Read The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress for Free Online Page B

splintering wood.
    Someone kicked the door open. Crater, now awake, was groggy. “What? What is it?” She imagined him blinking into the darkness of their room, eyes slowly focusing on the silhouette in the doorway.
    Ritzi ran a hand along the base of the cabinet and felt nothing but toilet tissue. Whatever sense of foolishness might have caused her to hesitate, to reconsider, was abandoned when she heard the scuffle on the other side of the door. The thud of fists on flesh and the low groan that followed. Then an order: “Close the door.” More voices. And footsteps inside the room.
    Sally Lou Ritz dropped to the floor and maneuvered into the cabinet, tucking the hem of her dress around her ankles. She had to press her chin against her collarbone and pull her knees into her stomach. She wriggled and squirmed, drawing all her limbs into the cabinet, praying that she couldn’t be heard outside the bathroom.
    On the other side of the door, Crater let out a bovine grunt. “Son of a—”
    “Court’s in session, Judge. My court.” The voice was low, controlled. “And you don’t speak unless called upon.”
    The sound of Crater being dragged out of bed.
    “Get him up.” Had she been able to pull herself smaller and smaller until she was a mite of dust, Ritzi would have at the sound of that voice. “And find the girl he came in with.”
    “Nothing on the balcony, boss.”
    “Check the bathroom.”
    The door banged open and Ritzi froze. The light popped on, an L-shaped wedge of yellow light appeared around the cabinet door, and there, at the bottom, a small corner of her dress peeked out. The trash can toppled over, followed by silence until she heard the rustle of a belt and the whiz of a zipper. She had plenty of time to anticipate the worst before hearing a splash in the toilet. He approached the cabinet with a heavy tread. One ear was pressed against the pipes beneath the sink, and she heard the rush of water as he washed his hands. He stood at the sink for a long time and Ritzi could clearly see the brown leather shoes in the crack of the door.
    “She ain’t in here.”
    Crater groaned out in the bedroom.
    “What’d you do with the girl?” the intruder asked.
    Crater’s voice was thick, confused, as though stuffed with cotton. He spit something onto the floor. “She was here.”
    A pause. “Well, she ain’t here now. Did she go home?”
    “I don’t know where she went.”
    Stuffed in that cabinet like a coat in winter storage, Ritzi’s muscles began to cramp. Her feet, bent at irregular angles, tingled as her circulation slowed.
    “Wrap him up.”
    The sound of the bed being stripped, peppered with Crater’s pleas. “Don’t. This isn’t necessary.”
    The beating began in earnest then, and Ritzi trembled inside the cabinet unable to block out the sickening screams of Joseph Crater. He thrashed and howled like the tourists on the Cyclone outside. After several minutes, he begged, “Please, whatever you want, I can make it happen.” A short gasp, and then, “You know I can. I’ve pulled strings before. Settled that last mess.”
    “Seems you been causing trouble for my friends, Joe. And they don’t appreciate that. Then they come asking me questions, which I don’t appreciate. Don’t like it when Samuel Seabury starts sniffing around. Way I see it, you’re the common denominator.”
    “We can sort it out.” Crater’s composure was gone, and Ritzi heard the terror in his voice.
    “That deal we made with Martin Healy was supposed to be taken care of clean and quiet. But now”—the slap of a newspaper across Crater’s face—“it’s front-page news. How the hell did George Hall sniff out that story?”
    “I don’t know shit about that. Nothing.”
    “You’re taking a ride with us, Joe.”
    “No—”
    “Clean the place up, boys. No one needs to know we were here.”

Chapter Four
    BELGRADE LAKES, MAINE, THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 1930
    THURSDAY dawned dark and angry, and Stella woke