While, on the Cape, Carolyn slept in a shallow grave.
As a favor, his civic duty, he’d helped with the financing of the overpass that would someday cover the landfill. He knew, therefore, that someday her body would rest beneath uncounted tons of concrete.
But he also knew that, as the trucks came to dump their loads and the bulldozers leveled the mounds left by the trucks, the blade of a bulldozer could uncover the body. It was a possibility, a short-run gamble. Long run, though, the concrete would set him free.
But never, he knew, would he be free from last night’s images: Carolyn, lying dead in her own blood. Carolyn, wrapped in the makeshift shroud. Carolyn, her body moving with the motion of the Cherokee—as if she were alive, and struggling weakly against the rope that bound her.
Carolyn—tumbling into the grave that had taken him more than an hour to dig, even in the soft, newly dumped dirt of the fill.
And, the final image: a hand or a foot or a head, turned up by the bulldozer blade.
Carolyn, rising …
1:10 P.M., EDT
“WHERE’S CHESTER?” KANE ASKED as he came down the Beechcraft’s air stairs to stand beside Daniels on the tarmac. Kane wore khaki trousers, a light cotton sports shirt, scuffed running shoes. He was medium height, medium stature. The short sleeves of the sports shirt revealed thick, muscular arms. He habitually carried his hands away from his body, as if he were prepared to move quickly, decisively. His sandy hair was thinning fast on top. His gray eyes were flat, revealing nothing. His manner was both watchful and self-sufficient. His face was closed. A white scar ran across his forehead, an inch above his dark, thick eyebrows. His mouth was small, his lips slightly misshapen.
“Chester’s picking me up outside.” Daniels gestured to a pair of airport line attendants waiting beside their motorized tug for instructions from Kane. “Get the airplane taken care of, then meet me in the—” About to say “the lounge,” he broke off. Then: “I’ll meet you in the bar. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“When’ll we be flying again?”
“The airplane might be going to Los Angeles tomorrow, but if that happens, you’ll have to get someone else to fly it.”
“Oh?” The question registered both puzzlement and bold displeasure. Kane didn’t like others flying the King Air. “Why’s that?”
“Because there’s—ah—something I want you to do for me, back on the Cape.”
Kane frowned. “The Cape?”
“Finish up here,” Daniels ordered curtly. “Then meet me in the bar. Be as quick as you can.” He turned abruptly. Carrying the attaché case, he walked across the tarmac toward the terminal.
1:20 P.M., EDT
IMPATIENTLY, DANIELS WAITED FOR the waitress to bring the beer Kane had ordered. Then he began speaking. The words were clipped and the tempo staccato, the approved mode for the commander delivering his battle plan:
“I don’t have much time, so I’m going to come right to the point. What I want to talk to you about is Carolyn—Miss Estes. You probably didn’t notice it Saturday when we flew up to the Cape, but she was in a pretty strange mood. She was—” The word was out before the terrible realization registered: he’d said was. Past tense. But if he corrected himself he compounded the blunder. So, smooth-talking, the maestro of deal-making, he heard himself saying: “She’s pretty heavily into cocaine. You probably don’t know that, but she is. And the past couple of days—” Projecting a wry puzzlement, he shook his head. “The past couple of days, she was really running wild. That’s, ah—” He broke off. Then, the ultimate gamble, he said, “That’s what happened last night. That’s the reason we didn’t go back to New York with you last night.”
“Ah.” Thoughtfully sipping the beer, Kane was nodding. “I was wondering, yeah.” The other man was reacting well within himself. Watching. Waiting. And, plainly, speculating.
“What happened last night,” Daniels said, “she got coked up. Really coked up. About eight o’clock, I think it was. And—well—she started an argument. A fight, really. I mean, she started hitting me. So—” He raised his pinstriped shoulders, a carefully calculated shrug. “So I hit her back. So, Christ, the next thing I know, she’s out the door. She had a set of keys to the Jeep, and she was going to take the goddamn car. And—well …” He was pleased with the pause, with the timing, the tempo. Yes, it would work out. He could feel it, sense it. “Well, I stopped her. I clobbered her. I didn’t have a choice, unless I wanted her to get into that Jeep, which I didn’t. So, Christ, the next thing I know, she’s taken off.”
Kane frowned. “She took off? Where?”
“The last I saw of her, she was walking across the dunes, toward Carter’s Landing. That was about eight-thirty, I guess. Of course, I expected her to come back, but she never did.”
“So she stayed in Carter’s Landing last night …” It was a speculative comment, dubiously delivered.
Once more, Daniels shrugged. “For all I know, she could’ve taken a cab, and gone to New York. I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“So why’re you telling me about it?”
A final pause—one last handhold, surrendered. Then: “It’s about that letter you gave me. That hand-delivered letter.”
Kane made no reply. Instead, he lifted his glass, drank the beer, watched Daniels over the foam-flecked rim of his glass.
“It was from someone named Jeff Weston. I’ve got his phone number. He was—I guess he saw what happened. Maybe he thought I was—” Suddenly his throat closed. But only for a moment. “He might’ve thought I really hurt Carolyn. Seriously. All the noise she was making—shouting and screaming—I can understand how he’d think that. So now he wants to—he wants me to call him. It’s—obviously, it’s blackmail. So what I want, what I’d like you to do, is—” How should he say it? Did he need to say it? Cautiously, covertly, he searched the other man’s face.
No, he didn’t need to say it. All he had to do was wait for Kane to finish his beer, place the glass on the table, and say, “Is it like that driver you had—Gordon Betts? Is that the way you want it handled?”
Conscious of the sudden lightness, of the overwhelming rush of relief, he nodded—once, then once again.
“Same terms?” Kane asked.
“Better.”
“Better?”
“Better. Much better.”
4:30 P.M., EDT
AS SHE SLID HER key in the lock and turned the knob, she felt it beginning: the leaden void at the center of herself, the heaviness dragging at her arms, her legs, even the muscles of her neck. If this was home, it was the burden that never ended.
“Diane?” It was her mother’s voice, from down the hallway, from her bedroom, her dressing room. Yes, the timing was right. At four-thirty on a given afternoon, her mother would be dressing to go out. Millicent Crowley Cutler Daniels, exactly forty years old. Gown by Randolph, probably; coiffed by François, probably. And, soon, face by whichever trendy plastic surgeon charged the most. For now, just the face. For now, the boobs and the butt were still doing their jobs, thanks to the daily workouts, and the massages, and the good genes.
Did they still make love, Millicent and Preston Daniels? Did they sweat and grunt and rut on each other, in company with the rest of the race? She’d used to imagine them, locked together. Now she didn’t bother.
“Diane—is that you?”
“It’s me.” She stood motionless in the entrance to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Her bedroom was at the far end of the hallway, the last one on the right. Escape was therefore cut off. Little girl lost.
As, yes, her mother was stepping out of her dressing room. The emerald-green cocktail gown was perfect with the eyes and the hair and the gold sash and gold slippers and the emerald pendant. The face was perfect, too. Affluence on parade, the ultimate personification of the wife as trophy. Without her—or someone like her—the Preston Daniels image would be irreparably flawed.
“So you’re back.”
She lowered her leather tote back to the hallway floor, crossed her arms, tossed back her hair, raised her chin. Saying defiantly: “I’m back. Yes.”
Standing stiff and perfect as a mannequin, hands clasped at her waist, the approved finishing-school posture, her mother spoke in a voice that matched her pose:
“Where’d you go this time, Diane?”
She had no answer. Incredibly, all during the long drive down from the Cape, she’d been unable to decide how to answer. Each plan canceled out the plan just made; doubt had preyed on certainty. One minute she’d felt like the winner, the avenger, the conqueror of Preston Daniels. The next minute—the next instant—she’d felt like the hunted one, the prey.
Who was her target—her victim? Was it Daniels? Or was it really her mother? Were they the same target? Must she destroy them both? Did she really want to destroy her mother? Could she?
Finally she’d turned up the sound system and surrendered herself to the beat of the music and the pulse of the car’s power. Later—here, now—she would lock her door, go to the bookcase and reach behind the books and take out the clear plastic envelope, her stash.
Home was where the stash was.
Did her mother realize that if she’d taken the clear plastic envelope to the Cape, risked taking it, she might never have come home?
“Well?” Still in her finishing-school posture, her mother was now looking at her tiny gold watch. Price: five thousand. Tiffany’s, of course. “Was it the Cape? Did you go to the Cape?”
Meaning that here—now—all the time had gone. The hours had been consumed by the minutes, the minutes by the seconds. Because if she said she’d been at the Cape, then she would go on. She would say more—and more. Until one was the victor, the other the vanquished. This time, there’d be no doubt.
Honesty, she’d learned, was the cruelest weapon. Answer the question—reveal the wound—and the victim was the winner, loser take all.
She drew a deep breath. Then, watching her mother’s face carefully, she said, “Yes, I went to the Cape. I got there about ten o’clock.”
“But you didn’t stay at the beach house.” It was a bitter statement, laced with contempt.
Once more, she made no response. Why? This was her chance, her opening. A final thrust, and she’d win. Why couldn’t she do it?
“Answer me.” The command echoed and reechoed, torn from deepest, earliest memory, a well of endless bitterness.
Releasing her. Finally releasing her.
“No,” she answered, “I didn’t stay at the beach house. I stayed at a motel. I forget the name. But it’ll show up on the credit card statement.”
“You slammed out of here, and drove up to the Cape, and went to a motel with that—that—” Wordlessly, her mother began to shake her head. Her calm, cool expression was disintegrating. Her impeccably drawn features, a miracle of makeup, were distorting.
“His name is Jeff Weston.”
They were close, now. So close they could touch each other. So close that her mother’s whisper stung like a scream of rage: “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Freeing her to strike out again: “Would you like to know why we stayed at a motel, instead of the beach house?”
“I imagine it was because your father told you not to—”
“He’s not my father, Goddammit. He’s your husband. He’s your rich, handsome, successful husband. But he’s sure as hell not my father.”
“He’s also the one who sends you to college, and who bought your car, and who pays your bills. All your bills.”
“He doesn’t pay for college, and you know it. Dad pays.”
“He pays the tuition. But he doesn’t pay for—”
“Forget it. Just forget it, all right?” Breathing heavily, aware that she was losing control, she moved forward an angry half step. Saying: “Excuse me. I was going to my room. Do you mind?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Diane. You might be eighteen, but as long as you’re living here I’ll thank you to—”
“Listen, Mother—” She broke off, struggled for control. Then: “Listen, if that’s what’s bothering you, then maybe you shouldn’t sweat it. Because I don’t think I want to go back to Swarthmore. When I think about it, I hate the place. From the first week, I hated the place. So why don’t I just leave? Why don’t I go out to San Francisco and see Dad? What about that?”
Now the flesh around her mother’s perfectly outlined mouth had gone pale. When someone got angry enough, she’d read, or got scared enough, then the blood went to the solar plexus.
“This isn’t something we can discuss now, Diane. It’s almost five o’clock. And we’ve got to—”
“Don’t tell me. You’ve got to go to a party. You and Preston. You can’t stop to talk. Tomorrow, maybe, we can talk. Should we make an appointment, Mother? Should we?”
“I’m giving a speech, as it so happens, at the museum. A very important speech.”
“Oh.” Viciously mocking, she struck a pose. “Oh. How nice. How jolly for you.”
“Listen, Diane—your father’s coming. And I—”
“Oh. Well. If he’s coming, then I think I’ll leave. I think I’ll get a few things together, and leave.” She stepped forward again, struck her mother’s shoulder with her shoulder. It was the first time they’d ever made angry contact. Or, in recent memory, any contact. “Excuse me. I want to go to my room. Do you mind?”
“Diane.” Just the one word. All that hate—eighteen years—all of it distilled in the one word. Here. Now. Everything.
“Forget it.” At her own door now, she flung the words over her shoulder. She went into the room, slammed the door, locked it. Wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands, she went to the bookcase, reached up, withdrew the plastic envelope.
She’d never taken the whole stash with her before. It was a terrible risk, taking the whole stash. But she’d never felt like this before. Never.
She checked the closure of the envelope, thrust it into the leather tote bag, at the bottom. She went to the bureau, opened a drawer, took out underwear and blouses, jammed them into the bag, together with a pair of jeans. She’d always been amazed, how much the tote bag could carry. She went to the door. Then, with her hand on the knob, she hesitated, turned back, let her eyes linger a last time on the room, with all her things. Over the desk, she’d tacked a movie poster: James Dean, squinting against smoke curling up from a dangling cigarette, her favorite poster. It was an original, a collector’s item. She went to the desk, ripped the poster down, tore it up, went to the unmade bed, scattered the pieces on the bed. Eyes stinging, she stood motionless for a long, final moment, looking down at the bed. Then she went to the door, picked up the tote bag, opened the door. A half-dozen steps down the hallway revealed that, yes, her mother had left her door open. It was an assertion of authority; a closed door would have signified defeat, retreat. Holding the tote bag, she went to the doorway. Facing the mirror, her mother was seated at her dressing table. She was working on her eye makeup. Had tears damaged the makeup? Was it possible that her mother could actually cry?
Diane stood silently for another moment, watching. Then, quietly, she said, “On your way to the party, ask Preston what he did last night. Ask him where he was, what he was doing, about midnight.”
She turned, walked down the corridor to the front door. One last time.
4:50 P.M., EDT
“YES, SIR?” BEHIND THE counter, the sales clerk smiled. He was a tall, gaunt man with washed-out eyes and a pinched, uncertain mouth. His face was gray-stubbled. Resting on the counter, his blue-veined hands were knob-knuckled.
“Do you have any short lengths of iron pipe?” Kane asked.
“We sure do. What diameter? What length?”
“An inch, three quarters, it doesn’t matter. About eighteen inches long.”
The clerk nodded. “How about an inch? We’ve got that in stock.”
“Fine.”
5:20 P.M., EDT
&
nbsp; AFTER LOCKING THE TOTE bag in the BMW’s trunk, Diane slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door, sat motionless, staring at the concrete wall of the parking garage. As she’d ridden down in the elevator, fighting tears, she’d remembered the things she should have brought: her favorite bomber jacket, her snapshot album, her Madonna tapes, the serape that went so well with blue jeans. Her big saddle-leather purse was beside her on the seat. She opened the purse, checked inside. Yes, she had her wallet.
Was she really going to San Francisco?
Would Daniels cancel her credit card, if she went?
Once she’d gotten five hundred dollars in cash, on her credit card. She could do it again. And again—five, ten times. Right now. Then, if Daniels canceled her credit, she’d still have enough money to get to San Francisco. She wouldn’t stay with her father and his family, wouldn’t make that mistake. Instead, she’d tell her father that she was going to work in San Francisco. He would stake her to an apartment, first and last month’s rent—a fraction of what Swarthmore cost for a year. She would be a waitress at a health food restaurant. She would get a dog, take him running on the beach. She would—
Behind her, shapes were shifting, the light was changing. In the mirror she saw a familiar shape: Daniels’s black town car, with the tinted windows in back. Instinctively, she thrust her key in the BMW’s ignition, about to start the engine. But the town car had stopped, blocking her way out. In the mirror, she saw the black car’s rear door swing open. Carrying his attaché case, that permanent extension of himself, Daniels was getting out of the town car, striding to the passenger’s side of the BMW. Unaware that she’d meant to do it, she swung her own door open, got out of the car. Was she escaping? No, she couldn’t leave the BMW, not with her stash in its trunk. Across the roof of the BMW, she faced her stepfather. The town car was moving away, leaving them alone.
Except for the Bones Page 5