Not a Happy Family

Ellen struggles to comprehend what Audrey has told her. She can’t reconcile the Fred she knew with the cold-blooded killer Audrey describes. She wrestles with Audrey’s theory that Fred’s psychopathy, the willingness to kill without feeling, is an inheritable trait, which makes any of Fred’s children capable of the brutal killings. She remembers when she first met Fred, how charming he was, how she went to work at his robotics firm as his secretary, and how, after years of resisting, she finally gave in to his charms, which she knew he “used to get what he wanted” and she used “for her own ends, although she didn’t let him know it” (220).

Audrey returns home and pours herself a glass of iced tea. She immediately feels funny, nauseated. Her vision goes blurry, and she vomits as she calls 911.

Reyes and Barr deliver a search warrant to Catherine. Catherine feels “unnerved and furious” as they search everything, including her electronics and her jewelry box (222).

Rose shows up at Ellen’s house. Ellen notices her daughter looks unwell, but Rose snaps at her for her concern. She tells Ellen about Dan’s behavior at the funeral and says she didn’t know how bad things were at the Merton household. Ellen encourages Rose to spend more time with Catherine.

The detectives finally leave Catherine’s house. She notices that Ted seems relieved they didn’t find anything suspicious, but tries to calm herself: “He can’t be doubting her. Everything’s just getting to her” (224).

It is Monday, nearly a week since the bodies were discovered. Nervously Catherine preps her home pregnancy test. After years of struggling to conceive, she feels they have succeeded. The test confirms she is pregnant.

The police reinterview Jenna and ask if she knew her father intended to change his will for Audrey or that he had terminal cancer. Jenna denies knowing either. The detectives mention Dan’s disposable coveralls and point out that Dan is suggesting Catherine or Jenna murdered Sheila and Fred, but Jenna dismisses it.

Audrey wakes up in a hospital bed uncertain how she got there. Slowly, she regains her memories of calling 911 and collapsing.

The detectives interview Catherine. They ask her the same questions they asked Jenna, and Catherine also denies any knowledge of Fred’s supposed will changes or his cancer. Then, the detectives reveal what they found in her house when they executed a search warrant: a pair of expensive diamond earrings that were missing from Sheila’s jewelry box. Catherine, a bit put off, dismisses their accusatory tone and says her mother lent her the earrings weeks before Easter. The detectives then directly confront Catherine with their suspicions: she had jewelry reported as missing from the crime scene; she lied to them about returning to the house; and she knew about the coveralls in Dan’s garage. Catherine blurts out that she did not kill her parents: that they were dead when she got to the house, a revelation that stuns the detectives. They ask why she didn’t call 911, and she admits she suspected Dan.

When Catherine meets her siblings at Walter’s law office to read the will, they find out that their father did not change the will. Audrey is to receive only a million dollars, just like Irena; the rest of the estate, more than $26 million, would be divided equally among Fred’s four, not three, children.

Reyes looks over Dan’s financial report again. He notices the name of the attorney on Dan’s investment documents: Rose Cutter.

Walter tells the siblings that Rose Cutter, daughter of Fred’s ex-employee Ellen Cutter, is their sibling. Catherine is stunned—Rose is her friend. Dan admits that Rose is the reason he’s in financial trouble: She came to him six months ago and convinced him to commit most of his savings to a long-shot mortgage investment. Catherine wonders whether Rose knew all along about her father’s identity. Walter is adamant that Rose and Ellen do not know that Rose is in the will. He cautions Catherine against trying to fight splitting the inheritance with Rose. Catherine wonders if Rose expects them “to welcome her into the family as a sister” and thinks that, if that is the case, Rose “doesn’t know them very well” (235).

As they leave the office, all three siblings are united against Rose. Catherine urges them to stick together: “This is all going to blow over, and we’ll all be rich” (236).

The detectives investigate the property that Rose convinced Dan to mortgage. It is a valuable piece of prime real estate north of town. However, the owner has never worked with Rose Cutter or Dan Merton. He has, however, seen Dan hanging around the property at night, watching the house. In fact, the property owner tells the detectives that Dan was parked outside the property late Easter Sunday night; he only stayed for a short time, which is unusual for Dan.

Catherine again asks her husband to lie for her. This time, she wants him to tell the detectives that she borrowed her mother’s diamond earrings weeks before the murders. Ted agrees, though he’s uncomfortable: “He’d decided he wasn’t going to lie to the police anymore […] But Catherine didn’t murder her parents. It’s simply impossible” (240).

Lisa isn’t bothered by splitting the will with Rose, but she’s upset that the attorney “obviously thinks Dan did it” (240). She tries to reassure Dan, who is moody.

Jenna heads home, feeling uneasy. She doesn’t know Rose well, and she isn’t sure that Jake will continue lying for her if their “fling” comes to an end. She hopes the detectives arrest someone soon, “as long as it isn’t her” (241).

The detectives are notified that Audrey is in the hospital, apparently poisoned: Antifreeze was found in her iced tea. She keeps a jug of it in her fridge, and she is certain that one of the Merton siblings broke in and tried to kill her because she spoke to the press.

Catherine goes to lie down, worrying about the situation. She notes that Ted was shocked she wanted to move into the family home:

She didn’t want him to think her cold. ‘It’s where I grew up,’ she said stubbornly, plaintively, letting her eyes fill up. She wanted to say, I can live with it, can you? But she wasn’t sure she was going to like his answer. This is something else she will have to deal with, her husband’s squeamishness (244).

She frets over Audrey and the secrets she could reveal, like Catherine often stole as a child and was caught pilfering some of her friend’s mother’s most expensive jewelry. When she was 16, Fred had to cover up a shoplifting arrest when Catherine got caught stealing a diamond bracelet from a jewelry store. She knows Fred told Audrey these things.

Reyes and Barr investigate Audrey’s house. They suspect she may have poisoned herself, as Audrey is “the histrionic type” (246).

Rose Cutter is getting anxious. The intricate scheme she crafted has blown up in her face. She got Dan Merton to commit $500 thousand to secure the mortgage on a piece of prime real estate, but she forged the mortgage. She needed the money to pursue what she had hoped was a reliable hot stock tip, but “[t]he sure thing failed” and Rose has no way of getting Dan his money back (248). Now she is being summoned to the police station. She figures out that the detectives must know about her scheme. She tries to seem calm, but she “can’t think” and her hands are shaky.

Audrey gets home as Catherine is leaving a message about her portion of the will. Audrey wonders if Catherine could have poisoned her: “She’s not just curious anymore. She’s in danger” (250). She calls Ellen.

Rose demands a lawyer. After the attorney arrives, the detectives surprise Rose. They know the mortgage is fraudulent, but Rose refuses to comment. They then tell her she will inherit close to $8 million because she is “Fred Merton’s illegitimate daughter” (251). They ask about her whereabouts on Easter. Rose is stunned—she had no idea that Fred Merton was her father. The detectives dismiss her.

Dan cannot sleep—he needs to drive somewhere, anywhere. As he heads out, he recalls how his father had given him his first car back in high school and how he used to drive past the house of a girl he was in love with, Tina. She had told him to leave her alone, and when he didn’t, she got her father to complain to Fred, who was furious. Still, for Dan, driving is a form of “self-soothing” (255). Tonight, he finds himself outside of his Aunt Audrey’s house. He wonders if Audrey or Tina will come forth about the incident.

Audrey, who also cannot sleep, sees Dan in his car. She wonders if he is the one that poisoned her.

Ellen gets up, too. She is worried about Rose, who seems stressed. She knows Audrey feels she deserved more than $1 million for keeping her brother’s secret. She wonders if Audrey poisoned herself. She never told Audrey that Rose is Fred’s daughter—she had only gone to Fred for money after her husband died unexpectedly. She thinks about Fred murdering his own father. Ellen had “Googled psychopathy and now she knows it’s partly genetic” but she is certain her daughter has no psychopathic tendencies (258).

Dan is summoned back to the police station the next morning. This time the detectives focus on the real estate deal with Rose Cutter and Dan’s feelings over being broke. They tell him the owner of the property that Rose used to defraud him said Dan was outside his house Easter night. For the first time, Dan realizes all his money is gone.

Rose, meanwhile, drinks her coffee. She is certain it is only a matter of time before she is arrested.

At his dentist office, Ted is surprised by a visit from Reyes and Barr. The detectives ask him about the earrings. Ted backs up Catherine’s lie, but he can’t provide details when they ask. He impulsively suggests the detectives investigate Dan. After they leave, Ted worries his lie was not convincing enough. He worries that the detectives may be right about Catherine: “He thinks about how much Catherine wanted that house. How attached she gets to material things” (263).

Rose confirms with Walter that she has been named a beneficiary of Fred Merton’s will, that she is his daughter. She visits her mother, who confirms the story. Ellen did not know Rose was in the will; she is happy at the windfall her daughter will receive, saying, “This will change your life” (269).

Dan returns home and tells Lisa about his interrogation, about the witness who saw him in Brecken Hill, albeit not at his parents’ house. Dan comes clean about the investment scheme and the lost money, and explains he was parked outside the property he thought he was investing in. Now he fears the police think he killed his parents because of the deal that went south. Lisa watches the anguish on her husband’s face and realizes that money worries might have been enough to send Dan over the edge. She fears he is growing “increasingly unhinged” (270).

Irena thinks about the children. She’s a little hurt that “she’s peripheral to their lives now” (271). She knows Fred used to pit the children against each other, which has led to this: Dan as a major suspect, and his sisters seemingly uncaring.

Ellen braces herself for a conversation with Audrey about Rose. She suspects the news about Rose’s inheritance won’t go over well. Rose, meanwhile, stays home, hiding from a possible arrest for fraud. She hopes to use her inheritance to make restitution and avoid prison.

Audrey, recovered from her poisoning, appears at the police station. She tells Reyes and Barr that she told Ellen about the change in the will on her behalf. She suspects Ellen and Rose knew Rose was in the will, and the change would give Rose a motive to kill Fred.

Catherine appears at Rose’s front door. The conversation is testy. Catherine accuses Rose, now her half-sister, of a vendetta against her family. Rose shoots back that Catherine had always lorded her money and her possessions over her even back in high school. She accuses Catherine of “[getting] greedy and impatient and [murdering her] parents” (277). Catherine swears to sue Rose and declares that she will never be part of the family.

Audrey heads home. She feels betrayed by Ellen and is convinced that “Rose has the same troubling genes” that all Fred’s children do (277).

When Jenna awakens, Jake immediately mentions his overdue rent. He asks her to give him $5,000 to tide him over. Jenna realizes the shakedown has begun: “His wants are only going to get bigger and bigger” (279).