Penance (11 page)

I moved to Roseville at Laura’s insistence. She had wanted a suburban neighborhood. Jennifer was still a gleam in our eyes back then. Even so, Laura wanted to live where she insisted the schools were better, the crime was less and the children were safer. So we bought the house, paying more for it than we could afford, even on two incomes. Now I own it outright, having used Laura’s mortgage-insurance policy to pay it off—funny, we took out the policy on me to protect her; adding a rider for her was an afterthought. I’ve considered selling the house several times since Laura and Jennifer were killed, only I can’t bring myself to put up a F
OR
S
ALE
sign under the willow tree in the front yard where Jennifer played. Maybe it’s because the house and what’s in it is all I have left of them—that and some photographs I’ve already committed to memory.

I dropped the backpack on the kitchen table, opened it and retrieved the videotape, taking time first to read the note I found wedged in my front door. It was from Heather Schroten-boer. The note said she had come by about seven-thirty as planned and discovered I wasn’t home. She guessed I was working and said she would swing by about ten-thirty. It was now 10:23.

I wanted to get to the videotape, but I also had to be ready for Heather. So I left the tape on the table and went upstairs to my bedroom. I unlocked the drawer built into the pedestal of my waterbed, selected a Beretta .380 from the guns I keep there and loaded it carefully. I slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans and went downstairs.

I grabbed a handful of chocolate-chip cookies and the videotape and went into what I used to call the family room when I still had a family. Ogilvy, my gray-and-white French lop-eared rabbit, was waiting for me. I opened his cage and he hopped out. I scratched his nose for a moment and then went to the TV and VCR, turning both on. I slipped the tape into the VCR, grabbed the remote and went to the couch. Ogilvy hopped onto my lap and I petted him some more. “Want to watch a movie?” I asked him. The rabbit did not reply. The TV was dialed to “Monday Night Football.” The Bears were giving the Cowboys a game, trailing by three in the middle of the third quarter. I stayed with it for a minute, watching Steve Walsh, a local boy made good, complete his fifth consecutive pass for Chicago. I glanced at my watch: 10:35. I thought of Heather. If I worked this right, I should have time to catch the last quarter. Not that I’m a sports freak, mind you. I follow most games—football, basketball, hockey, golf, baseball—especially baseball, which we all know is the only sport God approves of. But I’m not a fanatic. I don’t go around reciting obscure statistics like the record number of consecutive Gold Gloves won by former Minnesota Twins southpaw Jim “Kitty” Kaat (it’s sixteen, by the way); it’s just a pleasant way to pass the time.

I hit the play button on the remote …

I sat in the dark, munching chocolate-chip cookies, watching the images flicker across the screen. I’ve seen porno films before, mostly at bachelor parties, and I’ve viewed them with disinterest. Only I didn’t know the stars of those films. This one I did. This one starred Carol Catherine Monroe.

“She might be our next governor,” I told Ogilvy. He leaped off my lap and hopped to his cage, taking a hit of alfalfa.

C. C. was lying in bed, nude except for a gold chain and bad lighting, caressing her co-star whom she identified simply as, “Fuck me, Dennis; fuck me, Dennis.” No inhibited language there. Dennis was an only slightly more lifelike version of the man I found earlier.

The camera zoomed in close on C. C.’s face, her head rolling back and forth, strawberry locks frosted with gold covering her eyes. It pulled back to reveal what “Fuck me, Dennis” was doing to her, then panned in slowly again as C. C. moaned, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.”

Oh, brother. I ate another cookie.

I was not impressed. The film did not fill me with excitement. It emptied me, left me feeling the way I did when I was a child hiding in the bushes, watching the older kids coupling on “Bare Ass,” a white-sand beach along the Mississippi River. It was the same emptiness I felt several years later when my school friends and I lied our way into our first hard-core, quadruple X-rated film, paying five dollars to see just how unsexy sex can be.

There was no love, no affection, no tenderness. Thoreau attacked C. C. like she was a speed bag, giving her about as much consideration. I understood him. I’ve known plenty of men who treat women as prey. What I did not understand was why a woman would put up with it, how she could find pleasure with him, how she could respond as C. C. was responding—rolling her head and wetting her lips and moaning like an animal in heat. And then it hit me and I understood perfectly.

“It’s acting,” I said, waving my hand with a flourish at the TV screen. Acting, and nothing more.

Someone used the brass knocker several times more than necessary to summon me to my front door, apparently not trusting the doorbell. I hit the stop button on the remote and C. C.’s film debut was replaced by the football game. Chicago had taken a four-point lead. I turned down the volume and went to the door. Ogilvy followed me.

I peeped through the spy hole and saw Heather Schro-tenboer standing under the porch light, flicking invisible lint off her chest. Heather was dressed to kill, wearing a deep red, closely fitted slipdress that ended just above her knees, with triple spaghetti shoulder straps and a neckline that plunged to her waist. She also wore gold earrings and a gold bracelet but no necklace, although I kept searching for one anyway.

I opened the door. “Hi, kid,” I said, turning my back to her, leading her into the living room. Did I say she looked like a high school girl? Not in my high school. I flashed on C. C. and Thoreau thrashing about the bed, warning myself to be smart.

“Nice dress,” I told her.

“Oh, this old thing,” she replied, grinning.

“You coming from somewhere?”

“No,” she said. “I just felt like dressing for the occasion. What I was wearing the last time we met, I’m sure you thought I was a boy.”

“No,” I admitted. “I never thought that.”

“Do you think I’m attractive?”

“Oh yeah,” I said slowly under my breath.

“Hmm? What?”

“Yes,” I answered. “I think you’re attractive.”

She smiled. “I think you’re attractive, too,” she said.

“It must be the light.”

She floated—C’mon, Taylor, get a grip!—She
walked
to me and ran her fingers under my collar. She spoke into my neck; her breath was sweet and warm. “Why did the police arrest you?” she asked.

“They thought I killed a guy.”

She didn’t even flinch. “Did you?” she asked, practically begging to become a co-conspirator.

“How could I? I was with you.”

“It must be exciting.”

“What?”

“Killing a man.”

“Huh?”

She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me hungrily, making soft animal-like moans as she ground her lips against mine. I was tempted—oh Lord, I was tempted—only that wasn’t why I invited her to my house. I pulled her arms down and pushed her away. She looked at me, more amused than surprised. Until she saw the gun I was pointing at her heart. She backed away slowly, her eyes never leaving the barrel. I waited three steps, four. On the fifth I squeezed off three rounds, angling the gun toward the carpet, careful not to splatter her dress and all that bare flesh with powder. She fell back into and then out of a stuffed chair, landing on the hardwood floor, the hem of her short skirt hiked to midthigh. She stared at me, terror stricken, her mouth hanging open.

Ogilvy was also frightened and he squeezed into a corner. I scooped him up with one hand and hugged him to my chest. “That’s okay, bunny, you don’t have to be afraid,” I said, trying to soothe him. I moved to Heather’s side, sat on the floor next to her. I held up the gun, giving her a good look at it. “Blanks,” I said.

“Are you crazy?” Heather shrieked.

“No, but you must be, cheating at cards with professionals. In the old days they would have tossed your body out of a speeding car. In these more enlightened times, they’d probably be satisfied with breaking your fingers.”

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let me explain. After a hand, when the cards are being thrown in for a new deal, a body might hold on to one or two to use later, concealing them in her armpits or under her knees. This is called ‘holding out.’ By the way, anyone ever tell you that you have delightful knees? Hmm? Oh, another thing: the next deal is yours, you study all the cards that were discarded during the previous hand. You see five that you like. So you pick up the cards one hand at a time, and as you do so, you put the card you want on the bottom of each group of five cards. Then you put all five hands together on the top of the deck, engage in some flummery while shuffling and then deal them out, with cards five, ten, fifteen, twenty and twenty-five coming to you. This is called ‘picking up.’ Picking up and holding out are considered cheating.”

Heather denied nothing. She merely asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Me?” I pressed the muzzle of the gun against her chest and slowly let it slip down between her breasts, using the neckline of her dress to hold it up, stretching the material into a tight V. She was trembling. “You did me a favor, so I’m going to do you one. I’ll get the people you cheated off your case, but it’s going to cost you.”

“You … you want me. Don’t you? Don’t you want me?” Heather stammered. She reached up and with both hands caressed the muzzle of the Beretta still pressed between her breasts. She arched her back, her head resting against the chair and closed her eyes, moaning slightly. I flashed on C. C. again. Only, unlike C. C., Heather wasn’t acting. She was having a wonderful time.

“Swell,” I muttered. She was an adrenaline junkie. She wanted to be frightened, it was how she got off; this was probably the most fun she had ever had. Swell, just swell, goddamn it. Didn’t she get it? Didn’t she understand? I wondered if I could get a few photos of Dennis Thoreau, a nice round hole in his forehead, show them to her. Ahh, man, what was I doing?

To Heather’s obvious disappointment I stood up, still holding Ogilvy in one hand, and returned the Beretta to my pocket.

“I want seven thousand, two hundred and fifty-five dollars; that’s the money you took off my client last week and the money you took off me Saturday.”

“Nothing else?” she asked, surprised.

“You have until Friday,” I said. “After that it’s out of my hands. Do you understand?”

She nodded that she did and I helped her to her feet. She immediately began smoothing her body-conscious dress into place.

“And if you can’t play a legit game, don’t play at all,” I added.

Heather smiled—an amazing thing. “Will you take a check?”

“Friday,” I said. “In cash. And if you don’t return it, it won’t be me who will come looking for you.” With that I pushed her toward the front door.

She stopped at the door, turning toward me, her hands behind her back, posing like one of the models in a Victoria’s Secret catalog. That smile, where had I seen it before? Oh yes, I remembered. A doctor, an oncologist who murdered his mistress and got away with it for fifty-seven days before Annie and I busted his ass. He thought he was invincible, thought he could do anything. He smiled like that. Right up until the judge dropped the gavel on him and the county cops led him away.

“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

I opened the door and pushed Heather through it, clicking off the porch light before she reached her car.

“You know something, Ogilvy,” I said, scratching the rabbit behind his ears, “the way some people behave, you wonder if they’ve lost their will to live.”

I didn’t bother to watch any more of the videotape. I hit the rewind button and waited, catching the final two minutes of the game as Emmitt Smith trampled the Bears’ rush defense, pushing over for the winning TD from six yards out. After the machine had done its work, I took the videotape and slid it into an empty box. I labeled the box
S
TAR
T
REK
V—T
HE
F
INAL
F
RONTIER
and put it on the shelf with my collection—I have about forty tapes. Where’s the best place to hide something? In plain sight.

I suddenly felt a desperate need to take a shower. I put it off, sitting down with a yellow legal pad instead, making detailed notes on everything I heard, saw or read, replaying the day slowly in my memory. Later, I would transcribe the notes onto my PC; I had a hunch this case was not going away.

Having the tape raised a lot of interesting questions, not the least of which was: What am I going to do with it? I did not want it; I hadn’t known it was the videotape C. C. and Marion sought when I removed it from Thoreau’s house. Yet I was not surprised to learn it was. After all, someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure I found it.

Anne Scalasi’s name came to mind.

Another question beckoned when I stood naked in front of my mirror, wondering if I looked older today than yesterday: Did I have the only copy?

And still another arose when I was finally standing under the shower, letting the hot water run down my back.

Who operated the camera?

TEN