Bad Desire (9 page)

Then it sank in—what had he done? He stared, aghast, at the metal door handle.
My God!
Yet, he hadn't felt even the slightest shock. It must be okay, he thought.
I could have been dead
.

Afraid to move, Beecham tried to comprehend what had happened and decide what to do. Gingerly, he reached up and touched the metal surrounding the door. Again, he felt nothing. So something must have happened automatically, he thought, a breaker somewhere must have stopped the flow of electrical current.

He had to get out of there. With guns in the car, he knew he had to get away. A utility truck would certainly be on its way to start line repairs and when the Mustang was discovered, stranded in the middle of the street, the police would be called. Or a patrol car could show up while making its rounds. Beecham grasped the oversized bag and set it tightly under his left arm. He snatched up the snub-nosed .38 and pushed himself out of the car.

The instant his calfskin Wellington touched the pavement, sixty-four thousand volts of electricity flashed through his body, slamming him down. Everything in him snapped inward, tight, his vibrating finger seized down on the trigger and the .38 Special emptied its bullets.

When he hit the pavement, the voltage exited his body, blowing burning holes in his flesh—out the toes of his left foot that were fused to the asphalt, as if cemented there. His right foot hung twisted in the hinge of the opened door.

And the black storm moved on, rumbling over the once-prosperous neighborhood, over the hills and the rough pasture beyond, pounding swiftly off toward the distant dark mountains. In its wake, the moon reappeared; one by one the stars came out. On the ground, wreathed in black coils, the Mustang continued to hiss and smoke.

John Howard Beecham lay dead in the road, clutching the gun to his chest like a fiery summons.

6

Slater had slept so badly the night before, so fitfully, that he had the impression he hadn't slept at all. He remembered lying awake in bed, watching the clock's red numerals blink and change in the dark: 4:49, 4:50, 4:51. At daybreak, he pulled on his trousers and quietly left the bedroom, where Faith was still sleeping. He hurried down the hall to the front door, pulling it open and casting about for the Sunday newspaper. But the paper hadn't arrived yet. Telling himself he had to stop fighting against this anxiety, he lay down on one of the living room sofas to wait for the morning paper.

It's done, he thought. It's over with.

He took Sheila's necklace from his pocket, letting the thin gold chain uncoil through his fingers. Again he remembered her leaving it in the night for him to find. This was exactly the kind of thing he'd come to expect of her. The gold chain was fine and delicate, almost impossible to hold, like her hair. Lying there against the cushions, watching it slide and uncoil through his hands, Slater felt a senseless stab of fear. The danger of possessing her was now enormous and visceral—it seduced him and terrified him simultaneously. I think about you all the time, day and night. It never stops. When he returned the necklace to his pocket, he noticed how cold and lifeless his fingers were.

He knew that Sheila had to be devastated, but until he could act officially, there was nothing he could do to comfort her. Causing her pain had never been part of his plan, but it was unavoidable. Try to relax, he told himself. The paper would arrive; the phone would ring; word of Rachel's death would reach him in due course.

Hours later, it seemed, after the sun was clearly up and the birds were chirping outside, when at last he felt himself dropping toward the sleep he needed, Faith was talking to him, waking him up. “Why don't you go back to bed?” she said. “You look so miserable lying out here alone. Wouldn't you be a lot more comfortable in bed?”

He rubbed his face, cleared his throat and asked if the morning paper had come. “No,” she said, “you know the paper doesn't get here on Sunday before nine or so. Now, Henry, come on.” She tugged at his arm as if to pull him up. “You really must go back to bed. You look terrible.”

Still half asleep, he remembered allowing himself to be coaxed to his feet and led down the hall. Faith insisted that he take his trousers off; she started loosening his belt. “No,” he argued, “leave 'em alone.” All he remembered was lying down again, the bed luxuriant, white and cool. Sleep hit him like a black brick.

All at once he sat up, bathed in sweat, completely unstrung. He twisted and looked at the clock. Quarter past twelve. That can't be right! Still trembling, he wiped his face on the edge of the sheet and dragged himself through the tangled covers, out of bed. He ran his hand into his pocket and clutched the gold necklace. It was still there, as he had left it.

In his rumpled trousers and a T-shirt, Slater went down the hall and out through the opulent, tented dining room. He saw Faith outside on the veranda, talking on the telephone. He opened one of the French doors and said, “Why didn't you wake me?”

She covered the receiver with her hand. “I thought you needed your sleep.”

Slater stared at her in disbelief. “Who's that on the phone? Did someone call?”

“No, Henry, it's Marietta. Are you expecting a call?”

“I guess not,” he said, shaking his head, “I must have dreamt it.” He scratched at his eyebrow. “Did we ever get the newspaper?”

“Of course. It's on the breakfast table.” For a moment, she spoke into the receiver, “Just give me a minute, Marietta,” and again she put her hand over the telephone and looked at him, squarely. “All right, Henry,” she said, “what is it?”

But he had turned from her, without answering. He went back through the house. The rubber band was still in place around the local Sunday
Gazette;
it had landed in the rain-wet bushes. The outer layer of pages was soaked, matted together. Slater removed the rubber band and unfolded the bulky paper. Its garish front headline leapt at him:
CONVICTS MURDER COUPLE
. The photographs of the three escapees filled the page above the fold. But as soon as Slater realized the entire front page had no bearing on him, he hardly glanced at it again. Something wasn't right. By picking the pages apart, he was able to scan the rest of the paper but the news he had waited for wasn't there.

Of course, the omission could be easily explained: perhaps the
Gazette
had already gone to press last night, before the murder happened.

Faith disrupted his thoughts. “You must've had a really crazy dream.” With a gentle tousling of his hair, she strolled past him toward the sunny kitchen. “Find what you're looking for?”

“No,” he said, “not yet.”

“Maybe you dreamed about that, too,” she called to him. “Anyway, you'll feel better after you've had some coffee.” It took him a minute to focus on what she was saying. “Yes,” he answered, distractedly, “that's a good idea.”

In the master bedroom, he flipped on the giant TV, turned the volume up and went into the adjoining bathroom, leaving the door open. Minutes later, when he stepped out of the shower, a cup of coffee sat steaming between the large double sinks. Faith had come and gone, without him knowing it—he hated it when she did little things like that. He took a few scalding swallows of the coffee and set the cup aside.

At twelve thirty, while he was shaving, a local news program,
Rio Del Palmos Today
, came on and he watched it from the bathroom doorway. No mention was made of the news he was anticipating, no report of the murder of Rachel Buchanan.

Something's happened. Now he had to come to grips with it and decide how to proceed. His hands were steady; as he finished shaving, the razor scraped his chin and upper lip with short, even strokes. What had gone wrong? He was buttoning his sport shirt when he spoke to himself in the mirror. “Let's get it over with,” he said. “Let's find out what the hell's happened.” He poured the cold coffee down the drain and, taking his cup, went down the hall into the kitchen.

“Umm,” Faith said, “you smell so good. Luisa's still at Mass, so I've whipped up some pancakes.” She stopped what she was doing and stepped in front of him. “Henry, sit down. You're making me dizzy.”

He couldn't bear to stay in the kitchen with his wife, could not sit at the breakfast table listening while she went on talking about the day ahead. Why hadn't someone called? He couldn't reconcile it. A part of him still expected the telephone to ring at any moment—a friend calling to tell them the tragic news. Again and again, while Faith cooked breakfast, he found himself passing close to the phone, ready to calmly take it up, rehearsing what he would say and the voice he would use—“A tragedy. A terrible, terrible loss …”—knowing in advance how horrified he would have to be.

But the telephone did not ring.

He ate Faith's perfectly thin pancakes doused in syrup, drank the coffee that tasted brown, and yet, when he told Faith he had to run down to the office, she was hurt that he would leave her on this late Sunday morning—a hurt that verged on indignation. He was getting into his windbreaker when she said, “Put it off just this once.”

“Faith, I can't.” He lifted his hands in resignation. “You, above all else, know these people. With the city council meeting tomorrow night, you damned well know what's at stake.” He crossed the porch.

“How long will you be?”

“I don't know,” he replied. “I just don't know.”

His confidence of the last few days was quickly deserting him. He even had to think about the trail a telephone bill would leave if he used his car phone to call her. In a booth at the side of a gas station, Slater punched in the Buchanan number, drumming his fingers on the metal sill, waiting for it to ring. Not for a moment did he expect Sheila to pick it up. If a man's voice answered, he would assume that it was the police and hang up; if the voice was full of grief it would be reasonable to conclude that it was one of the neighbors, trying to help. In either case he would know the one thing he needed to know.

On Canyon Valley Drive, the telephone rang twelve times. An image rose in his mind of the girl sitting alone in a funeral parlor. That's where Sheila was, most likely; that's why no one answered. He returned the receiver to the hook. Still it seemed odd that none of the neighbors had been there to help. He couldn't think it through.

At the corner of Alvarez and Franklin, he crested up to the traffic light and stopped. Washed in stark sunlight, the stores were closed, the Sunday sidewalks deserted. No one drove up behind him. Through his open window, Slater could hear the mechanism click on the utility pole when the light changed. He started forward, then quickly swung north on Alvarez Avenue.

If anyone knows what's happened, he thought, it's Reeves.

Burris Reeves, the chief of police, lived on Klamath Drive, a quiet backwater of modest two-bedroom bungalows. Except for its cream-colored porch and trim, the small brick house was indentical to those around it. Slater knew he would have to be careful with Reeves. He stopped at the nearest cross street and contemplated the house through the hard glare of his windshield. Ordinarily Reeves parked his black and white cruiser at the end of his drive, barely off the sidewalk, but this afternoon the front portion of the drive was empty. Unless he had pulled the cruiser up alongside of the house, Reeves was gone. On Sunday.

Slater swung across the street toward the brick house. He hadn't driven far when he could see that the drive was empty. He was about to continue on when a young boy ran toward him through the rays of the sun. The kid's freckled face barely cleared the Eldorado's open window. “Hi, Mr. Slater, you lookin' for my dad?”

Slater eased to a stop. “I wanted to talk to him for a minute, Rusty. Is he around? I don't see his car.”

Eight or nine years old, Russell Burris Reeves clutched a regulation-size NBA basketball under his arm. “Naw, he's not here right now. Officer Merriweather—you know him, doncha?—well, he came this morning and got my dad. Some accident happened, I guess. I think that's it. Anyway—hey, Mr. Slater, want to see my new T-shirt?” He pinched his shirt and held it away from his chest.
“Lakers!”

“That's great, Rusty. Do you know—was he going down to the office?”

The boy shrugged mightily. “I guess so,” he said. “He said he'd call; he promised we'd go fishin'. You want him to come by your house?”

“No,” Slater said, “that's all right. I'll run into him sooner or later. Tell your momma I said hello. I have to go.” He took his foot off the brake and touched the gas.

All right, he thought, something's up.

He parked the Eldorado off to the side of the two-lane blacktop among the scrub cedars, completely hidden from sight. At the overgrown gate, where he'd last seen Sheila, he stood listening for the sound of a Sunday driver, but the road was silent. I've got to know, he thought. I've got to find out what's happened. Crossing the pavement, he climbed from boulder to boulder until he reached the crest of the high wooded ridge.

With his set of binoculars, Slater studied the Buchanan property: the garage and shed, Rachel's fanciful garden, the white house with the red-tiled roof—all of it magnified before his eyes at a range of ten feet. He had anticipated seeing Reeves's cruiser on the premises, but it wasn't there. The red and brown station wagon sat parked in the graveled driveway but Slater saw no movement at all; the house and grounds were perfectly still. Feeling that he was missing something, he lowered the glasses and wiped his eyes. Where were the police? More should be happening.

Again, through the binoculars, Slater examined the house. Upstairs, at the rear, a window was open. The breeze had sucked the curtains out into the air. Inside the room, he could see a bedpost and a dress hanging on the closet door, even the wallpaper patterned with blue flowers, but no one was there. He lowered the angle of the glasses and turned them slowly to the left, into the neighbor's yard.