A String of Beads

by Thomas Perry

  Daniel Crane drove along the road, and then turned right into one of the driveways. The surface looked like cobblestones, but she knew that the stones must be some modern imitation, partly because every stone was identical and perfectly level. As he drove along the driveway’s big curve, she caught herself trying to look ahead of the sweeping headlights to see what came next. First thick shrubbery for privacy from the road, then neat plantings of bright dahlias, hydrangeas, and rock roses, then the trunks of tall pine trees, and then a lawn like a golf course. The house itself was one story, a sprawling, plain dark brown building that she only now realized was natural wood. There was a narrow opening between wings of the house, and through it she could see a Japanese garden that seemed to be surrounded by glass.

  Crane stopped the SUV in front of the entrance, where she could see the garden beyond the opening by the dim light coming from the house’s interior through the glass wall. “Just give me a few minutes.” He undid his seat belt and let it retract.

  “Beautiful house,” Chelsea said.

  He turned to look at her. “Want to take a look inside? I feel weird leaving you sitting out here alone.”

  She hesitated, thinking about sitting here alone in the dark while he went inside. “Sure,” she said. She unlatched her seat belt and put her hand on the door handle, but he was there opening the door before she could go anywhere, offering her his hand.

  She was glad she’d taken it when she stepped to the pavement. Her high heels were uncertain and a little wobbly on the stone driveway. She followed him as he opened the front door and punched in the alarm code on the keypad on the wall. He flipped a few switches and various parts of the house lit up.

  The right side of the living room was the glass wall she had glimpsed from the front. The light out there was from small spotlights along the edge of the roof, and it showed her a big boulder with water trickling from a natural depression at the top, down its side into a tiny pond and recycling to flow down continuously. There was a bed of fine gravel raked into patterns to circle dark volcanic-looking boulders in a seemingly random arrangement, with a few twisted evergreen shrubs. A simple wooden bench beside the garden was where she could imagine herself sitting on a warm day reading.

  Recessed lights in the living room ceiling lit floor-to-­ceiling bookcases built into one wall filled with books and the occasional small sculpture or ceramic. Others threw softer beams of light on a semicircular arc of couches arranged as a conversation area around a low, round table.

  But Crane was already across the room and disappearing under an arch into a wide gallery. “Make yourself at home,” he called over his shoulder. Chelsea lost sight of him, but had the impression that he turned to the right somewhere on his walk, and then had the sense that his office must overlook the Japanese garden from the side.

  She walked across the living room, looked through a matching arch that seemed to end in the kitchen, where she could see gleaming stainless steel, and a couple of unlit rooms that opened on either side of that gallery.

  Chelsea stood still and stared at everything, shocked. The house looked like it belonged to a celebrity who had incredibly sophisticated taste. The pictures on the white walls were mostly not of anything, just beautiful colors smeared or dribbled or painted on in stripes with so many layers that they seemed to be deep enough to fall into. There were smaller ones, drawings or watercolors, mostly of girls, a few of them just girls’ faces or girls not naked. She loved this house. It looked like something in a magazine.

  She walked along the bookcases identifying tall art books, architecture books, thick collections of essays about opera, classical music, or philosophy. She had never imagined Dan Crane was interested in any of these topics. She had an urge to take some of the books down and look at them, but she could see that they had been arranged so precisely that he would know if she disturbed one, and might not like it.

  She heard a door closing somewhere in the distance, and then Dan’s shoes on the hardwood floor. She looked toward the arch and saw him reappear, carrying a half-inch-thin soft leather briefcase. “This house is gorgeous, Daniel.”

  He tossed his briefcase on the nearest couch and said, “Come on. I’ll give you a quick tour.”

  “Can we start in the kitchen?”

  He looked surprised. “Sure. This way.”

  The kitchen was exactly as she had guessed—huge and airy, with granite counters, a big island with sinks and overhead ventilation hood. There was a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a nine-burner stove, a double oven. Everything was gleaming and spotless. She was sure Dan Crane never cooked here, but someone certainly could. He led her out and opened a door on the corridor, and she saw a big television screen and some identical leather chairs with end tables beside each of them. “Screening room.”

  As she went with him from room to room she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to live here. The woman who had this house would live with Daniel Crane, of course, and that wasn’t something that appealed to her at first thought, but tonight she had begun to think that she had judged him too soon. She had been aware from the beginning that he had money. He owned the company where Nick had worked, so obviously he’d have more money than Nick. What she hadn’t known before was that he had such good taste, such a rich imagination, such an appreciation for beauty. He had a lively inner life that she had never suspected.

  As she watched him on the tour she reflected that he was better looking than he had been before. She thought it might be because he had confidence tonight. He knew he had impressed her with the restaurant, and when he was here on his home ground he seemed masterful. He stood straighter and spoke with an ease that even made its way into his voice.

  He stopped in the living room in front of a section of white wall and said, “Something from the bar?” He pressed a spot and a section of the white surface slid upward to reveal a granite bar with a sink, cabinets where glasses of various shapes and sizes were displayed, and rows of liquor bottles. He reached for a short, round bottle and said, “This is a really nice cognac. Perfect for sipping while we complete the tour.”

  “None for me,” she said. “I’ve already had more wine than I ever drink. That will just put me to sleep.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “And I’m going to be driving, so I’d better skip it too. A soft drink then.” He opened a cabinet that had no glass in front, and revealed that it was a small refrigerator. “Ginger ale?”

  “Is it diet?”

  He took out a can and looked at it. “It says it is.” He popped it and poured a glass for her and another for himself. He left the bar open and led her onward. There was an office in the place where she had guessed it must be, big and neat with a desk that showed a reflection, and a big sliding glass door to the Japanese garden. They passed three bedroom suites, all of them perfectly furnished and untouched. “There’s another one with Japanese watercolors that overlooks the garden,” he said, “and two others I made into a den and a pool room.”

  That was the last thing that she heard him say before she became aware of the sun. It wasn’t shining directly on her, or making her hot. Its light just invaded her sleep until she was forced to open her eyes. She stared at the scene in front of her, trying to make sense of it. Nothing seemed all right. Where was the yellow color of her bedroom wall? And her dresser was missing. It should be right here, where she could see it when she was lying in bed on her left side, like this. She rolled and sat up.

  She had moved too fast. Her head felt tender and bloated, not quite a headache but not normal either. She looked at the room and realized she had seen this room before, but couldn’t quite place it. She exerted greater effort and realized she must be in Daniel Crane’s bedroom. She was in his bed, naked. And now she admitted to herself that she could feel that she’d had sex. How could she have done that?

  She tried
to bring the answer out of her memory, but her mind was sluggish, like a heavy thing that she wasn’t strong enough to move. She would push it, and it seemed to be going in the right direction, returning to the dinner, the view of the deep chasm with the river at the bottom, the ride. She remembered coming into the house, some vague flashes of rooms, although in no particular order. She recalled that she had felt the effect of the wine, but that had just been a buzz. She hadn’t had the spins or even felt dizzy. And then she brought back the secret bar in the wall and the cognac. Had she had too much of that? She couldn’t remember.

  Chelsea thought harder. She felt bad, frightened by the idea that she couldn’t remember. The word rape floated to the surface of her mind. Had Dan Crane drugged her? She got up from the bed and looked down at her body, then stood in front of the full-length mirror. There were no marks or scratches. But would there be? This was terrible. She panicked. She wanted to run.

  She whirled, looking for her clothes. There, on the chair. Her underwear was on top, and under it, her dress—not tossed carelessly, but laid over the back of the chair to keep it from being wrinkled. She sucked in a breath. That was the way she would have left her clothes. When she had undressed in front of a man before, she had found she liked to face away from him. It made her less self-conscious and aware that he would be staring at her, and she knew that her back and bottom were pretty. She came closer and noticed the shoes. She would have stepped out of them while she was facing away from the man and left them exactly that way, with the toes pointed toward the chair. If a man had taken them off, he would have left them with the toes pointed outward, away from the chair. She looked at the clothes again. No matter who had taken them off her, the dress would have been first, and the underwear last, on top. But if he had put her dress there, would he have done it exactly the way she did? It seemed impossible. She must have done it herself. She must have done this, decided on her own to have sex with Daniel Crane.

  Where was he? She realized that in the past five seconds she had begun to smell coffee. She picked up her clothes and hurried into the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it.

  She turned on the shower and let it run. The water was already hot. Of course he would have one of those water heater systems that circulated hot water all the time. She stepped into the stream, letting the hot water wash over her. She scrubbed herself hard, soaping up and rinsing the lather off over and over, trying to feel clean but not feeling satisfied. She kept thinking that the water would wake her up and clear her mind, but she didn’t feel any effect.

  She still didn’t remember anything that had gone on during the second half of her tour of the house. She must have been so completely drunk that she’d paid no attention to anything that he had said, and her eyes must have been closing half the time and unfocused the rest, so her subconscious mind had simply not bothered to retain the fragmentary information. How horrible and humiliating to have been so drunk. But if she had been so drunk, why had he had sex with her? Couldn’t he tell? Had she even been conscious?

  She had to think about this carefully. Accusing somebody of a crime as serious as rape was a big deal. The evidence she had found so far was that she didn’t remember being with him, but that didn’t mean rape. She hadn’t been handled roughly, or there would be marks on her, and there weren’t any. Her clothes had been laid out the way she would have left them.

  Chelsea worked hard, and reconstructed what she could of the sequence of her thoughts from last night. She had been thinking about Dan, and his house, and his tastes, and how much better he had looked in his own place. She had been gazing at him through wine goggles. How did she get in his bed? She was pretty sure she must have invited herself. Maybe when they visited this bedroom suite on the grand tour.

  She turned off the water in the shower and took one of the oversized thick, soft towels from the rack. As she dried herself, she looked around. The master bathroom was a bit larger than her bedroom at the house where she’d lived with Nick, and it was covered floor to ceiling in beautiful marble, with two sinks that looked like ceramic bowls. The shower was big enough for six people, with four dish-size shower heads on the ceiling and others spraying from the walls. Every­thing matched and looked as though it had been hand polished a moment ago.

  Dan had a lot of money, and he was generous with it, and good at thinking of tasteful ways of spending it. She searched further in her memory. Had she gone to bed with him because she was attracted to his money? No, she decided. What might have happened was that he was a trusted friend, she was grateful for the good time he had given her, and the wine had swept away her restraint and inhibitions. She had observed that when a person was drunk he did what he’d wanted to do all along. But he went further than he would at other times, didn’t wait, or consider, or speak quietly, or think about consequences.

  With that word a horrible thought came to her, but she pushed it away. She had not been careful last night, but she definitely wasn’t pregnant. She had not made any plans to ever have sex with anyone after Nick had died, but she had not stopped taking her pills. She hadn’t made any changes to any part of her life, because change would have taken energy and thought, and she’d been too busy grieving.

  She supposed that wasn’t entirely true. Without knowing it, she must have been thinking about Dan Crane. She used Dan’s hair dryer and the brush from her purse to dry and brush her hair, dressed in the clothes from last night, and looked in the mirror. The damage was done. She had thrown herself at Dan Crane. Now she would have to carry herself as well as she could and see if there was anything in that relationship to salvage, or if she had to break it off and refuse to see him ever again. She put on her makeup, taking special care to get it exactly right.

  She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the bedroom. On the table by the window were a tray with a coffee pitcher and a small glass of orange juice, and a couple of small pastries on a plate. But beside them, dwarfing the tray, was a glass vase with a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses. How had he gone to a florist already? She looked around for a clock, but there was none, so she took her cell phone out of her purse. Ten fifteen. Of course. He hadn’t gone, he had simply made a phone call and they’d been delivered. She saw there was a little envelope. She plucked it out of the flowers, opened it, her chest feeling hollow with dread, and read the card.

  “Good morning, Chelsea. I hope you’ll join me for breakfast at Semel’s.” Not so bad. No gushing, and no humiliating references to the sex. She put the note in her purse and prepared for the next challenge. She would have to see him and talk to him. She stepped out of the bedroom.

  He was sitting on the bench in the Japanese garden drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. There was Dan Crane under glass, still unaware of her watching. He was hers to study, like a rare specimen sitting motionless in a terrarium. He looked slim but strong, and the way the sunlight filtered through the overhead bough of a pine tree and fell on his head and shoulders made him seem contemplative, sensitive.

  She decided that when the time came, she would have to go out with him again. Next time she would avoid alcohol and keep her eyes wide open. After that she would figure out what she had done to herself—something bad, or something good. She walked to the sliding glass door and opened it.

  16

  It was late—nearly morning—and Jane lay in a clump of maple saplings near the back of the large plot of weedy land around the small old farmhouse near Avon. The only sounds were the breezes rustling the leaves of the tall maples that shaded her thicket. She had spent the night making ­visits to some places she’d thought might help her understand Jimmy Sanders’s problem.

  When she left Slawicky’s, she had driven to the bar in Akron where Jimmy and Nick Bauermeister had fought. She had stayed outside to watch the door and the parking lot for a couple of hours to get a sense of what sort of place it was and what its patrons were like. Both the bar and its custom
ers had seemed pretty ordinary. It was just a typical Western New York place that drew a steady stream of locals who drank beer and sat around talking. There was no band, no pickup scene, no bouncers, nobody hanging around the lot outside. When it was very late she had driven to this small farmhouse, the address of the victim and the scene of his death.

  When Jane arrived, she had parked in the lot of a closed gas station and walked the rest of the way. The house was set far back from the road in the middle of an expanse that had once been a farmer’s field, so it would have been risky to bring a car. Instead she moved across the field in her black clothes, hip-deep in brush and weeds, no more visible than a shadow, and then stopped at the back of the house. She’d looked in the windows, one by one, and found that nobody was inside. Nick Bauermeister’s girlfriend, Chelsea Schnell, had left a few dim lights burning—a table lamp in the bedroom beside her undisturbed bed, another in the living room, and a small fluorescent over the stove in the kitchen.

  The house was still fully furnished, so Chelsea hadn’t moved out yet. Jane went around to the front of the house and stepped up on the porch to examine the windows. It didn’t take long to find the one the bullet had passed through into Nick Bauermeister. The outer frame of it had been spackled to fill nail holes where a piece of plywood must have been nailed to cover the window until it had been replaced. She looked closer and saw the glazing compound around the edges of the big pane was fresh and white. She could see that the wall of the living room across from her looked different, probably a new coat of paint that didn’t quite match the color of the rest, so that must have been the place where the bullet and blood spatter had ended up.