Not a Happy Family

Despite his lack of funds, Dan reluctantly hires “the best criminal defense lawyers Aylesford has to offer” (148). Dan lies to his attorney and does not tell him about his long drive on Easter night or about Lisa covering for him. The attorney’s advice is to stop talking to the police.

Audrey confides in her friend Ellen that her brother never changed the will and that she was not going to get the money she thought she would. She insists one of the children is the murderer.

Catherine tells Ted about her growing certainty that Dan killed their parents because Dan was emotionally unstable and hated their father. She then reveals a secret: On Easter night when she drove back to see her mother, she had actually found her parents murdered.

Catherine tells a shocked and angry Ted the whole story. She knocked on the door—the lights were on—but no one answered. The front door was not locked. She went in and found first her mother, then her father. She was certain Dan did it and acted to protect him. She begs Ted to keep the secret. Ted thinks Dan has “done [them] all a favor” (156).

The detectives work the neighborhood around Catherine’s home to find home surveillance cameras that might help. One neighbor’s footage shows Catherine pulling out of the driveway just after eleven o’clock, although she told detectives she stayed home. Catherine, from her window, notes the detectives’ vehicle and sees that they are working her neighborhood.

Later, Dan spots the detectives doing the same in his neighborhood. Catherine had called to warn him, and he stays out of sight. He points them out to Lisa, panicking internally because he has no solid alibi.

As Ellen takes a bath, she thinks about Audrey accusing the Merton children of murdering Fred and Sheila. She feels “a little bit of schadenfreude” (159).

Jenna gets a call from Catherine to come over. Catherine, with Ted there, tells her sister that she found the bodies Easter night and did nothing. Jenna is secretly pleased to see her sister’s usual composure start to fragment. “How cold-blooded do you have to be,” Jenna thinks, “to see your parents’ murdered corpses and go home and act like everything’s fine?” (160). Jenna suggests asking Dan if he killed their parents, but she and Catherine agree he would not trust them with the truth. Jenna says Catherine should tell the detectives she lied because she “[was] afraid they would think she did it” after learning about the house sale (162), and Ted urges her to tell the truth. Catherine, however, wants to stick with her original lie. When asked about her alibi, Jenna says she was with Jake at her apartment all night.

As Ted tries to sleep that night, he struggles to understand how his wife could find her parents murdered and come home, climb into bed, and whisper to him that “[e]verything’s fine” (163).

Dan returns to police headquarters with his attorney for a formal interview. He starts off by admitting he lied—that he had driven around Easter night, and that driving helps clear his mind. The detectives are dubious, and they decide to secure a search warrant for Dan’s car.

From her parked car, Audrey watches the police station as first Dan and his lawyer depart, then Catherine and her attorney arrive.

The detectives tell Catherine they have surveillance film of her car leaving her house late Easter night. Coolly she lies—yes, she went to her parents’ house, she talked with her mother about Fred cutting off Jenna’s allowance, then she returned home.

The detectives realize that neither Catherine nor Dan can be accounted for at the time of the murders.

Dan returns home and is outraged to find the police executing the search warrant. He calls Jenna, who arrives and watches from a distance. She chats with Jake and “wonders if it’s just a matter of time before [Jake] asks for something” in exchange for lying for her the day before (170).

Audrey follows the caravan of police cars to Dan’s house and gloats as she realizes Dan must be the prime suspect. As she watches, Dan sees her car. He marches over and demands to know why she is there. Frightened, Audrey rolls up the window; Dan “smashes his fist on the front hood of her car” and leaves (172).

The detectives are frustrated—they find no bloody clothes or evidence of anything out of the ordinary. As they are preparing to depart, they find an opened box of disposable coveralls with protective booties in Dan’s garage. Dan explains that he bought the items months ago when he needed to spray insulation foam in his attic. The forensics team photographs the coveralls, but the detectives know they still need the missing ones.

Catherine calls Irena to come to her house. With Jenna there, Catherine and Dan debate what the detectives may or may not know. They reveal their lies; Dan panics because the detectives know he was out for a drive, but Catherine admits they know she, too, lied about leaving the house. Catherine reveals that she found the dead bodies. Dan immediately understands why his sister did not call the police—she thought he had killed Fred and Sheila.

Dan tries to turn the tables on his sister—how do they know she did not kill them? Then he turns on Jenna and points out she had just as much to gain from their parents’ death and says she “[has] a violent temper” (178). He questions Jake being her alibi.

Just as the talk heats up, Audrey arrives and accuses them of the murder. She threatens to reveal to the detectives all the family secrets: “Maybe it’s time everyone found out what this family is really like” (180). She leaves.

Dan goes home and vents to Lisa that his own siblings believe he killed their parents. Lisa begins to have doubts of her own because of the coveralls and Catherine, who would only lie to protect Dan.

As Dan drives away, Ted admits to himself that Dan was right—Jenna and Catherine both had motives, and both knew about the coveralls.

Jenna, as she goes home, worries about Audrey and her threat to spill the family’s secrets. She remembers deliberately shoving Dan off the slide in their backyard as a child. He only broke his arm, but it could have been serious. Audrey knows about the incident. Audrey also knows that Jenna once whacked Catherine with a wiffle ball bat hard enough to give her a concussion.

Audrey decides to visit the detectives.

The detectives puzzle over the pickup truck with a flame decal that was in the neighborhood Easter night. The vehicle does not match any of the siblings’ cars. Audrey arrives at the police station and asks to speak with the detectives.

Jenna meets up with Jake. She tells him she and Catherine suspect Dan. Jake promises to attend the funeral with her.

Audrey tells the detectives how cruel Fred could be as a father, especially to Dan. Catherine was smart, Jenna gifted, but Dan was just a disappointment. Selling the company, although a smart business move, was done largely to humiliate Dan. Audrey assures the detectives that as Fred’s children, any of the siblings are capable of being “a psychopath.”

Lisa goes to visit Catherine. Dan is furious that his sisters doubt him and does not believe they are protecting him. Catherine and Lisa hug; Lisa asks if Catherine thinks Dan could have killed Fred and Sheila. Both women admit they are not sure.

Audrey visits Ellen and tells her about the visit to the police station. She says she told the detectives she is sure that one of the parents told the kids about the change to the will in her favor, which prompted the murder. She then adds that her chunk of Fred’s fortune was payment for keeping quiet for years, but she does not specify what for.

Reyes and Barr watch as mourners gather for the afternoon funeral at St. Brigid’s Church. The two enter the church, both watching for anything odd.

The Mertons and their significant others are all in attendance, as is Irena. She is relieved Dan is helping them put forth a united front. Just as the service is ending, however, Dan stands up and interrupts the priest. Lisa pulls at his arm to get him to sit down, but Dan heads to the lectern, determined to speak.

Dan tells a stunned congregation that his father was a bully, “cruel and vindictive” (201), that he was abusive emotionally, particularly to him, his only son. But Dan says emphatically, “I didn’t kill him. And I would never kill my mother” (202). He says he hopes Sheila died quickly and did not suffer. Catherine gets up and escorts him back to their seats; she knows this incident will be all over the news later.

The detectives, sitting in the packed church, wonder whether such a display supports their suspicion that Dan is “disturbed.” Rose, who is in attendance, quietly leaves; Irena is “deeply disturbed by Dan’s speech” and wants the whole thing over (203).

In the line outside the church, Dan leans over to Jake and, without bothering to whisper, asks whether he was in fact with Jenna the entire night their parents were killed. Jenna notices one of the detectives now standing beside her, listening for Jake’s answer. Jake brushes off the question and its implications. Emboldened, Dan tells the detectives that Ted lied for Catherine and that Jake is now lying for Jenna. He also tells the detectives that both his sisters knew about the disposable coveralls and knew that he never locked his garage.

Irena watches in dismay and realizes what is happening: “[These kids] are going to turn on one another. That’s what they do” (205).

At home, Reyes thinks over the case. He realizes he and Barr need to talk to the sisters and Irena again.

The morning after the disastrous funeral service, Catherine reads in the newspaper about Dan’s performance and how the media is beginning to look into the family’s history. She dislikes the “unflattering” photo the newspaper used, and she’s annoyed by the mention of an “anonymous source” who told the media the murder was likely personal. Lisa also reads the accounts at home; she believes her husband has come “unglued” (209).

When the detectives re-interview Irena, she admits that as much as she loves the Merton siblings, “they’re clever, and selfish, and greedy, and they were fathered by a psychopath” (210). However, she insists she doesn’t know who killed Sheila and Fred, and she does not believe the siblings worked together.

Ellen, reading the newspaper, realizes that Audrey is the “anonymous source.” She tries to convince Audrey to stop making trouble for the Merton kids. Audrey claims Ellen does not know the entire story about the family. She says she’ll tell Ellen “something awful,” but makes Ellen promise she won’t tell anyone else.