box riding a conveyor belt into a crematorium. Hot enough to burn any sin.
The body of his wife inside.
He didn’t know what Becks knew. Or if she knew anything. They hadn’t talked much the last couple of weeks. She’d been busy. Working three big cases, she said. Awfully coincidental. Then again anyone with a pulse knew the Russians were making trouble these days.
If he had to bet, he’d bet she had no idea. Mainly because he didn’t think she could act well enough to fool him. Could she still talk to him? Sleep next to him? Fuck him? Back in Houston, he’d sniffed out her little quasi-fling with the ranger right quick.
Though in Birmingham, she’d played the fat real estate guy, Draymond, played him all the way to the federal penitentiary. Becks was a straight shooter. Until she wasn’t. So yeah, he’d bet she didn’t know. But the bet wasn’t a lock. More of a coin flip. He couldn’t risk his life on a coin flip.
And he was flat-out tired of not knowing, having no way to find out. If she was on to him, anything he asked her might help her. He’d gone over his car, his phone, his laptop. All clean. Then again Becks must know better than to try to track his phone or laptop.
It wasn’t fair, what she’d done to him.
He didn’t feel guilty. No way, no how. He hadn’t done anything all that bad. Kira had gone through a couple of hard days, sure, but she’d come out the other side. Maybe it had even done her some good. Toughened her up, given her an edge over the average twenty-year-old snowflake at Tufts.
Nah, he didn’t feel guilty. He just wanted to be rid of his wife.
But he had to make sure he did it clean. Not much point to beating an espionage rap and getting stung for murder. The cell would look the same either way.
And a clean murder wasn’t so easy. Especially with Becks. The bureau would look hard at anything like a mugging. Poison was super high-risk. What if the cops talked to the FBI and decided they wanted an autopsy?
Maybe a fire? A fire had worked out for Jacques in Spain. Tough to get evidence from charcoal. Kill Becks, set fire to the house. But Chevy Chase wasn’t the middle of nowhere. Probably a fire would get put out too quick. He couldn’t take the chance.
He needed something better. Something he could count on.
No witnesses.
No cops stumbling onto the scene.
No physical evidence.
No body, or a body in such terrible shape that it had no secrets to give.
No murder for hire, that idea never ever worked. I’m gonna give you money to kill my wife. Promise you’re not a cop, mmmkay?
No chance for Becks to draw on him. A problem, considering that she carried her nine on her hip most of the time they weren’t home. He could ask her to take it off, sure, but he’d need a decent reason.
An accident.
Yeah, an accident would be best. Plus, Kira and Tony had been through enough. Especially Kira. For her sake, he needed to be sure she accepted what had happened. Poor Becks, poor poor Becks. The story couldn’t just satisfy the cops. It had to be airtight.
A plausible accident. A story that made sense. Not, Becks was wandering around East Baltimore at 2 a.m. Not, Becks and I went for a cliffside walk in Glacier National Park. Even though it was raining. Not, Becks decided she’d take her BMW up to 120 on the Beltway last night, hey, why not?
Yeah, killing your wife clean wasn’t as easy as it looked.
But it was just a puzzle, after all. And he was good at puzzles. It had to have a solution.
Sure enough he found it.
He had the perfect excuse, too. Their twenty-first anniversary. A chance to get away. Put the kidnapping behind them. Go back to an island they hadn’t visited since she was in law school and he was a guy with a rusted pickup truck and a two-minute refractory period.
“Let’s go to St. Barts,” he said. “A second honeymoon. Decompress. Rent a boat for a couple of nights. No crew, just you and me. We can hang out—”
“Hang out,” Becks said.
“Mmm-hmm, hang out. We’re still pretty good at that.”
“You’re not scared to leave Kira?”
“The opposite. It proves we trust her, we’re okay with not talking to her for a couple of days.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it this way. It’ll be a way to wash off what happened in Spain. We deserve a happy anniversary. Twenty-one years together. Practically half our lives.”
“Twenty-one years,” Becks said. “Can’t believe it.”
“Neither can I, babe. Neither can I.”