Adam and Evil (An Amanda Pepper Mystery)

by Gillian Roberts

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Good friends. She was even at a housewarming party for the…victim this past weekend.”

  “Really?” Helena’s interest was honest and complete. “I was at that party, too. I might know your sister. Mind my asking what her name is?”

  “Beth Wyman.” I saw the flash of recognition, thought I saw the irritation, too, but it was quickly stifled.

  “Of course,” Helena said. “Then you must be the little sister. The schoolteacher. She mentioned she’d been to see you.”

  “So you are…you were a friend of the woman who…of hers as well?”

  After a long pause, Helena spoke. “I’m her sister,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry! That’s…”

  She half nodded and brushed away any further commiserations. “My sister was an unlucky woman.”

  “My brother-in-law works with… I guess he’s your brother-in-law, then,” I said.

  “Ray.” She managed to get five syllables’ worth of disdain into the short name, to make it sound like a curse.

  “The boy who they think did it,” I said softly. “He’s my student. The one you called crazy.”

  “That’s what the TV called him.”

  I thought they’d used rather less inflammatory terms, but so be it. “I don’t think he did it. I think he’s innocent. What would his motive possibly be?”

  “Crazy people do crazy things.” She fingered her necklace, then pulled her hand away, looking worried by her automatic gesture. We’d run out of discussion prospects.

  I glanced at my watch. “Sasha, I’m going to have to get to that appointment. Maybe we could come back tomorrow?”

  “Actually, I’m closing the store for the day tomorrow,” Helena said. “Family matters.”

  “Then another time,” I murmured. “Thank you so much for letting us browse. Again, my condolences. And I’m sorry for the mix-up.”

  She looked puzzled.

  “About the library. Thinking I’d seen you up in the Rare Book Department.”

  She nodded curtly, then looked at Sasha, who was running a finger over the intricate raised design on a high, narrow chest of drawers. “Anything?” she asked. “Anything you want to consider? Anything I could hold for you? You’d be under no obligation, of course, but this way it would be here, for a reasonable time, while you decide.”

  It was so loud and clear, despite the soft voice trying to hide it. Her near desperation was deafening. I felt an unwanted pang of sympathy for Helena and her miserable business. Or maybe it was a pang of recognition—of that moment of terror when the future yawns in front of you, a fanged mouth whose bite can be softened only if filled with money.

  I wonder what she’d originally thought—perhaps that Emily and Ray would bail her out, support her, keep her afloat, no matter what happened?

  How desperate had she been to be out from under the weight of debt?

  Sasha pointed at a silly chest of drawers, the sort of idiosyncratic piece that made no sense to me. Each drawer could hold three pairs of underpants, perhaps. A dozen handkerchiefs. One folded, finely woven T-shirt. Maybe that was its charm—furniture for people who already have all the furniture they need. “This is so interesting,” Sasha said. “And it would be just the right height. We’ll find something to put on top of it, too. I’ll let you know.”

  Helena scribbled information on a tag, attached it to a drawer pull, and waved us off with renewed cheer.

  “I like that nutty chest,” Sasha said when we were outside again.

  “Do you recall that this is all make-believe? We have no rich client who wants to simulate her own home for a portrait. So why on earth did you put that monstrosity on hold?”

  “I consider it my job and duty to spread hope where I can.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded gravely. I invited her for dinner, practically begged her. I needed all the hope she was willing to spread.

  Fifteen

  For once Mackenzie was at home when I arrived. Thank goodness he and Sasha were at peace with each other, because I didn’t need to be a camel to believe my back could be broken with a feather’s weight more of stress.

  Happily, she served as a buffer zone and made the evening ahead feel more comfortable.

  Pork stew was in the freezer, and I could fake the rest. This was Sasha, not somebody who provoked my Ogwoman dazzle-instincts.

  The man’s attention was again on a screen—not the small one this time, but the tiny one. “Off in a sec,” he said. His ability to focus intently and give something his total attention is incredibly sexy when applied to me, infuriating when applied to electronics. I put the frosty containers in the microwave and pressed the necessary controls. As the food heated I watched C.K. highlight and copy something into a file. I managed to make my table setting involve passing by him, and I saw the word schizophrenia at the top of a solid block of text. He was studying up on Adam. Learning what to do when he found him. I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

  I listened to Sasha decide whether she liked our painting of the window looking onto the bucolic scene. “Cows in space,” she said, walking back and forth in the middle of the loft across from it. “Airborne bovines. Cowstronauts.”

  “We think it’s funny. Doubly so because we’re up here in the city air.”

  Her expression—now she was being the nonpro with the good eye—made me fear our senses of humor needed tuning. Then she shrugged. “I like it. I don’t think I should, but I do.” She looked around the loft’s walls.

  “No use searching for it,” I said. “The space is reserved, though. Right over here above the table.” She’d done a photograph of fruit that was anything but a still life. It breathed; it was so sensuous it was almost obscene, inviting the touch of fingers, lips. And it still awaited Sasha’s attention. I’d offered to have it enlarged elsewhere, but she took that as a personal insult.

  “I’ve been busy,” she said. “Having your armpits sniffed takes time.”

  Mackenzie swiveled around. It was more a matter of having turned off the computer than of Sasha’s armpits, but he nonetheless seemed intrigued as he walked over, accepted a glass of wine, and settled in next to me.

  “Sasha’s been a guinea pig,” I said. “At the Chemical Senses Center.”

  C.K. lifted his glass in a mock toast to her. “To a thrilling-sounding life experience.”

  “A paid guinea pig,” Sasha said. “That’s the thrill of it. All I had to do is sweat. Long time back, right here in River City, they found these chemicals that produce odor. Underarm variety. And they also found, separately, that underarm chemicals can influence the menstrual cycle—hope you don’t mind this talk of female things, mister. You asked, you know. So anyway, they had a bunch of us involved in three overlapping experiments for a month. Easy money, but not the way to keep friends and influence people. I had to work out—several times—and stay dirty. Other times I had to sit in the third circle of hell and sweat.”

  I chose not to question why that fragrant month wouldn’t therefore have been the perfect time to spend alone in a darkroom, printing the photo. I questioned, instead, the researchers. “So they, ah, actually sniff you?”

  Unfortunate timing. Mackenzie had just lifted his glass and was in the very act of inhaling the pale fragrance of the wine. He paused, looked at me, and grinned. “Good thing I’m not big on power of suggestion,” he said.

  “They sniffed us,” Sasha said. “Except when we sweated onto cotton pads under the arm. Then they sniffed them, or put them through tests. Sometimes we worked on getting up a sweat, sometimes they just made us hotter than hell, and sometimes they made us nervous. That was about the antiperspirant component. So don’t think there wasn’t variety, challenge, and excitement on the job.”

  “Nervous? Like how?” Mackenzie leaned forward, toward Sasha, who sat in the oversized easy chair at right angles to the sofa.

  I had the feeling Mackenzie was hoping for tips for
the interrogation room.

  “I had to give a speech to the doctors there.”

  Mackenzie settled back into the cushions, mild disappointment reshaping his mouth. It would be difficult copying the technique. Murderers were reluctant to give speeches. He’d have to make them sweat the old-fashioned way.

  “All these people with Ph.D.’s in sciences I’d never heard of—I had to talk about my feelings about body odor,” Sasha said. “I knew it was part of the experiment, but even so, I thought it mattered what I’d say in my talk. I got myself into a lather—see? That’s exactly what they wanted. God, just thinking about having to speak and I’m beading up on my forehead.”

  Public speaking. Ahead of death on the great fear list. I thought of the many oral book reports I’d assigned, supposedly to help America’s youth and actually just adding to their load of misery. I seemed to do a lot of that lately. “But the sniffers?” I asked. “Who are they?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know if they’re chemists or what. They’re trained, though. Like wine tasters. Professionals. I wish I’d been allowed to take photos. Whole lines of these people, going from one to the next, lifting our arms, sniffing this pit, then that one…”

  Strike pit sniffing off the list. It felt good to clear away another possibility. Through the process of elimination, I’d sneak up on the right career.

  “What say to a change of subject?” Mackenzie asked. “The wine taster analogy—that pushed it over the edge for me.”

  “Can I ask just one thing? Do you know if the experiment was a success?”

  “I’m not sure what they wanted,” Sasha said, refilling her glass. “You know how sometimes they tell you it’s one thing, but it’s another altogether.” She was good at talking and sipping simultaneously. “You know, when they first isolated this chemical, they thought it had to do with schizophrenia—”

  Mackenzie turned and checked me out, as if I’d fed the word to Sasha.

  How had aimless talk about her bizarre job involved schizophrenia? It was as if we’d entered the room playing the game Don’t Drag Adam into This Evening. Rule one: Whatever you say, do not say schizophrenia.

  “—because the chemical was in schizophrenics’ sweat. They thought they had a major medical breakthrough, but it turned out it’s also in the sweat of people who don’t have schizophrenia. The point I’m making is, who knows what they wanted this time and whether they got it, found something else accidentally, or what. I just know they now are aware of my feelings about body odor.”

  Both Mackenzie and I smiled weakly. I tried for more and failed. He seemed to have stopped trying altogether. “He got himself in more trouble today,” Mackenzie said.

  “I know. I just didn’t know if you knew.”

  “What?” Sasha said.

  “Did you arrest him, then?” I asked.

  “Who?” Sasha asked.

  “No,” Mackenzie said. “Hard to find runaways.”

  “Not fair. You’re so—”

  “Thanks, guys,” Sasha said. “You’re making me feel right at home. Or is this a new experiment designed to make me sweat?”

  “We’ll find him, you know. Soon.”

  “Won’t you even look around first? We were at Emily Fisher’s sister’s store this afternoon and—”

  He shook his head. “That’s my job, Amanda. I don’ tell you how to teach. Why do you insist on—”

  “But she lied. She was in the library Thursday and she’s lying about it. And she wears these oversized scarves—”

  “I’m going home,” Sasha said. “This is downright creepy.”

  The microwave beeped. I stood up. “You’re right, Sash. I apologize. We’re being rude.” I knew all I wanted about Adam’s status now. He was still among the missing. And I knew a little more about Mackenzie’s lack of open-mindedness than I wanted to know.

  The pork was still frosty in the center, but I thought it was now capable of being transferred to a pot for a slow reheat, which process I then began. Not that transferring bits of meat in a frozen sauce is that engrossing, but it did take me a little too long to realize that the room was suffused in silence. It was as if when Adam was removed as a conversational subject, the remaining option was muteness. I heard Mackenzie offer Sasha more wine, heard her accept, heard him murmur about finding another bottle somewhere. Heard more silence.

  “I’ll put on music,” Mackenzie said, standing. I nodded from where I was, even though nobody was looking my way.

  At the same time Sasha must have completed her mental global search for a safe topic. “So,” she said in a forced party voice, “what do you think of Mandy’s plans? You going to visit us in merry old England? Make it merrier?”

  I turned, too late to hurl myself between Sasha’s mouth and the sound waves, but in time to see Mackenzie pause for a slice of a second, complete the insertion of the CD into the player, wait until soft Brazilian shusses swirled through the room, adjust the decibel level imperceptibly, and then turn, smiling, in Sasha’s direction. He was good. You’d have to know him intimately to be sure he’d heard what Sasha said, let alone digested it, made sense of it, and been upset by it. Unfortunately, I knew him intimately. He was intensely upset.

  “Which question you want answered first?” he asked mildly.

  Sasha cocked her head. “How about we begin with how you feel about Mandy going to graduate school in England?”

  I was heartsick. This was no way to treat a lover, no way to broach the subject, and I wasn’t even sure yet that it was seriously a subject to broach. It was an idea to play with, a security blanket, an escape hatch.

  “Sasha,” I began, “you take everything so seriously! When I said that, I was only—”

  “What?” she began, but Mackenzie interrupted, his voice silky, Southern, and suspect. “How’d I feel about those plans? Well, when I first heard, I was stunned, of course.” He looked over at me and smiled, as if we were in collusion, even though the time he’d been stunned was approximately one minute earlier. I hadn’t realized what a fine actor he was. I didn’t know if I liked knowing it now.

  “Amanda’s always seemed confused—no, that’s too harsh…ambivalent about what precisely she wanted next.”

  His bayou roots strangled his syllables. Precisely was said as imprecisely as possible. Emotion does that to him. When it’s sexy emotions, it sounds just right, like auditory dessert. But at that moment, all the hard edges he had sliced off his every slurred word and sentence joined like magnet filings and zigzagged through my bloodstream.

  “So to have her make such a drastic plan…to go so far in pursuit of…well, it took me by surprise, is all. Made me speechless, to tell the truth. But I’m impressed that her thinkin’s clear now. That she’s willin’ to make the necessary adjustments an’ all. That she knows what she wants.”

  At the moment what I wanted was to curl up in a fetal position and stay that way a few years. Instead, I positioned myself behind Mackenzie, where Sasha could see me but he couldn’t. It was as close to hiding as I could rationally get, given the situation. I shook my head at Sasha, ran my finger across my throat. She saw it. She got it. She ignored it. I’d upset her when I’d tossed out the idea of my relocating along with her, and she had the rapt expression of a missionary, the zeal of a mediator.

  “Won’t you miss her?” she asked Mackenzie sweetly. “Or will you be able to spend lots of time over there?”

  He sighed. “I’ll miss her big-time. She knows that. But unfortunately, the police department’s not goin’ to change its structure because Amanda’s changed her life plans. She knows that too,” he added softly.

  “Listen, you guys,” I began, “let’s not talk about this now. This is making me really uncomfortable. First of all, you’re acting like I’m not here—”

  “Just practicin’, honey,” Mackenzie said.

  His words, so perfectly aimed, and so deserved, hit me and left me speechless.

  “That’s what I thought,” Sasha sai
d. “You didn’t tell him, did you? You didn’t even discuss it. Just this one-sided—”

  “I really don’t think you should be—”

  “Right!” It came out close to a snarl. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be the goof-off. You’re the sane one. I’m the one always screwing up with men. So I should keep my mouth shut and definitely not offer advice, but I’m telling you, sister, we’ve switched roles, and this is dumber than any dumb thing I’ve ever done!” She stopped a moment to consider her own words. “And that’s saying a lot!” It was indeed.

  “This,” she continued, opening her arms until she looked like an evangelical Edwardian princess, “this is pure foolhardy—”

  “Sasha, please. You have no right—”

  Mackenzie remained immobile, except for his head, which swiveled from the one of us to the other, spectator at the U.S. Open of Girlfriend Spats.

  “I do so have the right,” she said, one hand on her hip. “I have the right to be your friend, you stupid woman! I’m being a friend, you dolt! I’ve known you since before you suspected that boys would be of interest, and that gives me the right, you hear?” She stamped her foot. I knew, and she knew that I knew, that the stamp was in place of a total throttling, as were my clenched fists.

  In the decades of our friendship, I didn’t think we’d ever been this angry with each other. I was frightened—literally chilled, as if a cold wind had filled me up. I rubbed at my arms and had a moment’s happy fantasy that none of this was happening. That this was another bad dream in a bad month.

  Then Sasha exhaled loudly, as if she’d been holding her breath for a year. I didn’t think people did that in dreams. “Listen,” she said in a soft voice. “I’m out of here. This is your chance—better late than never. Talk it through. Work it out. You guys make me really sad.”

  We both opened our mouths to protest, to explain, to offer something in return, in defense—but I couldn’t think of what to say, and apparently neither could Mackenzie. With a rueful wave and a kiss, Sasha was out the door. And then the enormous loft, which so often felt frighteningly large, suddenly felt like the Poe tale where the burning walls move closer and tighter.