Exact Revenge

by Tim Green

  When my mother wasn’t reading a book, she was studying magazines like Architectural Digest, Vogue, or Town amp; Country. Every cent my father let her have, she spent on things that were irrelevant to the Native American wife of a quarry man. Irrelevant, but fine. Lalique figurines. A Cartier bracelet. A Chanel evening gown she could never wear.

  I was ten when she left to marry a man who drove a black Mercedes coupe. A man who owned a large paving company and who bought crushed stone from my father. A man who smelled like peppermint and wore a gold Rolex. He was for real, though. He even took her to Greece on their honeymoon.

  My mother told me then that I was a man already. Ahead of my years and that I would be fine. I was like Running Deer, my namesake, the boy chief who led his people to victory over the Hurons when he was only eleven. I tried to make her words come true, to be a man.

  I remember that Christmas, tramping off into the dark winter woods after school and sawing down a tree to surprise my father. Something he had always done for the three of us. I remember the quiver in my lip when I refused to give up my seat on the bus to the eighth grader who regularly taunted me. Him walking away. I remember my fingers going numb around a wrench and the smoke of my breath, lying on the cold concrete floor and looking up at the oil pan of my father’s truck as it bled a thick black ribbon into a cut-down Clorox bottle. My first oil change.

  But I think I did more than try to be the man my mother said I already was. I think too that I tried to fill the void she left behind. I remember making my father’s breakfasts, breaking the yolks like her and peppering them so thick it looked like they fell in the road. Coffee in the tall gurgling percolator. The oily smell of sardines laid out over a bed of tuna salad, capped with a fat slice of onion, wrapped in tinfoil, and lowered carefully into his dented blue lunch pail. Breaking from the math homework spread out over the kitchen table and uncapping two longneck bottles of Budweiser for him and Black Turtle. Setting them down without being asked on the porch railing where the two of them sat rocking in the darkness-the way she had always done.

  While my mother said I would be fine, my father said the marriage wouldn’t last long.

  They were both right.

  My life became a storybook of success-scholarship offers, valedictorian, All-America soccer player-and she moved on to marry one of the heirs to the DuPont fortune before I turned fourteen. Two years later, she and her third husband died when their private jet went down over the Atlantic Ocean. They were on their way to Bermuda for the season.

  I tried not to cry. To be a man. But I guess all those eggs and coffees and lunches and beer caps had undermined my efforts at manhood. Sixteen and I bawled hysterically right in front of Black Turtle and my father and ran off into the woods to hide.

  I only tell you all this because I want you to understand the significance of the next twenty-four hours I’m going to tell you about. Back then, I didn’t stop to think about why I felt that I had experienced some kind of spiritual ascension, I only knew that I had. Everything was right.

  I had grown up afraid of being my father. I was happy to have his rugged looks, his strong back, and his quick mind. But I was determined to have more. I was going to be rich and powerful. That was the lesson of my childhood.

  When I resisted Celeste Oliver’s temptation-my own forty days in the desert-I couldn’t help congratulating myself. I felt not just worthy of everything that had been placed at my feet, but entitled. I had worked and planned my whole life to be in the path of some fantastic destiny. Finally, on that summer day, I knew that it was in my grasp.

  I had this amazing house that everyone wondered how I got my hands on. One of those deals you only hear about. It belonged to the family of a friend I knew at Princeton. They came to me to help work out the estate after the death of their grandmother. When I saw this place, I told them they wouldn’t even have to put it on the market.

  It was an old Tudor cottage tucked into a small cove on Skaneateles Lake. You couldn’t see it from the road or even very clearly from the water because of the massive oaks and towering spruce that surrounded it. It had a prominent rubblework chimney flanked by stucco walls and brunette half-timbering. Gingerbread gableboards and diamond-pane window casements gave it a fairy-tale quality, and it had a thick slate terrace out back that overlooked the water.

  The master bedroom upstairs was my favorite spot. It had a set of arched French doors in the peak of the roof that led out onto a small balcony. In the summer, the moon came up over the eastern ridge beyond the lake like a big pumpkin. From there, I could see all the way to the south end of the lake, into the next county where the tree-lined slopes descend almost a thousand feet from the ridge to the deep green water below.

  By the time I got home from delivering the envelope to Roger Williamson’s mistress, dusk was on its last breath. I quickly changed my clothes and fished the velvet ring box out of the bottom of my sock drawer. Lexis agreed to meet me at Kabuki, a sushi restaurant in town at the head of the lake. During the drive to my dad’s I had called for a nine-thirty reservation at the front table overlooking the water.

  My buddy’s grandmother had planted a bed of orange daylilies under the front windows and I stopped to cut half a dozen of them to give to Lexis. I got there late, but not enough to subdue the glow in Lexis’s eyes when I handed her the flowers. I drank seltzer water with Lexis, but I felt drunk anyway, and by the time we got our molten chocolate cake with green tea ice cream, I had asked her to marry me. She cried and said yes, then we drove back to my place, where I carried her across the threshold and we giggled like kids.

  Upstairs, I opened the French doors and stepped out onto the balcony. Water lapped the smooth shale beach below and a broad swath of moonlight sparkled on the lake’s surface. As I turned, Lexis slipped her dress off her shoulder and it fell to the floor. I stepped inside, fumbling with my belt, then the zipper. My jeans hit the wood floor and we twined ourselves together on the four-poster bed.

  It was deep in the night when I woke up. The breeze had a bite to it and the moon had either gone down or was clouded over. Beyond the balcony now was only blackness. I got up to use the bathroom and shook two aspirin out of a bottle. My water glass clinked against the tap as I filled it with lake water. I swallowed my medicine, then felt my way back into the bedroom, sliding under the warm tangle of sheets and pulling Lexis’s naked body close.

  I was suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed by an irrational fear. One day, we would die. Then we would be apart forever. Insane, I knew, but still my heart pushed up into my throat. The rest of my chest felt empty. I never wanted to be without her. Not then. Not for eternity.

  “Lexis,” I whispered. “I love you.”

  She stretched, and I could see her smile even in the darkness.

  “I love you too,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “I just don’t ever want to be without you,” I said, sick with this crazy fear.

  “Go back to sleep,” she said, turning toward me and wrapping her arms and legs tight around my body. “That could never happen.”

  10

  IN THE MORNING, I took a ten-mile run in the drizzling rain. I was drenched and slick with sweat and sucking in air. I shucked off my sneakers and clothes on the end of the dock and plunged into the cold water. After looking around for any fishermen drifting in from the mist, I climbed naked onto the dock, grabbed a towel from the boat, and wrapped it around my waist.

  Halfway up the slate walk to the house, I smelled food. Lexis had cooked up my favorite breakfast: broccoli and cheese omelets. We had buttered toast made from thick-cut Italian bread and coffee made from the beans of an espresso blend. We ate outside on the slate terrace even though the air was still damp from the rain. When I finished eating, I sat back and inhaled the curling steam from my coffee mug. Out on the lake, a fishing boat floated past, appearing and disappearing on the fringe of the morning mist. The laughter of the two fishermen rang out across the still water.

 
We moved inside and sat on the couch by the empty fireplace, reading our books until noon, then took my nineteen-foot Sea Ray into town for fried fish sandwiches at Doug’s. By the time we came out, the clouds had thinned and the sun had begun to boil off the dampness. We stopped at Riddler’s for the paper.

  Someone had leaked the news of my impending nomination and my picture was on page one. I looked around the store and folded the paper in half before buying it with my head down.

  Back at the house, we toweled off the deck chairs on the end of the dock and lay reading in the sun. When it got hot enough, we went in the water and played our usual game. I’d take a deep breath and crouch down on the rocky bottom. She’d fit her insteps into my palms, then I’d stand up fast and push for the sky. Lexis would launch into the air and do a flip. I loved seeing her do that and we’d laugh until we couldn’t catch our breath.

  Dan Parsons sent a long black limousine for us at five-thirty, and by the time we arrived at the convention center, the crowd converged around us, fawning as if we were a museum exhibit. And, me being a Republican with a Native American mother, I guess in a way we were. Cameras flashed at odd intervals. I saw Lexis stare at a tray of champagne being offered to her by a waiter, but she smiled at me and shook her head no to him. We drifted through the swirl of congratulations. Congratulations when they saw her ring. Congratulations on the Iroquois deal. Congratulations for my nomination. Love. Money. Power.

  We sat at the head table with the governor and his wife on one side and the Parsonses on the other. On the opposite side of the dais, Bob Rangle was red-faced and drinking a glass of white wine that seemed to be bottomless. The one time we found ourselves face-to-face during cocktails, he scowled and quickly turned away. I wasn’t surprised that he was finally showing his true feelings, but I was disappointed that he had chosen to show them here.

  I had only one Budweiser before I switched to Perrier, but I was as light-headed as if I’d kept drinking beer. I took a few bites of my prime rib, then lost my appetite. I had refused to prepare some long-drawn-out speech. That was part of doing it my way. Still, I knew enough to at least jot down some notes for what I was about to say. My stomach felt light and queasy, and I was wiping the sweat from my palms on the legs of my pants, concentrating on taking slow deep breaths when a waiter tapped my shoulder.

  “Mr. White?” he said. “Those men asked to speak with you.”

  Standing at the bottom of the steps that led up onto the dais were two uniformed police and a man with an auburn mustache wearing a navy blazer. On either side of them were the stone-faced state troopers who protected the governor.

  Lexis saw me looking at them. When I stood up, she said, “Raymond?”

  She touched my arm. At that moment, all of it-the adulation, the glamour, the power-began to melt away, and the only thing that mattered to me was her.

  I was suddenly struck by the feeling that I’d done something wrong, even though I hadn’t. I should have told Lexis about Roger Williamson and the letter and the girl. Why hadn’t I?

  It was too late. My legs were numb, but I was already at the steps.

  The man in the blazer and the orange mustache took a paper out of his inside pocket. He handed it to me.

  “Raymond White?” he said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you please come with us?”

  “Why?”

  He looked out at the crowd that was beginning to crane their necks. A murmur rose up.

  “Because you’re under arrest,” he said. “For the murder of Celeste Oliver.”

  11

  FOR A LONG TIME I was blinded by my raging hatred for Frank. I would scream his name in the dark. Shout the things I would do to him. Dream about the pain I would inflict. But over the years that hatred settled into my bones, its ache less sharp, but also more complete.

  It was a year and a half before I realized Frank was not the only one responsible. I don’t mean that weasel-faced Rangle or even that potato-headed insincere drunk, Russo.

  There was also someone else.

  Daylight was gone, but Dean Villay could still make out where the expansive canopies of the old chestnut trees ended and the night sky began. He could see better than most in the dark. He could see the small triangular sail of the Laser nearly two miles to the south out in the middle of the lake.

  Soon the moon would be up. Until then, his fiancée was taking a ridiculous chance. As if on cue, the drone of a speedboat passed by, heading to the south. No navigation lights on. Another drunken fool or a kid who didn’t know better. Villay clenched his hands. His chubby lip curled.

  Allison had no business doing this to him. Taking chances. He understood her need to get away. She was upset about her father, even if she barely knew the man. And the party had been a bore, with her mother droning on about the good old days when their mansion on the lake was the center of society for central New York. Now it needed paint, new window casements, and another bathroom.

  He had enough people to prosecute already without having to worry about some errant boater and a criminally negligent homicide. He ground his teeth and turned away, walking up the lawn beneath the chestnuts toward the big house. The last of the cars were pulling away down the gravel drive, their tires crunching. Older people mostly, the kind who still tried to look young. Friends of his mother-in-law-to-be.

  He threw his gray blazer over his shoulder and climbed the back steps, careful to avoid the rotted one that was second from the top. The screen door screeched and he stepped into the steamy kitchen. Allison’s mother wiped her hands on the sides of her pale green chiffon dress while she bitched at two of the caterer’s people.

  “In my day, to flaunt yourself like that was a disgrace,” she was saying. “People would call you lewd. A hussy. You’ll not be paid. Not out of my pocket.”

  The mother had insisted that the help for the evening wear black dresses with white aprons and matching headpieces. This particular girl hadn’t buttoned her collar all the way to the neck. Villay rolled his eyes.

  “Dean,” Allison’s mother barked. “Where were you? There are two police officers looking for you. They’re in the salon. I gave them lemonade.”

  Villay excused himself, thankful for the distraction. The two city cops sat on the big musty couch with their hats on the coffee table. They jumped to their feet and set the tall clear glasses back on the doilies Allison’s mother had provided for them.

  “She told us to wait here, sir,” the older one said, pulling his hat over his iron gray crew cut. The blond one nodded.

  “They tried to call,” he said. “The chief said you were here.”

  Villay took the cell phone out of his pocket and turned it back on.

  “My engagement party,” he said.

  The older cop nodded as if he knew and said, “The chief said he was sorry to bother you, but that you’d want to know. There was a girl murdered on the North Side last night, some stripper, and we just arrested Raymond White…”

  “Not the one in the paper? The one who’s going to be congressman?”

  “They’re pretty sure,” the cop said. “The chief had Detective Simmons pick him up at the governor’s fund-raiser.”

  Villay squinted his eyes. His mouth dropped open and he leaned his face toward the cop.

  “Lady across the street has been complaining about this girl running a whorehouse,” the cop said. “She’s been collecting tag numbers. Anyway, she saw Raymond visit and leave last night. Picked him out of a photo lineup. Looks like they fought for a while. He cut her throat with a fishing knife. They found the knife under the backseat of his car and blood on the steering wheel.”

  “Raymond White?” Villay said, more to himself.

  “The chief thought you’d want to talk to him. We’re holding him at the Public Safety Building. The television stations are all there…”

  Villay returned to the kitchen to tell Allison’s mother that he was being called away on an important murder case.


  12

  “I’M GOING,” I SAID, shaking the cop’s hand off my arm. The detective with the orange mustache grabbed my hand and pushed it up behind my back, slapping a cuff around my wrist. One of the uniformed cops pulled my other arm and pushed that back too. I felt the metal bracelet chafing the bone of that wrist as well. They shoved me out onto the sidewalk into the flash of blue lights. Television cameras, already there for the governor, were jostling for a shot, moving in. The white glare of their lights blinded me from every direction.

  Someone shoved a microphone into my face. The foam windscreen bumped my nose.

  “Get back,” the detective said, pushing the reporter away.

  I ducked my head and they put me into the back of a car. The cameras bobbed up and down outside my window, following the squad car as it pulled slowly away from the curb. The Public Safety Building was just three blocks away, and the media were moving like a horde up the sidewalk as we entered the newly constructed six-story building. I had to wait to pass through the metal detector and I stood there next to a derelict wearing tattered jeans and a filthy shirt.

  He looked up from his own pair of handcuffs and asked, “What’d they get you for?”

  His breath stunk from whiskey and decay.

  I turned my head away from him, swallowing hard to keep the bile down.

  Upstairs, they chained me to a metal bench in a small interrogation room. Blue uniforms with different faces peeked in through the open door.

  The cop with the orange mustache came in without his navy blazer. He had a fresh yellow pad and a pen in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. The armpits of his shirt were badly stained. He turned on the tape recorder, read me my Miranda warning for a second time, and started asking questions.