Dominion

by Greg F. Gifune

  “You have my word, Elliot.”

  “I hate to bother anyone on Thanksgiving, but I’ll tell you what. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll give Jeff a call and see what I can do. Jeff knows him fairly well, so he can probably at least get you a meeting with him. Soon as I have any information I’ll give you a call.”

  Daniel was about to thank him when he heard Audrey approaching, her heels clacking along the staircase and then coming closer until she breezed into the den and made one of her usual dramatic appearances.

  “Danny,” she said in a slightly nasal voice. Still a few feet away, she opened her arms in welcome. “Happy Thanksgiving, it’s so good to see you.”

  Attractive, with big blue eyes, an upturned nose and an overall waspish look, on this afternoon Audrey had worn a light pink form-fitting designer dress just above the knees and a pair of matching sling-back heels. A scarf that probably cost more than Daniel’s entire wardrobe was tied loosely around her neck and her makeup was light but perfectly applied. Her nails were polished a shade of pink that came close to the dress and shoes, and her brown hair had been cut shorter than she normally wore it into a bob of sorts with wispy ends that curled behind her ears. She looked ready to walk a red carpet rather than stand around in her own home with an old friend, and though Daniel thought it a bit ridiculous, he needed her to talk with him. Staying on her good side was paramount.

  “Hey Audrey,” he said as she leaned into him and offered a pseudo hug. “Good to see you too.”

  She surrendered her cheek and he kissed it lightly. “Sorry, I was just getting myself together. I’ve been tramping around the house all day in my jam-jams, isn’t that awful?”

  “No need to get all dressed up on my account.”

  “Don’t be silly, this is hardly dressed up.” She sauntered over to the bar.

  “Well, you look terrific.”

  “You’re too sweet.” She mixed herself a gin and tonic.

  Audrey had always been quite thin, and with her manic, nervous disposition it seemed unlikely she’d ever be anything but. In direct contrast to Elliot’s more relaxed demeanor, Audrey was constantly wound tighter than a drum. Daniel could not remember her ever sitting still or just relaxing for any extended period of time. She was always the first one up and moving, talking all the while, and he often found her tiring to be around. Like a moth flitting endlessly around a flame he sometimes secretly fantasized screaming at her, “Will you light!” But just the same, she had been Lindsay’s best friend for years, and he respected that. He didn’t always like Audrey, but he’d learned to tolerate her even when she was at her most annoying, and he assumed she’d done the same as they’d never had a bad word between them. In the last three years, since her enormous success, she’d begun to change, and though she was still the nervous type she’d become more impressed with herself than the uncertain and anxious woman he’d known so long. Even Lindsay had remarked not long before her death that she was going to have to “talk to that girl” about how she was behaving. “She forgets,” Lindsay had said, “I knew her when she worked at Burger King.” Yet Lindsay had also defended her best friend until the day she died, always reminding Daniel that Audrey was a good person at heart, and someone who had always been there for her, rain or shine.

  “I invited Danny to stay for dinner but he can’t,” Elliot announced.

  “Oh,” she said with an exaggerated pout, “are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid so, sorry.”

  She raised her glass in toast. “Thank God I married a man that can cook. Otherwise we’d be having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  “Yes, but they’d be the most stylish sandwiches anyone had ever seen.” Elliot finished his drink and threw Daniel a quick wink.

  Audrey smirked. “Isn’t he hilarious? If only he’d take it on the road.”

  “Be back in a minute, need to check the capon.” Elliot made a hasty exit.

  “Do you like capon, Danny?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not really sure what it is.”

  “It’s a castrated male chicken.”

  “Like chickens don’t have enough problems.”

  She threw her head back and laughed with more fervor than seemed necessary. Despite its lack of sincerity, he envied her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed that hard, genuinely or otherwise.

  A moment later she asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from your former in-laws?”

  Daniel moved closer to the fire, felt its warmth embrace him. “No.”

  Audrey rolled her eyes. “Classless.”

  He heard her heels against the floor as she walked slowly across the room and joined him in front of the fireplace. Her perfume wafted about, mixed with the smell of the fire. The sudden lull in their conversation was filled by the soft classical music and an occasional crackle from the fire.

  “Lindsay’s been on my mind a lot lately,” Audrey said. “I dream about her sometimes.”

  “Are they good dreams?”

  “Beautiful.” Audrey’s upper lip twitched, her façade of control nearly crumbling beneath the weight of emotion. “They’re all very similar. She’s in a field or walking along a picturesque landscape. She’s happy, and it’s like she’s letting me know she’s OK. They’re so real, so vivid, sometimes I find myself wishing it really was her.”

  “Do you think it is?”

  “I hope so, Danny.” The ice in her glass clicked as she took a drink. “I really do.”

  For an instant he considered telling Audrey everything that had happened. Maybe Lindsay would’ve wanted him to. “I’m trying to work some things out,” he said carefully, “and I need to ask you some questions about Lindsay.” She turned to him but said nothing. “I’m trying to piece together some things about the night she was killed. I spoke to Brad Shaffer yesterday and—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You know I spoke to Brad?”

  “He called me.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He was concerned.”

  “Concerned about what?”

  “He said you’d come to see him, asked a lot of questions about Lindsay—some rather accusatory and confrontational—and your demeanor worried him. He said you didn’t seem yourself. He called to let me know because he thought you might be coming to talk with me too.”

  “So he gave you a heads-up to let you know I’d be coming and asking questions you might not want to answer, is that it? For Christ’s sake, what—”

  “Danny, calm down. You’re arguing with yourself. Brad simply called to let me know, as a friend, that you might be coming to see me, and that you were troubled about the night Lindsay was killed. Why would I tell you he called me if either of us had bad intentions? My God, you know me well enough to know I’d certainly never do anything to hurt you.”

  Every emotion—every nerve—was raw and bubbling just beneath the surface, the slightest agitation capable of driving him over the edge. “Good,” he said through clenched teeth, “because I need you to be honest with me.”

  She smiled with her eyes. “Why would I be anything but?”

  “Maybe to protect Lindsay?”

  The humor in Audrey’s face deserted her. “That assumes Lindsay was guilty of something that needs protecting, doesn’t it.”

  “I’m not playing games,” he said evenly.

  “Neither am I. Ask your questions.”

  “Was there something between Brad and Lindsay?”

  She crossed an arm over her midriff and again faced the fire. “Friendship.”

  “Anything more?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, of course not.”

  “Do you know if she spoke to anyone regularly online, maybe someone she met in a chat room or that kind of thing?”

  She seemed genuinely perplexed by the question. “You mean like an online romance or something?”

  “Romance, friendship, anything, just someone she knew online and spoke to on the computer a
lot.”

  “She never told me anything like that. You know Lindsay wasn’t into computer games or that kind of thing, and I never knew her to frequent chat rooms. In fact Lindsay spent so much time on computers at work she always used to say the last thing she wanted to do was go home and spend more time on them. She never understood why people spent their lives in front of computer screens if they didn’t have to.”

  Daniel nodded. That was an accurate description of Lindsay. She never spent time on the computer at home unless it was to check her email, to buy something online or to do something work related. Even on those rare occasions when he’d seen her use the chat messenger program it was briefly and with either a friend or someone from work. Everywhere he looked the computer angle was coming up empty, yet he knew there had to be a connection, something he was missing, maybe something right in front of him. “I was just wondering if maybe she’d mentioned something like that to you.”

  “You knew Lindsay better than anyone, Danny. You’re asking me questions about her as if you barely knew her yourself.”

  She’s right, he thought, and it made him feel guilty. He asked his next question regardless. “Do you know what she was up to the night she was killed?”

  “You knew her and loved her for years, and on the night she dies there’s a bit of mystery concerning why she was where she was and now you’re willing to let that shake the entire foundation of what you two had together? Suddenly you no longer know who Lindsay was? All your trust and beliefs are shattered that easily?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Your questions imply it.”

  Guilt gave way to annoyance. “So you’re in a position to judge me now, is that it?”

  She cocked her head to the side and assumed a rather defiant pose. “Are any of us truly in a position to judge anyone? What were you doing the night Lindsay was killed?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” she said dismissively, “just saying, who are any of us to—”

  “Do you know what she was doing at the motel that night or not?”

  Audrey hesitated and seemed to think her response through before offering it. “I wish I did, but no.” She held her glass up, watched the flames reflected in the liquor. “If she was doing what you’re obviously implying, she would’ve confided in me. I would’ve known. Whatever she was doing there, it was either a spur of the moment thing or a situation that put her there relatively quickly, in other words, something that hadn’t been planned ahead of time. That’s my theory.”

  “How can you be certain Lindsay would’ve told you if—”

  “Because we didn’t have secrets between us, that’s why.”

  “I didn’t think Lindsay and I had secrets between us either.”

  “And now you think differently?”

  “Should I?”

  “We told each other everything, even some things we didn’t tell our husbands, all right? Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn’t do the same with your best friend? You and Bryce never confide in just each other? Come on, Danny, if we’re going to do this then we both have to put our cards on the table, don’t we? Lindsay and I knew each other since we were children.” Audrey blinked rapidly, as if it might slow the sudden rise of moisture in her eyes. “We were like sisters, you know that.”

  Daniel nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t mean to get angry.”

  “Me either,” he said, feeling himself relax a bit. “I know you’re in pain too.”

  “Gee, you think?” She let out a staid sigh of laughter. “Neither of us can ever replace her. You’re lucky if once during the course of your life you bond with a friend the way Lindsay and I did. I never had another friend like her, and I never will again.”

  “I lost my wife, Audrey, the only woman I’ve ever loved, the woman I built and planned my entire life around. Do you think I don’t understand what you’re saying?”

  She reached out and tentatively let a hand rest on his shoulder. Their eyes met, and in that brief exchange their pain bound them to one another, cleansing them and damning them all at once. Suddenly Lindsay was there too, between them, her memory completing the triangle and turning it closer to the light. But Audrey let her hand fall away from him and the spell was broken, swiped away into oblivion like a flying insect swatted from midair. Darkness crept back, eclipsing the light. “Remember how she used to joke that one day we’d be two sexy old widows driving all the old men at the nursing home crazy?”

  “She used to say you two would outlive us for spite alone,” Daniel said.

  Audrey exhaled something that sounded like a combination between laughter and crying then fell silent for a while, her attention zeroed in on the flames dancing in the fireplace. “When I first met her I knew we’d be best friends for the rest of our lives. Right then, I knew it. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. High school wasn’t easy for either of us.” She carefully dabbed the tears from the corner of her eyes with a tissue that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. “I was gangly, silly-looking and built like a twelve-year-old boy. Lindsay was so painfully shy, quiet and unsure of herself I don’t think anybody even knew she was there for months. We were never the ‘in’ kids. Lindsay dubbed our little clique The Dork Brigade. She was always so smart that way, you know? Make fun of yourself before someone else gets the chance. But it still hurt.”

  Though Daniel had heard these stories before from Lindsay, he knew Audrey needed to get them out, to talk them through, so he let her continue uninterrupted.

  “We were late bloomers.” She flashed a quick smile. “We didn’t start to come into our own until we started college. I remember when she first called me to tell me she’d met you. She was so excited. I was suspicious, of course, as any best girlfriend would be.” She took a sip from her drink. “When I met you I didn’t want to like you, didn’t want to be quick to let you near her or to trust you because I knew how delicate Lindsay could be. I didn’t want you to hurt her. But when I saw how she looked at you, and how you looked at her, I knew none of my worries mattered. She’d never looked at anyone the way she looked at you.”

  Daniel cleared his throat. It was his turn to head off the tears.

  “She changed after that. You made her whole, and she never looked back.” Audrey turned to the flames, awash in memories. “We never really got the chance to rebel in high school. God knows I did in college—I went crazy with boys and booze and drugs—but Lindsay never really did. She had other boyfriends, of course, other relationships, but she never cut loose to the extent the rest of us did. She met you and that was it. Maybe that’s why she rebelled a bit later in life.”

  “Rebelled how?”

  “By living her life as she saw fit without apologizing to anyone or asking permission, for starters, because Lindsay gained something as a woman she never had as a girl: confidence. You helped bring that out in her, helped her realize what had been inside her all along. Thankfully she had the intelligence and wit to run with it and blossom into the woman she became.”

  “Was she faithful?” he asked, hoping for a telling reaction to such an abrupt question.

  Audrey disappointed him. “Were you?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “All those conventions through work you went to, even the ones in Las Vegas, and you never strayed, not once? Come on, Danny, you’re a salesman, and a damn good one. Women like you, find you attractive, I’m sure there were plenty of opportunities.”

  “It doesn’t mean I acted on any of them.”

  “It doesn’t mean you didn’t either.”

  “So what’s your answer to my question?”

  Elliot returned to the room, oblivious to their conversation and shaking his empty glass, the remains of ice cubes rattling within. “Back just in time for a fresh one! The capon looks fabulous, honey. Danny, are you sure you can’t stay?”

  Audrey turned and gave him a look th
at stopped him before he’d even reached the bar. Though she never said a word, his face fell and he began backing out of the room. “You know—you know what?” he stammered. “I have to check something in my office. Can you guys excuse me for another minute? I’ll be—be right back.”

  Once Elliot was gone she said, “A little over three years ago Lindsay was working on that account for some pasta company in upstate New York, do you remember? Brad was teamed with her on it but he was sick or something for one of their trips there and couldn’t make it. Lindsay went alone.”

  “I remember.”

  “Lindsay was staying at a hotel up there, alone, bored, a little lonely. She went to the bar in the hotel and had a few more drinks than she should have. She met a man. He was staying there on business too. I think she said he was from Florida.”

  Daniel felt his hand shake then tighten on the glass it was holding.

  “One thing led to another,” she said, speaking in a detached monotone, “and they ended up back in his room.”

  “Christ.” His stomach felt as if someone had punched him hard and fast, without warning. “Who was he? What’s his name?”

  “I have no idea. Want his address so you can go beat him up? Don’t be absurd.”

  Had Audrey been a man there was a good chance he might’ve hit her.

  “You asked for honesty. Do you want it or not?” She let her question hang in the air for a while. “They never actually went through with it, not all the way. Things were headed that way, of course, but Lindsay told me she stopped it. She said it was like she suddenly came to her senses and thought, ‘What the hell am I doing? I can’t do this, I don’t want this.’ So she put a stop to it before it went any further than it already had.” She reached out with her freehand, took his empty glass and strode back across the room to the bar. “They didn’t have intercourse.”

  “Well fucking hooray for them.” The pain in his stomach turned to nausea. “Should we throw the parade first or give out the medals?”

  She put the glass down and moved slowly back in his direction. “I know this hurts, but you need to understand that Lindsay stopped it. Do you have any idea the number of opportunities she had to sleep around? Had she wanted to, had she been like that, there would’ve been a line a mile long waiting for their turn and you know it. She loved you. She loved you more than anything in the world. She was human. Just like the rest of us, she was human. She stumbled that night, but she didn’t fall. And there is a difference.”