Disillusions

by Seth Margolis

  “What?”

  “The guy’s got a bug up his ass for you, Gwen. He thinks you were involved in the kidnapping.”

  “In the murder, you mean. I was involved, I was there. If I hadn’t—”

  “In the kidnapping. He asked about your relationship with Nick Lawrence, whether you were in touch with your husband, if you had any hidden source of income.”

  “Hidden source of—Christ, look around. Does it look like I’ve got five million in the bank?”

  Sheila glanced at the pitcher and washbasin she’d bought at the auction.

  “I splurged, okay? That’s not a criminal offense up here, is it?”

  Sheila looked at her a beat. “You told me you didn’t have a pot to pee in,” she said, deadpan. “So what do you do? You go out and buy…a pot to pee in!”

  Gwen felt so relieved she hugged her friend.

  “Stay for a drink?” she said.

  “I have to get home.” They unhugged. “Betsy’s into playing Susie Homemaker these days. Tonight it’s vegetarian meat loaf. You should see the curtains she’s making for the living room.” Sheila shuddered. “I just wish she’d stop trying so hard.”

  Sheila smiled sadly. She was so much stronger than Betsy, far more capable. Gwen assumed that the differences between them explained the success of their relationship. Sheila was heading down the front walk when Gwen called after her.

  “Sheila?”

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  Gwen was about to tell her about Nick Lawrence, but changed her mind. Sometimes she felt so close to Sheila, but in reality they’d only known each other a few months. Anyway, talking about Nick would make her attraction—her fear—more real, somehow.

  “Thanks for coming by,” she said. Sheila waved and got in her car. Gwen closed the door and felt a surge of loneliness. If she couldn’t confide in Sheila, then whom could she turn to?

  For advice, you mean?

  The voice was back, that familiar, low-pitched summons to face facts.

  “Yeah, advice.”

  Simple—don’t get involved with Nick Lawrence. He’s trouble.

  “But—”

  He’s trouble and you’re the baby-sitter.

  “But I—”

  You’re not Jane Eyre, okay?

  Gwen closed her eyes a moment and sighed. “I’m not Jane Eyre.”

  Chapter 27

  Dwight Hawkins smiled as his wife, Elaine, set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of him, then watched her bustle across the kitchen to fetch orange juice from the refrigerator. Don’t hurry so much, he wanted to say, that morning and every morning. What’s the rush?

  “Thank you,” he said a bit abruptly when she handed him a glass of juice. “Good eggs,” he quickly added. “Really good.”

  She leaned against the counter next to the sink, arms folded, as he ate. She never joined him at the breakfast table, never had. Instead she played short-order cook and waitress, fussing over his eggs and pancakes and toast as conscientiously as when they were newlyweds thirty-five years earlier. He often wondered why she didn’t just sit down and have a cup of coffee with him. Would that be admitting defeat for her, giving in to the fact that it was just the two of them, after all these years? Did she worry that they’d have nothing to talk about at dinner if they exhausted the conversational possibilities at breakfast?

  And why, for that matter, had he stopped asking her to join him at the breakfast table, despite the irritability her constant hovering always provoked in him?

  “What if we sold this place?” he said after he’d finished the eggs and toast.

  “Sold?” she said from across the room. “And moved where?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “Get out.”

  “No, really. Yesterday the city looked so…lively. After I retire in two years there won’t be anything much to keep us here.”

  “Do you have any idea what apartments cost in New York? We’d end up living in a closet for what this place would fetch.”

  He drained his coffee cup, thinking of Cora Robinson and her perfect breasts and the dark patches of sweat on her leotard and that mound above her crotch.

  Fantasizing about a fifty-year-old in leotards? Geez.

  “We could chip in some savings.”

  “What?”

  They had amassed an assortment of mutual funds totaling over three hundred thousand dollars, the fruits of a fruitless marriage. But she would sooner amputate a limb than touch the principal.

  “Silly, I guess.” He stood up. “Anyway, I’d be miserable in Manhattan after fifteen minutes. Too…” He tried to finish the sentence—too crowded, too noisy, too anonymous—but everything he came up with felt more like a benefit than a drawback. “Too expensive,” he finally managed. He kissed her forehead and left.

  He took the photograph of Barry Amiel from his jacket pocket and studied it as he drove into town, trying to find in that darkly handsome, slightly rakish face a hint of what would drive a woman and child away in the middle of the night. Or was it in Gwen’s face that he should be searching? Perhaps the entire separation had been a charade, Act One of a drama still being played two hundred miles north of 222 West 83rd Street.

  He parked in front of the Mecca. The day was warm and dry; the early morning light was sharp, almost brittle as it glinted off the elms lining Main Street, the big clock in front of the bank, the diner’s polished aluminum exterior.

  He sat at the counter. A middle-aged woman, her jaundice-colored hair plumped in black netting, served him coffee. Gwen’s replacement, he suddenly realized. And Mike Contaldi’s loss.

  As if to confirm this, Contaldi appeared from the storage room behind the counter wearing a mean grimace that lingered despite the smile he managed for Sohegan’s police chief.

  “Everything okay?” Contaldi slid down the sugar, salt, and pepper containers, parking them directly in front of Dwight. “You need a refill?”

  Contaldi still acted as if it were fifteen years earlier, when Dwight had busted him for possession of marijuana. One ounce, in Contaldi’s car; he’d wet his pants when Dwight asked him to open the glove compartment. Lucky for him Dwight was an old high school buddy of his father’s. Charges had been dropped, but Mike Contaldi always looked at Dwight as if he thought he was about to be frisked. And Dwight never did or said anything to put the jerk at ease.

  “You remember Gwen Amiel, used to work here?” Dwight asked.

  “Sure I do.”

  “She ever have any visitors?”

  “That dyke from the bank came by a lot.”

  “You mean Sheila Stewart,” he said. “Vice president of the bank.”

  “Yeah, her.” Contaldi rearranged the salt and pepper.

  “No one else?”

  “Sometimes her son, with his baby-sitters. The Pearsons, an old couple, live out on the Muttontown Road. How come you’re interested in Gwen Amiel?” He leaned on the counter, gave Dwight a man-to-man wink. Dwight shimmied as far back on the stool as he could without falling on his ass. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I’ll take that refill,” Dwight said.

  Contaldi frowned as he grabbed the cup and saucer. When he returned a few moments later Dwight showed him the photograph.

  “Ever see any of these guys around?”

  Contaldi picked up the photo and studied it, shaking his head.

  “Like I said, the only visitor she had was that…was Sheila Stewart from the bank. I never could figure what Gwen was doing here in Sohegan in the first place. She acted like she was too good to wipe tables or—”

  “She never met with any of these men?”

  Contaldi leaned on the counter again, smiled; his breath was stale and suety, as if he’d just slurped down the grease he was always scraping off his blackened grill.

  “I don’t think Gwen was into men, you know what I’m saying?”

  “You’re saying she turned you down.”

  Contaldi straightened up. “What’
s that supposed to—”

  “So you never saw any of these men.” He started to pocket the photo.

  “I didn’t say that.” Dwight put the picture back on the counter. “I said none of them ever visited Gwen Amiel while she was working here. That’s what you asked me.”

  “But…”

  “But this guy…” He poked a stocky finger at Barry Amiel. “…This guy came in for lunch some time after she quit.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “We don’t get many strangers. I served him the daily special, lasagna.”

  Dwight had tasted Contaldi’s lasagna, just once, and felt a surge of sympathy for Barry Amiel. “When was that?”

  “Had to be a Monday. Monday’s Italian day.”

  “Ah…” Priscilla Lawrence had been killed on Italian day. “Which Monday, do you recall?”

  “A while ago.” Contaldi shrugged.

  Dwight tapped his right foot to keep from strangling him. “But after Gwen left.”

  “I told you that already.”

  Tap, tap, tap. “Gwen left in late May…Could that man in the picture have visited this place in mid-June, say?”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Could it have been the day Priscilla Lawrence was killed?”

  His face brightened. “Shit, I don’t know. I mean, yeah, it could have been. But, you know, he only stayed, what, twenty minutes? Who can remember that far back?”

  Dwight signaled for the yellow-haired waitress and showed her the photo when she joined them.

  “That’s the guy was here the day that lady got killed,” she said. Contaldi scowled at her superior memory.

  “You’re sure about that?” Dwight asked.

  “Hey, most of the guys come in here look like their parents were brother and sister, you know what I’m saying? You’re just happy they got only one head.” She gazed dreamily at the photograph. “This guy I didn’t forget.”

  “Was he alone?”

  She nodded. “Didn’t say nothing, though. Seemed kind of moody.” She shrugged. “You want more coffee?”

  He shook his head, got up from the stool, and left a dollar bill on the counter before leaving. He hurried to his car, eager to get back to the office and call Don Reeves.

  Barry Amiel had been in Sohegan the day of the murder, and hadn’t been seen anywhere since.

  Frankie Spivak saw the body first. His house was just a mile down Pleasant Ridge Road, so he knew every path leading to the Devil’s Ravine. He was only nine, but he’d been swimming at the ravine for as long as he could remember. Richie and Jason were a few yards behind him. The day was cloudy and not particularly hot, especially under the trees. Maybe they wouldn’t bother swimming—that wasn’t the reason they came here, anyway, at least not lately. The Devil’s Ravine was where that lady was killed. The coolest place in Sohegan. Every kid in town begged his parents to take him to the ravine. But Frankie lived closest. He didn’t have to ask anyone for a ride, or even permission.

  He stopped short when he saw the legs, feet flopped to the side. Richie bumped right into him.

  “Look!” Frankie pointed to the spot ten yards down the hill, about halfway to the river.

  “What is it?” Richie asked.

  Jason stood behind them, breathing hard. “A body,” he whispered.

  Duh. Frankie squinted to get a better look. Then all three stared for a while, nobody moving a muscle. Finally, Jason poked Richie’s back. “Go closer.”

  “Me? Why not you?”

  “Cause you…you’re the oldest.”

  “Am not,” Richie said. “Frankie’s older.”

  Frankie inched forward, but his footsteps rustled the leaves and twigs on the ground. What if someone heard? He stopped.

  “What if someone’s here?” he whispered. “Someone else.”

  All three looked around, then back at the body. They couldn’t see the head, just the tan pants and the tail of a white shirt.

  “Maybe it’s just someone sleeping,” Frankie said. He picked up a twig and threw it at the body. It landed a foot short. He threw another stick. This one hit the pants above the knee. The body didn’t move.

  Jason tossed a handful of pebbles. He bent down to get some more stones, but Frankie pulled on his collar.

  “It’s not moving,” he said. “Okay?”

  Jason nodded. “You think we should call the police?”

  “Or we could go closer,” Richie said. “Find out who it is.”

  “Go ahead,” Jason said.

  “Me! Why not you?”

  “You brought it up, that’s why.”

  “Quit arguing, okay?” Frankie said. “We stick together, okay? We all three take a closer look, or else we call the police. Together, all three of us at once.”

  A brief hesitation, then the three boys turned and scrambled back up the hill to the road.

  Chapter 28

  Gwen followed Dwight Hawkins down the path to the Devil’s Ravine. He’d told her what to expect, and she figured she could handle it, though she’d sworn never to return to the place. Then she spotted the khaki trousers…the white oxford shirt…the green ski hat, red mittens, leather boots. She leaned against a tree, breathing hard.

  “You okay?” Hawkins asked.

  “They’re all…all my things,” she managed to say.

  “Looks like another prank,” Hawkins said without much conviction.

  “Prank?” Someone had stolen her clothes, then stuffed them with twigs and old leaves to make a kind of scarecrow. She walked closer, her legs unsteady.

  “Oh, God.”

  A stick pierced the shirt where the heart would be. Her heart.

  “The county is sending down a crime-scene unit,” Hawkins said.

  “Crime…”

  “This may be a prank, but someone broke into your house and stole these things. Probably that last time, when the doll was vandalized. You didn’t mention anything missing, though.”

  “I never wear these things this time of year.”

  He nodded and picked up something from the ground next to one of the leather gloves.

  “A thistle,” he said, holding it by its stem.

  She stared at the purple flower, so fragile she thought it might break apart by her breath, like a dandelion seed.

  “Priscilla has a garden,” she said, “behind the house…”

  “Nick Lawrence took us there, after the murder.”

  “The thistle, the stick through the heart—Priscilla was shot though the heart…”

  “The body’s in exactly the same place.”

  “Except it’s my body,” Gwen said.

  Hawkins looked at her. “I’m sorry about this.” He turned back to the body. Gwen wiped tears from her face and sprinted up the hill.

  It was a long, hellish week. She couldn’t shake the vision of that…effigy at the Devil’s Ravine, couldn’t convince herself that it was all just a stupid prank. Someone was warning her, threatening her—what other explanation could there be?

  Dwight Hawkins and his men were keeping a close eye on her house, and he’d told her not to deviate from her usual routine. Penaquoit was gated, after all; she was safe at work, and she’d be watched at home.

  Not that she felt safe at Penaquoit. During those rare moments when she managed to forget the effigy, she found herself fixating on the Kiss, as she’d come to think of the incident in the secret garden. Scared and alone, she felt her resistance to Nick beginning to weaken.

  All that long week at Penaquoit, she felt protected from her own instincts only when Nick was somewhere else. He spent most of the day at the piano; as long as she heard him practicing, and stayed clear of the living room, she was safe.

  The only meaningful interaction between them was when she took Tess from him in the morning, and handed her back in the evening. He maintained a maddening serenity during these brief encounters, as if the Kiss had never occurred.

  Then, around one o’clock Friday afternoon, with Tess’s laund
ry done, her room cleaned, and Tess herself just embarked on her second nap, Gwen decided to get some fresh air. She practically bumped into him as she was leaving through the pantry door.

  “I was coming to look for you,” he said jauntily, as if she were a houseguest and not an employee. He was wearing only swim trunks: his hair and chest were wet, and he smelled of chlorine.

  “Here I am,” she said, then gritted her teeth to keep from cringing. Cleverness always deserted her in the face of his maddening self-composure.

  “Were you headed for Priscilla’s garden by any chance?”

  She shook her head, irritated at the casual mention of the place. She’d never go back to the secret garden; there was something wrong about it, something unnatural, its lush beauty plundered from the surrounding countryside.

  “I heard about what happened at the ravine,” he said. “People can be very cruel.”

  “Someone seems to think…someone thinks I killed your wife.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Do you think the thistle was from the garden here?”

  “No one even knows about the garden,” he said. “And no one other than the family and the Piacevics have access to the estate. Those plants could come from any garden.”

  “Why, though? Why the thistle?”

  His expression darkened, and he waited a moment before answering. “I don’t know.”

  She watched a droplet of pool water trickle down his right arm.

  “How’s Tess?” he asked. “Does she seem all right to you? What I mean is, do you think she’s…Is she adapting to the loss of her mother?”

  The loss of her mother. Priscilla had been relegated to her mother, her lost mother. Still, his concern for Tess sounded sincere, and his stammering was unexpected and touching.

  “I think she’s doing fine,” she said. “Sometimes she’ll ask for…for her mama…”