Bad Desire (14 page)

At 7:27, Slater pulled the Eldorado into the municipal parking garage. From beginning to end, the killing had taken him an hour and a half to complete.

With his hand sliding on the smooth metal rail, he walked down the concrete stairs: second landing, ground level, the concrete cubicle deserted as usual. The thick walls muffled the noise from outside. He realized he was just standing there, lost, exhausted, terrified of going out. As he gripped the handle and pulled the door open, the latch clapped, sending a cascade of echoes up the stairwell. He looked back in sudden fright. Only particles of dust rising through the gloom met his gaze. Shaking off the fear, he stepped outside.

The throb of the awakening city was like an assault. From everywhere, the sunlight struck—from chrome, glass, even flecks of mica in the sidewalk sparkled, burning barbs of light into his eyes. He had sunglasses in his pocket but he left them there. Nothing could look suspicious.

Today of all days, he would behave exactly as he did on any other morning. He went to the corner of two streets and stood waiting for the light to change, looking around him. Across the wider boulevard, a few people strolled by, singly or in pairs. Always before they had been just another part of the background but now, suddenly, he was acutely aware of them and of his place among them. He was the mayor, dressed for business, on his way to get a cup of coffee before going to the office and everyone was his friend.

“Hello, Henry,” they said as they passed on the sidewalk. “Hi, Henry … Hello, Mayor … Beautiful day, isn't it, Mr. Slater?”

Charlie Ulrich leaned out of his open car window and said, “How's it going, Mayor?”

“Fine,” Slater answered him, “never better.” And, finally, he meant it.

On his face, the air felt bright and fresh, tinged with salt. A sweet, new sensation welled up in him, the promise of unimaginable pleasure. There was nothing to stop him now, no one to hold him back. Sheila, he thought. Now there would be time, endless time, for everything …
everything
he wanted. The realization made him feel giddy.

This must be, Slater thought, what a man feels like when he's let out of prison. I did it. I really did it. It's over. All across the city, bells in church steeples struck the half hour. 7:30. And he was Mayor Henry Lee Slater, walking along the sidewalk at seven-thirty on a bright May morning, feeling ecstatically happy.

Keeping a steady pace, his necktie flapping gently against his shirt, his hands thrust carelessly into his trouser pockets, he walked the last half block to the Beachcomber Cafe. At the locked newspaper dispenser near the front door, he dropped two quarters into the slot and bought the morning edition of the
L.A. Times
.

He went inside and took a table beside the large front window. The tablecloth was white and starched. The restaurant seemed oddly uncrowded—only a few men sat at the counter drinking coffee. Somewhere above him, a paddle fan made a tiny, repetitious shriek in its rotation. He unfolded the newspaper before him and let his eyes wander to the mirror behind the counter, then along the wide Mojave mural to the waitress, in her red-checked uniform, who was coming toward him.

She ought to look at me with horror
. Setting the glass of ice water on the table and taking the pencil from her hair, she simply said, “You just missed your buddy, Mayor.”

He could feel himself looking up at her blankly. “Who's that, Gina?”

“Oh, you know who I mean,” she said. “Chief Reeves. One of the patrolmen came in and got him and they left. Something must've happened.”

“No telling,” Slater said with a little shrug. “Where's the crowd this morning?”

“Oh, a lot of 'em left already for the weekend. You know, Memorial Day.”

“That's right,” he said, “probably so.”

“Cinnamon roll and coffee, like always?” she asked him.

With the same controlled ease, he nodded, then changed his mind. “No …” he said. “This morning I want your country breakfast, eggs sunny-side, pan sausage, a biscuit and black coffee.”

After the waitress left, Slater sat feeling pleased, as if he had just negotiated a difficult and trying arbitration. Before it hadn't meant anything—one breakfast roll had been like the next. But now he wanted to savor everything, to add any and all pleasures to this new sensation of freedom.

7:48. Almost an hour had passed since he had left the garden. Shouldn't there be sirens by now? Why were the streets so quiet? Surely they've moved the body by now.

What if she wasn't really dead?

No, he decided. No. I know that's not possible. Otherwise Reeves would be here by now—looking for me. Slater took a drink of the ice water, noticing the coldness of the glass on his fingers—the fingers that had held the knife. And while his mind leapt from detail to detail, it seemed now that any one of them could blow everything sky high.

People came into the restaurant; others went out. Empty coffee cups were left on the counter, then whisked away. His breakfast came and Slater ate it with good appetite. Lifting the buttered biscuit to his mouth, sipping the hot coffee, he was aware of the customers around him, coming and going. A few of the men spoke, one patted his shoulder; most did not even look at him. He sat alone, enjoying his breakfast, feeling thoroughly strange and marvelous.

The waitress cleared the plates from his table. With a second cup of coffee, Slater smoked a cigarette and wondered what was happening in the garden. Outside on the sidewalk, a girl walked by, a plain girl with a firm, lilting glide in her walk. A thin banner of light, threading through the gap between buildings, wrapped over her dark hair, catching its reddish highlights. All morning long, he had kept the thought of Sheila Bonner buried deep and now it came. How much had Rachel told Sheila? The hard little barriers of happiness he had been enjoying began to dissolve. Through his shoulders now and in the back of his legs, he felt a dull, ominous pain. Of course, he had known all along that this would be a horrible blow to Sheila.

I'm terrified, he thought. I sit here and terror comes in spurts.

Trying to appear nonchalant, he looked around to see if anyone was watching him. No one was, that he could tell. It made sense that the old woman would go to any length to poison the girl against him.

All the feelings he had been holding back began to pour forth: feelings of conscience and an awful fear, guilt, remorse. He'd have to go to her. He would talk to her, comfort her, spend time with her—he would do anything to see that Sheila did not suffer. But not now. He would have to wait. Slater crushed the cigarette in the ashtray.

I'll just have to get through this, he thought, one thing at a time. As he collected his things he looked at his hands again, clean, innocent-looking hands that now snapped the newspaper back into shape. Hardly instruments of death.

With his left hand, he reached for the check; the gold ring on his middle finger shone dully. Then the white tablecloth framing his hand began to shift and swim under his eyes. The noise in the room hummed like static in an old radio. His power for thought seemed to disintegrate in the air, leaving only a quivering fright in his nerves. He continued to stare at his ring.

The gold setting was empty.

His diamond was gone.

PART

TWO

9

At ten-fifteen that morning, Faith Slater left the house and drove down the long brick driveway overarched with oaks. Since Luisa was coming in late today, she stopped at the end of the drive to pick up the mail.

It was a rare spring morning, the air fresh and warm. Birds fluttered in and out of trees, building their nests. All around her, buds were giving forth new young leaves. As she pulled open the metal flap and took out the thick wedge of mail, a second car appeared, swinging up over the knob of the hill and braking on the pavement behind her. Aware of who it was by the bright red streak of the car, Faith waved to her neighbor and extracted the last remaining envelopes from the box. With her left arm full of mail, she started toward the Corvette. “Good morning, Sarah,” she called out, smiling. “Where're you rushing off to?”

Sarah Murtaugh beckoned for her to come faster. “Haven't you heard what's happened?”

“No, I guess I haven't.” Faith crossed the pavement's double yellow line to the side of the car. “I've been making my morning calls. What's up?”

“Rachel Buchanan's been killed. She was murdered.”

“Rachel?” she uttered, in disbelief.

“Yes, you know who I mean,” Sarah was saying, “don't you, Faith? She's one of those older Garden Club women.”

“Of course I know her.” Faith stood stiffly, leaning over the open convertible, clutching the ream of mail against her stomach. “My God, Sarah, we lived across the street from her … when we first moved here. Are you sure about this?”

“I couldn't believe it either, nobody can, but I—”

“Killed?”

“Yes. Murdered. They've been announcing it all morning on the radio.”

Faith looked straight into Sarah Murtaugh's face, trying to study out the fallacy in what she was saying. “I can't absorb this,” Faith said. She drew a deep breath to try to calm her nerves. “Where? Did it happen in town?”

“It was at her house. They're saying those convicts did it.”

“Oh, no—But what about the girl? Rachel's granddaughter?”

“They haven't mentioned anyone else.”

Trying to clear her head, Faith straightened, and as she did, she saw a dark brown station wagon climbing in their direction. “Here comes Nancy Herbert,” she told Sarah. “I wonder if she knows about it.”

“Hey, sweetie, I gotta go,” Sarah Murtaugh said with a mechanical grin. “Nannie and me—we don't get along. Besides, I'm running late. Give my best to Henry.” She wiggled all four fingernails in a wave good-bye and sped away. But, by then, Nancy Herbert's car was rolling up beside Faith in the opposite lane, Nancy's familiar face tilted out the window. “Did you hear about Rachel?”

“
Yes
, my God. Do you know how it happened?”

“All I know is Sue Bruckner called somebody she knows over there and he said Rachel was cut to ribbons.”

“No!”

“It's a nightmare. A real one. I've gotta go.” And a little wave left Faith alone in the street.

The image of Rachel Buchanan loomed vividly in her mind—ragged straw hat, always wearing an apron, hands on her hips as she surveyed her garden, her crabby voice and her smile that seemed to say it was all a joke anyway. “Who could do that to her?” Faith whispered to herself. How can it be true? Good Lord, there're far too few Rachels in this world as it is.

She couldn't stop imagining Rachel's face. My God, she thought as she slid into the driver's seat and dropped the mail beside her, Rachel was our neighbor for almost four years! She rolled down the side windows for the fresh air, released the handbrake and turned down the hill. Faith switched on the car radio, whipping the dial to one of the local stations.

“Details remain sketchy at this time. Investigators from the Rio Del Palmos police department and the California State Police have confirmed a homicide this morning at 522 Canyon Valley Drive. The victim has been identified as Rachel Buchanan, sixty-eight …”

Faith could feel the icy certainty of it spreading through her body. Her hands were cold; she was cold all over.

“Police are asking that friends of the victim remain calm and vacate the scene. We repeat. Please avoid the scene of the crime.”

When the national news came on, Faith turned the radio off. It was true, then, after all, no matter how impossible it seemed—her old neighbor, her friend had been murdered. All of a sudden, Faith's eyes filled with tears.

Speeding through the outlying neighborhoods, on her way downtown, she noticed how vacant the city seemed. Even the traffic seemed lighter and slower than usual. The houses looked closed and locked, their porches empty. Parks and sidewalks were deserted; no one walked by. But school was out. Maybe that was the reason. This was one of the first days of summer vacation. So where were all the children? Her stomach felt hard, like a clenched fist. Faith tried to keep a grip on herself, tried to control her unreasoning sense of panic.

But the closer she came to the downtown business district, the tighter the fist grew inside her. The traffic thickened, surging around her on Concepción Avenue, forcing her to slow down. Faith noticed shopkeepers standing in doorways, talking excitedly with passersby. Along the sidewalks, in clumps of two or three, other people scurried past, talking and gesturing to each other.

Faith felt the sun beating down on her through the open car window, but more than that, she was aware of a mounting disorder in the atmosphere—a sense of people verging on frenzy, rushing through the streets. She stopped behind two cars, waiting for the light to change, when a figure ran up to her passenger window—Millie Dougherty, a woman she recognized from church but hardly knew. “Mrs. Slater, didn't you hear about Rachel Buchanan?”

“Oh, Millie, yes,” Faith said, leaning over the passenger seat, “I can't believe—”

“Then what're you doing
here
?” the woman broke in, her eyes anxious with fear. “
They're
here. Those convicts are here. Shouldn't you be home? That's where I'm going.”

Before Faith could reply, the woman darted back to the sidewalk and away.

Then she was driving again, the sick knot twisting tighter and tighter in her stomach. Those convicts, she thought, here?… loose? Someone in a Mercedes pulled out directly in front of her. Slamming her brakes, heaving up against the wheel, Faith squeezed her eyes shut, certain they would crash, but with a whoosh, the Mercedes sped off. Unstrung by the near collision, the muscles in her arms and legs vibrated. My God. Convicts
here
, in Rio Del Palmos? She could feel gooseflesh up and down the backs of her arms.