Ed McBain: Driving Lessons

When she suggests one day toward the middle of September...

They are in a parched hidden glade; if only it would rain, the town needs rain so badly. Her panties are off, she is on the back seat; they have already made love, and she feels flushed and confident. He is telling her he adores her, worships her, kissing her again, calling her his blonde princess, his little blonde princess. I love you, I love you, kissing her everywhere, everywhere...

‘Then leave your wife and marry me,’ she suggests. ‘Take me with you to Italy.’

‘No, no,’ he says, ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’ she says. ‘You love me, don’t you?’

‘I adore you,’ he says.

‘Then marry me.’

‘I can’t,’ he says.

‘Why not?’ she asks again.

‘I’m already married,’ he says.

There is a smile on his face as he makes his little joke — I’m already married — which is supposed to explain it all to the little sophomore who was stupid enough to fall in love with the worldly art professor. How could she have been so goddamn dumb ?

What do you see, Rebecca?

What do you see now?

She sees killing her.

Mr Andrew Newell’s beloved wife Mary Beth.

‘At first, I could only follow her on Saturdays. I go to school, you know. But I had to figure out a way to kill her with the car, so he’d be blamed. I take Driver’s Ed courses so I knew that the licensed driver is the one responsible in any accident. So I wanted him to be in the car with me, so he’d be blamed. That way he’d be charged with murder and get sent to prison for life.

‘But I needed to know where she’d be on the days I had my driving lessons, Wednesdays and Fridays. So one week, I stayed home from school and followed her on Wednesday. She went to the church again, same as on Saturday. And the next week I stayed home on Friday and followed her, but she was just doing errands and such, it would’ve been too difficult to plan a way our paths would intersect. Her path and the car’s path, I mean. During a driving lesson. A Wednesday driving lesson. It had to be on a Wednesday, because that’s when she went to the church, you see.

‘I take Driver’s Ed courses, I know all about drunk driving, I figured the only way Mr Newell could be blamed was if I got him drunk. But he didn’t drink. I once brought a bottle of wine to the woods with us, this was the second time we made love. I wanted to show him how sophisticated I was, so I bought this bottle of very expensive Chardonnay, it cost me twenty-two dollars. But he wouldn’t drink any, he told me he didn’t drink. That was when I still thought he loved me. That was before I realized he was making a fool of me.

‘There are lots of medical books in my father’s library — he’s a doctor, you know — books on pharmacology and toxicology, everything I needed. I started browsing the books, trying to find something I could give Mr Newell that would make it look as if he was drunk when I ran her over. Make it look like he was the responsible party. Any of the barbiturates looked good to me. I searched through my father’s bag one night and found some Seconal capsules and decided to go with them. I dropped two big red caps in his Coke before I carried it out to the car. Two hundred milligrams. I figured that would do it. The rest was easy.’

‘Did you intend killing her?’ Alyce asked.

‘Oh yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was making a fool of me. He loved her, you see, otherwise he’d have left her to marry me. I did it to pay him back. If this worked the way I wanted it to, he’d have gone to prison for life.’

‘Do you know what the penalty for vehicular homicide is?’ Katie asked.

‘Yes,’ she said at once. ‘Prison for life. Homicide is murder.’

‘Seven years, Rebecca.’

Rebecca looked at her.

‘It’s seven years.’

The room went utterly still.

‘I didn’t know that,’ Rebecca said.

‘Well, now you do,’ Alyce said.

It began raining along about then.

Driving home through the rain, Katie thought how goddamn sad it was that a girl as bright and as beautiful as Rebecca could have made the tragic mistake of believing in love and romance in a time when vows no longer meant anything.

Sixteen years old, she thought. Only sixteen.

I’m in love with someone else, Katie.

I’m leaving you.

The irony, she thought, and brushed hot sudden tears from her eyes.

‘Enough,’ she said aloud.

And drove fiercely into the storm ahead.