by James Hayman
He’d asked her to marry him half a dozen times, and the response was always the same. “The day you stop being a cop.”
“Kyra, people marry cops. My mother married a cop.”
“Not a cop like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The problem with marrying you, McCabe, is that you’re already married to your job. When you’re in the middle of a case, you barely know I’m alive. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what happened with Sandy.”
When she said that two months ago, she hit a hot button. He lost his temper and slammed out. When he came back four hours later, she was gone. He didn’t think much of it. She’d left in the past and had never gone far. Just down the hill, back to the small artist’s loft on Chestnut Street that doubled as her studio and bolt-hole. When she’d come back days later, she’d tell him she loved him. And ask him once again to quit the department. Say she couldn’t take much more of either the loneliness or the angst of never knowing if he’d come home dead or alive or maybe not come home at all.
He’d tell her he loved her too. Enough to want to live with her forever. But he didn’t know what he would do with himself if he stopped being a cop. It was part of his genetic code, his DNA, and he didn’t know if there was anything he could do about that.
Her response rang in his ear. “Enough of this, McCabe. Either get another job or get yourself another girlfriend. You can’t have both.”
He never thought she meant it. But then came that day eight weeks ago when the phone rang and he discovered she hadn’t just gone down the hill to Chestnut Street.
“Where are you?”
“San Francisco.”
He frowned. She hadn’t said anything about going to San Francisco. “What are you doing there?”
“Starting a new job.”
He didn’t respond. Just tried to figure out what she was talking about.
“A tenure track job at the San Francisco Art Institute,” she said. “Too good to turn down.”
“You didn’t tell me you were applying for that.”
“You weren’t around.”
“What’s wrong with teaching at MECA?” MECA, the Maine College of Art, was right down the hill on Congress. Five minutes from the apartment even if you didn’t make every light.
“What’s wrong with MECA,” she said, “is the same thing that’s wrong with my loft on Chestnut Street. It’s way too close. Whenever I go there, all you have to do is leave me alone and, in no time at all, I’ll come home, wagging my tail behind me. And we’re right back where we started. McCabe, I can’t take it anymore.”
“If I stopped being a cop, would you take me back?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“What would I do with myself in San Francisco?”
“I’ve told you before. You could teach.”
“Teach what? Where?”
“I’m sure they’ve got courses in criminal justice out here. As far as I know, it’s the only thing you’re a certified expert in. Or maybe you could do corporate security. That guy you went to NYU with once offered you a job doing that. Six-figure salary, as I recall. Probably some tech companies out here that would love to have you.”
McCabe shook his head. “Kyra, I don’t teach. I don’t do tech. I chase bad guys. That’s who I am.”
There were ten seconds of silence before she said, “I know.” The two words pregnant with regret for what might have been. For what would never be. “That’s why I’m in San Francisco. Too far away to pop over when missing you really starts to hurt. Which I know it will.”
“Or when I start missing you?”
“Which I know you will. And guess what? You’ll always be welcome.”
“Even if you fall in love with another guy? One of those Bay Area painters. Like that Richard Diebenkorn guy you’re always talking about.”
“Unfortunately, Diebenkorn’s dead. Almost twenty years now.”
“All right then. Somebody who’s alive.”
“I’ll let you know if that happens.”
That pretty much finished the conversation.
He asked her what he should do with her paintings that hung in the apartment.
“Just keep them as a reminder of what might have been.”
He hadn’t taken them down yet. But he knew he would.
Chapter 13
“DO YOU KNOW what today is?” Aimée asked.
“Graduation day?”
“For me, my lovely Lord Byron, today is Independence Day.” Her warm breath blew softly in his ear as her hand explored her AP English teacher’s slender white body, still moist from lovemaking.
“What do you mean?”
“As of today, according to the official rules of the game, I can fuck you anytime, anywhere and in any weird way I want. And nobody can do a damned thing about it. Isn’t that delicious?”
Knowles smiled. “Not for the next ten minutes you can’t. I don’t care how delicious you are.”
She slipped her tongue in his ear. “Wanna bet?” she murmured, sliding her hand between his legs. He began growing hard.
“C’mon, Byron,” she breathed playfully, “rise to the occasion.” Her voice little more than a whisper, she pulled him toward her, sliding her legs around his.
Aimée suddenly tensed. She could have sworn she’d heard someone laughing outside the window. Could Mr. Jolley be up to his old tricks? Or was Moseley spying on her? She slid out of bed, walked to the window and peered out. Saw nothing but moonlight broken by the blackness of trees. Heard nothing but the sound of a gentle wind blowing through the leaves. Perhaps that was all the sound had been. A gust of wind.
“What’s the matter?” asked Byron.
“Nothing. Just thought I heard something. Or maybe someone.”
She made sure the curtains were as tightly closed as they could be, checked the lock on the door and returned to bed.
Byron slipped his arms around her body, stroked her back and pulled her down on top of him. They began to move together, slowly, rhythmically. Not the eager, breathless coupling of twenty minutes earlier, but a gentler, more measured lovemaking. Knowles murmured poetry in her ear as they moved.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
He knew Aimée loved it when he recited Lord Byron during sex.
When they’d finished, the two of them lay silently, side by side, on the pull-out sofa bed in the same small studio on the far end of the island where the first Aimée had painted her paintings and pleasured her lover. The same studio where, a little more than one hundred years ago, Mark Garrison was said to have stabbed and then chased her as she’d fled toward the cliff two hundred yards away.
Some of Garrison’s studies of her, paintings and drawings both clothed and nude, hung on the wall, having been methodically hunted down and purchased over the years by the first Aimée’s son, Edward Whitby III. The one they called Teddy. Daddy’s grandfather. Most of the drawings predated the large portrait in the main house. The story, the way it was told, was that their affair had been going on long before Garrison painted the portrait. Mostly they met in Boston, but occasionally, when Edward was away, here on the island. It was said that the affair was the main reason the first Aimée had wanted Garrison, rather than Sargent, to paint her portrait though Sargent was generally considered superior.
Byron Knowles slid off the bed and walked over for a closer look at the drawings. This was his first time in the studio. His first time on the island.
Aimée followed and stood behind Byron as he examined them. She wrapped her arms around his body. Rested her head on his shoulder.
“You know, it’s amazing,” he said. “Even in these gestural drawings you look exactly like her. Face. Body. Physical attitude. Everything.
It’s quite remarkable.” He turned, slipped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “And now, my darling girl,” he said softly, “it’s time for me to leave. I promised Gina I’d be home by midnight. And it looks like I’m going to be more than two hours late. There’ll be an almighty row when I get there. I know she suspects what’s going on.”
Aimée pulled him even closer. “Byron, please. Isn’t it time you told your wife you’re leaving her? That you’re coming to Providence with me? You don’t love her. You love me. You’ve told me so at least a dozen times.”
“We’ve talked about this before. You know it can’t happen. At least not right now.”
“Why can’t it happen? You know you’d be happier.”
“Yes, I probably would be. At least for a while. Until you grew bored with me.”
“That wouldn’t happen.”
“If you were being honest, you’d know it would. Besides, what could I do in Providence? Having walked out on my pregnant wife and child and run off with a former student, no school would ever hire me. In Providence or anywhere else. I’d be lucky if I didn’t get sent to jail.”
Knowles smiled sadly and kissed her softly on the lips. Walked over to the window and looked out into the night. “There’s a law against teachers falling in love with their students. At least those under eighteen.”
Aimée retreated to the bed and covered herself with the sheet. “I’m no longer your student. And I’m no longer under eighteen.”
“No, but this affair didn’t start twelve hours ago, and people would surely figure that out. If that somebody happened to be your father, I hate to think what he’d do. Probably pay somebody like that Kraft guy or my wife’s macho-man father to come down to Providence, cut me into little pieces and throw me in the river.”
“Daddy’s not like that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. He strikes me as a man who doesn’t take kindly to people who mess around with what he considers his.”
“He’s not a thug, and I’m not his property.”
“No. But he loves you and he’ll want to protect you.”
“Byron, this isn’t fair. I don’t want to lose you.” Aimée felt tears coming. She’d always been capable of crying on demand, but these were genuine. “If you came to Providence, you could concentrate on your writing. Your poetry or maybe the screenplay we talked about. You said your friend Meyers thinks it’s a great idea. And at night, when I come back from my classes, we’d drink wine, eat dinner and make love all night. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Sounds delightful. It really does. But poetry doesn’t pay enough to keep a mouse alive. And while Meyers thinks the movie idea has potential, potential is not a contract. Besides, I’m not even halfway done with it.”
“Why does any of that matter? I’m rich, remember? My grandfather’s trust fund became all mine last April. Which makes me . . . what would Lord Byron have called it? A woman of independent means?”
“That wasn’t Lord Byron,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken, it was Sally Fields. At least in the movie version. Anyway, even if I didn’t get arrested and go to jail, there’s still no way I could allow myself to live off your money.”
“You let me pay rent on the apartment.”
“Yes. And I feel guilty as hell about that.”
“You also told me you planned on divorcing your wife.”
“Aimée, we’ve talked about this before. Yes, I want a divorce. I’ve told Gina I wanted one. Not once but three or four times. But she’s a good Catholic girl and she won’t hear of it.”
“You’re not her slave. You could just leave.”
“Yes, I could. But she’s eight months pregnant and I’m sleeping with a teenager and former student. Gina’s vindictive. She’d let everyone from Cobb to your father know what happened. She’d try to humiliate us publically. And if she ever did agree to a divorce, even a semicompetent lawyer would make sure she got every nickel I ever made. Now and forever more. She’s a self-righteous bitch who’d hang us both out to dry.”
Aimée folded her arms across her chest. Her mouth went into classic pout mode. “What good is being rich if I can’t have the things I want?”
Knowles shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you. Life isn’t easy? Even if we suffered the slings and arrows of public humiliation and I allowed you to support me, what would happen when you lost interest? When you got bored playing house with an aging poet and wannabe screenwriter and decided you wanted somebody new? Somebody younger. More exciting. More interesting.”
“I won’t get bored. I promise.”
“Yes you will, and I think you know that as well as I do. What do I do then?”
Aimée stared at him angrily. He was being an asshole. “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Get a job. Write a book. Make your fucking movie. Jesus Christ, Knowles, get a life instead of letting your nasty little wife treat you like a fucking floor mat.”
“I’m afraid, Aimée, I already have a life,” he said as he pulled on his clothes. “Which at the moment includes not just my wife but a little girl, just four years old, who I love. Not to mention another child due in a month. No, I don’t think so. As amazing as you are and as sad as it makes me to say this, I think this will have to be our last time.”
Her body jerked, as if shocked by an electric current. “As amazing as I am? Don’t you really mean as amazing as the sex has been? Isn’t that what you really meant to say? Probably all you ever wanted from me was sex. All that ‘I love you’ stuff and ‘I want to divorce my wife’ stuff? That was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”
He reached out for her. She slapped his hand away.
“I’m sorry, Aimée. I do love you. You’re one of the most beautiful, talented, irresistible women I’ve ever met. But you’re also my student. Which makes my behavior over the past few months not only illegal but also unforgivable.” He smiled ruefully. “It was stupid and self-indulgent. I’ve never been strong enough to say no to you, but now I have to be.”
Aimée’s face contorted in anger. “You stupid, stupid man. Don’t you know what you’re throwing away?”
“Not throwing away. I’m giving you your life back.”
“You bastard,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “You’ve taught me well. I can quote your namesake as well as you: ‘Remember thee! Remember thee! Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream. Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream!’ ” She spat out the words. “Remember thee, my dear Byron, remorse shall haunt thee like a feverish dream!”
Byron Knowles barely heard the last few words before he closed the door and headed for the Whitby family’s private dock, where his boat was tied up.
Chapter 14
HAD BYRON BEEN less distracted by the angry parting with Aimée and less preoccupied with the coming confrontation with Gina, he might have realized he was being followed. But Byron neither looked back nor paid attention to the occasional sound behind him of dry leaves rustling or the odd twig snapping.
He was too involved with his own thoughts as he walked the wooded path toward his boat, the Patti Ann. Byron’s father had originally named the old boat for Byron’s mother. But Byron had told his four-year-old daughter, whose name was also Patti Ann, that Grandpa had named it for her as well. Yes, a lie, but only a little lie—in most families a harmless thing which pleased both his mother and his daughter.
It was only Gina who disapproved. Gina with her rigid moral stances. If lying was wrong, she said, lying was wrong. Little lies as wrong as big ones. White lies as wrong as black. Which really cut to the core of the problem. If Gina found out what he’d been up to and who he’d been having an affair with, she’d demand a confrontation. Not just with him but also with Aimée. Edward Whitby would find out. Headmaster Cobb would find out. The trustees of Penfield Academy would find out. The whole damned world would find out. It was all too distressing to even think about. The best thing he could do was deny, deny, deny. Keep the lies consistent an
d behave as if the whole thing had never happened.
No question Gina suspected the affair. All the signs were there. The frequent suspiciousness in her voice. The close questioning about where he’d been and who he’d been with. And, most damning of all, the time he woke in the middle of the night to find her going through his wallet and briefcase. He remembered the conversation verbatim.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“The Chart House,” she said.
“What?”
“The Chart House. The restaurant in Cape Neddick.” She waved a slip of white paper at him. “You had dinner there on April twenty-third.” She paused and looked again at the slip of paper. “Paid the bill at 9:53.”
Byron’s mind was racing. How in God’s name was he going to get away with this one? April twenty-third. Aimée’s eighteenth birthday. She’d wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate. He’d tried to talk her out of it. Told her it wasn’t a good idea.
“What’s the matter? Afraid we’ll get caught?” she’d teased.
“Damned right I am.”
She’d pouted. He’d relented, since Gina would be out at her church group. They’d driven all the way down to Cape Neddick to avoid running into anyone they knew. It had been the only time they’d ever gone out together in public, and, schmuck that he was, he’d left the fucking receipt in his wallet.
“Two hundred and eight dollars and twenty-six cents,” said Gina.
Aimée had insisted on paying the bill. He wouldn’t let her.
“No way,” he’d said. “It’s your birthday. My treat.”
“I had dinner,” he told Gina, “with Barry Meyers.” Meyers was his old roommate from Bowdoin and still his best friend. “He flew in from L.A. for some meetings in Boston and he called me and suggested we get together.”
“And you paid for it? Meyers is a damned Hollywood screenwriter. Makes zillions, and I can’t even afford to buy new underwear.”
“We split. I insisted. Barry gave me his half in cash. And you know damned well you can afford underwear.” Jesus, she drove him crazy with that “I can’t afford underwear” bullshit.