Darkness peering (13 page)

"I can imagine."

"You know, I was young and stupid. But I'd swear on a stack of Bibles
I never decapitated any cats. And I had nothing to do with Melissa
D'Agostino's murder. They couldn't pin that on me. I cooperated
totally--gave them a blood sample, whatever ..." He drained his cup of
coffee and signaled the waitress, and she produced a fresh pot.

"Thanks, I'm set," Rachel said, and the waitress walked away.

"You know, I don't think I ever told your dad this ... but I liked
Melissa. I instigated the whole trip, but the point wasn't to make fun
of anybody. I mean, yes, I admit it ... I'm ashamed to admit it ... I
thought she was a hoot. I got a big kick out of her. Billy's the one
who chickened out, after we'd driven to Commerce City and all ... after
the ice creams ... he started saying we're gonna get in trouble. He
put the fear of God in the rest of us, and so we panicked. We dropped
her off. Just dropped her off ..." His voice faded, and he thought
about the stupidity of that act and how, if anybody ever attempted to
do something as cruel and heartless to Colette, he'd hunt them down and
shoot them dead. He often wondered why Marty D'Agostino had never come
after him. Never confronted him. "Listen," he said, voice thick with
phlegm, "I do feel somewhat responsible. I mean, we just dumped her in
the middle of nowhere."

Rachel nodded, then said, "You had an alibi, this girl ... Dolly?"

"She's gone."

"Goner"

"Passed away five years ago. Breast cancer."

Rachel grew solemn. "My mom, too."

"I know. I heard." He didn't think he ought to, but he reached out
and patted her hand, and Rachel smiled; it was the same smile she'd
always given him as a kid--an imp's smile. He remembered once she
skinned her knee, and he put magic fairy dust on it to take the sting
out, and she smiled through her tears and told him how she was going to
keep the scab. She was saving

her scabs and locks of her hair and fingernail clippings in a paper
envelope, for when she was old, she said. That had just about slayed
him.

"There were witnesses who saw us together that night," Ozzie said. "Me
and Dolly at the Dairy Joy. It must be in the case file."

"Yeah, it's there."

"Rachel," he said softly, "I was an asshole. I had a lot of pent up
rage. I still struggle with it. But I'm no killer."

"I know," she said, but he wasn't convinced she believed him.

RACHEL STOOD IN THE KITCHEN REALIZING BILLY WAS RIGHT,

the house was a museum. Nothing had changed since their mother's death
three years ago. The teakettle waited patiently on the back burner;
dusty candles book ended the table's centerpiece of silk flowers; the
living room chairs still held the shapes of their bodies; the
salmon-colored couch emitted a faint whiff of Storrow sweat. Through
the kitchen window, she could see a fat blue jay chasing the other
birds away from the feeder legitimate birds, her mother had called
them.

Emotionally drained, Rachel removed her gun and holster, then sat at
the table, recalling the day her father had brought it home in pieces
from Sears Roebuck, and her mother's delight as her hand caressed the
"distressed" wood, a new invention at the time--they beat the wood with
chains to give it that pocked effect. Her father's sweat and straining
muscles as he put the table together, the effort showing on his
weathered face, his pleasure at its completion, the mischievous way
he'd cupped her mother's bottom in his broad hands.

There were still miniature half-moons embedded in the

linoleum from where Billy used to tilt his chair back. Rachel half
expected to hear her mother's voice, the whistling sound she made
through her nose during the last few years of her life. The clink of a
spoon against china. Do you think someone comes for you at the moment
of death? Comes to take you to a new world? Do you think death is an
adventure, like Sir James Barrie says? "An awfully big adventure"?

How still the house was. Even the staircase spoke to her of her
parents' long-ago presence, the squeak of the sixth tread as her father
snuck home late at night, the murmur of the banister where he ran his
hand, trying not to make a sound. She remembered eating sun-ripened
tomatoes from her mother's garden, running over beetles with her
bicycle, playing with her brother's electric train set in the hot dusty
attic, stalking bullfrogs in the swamp--big fat frogs like bleating
human hearts. Now all she could hear was the song of the red-winged
blackbird.

Upstairs in the bathroom, Rachel gazed out the window. The grass was
dying, leaves turning saffron in the tawny light of Indian summer. The
yard descended sharply into open farmland, giving way to fields and
pastures, then rising steeply into woods beneath a sky of steely
clouds. Beyond the fields and humped green hills, in the great
distance, were the White Mountains. Majestic. Magisterial. Conspiring
in their silence.

Rachel washed her hands with a sliver of oatmeal soap. Her mother had
died in the hospital, away from the house, away from her things,
surrounded by strangers in uniforms. A swift, merciful passing, the
Reverend had called it. Little did he know.

She opened the medicine chest, still crammed with her mother's things:
milk of magnesia, Pepto-Bismol, Preparation H, a tall can of
ozone-depleting hair spray, a tube of lipstick--that same fireball red
she'd used all her life despite its passing in and out of fashion; no
powder or rouge or eye shadow for her, just that double slash of red.
Rachel recalled how much her mother hated perfumes or anything scented,
how other people's colognes

made her sneeze. She was allergic to wool and wouldn't wear jewelry.
Buying presents for Faye Storrow had always been a difficult
proposition. She recalled stumbling after their father as he hurtled
through drugstore after department store in search of some perfect,
nonexistent gift. Birthdays, Christmases ... her father running up and
down the aisles, asking, "What about this? Rachel? Billy? C'mon,
kids, help me out!"

Now Rachel noticed a strand of gray hair stuck to the paint on the wall
behind the towel rack and wondered if it could possibly be her
mother's. God, this house really was a museum. A shrine. With a
little shiver, she turned on the faucet and washed the hair down the
drain.

Now a car pulled up out front, and she went downstairs to see who it
was. Jim McKissack stood on the doorstep. "Can I come in?"

She opened the door, apprehension curling at the corners of her mind.
He entered with flawless movements. His clothes, as always, looked
freshly pressed, but there was nothing starched or stiff about him.
McKissack's physicality was unavoidable, and her body began to hum with
the kind of synchronicity she always felt whenever he was near. Inside
the station, they could keep up the pretense of professional
detachment, but outside it was hopeless.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," he said.

"Beer?"

"No, thanks."

"Well, I'm gonna have one. Been a long day."

He hesitated in the doorway, probably wondering what the hell he was
doing there. She studied his face, but McKissack was impossible to
read. They'd mutually broken off their affair in order to spare
everyone else's feelings, but they'd forgotten about their own. As for
Rachel, her desire for him lingered in her cerebellum right next to her
everlasting shame.

"How's the case going?" he asked.

"You were right."

"About what?"

"About opening old wounds."

"You can always quit," he told her. "No dishonor in it."

"I can't quit, Jim."

A fly buzzed lethargically around their heads, and he snatched it out
of the air. She laughed with surprise as he opened his fist and wiped
dead fly remains off his hand.

"One of my many talents. Impressed?"

"Shit, yeah," she said, laughing.

"I ever tell you? I used to catch bees in a jelly jar. I'd put the
jar on my bedside table and watch them die a slow, torturous death. I
wanted to kill every single bee on the face of the planet. I thought
they were evil incarnate. Guess because one of 'em stung me once."

Rachel smiled. "You're still trying to rid the planet of evil, aren't
you?"

He gazed at her without speaking, as if she knew his heart.

"McKissack..."

"I think maybe I should go ..."

When she touched him, he moaned as if he hadn't been touched in a very
long time. He kissed her with his warm salty lips, and she could feel
his cock harden through their clothes. When he smoothed one hand down
between her thighs, her insides cramped. The nape of her neck tickled,
and she imagined all the hairs on her head, every single strand,
standing on end. The shock of his touch both petrified and fascinated
her. When he touched her there, it was almost as if he could read her
mind.

"Please," she whispered, losing blood in her head. She was going to
faint. The kitchen grew dim, and she swayed a little on her feet.

"I couldn't concentrate today," he admitted. "I couldn't stop thinking
about you." It startled her, how handsome his face was, all flushed
and agitated.

"Maybe we should talk?" She moved away from him in a narrow escape.
Pulse quickening, she opened the refrigerator door, the smell of sour
milk wafting toward her. She needed a beer. She reached for the
six-pack behind the chicken carcass, dry meat clinging to a
construction of grayish bones.

"Rachel," he said, but she played deaf.

The beer's coolness passed through the bottle into her fingertips; she
took a lingering drink. "I don't want to hurt anyone, McKissack."

He stood in the pantry doorway, hands dug deep in his pockets. His
eyes were as gray as the fur of a Korat--a smooth, mist soaked gray.
"I'll have a beer."

"Here." She handed him one, their bottles clinking together.

"Thanks." He took a swig.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she said, "We both know
what kind of mistake this is."

He took another swig, Adam's apple jutting like the whitened knuckle of
a flexed finger. Falling silent, he gazed at her body.

"Screw you," she said.

In one swift motion, he set his beer on the countertop and reached for
her. Folding her in his arms, he kissed her. "Take this off," he
said, tugging at her T-shirt. His hands slipped under her black
T-shirt and fondled her breasts.

"McKissack..."

He sank to his knees and pressed his face against her stomach. "Oh,
God." He sounded stricken. "My cock feels so heavy."

She rested her hand lightly on top of his head, his emotional turmoil
at once pleasing and disturbing, her own inner confusion exhausting
her. And even though she knew it was wrong to want him, she gave in to
it, let her muscles and tendons and nerves relax into wanting him.

Cupping her ass in his hands, he pressed his nose to the crotch of her
jeans. Inhaling deeply, he said, "Jesus, I remember when you were just
a kid with braces. I guess that makes me a

dirty old man. I can't help it, Rachel, I want you. All I could
think about today was fucking you."

Captivated by the pleasant cadence of his threat, she let him undress
her. When she went to unbutton his shirt, he pushed her hands away,
saying, "Don't." Her breasts brushed up against the warmth of his
clothes, and he emitted a heat she could feel in her bones.

"Wait," she said. "Look at me ..."

She looked into his eyes, the pale stain of stucco. He had just quit
smoking, and she could smell the staleness of his breath, its urgency.
Beads of sweat formed on the indentation of his upper lip, the fleshy
part of his mouth that she most loved.

"What?" he whispered, desperate. Before she could speak, he pushed
her up against the refrigerator, which hummed and clicked at her
backside. Pressing his cold beer bottle between her breasts, he made
her gasp. Her heart sang as the wind picked up, rushing through the
trees outside the house, wind whistling in the rafters. Slowly, very
slowly, he drew the lip of the bottle between her breasts and down
toward her navel, bisecting her.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she sucked on his lower lip until
she could almost taste blood. He smoothed his hand between her thighs.
She shivered and rubbed the wetness of her skin against him, and he
unzipped his pants, the fabric caressing her thighs. He hoisted her up
and locked her firmly against the refrigerator, its contents clanging
and spilling over-ajar of mayonnaise, a bottle of ketchup. Fanning her
fingers, she gripped his backside, and all the rubber magnets slid off
the refrigerator door.

His breath caught in ascending steps of frustration. He kept his lips
poised inches from her mouth, making her work for each kiss. They
knocked against the refrigerator, rattling its base and making the
floorboards squeak.

"Oh, God."

"Tell me this is what you want."

Her hair veiled her face. A bag of peaches slid off the top of the
refrigerator and landed at their feet, peaches rolling across the
floor.

"Say it."

"I'm afraid."

"Don't be. I'll stop whenever you say." He held her still and gazed
into her eyes. "Do you trust me?"

She clung to his neck as he carried her out of the pantry, stepping
tentatively over the peaches. Tomorrow they'd be bruised, each one
with its own soft, dark, sour-tasting spot.

"i don't know what i'd do if i lost you, rachel," mckissack said. They
were lying on the living room floor and he'd chivalrously draped his
camel's hair coat over their naked bodies.

She looked at him. "You never had me, McKissack."

He couldn't help smiling, and she guessed he knew the truth, that she
was his, absolutely. One hundred percent.