The Blue Journal (7 page)

She claimed to want answers about why things had gone so wrong between them, but there were no answers he was willing to give. More than that, he didn't believe she wanted to hear anything he had to say.

He swore that he still loved her, but she dismissed that idea as if it were utter nonsense. He did love her, he insisted again, but he was not prepared to explain how his love had changed over the years—that was something he could not bring himself to say. There was no way to describe how passion had given way to familiarity, how lust had been replaced by companionship.

Instead he reminded her that they had children. They had history. They had shared moments that neither of them would ever live again. In some ways, he insisted, his love for her had grown richer over the years.

“Bullshit,” Fran responded.

The Colellos were in the bedroom of their modest ranch-style house. Thomas was sitting on the loveseat in front of the bay window. Fran was pacing furiously back and forth in front of him, her pink cotton dressing gown flowing behind her. She puffed furiously on a cigarette, stopping her determined march only long enough to stub out the remains in a crystal ashtray and light another.

Smoking, like her use of profanity, was a habit of recent vintage.

“I wish I could believe you're lying to both of us instead of just trying to fool me,” she said. “But I know you're a deceitful, scheming bastard.”

“Take it easy, will you please? We're trying to have a conversation here.”

“A conversation?” She took a long, theatrical look around the bedroom. “What a joke. Conversation is all we ever have in this room anymore.”

“You're not fair, Fran. We're trying to work things out. I'm seeing the therapist like you asked me to, right? You can't expect miracles.”

She forced a laugh so bitter it actually made him cringe. “A miracle? I guess it
would
be a miracle to think you'd want to fuck your own wife once in a while.” She uttered another empty chuckle. “That
would
be a miracle, wouldn't it, fucking your own wife instead of one of your sluts?”

“Keep your voice down, will you please? The kids'll hear you.”

“Oh great, Thomas. Now you're worried about the children. Let's have a round of applause, shall we? First you go to a marriage counselor and now you're worried about the kids. You're the perfect husband.”

“I never said I was perfect, goddamnit. I know I'm not perfect. But you've been getting yourself so worked up lately, I'm worried about you.” As soon as he said it, he wished he could take back every word, swallowing one letter at a time.

“You're worried about
me
,” Fran repeated in a mocking tone. She had stopped her aimless marching and now perched on the ottoman a few feet from her husband. She drew on the cigarette and exhaled a gray cloud of smoke in his direction. “I don't want your goddamned pity,” she said through clenched teeth.

“This isn't about pity,” Thomas Colello said quietly as he began to get to his feet.

“Sit down,” she snapped. “I don't want you touching me.”

Thomas sank back onto the loveseat. “Jesus Christ, Fran.”

“Don't
Jesus Christ
me,” she snarled, struggling without success to hold back the tears that were beginning to flow. “I want you to tell me why it's better with someone else, some . . . some whore.” She struggled to speak more slowly now. “I want you to explain why you're willing to humiliate me this way. I want to know why you act as if your dick is some sort of a divining rod you're entitled to follow wherever it leads. Make me see all of that, Thomas. Can you do that? Do I at least have a right to understand?”

He took a deep breath, then said, “You're wrong about all this, Fran,” but it didn't even sound persuasive to him.

She stared at him with as much hate as she could muster. “Cross you heart and hope to die?”

Thomas couldn't look at her now. He reached up with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand and began slowly massaging the corners of his eyes, temporarily blinding himself to her grief.
Now if only I were deaf
, he thought.
Or better yet, if I had the ability to disappear
. “This isn't a discussion,” he finally said.

“Look at me,” she answered quietly, but when he did not remove his hand from his face she growled, “Look at me, damnit.” He slowly raised his head, watching as she used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears that filled her eyes and stained her cheeks. “I'm calm, all right? I'm calm now, and I want to hear what you have to say. I really do. All I want to know is the truth. Whatever it is, at least allow me the dignity of knowing the truth.”

Thomas drew in another deep breath and exhaled slowly through pursed lips, as if reluctantly blowing out the candles on a cake for a birthday he preferred to ignore. He was a handsome man, with dark wavy hair, dark eyes, and a dark Mediterranean complexion. At the moment, however, under yet another of his wife's verbal assaults, he felt as if all of the color had been drained from his face. “I love you very much, Fran.”

“Thomas, I told you . . .” she cut him off, but this time he was the one who raised his voice.

“Come on, Fran, you asked me to explain my feelings. Just listen for a minute.”

She nodded slowly.

He said, “I know you think this has something to do with love. That I don't have the same feelings toward you that I used to have. Or maybe that I love someone else. But none of that is true.” He hesitated before adding, “Then you imagine I'm having all these affairs.”

“Well aren't you?” she demanded.

He shook his head as if deflecting an assault. “I hate these discussions. They never get us anywhere except a bigger argument.” He shook his head again, hoping she would interrupt him so he wouldn't have to go on, but she remained silent. “Look, men get older, they start to worry about death. In your twenties and thirties you feel immortal. You feel like nothing can happen to you, you're invincible. Sure, business goes up and down, careers take the wild swings they take, but you always figure you're going to get through it. Then you hit forty and you realize you've lost a step. You realize it's been ages since the last time the guys got together and played a game of softball or touch football. Your kids are growing up, but you're just growing old. The hair is going, the muscle tone is gone, you exercise a couple of times a week, not to stay trim, just to keep from getting flabby. And then one day it hits you. You're on the down side of the mountain. You'd be a fool not to realize you're deep into middle age.” He paused, but she did not respond. “You start worrying about what you missed, what you still might miss if you don't start to take every opportunity there is to live. I mean really live, and experience things.”

“Like screwing young women?” she asked as politely as if she were asking him about the weather.

“Jesus, Fran. Is that all you're getting out of this?”

“You must be joking,” she replied. She was actually smiling now. “This is the best you can do? A speech about how life is short and you're struggling with your mortality? You must think I'm some kind of moron.”

Thomas was truly offended. “I'm expressing my deepest fears and you're saying it's all bullshit?”

Fran shook her head vigorously. “Of course not. I actually believe every word of it. But so what? Where's the big revelation? I'm growing older, too. What about me? We were supposed to do that together, wasn't that the deal?”

He wrung his hands but did not answer.

“You're a child, Thomas. A selfish, middle-aged, alcoholic child. You're shoving your peas underneath your mashed potatoes and you actually believe you're fooling someone.” She stood again. “Last night you told me you worked late, but I called your office just after four and they told me you'd already left for the day.” She glared at him and waited, as if that statement was some sort of question.

“I had a meeting outside the office. Is that so unusual?”

She responded with a disgusted look. “It's not just that you lie to me, it's that you don't even make an effort to sound convincing.” She looked around for a moment, as if she might find an answer written on one of the walls in their bedroom. When she turned back to him she said, “Get the hell out of here. I'm truly sorry Thomas, but I can't stand the sight of you tonight.”

He sat there for a moment, wishing there was something to say that might matter, knowing there was not. Then he stood up and left without another word.

Thomas Colello trudged into the den and readied himself for another night sleeping alone, which was fine with him, especially tonight. He switched on the television and turned to the news, waiting. It was the lead story, being covered by a young woman standing in front of Darien Town Hall. She reported what Colello already knew—a local woman had been found dead of a gunshot wound in her own home. The woman had been identified as Elizabeth Knoebel.

He stood transfixed as the reporter described the preliminary details obtained from the local police.

Wife of a prominent surgeon. Too early to name any suspects. No murder weapon found.

Colello shuddered as if an arctic breeze had just blown through the room. He couldn't move, couldn't think, he was only capable of feeling the chill that engulfed him as he thought about Elizabeth.

What was I doing
? he asked himself.

Was he really that vain?
Yes
, he admitted. And that stupid. He fell for her like a punch-drunk heavyweight walking into a left hook. He never saw it coming until he was stretched out on the canvas.

But how could he have known what she was up to?
I couldn't
, he told himself, and yet he felt he should have. He should have at least suspected something.

After all, why would this gorgeous, voluptuous woman come on to him the way she did?

He had been with different women over the years, beautiful women, exciting women—but none of them were like Elizabeth. He could say she seduced him, but
seduced
wasn't a strong enough word. It was more like she hunted him down and captured him.

He had been with passionate women before, but they didn't know what Elizabeth knew. They didn't understand what Elizabeth understood.

He had made love to women who delighted in sex, who reveled in the intimacy and the pleasure, but they didn't have the intuition about men that Elizabeth had. She was willing to be everything. Yes, that was it. She was willing to be everything a woman could be to a man.

He had no way of knowing she was Stanley Knoebel's wife. They had been together several times before she told him, and he was stunned at the absolute delight she took in revealing the truth. He could still envision her face and the sense of joy she had in explaining who she was and what she was about. It was only at that moment he began to understand her game, but it was too late. What was he supposed to do? Confess to his wife? Confront Stanley? Make an announcement in Dr. Conway's group?

No, it was already too late for any of that, and Elizabeth knew it. Instead she teased him, used him, and threw him away.

And the maddening part, the part he could not bring himself to deal with, was that even after he understood her sick game, he still wanted her, needed her, ached for her.

He shook his head as he stared at the television screen, wondering if Fran had heard what he already knew.

Elizabeth was dead.

He was not going back into their bedroom to ask.

CHAPTER 8

Early the next morning, when Randi Conway arrived at her office, she found Detective Anthony Walker waiting at her door. He was dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a white shirt, and a suede zipper jacket. He didn't bother to display his badge as he said, “Sorry to bother you first thing, but something's come up. Got a few minutes?”

“I have a patient arriving soon.”

“This shouldn't take long.”

“Is it about Kyle?”

“No.”

Randi hesitated, about to ask the obvious question. Then she said, “You're here about Elizabeth Knoebel.” Without waiting for a reply, she unlocked the door.

There was an envelope lying on the floor. Before she could react, Walker bent down and picked it up. He noticed there was no name or address on the outside.

“Rent bill?” he asked with a smile.

Randi took it from him without responding, showed him in, and gestured to the couch. She went to her desk and placed the envelope in the drawer.

Walker figured that she either knew what it contained, was one of the least curious people he had ever met, or was simply not willing to open it in front of him. He let it go.

“Nice place,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied.

Unlike the adjoining room, where Randi held her group sessions in minimalist surroundings washed in cold, fluorescent lighting, this was a warm, well-furnished office. In the corner was a captain's table with two arm chairs facing the front and a swivel chair behind. The walls were covered in a gray grass cloth. On the wall in back of her desk hung a group of diplomas and plaques announcing her various professional qualifications. The other wall space featured modern art, including a series of Folon prints framed in lacquered wood.

Walker's lower lip covered his upper as he stood there, taking a moment to have a look around. The couch she pointed to was plush and comfortable, upholstered in a striped cotton fabric. Across from the sofa, separated by an oblong coffee table of polished brass with a smoked glass top, was a black leather chair.

He sat on the couch, watching as she took her place in the leather seat across from him.