by David Wiltse
"Thank you," he said softly to Karen. "Thank you so much."
Tovah stood behind her husband, watching the departure with an expression of profound indifference.
"Wow," said Becker, as soon as they had reached the sanctuary of their car.
"They're still watching us," Karen said. She waved at Kom, who stood within the circle of the porch light, waggling his fingers at them.
"Sweet mother-of-pearl," said Becker. "What a couple. "
"She seemed a little..
"Didn't she though. Living proof that money doesn't buy happiness. And what's with all those jewels for a little sit-down lobster gorge?"
"You don't know? She does that for him.' "For him? I thought women dressed for other women."
"Some of the time. Not tonight. She was wearing all that for him. To show off his wealth. Some of these people are like Bedouins, they have the women wear everything they possess."
"If she was doing that for him, it was the only thing she did for him. I don't think Stanley is her favorite boy."
Karen patted his hand. "John, you know a lot of things amazingly well.
Women may not be among them."
"I grant you that a certain basic mystery remains. Let me just say that she doesn't talk as if she likes her husband very much."
"On the contrary, I'd say she talks as if he doesn't spend enough time with her. If she didn't love him why would she care if he spends time with her?"
"Made up like that, I'd guess she's trying to keep anyone from spending any time with her. Or is she painting herself like that to please him too?"
"No, she does that to spite him," Karen said.
"I should have known."
"He wants her to be beautiful so he can display her as a trophy as well as the diamonds, but she does everything she can not to be… Do you think she's pretty?"
"if she let herself be, I suppose. Not as pretty as you though."
"I love a cheerful liar," said Karen. "She's absolutely gorgeous. As even a guy hopelessly in love-such as yourself-can plainly see."
"I only have eyes for you."
"Smart man," she said.
"So how does a dweeb like Stanley get a woman like that? Just money and position, a title before her name, that kind of thing?"
"He's not so bad-looking."
"He's not as attractive as she is."
"Depends on your point of view. He has such mournful eyes."
"I didn't notice.
"You wouldn't. Take my word for it, he has very expressive eyes."
"What were you two talking about in the other room?"
Karen said, "We talked about you, mostly. He likes you-a lot."
"He told you that?"
"Who should he tell, you? You'd have the same horrified reaction you're having now, only worse. He's lonely, I think. He wants a male friend.
Not much different from you, actually."
"I'm not lonely."
"You could use a male friend other than Tee. You and Tee are too much alike to do each other any good. You admit you never really talk anymore."
"I don't think I need Stanley Kom, thanks for asking."
"He's not gay, if that's what you're worried about."
"I wasn't, but how do you know? Marriage isn't proof of anything these days."
"A woman can tell by the way a man looks at her. Believe me, he's heterosexual. Don't confuse soft with gay. You probably don't like him because you couldn't knock him down without feeling like a bully."
"What, I judge my friends by whether or not I can knock them down? The man reminds me of an overgrown puppy, bouncing around with eagerness, slobbering on things."
"I thought you liked dogs."
"I like them as dogs, not as friends."
"Well, he likes you. You can do with it what you like. But that's why I asked him to take another look at Johnny's bones."
"Yeah, I wanted to ask you-what's that about? We have our own experts.
Tee only used him originally because we wanted some quick answers and Kom's local."
"We can still use our own people," Karen said. "I thought it would be nice to let him take part. It would mean a lot to him. He's eager to help and it will give you two a chance to get to know each other."
"What is this? Suddenly you're a matchmaker?"
"I'm all the woman you'll ever need, big boy, and don't you forget it.
But I'm not the only person you need in your life."
"When did you decide that I need a friend?"
"When I looked into Stanley Kom's mournful eyes… They reminded me of yours."
9
The early-morning sun glared off the reservoir like a light shining in a mirror, causing Tee to squint as he maneuvered his car onto the broad lawn skirt that ran the length of the road alongside the lake. He pulled the cruiser as close to a cement wall as possible. The wall would shield the car from view to a certain extent from passersby but the protection was only partial. Sharp eyes would always find a police car. In Clamden there was never a place he could park with complete privacy, short of driving straight into the woods.
Despite the hour it was warm already, and Tee felt per spiration under his arms as he trudged up the hill parallel to the orchard where the bones had been found. Much of the acreage was still circumscribed by the yellow ribbons declaring it a crime scene, although Tee, the state police, and the FBI had scoured the area time and again. He wondered how many times he had walked through the orchard in the past few months, choosing its easier path up the hill, not knowing he was walking through a ghoulish graveyard.
The irony of the situation did not amuse him.
He carried the blanket that was always stored in the trunk of the cruiser and bore the stamp of the Clamden police. It was an aging brown, coarse and itchy, and it had draped the shoulders of people chilled by icy waters, covered the naked bodies of drunks and druggies, and had even been pressed into service as a shawl when the power was off in police headquarters in midwinter. It also served Tee's purposes on his weekly hike through the woods.
It took him five minutes to reach the crest of the hill; he clambered up bare rocks for the last fifty yards. He was sweating profusely by the time he reached the top and sat heavily on the worn rock overlooking the reservoir. The view was, as always, spectacular, but he avoided it now.
In a few minutes he would be called upon to admire it and he did not want his eyes to be jaded with its beauty. He was breathing hard from the climb and he thought, as he did every time, that he must lose weight. There was an easier route to the top from the other side of the hill, of course, but access to the hiking path would increase his chances of being seen. No one would see him arrive this way, no one would see him leave. Theoretically. As a policeman, he knew that the chances of actually doing anything unnoticed were not as good as they sounded in theory. People, witnesses, turned up in unexpected places, at unpredictable times. He took a risk every time he came, and he knew it and hated it, but was not able to stop himself from coming.
He heard the footsteps on the path long before she arrived. He sniffed at his armpits. She would be sweating too, but it never bothered him; he hoped it did not bother her. He smoothed the blanket on their rock and waited, pretending not to hear her until she was almost upon him.
She came from among the trees, following the narrow path over the rocks, across the stream, around the fallen timber, moving lightly as a deer.
Slender as a wand, she moved as gracefully as any of the creatures of the woods. Her pace increased as always as she threw herself into a sprint up the last, steepest part of the hill. He could hear her heavy breathing now and he turned to watch her, her face concentrating with the effort of the sprint, the red of her headband bobbing and flashing from behind the intervening branches like a cardinal on the wing.
Tee rose to greet her and she flung herself into his arms, panting, a smile bursting forth in the final moment before she pressed her head against his chest. He held her for a minute as
she regained her breath, feeling her torso rise and fall, feeling her ribs slide up and down beneath his hands. He put his face to the top of her head and smelled her hair, a scent that was her own, fresh and faintly reminiscent of grapes. He thrilled to have her in his arms, so vital, young and lean, delicate yet strong when she clung to him. Everything about her was firm to the touch, smooth with a woman's softness, but solid, toned.
He lifted her easily-her diminutive size excited him, made him want to curl himself completely around her, to encircle and subsume her-and she clasped her legs around his waist. Her arms on his neck were damp with sweat.
"Hello, Chiefie," she said, her southern tones faintly mocking as always.
"Hello, Mrs. Leigh," he said. Whenever he spoke to her his voice was softer than usual, and he felt a shyness under her gaze that was unaccustomed. He knew that with her, for their brief moments together, he was a different person than the one the rest of the world knew. He was a different person than he normally saw within himself. When he looked into her pale blue eyes he felt he must surely tumble in, she made him so weak and wanting.
She squeezed him tightly with her legs, tightening her vise until his discomfort showed on his face, her eyes twinkling at the effect. He would not tell her to stop, he never told her she did too much of anything. It would be a contest, she would squeeze as long and hard as she could until he cried out in pain or she tired of the struggle. Tee tried to kiss her but she leaned her torso farther away from him, seeking greater leverage for her powerful thighs, clinging with her hands to his upper arms. Her eyes danced with amusement as she watched him trying not to give in to her will.
He gasped, putting his hands on her knees and prying them away from him.
She resisted him for a moment, then relinquished her grip, disappointed in him. She hung from his neck for a moment, making him bend, taxing his back, then dropped lightly onto her feet.
Tee felt that he had let her down in some way, that he should have stood there until tears came to his eyes. He wanted to lift her onto his waist again, to give himself another chance to do what she wanted, but she had apparently already forgotten the incident and was standing on the edge of the blanket, looking out at the view.
"Isn't it spectacular?"
"Yes," said Tee, allowing himself to look at it for the first time.
"You don't see it though," she chided him. "Not really."
Tee looked at the water, still shining silver in the early sun, the verdant sweep of trees, stretching for miles, obliterating the houses and roads that lay within them, the pale blue of the sky flecked with high, tracery clouds like fingers of lace. A hawk circled slowly, rising on the early thermals, wings spread as if fixed in space. He thought he saw it, he wanted to see what she saw.
"It's beautiful," he said. He stooped over and put his arms around her from behind. His hands could nearly encircle her waist. "You're beautiful."
She shook her head, indicating that he was wrong, that he did not, could not understand what she saw and what she knew.
As always when with her, he began to dislike her. It was when she was away that he needed her so badly, when he longed to find the softness, the romance, the tenderness that was so seldom there in her presence.
For a moment he asked himself why lie was with her, why he put himself through it all with a woman he didn't really like; then the touch of her reminded him.
He pulled her gently into him, pressing his groin against her, burying his face in her hair once more. She made him want to scream, she made him weak. Sometimes when he kissed her he was so overcome that he trembled standing up and felt as if his knees would not support him. He cherished her for making him feel that way. He cherished her for making him desire.
"I would like to soar like that hawk," she said, spreading her arms.
He kissed her neck, grasped one of her arms and ran his hand from her wrist to her armpit, relishing the moist texture of her skin, the little muscle, strong and firm under the taut skin. She seemed not to notice what Tee was doing, nor to respond to him so much as the surroundings.
"Sometimes when I'm up here I want to hurl myself off the edge," she said.
"Don't. I would hate it without you."
"I feel as if I could float just like that bird, all the way down to the water."
Heights made Tee giddy. Sometimes he felt as if he might be forced against his will to leap, pulled by some unknown force to the edge and beyond. He tried to stay well back from balconies, railings, cliff edges.
He sat on the blanket and pulled her down beside him, relieved that she came without resistance. Some days he would have to coax, or listen to her for a long time while she told him the convoluted stories of her life, her dealings with her mother, her husband, a coterie of tortured girlfriends. Some days she would talk while Tee made love to her, giving him little encouragement, indeed little recognition until she was ready. Tee would feel belittled, insulted, humiliated, but it did not matter, he could not stop himself, he was crazy for her, crazy with his need for her.
"I swear, I must be nu-uts," she said, elongating her vowels into two or three. "My husband is on the brink of bankruptcy. Right on the brink, just every bit as close to it as I am to the edge of this cliff…"
Tee tugged at her clothes. She wore a spandex jogger's outfit that fit her like a surgeon's glove. He had to peel it off, taking arduous care.
She wore it every time and never helped him remove it, but lay there talking, ignoring him, making him do all the work.
"He doesn't speak to me at all anymore, except to snap or yell at the kids. I think he's losing his mind. I know I'm losing mine."
Feeling coarse and humbling, he made love to her, kissing her mouth when she let him, caressing her with his hands, his lips, pressing himself against her. She talked through much of it, revealing details of her life in a long, rambling monologue. Tee felt as insistent as a beast, determined to have his own way, but he proceeded slowly, gently if clumsily, trying to bring her with him. He would stop in an instant if she asked him to, but she never did, even though she seemed to ignore him. When she reached down for him at last and took him in hand, her grip was so stron it almost brought him off at once, but her attitude did not change. It seemed throughout that her mind and her body were engaged in two separate events.
When he could restrain himself no longer and finally entered her, she was so tight he found it hard to believe that she had given birth to two children. She gasped, then fell silent at last. He tried to move slowly but as usual it was no use. Her indifference, her begrudging consent, and his final acceptance excited him too much and he could never wait long enough. As he entered his final spasm, she gripped him again with her thighs, impeding his thrusts. He did not know if he was too large for her, if his weight frightened her and she was trying to restrain him to protect herself, or if she squeezed him with passion, but it was too late to stop himself now. He struggled against the power of her legs, trying to penetrate fully and rapidly but forced into a defeated compromise, moaning to a climax, feeling premature and inconsiderate and unfulfilled.
It was only then she came alive, rolling on top of him and grinding herself against his body, breathing hoarsely, seeking hungrily for her own moment. Tee tried to stay with her, grimly forcing himself not to withdraw, not to collapse. She gave him no pause, no chance to recover, made no concession to his need for a moment of complete inactivity. She tore at him, rasping against him the way she did everything physical, too hard, too relentless. Tee wanted to cry out, to push her off him, to make her stop, but he never did, he gave in to her will always and let her do what she had to do.
When she came at last with a muffled keening sound and collapsed atop him, her tiny breasts flattening on his chest, her cheeks were wet with tears. She lay on him, weeping gently, for that moment a different woman. He loved her most then, when her tears wet his body, and he would kiss her cheeks and engulf her in his arms as if to protect her from the world. For that brief time he
did not feel like a clumsy lover, he did not feel inadequate. He felt strong and towering and gentle and he gripped her in his arms as if he could hold the feeling within his grasp for both of them and never let go of it. When he tried to ask her why she wept, she would always shake her head and turn away from him and not answer, so he no longer asked but allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy that it was because of him, that he had touched her as deeply, moved her as profoundly as she did him.
From the trees at their back, a blue jay scolded, mocking him.
When she had dressed and run off down the hill on legs that seemed even lighter and more energetic than when she came, Tee sat alone atop the cliff, exhausted and overwhelmed with guilt. He didn't know why he did it, he didn't understand what compelled him to put himself through this time and again. He would leave disgusted with himself, filled with distaste for her. A day later he would be thinking about her, two days later he would long for her, and within a week's time he would be beside himself with desire again. He would risk exposure, climbing a cliff to lie with her in the open air, where if they were discovered, there would never be an adequate excuse.
He wondered if he was a masochist and was only now finding it out. He wondered if he was being punished in some way for the easy sex of his early marriage, when although he had not always been perfectly faithful, he had never gotten truly involved with anyone but his wife. He was involved now, and there was little that was easy, or even pleasurable about it. Next time, he thought, he might just pick up that small, strong body, lift it over his head, and hurl it down the cliff.
With the rolled-up blanket under his arm, he clambered awkwardly down the steepest part of the hill, clinging to rocks with one arm while he stretched to the next foothold. Like an old man, he thought. He was too old for any of this.
He walked through the replanted orchard again, pointing straight between the rows. They had located the absentee owner of the acreage, a retiree living in sun-soaked ease in Arizona. The land was leased to a nurseryman from Newtown, who supervised the annual harvesting of Christmas trees, the planting of new saplings, the semiannual clearing of brush. He was being thoroughly investigated by the FBI, as were his employees, the seasonal workers who took time off from plowing snow to cut and bind and sell the trees. They were all suspects and no one expected to find out much from any of them. The man they were after was much too smart to plant bodies in his own backyard.