by Jan Burke
But somewhere around thirty-five, it became more than a disappointment. It was a bruise that wouldn’t heal. Every time her mind touched upon it, it hurt.
By then, their isolation was nearly complete. They were estranged from her family and most of the people she knew before her marriage. Their few friends were his friends; their hobbies, his hobbies; their goals, his goals. He reserved certain pleasures for his own enjoyment. Infidelity was one of them.
Her own private pleasures were far less complicated. Four years ago, she had planted a garden, perhaps needing to give life to something. Joseph never liked what she chose to plant there, but otherwise, he ignored it.
Jim Lawrence, on the other hand, had liked the garden. One day when he was driving his patrol car past the house, he had seen her trying to lug a big bag of fertilizer to the backyard. He had stopped the car and helped her. When he saw the garden, he smiled and said, “Well, Kaylie, I see Professor Darren hasn’t taken all of the farmer out of you yet.” He spent time talking with her about what she had planted, complimenting her without flattery.
For a while, after he had left that afternoon, she felt a sense of loss. But as she continued to work in the garden, that passed, and she began to mentally replay those few moments with Jim Lawrence again and again. She began to think of them as a sort of infidelity. She took pleasure in that notion.
That brief, never repeated encounter made the garden all the more valuable to her. She had spent a long time in the garden late this afternoon, watering it, trying to protect it from the heat. She had gone out to it again in the early evening, after supper but before the summer sun was down, letting its colors and fragrances ease her mind, cutting flowers for her table.
Jim Lawrence parked the patrol car next to the curb in front of the Darren house, allowing himself the luxury of a sigh as he pocketed the keys. This had been one helluva night, the worst he had faced since becoming a sheriff’s deputy, and it was far from over. He had been glad to let the high muckety-mucks take over at the refinery. He had no desire to try to juggle the demands of firefighters, OSHA, oil company men and every kind of law enforcement yahoo between here and God’s forgiveness. Let the sheriff handle it himself.
The task he had been given that night was bad enough. He had spent the last four hours getting in touch with families who lived outside of town, out on farms, and bringing someone from each family to the temporary morgue at the junior high school. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands-brought them into town to help identify the bodies (“No, Mrs. Reardon, he wasn’t fighting anybody. His fists are up because…well, that’s just what happens to the muscles in a fire.” How could you say that gently?) For some, all they could do was give some needed information (“Who was his dentist, Mr. Abbot?”) to the harried coroners.
Emma, the woman who worked dispatch, did her best, but she was fairly new on the job and ill-prepared for a disaster of this magnitude. In the midst of the chaos that came with the refinery fire, she had managed to log a call from Kaylie Darren, asking Jim to come by, no matter how late, whenever he had a minute. It was important that he come by, but it could wait.
Emma hadn’t managed to find out what Mrs. Darren had wanted. He tried to guess, figured she must be having problems with her neighbors. Maybe the Hanson’s teenage sons had been causing her some trouble. They had been knocking over mailboxes, setting off firecrackers and making general nuisances of themselves this summer. Hormones and heat. Bad combination.
Still, Kaylie wasn’t the type to complain about such things. He had known her back before she was Mrs. Darren. Kaylie Lindstrom. They went to high school together. She was blond, blue-eyed, skinny. Just started to fill out some when Joseph Darren had nabbed her. Have to give the son of a bitch that much-he had foresight then.
Jim mused over all he knew of Joseph Darren. Mother was a suicide. He had lived in Wichita for a while, got a girl pregnant. He gave his daughter his name, but never married her mother. Had the daughter with them every other weekend. Of course, that was when she was little. Daughter was grown by now. Hell, she must be-what, twenty-two? Older than most of the students Joseph Darren was rumored to be sleeping with. Jim remembered hearing that the daughter was married not long ago. Maybe she did better for herself than Kaylie did.
He thought of the day Kaylie had shown him the garden. He thought she had seemed starved for attention, and he had meant to come by again sometime. But maybe because she seemed starved for attention, he had hesitated to do so.
He got out of the patrol car and walked wearily toward the house, wondering if Kaylie knew her garage light was on.
She met him at the door, opened it and beckoned him inside before he could knock. Must have been watching for the patrol car. He stood in the front hallway, studying her for a moment. She looked good, slender and fit, but she was tense and talking too fast. Asked him to come in, thanked him for coming over, said she knew that he probably had his hands full what with the fire and all and…and trailed off, apparently not able to say whatever it was she had to say. His weariness left him then. He realized that something very serious was going on; she hadn’t called to complain about the Hanson kids or anything like that. He already knew he wasn’t going to like it.
He had seen this before, when a person had something they wanted to tell him, but couldn’t lay his or her hands on the starting thread of the story. He would make the first tug, so that she could begin the unravelling.
“Emma was a little flustered tonight, Kaylie. She didn’t tell me what it was you needed to see me about.”
“No, I-I guess I forgot to tell her.”
Tug or wait? He waited. She was looking up at him now, searching his face. Goddamn, it was hot in this house. What was she looking for?
“Kaylie?”
“Joseph’s dead.”
Wait. Keep waiting, he told himself.
“He’s in the garage.”
“Why don’t you show me, Kaylie?”
She nodded. He followed her into the kitchen, to the door leading to the garage. When she opened it, there was another blast of heat, and as he entered the garage he realized that the clothes dryer was on. But that distracted him only for a moment.
Jim saw the feet first. The shoes, black leather shoes; dark gray socks; sharply-creased gray pants, stained; fingers curving, hands limp at his sides; long-sleeved white shirt (stray thought: must have been hot, wearing that thing on a day like today); red tie, collar, rope; head bent forward, eyes open and staring down; rope continuing to rafters. One straight, still line of lifelessness. Ladder not far away. All baldly illuminated from overhead by a single light bulb in a white ceramic socket.
Behind him, Jim heard the rhythmic hum and whisper of the dryer.
In front of him, Kaylie swayed a little, and he caught her to him, letting her bury her face on his shoulder. She didn’t cry, she didn’t even put her arms around him, just leaned into him. He held on to her.
Joseph Darren’s lifeless eyes continued to stare down. Jim stared back.
You son of a bitch. Just like your mother. Wasn’t that enough to teach you what this would be like for Kaylie, coming in here to find you like this?
“Let’s go back into the house,” he said.
She looked up at him. Didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Kept watching his eyes. What was she looking for?
“Shouldn’t we cut him down?” she asked.
“No, I’m sorry, we can’t. With this fire, well, I’m afraid we’ll have to wait a while before I can get a crime scene team out here.”
“A crime team?”
“An investigator, a criminalist, whoever else they want to call in. And a coroner. A suicide is a reportable death. I’m sorry, Kaylie; it’s the way I have to handle it. Let’s go inside.”
She let him lead her back into the kitchen. He closed the door to the garage and felt her relax a little as it clicked shut. The kitchen was bright and gleaming, its white-tiled counters scrubbed, the white linoleum shining. The second ha
nd on a round, plain-faced, battery-operated clock ticked away the time with small, jerking movements. On a dish drainer below it, two plain, white dishes, a wine glass and two sets of silverware were drying. On the kitchen table, a red vase held a wild assortment of summer blossoms, mostly roses.
“From your garden?” he asked.
“Yes, I brought them in today. Can I get you something cold to drink?”
“Thanks, that would be nice. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“You’re leaving?”
Looking at her troubled face, he felt another surge of anger toward the man in the garage. Hell, and he hadn’t done so well by her himself; left her waiting around with her husband’s corpse for several hours.
“Just for a minute. I’m just going to go out to the car; I’ll be right back. You’ll be all right?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Hot as it was outside, it was actually cooler than in the house. The stench from the fire was all that kept him from asking Kaylie to talk to him on the porch. He called in on his radio; Emma, who was feeling guilty about not taking a better message from Kaylie, called him back and told him that she had tried to get the county people to cooperate, but it would at least an hour before they could get anyone out to him. He gathered up his clipboard and forms.
On his way back to the house, he noticed the air conditioner in the bedroom window. He wondered why she wasn’t using it.
They sat at the table, drinking lemonade, both silent for a time. He decided that he would get the business end of all of this over and done with, so that he could spend the rest of the time he waited with her as a friend, not an officer of the law.
“I need to ask you a few questions, Kaylie.”
She nodded. “Go ahead. It’s all right, Jim.”
She was tense again, he could see. He didn’t want to make this any harder on her than it already was. Slowly, he told himself. Take it slow and easy. “Did your husband go to work out at the college today?”
“Yes. He was at the college most of the day. He has a full schedule for summer session. I’m not sure exactly when he got home-I was working in the garden this afternoon. But I heard the phone ring and came in to answer it; Joseph had already picked it up. That was at about five o’clock, and it looked like he had just walked in not too long before that.”
“He was dressed like he is now?”
“Yes, that’s what he had on. I think Lillian called before he had a chance to change.”
“Lillian? His daughter?”
“Yes. He talked to her. I-I know there’s never any one reason for these things, but the call seemed to upset him.”
“Why?”
She looked away. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s my fault, not Lillian’s. I don’t think I ever made him very happy.”
“Kaylie.”
She looked back at him.
“Don’t do that to yourself. Please.”
She said nothing for a moment, then sighed. “You’re right, of course.”
“Tell me about the phone call.”
“Lillian called to say she was pregnant.”
“That upset him?”
“I know it sounds foolish, but you have to understand Joseph. He was so afraid of growing old. That’s why he had those affairs with his students.”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Yes, I knew about them. It’s a small town, Jim. I got ‘Dear Abby’ clippings in the mail whenever she ran a column on cheating husbands. Or some anonymous ‘friend’ would call me and tell me that she had seen Joseph going into a motel outside of town.”
“Good Lord.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“It doesn’t. I don’t think he saw himself as being much older than his students. Working at the college-well, all I’m saying is, the news that he was going to be a grandfather really shook him up.”
“Did he say anything to you about it?”
“No, not much. But he didn’t change his clothes or go on with his usual routine. He started drinking wine, so I hurried and made dinner, trying to get him to put some food in his stomach. But he kept drinking throughout dinner. I should have known something was wrong then. But when I hinted that he should stop drinking, he became quite foul-tempered. I didn’t feel like putting up with it, not in this heat. So I went back out to the garden. I spent quite a while out there-maybe if I had stayed with him…”
“Kaylie, don’t. None of this is your fault.”
She was silent for a time, then said, “I’m sorry. You must have other questions.”
“Not too many more. Had he been depressed or anxious lately, other than tonight?”
She reached toward the vase and absently touched a petal on a yellow rose. “I guess it doesn’t do any harm to talk about this now.”
He waited.
She plucked the petal and held it to her nose, then let it fall to the table. “He didn’t talk to me much, Jim. Not about anything. But recently he had started taking Valium. I don’t even know the doctor who gave him the prescription.”
“Do you know when he last took any?”
She shook her head. “The bottle is in the bathroom. Do you want me to get it for you?”
“No, that’s okay, I’ll take a look at it in a minute. Did you see him again after you came in from the garden?”
“No-I mean, not alive.” She reached up and took another petal from the rose. “This is the part I feel the worst about,” she said softly. She looked over at him, studying him.
What is she looking for?
She dropped the petal, reached for another one. “I didn’t know he was out there. I was out in the garden, then cutting flowers and arranging them in this vase. I thought he had gone out, or that he might have gone to bed early. Then I heard the explosion over at the refinery, and I stood out on the porch and watched the flames for a little while. I turned on the radio and listened to the news about it, listened while I washed dishes, cleaned the counters and mopped the floor. Then I went into the bedroom, where it was cooler. I can’t say I was especially surprised that Joseph wasn’t there. I go to bed alone quite often. Sometimes he comes in late.”
Jim found himself staring at the door to the garage.
“I didn’t go out there until much later,” she rushed on. “I had some laundry to do. That’s when I found him. I came back inside and called you-I mean, called the sheriff’s office.”
Emma had logged the call in at about nine, when things were still hopping from the fire. “So the last time you saw him was about when?”
“I guess it would have been about six-thirty.”
“And do you know what time it was you came in from the garden?”
“A little before sundown; before eight, I suppose.”
He looked at his watch. It was just after one o’clock in the morning; the refinery had been burning since eight-thirty. The man could have been out there in the garage for a long time. In this heat, even the coroner might find it difficult to set a time of death very accurately. He did as much of the paperwork as he could, then asked if she would mind if he looked around.
She didn’t object, but asked him if it would be all right if she waited back in the bedroom. “It’s cooler in there,” she explained.
Remembering the air conditioner, he understood.
He looked over the living room and the professor’s study. If Joseph Darren left a suicide note, it was not on any of the clean and tidy surfaces of either room. There was, in fact, nothing very personal in them. Next he looked through the bathroom. Towels and washclothes neatly folded on the rack; chrome on the fixtures shining, toothbrushes in a holder, toothpaste tube rolled from the bottom. No thumbprint on the bottom edge of medicine cabinet, like you’d see in his own house.
All the contents were in well-ordered rows. The medications were lined up, labels facing out. Non-prescription on one side, prescription on another. The Valium bottle was there, half-empty ev
en though it was recently refilled. Maybe the professor had considered pills before he decided to stick with family traditions.
The other prescriptions were mostly leftover antibiotics; none past their expiration dates. There was only one made out to Kaylie. Premarin.
Premarin. Where had he heard of that before? He stretched and yawned. Premarin. Oh, sure-his mom had taken it. Estrogen, for menopause.
Menopause? Kaylie? Maybe she needed it for some other reason. She was only forty, for godsakes. Some women went through it that early, he knew. But Kaylie?
Well, if she was going through it, she was. It didn’t really bother him. No children, but at forty, maybe she didn’t want to start a family. Hell, she was going to be a grandmother. Step-grandmother.
He felt a familiar sensation. Tugging at a mental thread.
Something had bothered him, earlier. In the garage. The light being on? No, he could understand that. She wouldn’t turn it off, not with him in there. She walked in, saw him hanging there, probably was so shaken she ran back out and didn’t venture back in.
But she had ventured back in. He knew then what it was that had bothered him. The dryer. Lord Almighty.
He leaned against the sink, suddenly feeling a little sick to his stomach. What kind of woman washed a load of laundry in the same room where her husband was hanging from the rafters?
Slow down. Slow down, he told himself. It was weird, no doubt about it. But not necessarily meaningful. Maybe she cleans when she gets upset. The house was so immaculate, it was almost like being in a museum.
He would just ask her about it. He walked to the bedroom door and knocked.
“Come in,” she called.
He opened the door. This room, unlike the others, was slightly in disorder. The bed was rumpled, although made. An old-fashioned walnut dressing table held a silver mirror and brush and comb, a few lipsticks and other make-up items, a couple of small bottles of perfume and a small cluster of earrings, as if she had been sorting through them, choosing which pair she would wear. Photographs of a couple he recognized as her parents, long dead now, took up most of the rest of the space on it.