Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

“I could tell you stories,” Connie said. “About you.”

Meredith squinted at the ocean. She decided to speak the words that were on everyone’s mind. “I never want to leave here.”

“You don’t have to,” Connie said. “You know you don’t have to go anywhere.”

The phone rang inside. The phone, the phone. Meredith’s shoulders tensed. “Maybe that’s Dan,” she said.

“Not for another thirty-two hours,” Connie said.

“I’ll get it,” Toby said. He heaved himself up and out of his chaise. A second later, he poked his head out and said, “Meredith, it’s for you.”

“Of course,” Connie said.

“Is it Dev?” Meredith asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Toby said.

Leo, Carver, Freddy? Freddy, Freddy, Freddy? It was official: Meredith hated the telephone. The phone terrified her.

It was Ed Kapenash, chief of police. He wanted Meredith to come down to the station.

“I think we’ve found our man,” he said. “And our woman.”

Meredith and Connie went to the police station together. Although it was Meredith who was being terrorized, the property belonged to Connie. She was the only one who could press charges.

“Who do you think it is?” Connie said. “Do you think it’s someone you know? Do you think it’s your friend from Palm Beach?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith said. She was in a hazy daze. It was hot outside. She wanted to be on the deck. She wanted to go for a swim. She wanted to whip up more vinaigrette. She wanted Freddy to call. Most of all, that was what she wanted. She didn’t want to be going into the police station to meet her own personal terrorist.

“Right down the hall,” the secretary said. She stared grimly at Meredith for an extra second, and Meredith guessed that this was the kind of person who would dress up as “Meredith Delinn” for Halloween. “First door on the left.”

Connie led, Meredith followed. The first door on the left was unmarked.

“This one?” Connie said.

“That’s what the lovely woman said.”

Connie knocked, and Ed Kapenash opened the door.

“Come in,” he said. He ushered them in to what looked like a classroom. There was a long particleboard table, ten folding chairs, a green blackboard coated with yellow chalk dust. Two people sat at the table already, two people whom Meredith could only describe as hungry-looking. The man was beefy with a thick neck, a buzz cut of dirt brown hair, a gold hoop earring, and a T-shirt that appeared to be advertising Russian beer. He looked familiar to Meredith. She felt like she had seen that T-shirt before. Meredith-got a hot, leaky feeling of fear. The woman, probably in her midthirties, had very short hair dyed jet black. She wore jeans shorts and a sleeveless yellow blouse. She had a bruise on one cheek. Meredith couldn’t believe these two were just sitting at the table, as though they had arrived early for dinner.

“Mikhail Vetsilyn and Dmitria Sorchev,” the chief said. “They were stopped on Milestone Road for speeding at two o’clock this morning. They said they were headed to Tom Nevers to see ‘an old friend.’ The van reeked of marijuana smoke. The officer on duty, Sergeant Dickson, asked them to step out of the van. He then proceeded to check the back of the van. He found three five-gallon jugs of gasoline and fourteen empty cans of electric-green spray paint. He called in reinforcements and did a full check of the van, and they found this.” The chief held up a plastic bag containing a medieval-looking curved dagger, covered with blood and hair. Meredith looked down into her lap.

“Have they confessed?” Connie asked.

“They’ve confessed,” the chief said. “Two acts of vandalism for her. That, plus the unlawful slaying of a sea mammal for him. God only knows what they were going to do with the gasoline.”

“Burn the house down,” the man said.

“Hey!” The chief’s voice was like a whip. Meredith looked up in alarm. There was the chief, being chieflike. “I’m happy to book you with attempted arson,” he said. He turned to Connie and Meredith. “I assume you want to press charges.”

“Burn my house down?” Connie said. “My husband designed that house. God, yes, I want to press charges.”

“But wait,” Meredith said. “Who are they?” She lowered her voice, trying to convince herself they wouldn’t hear her, and if they did hear her that they wouldn’t understand. “Are they Russian?” Were these the assassins the Russian mob had sent? Two people who looked like they’d escaped from the gulag?

“They’re from Belarus,” the chief said. “Minsk.”

Minsk. Meredith looked at the woman. Like me, also from Minsk. “Are you a housekeeper?” she said. “Do you clean houses?”

The young woman nodded.

Yes, okay. Meredith said, “Did you give your life savings to your employer to invest with Delinn Enterprises? A hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars?”

The girl twitched her head. “Yes,” she said. “How you know?”

“I met a friend of yours,” Meredith said.

Connie eyed her quizzically.

“At the salon.”

“Ahhh,” Connie said.

Meredith studied the man. She had seen him before. Burn the house down. She had heard his voice before. And then she remembered: She had seen him on the ferry. He had been in line with her when she went to get coffee for her and Connie. He must have recognized her then. He must have followed Connie’s Escalade out to Tom Nevers.

“We can drop the two vandalism charges on her,” the chief said, “but the unlawful slaying of a sea mammal will stick with him regardless, as well as a marijuana-possession charge.”

“Drop the vandalism charges,” Meredith whispered.

“What?” Connie said.

“She lost her life savings.”

“So?” Connie said. “It’s my house. My car.”

“Would you ladies like to talk about this out in the hallway?” the chief asked.

“No,” Meredith said. She smiled at Connie, then whispered, “She lost a lot of money, Con. She lost everything.”

Connie shook her head, unconvinced.

“And here’s the other thing,” Meredith said. “If they hadn’t spray painted the house, you wouldn’t have met Dan.”

“Oh, come on,” Connie said.

“You should be thanking them,” Meredith said.

Connie rolled her eyes. She turned to the chief. “Okay, we’re out of it. You’ll punish him for killing Harold? And you’ll make sure neither one of them does anything like this again?”

“That’s our job,” the chief said.

Meredith and Connie stood to leave. Meredith approached the woman, Dmitria Sorchev, and said, “I want you to know how sorry I am. I’m sorry about your money. Your savings.”

The young woman pulled her lips back to reveal grayish teeth. “Fuck Freddy Delinn.”

Meredith sighed and looked at Connie over the top of her glasses. Connie smiled. She liked the girl a little better now.

Connie turned to the chief. “Thank you for calling us.”

“I’m glad we settled this,” the chief said. He escorted the ladies out to the hallway. “There will be paperwork for you to sign, probably sometime tomorrow.”

Connie and Meredith shook his hand. The secretary, thankfully, had left for lunch. Meredith stepped outside into the sun.

“I’m going to take you up on your offer,” Meredith said as they climbed into the Escalade. About eight weeks earlier, Meredith had climbed into this car for the first time, running through a dark alley, dodging the flash of the hidden photographer. “I’m going to stay on Nantucket this winter.”

“Atta girl,” Connie said. And she started the engine.