Acid Bath
Page 12
She noticed with dismay that the restaurant had valet parking. Karl turned his car, a very sedate, exquisitely cared-for family sedan, over to a young man who looked like a hundred young men she’d interviewed in gang shootings. She wondered if the car would reappear when they had finished dinner. But then, this kid, if he was moonlighting as a car thief, probably pursued his second occupation in Los Santos.
They mounted the steps to a Mediterranean-style mansion, white stucco with wrought-iron filigree and a lush yard. It had, no doubt, belonged to some Mexican millionaire who sold it when the neighborhood became too commercial. Inside, the decor was traditional Hispanic, dark carved furniture of much better quality than anything Elena owned. And the other diners, including her escort, were better dressed than she. Elena sighed. Maybe I ought to forgo a few home improvement projects and spring for some clothes, she thought, especially if I’m going to be dating Bonnard. She smiled across the table at him as she was handed a menu big enough to wallpaper her bathroom. Of course, after tonight they might never have another date. He might have noticed the dress she was wearing.
Then she thought of Sarah. If she had to arrest Sarah, it wouldn’t look good to be dating a member of Sarah’s department. I should have stayed home, Elena thought gloomily, but allowed herself to be distracted as Bonnard began to tell her the tale of his failed marriage.
“My wife’s a delightful woman,” he said over avocado soup. “Well, she was a delightful woman. About six months ago she fell into some sort of — how shall I describe it? — religious frenzy. She joined one of these charismatic sects where they speak in tongues.”
Elena stuck her fork into a piece of marinated jícama and tried to imagine the wife of the handsome and dignified Dr. Bonnard speaking in tongues, perhaps rolling around on the floor of some little storefront church.
“I am an engineer, after all. I found the whole thing inexplicable and embarrassing. Mary Ellen even told my friends and colleagues about her religious eccentricities.” He stopped talking about his wife to break off and eat a small piece of crusty roll, murmuring, “To clear the palate.” Elena wondered if she was supposed to clear hers too. Evidently not. Karl took a judgmental sip from the minuscule amount of wine the waiter had poured for him.
Elena understood the purpose of the wine-tasting ritual, not that Frank had ever drunk wine, except for the Tattinger anniversary bottle he had suggested as a substitute for marriage counseling. What she didn’t understand was how the taster, should he be dissatisfied, was expected to respond. For instance, did he spit the test mouthful out somewhere? On the tablecloth? She pictured Karl Bonnard doing that and suppressed a grin. In fact, he seemed to be satisfied. One waiter was now pouring wine into her glass while another prepared her flaming tournedos. With appreciation she watched the blue flame leap from the copper pan that held her dinner. This was living!
“I have to admit that I find creation scientism, which is a tenet of their belief, not only intellectually unacceptable, but personally distasteful,” said Karl before she could get the first bite of beef in brandy sauce to her mouth. She was trying out French food again. Sarah had been crazy about it.
Elena realized that she should have anticipated this conversation, but why was it that divorced and separated men always wanted to talk about their ex-wives? She could have told Bonnard stories about Frank that would have curled his hair, but she was too considerate to do it. Still, Karl was very handsome, and the beef was wonderful.
“Our arguments,” said Karl, as if Elena were hanging on to his every word, “became increasingly acrimonious. She seemed quite a different person from the amiable woman I once loved.”
Frank had changed a lot too, Elena thought. From a cheerful practical joker to a guy who couldn’t stand it when she did better on the civil service exams than he had. Who wanted her to transfer to Narcotics so he could show her he was the better cop, who slugged her when she accused him of infidelity.
“She’s gone off to some religious retreat from which I fully expect she will not be returning.”
If she is planning to return, thought Elena with dismay, I’m dating a married man. The monologue continued in the same vein through the main course and the salad that followed — one long parade of bewildered complaints about the absent Mrs. Bonnard. If Karl had done as much complaining while his wife was in residence as he was doing in her absence, Elena wasn’t surprised that the woman had left. Not that Elena couldn’t sympathize with him. It wasn’t much fun to see the person you married turn into an unpleasant stranger. Still, she’d rather have talked about something else. To get through the next round of bitching, she ordered Cherries Jubilee for dessert, having been so happy with her arsonist’s entree. She did wonder, as the cherries went up in flames, whether the restaurant had sufficient fire extinguishers to protect the diners should the whole place follow suit.
Then Karl took her by surprise. “I’ve been a long-winded bore,” he admitted. “You’re probably thinking, ‘No wonder the poor woman left him.’”
Elena, who had learned to control her expression in a hundred cutthroat poker games with Frank and his buddies, didn’t reveal by so much as a flicker of the eye that he’d guessed exactly what she was thinking. Instead she gave him a noncommittal smile.
“You’ve been a good sport,” he said, taking her by surprise again. “I imagine this has happened to you before — I mean a divorced or separated man telling you his marital problems.”
Elena shrugged and said in an attempt to be tactful, “Since men don’t talk to each other, they have to talk to someone sometime.”
“That’s an interesting point of view. Are you saying you think men are more repressed than women?”
“Emotionally?” Elena thought about it. “Sure. Men ignore whatever’s bothering them as long as they can. Then they hit someone.” She was thinking of Frank, but she knew other men like that.
“And you think women don’t repress their emotions, then lash out?”
“Women are certainly less given to violence. A look at any police blotter shows that. But to take an example closer to home, look at Sarah Tolland. From what you said about Gus McGlenlevie, she’d certainly have reason to build up a lot of resentment, yet she seems more amused by her ex than resentful.”
“I didn’t realize you knew Sarah.”
“I investigated the snail thing. She was perfectly calm. He was the one tossing accusations around. In fact, can you imagine Sarah Tolland lashing out at anyone?”
There was a fractional hesitation. Then Bonnard shrugged and said, “As I told you, engineers seek logical solutions.”
“Murder’s hardly that,” said Elena.
“One wouldn’t think so.” Then he smiled. “I hope you didn’t accept my invitation to dinner in order to talk about my chairwoman.”
“No, of course not.” Elena felt a little guilty. She poked at a brandy-soaked cherry with her spoon. Why had he hesitated when she said, “Can you imagine Sarah lashing out?” Had he seen Sarah as anything but calm and precise? He’d replied by saying, “Engineers seek logical solutions.” And murder sure wasn’t a logical solution to an irritating ex. So why had that sounded like an evasion? The answer was that it wasn’t evasive. He’d said that before. About engineers.
“ . . . pretty lady end up on the homicide squad?”
“I beg your pardon?” She tuned back in at the end of a sentence that tended to raise her feminist hackles.
“I asked how such a pretty lady managed to end up on the homicide squad?”
As opposed to what? Ending up barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen where I belong? asked the Mrs. Frank Jarvis voice in her head. Frank had suddenly wanted to be a father when she made detective and he didn’t make sergeant, although when she’d finished school and suggested that they have a baby, he’d said, “Narcs make lousy fathers.”
“Crimes Against Persons,” she corrected Bonnard, “not homicide. The victim doesn’t have to die to get our attention.”
Elena turned that remark over in her head. He seemed to be paying her straightforward compliments, yet she could have sworn that the what’s-a-pretty-girl-like-you garbage had been sexist.
“Not all women adjust to responsibility so sensibly, you know. Ah — “ He looked as if he were searching for an example. “Well, no matter.”
“Who were you thinking of?” she pressed.
“No one in particular. Just some women in positions of authority tend to overreact to stress — completely lose it, as the students say.” He smiled and took a sip of his espresso.
Completely lose it? Was he talking about Sarah? She was the woman in a position of authority that he’d see the most of. Elena had never seen Sarah completely lose it. Did that mean Sarah was capable of losing control and — say — murdering someone? Dear God, thought Elena, have I been ignoring evidence because my assumptions about her were all wrong? Did I discount the snail episode because even then she didn’t seem like a murderer to me?
“My point is that you defy the stereotype of the overemotional female in charge.”
He’d been talking stereotypes. Not Sarah Tolland. I’m getting paranoid about this case, Elena thought.
“I know we’re supposed to support classes, as opposed to individuals. I should be advocating that homicide squads all over the country reflect the general population in gender, race, whatnot, but the truth is that I’m more interested in individuals. You’ve worked your way into a position that, I’m sure, was hard to achieve, and I admire you for it. Even more, I admire the way you handle it now that you’ve got it. I don’t doubt that you’ll do more to pave the way for other women in police departments than any radical feminist could ever do.”
Elena didn’t know whether she cared for the remark about radical feminists, but she could hardly fault him on a personal level. He’d paid her a very nice compliment, and she gave him a warm smile over her last spoonful of cherries.
“How about a brandy?” he asked, returning her smile.
“Why not?” she said. She seemed to be in need of it. Her nerves were still on edge. And all because he’d been talking about stereotypes. Not Sarah. In his office, he’d said flat out that Sarah wouldn’t have killed McGlenlevie, and Karl Bonnard ought to know Sarah a lot better than Elena did. Sarah and Bonnard had been colleagues for three years. After only six weeks’ acquaintance, Elena didn’t think Sarah had done it either, but she was happy to have her own opinion corroborated by someone who should know.
Twenty-one
* * *
Wednesday, May 27, 4:40 P.M.
Sarah tugged her bags aboard the airport shuttle, wondering how things had gone in the department during her absence. There had been no calls for help from Virginia or from Karl Bonnard, to whom Sarah delegated authority in her absence. He was the only other tenured full professor in the department and, therefore, had a seniority equivalent to hers, if anyone could be said to have seniority in a university that was only three years old. Of course, Sarah wouldn’t have expected any calls from Bonnard, who held his own abilities in high regard. She sighed, climbed off the shuttle bus, and pulled her wheeled suitcase four parking spaces down the line to her car, wishing she regarded Bonnard as highly as he regarded himself.
Well, perhaps nothing had gone wrong. Hard to believe, when she’d left with finals week still in progress, but the ever vigilant Virginia hadn’t called — not even to complain about Bonnard, whom she detested, although Sarah had never been sure quite why. Virginia did tend to be opinionated. To be on the safe side, Sarah decided to stop by the department before going home. There was time, but only because her bag had been spewed off the plane with unusual speed. She threaded through the heavy afternoon traffic on the interstate, her air conditioner running full blast. After the cool late spring weather in Boston, Los Santos’ dry heat felt like full summer.
During her drive south around the mountain, her mind wandered to Colin Stuart, an electrical engineering professor from the University of Washington whom she’d met in Chicago. He was well known in the field and a charming man, forty-five or so, with a slender body, a fine craggy Scots face, and hair of a distinguished gray, although not perhaps as gray as her own. With her the original blond color disguised the aging process.
She and Colin Stuart had met for cocktails and dinner Wednesday night and dinner Thursday, having become acquainted after her own talk. He had come forward, afire with interest, which was always flattering, and whisked her off to the hotel cocktail lounge for a discussion of her paper. She had also discovered during that first evening that Stuart was looking to make a move because of escalating allergy problems in Washington.
Sarah had suggested during their second dinner that he might like to spend a semester at Herbert Hobart to get away from northwestern pollen. The delicately stated offer included the inference that, should he find Herbert Hobart to his liking, a permanent position would be available. She warned him about the students, who were not always impressively bright. Some were very good, she said, and “with a big endowment and lots of money in our budget — “
“Enough to take on visiting professors at a whim?” he broke in, smiling. “I envy you the financial independence. State institutions all over the country, as you probably know, are facing yearly budget cuts.”
Sarah nodded and went on to say that there was money to hire good postdoctoral fellows or bring several along with him if he wanted. “It facilitates the research,” she explained and added, “We do have our better undergraduates in research programs, although that takes up more of the professor’s time and poses certain limitations to the difficulty of the work.”
“I think I could live with it,” said Dr. Stuart. “May I get back to you?”
“Yes, certainly. You’ll want to discuss it with your wife.”
“Unhappily, my wife and I divorced recently,” said Dr. Stuart.
“I’m so sorry to hear it,” Sarah replied.
“Thank you. My allergist surmises that the stress of our breakup may have brought on my problems, which had been mild to nonexistent before.”
“Perhaps you’d find the desert kinder to your health,” said Sarah, “and the change of scene might help with the post-divorce stress.”
“You’re very thoughtful,” he said, and Sarah at that point had felt a frisson of interest that went beyond the professional. Now she had to wonder how smart it was to hire, even temporarily, a man she found attractive. She’d been off men entirely since Gus, and at age forty-two really thought that she might not try marriage again, that she was quite happy single, ecstatic really, since she’d put Gus out of her life. Even intelligent women could be exceedingly foolish where men were concerned. An electrical engineer had no business being swept away by a poet, no matter how amusingly eccentric or how adept in the bedroom.
Sarah sighed and pulled over into a slower lane because some redneck in a pickup truck was honking. “Oaf,” she muttered. The only person who drove a pickup truck that Sarah had ever found socially interesting was Elena Jarvis, and she did suppose that Elena, with her amazing number of fix-up projects on that charming if disintegrating adobe, needed a pickup truck. Sarah herself was very happy that the university furnished her with an apartment. She’d have to see about getting one for Colin Stuart if he accepted her offer. If he didn’t — well, that might be for the best, although she knew that she’d be disappointed.
She slowed and turned off onto the Herbert Hobart exit, heading toward the campus, which was tacked between arroyos on the west side of the mountain. She could have sworn the temperature dropped thirty degrees, but no doubt it was an illusion created by the oasis of green which Herbert Hobart maintained, as if the campus were situated in Miami Beach, its architectural an
d landscaping mentor. Every building was a copy of some art deco delight from the historic district, every inch of the ground lushly landscaped with tropical grasses, bushes, palm trees, flowers.