The First Wife

by Diana Diamond

  Jane found that she couldn’t take it anymore. She had seen all she could stand of her husband’s other life. It was time to go back to the hotel and confront him. But how? What would she say to the man she truly loved?

  “I know where you were this afternoon,” and then watch him squirm to find an appropriate explanation? Or maybe something more specific: “How did you enjoy making love to Selina Royce? I’ll bet she’s a real tiger in bed!” But she hesitated. Confronting him would be a declaration that she was leaving him. If she had any pride left at all, she couldn’t go on living with him once his affair was out in the open. She still hoped against all odds that there was some other explanation.

  He was seated at the bar when she entered the hotel, and she sat down beside him. “Busy day?” he asked as he signaled to the waiter.

  “It was,” she answered. “Lots of walking.”

  She ordered an iced tea. She was still feeling the wine she had at the sidewalk café. “How about you? Did your meetings go well?”

  He shrugged. “Okay, I suppose. You never get everything you want.”

  “I thought you always got everything you wanted,” Jane said. Her tone wasn’t teasing. She was making an accusation.

  Andrews shook his head.

  “Oh, by the way,” Jane went on, as if the thought had just struck her, “were you over near the opera house today?”

  His eyes widened. “No, why?” he asked, and then busied himself with his drink.

  “I thought I saw you,” she said cheerily. “I was walking on Boulevard Haussmann toward the opera, and I thought I saw you getting out of a taxi. I tried to catch up with you, but I lost you in the crowd.”

  He recovered from his shock. “Good thing you didn’t catch up. You would have bagged the wrong man. I was at the ministry all day, near the Trocadéro.”

  You lying bastard, she thought. But she managed a credible smile. “Well, I must be thinking about you all the time if strangers are starting to look like you.”

  He touched her hand as if he was pleased by her comment. But his look was back to business almost immediately. “What were you doing near the opera?”

  Now she began lying. “Well, I started the day at the Picasso, and then I remembered that they give tours of the opera house. So I had a bite at a café and walked over for the tour.”

  “How was it?”

  “How was what?

  “The tour.”

  “Great,” she said with feigned enthusiasm. “The backstage is enormous. And you should see some of the chandeliers.”

  “Do they still take you down into the sewers where the phantom used to live?” The question was innocent enough, but she sensed a trap.

  “No, they didn’t,” she said. “Come to think of it, they never even mentioned it.”

  He nodded, and sipped at his drink. Jane wondered whether she had given herself away.

  He was quiet during dinner, letting her do most of the talking. She filled the void by babbling about the wonders of the city and how she might like to live there someday. “Maybe when you own all the cable in the world, we could have an apartment here.” He nodded as if it might be a good idea, giving no indication that he already had one. Over dessert, he delivered his news. “I’m going to have to stay here for another day or two.”

  “Something wrong?” she wondered.

  “Like I said, today’s dealings didn’t go all that well.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” she offered.

  He shook his head. “No need to. I can get you a flight back in the morning.”

  “Back to what?” she asked. “The apartment smells of paint and plaster. I’d just as soon stay here. There’s lots more that I have to see. I can spend the whole day on the Left Bank.”

  When they returned to their suite, he surprised her by suddenly becoming romantic. He climbed into their bed naked and watched while she took a nightgown from her drawer. “I’d hate to see that get all wrinkled,” he teased.

  She took the nightgown with her to the bathroom. “Don’t you have a busy day tomorrow?” she said over her shoulder.

  “You know what?” he said before she could close the door. “I’d like to see you just the way you were when we first met. Remember? The only thing you were wearing was a towel wrapped around your head.”

  Jane couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He had just spent the afternoon with another woman. Now he was coming on to her as if they were still on their honeymoon. The bastard has chutzpah, she thought, not to mention boundless energy. She thought of locking herself in the bathroom, but the invitation was too exciting to resist. She undressed, hung the gown on the back of the door, and carefully wrapped a towel around her head.

  ————

  When she awoke, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed and ready to leave. “Just wanted to say good-bye,” he said, and he pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her cheek.

  “Was I that uninspiring?” she asked. “It looks as if you can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “I’ll be back for lunch,” he promised, “maybe even sooner.”

  “I’ll wait for you. I’ll go down to the spa for a massage. We can go over to the Left Bank together.”

  She showered slowly and dressed casually, then went down to the dining room for juice and coffee. At the spa, she spent half an hour in the gym running on a treadmill, then stretched out on a table and put herself in the hands of a masseuse. Her mind wandered back over the events of the day before.

  Her husband loved her. Either that or he was a brilliant actor. His tenderness in their lovemaking had taken her back to the sailboat and moments of bliss in his arms. His affection was real and his need for her obvious. She never for a moment felt that she was being used.

  Yet he was involved with another woman and had been for many years. Selina Royce was exquisite, and though Jane had no doubt that she, too, was attractive in her own way, she knew she wasn’t an international beauty. Bill would be much more interesting to the paparazzi with the woman she had followed yesterday on his arm. Maybe, after all these years, he still needed her. Probably he still loved her. But then why hadn’t he married her? There was nothing to stop him. As far as the public was concerned, all he would have to do was rediscover an old associate and ease Selina into his public life. There was no reason he would have to go on loving her from a distance.

  It was more likely that he was buying her loyalty. She knew things about Kay Parker’s final moments that he had to keep secret. Jane had assumed that was the reason for the monthly payments, but maybe the blackmail involved more. Maybe Selina also needed to believe that she was important in his life. She might never have mentioned the damage she could do to him and spelled out the price of her silence. It could be that he kept her as an intimate part of his life to ensure her loyalty, and the money was just to maintain her in a style befitting their relationship.

  But either way, he was a liar. He was lying to her and maybe lying to Selina as well. There had been many opportunities for him to explain. He could have told her when Leavitt first revealed that she was asking about Selina Royce. He could have told her on the boat when he found out that Roscoe Taylor was digging around. The truth was that he should have told her when he asked her to marry him.

  What should she do? Try to ignore it and accept the part of his life he shared with her? Be content to be queen of the castle even though he made regular trips to the harem? And just hope that sometime in the future he would be able to break free from the other woman, maybe even tell her what Selina’s hold on him had been?

  Or confront him? Tell him exactly what she knew and explain that they couldn’t go on together until he filled in all the blanks she didn’t know? Would he tell her the truth in order to keep her? Or was his secret so dark that he would give her up rather than reveal it?

  If only Roscoe had stayed on the case! Given more time, he probably would have uncovered the story, and then she would know what she was dealin
g with. Had he killed his wife? Did his mistress kill her? Or was there actually an intruder who killed Kay? What part had Robert Leavitt played in the whole affair? Clearly, he had helped cover it up, but had he also participated in the crime?

  The masseuse draped a bath sheet over her shoulders and helped Jane climb down from the table. She went to the shower and washed off the lotion. Then she wrapped the towel around herself and walked into the sauna. The rush of dry heat nearly drove her back out through the door. But she forged ahead and stretched out on the lower bench. Within a few seconds, she adjusted to the temperature and felt herself fall into a deeper level of relaxation.

  She rewound the events of the past few days and played them back again, searching for the clue she was missing. The evidence kept directing her back to the day eight years ago when Kay Parker died. The unanswered question was, who could have been there? Kay, Robert Leavitt, and William Andrews were certain. Selina was a possibility. And then there was the business meeting the previous night. Who had attended? Who else was up in the mountains who might have had a strong business or personal tie to her husband and his society wife? Bill knew, as did Leavitt. Probably some of the secretaries as well. It had been a long time ago, but people probably remembered the events surrounding Kay’s murder the same way they remembered where they were and who they were talking with when President Kennedy was shot. Who could she talk to? Who might give her a clue as to what happened up on the mountain in the ski lodge? She took the corner of the towel and wiped the perspiration from her forehead. The towel was hot, as if it had been steamed. So was her skin. She felt as if she were in an oven being slowly roasted. Jane glanced up at the thermometer, wiped the beads of sweat from her eyelashes, and found the arrow pointing to 180 degrees. She sat up, leaned near the coal scuttle, and poured a dipper of water onto the rocks. The water hissed into a cloud of steam. She lay back on her towel. Another few minutes, she told herself. She enjoyed the near pain of the intense heat, although she wondered about plunging directly into a cold shower. The shock, she thought, might be deadly. Maybe a warm shower gradually turning to cold. But after hesitating momentarily, the needle resumed its climb. She wrapped the towel around her and stepped to the door in order to get out. The door wouldn’t budge.

  34

  She pushed again and then slammed her hip against the wooden wainscoting. Nothing moved. The door was jammed shut. Damn! She was angry at being inconvenienced, not to mention that she’d be the color of a lobster if she didn’t get out soon. The glass window was fogged from the burst of steam she had created by dropping water onto the hot stones. She wiped it clean and looked out. The glass was hot enough to burn her forehead.

  She rapped on the window with her knuckles and heard a dead sound. If it was glass, it was a special heat-resistant glass. It had none of the resonance she would expect from knocking on a window. Damn! They would probably have to get the hotel engineer to free her. She didn’t like the idea of being rescued wearing nothing but a towel.

  She checked the thermometer. It read 185 degrees. How hot do they want to make this place? She went to the heating unit to turn down the temperature, but she couldn’t find a dial. There were white-hot stones being scorched by a gas flame. The flame seemed to be dangerously high.

  She ladled more water from the bucket and saw that there wasn’t more than half an inch of water left. She poured it all out onto the rocks, creating a new cloud of drenching steam. The flame flickered but reignited instantly. The temperature gauge dipped down to 180 degrees. But within seconds it was climbing again.

  It was at that moment Jane realized she was in terrible danger. She had no way of cutting back on the temperature, which would continue to rise. She couldn’t force the door open. And her pounding and shouting were deadened by the insulation in the walls. If someone didn’t stumble across her plight, she would be cooked like a rib roast.

  She wiped the window again and looked out. She could see the opposite wall, all white tile, like the showers. Someone had to come past. Just wait a second. When another woman walked by, pound on the glass and throw your hip against the door. She’d have to hear the noise, see Jane in the window, and realize that she was locked in. She waited, wiping her skin with the towel and then wrapping it around Jane as protection against the heat. She was beginning to feel dizzy and unsteady. My God, am I already being cooked?

  She rapped on the glass again and then used her knee to pound against the door. She waited. No one came. What if there was no one? What if the spa had no more customers and was closed for lunch? By the time they came back and realized she was missing, the heat would have roasted her.

  A shadow flashed past on the white tile wall. Two women, wrapped in bath sheets, suddenly came into view, walking side by side and chatting happily. Jane screamed at the top of her lungs. They kept walking. She pounded on the glass and crashed her knee against the door. The women never broke stride. Apparently, they never heard a thing. “Jesus,” she prayed, “I’m going to die in here.”

  All she had as tools were the long-handled ladle and the water bucket. She took the ladle, held it like a baseball bat, and struck the window. The glass held firm. The ladle broke, the deep cup splitting away from the long, thin handle. Jane took the bucket, swung it around behind her, and fired it into the window. The glass cracked, a single jagged line that ran from one corner to another. But it never threatened to shatter and fall out of its frame. She used the bucket again and again, but all she could do was add another crack that ran from the original break to another corner. It was some kind of safety glass that could crack or even shatter but would never fall out. And it was a double pane. There was another, just as stubborn, on the other side.

  She was exhausted. Just lifting and swinging the bucket was more than she could handle in the intense, energy-draining heat. Jane slumped back onto the towel, putting her weight on the edge of the bench. The heat burned at her mouth and ears and seemed to suck the moisture out of her body. Reason told her to relax, stay perfectly still, and conserve whatever energy she had left. Her survival instinct had other ideas. If she yielded, it would take only a few seconds for the intense heat to burn away her consciousness and leave her to die. If she was going to survive, she had to break out now, with the little bit of energy that was left to her.

  She lifted the water bucket by its handle and swung it with all her might. The glass she had cracked now burst into a star, but it held firm in the window. Jane swung at it again. It took still another blow to send shards flying. She tried to pull the remaining pieces out of the window opening, but the glass was too hot to touch. She retrieved her towel from the bench, wrapped it around her fist, and punched out the remaining glass. But there was another pane on the other side of the thick door, and when she swung the bucket, it crashed harmlessly against the inside window frame.

  She wiped the second window and caught a glimpse of the tile wall leading into the showers. Now when she knocked, anyone passing by the door was bound to hear her. But how long would that be? The thermometer was passing 210 degrees. The air burned her lungs as she breathed. The empty bucket seemed to have gotten too heavy to lift.

  She punched her towel-covered hand against the outside glass. It made a dull thud, but the glass remained intact. Then her arm began to bleed, slashed by the bits of glass still imbedded in the inside frame. She held the towel against her arm and looked around frantically. What else did she have to work with?

  A shadow flashed by the steamy window. Jane reached in with a bloody arm and knocked her knuckles against the glass. But the shadow had already passed. Whoever had walked by was already too far away to hear her feeble knocking.

  She looked at the fire, its flames licking the rocks that were giving off the intense heat. There was no way she could lower it. Then she thought of the rocks. If she could lift one of them, it would easily smash through the window. She folded the towel to double its thickness and then folded it again. But even with the towel, she couldn’t get her hand down
into the furnace. Her skin seared instantly.

  She felt dizzy. She needed to sit down on the bench. But she knew that if she did, she would never get up again. She would die, pounding feebly against her oven door.

  The handle! She saw the handle that had broken off the ladle. Maybe she could knock one of the stones out of the fire. She picked it up and stuck its narrower end down between the rocks. She pried one of them up from the grate and was able to push it on top of the other rocks. She moved another and then another, slowly building a pile until the highest stone was even with the rim of the furnace. She knocked it off and it fell to the wooden floor, which began to smolder and blacken.

  Jane reached for the stone with the folded towel and for an instant had a grip on it. But then the towel smoldered and her fingers began to burn. She had to pull her hand away. How long before she would be able to touch it? Too long! The rock could hold heat for an hour. She looked at the thermometer—220 degrees. All she had left were seconds. She took the handle, thrust it into the window opening, and began to poke at the outside glass. It rattled but held firm. Jane backed up, raised the handle like a spear, and hurled it against the glass. A crack appeared across the center of the pane.

  She jammed the rod back into the opening and struck again and again. Other cracks appeared, and then the window starred. But it was too late! By now the wooden handle seemed as heavy as a railroad tie. Her blows were becoming more and more feeble. Jane knew she couldn’t stop. She had to keep striking! But the air was too hot to breathe. And her arms were too tired to lift. She felt herself slumping, beginning her death slide down the inside of the door.

  35

  The two women finished their shower and stood talking in the shower room while they toweled off. It had been a relaxing morning for them. An aerobics class and then a session with a yoga instructor who wore an Indian loincloth and a turban. They had taken an aromatic massage, showered luxuriously, and were hungry for the lunch that awaited them at a fine restaurant. They were in no hurry. Lunch would be leisurely, and they were planning an afternoon of shopping. There was nothing to hurry for.