Bad Desire

by Devon, Gary;

  “Oh, a lot of ’em left already for the weekend. You know, Memorial Day.”

  “That’s right,” he said, “probably so.”

  “Cinnamon roll and coffee, like always?” she asked him.

  With the same controlled ease, he nodded, then changed his mind. “No …” he said. “This morning I want your country breakfast, eggs sunny-side, pan sausage, a biscuit and black coffee.”

  After the waitress left, Slater sat feeling pleased, as if he had just negotiated a difficult and trying arbitration. Before it hadn’t meant anything—one breakfast roll had been like the next. But now he wanted to savor everything, to add any and all pleasures to this new sensation of freedom.

  7:48. Almost an hour had passed since he had left the garden. Shouldn’t there be sirens by now? Why were the streets so quiet? Surely they’ve moved the body by now.

  What if she wasn’t really dead?

  No, he decided. No. I know that’s not possible. Otherwise Reeves would be here by now—looking for me. Slater took a drink of the ice water, noticing the coldness of the glass on his fingers—the fingers that had held the knife. And while his mind leapt from detail to detail, it seemed now that any one of them could blow everything sky high.

  People came into the restaurant; others went out. Empty coffee cups were left on the counter, then whisked away. His breakfast came and Slater ate it with good appetite. Lifting the buttered biscuit to his mouth, sipping the hot coffee, he was aware of the customers around him, coming and going. A few of the men spoke, one patted his shoulder; most did not even look at him. He sat alone, enjoying his breakfast, feeling thoroughly strange and marvelous.

  The waitress cleared the plates from his table. With a second cup of coffee, Slater smoked a cigarette and wondered what was happening in the garden. Outside on the sidewalk, a girl walked by, a plain girl with a firm, lilting glide in her walk. A thin banner of light, threading through the gap between buildings, wrapped over her dark hair, catching its reddish highlights. All morning long, he had kept the thought of Sheila Bonner buried deep and now it came. How much had Rachel told Sheila? The hard little barriers of happiness he had been enjoying began to dissolve. Through his shoulders now and in the back of his legs, he felt a dull, ominous pain. Of course, he had known all along that this would be a horrible blow to Sheila.

  I’m terrified, he thought. I sit here and terror comes in spurts.

  Trying to appear nonchalant, he looked around to see if anyone was watching him. No one was, that he could tell. It made sense that the old woman would go to any length to poison the girl against him.

  All the feelings he had been holding back began to pour forth: feelings of conscience and an awful fear, guilt, remorse. He’d have to go to her. He would talk to her, comfort her, spend time with her—he would do anything to see that Sheila did not suffer. But not now. He would have to wait. Slater crushed the cigarette in the ashtray.

  I’ll just have to get through this, he thought, one thing at a time. As he collected his things he looked at his hands again, clean, innocent-looking hands that now snapped the newspaper back into shape. Hardly instruments of death.

  With his left hand, he reached for the check; the gold ring on his middle finger shone dully. Then the white tablecloth framing his hand began to shift and swim under his eyes. The noise in the room hummed like static in an old radio. His power for thought seemed to disintegrate in the air, leaving only a quivering fright in his nerves. He continued to stare at his ring.

  The gold setting was empty.

  His diamond was gone.

  PART

  TWO

  9

  At ten-fifteen that morning, Faith Slater left the house and drove down the long brick driveway overarched with oaks. Since Luisa was coming in late today, she stopped at the end of the drive to pick up the mail.

  It was a rare spring morning, the air fresh and warm. Birds fluttered in and out of trees, building their nests. All around her, buds were giving forth new young leaves. As she pulled open the metal flap and took out the thick wedge of mail, a second car appeared, swinging up over the knob of the hill and braking on the pavement behind her. Aware of who it was by the bright red streak of the car, Faith waved to her neighbor and extracted the last remaining envelopes from the box. With her left arm full of mail, she started toward the Corvette. “Good morning, Sarah,” she called out, smiling. “Where’re you rushing off to?”

  Sarah Murtaugh beckoned for her to come faster. “Haven’t you heard what’s happened?”

  “No, I guess I haven’t.” Faith crossed the pavement’s double yellow line to the side of the car. “I’ve been making my morning calls. What’s up?”

  “Rachel Buchanan’s been killed. She was murdered.”

  “Rachel?” she uttered, in disbelief.

  “Yes, you know who I mean,” Sarah was saying, “don’t you, Faith? She’s one of those older Garden Club women.”

  “Of course I know her.” Faith stood stiffly, leaning over the open convertible, clutching the ream of mail against her stomach. “My God, Sarah, we lived across the street from her … when we first moved here. Are you sure about this?”

  “I couldn’t believe it either, nobody can, but I—”

  “Killed?”

  “Yes. Murdered. They’ve been announcing it all morning on the radio.”

  Faith looked straight into Sarah Murtaugh’s face, trying to study out the fallacy in what she was saying. “I can’t absorb this,” Faith said. She drew a deep breath to try to calm her nerves. “Where? Did it happen in town?”

  “It was at her house. They’re saying those convicts did it.”

  “Oh, no—But what about the girl? Rachel’s granddaughter?”

  “They haven’t mentioned anyone else.”

  Trying to clear her head, Faith straightened, and as she did, she saw a dark brown station wagon climbing in their direction. “Here comes Nancy Herbert,” she told Sarah. “I wonder if she knows about it.”

  “Hey, sweetie, I gotta go,” Sarah Murtaugh said with a mechanical grin. “Nannie and me—we don’t get along. Besides, I’m running late. Give my best to Henry.” She wiggled all four fingernails in a wave good-bye and sped away. But, by then, Nancy Herbert’s car was rolling up beside Faith in the opposite lane, Nancy’s familiar face tilted out the window. “Did you hear about Rachel?”

  “Yes, my God. Do you know how it happened?”

  “All I know is Sue Bruckner called somebody she knows over there and he said Rachel was cut to ribbons.”

  “No!”

  “It’s a nightmare. A real one. I’ve gotta go.” And a little wave left Faith alone in the street.

  The image of Rachel Buchanan loomed vividly in her mind—ragged straw hat, always wearing an apron, hands on her hips as she surveyed her garden, her crabby voice and her smile that seemed to say it was all a joke anyway. “Who could do that to her?” Faith whispered to herself. How can it be true? Good Lord, there’re far too few Rachels in this world as it is.

  She couldn’t stop imagining Rachel’s face. My God, she thought as she slid into the driver’s seat and dropped the mail beside her, Rachel was our neighbor for almost four years! She rolled down the side windows for the fresh air, released the handbrake and turned down the hill. Faith switched on the car radio, whipping the dial to one of the local stations.

  “Details remain sketchy at this time. Investigators from the Rio Del Palmos police department and the California State Police have confirmed a homicide this morning at 522 Canyon Valley Drive. The victim has been identified as Rachel Buchanan, sixty-eight …”

  Faith could feel the icy certainty of it spreading through her body. Her hands were cold; she was cold all over.

  “Police are asking that friends of the victim remain calm and vacate the scene. We repeat. Please avoid the scene of the crime.”

  When the national news came on, Faith turned the radio off. It was true, then, after all, no matter how impossible it seemed—he
r old neighbor, her friend had been murdered. All of a sudden, Faith’s eyes filled with tears.

  Speeding through the outlying neighborhoods, on her way downtown, she noticed how vacant the city seemed. Even the traffic seemed lighter and slower than usual. The houses looked closed and locked, their porches empty. Parks and sidewalks were deserted; no one walked by. But school was out. Maybe that was the reason. This was one of the first days of summer vacation. So where were all the children? Her stomach felt hard, like a clenched fist. Faith tried to keep a grip on herself, tried to control her unreasoning sense of panic.

  But the closer she came to the downtown business district, the tighter the fist grew inside her. The traffic thickened, surging around her on Concepción Avenue, forcing her to slow down. Faith noticed shopkeepers standing in doorways, talking excitedly with passersby. Along the sidewalks, in clumps of two or three, other people scurried past, talking and gesturing to each other.

  Faith felt the sun beating down on her through the open car window, but more than that, she was aware of a mounting disorder in the atmosphere—a sense of people verging on frenzy, rushing through the streets. She stopped behind two cars, waiting for the light to change, when a figure ran up to her passenger window—Millie Dougherty, a woman she recognized from church but hardly knew. “Mrs. Slater, didn’t you hear about Rachel Buchanan?”

  “Oh, Millie, yes,” Faith said, leaning over the passenger seat, “I can’t believe—”

  “Then what’re you doing here?” the woman broke in, her eyes anxious with fear. “They’re here. Those convicts are here. Shouldn’t you be home? That’s where I’m going.”

  Before Faith could reply, the woman darted back to the sidewalk and away.

  Then she was driving again, the sick knot twisting tighter and tighter in her stomach. Those convicts, she thought, here?… loose? Someone in a Mercedes pulled out directly in front of her. Slamming her brakes, heaving up against the wheel, Faith squeezed her eyes shut, certain they would crash, but with a whoosh, the Mercedes sped off. Unstrung by the near collision, the muscles in her arms and legs vibrated. My God. Convicts here, in Rio Del Palmos? She could feel gooseflesh up and down the backs of her arms.

  The next intersection—where Mercantile Street crossed Concepción—was the one Faith wanted. It led to City Hall half a block away, but she found herself mired at the end of a line of traffic so stationary that she sat through the light, twice. Unwilling to wait any longer, Faith pulled to the right around the car in front of her, rolling slowly forward, threading into the gap between the line of traffic and the cars parked at the curb.

  Through the open car windows beside her, Faith heard their radios—one after another, discordant voices but all part of the same fragmented stream:

  “… neighbors discovered the body …”

  “… for years a teacher at Uriah Elementary …”

  “… a brutal attack of such savagery …”

  “… Sheila Bonner, seventeen, lone surviving member …”

  “… president emeritus of the Garden Club …”

  “… still at large … urged to stay at home and lock their doors …”

  Oh, Rachel, she thought. Rachel, Rachel.

  She reached the corner and saw immediately what had caused the backup. The street was cordoned off. A patrolman, directing traffic, motioned for her to stop. “Lady,” he said, “where d’you think you’re going? You can’t go in there.”

  “But I’ve got to,” Faith told him. “I’m Mrs. Henry Slater, the mayor’s wife. It’s extremely important that I see him.”

  The patrolman eyed her, quickly. “I thought you looked familiar,” he said. “Mrs. Slater, you won’t find a place to park in the lot. You could park there on the corner, but you’ll have to walk it.”

  “That’s all right,” she told him. “I have to.”

  The patrolman waved her past. Faith parked where he had indicated, on the corner near a yellow line. She turned the engine off and saw the tumult spread out before her. Halfway down Mercantile, in front of City Hall, television vans and crews clogged the street. Up and down the sidewalks, crowds collected and split apart in roaming, murmuring pockets. She could almost feel their fear.

  Wasting no time, Faith rolled up her windows, got out of the car and locked the driver’s door. Throwing her purse onto her shoulder, she hurried down the sidewalk, dodging through the crowds, skirting the larger gatherings of people, moving out into the street and around parked cars.

  Outside the True Value store, a young housewife clutched a tray of potted geraniums and spoke into a reporter’s microphone. “It scares everybody,” Faith heard her say. “She was a very highly thought of person …”

  In front of Delray’s department store, a large throng spilled across the sidewalk into the street, completely surrounding the window display of television sets, watching and listening to a news update by way of the outdoor loudspeaker: “Mrs. Buchanan is survived by a granddaughter, Sheila Bonner, seventeen. Although Miss Bonner is in seclusion and could not be reached for comment, others in this exclusive community of fifty-nine thousand are less restrained …”

  From the loudspeaker, Faith heard a noise that sounded like a Teletype, and the crowd quieted. A newsman was saying, “We go now live to …” and instantaneously, Henry’s face appeared duplicated many times over on the stacked display of monitors. But after the first glimpse, Faith couldn’t see him. The crowd had closed ranks in front of her. She stepped off the curb.

  Patrolmen manned the yellow barricades around City Hall. The first policeman she approached recognized her right away. “Of course, Mrs. Slater,” he said, drawing the barrier aside, letting her through. Faith ran up the shallow flight of steps and crossed the open civic plaza, where cables and power lines crisscrossed the inlaid tile like tentacles. Television crews moved in and out of the emergency doors. “What’s going on?” she asked one of the electricians.

  “Press conference,” said the man. “We’ve been live now for about five minutes.”

  “Where’s it being held?” she asked, but he had gone toward the remote van. Faith pushed through the revolving glass doors, into the milling crowd that occupied the lobby. Following the heavy cables, she made her way toward the main floor conference room. When she reached the entryway, she caught the attention of the security guard, Radley.

  “Is that where Mr. Slater is?” she shouted above the bedlam.

  He nodded.

  “Which way will he be coming out?”

  Radley pointed toward the end of the corridor, where a few of the city council members stood at the back door.

  “Please let me in,” she said, going around those men who knew her. “Excuse me,” she whispered. “Hello, Emery. I’m sorry, excuse me,” weaving past their sweat-streaked shirts, hardly aware of their greetings, so focused was she on getting to Henry.

  Resounding through the public-address system, she heard her husband’s deep, forceful voice. “These convicts must be caught. These brutal murders must be stopped before more innocent blood is spilled.”

  Flashbulbs went off; the air itself seemed to quake. The theaterlike room was brilliant with klieg lights. Faith felt as if she had rushed into a white-hot sun. The ranks of cameramen and reporters were impassable, but she could see over their shoulders if she rose on tiptoe.

  Standing side by side at a podium, accompanied by an older uniformed state policeman, she saw Henry and Burris Reeves. Unflinchingly, Henry faced the barrage of light. “Only minutes ago,” he continued, “the Rio Del Palmos city council met in executive session. By a unanimous vote, we are offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of each of these deranged killers of Rachel Buchanan.”

  Again the chatter of cameras and flashbulbs. Burris Reeves stood jotting in his small notebook, sometimes staring at a point on the floor. In all this chaos, he was its still, grim center.

  Slater waited for the noise to die down.

 
“We invite and we will accept any private funding that increases this reward. But let it be known”—he shook his fist angrily and still again the room exploded with flashing bulbs—“I say, let it be known that this city government will not rest until these three murderers are captured and rightfully brought to trial—according to the sacred laws of this state.”

  The iron-hard forcefulness of his voice sent a shudder of relief through Faith. He was her ballast when the world was trembling beneath her. Questions rang through the air, shouts merged into confusion, but he didn’t respond. After a moment, Slater motioned for quiet.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my remarks this morning. Rio Del Palmos Police Chief Burris Reeves, the officer in charge of this morning’s investigation, has prepared a brief statement regarding Rachel Buchanan’s murder. With your kind indulgence, he will entertain your questions at the conclusion of his remarks. Thank you. Chief Reeves.”

  From the alcove at the side of the room, Faith watched Henry relinquish the microphone and step back toward the long conference table—while Burris Reeves unfolded his reading glasses and took the podium. Henry’s back was turned toward her when he quickly drank half a glass of water, his legs slightly apart, his left hand plunged into his trouser pocket. Even in the midst of turmoil, he looked powerful, entirely in charge of the proceedings. Faith felt a tremendous peace of mind now that she was here, able to see him and to know firsthand what was actually being done to find Rachel’s killers.

  Reeves said: “At approximately seven A.M. this morning, we were called to the residence of one Rachel S. Buchanan, age sixty-eight, at 522 Canyon Valley Drive. An ambulance from St. Mary’s Hospital preceded our arrival by a few minutes and Mrs. Buchanan was pronounced dead at the scene. The body had been discovered by neighbors. She was the victim of a violent attack, apparently during the commission of a thwarted burglary. She had been struck repeatedly with a single knife, which we have recovered, although the exact cause of death has yet to be officially determined. We are assisted in this investigation by the California Highway Patrol, namely Lieutenant Detective Nolan Ellis, who you see now standing to my right, and by the crime lab facilities and personnel in neighboring Santa Barbara.”