Compromising Positions

by Susan Isaacs

  “Nothing really.”

  “Nelson,” I said forcefully, “I am about to confront a homicidal maniac, not some cute sociopath who specializes in misdemeanors. He kills, he breaks into people’s houses. He has no decency, no honor. He bites his toenails, for God’s sake.”

  “Really? You never told me that.”

  I shivered and held myself tight. “Does that make a difference?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s not grounds for arrest in New York. Look, Judith, all I was going to say is that if it’s snowing very hard, we may have to change our plans about securing our people in parked cars.”

  “You’re worried about them getting frostbite? What about me?”

  “All I’m saying is that if it’s bad out, their car windows will get frosted or covered with snow and they won’t be able to see a goddamn thing. Don’t worry, we’ll find some place else for them.”

  “You know what worries me,” I said, lowering my voice. Jackson and the children were a few feet away from me in the living room. “What really makes me nervous is all those old detective novels.” Sharpe looked at me blandly, listening. “Do you know what happens in them? The detective has a fantastic affair with some wonderful woman and guess what happens to her?” He shook his head. “She gets killed in the end,” I explained. “You know why?” Again he shook his head. “So that in the next case the detective can have another fantastic affair with another wonderful woman, who will ultimately die so that in the next case...” A small, quavering sigh escaped me.

  “Judith, this is life. Reality. And nothing can happen to you because there can’t possibly be another woman in the next case who even remotely resembles you. Okay?”

  “That’s what you say now.” For a moment we said nothing. Then we looked at each other and laughed. “All right. You’d better be going. It’s getting late.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’ll see you later.” I stepped back into the house. “Be careful,” I called after him. He didn’t look back.

  For several minutes, I sat on the living room floor with the children, the three of us looking up in awe at Officer Jackson, who held court on the piano bench, her back erect, her head lifted slightly. Kate informed me that she had dropped all her other career plans and was going to become a policewoman. Joey told me that Jackson had never killed anyone but had once punched a guy out.

  “I just want to give my husband a call, see what his plans are,” I said to Jackson. She nodded. I called Bob’s office from the bedroom, fully expecting his secretary to proclaim that he was in conference and couldn’t be disturbed for the next twenty-four hours. Instead, she said he had just left.

  Maybe, I pondered, clambering downstairs, his train will be stuck in a snowdrift. Nothing perilous, and they’d have sandwiches and coffee in the bar car, just enough to keep him tied up till about ten-thirty or eleven. But glancing out the living room window, I saw only about a half inch of snow on the ground. “I guess I’ll make dinner,” I said to the three of them. They blinked at me with great disinterest. Jackson said she’d watch television with them, but to call her if I heard any strange sounds. Like Dicky cackling in my back yard, I mused, his awl gleaming in the moonlight.

  I stuck my hand into the freezer and fished out a large aluminum container of meatballs and plunked it into a pot to thaw. There was, fortunately, a whole packet of spaghetti, and I managed to throw together a salad. In less than three hours, I would be encased in a bulletproof vest, and here I was slicing radishes. I felt I should be overwhelmed by a sense of absurdity, but somehow the whole situation seemed rather cozy. What harm could befall a woman who at the very next moment was going to make her own salad dressing? With parsley and tarragon and dill. I set the table in the dining room and was just measuring the coffee when the doorbell rang.

  Jackson got there first, her silver badge reflecting the hallway light, her hand about five inches away from her gun. “Did you hear anyone drive up?” she asked, in her silvery voice.

  “It’s probably my husband,” I answered softly. “Who’s there?”

  “Me,” said Bob, his voice muffled by the thick oak door.

  “It’s him,” I assured Jackson and opened the door. “Hi.”

  But he was staring at Jackson, his mouth open slightly. “Hi,” she said to him. “I’m Officer Sandra Jackson.”

  “Come in,” I urged Bob, as I would a shy guest, taking his hand and guiding him over the threshold. “Everything’s fine.”

  He found his voice. “How can everything be fine if there’s a policewoman in the house? Would you please explain that to me, Judith?” He began to unbutton his coat. “I’ll need a wooden hanger,” he informed me. Being in no mood to argue, I walked the two feet to the hall closet and handed him a hanger. He put his coat on it, then shook it a couple of times so the snow that had accumulated on his walk from the driveway fell onto the floor. He removed his brown plaid cashmere scarf and placed it around the wire part of the hanger, the silk lining facing down. “Now, would someone like to explain what’s going on here?” he demanded, handing me his coat.

  I handed it back to him. “I’ll tell you as soon as you put your coat away,” I said. He glared at me. Jackson shot me her first real smile of the day.

  “Daddy, Daddy.” The children exploded up from the den, hugging Bob’s waist and standing on tiptoe to be kissed.

  “You’re home for dinner,” observed Kate with a satisfied smile.

  “Isn’t it nice,” I observed, “having Daddy home? Let’s eat.”

  For the first time in weeks, the conversation at the dinner table was animated. Bob, of course, sat isolated in his bleak silence, but the rest of us had a grand discussion about fingerprints. As I stood to serve the spaghetti, I whispered to Bob: “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk. I’ll explain after dinner.” He lifted his fork and stabbed a meatball.

  We finished eating a few minutes before seven. Jackson told the children to go downstairs and watch television; they obeyed without protest. She glanced from Bob to me. “I’ll wait downstairs with the kids.” I nodded. “But we’ll have to get started in about fifteen minutes.” She stood. “Nice talking to you, Mr. Singer.” He had not acknowledged her presence throughout the entire meal.

  “All right,” I began, “let me fill you in.” He bit into a cold Sara Lee brownie. “It’s really very difficult,” I said, “because you haven’t been listening to me, so you don’t know what’s going on. But I’ll try to give you a rundown to bring you up to date.”

  “Why is that woman in my house?” he asked. “Who is she?”

  “She’s with the rape squad,” and he stared at me. “No, no, this has nothing to do with rape. They just wanted a woman because they’re going to wire me up and I have to take off my sweater for that and they don’t want a man to have to do that because God forbid he should see my bra.”

  “Wire you up?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh. It’s an electronic gadget...”

  “Don’t treat me like an ass, Judith. Would you please explain to me why the police think they have to wire you up?”

  I poured myself another cup of coffee. “All right. You know I’ve been working with the police on the Fleckstein case. Well, they’re convinced that the murderer is the same person who wrote M.Y.O.B. on the refrigerator. Well, he called me and asked to meet me, and the police want to hear our conversation. That’s all.”

  “That’s not all,” he said coldly.

  “Of course, it isn’t,” I agreed. “They’ve got a search warrant, and they’re going to go through his office as soon as he’s out. Hopefully, they’ll find something there to link him to the murder. You see, Fleckstein had a habit of taking pictures of the women he was having affairs with.” He looked at me blankly. “I mean, photographs of them undressed, in various get-ups. Nothing really imaginative, but potentially terribly embarrassing. Anyway, they think Dicky Dunck—he’s the man they suspect—took the pictures from Fle
ckstein’s office when he killed him. Now Dicky has a feeling I’m involved, but what we want to find out is whether he realizes he’s the prime suspect. Hopefully, I can get him to talk and incriminate himself.”

  “This is insane,” Bob bellowed, standing up. “This is crazy. You’re going to risk your life meeting some killer. Are you sick?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said sweetly. “I’ll have on a bulletproof vest and there will be cops all around. They’ll be able to see everything and hear every word that’s said.” Bob’s face was flushed, his eyes wide open with shock. “Bob, sit down. Please hear me out.” He stiffened for a moment, but finally sat. “Look, I know things haven’t been going well with us,” I began, and my eyes filled with tears. “But I’ve been enjoying this case more than anything I can remember in a long time. Look at me, please.

  “I know you see this as some demented obsession of mine, some psychotic episode that’s totally out of character. But, look, we’ve been living out here for years, and I haven’t been happy for a second. I know that’s not fair, but ultimately it’s true. I’ve been bored silly, floundering between the supermarket and car pools, and all of a sudden, I found something. A murder. A puzzle. It fell into my lap, and all of a sudden it was something I could latch on to. Not just out of boredom. It’s fascinating, trying to put the pieces together, working with the police.” I paused for a second. Bob didn’t find the phrase “working with the police” any more absurd than the rest of my explanation, so I continued. “And I’m good at it. I mean, at detective work. Can’t you understand that?”

  “I can understand it,” he said slowly. “And I told you that I sympathize with you. Maybe we should have stayed in the city. I don’t know. But you can’t continue with this. I won’t let you. You’re a married woman, a mother, a person with responsibilities. You can’t just go off on something wild like this because it’s fun. It’s not fun. It’s serious business.” He reached for another brownie and held it aloft in his left hand. It seemed to be a very conscious gesture: his wedding ring gleamed at me. “There are millions of things you can do,” he said. “All sorts of community work, with pollution or kids taking drugs. You can get a job if you want to, go back to school. Whatever. But I draw the line with this, Judith. I’m not going to let you do it.”

  He nibbled his brownie and put it down on his plate. His thumb and index finger were covered with chocolate, and I handed him another napkin. “I can’t accept that, Bob,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. You’ll have to.”

  “No. I don’t need your permission. This is something I want to do and I’m going to do it.”

  “Even though I don’t want you to?”

  “Yes.”

  “I might not be here when you get back. I mean that, Judith.”

  “I hope you will.”

  “And if I’m not? You’re willing to let ten years of marriage go down the drain? You’re willing to risk our relationship?”

  “Our relationship hasn’t been doing very well for the last few years, has it? I mean, it’s been running on its own momentum, but it’s not really moving, just coasting. Maybe if I can come to terms with myself, focus in on who I am—and who you are—we can come up with something better.”

  “You never said you weren’t happy.”

  “I never said I was. You never asked.”

  “I’m going upstairs,” he said. “You still have time to change your mind.”

  A moment later, gripping the edge of the table, I made a conscious decision; I would not go to pieces. There was simply no time for that sort of indulgence. Instead, I quickly cleared the table and rushed the children off to bed. I kissed them in an offhand fashion, rejecting the notion of clutching them to my breast and whispering, “Goodbye, my darlings.” Jackson was pacing downstairs, waiting to deck me out in a transmitter that had been delivered a few minutes before.

  She was just finishing taping the wire around my midriff when the doorbell rang. We had a brief debate over who should answer it, which she finally won. It was Sharpe.

  “You’re early,” I said.

  “We got in a little after five-thirty.”

  “And?”

  “And we found shit.”

  “Shit?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, his eyes cast down. “Not one goddamn thing. Except...” he began.

  “Except what?” Jackson demanded. Until that time, she had refrained from asking questions. Being on the rape squad, she informed me, she had had some contact with the cops in homicide, but they were distinct domains. She hadn’t wanted to tread on their turf. But now, her investigatory appetite was whetted; she wanted in.

  “The safe was completely empty,” Sharpe muttered.

  “Oh,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “That he cleaned it out?”

  “That’s only conjecture,” he said.

  “It seems likely, doesn’t it, Lieutenant?” asked Jackson.

  “Well, I guess so.” He leaned against the door, looking tired and defeated. His large hands, red and raw from the cold, dangled from the sleeves of his green sweater. “It’s not a new safe. Looked like it had plenty of use. Who the hell knows?”

  “Let’s go into the living room,” I suggested. Jackson and I walked in and sat down, and Sharpe followed, shuffling his feet along the carpet, staring down at the floor.

  “Shit,” he said. Jackson and I glanced at each other. She shrugged her shoulders. I tried to think of something to say, something to comfort him. But he spoke first. “You know what really gets me? I didn’t think, from everything I know about him, that he had the brains to clear out the safe. Who knows? Maybe he never had anything. Maybe he didn’t...”

  “Um,” I said. I had almost slipped and called him “Nelson” in front of Jackson. “Look, Lieutenant, he did call to set up a date with me. And you know and I know that he couldn’t care less about my dissertation. That means he has something to say. So let’s just relax and see what happens at nine o’clock.”

  “She’s right, Lieutenant,” said Jackson. “And that makes this meeting even more important.” He shot her a quick, angry look, and she sank back into her chair a little. Apparently, it wasn’t department protocol to inform a superior officer that his intuition was less than keen.

  We sat silently for several miserable minutes until Jackson suggested I try on the bulletproof vest. I had imagined a nifty neon-orange chest protector, but it was a tunic of dull gray-green.

  “It’s not as heavy as I thought it would be.”

  “They’re making them lighter now,” Jackson said. She sent me to the closet to get my coat, but it wouldn’t close over the vest. We finally settled on Bob’s down-filled ski jacket.

  “I look like a polar bear in drag.”

  “Worse,” said Sharpe. We all chuckled and then fell silent.

  “Can I take it off for a few minutes?” I asked.

  “Please don’t,” said Jackson. “Otherwise, I’ll have to readjust the microphone.”

  The two of them sat quietly, occasionally exchanging a remark about surveillance techniques. I paced back and forth, unable to position my bulk in a chair. A sour sweat began to rise from my body, soaking my forehead and trickling between my breasts. Finally, Sharpe announced that it was eight o’clock. “That means we’re in place,” he said. I looked at him, not comprehending. “It means that all my men are in position in the parking lot. We don’t want any undue movement in case he checks the place out early.”

  “Oh,” I said and paced some more. “I’m going outside.”

  “Don’t,” snapped Sharpe. “He may drive by.”

  “I’ll go into the back yard,” I said, and walked toward the kitchen door. Jackson followed a few seconds later, pulling on her coat. The snow emitted its own eerie light, brightening now and then when the moon appeared from behind a cloud. I walked to the children’s swing set, cleared the edge of the slide of snow, and managed to sit down. Jackson stoo
d about a foot away, a giant looming black presence in the white snows of Shorehaven.

  “Feeling scared?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Mainly just sick to my stomach.”

  “That’s scared,” she said. “We all get it, in one way or another. With me, every time I’m a decoy, I go to the bathroom for an hour straight before I go out.”

  “But once you’re working, are you scared?”

  “Yes.” She fell silent. “But when things start happening, the minute a suspect approaches me, I’m okay. It’s all business from that point on.”

  “But you’re a pro,” I said softly. “You’ve been trained. You know what to do.”

  She gazed at me. “From what I’ve heard about you, you’re no slouch. You’ve got all the right instincts.”

  I grinned at her. She grinned back. Then we turned as Sharpe appeared at the kitchen door, motioning us to come in. We trudged back to the house.

  “I just got a call,” he announced. “Dunck just left.”

  “It’s not even eight-thirty,” I protested.

  “I know,” he said. “Maybe he’ll go somewhere first. You just get there at nine, okay? Just like you planned.” I nodded. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “where’s your husband?”

  “Upstairs in the bedroom.” He looked at me quizzically.

  “Mr. Singer doesn’t seem to approve,” said Jackson, her little girl’s voice transforming her irony into an innocent observation.

  We remained in the kitchen, silent for the most part, sharing a quart of orange juice. Suddenly I looked at Sharpe.

  “You said all your people are in position?” He nodded. “That means you won’t be there.”

  “I will,” he said. “I’ll be on the floor of your car, under a blanket. Let me tell you, if you think your bulletproof vest is uncomfortable, you should try that sometime.”

  At ten minutes to nine, we began to move. Jackson would stay at the house until I got home. Sharpe went to the trunk of his car and took out a large brown blanket. He lay down on the floor of my car, in front of the back seat, and covered himself.

  “Couldn’t you wait to do that until we get there?” I asked.