Possessions

by Judith Michael

  "Tell me," she said. "I want to hear it."

  Ross smiled at her. Nice words, he thought. "He found a column that hadn't been sunk deep enough and then, under it, a footing that was cracked because it hadn't been reinforced with enough steel. We assume that if it's true of one, it's true of all of them, which means the building is in danger. Do you remember the accident at a Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City, when people were dancing on a skyway and it collapsed? The reports say it was the same problem: shortcuts in construction that made it unsafe. In other words, someone deviated from the original specifications to save time and money."

  "And that's what happened in the Macklin Building?"

  "We think . . . What the hell, that's what it had to be. The footings are substandard, which means the specs were changed, which means, I suppose, an inspector had to be bribed to approve them."

  "Was it Craig?"

  The name echoed on the terrace. "I don't think so," Ross said slowly. "I always had trouble believing Craig would knowingly do anything to jeopardize a building's integrity; he was absolutely straight in construction. He thought of money last. I always felt I could trust Craig with any building I designed."

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  Trust Craig. Katherine rested her head against Ross's arm, feeling drained. A faint glow made her look to their left. "Sunrise," she said wonderingly. The sky brightened: a wash of pale pink and apricot spread above them, and then the sun bumeii through, turning the cypress and olive trees to burnished red-gold. "So beautiful," Katherine murmured. "But everything followed us here, after all."

  She left the circle of Ross's arm and perched on the stone wall, gazing down the hill at the sand-colored buildings of Menton, growing brighter as the sun rose. Ross watched her, the downcast curve of her neck, the tremble of her lips. "Divorce him," he said bluntly. She swung around. "Katherine, somewhere in all the talk tonight, I told you I love you. Did you hear it, or did it get lost in the conversation?"

  "I heard it," she answered. "And . . . I'm grateful— **

  "Grateful!"

  "I mean ... oh, damn, how can I say this? Ross, it doesn't change anything. I can't say, 'Ross loves me, so I'll divorce Craig . . .' I can't just walk away from him."

  "He walked away from you."

  "Is that why I should do it? Whatever he does, I do in return?"

  "It's hardly the same. You have a reason; he had none. And you've given him more than a year to come back."

  "But there's so much I don't know. He's in trouble but I don't even know what kind, or how it happened." She told Ross about Leslie's call, and Carl Doemer's quarrel at her party in Vancouver.

  He looked at her in disbelief. "You can't be serious. Because a kid at Heath's was framed and a year ago some people quarreled . . . Katherine, they have nothing to do with Craig!"

  "How do you know? Isn't it a possibility? You just said you don't believe he altered those specifications—he was absolutely straight, you said, you trusted him. Why would he have been any different in his company? If he was framed, and he ran because he thought no one would believe him, he was right, wasn't he? Everyone, including his wife, believed he was guilty. And now you say I should divorce him."

  "You don't want to divorce him?"

  Katherine slumped, her energy deflated. "Sometimes I've

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  wished I could. No, that's not right. Sometimes I've wished he would just be gone. Really gone. Not—"

  "Clinging."

  "Yes, that's how it feels. But I've never thought about divorcing him. How could I? What would I tell Jennifer and Todd? I got tired of waiting for Daddy? I'm cutting him from us, even though he's sending us money and probably trying to find his way back to us? Is that what I should say?"

  He did not answer. "Ross, I can't leave Craig because I owe him something after he loved me and took care of me for ten years. I don't see how I can erase that because he did something I don't understand."

  Steadfast, Ross thought, remembering their dinner in Paris, when he had found himself comparing Katherine to Melanie. Steadier; more steadfast.

  "And something else," Katherine said. She came back to him, putting out a hand to smooth his hair. She hardly knew what she was doing, but she felt she had to touch him to make him understand, and then he had pulled her to him and she was on his lap, her arms around his neck, her face against his, crying quietly. "Don't you see—^I can't make a future with you, I can't even think of one, until I finish with the past. Everything is dangling. I don't have any answers, I don't know how much I'm responsible for, / don't understand what happened and who I am now. Ross, don't you see? When you said you loved me, you said your choices were to wipe out the past or to understand it. You decided you had to understand it. So do I. I can't make a future until I understand the past, and finish it."

  Ross pushed back her hair and kissed her closed eyes, her cheek, her lips, tasting her tears. He tried to think what it would be like if he and Melanie had not gone through a final confrontation, wound things up through their lawyers, signed documents—finished their marriage. "Yes," he said. "Of course I understand. But I don't know how you're going to do it."

  "Craig and I will do it. Together. When he comes back."

  "And how long will you wait for that?"

  "I don't know."

  The piercing trill of a bird broke the silence. Within the house, a door opened; water ran in the kitchen; the fresh smell of coffee reached them. The day had begun.

  Chapter 16

  8.

  AN Francisco was cool and airy after the Riviera's molten heat and, his first evening back, Ross walked from his office to the top of Telegraph Hill to reacquaint himself with his city. It spread below in soft pastels and the fresh green of eucalyptus trees, tinged with pale gold from the slanting rays of the setting sun. Sighting down the hill, past the roof gardens and sun decks of the houses covering its slope, Ross saw the city as a canvas, always changing, always waiting to be changed. He picked out the site of BayBridge Plaza, where he had spent the morning inspecting work begun while he was in France, and other neighborhoods around the city he and his staff planned to work on in the future.

  Restore and renovate, he reflected. Our days are spent remaking and rebuilding. And when necessary, destroying. When nothing can be saved, we tear down.

  He wondered which one Katherine would decide to do.

  His memory held the image of her beauty in the coral glow of the sunrise over Menton, and the troubled look in her eyes. She had to finish her marriage, she said, and understand it.

  POSSESSIONS

  But what if understanding gave her a reason to try to rebuild it? Steadfast, he reminded himself. And loyal.

  Walking back down the hill, Ross thought about Craig. Why the hell hadn't someone found him? The money came every month, and even though it was always mailed in a different town, some enterprising investigator should have figured out a way to trace it. Claude had hired one, long ago, but after four months he'd had nothing to report. No one had an3^thing to report. But Craig had a profession; he had habits, and contacts—why the hell hadn't someone put all those together and found him?

  Maybe because no one cared enough anymore. I>oemer's loss must have been covered by insurance, and not enough money was involved to keep police on it full time for fourteen months.

  But I care, he thought. More than the police, more than Doerrier, even more than the tax people. Because I want Kath-erine to be free.

  / can't make a future with you until I understand the past.

  Find him, then. Help Katherine put an end to her past, or rebuild it. Either way, it's better for both of us than not knowing.

  I could call Carl Doemer; get the names of people Craig worked with. Maybe someone knew something, but didn't want to help the police find him. Maybe that someone would help Craig's cousin.

  Ross considered it. He had three meetings tomorrow; he could be in Vancouver the next day. But that was when Katherine and Victoria would be home f
rom France. But he'd only be gone a day or two. And impatience was pounding inside him. He had to do something; Katherine would understand that. He thought of her, in the Vesubie Valley, leaning over him, his hands holding her breasts, the sun beating down—

  He went back to his office to call Carl Doemer.

  He found him at home. "My name is Ross Hayward," he began. "I'm trying to locate my cousin, Craig Fraser—"

  "Aren't we all," Doemer said flady.

  "—and I'd appreciate it if you'd give me some information."

  "After fourteen months? There isn't anything I can tell you that I haven't told every policeman in Canada and the States. I'd love to find the son of a bitch—you know how I trusted

  POSSESSIONS

  him and he let me down?—if you want to try, lots of luck. You'll need it."

  "I grew up with him," Ross said. "I knew him pretty well at one time. I might be able to figure out his thinking if I knew what he was working on when he disappeared."

  "Skipped."

  Ross was beginning to dislike him. "What was he working on?"

  'The police have that information. Look, I'm about to eat my dinner—"

  "I'd like the names of contractors he worked with in other cities."

  "The police have that, too. I gave them a list a year ago."

  Evasive and unhelpful, Ross noted, and wondered why. "I thought you might have remembered some other information," he said. "If we find my cousin, or even hear word of him, my family is thinking of repaying the money he took."

  There was a pause. "What does finding him have to do with repaying it?"

  "We'd want him to share in the repayment."

  After another moment, Doemer said, 'There was one thing. Nothing definite, just peculiar. I told the police about it—they checked it out and said it wasn't anything—but I still wonder."

  Ross waited.

  "I think something was going on in Calgary. Craig was there an awful lot in the last two years—the whole time he was stealing from me. He said he was making contacts, getting new clients—but he did it on his own time. I called around after he skipped, to see if he was working for a competitor."

  "And?"

  "Couldn't find one. But there's no doubt in my mind he was. Obviously he needed a lot of money, and untrustworthy once, untrustworthy twice, I always say."

  "Profound," Ross munnured. Aloud, he said, "Do you know of a contractor he might have gone to?"

  Carefully, Doemer replied, "There was a Len Oxton we worked widi once or twice. But I told you, the police have a list."

  "I remember," Ross said. "Thanks."

  He was about to hang up when Doemer's voice, a little

  POSSESSIONS

  anxious, burst from the receiver. "What are you going to do nextT

  Gently, Ross touched a picture of Katherine he had taken in Saint-Paul, smiling in a field of flowers. "I'm going to Calgary," he said.

  Two days later, catching his first glimpse of Calgary from his plane, he thought it looked like a steel island floating on the wheat fields of Alberta, where the Bow and Elbow rivers met. It was bigger than he had expected, even though he knew that oil and gas had made it the fastest growing town in Canada for years. "About six hundred thousand," said the man beside him when he asked its population. "And growing, eh?"

  A habit of Canadians: to end their sentences with a little explosion of air. Ross wondered if Craig had picked it up. He wondered what he would do if he found him.

  Bring him back to Katherine and hope she doesn't decide to rebuild.

  Last month, he recalled, I was arguing with Jacques, saying it was better to restore than to destroy.

  When possible, he amended. There are times when it*s not. It depends on where you're standing.

  From a telephone in the airport, he called Len Oxton. "Police talked to me, eh?" said Oxton. "Couldn't tell them much; I liked Eraser but I never worked with him and wouldn't have the faintest where he might be. Noah Johnson, now, he might; I think he and Eraser worked on a bank building a few years back."

  Noah Johnson was a man of few words. "Eraser, eh? Knew his stuff, easy to work with, kept to himself. Never got friendly. Bob Vessen knew him better."

  Bob Vessen liked to talk. "Eine fellow, Craig; low-key, good ideas, loved to use glass. We put up an office building with a combined greenhouse and cafeteria; sensational in the winters. Craig carved me a little horse once—now there was something else he really knew: sculpture, especially Eskimo. But if you're asking me where he might have gotten to, that I couldn't say. He wasn't much for giving away feelings or private thoughts. Hold on, though; he did seem friendly with Danny Nielsen . . . Nielsen Builders, you know. Danny might have an idea."

  POSSESSIONS

  And so, late that afternoon, Ross found E>anny Nielsen. And Danny took him to Elissa.

  Elissa Nielsen, Craig's mistress for almost two years, before he disappeared.

  '*Of course I never told the police anything," Danny said as they drove from his office to the outskirts of the city. "Crocodiles couldn't have dragged it out of me. All they wanted was to make Craig look bad, like a real bona-fide criminal, you know; they didn't want to clutter their minds with the possibUity that he wasn't guilty or maybe had serious reasons for doing what he did. It was easier to think he was just an ordinary crook."

  Hardly ordinary, Ross thought in disbelief as Danny drove him toward yet another of Craig's lives. San Francisco, Vancouver, and now Calgary. Had Katherine suspected? Of course not; she would have told him.

  "You think he wasn't guilty?" he asked as he watched the city speed by. New construction was everywhere, cross-hatched giixlers reaching to the blue-white prairie sky. Enough to keep Craig busy for years. But of course that wasn't why he came here.

  "No," said Danny. "I don't think Craig was guilty. But I don't like to think about it. We cost him plenty, you know. Here we are."

  The house was a small cottage with four rooms and a screened porch. A tricycle lay on its side in the front yard; on the coffee table in the living room was a wooden carving of a large sleepy-eyed turtle with a gleeful Httle boy astride it. "My sister," said E)anny. "Ehssa Nielsen; Ross Hayward."

  "Well," she said and put out her hand, "I've heard so much about you I'm glad to see you're real."

  She was as tall as Ross, large-boned, with long, light brown hair and wide-spaced blue eyes—clear, honest, appraising. Not quite pretty, she had such an open look, ready to be friends, that Ross, holding her hand, found himself liking her, wanting her to like him, even though, driving there, he had been blaming her for all of Katherine*s problems. "Heard about me?" he asked.

  "Craig told me all about you," she answered. "How about a drink? We're having chicken for dinner; did Danny tell you?"

  "I didn't," said Danny. "And I'm not staying. You two have 380

  POSSESSIONS

  plenty to talk about. Ross, call me later and I'll drive you back to your hotel. I'm glad you found us; I always thought Craig was the best guy in the world. See you later."

  When he was gone, Ross said, "I'll take you out to dinner."

  "No," said Elissa. "Thanks, but no. It's quiet here and anyway I've already cooked the chicken. What will you drink? I have Scotch, left from Craig's last visit—but it's better when it ages, isn't it?—and sherry."

  "Sherry, thanks."

  "Keeping a clear head, I see. Danny said you're looking for Craig."

  "He thinks you know where he is."

  "He's wrong. I don't know where Craig is; I haven't seen him or heard from him since a year ago June. He called to tell me he was going to Toronto and he'd try to fit in a couple of days with me on the way back. I haven't heard from him since. All I've heard is about him. The police talked to Danny in July; they said he was an embezzler. I never believed that." She handed him a glass. 'To your good health. And welcome to Calgary."

  "But he disappeared," Ross said. "You didn't see him again. If he hadn't conmiitted a crime, why was he gone?"
>
  "Well. You wouldn't understand, but if you're a woman and your guy is married and has a family and all, you expect it. I mean, 70U know that one day he's going to choose his family over you. His wife will get suspicious or he'll run out of excuses or he'll just get tired of running back and forth— and he'll stop coming around. So you prepare yourself. It doesn't really work; it still breaks your heart when it happens; but at least you think you know what's going on."

  "Did it break your heart?"

  "Of course it did. I love him."

  She said it so naturally that Ross felt a stab of pity. "Why didn't the police fmd you?"

  "Because Craig always registered at a motel in town before he came here. In case he got telephone calls, you know. I mean, his kids could have been sick . . . some emergency . . . When the police checked, they found the registrations. And my neighbors, and people in the shops around here, knew him under another name." At Ross's exasperated sigh, she became defensive. "He had to; he was protecting his family.

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  Anyway, he thought he had to, and I understood, and that's how everyone knew him. And when he stopped coming around, well, they just thought we broke up. It happens, you know."

  Ross walked about the small living room, crowded with memorabilia: dolls and stuffed animals from amusement parks, glass paperweights embedded with the names of Canadian cities, a bowl filled with restaurant matchbooks, pictures of Elissa and Craig, some with a young boy grinning happily between them. Ross looked at her.

  "He's not Craig's."

  I hope not, he thought, and moved on, stopping in front of a calendar from Vancouver Construction. "Last year's," he murmured.

  Elissa gave an embarrassed laugh. "I should take it down. But if I throw that out, what about all the other things Craig brought me? I mean, where do you stop, if you're trying to forget someone? Every time he came here he brought a paperweight or a carving or . . . Well, anyway. Did Katherine throw out the things he brought her and the kids?"

  Startled, Ross said, "Do you know her?"

  "Katherine? Good Lord, no. Craig would have died if I'd even come near Vancouver. But I heard so much about her I might as well know her. I mean, she's sort of like a relative you hear about but never meet. So I talk about her like that. More sherry?"