by Susan Slater
Everything seemed to be suspect. She’d spent the night wakeful, sorting through Randy’s personality characteristics, searching for those traits that would make him a pedophile. She could hardly put the word into conscious thought. She could drive herself crazy with not knowing. But she had felt better in the morning. It was amazing how different things looked in the daylight. She felt calmer, braver—and had formulated a plan.
At a quarter to twelve, she “found” the envelope and told Noralee that she would be in Archer’s office if anyone called. Fat chance of that. She had an office and all the trappings, but no credibility, no one clamoring for her opinion, hanging on her every word. If they only knew…she had become rather important to the future of this firm overnight.
She called ahead and Archer could barely conceal his relief. Offered to run right over. No, she mentioned some work in the firm’s library, which was close to his office. It would be just as easy for her to deliver the envelope. Make him squirm. She could tell from his voice that he was trying not to sound eager.
“Is this what you were looking for?” She walked towards his desk holding out the envelope, but Archer was already standing and moving to intercept her. She wasn’t invited but she dropped into a chair facing his desk. It was important to see the rest of this farce played out.
“I’ve looked for a duplicate, a copy of the findings on the Pajarito well. Sounds like it might be important to the project.” She had brought the envelope into view from the folds of her skirt and placed it on her lap.
Archer cleared his throat. His forehead looked moist. “What are you saying?” He seemed at a loss for words but didn’t take his eyes off of her lap.
“I would think that we might need a copy. I certainly feel it would be helpful for me to know what Randy had found out.” Straight-faced. Just an idle statement that made perfect sense. She was beginning to enjoy this. Was Archer a sham, too? The same as Randy? A pedophile? He was divorced. Never dated that she knew of.
“Yes…uh, no, I don’t think so. I’m sure we have a copy. Randy was never sloppy. You’ve just overlooked it.” Dots of sweat were caught in his hairline.
“It would be such an easy thing to make sure. In fact, I’ll just make a copy right now.” Pauly leaned across the desk where an oversized coffee mug held an assortment of pencils and a letter opener.
Archer moved swiftly to stand in front of her. She drew her arm back and looked up expectantly. And innocently, she hoped. But her heart felt like it had leaped to her throat. What had made her play with him? What twisted overdose of curiosity made her bait him?
He calmly plucked the envelope from her hand but didn’t move away. He leaned back against his desk.
“I don’t know how to say this in any nice way. So, I’ll just tell you. Until we get the results of the investigation—” he paused, “You’re surprised? Tom said that you knew. I’m just sorry that he felt he had to lie about it. There was no need. You of all people should know that we can’t take chances. Clients wouldn’t stand for it. They’ll demand to see your sterling character spelled out in black and white by a disinterested third party. Marriage to Randy didn’t negate the necessity we feel to have you checked.”
“Archer, how can you do this?” It was difficult to control her anger.
“Use your head, Pauly.” Archer sounded exasperated, the “I’m really put out” voice one would use with a child. “For the most part this is a secured facility. Your present clearance limits you in what kind of material you can be involved with. We have to be careful. As a technical writer, you know that. We started the paperwork for a Q clearance for you six months ago, but it could take over a year. So, in the meantime, certain materials are off limits. For example, in this situation, in this room right now, I’m the only one who can open a sealed envelope that has been in the possession of a company principal.”
His smugness was unbearable. But she played dumb and nodded and fought the urge to yell “bullshit” and worked on an expression that she hoped would look contrite.
“Archer, I wasn’t thinking. Frankly, I’m a little miffed about the investigation, even if there is a reason for it.”
“Look at it as a precaution. Do you know what kind of trouble we could get into? One suspect thing on your record and we’re in for trouble.”
“Such as?”
“A little pot-smoking, running your credit cards over the limit. God forbid you’ve ever been bankrupt. Those are red flags to the FBI, and rightfully so.”
“May I assure you that the sum of my criminal life involves two unpaid parking tickets on campus?”
“I hope to God that’s true. Nobody wants to see you be successful more than I. But I shouldn’t need to remind you that the company is your investment, as well as ours. It wouldn’t take much for us to lose a few government contracts. We simply can’t be too careful.”
Pot-smoking, credit cards? Wouldn’t that pale next to child porn? She almost laughed out loud then caught herself. No matter how mad she got, she couldn’t give anything away. And he was good, in control now that he had the envelope.
“I’d like you to think next time.” The tone was condescending, still parental, a little slap on the wrist for the errant child. She wanted to scream. “If you run across anything else sealed, give me a call. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He walked back around the desk still holding the envelope addressed to Sosimo.
She stood. Lacking any clever comeback, she felt the power of the situation lay securely on Archer’s side. But what had she expected? That he’d give something away? Really let her open the envelope?
He quickly glanced up at her. “By the way, where did you find it?” he asked.
The question caught her off-guard. Curiosity on his part? Or something more?
“In the box filled with desk items.” Then gathering courage, she added, “Why do you ask?”
“Just wondered how it got mislaid, why it wasn’t sent out when it should have been.” He was staring at her.
She couldn’t read his expression. Had she goofed? Did he know that she knew? Did the lack of postage on the new envelope give her away? But there was no reason to think that he’d ever seen the envelope before.
“I’d like to think that Randy was pretty excited about getting married. Wouldn’t that be a safe guess as why he overlooked it?” She smiled broadly.
“Probably explains everything.” Archer returned her smile.
But all the way back to her office, Pauly couldn’t help but think her little plan had backfired. Archer suspected something. It didn’t make her feel very safe. And Tom had lied. He had played so innocent, denied any knowledge of a check into her background…maybe her present…when, in fact, he was paying for it. With company money, but it was the same thing. Well, the first thing she’d do is break their date for Friday. Roses or no roses, she wasn’t going out with a liar. And she wasn’t going out with someone who might put her in danger.
Chapter Five
The four turkey carcasses on the sideboard looked like beached whales, picked clean, knobby ends of bones turning white in the overly dry room. On a full stomach the smells of dressing and gravy and candied sweet potatoes were oppressive. Pauly leaned on the table and played with the whipped cream on her pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving was always a production with a cast of thousands. Grams and Hofer had already loaded up the leftovers to share with a mission for the homeless down the road.
She smiled at Steve, who sat across from her. He could make a pretty good case for being ignored. She hadn’t been very good company for anyone the last couple days. More than once she had wished that she’d just dropped the original envelope in the mail. But she hadn’t, and now she wasn’t sure what she should do. Tell the cops? No. Too risky. That was probably a direct pipeline to Sosimo. Tell Grams? And get her involved? No. She couldn’t endanger anyone other than herself.
And she wasn’t quite ready for Grams’ “I told you so.” Something like this would only give her ammunition. And Paul
y wasn’t ready to admit that her husband of one week had been a pedophile or child porn broker, or whatever they might be called. The shock still shot through her when she thought about it. How could she not have suspected? Didn’t those kind of people give themselves away? Wear a scarlet letter on their forehead? Or bear some other noticeable brand?
And then there was Steve. Did she know him well enough to take him into her confidence? Could she trust him to not use the information in some way that might get people hurt? Sosimo was a powerful man. Steve was no match for him. Nor was she. And did she want the world to know that when Pauly Caton married, she had latched onto a sicko? Didn’t know the difference and marched right down the aisle with a sterile man who loved children, but not in the way that she had thought.
And in all snobbishness, should the one-third owner of a prosperous company, who just happened to be under investigation herself, be seen hanging around a man covered with tattoos who also had a record? That would give the PI something to report and fodder for Archer’s imagination. Another time, another place, and maybe a Steve could have been a part of her life. But not now.
Steve turned to hand off a piece of pie to someone sitting at the next table, and Pauly realized with a start that she was staring at his profile. He was so handsome. How trite. But that’s exactly what she thought…almost breathtakingly so. It was difficult not to stare, not to want. She caught her breath. Not to want? Where had that come from? But if she let the thought surface, she would have to face her overpowering urge to get into bed with him. Willpower. He absolutely had to be off limits.
Maybe a walk. She pushed back from the table. The weather was glorious, staying in the low sixties. She had picked up a Spanish cross, punched tin rosettes stapled to crossed wooden stakes. She’d bought it in Old Town and had planned to place it at the site of Randy’s death. It was tradition. Most highways in New Mexico were decorated with the like—crosses and bunches of plastic flowers, some at curves in the roads, others along a straight stretch—but all commemorating the deaths of loved ones due to accidents. The crosses marked the exact spots. She liked the message that a brightly colored cross gave out, that the deceased was not forgotten. And didn’t she owe Randy something? At least a monument? His lies shouldn’t keep her from honoring the dead.
“Any chance you’d like some company for the rest of the afternoon?” Steve asked.
She wanted to say, “No.” Instead, she heard herself say, “Fine.” When she explained what she wanted to do, he simply offered to help. No judgments. Just support. She wanted to hug him.
Grams’ property extended to the edge of the Rio Grande, more exactly to the edge of the wooded area that became the bosque. The twenty or so acres that made up the grounds ran lengthwise along the river. “Superb frontal exposure. Perfect for sub-division.” Grams would often quote the realtor who sold her the land, but always added, “Over my dead body.” Sub-division just wasn’t in Grams’ vocabulary.
The dry brush crackled underfoot. Steve carried the three-foot cross even after she teased him about looking like a penitente. New Mexico was steeped in the folklore of pilgrimages. At Easter the highway to Chimayo would be filled with men carrying crosses. But maybe this was a pilgrimage of sorts, too. Her pilgrimage, a necessary part of healing, of facing the truth of what had happened.
This would be her first visit to the site since Randy had been killed. And it was great to have Steve along, she had to admit. Wasn’t sure she could have done it alone. Even with him there she was beginning to have misgivings. So much seemed to have happened in such a short time. She longed for the safety of last summer, railed against the fact that her life had been turned upside down, would never be the same again.
If she hadn’t walked it, she would never have realized how very close the site was to Grams’. Fifteen, twenty minutes away from the B&B at the most. They hadn’t been walking very fast.
Had it only been a mile, just a little over to where the Rio Grande widened into an awesome channel? Even plagued by sand bars in years of little rain, the river pushed around and over to continue its journey along the border of New Mexico, Texas, and Old Mexico. It wasn’t the Mississippi, but it was the biggest river in the Southwest.
She paused to listen to the gurgling roar, then looked up at the span of concrete, empty of traffic because of the holiday, and above it to the high wires, and blinked to keep the image of the red and yellow balloon from drifting across her line of sight. She felt Steve’s arm go around her shoulders, but even his closeness couldn’t keep the face of the child, the key to so much, from surfacing, staring back at her from the sandbar…he had been frightened that day, not sexy and alluring like in the picture.
“Where would you like the cross?”
She hadn’t thought that far. She wasn’t going to wade the river again to put it on a sandbar.
“Somewhere here. Maybe at the edge of the brush. There.” She pointed and watched him slip the small axe from his belt and carry the cross to where she had indicated. She turned back to the bridge, then looking up swung her gaze in an arc to find the tree that had hidden the killer. With a shiver she realized that she had suggested Steve place the cross at the base of the only cottonwood tall enough or thick enough to have concealed Randy’s murderer. But wasn’t that appropriate?
Steve cut away the brush at the base of the tree before pounding the sharpened, sturdy, perpendicular end of the cross into the hard ground. Then stood back, glancing her way for approval.
“It looks great.” And it did. A bright spot against the drab brown brush and tree trunk. Others would see it. Would they remember the balloon accident, the spectacular murder of the pilot by a sharpshooter?
The sun ducked behind a cloud, and a breeze sprang up. Pauly fumbled in her coat pocket for a Kleenex, then pulled off her gloves and blew her nose.
“That’ll bring the geese.”
She laughed. She was glad that Steve was with her, but she was through with this place. She would never have to visit it again. But this was the place to decorate, not his grave. And, at the moment, she wasn’t sure how she would remember him…loving husband or con-artist. But she wasn’t crying. She was past that. Maybe a few tears for herself now and then, but even those bouts were disappearing. Mostly she wanted the truth. Whatever it took—that was important to her.
She was quiet on the walk back. And Steve seemed comfortable with that, seemed to understand her need to be within herself. She wondered what he’d say if he knew that she wasn’t mourning the loss of a husband, but rather the loss of trust. And trying to sort out what she should do.
The brush pushed into the narrow path in places closest to the river’s edge. Steve walked beside her and took her arm once when she stumbled. She had quickly pulled ahead of him.
Touching was just too dangerous. Electrifying. And she didn’t need a complication. She didn’t glance back, but sensed that she might have hurt his feelings.
Something rustled upward from a tree to her right. She followed the raptor’s ascent and watched the bird float across the low-slung sun, buoyed by breezes that gave the predator time to select his prey. A five o’clock shadow. Pauly shivered. The bosque was beauty and death together, rolled into one.
“Accipiter Striatus,” Steve called out, pointing above her head.
“What?”
“Sharp-shinned hawk. It has its eye on that flock of sparrows roosting in the cottonwoods.”
They stood a moment to watch as the hawk pumped its wings then glided to the edge of a grove of young trees. Then it dove down through the center of a tree, turned and fought its way back up, oblivious to the branches, emerging at the top, a sparrow in its talons. Death to the unsuspecting. Pauly shivered. The symbolism wasn’t lost on her.
They were in sight of the house and Pauly felt relieved. A hot bath and good book equaled an early night. A much earned mindless evening of relaxation. She had nothing planned for the next day.
“Want to come in for a few minutes?�
� he asked.
Said the spider to the fly, Pauly thought. He had the apartment over the garage and frankly, she was curious. She had always liked the bright, sky-lighted studio.
“I have a six-pack of Negra Modelo,” he continued.
“Presumptuous of you.”
“I’d call it good planning.” He was grinning.
“Okay, one beer.”
He walked up the drive ahead of her, the gravel crunching under his boots. It still wasn’t too late to turn down the invitation. But…she didn’t. She followed him thinking of how good he had felt against her when they had gone to lunch plastered together on the Harley. She promised herself that there would be only the one beer, then off to her own quarters. She looked to the side as he ascended the outside stairs. A great rear in skintight jeans wasn’t helping her with abstinence.
“What do you think?” He opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter.
The large, single room was perfect. Gleaming hardwood floors, free-standing black-enameled fireplace in one corner, red and gold kilims, one of the Turkish rugs an easy twelve feet across. A futon, two floor-to-ceiling multi-media modern art pieces, and a framed stained glass featuring intertwining lilies hung in an east window. It screamed good taste.
“I love it.”
She turned around in the middle of the room. She wouldn’t change a thing. She stuffed her gloves in the pockets of her coat, and he helped her slip it off, then disappeared with it.
She heard the closet door in the hall open and close.
She walked over to look at an intricately carved screen of wild animals that separated living room from bedroom. The craftsmanship was perfection. The grain of the wood seemed to flow with the animals, move them along in their ascent up the side of a snow-capped mountain. The screen was big enough to offer privacy to anyone lying behind it on the king-size waterbed.