Mercy (22 page)

“They came early this morning,” Lauré said, tossing her head at the dirty tables. “Like wasps. The girls, poor little bitches, were going mad.” She grinned. “It was wonderful.”

They visited over coffee as Palma ordered and then ate her breakfast. Lauré kept up with the police section of the newspaper, and always wanted to hear what Palma thought about this or that crime. She worried about the cases printed up in the “Crime Stoppers” columns, and sometimes would ask Palma weeks after a crime was featured if the “damned thing” had ever been resolved.

“You have a good job,” she once told Palma. “Any time you deal with the basic human cravings, it’s a good job. People need to eat, they need to make love, they need to pray, and all too often they think they need to kill each other. If you can’t own a clean little cafe, or be a prostitute or a priest, then a homicide police is the best thing.”

She had laughed at this, but Palma felt sure that Lauré believed there was more than a small measure of truth in it.

Palma finished her breakfast, had one more cup of coffee at Lauré’s insistence, and then walked outside to her car, where the morning air was already growing heavy with the coming heat.

She made her way to the West Loop Freeway and headed north, the skylines of all three of Houston’s “urban centers” visible through her windshield, rising out of the lush canopies of the city’s trees. Downtown was the largest, distant and hazy to her far right and gradually falling behind her; Greenway Plaza on the Southwest Freeway to her near right; and the newer environs of the haute monde, the Post Oak district dominated by the Transco Tower straight ahead. The traffic on the freeways flowed to and from and branched off in the general direction of all three of these centers like concrete causeways connecting island cities in a vast lake of green water.

Palma exited on San Felipe and drove a few blocks, past Post Oak, and then right on Post Oak Lane. Gil Reynolds’s Radcom offices were in a smoke-gray glass building nestled in an inlet cut out of the dense loblolly pines. There was a large artificial pond in front of the building and a fountain in the center of it spewing a single jet of water high into the air so that it feathered out and fell in drifting sheets across the glassy surface of the pond. Radcom occupied the entire top floor of an eight-story building, and as the company’s CEO, Gil Reynolds’s office was not difficult to find off the main reception area. His secretary politely led Palma into his office, which was large and modern and overlooked a green belt of emerald lawn on the verge of the pine woods.

Reynolds stood as Palma entered and came around his desk to shake her hand, offering her one of the two plush leather chairs in front of his desk. He took the other. A large athletic man in a dark suit, Reynolds was hawk-nosed and handsome with rather longish dun-colored hair. He must have been in his middle forties. His manner was gracious, but straightforward. After the preliminaries he asked, “How did you happen to come across my name in connection with Dorothy?” He was curious, not defensive.

“It came up during our interviews,” Palma said. “It’s routine to check all the names we get that way.”

“Vickie Kittrie?”

“All the interviews are confidential.”

Reynolds smiled kindly. “I understand,” he said. “But I do know Vickie. Can you tell me how she’s handling this?”

“Not very well, it seems.”

“No, she wouldn’t have. Excuse me,” he said. “Would you care for some coffee, or a soft drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“I have to have some coffee,” he said, standing and reaching over his desk for a cup and saucer already there. He poured the coffee from an aluminum carafe on a tray and added cream from the same tray, stirred it and sat down again. “I’m addicted to the stuff,” he said. “I like it strong, and I drink too much of it.” As he lifted the cup to his lips Palma noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. Holding the saucer and cup of coffee, he crossed his legs. “Okay,” he said. “I have my pacifier. Shoot.”

“We understand you had dated Dorothy Samenov for a while.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be; Reynolds would know what to do with it.

“It’s been about ten months since I’ve seen Dorothy,” he said, pausing. He gave the impression he was bracing himself to go through with something he had already made up his mind to do. “I had an affair with her which lasted almost a year. It ruined my marriage.” He looked embarrassed at what he had just said, and winced apologetically. “Rather, I ruined it, because of the affair. I’d been married to a wonderful woman for sixteen years; I have two children just now entering their teens.

It’s taking me a while to own up to the responsibility of having thrown all that away.”

“You’re still wearing your wedding ring.”

He glanced at it. “Yeah.” He didn’t explain.

“Would you tell me what you were doing the night Dorothy was killed?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ve already checked my calendar. I worked here until six o’clock. I didn’t want to eat at the condo—I live in St. James condominiums now, can’t really bring myself to call them home—so I drove to Chase’s over by the Pavilion. I finished there around eight o’clock. Still didn’t want to go back to the condo, so I walked across to Loews. I wanted to see
Summer
, but the next feature didn’t start for half an hour. I walked around the Pavilion until time, bought a ticket and saw the film. Got out a little after ten-thirty and drove straight back to the condo. Got there about ten-forty or so and was there for the rest of the evening. And have only myself for an alibi.”

Palma didn’t say anything to his last remark, but continued routinely. The sooner she got through the list of questions the better.

“Can you tell me what you know about Dennis Ackley?”

Reynolds sipped his coffee before he spoke. “I met him twice, but practically all of what I know about him—and it’s only superficial—I learned from talking with Dorothy. They divorced in 1982. He’s a con man, a wife beater, a bar, a thief, a drunkard…I could go on. He’s one of those men who’ve done just about everything there is to do on the negative side of the ledger. A total loss.”

“How did you happen to meet him?”

“During the months of our affair, I spent a lot of time over at Dorothy’s condo. I met him there both times.” He grinned a little, remembering. “Once he took a swing at me.”

“What?”

“I stayed out of the way, out of sight, really, when he came. He’d come a couple of times before. Four times in all, I guess, over the ten months I was seeing her. He was wanting money. She’d give him some; it was never enough. The second time I met him was the last time he’d come by. He was drunk and slapped her. I was in the next room and came barreling out of there when I heard that. He was surprised, swung at me, and I swung at him, knocked him down. I’d never hit anyone in my life. Broke my little finger,” he held up his right hand. “Just as he was getting up Dorothy shoved a wad of bills into his hand and shuffled him out the door.”

“You haven’t seen or heard of him since then?”

“No. And that last time was several months before Dorothy and I stopped…seeing each other.”

Palma found Reynolds’s frankness about his affair, and what it had cost him, a refreshing change of pace from the denials she usually encountered. It was almost as if he had come through a tragic experience of failed integrity with more integrity than he had possessed going in. He seemed determined to confront his failings head-on and not to make excuses for his foolishness. For this reason, Palma felt slightly apologetic about the next question which was, however, unavoidable and which she asked with an uninhibited matter-of-factness.

“Was sadomasochism routine between you and Dorothy, or an occasional thing?”

“Well,” he said, looking at her wryly, “that was to the point.” He paused. “Neither.”

“But you knew about her preference for it.”

“Only near the end.”

“How did you find out?”

“She told me.”

“Why?”

Reynolds took another sip of his coffee and then set the cup and saucer on his desk. He wiped his right hand over the lower half of his face, hesitating around his chin, which he rubbed lightly with his forefinger. He did all of this without hurrying, using the time to think.

“Basically,” he said, “because she had more sense, and a greater understanding of honesty than I did.” He paused again and looked down to his desk, where he put his hand on a bronze lozenge-shaped paperweight and shoved it a couple of inches, then took his hand away and laced the fingers of both hands together in his lap. “I met Dorothy at a business lunch one day. There were five or six of us. She was a very handsome woman, intelligent, articulate, attractive in a number of ways. We exchanged business cards, and I called her a few days later and asked her to lunch. It was that simple. I found her enormously attractive. I’d never cheated on my wife before, but I began then. Essentially, I began leading a double life. I neglected my business, and my family, and spent as much time as I could with Dorothy. It was easy, as I said, because of her condo on Olympia.” He looked at Palma. “Cheating is easy. Living with what it makes of you is the hard part.

“I believe Dorothy cared for me—I know she did—but there was always a corner of her that she never wholly gave up to me. There was something she held back. I threw myself into the affair heedlessly. I think I really did go kind of crazy over her. I was ten years older than she was, but she was the one who kept us from getting out of control. I’d lost all sense of perspective.

“Anyway, one day she decided to end it. She told me we had to stop. She didn’t have to give me any reasons. I’d been over them a million times in my own mind. There was every reason in the world to stop it and not a single reason to go on, except for my own self-indulgence. But I didn’t want to end it. That’s when she told me I didn’t really understand her, that her life was more complicated than I knew, and she couldn’t let it go on the way it was going. I kept arguing with her, and finally she told me about the sadomasochism and Vickie Kittrie.”

Caught by surprise, Palma must have given him a blank look before she could cover it.

“You didn’t know that Dorothy and Vickie were lovers?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and hoping she didn’t look as stupid as she felt. Suddenly the whole character of the investigation had changed, and Palma wasn’t sure if this new configuration was a big break or a setback.

“I think I was an anomaly in Dorothy’s recent history. She’d given up on men years ago.” Reynolds thought a moment. “To tell you the truth, I’m not surprised Vickie didn’t let you in on their relationship. It was a fiercely guarded secret. Dorothy was convinced that her career would be ruined if it was generally known that she was bisexual. And she wanted to protect Vickie in that regard as well. Dorothy was a competitive businesswoman, and she knew what it was like to have to fight sexism. But she thought the fact that she was bisexual was something she wouldn’t be able to overcome. She didn’t think she’d have a prayer of advancement in the corporate world as a lesbian.” Reynolds nodded. “She was probably right.”

“Did you ever hear her speak of Dennis Ackley’s sister?”

“No.”

“Did you know that Ackley was blackmailing Dorothy?”

It was Reynolds’s turn to be surprised. “Why? You mean using her bisexuality?”

“I don’t know. I’m guessing now that’s a good possibility. Did you ever hear Dorothy or Kittrie speak of Marge Simon?”

“No.”

“How about Nancy Segal? Linda Mancera? Helena Saulnier?”

Reynolds only shook his head.

“Do you know if Vickie or Dorothy frequented any gay bars, clubs, or organizations?”

“They didn’t. It was out of the question. They were completely removed from that scene.” He looked away from her, out to the pine trees, and Palma noticed he had a striking profile. He was a handsome man. Then he turned back to her.

“I’ll tell you something,” he said. “After this happened, after I got over the considerable shock of it and was able to adjust my perspectives about who Dorothy Samenov was, we continued seeing each other for some time, a month or two. In retrospect she must have been trying to let me down easy and to salvage our friendship. We really did enjoy each other. Even without the sex. It was during this period that I met Vickie. Their relationship, in front of me at least, was as steady and conservative as an old married couple’s. I would spend evenings with them from time to time, just the three of us sitting around at Dorothy’s place talking. We covered everything in the world, but one of the things that happened during those evenings was that I got an education about what it was like to be ‘different’ in this society. I listened to them for hours, and realized that I’d been walking around most of my life with my eyes shut. My life has been, is, the epitome of the status quo, and I hadn’t the slightest idea, or concern, of what it was like not to be a part of that system. Not until I fell in love with someone who didn’t fit in.”

Up until this point Reynolds had spoken about his relationship with Samenov only as an “affair,” and Palma had found it a telling inadvertence when he had used the word “love.” Gil Reynolds had been deeply disturbed by his encounter with Dorothy Samenov, and his stoic determination to make amends with his own conscience didn’t negate the fact that what he had felt for a woman who was not his wife was something he would call “love” only as an unconscious slip of the tongue.

Once again Palma felt a twinge of uneasiness at having to bring up something in that relationship that might cause Reynolds real pain.

“Just another couple of questions,” she said. “What did Dorothy tell you about the sadomasochism?”

Reynolds nodded, opened his mouth to speak, stopped, then said, “I guess I’ve already blown it for Vickie. It was something they didn’t want to reveal, the lesbian relationship, I mean.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Palma said. “If it hadn’t come from you it would have, and will, come from someone else. It’s almost impossible to keep something like that quiet when it’s an integral part of a homicide investigation. Things come out.”