by Thomas Perry
“So are you.”
“I’m in school, so I have to study whenever nothing more interesting is going on.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I just have to feed these two, and they eat fast. Then we’ll be off to the park.”
“You sure walk your dogs a lot.”
“They like it and it’s good for them. It’s also good for me.”
She looked at him with an appraising stare. “I suppose it would be, at your age. You’re retired, right? Do you do anything else?”
He measured the cups of dry food into the two dog bowls, set them down, and then refilled the water bowl. As the dogs began to crunch their food he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been in town long. I’m still exploring the Chicago area and getting used to it. I don’t really feel in a hurry to do more than that right now.”
“Do I seem nosy?”
“It’s okay. Curiosity is a sign of a lively mind. That’s the only kind worth having.”
She said, “I spent some time last night online trying to find out about you. I didn’t find much.”
He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. “I’m not famous.”
“No,” she said. “Never dated Marilyn Monroe or anybody like that, either.”
“I’m not that old. She died when I was in elementary school. Why did you decide I was worth the investigation?”
“Because you’re fucking my mother.”
He was silent for a second, and then wondered if he had just stood there during that second with his mouth open. “What makes you think that?”
Sarah shrugged. “I noticed as soon as I got here that she was very chirpy. She’s also dieting, and doing a better job with her makeup and hair. And her voice was different when she talked to you.” She paused. “And so on.”
“She’s just happy. Her daughter is home.”
Sarah said, “This isn’t my home. Or hers either, really. Look, I watched her when she talked about you. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve tentatively decided to approve. She’s a magnificent person, and she seems to feel better than she has since she divorced my father.”
Caldwell recovered from the shock. “I’m glad that you appreciate her and want her to be happy. That confirms some good things she said about you. But you should direct any questions to your mother. Not me.”
“My questions aren’t about her. They’re about you.”
“Well, save them up, and I’ll do my best to satisfy your curiosity when we have time. Right now we’ve both got things to do—study and take the dogs out. See you later.” He went to the front door and took the leashes off the hook. “Bye.”
“Should I have said, ‘Welcome to the family’?”
“Not very funny,” he said.
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
He closed the door behind him and walked the dogs toward the park. He was feeling an uneasiness that grew with each step. First he’d had the scare with the attempted robbery last night. He had come through it all right, but he had barely stopped himself from killing someone who was barely a legal adult, and the experience had left him anxious. Now there was Sarah.
Sarah seemed more dangerous right now than the teenager with the revolver. She had immediately figured out that he and Zoe weren’t just sharing an apartment. She had sensed that there was something about him that was off, and researched him online. There wasn’t enough online about any one of the real Peter Caldwells to satisfy her.
He had chosen the name partly because there were so many of them, and they lived all over the country and in a few foreign countries. It would be hard for anyone to say he wasn’t one of them. But many had social media accounts with photographs. Some had articles about them with pictures: PETER CALDWELL APPOINTED TO GOVERNOR’S COMMISSION. PETER CALDWELL MARRIES NANCY STANHOPE. PETER CALDWELL TAKES HOLY ORDERS. He just hoped there wasn’t one that said PETER CALDWELL CHARGED WITH MURDER.
Sarah was bright, she was protective of her mother, and she wasn’t shy about asking about other people’s personal lives. Even stupid people in her age group were expert at using online sources to find out whatever they wanted. A bright law student like Sarah probably knew ways to search that he’d never heard of. She had already learned how shallow his cover as Peter Caldwell was. How long before she decided to get someone with access to law enforcement databases to dig deeper?
As he walked with the dogs he kept thinking. He didn’t know whether she had a good relationship with her father. Maybe she would turn the problem over to him. He could hear her voice. “Mom is seeing someone. Living with him. I don’t think she really knows anything about him. He just seems a little … I don’t know.” That would be all it took.
He and the dogs walked around the lake. He felt the leashes swinging from his neck, and it reminded him to look for signs that he needed to leash the dogs. He saw no police cars, and nobody walking who was close enough to feel uneasy about unleashed dogs.
When they were near the café he bought some coffee and went back down to the park to sit on a bench while the dogs sniffed around the area. He thought about the dogs. They had sat patiently while he had been at the café. They loved routines, because routines implied order, and order reassured them. All it took was repetition. Things being the same for a long time reassured people, too. A long history that didn’t change much was a person’s best credential.
When Caldwell and the dogs returned to the apartment, Sarah was still alone, this time reading a large hardcover law book. When they came in, she looked up. “You know what I’d like to know?”
“Whether I have a criminal record?”
“You don’t,” she said. “I already checked that. It cost me money, too.”
“Sorry.”
“I’d like to see a credit report on you.”
He felt his heartbeat accelerate, but kept his facial muscles relaxed. “Why would I give you that? Would you give me your credit report?”
“I’m not fucking your mother.” She frowned. “Or your father. Or whatever.”
He stared at her. “All right.”
“All right?” She had not been expecting this.
“May I use your computer?”
Her plate was still on the table. She picked it up and pushed her laptop toward him. He opened it and began to type while she put the plate in the sink. He was glad he had memorized Peter Caldwell’s birth date, last address, and Social Security number. After he filled in a grid and clicked a couple of boxes, he turned the computer around and pushed it in front of her so she could see the screen.
As the information appeared on the screen, she began to read it. After a minute or two of silence, she looked up. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“You don’t seem to be a deadbeat or a screwup or something. You’ve got a whole lot of credit available, but still have a mammoth rating. You pay your bills on time.” She scrolled up and down. “Why so many banks?”
“I like banks.”
“Not as much as they like you.” She shrugged. “Okay, I’m satisfied.”
“Thank you.” He spun the computer around and terminated the connection. He stood up and started toward the living room.
“Wait,” she said.
He stopped. “For what?”
“The apology. Here it comes.”
“Keep it. I’m very impressed with you for being so tough and persistent. You’re a fine daughter. Now I hope you’ll stop invading my privacy.”
“I will.”
As he walked out of the kitchen toward his room, he hoped she would keep her promise. Since he had come to Chicago he had not yet forced himself to settle certain issues in his own mind, and dealing with Sarah made him think about them. He had been in wars, and he had a long familiarity with the necessity of killing an attacker. He wasn’t sure he was as comfortable with killing someone who threatened his life less directly or intentionally, like Sarah and Zoe.
10
The next evening, after his confronta
tion with Sarah, Caldwell was in his room listening to the radio with earphones attached to his computer while he studied various sources to give him an idea of what his pursuers might be doing, and who they were. Since the night he left Vermont, he wondered how the death of the man who had broken into his house had been kept out of the newspapers. He had called the police and cops had come and interviewed him. Others had examined the crime scene. Men from the medical examiner’s office had taken the body away.
He had discovered that the police blotter for Norwich was on the police website, and he searched it every few days, but found no mention of the incident. The only way he knew of for the record to be wiped away so completely was if intelligence officers had gone to the police and persuaded them that the case was a national security issue. But they would have had to do it right away, before word got out, and that meant someone in the government had known about the incident the night it happened.
Suddenly the dogs both lifted their heads at once. He watched them to see if it was simply a reaction to something too distant to be of concern or a developing threat. He took off the earphones. There was a quiet knock, and he stood up and went to open the door.
Standing in the doorway was Zoe, and she was smiling. She was wearing a blue dress with simple lines and no unnecessary ornamentation. It was very pretty on her. “You look very nice,” he said. “You don’t wear dresses very often. Are you going out?”
“No,” she said. “Sarah left a few minutes ago to spend the evening with some friends. They picked her up, and she’ll be gone for hours. I thought this dress might be appropriate for this occasion.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Dresses aren’t what’s uncomfortable. It’s all the gear you wear under them.” She lifted the hem of her dress so he could see her thigh-high stockings. She lifted it higher, so he saw that she had nothing else under the dress. “I thought this might be better.”
“I agree,” he said. He scooped her up and began to carry her to his bed.
“Careful,” she said. “This is an expensive dress, and I’ve never worn it before.”
He set her on her feet, reached around her, and unzipped the dress. She let it slide down and stepped out of it, and then draped it on the nearest chair. He went to the door, reopened it, and said, “Carol. Dave. Out.”
The two dogs jumped to the floor and trotted out. He closed the door and locked it.
Peter and Zoe came together in an embrace, and kissed gently. She unbuttoned his shirt, and he shed the rest of his clothes. In a moment they were on his bed, making love. He was conscious and premeditated, trying to be the most thoughtful and considerate lover possible. He knew this was a chance to make her feel more attached to him, and he tried to work his way into her mind, to manipulate her into feeling pleasure at the thought of him, to make her feel safe and secure, and yet agitated and impatient for each touch. When it was over, they lay together on the cool sheet, the rest of the bedding pushed off the end of the bed. Their hands were clasped, but they didn’t speak.
Suddenly, there was a jarring sound, an insistent beep. They both sat up.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Oh, crap,” said Zoe. “It’s my watch. I set the alarm so I could be sure Sarah wouldn’t catch us.” She held up her wrist and pressed a button for silence.
“Kids her age don’t come home at ten,” he said.
She looked at him, her face concerned and apologetic. “She gets up very early to study. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Sure. But the dogs will warn us if anyone comes to the door of the apartment.”
“I know you’re probably right. But there’s a hypocrisy factor that you’re not taking into account. I’m doing what mothers tell their daughters not to do. I can make a case in my own mind for fooling around with you, but I don’t particularly want to talk to her about it.” She slipped the dress over her head. “Thanks for tonight.”
“I was going to thank you,” he said. “Wait a minute and I’ll walk you home to your room.”
“That’s idiotic,” she said. “I wish I’d met you years ago.”
“Me too.”
When the time came for Sarah McDonald to go back to law school, Peter drove her and her mother to the airport so Zoe could see her off without parking and taking the shuttle back to the terminal. Caldwell was prepared for the melancholy that would descend on Zoe once Sarah was through security and no longer visible. He had seen this with Anna every time Emily had gone back to school.
This was going to be another chance for him to manipulate Zoe’s feelings and make himself safer. He needed her to trust him, even to come to depend on him. But the first steps had to be small. First he had to be useful and thoughtful.
He wasn’t prepared for the fact that he felt a little bereft too. During the vacation he and Sarah had been the ones up early and in the kitchen every morning, while Zoe slept. He and Sarah would exchange a few wry observations about each other before he took the dogs out and she went back to studying. But after a week, the exchanges weren’t falsely cynical anymore. The two early risers were like workers on the same shift. They spoke quietly, respected each other’s space, and went about their duties.
Zoe chattered while he was driving them to the airport, the same energetic and empty cheerfulness that Anna had managed years ago, and like his own daughter Sarah was mostly quiet. They did that he remembered. Their minds began to leave early, moving ahead of their bodies to the next place, the next phase.
When they pulled to the white curb, Peter got out to lift the suitcase out of the trunk and set it on the sidewalk. He said to Zoe, “I’ll wait in the cell phone lot. Call when you’re ready.”
Sarah said, “Not so fast, bud.” She bounced upward and kissed his cheek. “See you.”
“See you. Learn a lot so you can sue their asses off.”
“Evildoers will fear my wrath.”
The two women went into the terminal, the daughter wheeling the big suitcase while her mother carried the shoulder bag with the laptop. Caldwell pulled out and drove into the loop of the airport, but then his phone rang. Zoe said, “I’m ready.” Her voice sounded sad.
He completed his circle and pulled up again. Zoe jumped in and fastened her seat belt. He pulled out again.
After a few seconds he noticed Zoe was staring at him. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did I forget to shave?”
“I’m sorry to see her go, of course. Ignore it.” After a few seconds she said, “Why did she kiss you like that?”
“Yeah, why do you all do that?”
“Come on.”
“I don’t know. When I’m reincarnated as a girl I won’t kiss an old bastard like me. You never know where he’s been. You could get diseases you don’t know the names for.”
“If you’ve got any I’m sure I’ll know their names before long.”
“Your daughter is a remarkably intelligent person, which means she saw I wasn’t so bad. That’s all.”
“Uh,” she said. “Interesting. I didn’t think you were her type.”
“I’m not. I’m her mother’s type.”
“Yes, you are,” Zoe said. “So now we’re empty nesters again.”
“A good excuse for us to go out tonight and have some fun. I made reservations at a place I tried alone a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Le Meilleur.”
“The best?”
“Yes. The name seems to spur them on because they don’t want to be embarrassed.”
“You’re so great.” She leaned close and kissed his cheek. “You know just what to do.”
He did. He’d known that what she would have done otherwise was to go into her bedroom, lie down, and feel depressed about Sarah for a few hours. Instead, she would be distracted and happy until she got used to her daughter’s absence again.
A few days later, he came to the doorway of her room and saw her at her desk muttering and shuffling papers around. She had a pen in one hand.
“Hi,” he said. “Can
I come in?”
“Sure,” she said.
“What are you doing, paying bills?”
“You guessed it,” she said. “Boring and painful at the same time.”
He said, “You know, there’s an easy solution to this problem. We could—”
“I’m not going to marry you, Peter.”
He was silent. He had never considered proposing to her. He had just been taking the opportunity to help her with her bills. It would give him another way of making himself essential to her, and at the same time give him a new way of decreasing his vulnerability even further. He could funnel some of his payments through her accounts to transform his financial transactions into hers.
“I know you didn’t ask me,” she said. “But I’ve been thinking for a while that we should have this talk. Under normal circumstances—meaning any other time of my life—I would be doing everything I could to make you want to ask.” She reached out and clasped his hand. “But it’s the wrong time for me now.”
“Why?”
“For a dozen reasons. For one thing, my ex-husband is paying me alimony. If I get remarried, that stops. It’s not a huge amount, and he fought me for every penny of it. It’s enough to live on now, and later, my pensions will kick in. In spite of what he says, I earned that money. I raised the kids practically by myself. I cooked and cleaned, did everybody’s laundry, drove them, taught them, suffered when they suffered. I was faithful to him for nineteen years. I never flirted or let anyone think cheating might be a possibility. I also worked, giving piano lessons and putting all the money into the family account, so it was spent with everything else. Letting Darryl off the hook would be giving up something I earned over nineteen years. It would also be conceding to him that everything I did or gave up during that time was worthless.”
“Okay.”
“And then there are the kids. Sarah likes you and Brian will too, but they’d hate it if I remarried. My name wouldn’t be the same as theirs. They’d have to go through all that stuff of having to explain it to people, and to print two names on wedding invitations and things. I’m sure you can fill in the rest.”