On the Loose (8 page)

"I don't think Bobby should get away with anything. It would be a terrible mistake."

Ben, who had remained on his feet, moved to a
window. Restrained and tense, he said, "Are you
after justice or revenge?"

"Either one will do," Morgan said, "but it goes
beyond that. I know you have influence. I know
you and your lawyer are trying to work up a deal
with the D.A."

A telephone was ringing somewhere in the
house. Then it stopped. Ben, drawing a hand over
his forehead, said, "There's no death penalty in
Massachusetts, but is that what you want?"

"No," Morgan said softly. "I've never been able to
take another person's life. Even in Nam I couldn't."

"Then, for Christ's sake, what do you want?"

"I want him put away for a long time. Not just
till he's twenty-one."

Belle Sawhill appeared suddenly in the doorway.
Her face was as restrained and tense as her husband's. "It's Trish Becker, Ben. I think you should
talk to her."

Ben left. Belle remained. She was not a native of
the town, but Morgan considered her one because she was married to a Sawhill and stood apart from
other women living in the Heights, as if she were
equally at home in both worlds.

"Don't," she said when he started to rise, and he
sank back. Her voice, rich and warm, made him
comfortable. The black of her hair, clipped short,
brought forth the white of her face and the appeal
of her features.

"I didn't mean to intrude on your evening," he
said.

"It's perfectly understandable." She moved into
the room with a silent tread and stood in partial
shadow. "Miss MacLeod meant a great deal to you,
didn't she?"

He nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Chief. When people we love die,
it's always a question of who takes the bigger hitthem or us."

It was a question with two answers, both correct, neither of which he cared to think about. He
watched her step from the shadow to make more
of herself. Her face reached out.

"I'm worried about my girls. About myself. The
truth is, Chief, I'm scared to death."

"Me too," Morgan said.

He'd have said more and laid out his anguish if
Ben Sawhill had not returned. Ben looked down at
him and said, "I think you'd better leave."

Returning from Harry Sawhill's house, Trish
Becker was glad to be home, though she felt no
peace of mind. She turned on music, which be came too loud. She ran a bath, bubbled it, and
soaked for a long time. After draping herself in a
heavy towel, she stepped on a scale and quarreled
with her body. Clothing herself, sucking in to get
the zipper up, she faulted the breadth of her hips
for the fit of her jeans.

She had tea and toast for supper and watched
television until it hurt her head. Still hungry, she
made a sandwich and picked up the phone. She
punched out a wrong number before she got the
right one. Belle came on the line, and then, after a
wait, Ben did.

"Please," she said, "come over here. I need to
talk."

She ate a bit of the sandwich and threw the rest
away, good liverwurst and tasty cheese. Then she
gave herself second and third looks in the mirror before Ben arrived. She was at the door when he rang.

Facing each other in a well-lit room, she told him
in heavy tones what was wrong, and he said sharply,
"Harry's not your responsibility. Never was."

"I promised to marry him."

"Makes no difference."

"How can I back out at a time like this? He'll
fall apart."

"His problem, not yours."

She grappled for a hold on herself, on him.
"Don't you want to sit down, Ben?"

"No." He towered. He was strength, the handsome prince in her childhood fantasies, a chunk of
her father in him. He said, "You can do anything
you want. You're under no obligations."

She fought to steady her voice. "I never liked
Bobby. He must've known it."

"What's happened has nothing to do with you."

"I don't know what murder is, Ben. It's for the
newspapers, not real life. Can I tell you about a
dream I had?"

"No."

She told him anyway. In the dream Harry was
the attacker and she the victim. Blood ran in
sparkles, as if rubies had been crushed and scattered. "Honest to God, that's the way it looked."

"I think you should get away," he said. "Take another one of your vacations."

Desperate, she swayed close to him. "Everything's wrong. I'm on and off my diet. I'm getting
fat, Ben. My breasts are too big. They could knock
people over."

"Don't exaggerate yourself."

She jostled against him, her breath a spill. "Hold
me for a minute. That's not asking a lot is it?"

Reluctantly he looped an arm around her, and at
once she pressed in on him and imparted anxieties
and needs through the net of her jersey top and the
small rips in her jeans. Seconds later his other arm
stretched around her and tightened. Gently he
kissed her cheek and ran a hand into her hair. She
murmured his name. When he suddenly disengaged and stepped aside, she felt a blissful moment unwind into a sad one, which didn't dull an
edge of triumph in her voice.

"Something was almost going to happen, wasn't
it, Ben?"

Stepping to the doorway, he concurred with a
nod. "But it didn't."

In June Trish Becker and her friend Gloria Eisner
left on a European vacation, the beginning weeks
nearly ruined by rain, discourteous waiters, and
bands of disrespectful young people flaunting their
arrogance and bad manners. In Paris Trish stained
her most expensive dress, and in Rome she got the
runs. Spain was better, the weather gorgeous. Lying on a nude beach she and Gloria appraised
other women and ranked the men according to
their potential. Later, at a seaside restaurant, Trish
grew weepy over wine and wondered what life was
all about.

Gloria, pouring more wine, said, "Nothing's perfect, nothing's certain, nothing's permanent, nothing's absolute. If you keep that in mind, you have a
chance in life."

"You were always brainier than me."

"I've been through more," Gloria said.

"You have a better body."

"You're eating too much."

"Nerves."

Two days later, though it wasn't on their schedule, they flew to London and checked into Dukes
Hotel in Mayfair. In the cozy sitting lounge, where
the Duke of Wellington's portrait hung over the
fireplace, they sipped strong tea and flirted with a
balding Pakistani businessman, who didn't quite
know what to make of them. With a grin, he said,
"Oh you Americans."

"We're women of the world," Gloria corrected
him. "In disguise."

In the week that followed they visited the British
Museum, Westminster Abbey, Shepherd Market,
and Madame Tussaud's, and saw two plays in the
West End. They lunched in pubs on Fleet Street
and dined at the Cavendish. They shopped on Regent Street, joined the crowds on Oxford, and
strolled through Soho. Relaxing on a bench in St.
James's Park, Gloria said, "In New York you look
at the beautifully dressed women. In London it's
the wonderfully tailored men. I love their breastpocket hankies, don't you?"

Trish's smile was cryptic. "I don't know what I
love. I'd like it to be myself."

In their hotel room, while Gloria was taking a
shower, Trish telephoned Harry Sawhill, whose
voice was scratchy. Alcohol gave him a dreamless
sleep that extended deep into each day. Waking, he
told her, he felt he'd passed through death. "When
are you coming home?" he asked.

She fudged. She mentioned the possibility of
Ireland, the charm of Dublin, Bewley's on Grafton
Street. "Have you been there, Harry?"

"Ben told me I shouldn't depend on you, but I do."

She didn't want to hear that. And she didn't
want to ask about Bobby. "We've each got to stand
on our own two feet. It's the only way."

"You must be having a good time."

"I'm off my diet. I'm inflating myself."

"Bobby's compos mentis."

"What?"

"They say he's in his right mind."

She didn't want to hear anymore. She wanted to
swim in quiet waters, and he was dragging her
straight back into rough ones. "Help me," she said,
her hand clamped over the mouthpiece.

"Come home, Trish. I need you."

Her hand lifted. "Soon, Harry. I'll let you know."

She killed one light and dimmed another. Satin
lounging pajamas, varicolored, gave her the appearance of a brilliant bird, predatory but wounded. She
crawled into one of the twin beds and drew the covers to her chin. Gloria emerged from the bathroom
in a short white robe and peered down at her.

"What's wrong, Trish?"

"He's tearing me up."

"Of course. He knows just where to claw. You
never should've called him."

"I don't know what I should do."

Gloria sat on the bed's edge and rubbed the top
of a knee still humid from her shower. "Do nothing. Sometimes that's best."

Irish's voice was weak, clinging. "I don't want
to be a coward."

"You're living in a man's world, kid. Your only
obligation is to stay healthy, positive, and relevant.
The rest is birdseed."

"I wish I had your attitude." Her head moving on
the pillow, Trish freed a beckoning hand. "Remember
when we used to sleep over at each other's house?"

Gloria joined her under the covers and took a
share of the pillow. "I remember it well."

"We pretended about boys."

"We pretended a lot of things." Gloria placed an
arm over her. "You're shivering."

"It was all make-believe and fun. And innocent."

"Sort of. Though you're right, it was fantasy.
Some things about the human mind will never be
understood. Intuition is one, and clearly imagination is another." Gloria held her close. "Go to
sleep."

"I don't think I can."

Gloria's hand meandered over satin and crept
into the privacy of warm skin. "Do you want me to
make you come?"

"Yes," she said.

Sherwood, considered state of the art, was a youth
detention center situated well west of Boston.
Bobby Sawhill entered it in July, which distressed
Chief Morgan. "My fault," Morgan said, dropping
wearily into a chair near Meg O'Brien's desk. "A
double murder charge, he'd have been tried as an
adult, no question about it. Now he'll walk when
he turns twenty-one."

"Foolish to blame yourself," Meg said.

He knew no one else to blame. He'd been suspicious about Mrs. Bullard's death but had never followed up. A better policeman would have, he told
himself.

"You don't know for sure," Meg said, half reading
his mind, and answered a radio call from Sergeant
Avery, who was taking an hour off to drive his sister
to the eye doctor in Andover. She spoke impatiently.
"That's terrific, Eugene." And clicked off.

Morgan said, "Yes, I do. In my gut. What I don't
know is why. Why Eve Bullard? Why Claudia?"
His voice was thin, clinical, without skin. "I've
never got over the loss of my wife, but I've gone
on. Claudia's death is different. I feel responsible."

A table fan did little to lessen the heat of the day.
Meg rose from her desk and tugged at her dress.
Burst capillaries on her bare legs resembled ornate
stitchery, which endeared her to him. She had
been with the department longer than he. Her job,
a place to go to each day, was her life. The same
was true for him.

"I don't know if I can take the hit," he said.

She angled past Sergeant Avery's desk and
opened a portable refrigerator partially hidden by
a file cabinet. She returned with two cans of root
beer and gave him one, which he gripped firmly
but didn't open. She took it from his hand and
opened it for him.

"Don't drive yourself crazy," she said.

He smiled. "You know what I also know, like it's
written on a blackboard?"

She knew and didn't want to be told. "You could
be wrong."

"No, Meg. Sure as I'm sitting here, he'll kill
again."

Late in August Harry Sawhill and his brother Ben
played an hour of golf at the Bensington Country
Club. An hour was the most Harry could manage.
The sun got to him, and the clubhouse beckoned.
In the lounge, after a moment's hesitation, he or dered tomato juice for himself and beer for Ben.
They talked baseball. "Nineteen fifty-one," Ben
said, "was a watershed. It was Joe DiMaggio's last
year as a Yankee and Mickey Mantle's first."

"I never understood your liking the Yankees
over the Red Sox," Harry said. "It wasn't natural,
growing up here."

"It was the pinstripes," Ben said. "It fit the image
I wanted of myself. Now, however, I favor the Sox."

"That's a switch."

"We show more compassion as we grow older."

Ben's beer was in a tankard, the head running
over. Harry added celery salt to his tomato juice
and ventured a sip. Getting away from baseball,
Ben turned to what was really on his mind.

"You doing the wise thing, Harry?"

"I want to be happy. Nothing wrong with that, is
there?"

"Nothing in the world. I want you to be happy."

"But you think I'm doing wrong. Go ahead, say
it."

"No, I think it's wonderful. If it's what you both
want."

"Why wouldn't it be? Nobody wants to be
alone." Reaching into a silver dish, Harry came up
with a nervous fistful of cashews. "There's one
thing."

"Yes, there's that, isn't there?"

"I don't know how to tell Bobby."

On a Saturday afternoon in September Harry
Sawhill and Trish Becker were married in Rev erend Stottle's living room. Ben Sawhill and Gloria
Eisner were witnesses. Her blond hair tied back,
Trish wore a powder-blue suit with a diamond
brooch. Marrying for the second time, she felt repossessed, like an automobile. Harry, standing
gray and rigid, was not sure it was real and for a
single second confused Trish with his first wife.
Someone prodded him, and he kissed the bride.