Acts of Love (40 page)

Julia hesitated, crossing and uncrossing her legs, before she finally answered, “Okay.”

“Stay here,” he said. “Don't move.”

He got up and went into the living room. When he returned a minute later, he had a tiny black tape recorder in his hand.

 

O
UTSIDE
, the streets were stirring with mid-morning activity. He listened to the tape one last time and clicked off the machine. Despite the early hour, he got up and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. He had somehow convinced himself all along that it would be like modern warfare, that he would not have to see the faces of his victims so close to his, that he would be able to strike and vanish before the aftermath.

He wandered to the window, peered out from behind the curtain, and then sank onto the couch with his beer. She was a good kid, really. Later he would help her, help her with what she wanted most, to get out, with recommendations, contacts, advice, the threads that bound his old world together but had done him so little good. He would do that for her. He finished the rest of the beer in one long swallow and got up. Right now, he had work to do.

 

H
ARDISON
, N.Y. F
EBRUARY
24—
The
Chronicle
has learned of an important new aspect in the murder trial of Theodore Waring. In an exclusive interview, this reporter has discovered that there is compelling evidence of the defendant's past marital infidelity, with his own sister-in-law. According to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Julia Waring, Mr. Waring, during the time of his marriage, had an affair with Sandy Leder, the sister of his deceased wife. Julia Waring, twelve years old at the time, was an eyewitness to this occurrence when she accidentally came across her father and her aunt engaged in sexual conduct. The young girl was too upset by the discovery to come forward until now. During her testimony, Sandy Leder gave no indication as to the nature of her relationship with the defendant. Numerous messages left with Ms. Leder as well as Mr. Waring asking for comment have gone unanswered. Prosecuting attorney Gary Reardon issued a brief statement through his office saying that he would have no comment at this time. Defense attorney Harry Fisk said of these new allegations, “Irrelevant. It is spurious gossip and has absolutely no bearing on the legalities of the case.” The trial will resume on Monday morning with the younger daughter, Ali Waring, scheduled to take the witness stand.

 

J
OHN GRIPPED THE PAPER IN HIS HAND
. Soggy brown stains from where he had first spilled his coffee covered the lower half of the banner headline. He put it down for the third time, stared at it, and then angrily crumpled it into a large ball and flung it across the room. He slammed his fist once into the table, bruising the side of his hand. Finally, he reached for the wall phone and dialed Sandy's number. She picked up on the fourth ring.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Is it true?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly.

She heard him breathe, swallow.

“John? Let me explain.”

But he had already hung up.

 

S
HE SLOWLY PLACED THE RECEIVER
back in its cradle. Nothing since she had awakened two hours ago and opened the front door to get the paper—just as she did each morning, yawning as she bent down, her eyes still logy with sleep—had seemed to have any weight, any gravity. The only ground she could find was spongy, insubstantial, sinking and swaying beneath her.

She went upstairs to where the girls were just now getting up and putting on their Sunday clothes. “Julia, come out here.”

Julia, shuffling her feet nervously, took two steps into the hallway.

Sandy handed her the paper. “How could you have done this?”

Julia glanced at the paper briefly and then looked back up at Sandy. “How could
you
have?”

Sandy stood stunned, mute. She finally managed to mutter, “I'm sorry.”

Julia stared up at her, and all that she had thought to say since that rainy night outside the kitchen door, all that she had rehearsed, disintegrated. There was only the dull and exhausted sense of release she had felt since talking to Peter.

“I wish you had come to me. Talked to me,” Sandy added, trying to look into Julia's malachite eyes but unable to stay there.

Julia remained still.

Sandy ran her fingers through the thicket of her hair. “But to go to the paper…”

The silence between them coagulated, and all of the fury—
they were naked on the floor
—that had spewed through Julia for the past year, private and poisonous, rose in her once more. She turned abruptly and ran to her bedroom, slamming the door.

Sandy stood before the closed door for a long while listening to the muffled sound of Julia's sobbing. Twice she put her hand on the knob, twice she began to knock, to go to Julia, but she didn't. She could only listen, helpless, immobilized, as the forlorn gasps finally began to sputter out.

She went back downstairs and picked up the telephone. “John, are you there? God, I don't want to talk to your machine. I know you're there. Please, John. We need to talk. I'd give anything for you not to have found out this way. I know I owe you an explanation. I don't know if there is one, but please, just talk to me. No, huh? Okay.” She listened to the faint mechanical whir of the line for another moment, and then she hung up. She rested her hand on the receiver for just an instant before she lifted it again, dialed with angry, pointed jabs, and then listened impatiently to Peter Gorrick's cheerfully insipid voice crackling from his answering machine. At the sound of the beep, she spit out, “You little piece of shit!” and slammed the receiver down so hard that a hairline crack formed across the top.

The kitchen was suddenly completely silent. The room grew closer and closer. She loosened the sash of her bathrobe, but it did not help her breathe. The air seemed to cluster in her throat, gain too much mass to swallow, choking her instead. A cold film of moisture clung to her forehead and chest.

She leaned against the wall and, dazed, sank to the floor, her eyes wide open.

 

I
T WAS TWO O'CLOCK
before Sandy managed to dress and drive to Norwood's Sporting Goods.

The store was filled with the steady flow of Saturday shoppers, grabbing merchandise from one rack and putting it back on another, searching for recalcitrant children among the tennis balls and ski boots, bemoaning the inflated price of sneakers. Sandy watched John for a moment from outside the freshly washed window as he wrote up a sale. When the customer began to walk away, shopping bag in hand, she entered the store.

He looked up, stared mutely at her for a moment, then grabbed an inventory list and began to check off items with a rapid flick of his pen.

“Please, talk to me,” she said.

“Seems to me you've talked to just about everyone but me.”

“John.”

“You must think I'm pretty stupid. Hell,
I
think I'm pretty stupid. Are you amused, Sandy?”

“Amused? How could you say that? Do you know how I feel right now?”

“I don't give a flying fuck how you feel right now. I'm busy. You'll have to leave.”

“I wanted to tell you, but…”

“I don't want to hear it, Sandy.”

John picked up the thick inventory book and headed for the back of the store. He stopped and turned to her. “You were right about one thing,” he said bitterly. “I don't know you, after all.” He walked away.

Sandy stood balancing herself with both hands on the edge of the counter, while the salesgirl who had taken John's place at the register stared at her, slowly shaking her head.

 

T
HE HOUSE WAS COMPLETELY STILL
. Sandy stood in the entranceway, listening for evidence of the girls, but heard nothing, just the wheezy not-quite-silence of the old wooden beams. She hung up her coat and pulled herself slowly up the stairs. The door to the girls' room was ajar, and she pushed it open with her foot.

Julia, lying on her bed reading a guidebook on Budapest, glanced up and then quickly returned to the book, finding her place with her forefinger.

Sandy stared at the crown of Julia's head as she tried to sound out “Can you please direct me to the nearest telephone?” in Hungarian, repeating the slur of syllables two more times before turning the page.

Sandy shifted her weight from her left hip to her right. “Do you want to talk?” she asked.

“About what?”

“About what happened.”

Julia moved her forefinger to the next line in her book. “No.”

“I know that I've hurt you,” Sandy said quietly. “You have every reason to be angry with me.” She sighed. “I don't know what to tell you.” She looked down at Julia, waiting. “I love you and Ali,” she added.

Julia turned another page, tipping her head closer to the book to hide the confusion in her face.

Sandy exhaled audibly. “Where is Ali?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“She went out someplace.”

“Where?”

“I just said, I don't know.”

“Didn't you ask? How can you let her leave the house without knowing where she's going?”

“You're not my mother,” Julia snapped and turned back to her book.

Sandy stared at her for another moment and left the room.

As soon as Sandy was gone, Julia threw the book down on the floor. She curled into a fetal position and covered her eyes with a crooked arm, like a cat.

Downstairs, Sandy made herself a tuna sandwich. Though she hadn't eaten yet that day, she managed only to pick up the corners of the bread a number of times before putting the sandwich back in the refrigerator, liquid from the tuna already leaching onto the plate.

The kitchen grew dark. No sound came from above. Sandy moved only to check her watch. Five o'clock. Six.

By seven, when Ali still wasn't home, Julia wandered downstairs. She looked around nonchalantly, trying with little success to hide her curiosity and concern.

“She's not here,” Sandy said.

Julia went to the refrigerator and removed Sandy's sandwich. She took it into the living room and turned on the television. Sandy could hear the moody synthesizer music that announced the beginning of a science-fiction program.

It was another half hour before she walked into the living room and demanded of Julia, “What are the names of some of her friends?”

“I don't know. Jackie Gerard. Maybe Sue Hanson.” The jagged points were gone from her voice, but she did not remove her eyes from the television.

Sandy went back to the kitchen and called both houses. The mothers' voices on the phone were brusque, almost impolite. Surely they had read the paper, too.
Can't you even keep your eye on the little girl? Well, what could we expect of someone like you?
“We haven't seen her,” they both said.

Peering out of the kitchen to be certain Julia was still in the living room, and pulling the phone as far as the cord would stretch, she called Ted.

“Do you have her?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Ali.”

“Of course not. What's happened to her? What have you done?”

“Nothing.” She hung up immediately.

She rested her forehead against the telephone for a moment before dialing once again. “John? Don't hang up,” she rushed out. “It's Ali.”

“What about Ali?” His voice was blurry with distrust.

“She's missing.”

“What do you mean, she's missing?”

“She hasn't come home. She went out while I was gone and I don't know where she is and it's dark and it's late and I don't know what to do.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No.”

John was silent for a minute. “I'll go look for her. I have an idea.”

“Thanks.” Sandy hung up.

She opened the door to the refrigerator and stared at the unappealing contents. She poured herself a glass of white wine from a bottle that had been open for weeks and took it into the living room.

Julia moved over just an inch to make room for her on the couch, and the two of them sat staring at the miasma of sounds and colors on the television while commercials and sitcoms and news briefs followed one after the other. Neither said a word.

 

T
HE ROOM WAS PITCH BLACK
when Ali awoke, and she was uncertain for a moment of where she was. Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the dark, following the pale gray light that seeped in through the window and fell in scalloped vertical shadows across the empty shelves and dresser. Home.