FrostLine

by Justin Scott

  “Slipped in the shower. You remember Julia Devlin, from Fox Trot?”

  “Nice to see you again,” said Vicky. Her pretty, lively face was framed by her curls like a ruby in a filigree setting.

  Julia nodded, a cool diamond on black velvet.

  “Ben, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to do ice. Come along and watch, if you like. Thought we’d sit out back and have a beer.”

  She hesitated for an instant. Then the light drifted from her face. “No, I can’t. I’m meeting someone.”

  Julia, who had stood by noncommittally, said as we stepped outside, “Am I causing you a problem?”

  “No, I’m pretty good at that on my own.”

  “Ben, if you want to do ice with her, feel free.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I took her in the kitchen door and opened a couple of Amstel Lights. Julia filled a plastic bag from the freezer and wrapped it in a towel and we went out to my cutting garden, where the day still lingered in the sky.

  I eased into an Adirondack chair and held the cold cloth to my face. Julia wandered the narrow paths, exclaiming at the lush colors. I enjoyed looking at her. She was a fitting addition to the garden, an ornament in fine-lined opposition to the extravagant, jungly end-of-summer foliage.

  She cast off her blues. “I love this,” she kept saying.

  I credited the seeper hoses buried under the mulch that had kept the flowers from wilting in the August heat. Coreopsis were hanging on, daisies, black-eyed Susans, zinnias and cosmos exploding into their own. My tea roses had just caught their third wind.

  “This is what Captain Jack dreams of at sea.”

  Of our beloved Patrick O’Brian novels, Jack Aubrey, a red-blooded fighting man and the scourge of Napoleon’s navy, had a black thumb ashore, where his often-bankrupt estate was host to every cutworm and weevil in the British Isles.

  “How do you do this?” she asked. The awe in her voice made me inordinately proud.

  “My Aunt Connie taught me, ‘Put a fifty-cent plant in a five-dollar hole.’”

  Julia really did seem to love flowers, so I winced up out of the chair, filled a coffee can with water, and cut her a bunch. She followed me to the mulch pile where I stripped excess foliage and arranged some semblance of a bouquet, highlighted with blue spikes of salvia. “Change the water and trim the stems every few days.”

  She studied them bloom by bloom, then surprised me with a warm kiss on the cheek. “Oh. Oh, God. I hope that didn’t hurt. Your poor face.”

  We sat down and drank beer.

  “Need more ice?”

  “No, it’s fine. Tell me, How’s the King-Butler defense fund coming along?”

  “I don’t know, yet. He may go for it. I can’t promise.”

  “Is he making your life miserable about it?”

  “No.”

  King couldn’t be happy. The dilemma’s horns I’d sent his way would scare the gonads off a matador. If he were involved in killing Dicky Butler, then Mr. Butler’s conviction for accessory to murder would end all investigations; but the trial could get awful messy if Mr. Butler repeated his claim that he had set charges that King had defused. But if King or his people didn’t murder Dicky Butler, the horns took on triceratops proportions: a trial that exposed King’s secrets would anger betrayed clients; yet Butler’s incarceration would let him snap up his farm.

  I said, “His best bet is to move quickly to get the charges dropped.”

  Julia changed the subject. “What are you doing to get his bail reduced?”

  “Tim’s hunting precedents back to Governor Winthrop’s administration. And tapping old friends of his father.”

  “That’s a lot of work pro bono.”

  “Ira Roth, mentor from hell, is encouraging him.”

  “And what are you doing?”

  “Going around asking questions.”

  “Is that how you got the black eye?”

  “You shoulda seen the other guys.”

  Julia smiled, a startling flash of white against her olive skin and midnight hair. “How many were there?”

  “Three. But I had some help from the cops.”

  “Cops? What were they doing there?”

  “I got lucky. A concerned citizen tipped them off.”

  “That was lucky.”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering if any of this was news to her. “They showed up in the nick of time.”

  We talked about luck as the evening fell. Patrick O’Brian wrote about it as a serious commodity. Henry King taught his acolytes that they needed three things to succeed. Talent, hard work, and luck. “He says we can’t make it big with only two.”

  “Are you lucky?”

  “In waves,” she answered. “I was lucky to meet Henry. Got me out of a dead-end job.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I could see down a long life of civil service like a tunnel. Suddenly there was light.”

  “A train.”

  “In a way. Henry came roaring through and I jumped aboard. Never looked back.”

  “Sounds like you left somebody lying on the tracks.”

  “In the station.” She tried to smile, tried to make a joke. “Please. I’m not that bad.”

  “Josh Wiggens,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The concerned citizen. Who called the cops.”

  “Josh? What was Josh doing there?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Are you being deliberately mysterious?”

  I was, but I denied it. “No. Maybe you could tell me what Josh was doing there.”

  “How would I know?”

  “Well, you work together.”

  “That may be, but I don’t—Where was this?”

  “Derby. It’s a river town.”

  “I know Derby. We were down there buying stained glass for the house.”

  “Then you know it’s a long way from Fox Trot.”

  “Ben.” She shook her head and looked baffled. “I don’t know what to say. He goes off on his own….”

  “Well, when you see him, tell him thanks. Saved me a trip to the emergency room.”

  “I have no idea what he was doing there.”

  “Maybe he was visiting his girlfriend or some old CIA buddy. There’s a helicopter plant near there. At any rate, it was lucky for me….Are you still lucky?”

  “Hope so. How about you?”

  “I think your friend Josh cashed in most of mine today.”

  “Henry says you should make your own luck.”

  “Lucky people say that. Makes them feel less afraid they’ll lose theirs….Am I right that you’re a little down, tonight?”

  “Just work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Maybe I’m a little depressed.”

  “Something happen?”

  “It was just—he was just…He screwed up and then…I don’t know.”

  “And then he blamed you.”

  “I guess that’s what happened—why do you keep pushing that button?”

  “In New York I had a woman like you work for me. And I saw plenty others. Big business, small business, there’s always a glorified go-fer stashed in the back room to keep the boss on track. Always a woman. Job description includes be cool, be calm, think ahead, cultivate contacts, cover the guy’s ass, and take abuse. It’s a hard life. The only happy ones go up and out.”

  “Did yours go up and out?”

  “Like a Saturn rocket. Nothing left but cinders on the launch pad.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “I survived. And so will Henry.”

  “But how did you feel? Were you scarred? Did it take forever to recover? Have you recovered?”

  “Yes. Mostly.”

  “Do you hate her?”

  “On my good days I tell myself I can look back in fifty years and say, ‘Better she got out than got old and
tired carrying my bags.’”

  Julia bristled. “Well, Henry would be the same way. He’d support me if I wanted to leave. He’d…do everything he could to help me—Ben, why do you make me doubt him?”

  “I’m sorry. I have a big mouth sometimes. I get very opinionated. And, to be honest, I like you. I’m fascinated by you. If you told me you were dumping him, I’d say, ‘How about a date?’”

  Julia regarded me for one of the most serious seconds I’ve ever experienced. “You know what I like about you?” she finally asked. “I like that you’re not afraid to annoy me.”

  “Why should I be afraid? I don’t need anything from Henry King.”

  “Everyone wants something from Henry King. All those bloodsuckers feeding off him.”

  “You mean like Josh and Bert?”

  “You want Mr. Butler’s lawyer paid.”

  “That’s a decision I can’t influence. I’ve done my job. I’ve brought it up—”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  In the fading light I could see a little pout shape her lips and cloud her eyes. “What did I say? You look hurt.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Henry King,” she answered quietly. “I was talking about me. You don’t know it, but when I’m not with him, I’m a very strong person. Most men are afraid to annoy me regardless of the boss I happen to work for.”

  “The boss who happens to treat you like a very weak person.”

  “Maybe you’re just like him.”

  “Me?”

  “Maybe you’re bullying me under a guise of telling me how terribly he treats me?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Maybe you want me to betray him.”

  “Better than betraying yourself,” I answered, with no idea whether we were talking about Mr. Butler or sex or love. Or, with luck, all three.

  An unlucky mosquito chose the moment I was leaning closer to land on Julia’s knee. I killed it and said, “Let’s go inside. They’re beginning to bite.”

  Chapter 21

  The kissing started on the wrong side of the screen door. It was long and hungry and when we finally got inside, we were kind of bitten up. Rubbing alcohol occasioned rubbing.

  Our fall into bed was the culmination of a slow tumble that had started last winter at that lunch at Fox Trot. It was worth the wait.

  If you tumble into a fall, what happens next? Fling? Swoop? Dive. Plunge. Immerse. Emerge.

  “Don’t stop!”

  We left the lights on. We drank a little beer. We demolished my stash of sensible protection. We raided hers. Deep in the night we got hungry and we went down to the kitchen and I made omelets. And though I garnished them with my last can of pâté de fois gras, I doubt we tasted them any more than reconnaissance jets refueling in the air.

  Partway up the stairs—old friends by now—we grew impatient, and acrobatic. DaNang, who had taken a shine to Julia, thumped his tail enthusiastically. I asked him to go out and hunt rattlesnakes. Back in bed, I told Julia she was the strongest woman I’d ever known. Her sleek arms and ripply legs were hard with muscle. She benched-pressed me to prove my point, and told me she worked out to burn excess sexual energy. I told her how glad I was the regimen hadn’t worked. While she rested, I turned us over and practiced curls.

  Birds woke us and we slipped together like we’d known how since the Ice Age. I was gone after that, like a skydiver minus chute, who had enjoyed every second of the trip. Suddenly, I awakened, thinking how wonderful life was, and only gradually realizing that something was wrong.

  Julia was curled on the far side of the mattress, her body tight, and shaking with sobs.

  I reached for her. She stiffened. I went to hold her. She pulled away.

  “Don’t.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Please don’t.”

  I climbed out of the bed, walked around it, and sat on the floor where I could see her face. I kept my hands to myself and said, “If it helps at all, you’ve made one person very happy.”

  “Great. You’re happy. That’s just wonderful.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  “Up until just now I thought you felt great.”

  “It was great. Thanks a lot.”

  “I’ve heard sweeter tones from sergeants of firing squads.”

  “Would you please just leave me alone. I’ll be okay in awhile. I really will.”

  I retreated to the kitchen figuring, okay, she’s feeling guilty about King, or mad at herself for betraying him, or mad at me for seducing her into it. I brewed some coffee and brought it upstairs, hers in a covered mug. She had curled under the sheet, small as a child. When I eased back into bed, she took the sip offered, then tentatively pillowed her head on my thigh and closed her eyes. Her face was streaked with tears and new ones kept creeping from her lashes.

  I think if murdering someone would have made her happy I’d have done it on the spot. She let me stroke her hair. After awhile, I asked, “Can you talk?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  I waited some more. “Mind if I guess?”

  “Yes, I do mind.”

  “It might help.”

  “Just because I slept with you doesn’t give you the right to know my whole dammed life.”

  “I don’t want to know your whole dammed life. I just wish you could be happy right here and now.”

  “This isn’t about you.”

  “I was hoping it was about us.”

  “Well, it’s not,” she snapped angrily.

  “So it’s about him.”

  When was I going to learn to keep my mouth shut? She sat up, bundling herself in the sheet, and glared. “It’s about my wasted life. Okay? Not yours. Not his. My wasted life. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Your face is bleeding.”

  “Just from washing.”

  “I’ll fix it.” She stalked to the bathroom—a sight to sizzle the retinas—ran warm water on a washcloth and dabbed my cheek. Then she rummaged in the medicine cabinet for Band-Aids and gently covered the cut. Being busy had stopped her tears, and when she was done with the Band-Aid, she kissed around it. “Hurt?”

  “No.” In fact, I told her, our night had done wonders for my aches and pains. Better, much better, than Aleve or Jack. Although in the interest of medical science, I wondered whether more testing was in order.

  “Could we do it without talking?”

  I nodded.

  ***

  When next she woke, she said, “You’re smiling.”

  “Yup.”

  She sat up and inspected the Band-Aid. “I hope you don’t have plans to get punched before this heals.”

  “I’m planning to spend the rest of the year in this bed with you.”

  “Tell me it’s not past nine.”

  “Eight-thirty.”

  “I gotta go.”

  “That door is barred.”

  “Oh, I wish.” She spotted the covered mug. “For me?… Oh, God. Thank you. You even make coffee.” She looked around my bedroom. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

  “Burned ’em,” I said. I showed her the shower and gave her a towel and a toothbrush and had fresh coffee ready when she came out. This was one houseguest I wanted coming back.

  I was surprised, considering the time, that she accepted my offer for breakfast. Coffee, toast, and Aunt Connie’s strawberry preserves.

  “So what are you doing today?”

  “Reminiscing.”

  “You sweet thing. No more fights?”

  “I think I’ll make it a phone and paperwork day.”

  Ollie was on my list. I had to build up a timeline for the hours the state trooper could have killed Dicky and dynamited the dam. No way to get a look at his log for the weekend of the Fox Trot party. But I could read the police reports in the Clarion to find the various miscreants Ollie had nailed s
peeding, cited for failure to maintain control of their vehicles or for making a restricted turn—his two favorite results for his traffic accident investigations—and arrested for beating up their wives.

  And while I was in, check out Henry King’s government status with the Admiral, which would entail waiting around for return calls.

  Julia stroked the head DaNang had dropped on her lap. “Real estate or Mr. Butler?”

  “There isn’t much real estate in late August. I’ve got plenty of time for Butler.”

  “Well, I’ll push Henry today. Can I tell him what you’re doing?”

  I’d been wondering about that all night. “There are a couple of theories going around that maybe Dicky Butler didn’t blow the dam.”

  “Isn’t that the state police theory?”

  “The cop theory says Mr. Butler helped Dicky, which makes him an accessory. Another theory says Mr. Butler blew the dam alone—and had the incredibly bad luck to accidentally kill his son in the process.”

  “Coincidence aside, that has a logical ring to it. Is there another theory?”

  “Neither of them did it.”

  “What?” She stopped patting. DaNang groaned and nearly turned over the table as he tried to get his head under her hand again. Julia asked, “Who, then?”

  “It’s just possible that Dicky was already dead and his killer blew it up on top of him to get rid of the body.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “They could count on a favorable post mortem.”

  “Is this your theory or the cops’ theory?”

  “I thought it was my theory. I worked it up with Tim Hall and Ira. But every place I go to ask a question Detective-Sergeant Boyce and weaselly sidekick are there ahead of me.”

  Assuming the worst—King killed Dicky, and Julia reported everything to him—he’d at least have to wonder whether the sudden death of an unarmed real estate agent would solve all his problems.

  “Is the weasel Bender?”

  “You’ve met.”

  “They were up at Fox Trot.”

  “When?”

  “Well, the day of the explosion, of course. And several times since.”

  “What did they ask?”

  Julia shrugged. “Josh dealt with them. He said they were following up on the explosion.”