The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson Page A

Roquefort and pinot grigio at the Concord Cheese Shop. It was not a surprise to either my father or me when, during my senior year at Dartford-Middleham High School, Elaine left my father and moved into a rental apartment along Main Street in Concord Center. She lived there for a year, before moving to California with a divorced accountant.
    My father, retired now, still lives in Middleham, where he spends his time creating Revolutionary War dioramas. I visit him on Thursday nights. If the weather is above sixty degrees, he cooks me a steak on his grill. If it’s below sixty, he makes a pot of chili. My sister visits every other year for Thanksgiving. It’s the only time we see her, since she lives in Hawaii with her second husband and his four children. She sees my mother far more often, partly because my mother still lives in California, and partly because my mother and my sister are so much alike. I sometimes think that when the divorce happened the family split along gender and geographical lines, my father and I staying east, my mother and sister going west.
    Clattering up the steps at the Concord River Inn, it was impossible to not think of my mother and me sitting in the wallpapered dining room with our seafood Newburg lunches, my mother sipping a Pink Lady and me with a Pepsi with a slice of lemon. Lily and I had agreed to meet at the bar, and not the dining room. What I had forgotten was that there were two bars in the rabbit’s warren of the inn, a snug L-shaped one immediately opposite the dining room, and a larger onetoward the back. I chose the smaller bar, since it was empty, and from my barstool I could watch the hallway that led toward the bar at the back. I ordered a Guinness, told myself to sip it slowly. I had no intention of getting drunk this afternoon.
    I had spent a lot of time with my wife in the previous week since returning from my business trip to London. Miranda was filled with ideas for furnishing the house in Maine. We had a vintage card table in our library and she had covered it with clippings from catalogs and printouts from the Internet. I tried not to think of her and Brad Daggett as she showed me item after item of things the house absolutely needed to have. I agreed to everything: the heated tile floors in all the bathrooms; the twenty-thousand-dollar Viking range; the indoor lap pool. And while I was agreeing, what kept me going was the knowledge that she was going to die, and I was going to be the one who made that happen. I thought about it constantly, turning the idea around in my mind like looking at a diamond from every possible perspective, looking for flaws or cracks, looking for guilt or second thoughts, and I found none. All I found was the renewed conviction that Miranda was a monster that I needed to slay.
    She returned to Maine on Thursday, making me promise that I would come join her on the weekend. Before leaving she brought me to the library to show me a few more items she wanted to order from her pile of catalogs. Then she brought up an image on her cell phone, a painting she thought would be perfect for the dining room.
    â€œIt’s six feet by nine feet,” she said. “It will be perfect for the south wall.”
    I looked at the tiny image. It appeared to be a man’s head, his ears on fire.
    â€œIt’s a Matt Christie self-portrait,” she said. “It’s guaranteed to be a good investment. Look him up if you don’t believe me.” Then she named a ridiculous figure in a sentence that also included the word bargain .
    â€œI’ll think about it,” I said.
    She did a little jump without quite leaving her feet, then kissedme. “Thank you, thank you.” She pressed a hand against my crotch, running a finger along the zipper of my jeans. Despite my feelings for her, I felt myself getting hard. “When you come to Maine I’ll give you a proper thank-you, okay?” she said in a lowered voice.
    I had a