Bad Desire (35 page)

Every day shortly before noon, she'd slip on a bikini and unfold a lawn chair in the backyard. The neighborhood seemed deserted at that hour. Lying in the sun, she dozed or thumbed through magazines or tried to read a book, but after a while—after a shorter while every day, it seemed—boredom set in and Henry Slater occupied her thoughts. They were drowsy, disconnected thoughts: the stirring sound of his deep laugh, things she remembered him saying. He had said he wanted her more than anything else in the world, and she held on to that.

Sheila was driving the Karmann Ghia again—Henry had replaced the wires and belts and hoses. His Jaguar was back in the shop waiting to have the upholstery redone a second time. He had given her a key to a new place, an isolated beach house north of the city. “When you go there,” he'd told her, “you've got to be careful, more careful than you've ever been before.” His office had changed to summer hours, and as often as he could he left at three and she met him there in the late afternoons.

A staircase led up to the loft, where the only bedroom was. Sheila liked to arrive early, shut the blinds and drapes and be waiting for him in bed. Eventually she'd hear him come in; she'd watch him getting undressed in the semidarkness and hold the sheet up as he slipped in beside her. They always made love, only to part streaming with sweat, spent but never surfeited.

With the edge of the sheet, he always rubbed her down while she lay limp, eyes closed, heart thudding wildly under his hand. He was always the one who said, “It's time to go,” and none of her prowess ever stopped him. She didn't ask him where he was going. She knew. To Faith. To his other life. It sometimes made her feel incomplete, as if she wasn't quite all that she should be. He was older and sophisticated and she had so much to learn. When she stayed behind, Sheila waited for ten minutes, as he had asked her to do. Then she was dressed and driving back to Mrs. Sanders's, telling herself it would never end.

It must have been about ten-thirty that Monday morning, because her mouth was dry from the dust on the closet shelves. Sheila was upstairs, going through old hatboxes that Rachel had ferreted away, when she heard tires on the gravel outside. Looking down through the bedroom's side windows, she saw Henry's dark blue Cadillac, pulling up the drive.

What's he doing here? she thought.

The car vanished under the porte cochere. She heard the door slam. Why would he take the risk of being so obvious? Why hadn't he called?

Sheila ran downstairs and out through the dining room, jogging around the half-packed boxes just as the doorbell at the side of the house began to chime. She caught her breath, her stomach jittery with nervous excitement. Stopping before the mirror to check her hair, she went down the short hall between the kitchen and the dining room and threw the door open.

Under the porte cochere, where great bursts of honeysuckle spiralled up the columns, a woman stood with her back turned. Her hair was black, tucked in smoothly at the shoulders. Slowly she turned, crisp in navy and white linen, bracelets of bone and silver clicking on her wrists, and she was smiling.

For a moment she stared at the woman's face as though unable to believe her eyes. “Mrs. Slater,” she gasped.

Faith extended her hand. “Sheila,” she said, “I'm ashamed of myself. I've meant to come by to see you a thousand times. How've you been? I swear I think about you every day.”

Sheila hardly heard a word. She backed against the wall, aware that the doorknob was still clutched in her fist but unable to let go of it. All she could think was—She knows! She knows!—and then wonder in horror, What do you want? Why're you here? “Wh … what is it?” she asked.

“Are you all right?” Faith asked. “Is something the—”

“I'm all right.”
It's his wife. It's Henry's wife. What should I do?
“You really surprised me, that's all.” Sheila thought she might faint. She forced herself to let go of the doorknob and clasped her hands behind her back. “You scared me,” Sheila said, still feeling a desperate need to explain. “I was going through things and the doorbell scared me.”

Faith despised her. She had to fight down the urge to slap the girl, hard, across the face. Instead, she breathed compassion into her voice. “Oh, then I am sorry. Forgive me for bothering you. Are you sure there's nothing else the matter?”

“No. No, it's nothing.” Sheila couldn't think of anything to do, but to say, “Would you like to come in?”

“Oh, I can't stay,” Faith said. “But … well, maybe for just a minute. There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about.”

As Faith stepped past her into the house Sheila couldn't help but notice how she walked, her head erect, her shoulders square. Shutting the door, Sheila followed her up the three steps when she heard the telephone ringing. “Excuse me,” she said, walking rapidly into the kitchen.

While Faith waited in the hallway, she thought how familiar the house seemed, exactly as it had years ago when she and Henry lived across the street—the patterned linoleum, the white-curtained windows. She heard Sheila say, “Oh, Mary, I can't talk long. Someone's here.”

Faith scrutinized Sheila now, as she had never studied any other female before in her life. That perfect skin. How could she not have noticed it before? The champagne-colored hair caught at the nape of her neck with a rubber band. Even from this distance her eyes were a drowning blue. She was wearing the briefest of khaki shorts and a white zebra-patterned T-shirt, which left nothing, absolutely nothing, to the imagination. But she knew that body; she had seen it through the window, etched by a fiery sundown. Never had Faith felt such molten jealousy.

“Mrs. Slater, go on in,” Sheila said, covering the phone. “You remember where everything is. It's just my friend Mary. I'll only be a minute.”

Entering the dining room, Faith looked back, once more, over her shoulder. With one knee bent, her bare foot braced against the cabinet, Sheila stood gazing into the backyard garden, talking into the receiver. Youth, beauty and that body. I wonder what Henry gives you for that body. I'll bet he gives you lots of things.

Moving around the half-packed cartons and boxes, she crossed through the sunlit dining room into the empty hall. Every room in the house appeared to be in a state of upheaval. Faith made her way into the living room, past a massive walnut secretary, its slant-top door left open. She saw Rachel's fountain pen, the one she had always used, the one she had doubtless used to write the note to Faith. She let her fingers run along the back of a chair. My God, she must've sat right here.

But Faith didn't have time to dwell on it. She could hear Sheila coming toward her through the dining room. “I'm sorry everything's in such a mess,” Sheila said.

“You shouldn't ever apologize,” Faith told her, “at least, not to me. Why, when we lived across the street, we were almost family.”

They sat at opposite ends of the sofa. How poised she is, Sheila thought. How polished. She was a woman who would always know what to say. Not like me. Sheila cleared her throat, then said, “Things go to pieces so quick around here.”

“What are you going to do? Will you be moving?”

“I don't know. I keep getting bills. They're supposed to come turn off the electricity. I thought that might be who it was, when you came.”

The two of them sat in silence.

Tight little body in shorts and a T-shirt.

“I don't know why you'd want to come here,” Sheila said. “It's all so horrible.”

“But I came to see you. Maybe you don't know it, Sheila, but Henry and … well, we've been trying to look out for you. We both know how careful Rachel had to be with her money …”

How are you feeling, now, without her? Faith found herself suddenly thinking. Losing your mother at such a young age and now with Rachel gone—but pity was an emotion Faith could ill afford. She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. “I've put a little something in here for you out of my own mad money. You can use it for anything you like; it's perfectly all right with me.”

It's not about Henry and me
, Sheila thought.
She doesn't know!

Faith handed her the envelope of money.

She doesn't know!

Sheila stared at her, incredulously. She wanted to laugh. Intense, hysterical relief flooded her. But what should I do? Now she's giving me money, too.

“Thanks,” she said.

Faith glanced at her watch. “My goodness,” she said with great solicitude, “I'm sorry, Sheila, but I really must be going.”

At the door, on her way out, Faith turned, as if waylaid by a thought. “I'm driving up to Monterey day after tomorrow. If you're not doing anything, maybe you'd like to come along. I know how awful it must be to be alone, without anyone …”

Faith knew she had struck a chord. In spite of herself, Sheila was looking at her as something other than a threat, and Faith marked well the subtle change. She went on, “It's hard without a woman to talk to, Sheila, honestly I know it is. I'll tell you what—I'll buy us lunch somewhere.”

“Monterey?”

Faith laughed. “I guess the whole thing does sound kind of … spur of the moment.”

She doesn't know!

It was madness, but Sheila was tempted to accept. What would Henry say? It would certainly be taking the craziest kind of risk. How do I say no? She's Henry's wife, but how do I get out of it? “What're you going to do there?”

“Just some shopping.”

“I don't know, Mrs. Slater. I don't think so. Thank you just the same, but I've got lots to do here.”

“It'll still be here when you get back,” Faith said indulgently. “Come on, you'll have a good time; I promise you.”

A blush appeared on Sheila's cheeks.

“Well,” Faith said finally, as if amused by the silence, “you can't blame me for asking.”

Sheila suddenly grinned. Her doubts hadn't really lifted, Faith thought, the grin didn't quite ring true, not yet. But one day soon it would. I'll make sure of that.

“Actually,” Sheila said, “I don't think I am doing anything on Wednesday.”

Faith walked out into the shade of the porte cochere. “Wednesday it is, then,” she said and turned toward the Cadillac to conceal her smile.

25

“I may not always like the law,” Reeves had said many times at political rallies. “I might not agree with it, but it's the only thing that stands between you and me and anarchy. And I've sworn to uphold it.”

Privately he said to Slater, “Fuck 'em, Henry. I won't break the law to get 'em, but I'll sure as hell bend it. I'll do whatever it takes. I'll squeeze their balls until it comes out their ears.”

When at last the calls began to come in that first one and then another of the escaped convicts had been captured southeast of Rio Del Palmos, Reeves was the one who got into his car and drove miles out of his own jurisdiction to question them. Then he had to sit for hours on end pouring over transcripts, which were nothing more than the deranged ramblings of madmen.

He was out of the house at dawn on those pale, shimmering mornings, and if he didn't stay over, invariably it was dark when he returned. The paperwork piled up on his desk. Every day driving and getting nowhere. His shirt stuck to the vinyl seat with sweat. A hundred miles on Monday, a hundred back. A hundred thirty the next day, a hundred thirty back.

“Waste of time!” he snorted as he walked back alone to his car each evening. The small of his back hurt. Either they didn't do it or they have no recollection of what they did. They're warped, that's all. Crazy.

Thursday in a meeting with the district attorney and Mayor Slater, he gave an inconclusive report—all he could pull together. “I've turned it every way I can think of,” he told them, “and it still doesn't make any sense.”

Day after discouraging day with nothing accomplished and nothing good to say for himself, Reeves would open his eyes from a shallow, uneasy sleep to a sense of his own failure.

His determination grew.

They didn't do it, Reeves concluded time after time while driving home. They just damned didn't do it.

But all he succeeded in doing was to rule them out—in his own mind—as suspects. He still believed that the devil Rachel Buchanan had bargained with was in all probability her killer. Which meant that it was someone who knew her and that she knew, someone she'd had dealings with, most likely someone living in the area. Maybe someone with a square-cut diamond. That was where his speculations turned to empty air. It could be anyone.

After-hours the next afternoon, he made his way through headquarters and down the corridor to his office. Seating himself in the gray swivel chair, he snapped on the fluorescent desk light. On top of the papers on his desk lay the two lists he'd asked his secretary to prepare earlier that day. He began to go through them, and what he read came as no surprise: the convicts had left behind fingerprints, traces of saliva, skin fragments, blood samples. The list of the items they had stolen was so eccentric as to be almost humorous; but a large square diamond wasn't among them.

He was rummaging in his drawer for toothpicks, when the small manila envelope caught his attention. That's where I put it, he thought, to keep it safe. There it is. He opened the metal clasp. The square diamond, its facets winking in the violet dusk, rolled into his palm. He knew this was the only real evidence he had in a murder case that just wouldn't let go of him. This was the most horrendous thing that had ever happened in Rio Del Palmos. Everything concerning it deserved, now, to be reconsidered from the beginning.

This one's mine, he thought. Nobody's gonna mess this one up. I'll do the work myself. It's my ass that's on the line; I'll get the bastard who killed Rachel Buchanan.