Slowly, Claire pulled herself out of the chair. She rubbed her backside, then took the photo from my hand. “I wonder what it is they don’t want us to see in this picture…I’m going to change. You should do the same.” She started toward her bedroom.
“There’s one thing they can’t hide in that picture,” I said.
“And what is that?”
“The passion.”
She studied me for a moment, then her face brightened. “Passion! Very good, Miss Hill.” She disappeared into her room.
Wondering what was so very good about passion—it had brought me only pain—I made my way down the hall to my room. Boulton, all brushed and clean, was in the dining room, laying out the silverware for lunch.
“You make us jump off hills and now you’re setting the table.”
“But I saved your life.” He carefully folded a napkin. “And now you can enjoy that life at a properly set table.”
“I’m going to wash the dust off me.”
“After you do, I’d like to give you something. It’s in my room.”
“I’d like to see your room.”
“Why is that?”
“Might tell me something about you.”
“It’s a Spartan’s room, Maggie.” He picked up another napkin, snapped it efficiently in the air, and smiled at me.
I went to my room and showered.
Applying makeup is a ritual done by rote. A woman can put on her makeup without taking a really good look at her face. But now and then, without any warning, you are suddenly aware of your bare face in the mirror. Sometimes you greet it as an old friend; sometimes you back away from it, hoping distance will improve what you see. I had one eye done before I realized how mournful my eyes looked and how determinedly my mouth was set. The combination gave me a peculiarly wise look. But it was a wisdom I didn’t feel or understand. What I did understand was that my life was never going to be the same again, and that tomorrow I was going to Neil’s wedding. Why my life was never going to be the same again, I didn’t know. Why I was going to Neil’s wedding, I didn’t know. I did know that I wasn’t as wise as I looked.
I quickly finished, grabbed my pink-and-black number, and was on my way to Boulton’s room.
His door was open. He sat on a straight-backed chair, facing a desk that looked more like a workbench, lined with books and various tools. His jacket hung on the back of the chair. A gray blanket was pulled tightly over his bed. A set of tortoiseshell brushes was arranged on a linen towel on his dresser. There was a locked gun case on the wall.
Seeing me in the doorway, he stood. His shirt sleeves were rolled up. “Come in, Maggie. You see, very Spartan.”
“I see.”
“I do have a few possessions that I carry around with me.” He looked at the brushes. “These were my great-great-grandfather’s. They survived the Zulus. He didn’t. Even a Spartan bloke like me has to carry something around from the past. Otherwise I wouldn’t be a true Englishman. We have a hard time shedding our history.”
“I have a hard time remembering mine. Like a true American.”
He opened a dresser drawer and took out a burl box. “I want you to have this.”
“It’s a beautiful box…but I couldn’t. We don’t know each other…”
“Open it.”
I turned a little brass key and unlocked the box. Nestled in green velvet was a small pearl-handled gun.
“A gun? You’re giving me a gun?”
“It was my mother’s.”
“That’s very sweet…I think. But I don’t want a gun.”
“She killed two Germans with it.”
“Nazis?”
“No. Just two Germans.”
“Wonderful. Thank you. But I don’t believe in guns.”
“You don’t believe in the existence of this gun in this box?”
“I don’t believe in the use of guns.”
“And you were married to a policeman.” He took the gun out of the box and held it in his hand. “Navy Colt. Two-and-a-half-inch barrel. Nickel plated. Pearl handle. But don’t let its delicate beauty fool you.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t have to be as close to your target with this as you do with some of the other smaller guns.”
“Target?”
He smiled. “All right, the person you intend to shoot.”
“I don’t intend to shoot anybody.”
“Even with such a small gun there is a slight kick. So aim just below where you want the bullet to strike.”
“I don’t want a bullet to strike anywhere.”
“Here is how you load it and unload it.”
He emptied a small box of bullets on the dresser with the same care a woman might use to lay out her precious jewels. The bullets looked more frightening than the gun. He slipped them into the round chamber and snapped the gun together.
“All loaded. This is the safety catch. It’s on.”
“Boulton. I don’t want it.”
“Look, it slips right into the pocket of your pretty jacket.” He put the gun into my pocket. “Trust me, Maggie.”
I remembered Ellis Kenilworth slipping the codicil into my purse and asking me to trust him. I felt the weight of the gun in my pocket like Sisyphus must’ve felt the weight of his rock.
I started to remove the gun, but he grabbed my hand and held it gently. “I insist.”
“I won’t use it.”
“Yes you will.”
We were close. I could feel his warm breath. He smelled of soap and lemon and boot polish. His hand moved slowly up my arm, then stopped.
“I should be going upstairs. Gerta likes her food served promptly. And Miss Conrad likes to eat promptly.”
He took his jacket from the back of the chair and gave it a quick brush. Looking in the mirror, he slipped it on.
“I like to watch men get dressed,” I said.
“Really?” He smiled.
“Men who aren’t narcissistic about it.”
“I like to watch women get dressed who are narcissistic about it.”
I smiled. “I like to watch men get dressed. It reminds me of when I was a little girl watching my father get dressed. I loved watching him shave, pat on his terriblesmelling cologne, fasten his watch on his firm, flat wrist, scoop what little change he had off the dresser and put it in his trousers pocket…jingle it. He looked strong. Made me feel secure.”
“I like to watch women get dressed who don’t remind me of my mother.”
We stared at each other in silence. There is always a solemn moment between a man and a woman before they’re going to kiss for the first time, a sort of sexual, electrified formality which allows them to safely submit to one another. Boulton and I experienced such a moment.
He broke it by gesturing toward the door. “Shall we go?”
Damn the English! I started toward the door, Oh, hell. I turned and threw my arms around him and kissed him. His arms went quickly around me, his hand up the back of my neck. His lips pressed gently against mine, and our mouths opened. His lips pressed harder. His hand tightened on the back of my neck and he moved me against his bed.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Don’t forget Gerta.”
“Don’t start what you can’t finish, Maggie.”
“What?”
He shoved me back onto the bed. His heavy body crushed down on mine. His kiss was all bone, teeth, and jaw. I tried to kick. He jammed his leg between my legs and pressed his hips down hard, dry-humping me. I wiggled one hand free from under his chest and went for his face. He leaned his right forearm across my throat. I raised my head. I choked, his arm a weight on my throat. I was helpless. I was as brittle as glass under him. His hand pushed up my skirt. I tried to talk; his arm pressed down. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t move. I thought of Kenilworth and Waingrove. I thought of Neil. I was tired of being shoved around by men. I wasn’t going to let him do this to me. Don’t start what you can’t finish, Maggie. That’s what he’d said,
and he was right! I moved my hand slowly, carefully into my pocket. I felt the gun and pulled it out, driving it into his gut. We stared at one another again, sharing a new kind of solemnity.
He lifted his arm from my throat and said, “You see, Maggie, you used the gun. Only next time remove the safety catch.”
He moved off me and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Let me show you. Do it in one motion. Finger on trigger, thumb—”
“Bastard!” I scrambled off the bed.
He stood, taking my hand, the one that still had the gun, and kissed it. “I just wanted to prove to you that you were capable of using—”
“Bastard!”
I swung from the heels and slammed my hand across his face and left the room.
Claire sat at the dining-room table, staring at her empty plate. As I sat down, she looked up at me. “Nobody is bringing me my food.”
“I suppose you never considered getting up and getting it yourself,” I snapped.
She leaned back and studied me. “You appear abnormally agitated for just taking a spill over a hillside.”
“It’s not the hillsides I’m having trouble with. It’s the pitfalls.”
Boulton came out of the kitchen carrying two plates of iced cracked crab. He set one down in front of Claire and the other in front of me.
As he retreated to the kitchen, she said, “That’s an interesting red mark you have on your face, Boulton.”
“Yes, madam.”
“It looks to me as if you’d been slapped—by the intensity of the redness I’d say quite recently. You weren’t criticizing Gerta’s cooking, were you?”
“No, madam.”
She studied him…and then took a good look at me. “I didn’t think so. Poor men…poor women,” she said, with a surprising amount of compassion.
“I quite agree, madam,” he said.
“Must the effects of Miss Hill’s presence always disturb my household around mealtime?”
“I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again,” he said stiffly.
“I will see that it doesn’t happen again!” I raved.
“Whatever is going to happen, or not happen, I would prefer it happen, or not, in the hours between my breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner. We have important matters to discuss. I would like you to join us, Boulton.”
Boulton returned with a place setting for himself and his food. He sat between us. I did not look at him.
Claire picked up her silver tongs and expertly cracked a chunk of crab shell. With surgical efficiency she removed a small piece of white meat, dipped it in mustard sauce, and plopped it into her mouth.
I surveyed my plate with foreboding. I have never liked eating food that requires a lot of tools and dexterity.
“There was a reason you found me lying prone in the Kenilworth garden last night, Miss Hill,” Claire said. “I was looking at the tops of the sculpted privets…trying to see them from a smaller person’s—say, a child’s—point of view. They look very similar to shadowy abstract clouds. In fact, in a grainy black-and-white photograph they might look exactly like dark clouds. There is another child involved in this case. A man-child.”
I turned and sneered at Boulton. My fork slipped.
“Perhaps you would like me to show you how to use the utensils, Maggie,” he said in his most British accent.
Claire let out a long sigh and continued. “Can Jerry communicate, Miss Hill?”
“He has Down’s syndrome. I don’t think so.”
“Boulton, I want you to bring Erwin here. I don’t care how you do it just as long as he is alone. Miss Hill, I want you to follow Boulton in your car to Erwin’s house. You will remain there and search it thoroughly. He said his wards are in school from eleven to three, so you should not be bothered.”
“What about the woman who takes care of them?”
“You’ll think of something. You’ve handled yourself very well so far.”
“What am I searching for?”
“Photographs, an old camera, or any kind of writing that might imply blackmail.”
“You think Erwin’s the blackmailer?”
“I think I would like to discuss the possibility with him.”
After lunch I went back to my room and got my purse. I took the gun out of my pocket and put it in the drawer of my nightstand. I headed out the door. Halfway down the hall I stopped. I went back to my room. I put the gun in my purse. Oh, hell, it was his mother’s.
17
I STRAPPED MYSELF INTO my Honda and followed the Bentley through San Marino into Pasadena. Boulton turned down Erwin’s street and parked the Bentley out of view of the house. I did the same. He got out of the car and waited for me. We walked in silence toward Erwin’s house. He took the gun from the small of his back and held it in his pocket like a Hollywood thirties gangster. My life was becoming more and more unreal.
“Did you bring yours?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said under my breath.
“Thank you,” he said in a mock whisper.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t pulled your dear mother’s gun on you?”
“I would’ve told Miss Conrad that you were not capable of searching this house alone.”
“That’s not what I’m asking you and you know it.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Maggie.”
We reached Erwin’s house. Boulton knocked on the door. It opened, and Erwin stood there looking as if he were expecting someone—and it wasn’t us.
We shoved our way in. Erwin tried to duck past us and out the door.
Boulton pulled out his gun. “Don’t.” He smiled. Erwin stopped.
“Come slowly toward me with your hands in the air.”
“What do you want?”
“Miss Conrad requests your company. And I want you to spread your legs and put your hands against the wall. Now, there’s a good chap.”
Boulton ran his hands up and down Erwin’s body. The cloak-and-dagger game was carnal.
“Where’s the lady who looks after your wards?”
“Out.”
“How long will she be gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“The wards?”
“School.”
“Who were you expecting?” I asked.
He shifted his weight. “Nobody.”
Boulton looked at me. “Something wrong, Maggie?”
“No.”
“Now, we are going to walk very slowly out of your house and down the street to the car.” Boulton shoved the gun into his back.
“All right. All right.”
“Don’t be too long, Maggie,” Boulton said, pushing Erwin out the door.
Erwin balked. “What are you assholes doing? She can’t stay here!…What do you want?”
“Don’t make a scene. We don’t want the authorities called, do we?” Boulton’s voice was smooth.
I watched them walk to the Bentley. Erwin kept making funny lurching movements and Boulton kept jerking at his arm. They looked like two drunks instead of one man holding a gun on another man. When they got to the car, Boulton had Erwin open the back door, then whirled him around and hammered his fist into his face. Erwin fell backwards into the car. Boulton slammed the door. I shut the door to the house and locked it.
Silence. Not even a clock ticked. To my right were the dining area and the kitchen. To my left was a hallway. I took the hallway. There were two doors on each side and one at the end, all of them closed. What the hell, I’d been peeking behind a lot of closed doors lately.
I opened the first door on my right. A pink carnation in a glass vase sat on a cheap, secondhand dresser. Over the bed was a framed poster of a Japanese woman. Her face was powdered white; she was wrapped in a beautiful, intricate robe. Under her tiny feet were the words “Come to the Orient.” As I moved around the room, I could feel her watching me over the edge of her painted fan.
I went through the dresser. The only thing I discovered was that Erwin shared the
room with the woman. She was neat and he was a slob. I searched the closet…nothing. Under the bed…nothing. I even shoved my hands between the mattress and the box springs. Nothing.
I tried the next door. It opened into a large, beige-tiled bathroom. Paint was peeling on the ceiling, and the shower needed grouting. I looked through the medicine cabinet and under the sink. I found a lot of Ajax and toilet-bowl cleanser but that was all.
I moved across the hall and opened the first door. An earless toy monkey stared at me from one of the two twin beds; it had eyes just like Bobby Alt’s. I went through a dresser. It rocked back and forth as I pulled open the drawers. I found a couple of pairs of well-worn jeans and threadbare undershorts. Jerry—Jerry Frant—had his name in some of the clothes. So did an Oliver Basscom; I guessed he was the old guy who drooled. Other than a collection of very ordinary rocks there was nothing else in the dresser. I went through the closet. Two windbreakers, two wrinkled shirts, and some tennis shoes with no treads left. I looked around the room. There was no camera. There was nothing. It was a sad, empty room for people who don’t belong, for people we don’t quite know what to do with. Depression spread through me. Oh, hell, I didn’t have the time to allow myself the pleasure of depression.
I opened the next door upon a room that was exactly the same. I searched the cheap dresser. The name Penny Thomas was stamped in large, square-shaped panties. Penny Thomas had to be the woman with the mad blue eyes. I searched through a cotton slip, a lumpy cotton bra with bent hooks and eyes, and a collection of empty envelopes addressed to Occupant, Resident, and Affluent Buyer.
I looked under the twin beds and found little webs of dust. I felt under the pillows and mattresses. One bed was made; one wasn’t. I opened the closet and stared at two big nylon dresses and a parka with matted fake fur around the hood. They hung from their hangers in sad desolation. The crazyeyed woman didn’t have much, either.
Closing the closet door, I noticed that the parka didn’t hang evenly on its hanger; it dipped to one side as if something were weighing it down. I ran my hands over the jacket. A heavy object was hidden in it. I took the parka off the hanger, sat on the bed, and unsnapped the old plaid lining. A pretty, pink-leather jewelry box fell to the floor. The lid flew open. The plastic ballerina turned stiffly to “Greensleeves.” There was no quartz watch or pearls in this box, just more empty envelopes addressed to Occupant, Resident, and Affluent Buyer. I closed the lid and stared at my discovery. This was just like the jewelry box Rebecca Moor had in her room. Just like the jewelry box Ellis Kenilworth had given her. I wondered if the crazy-eyed woman took the box out at night and watched the ballerina go round and round. I wondered if she thought about all the good things little girls are made of. I wondered why she needed to hide the jewelry box. I snapped the lining back in place and hung the parka in the closet. Promising myself I would return it to her later, I slipped the jewelry box in my purse and left the room.
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