Topping From Below (14 page)
“That, plus the fact that it made her breasts sore.”
He waves his hand in a dismissive gesture, as if the pain was of no concern to him.
“She wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it,” I continue. “It was degrading to her.”
He rubs the bridge of his nose, then crosses his arms. “And still she did it,” he says. Then, quieter, he repeats, “And still she did it.” The room is silent. His last sentence hangs in the air between us, a fateful nexus locking us together, the words as binding as links in a chain. He glances at his watch, then comes over to me. “As will you.”
I look up at him and say, “Don’t count on it,” but he just ignores this. He hovers over me, regarding me, then puts his hands on my shoulders. It’s a subtle show of force, a tactical move to let me know he is in control. He bends down and moves one hand to my neck, encircling it, forcing me to look up at him. His grip on me is firm, but he’s not hurting me. He kisses me lightly on the lips. I don’t move. I don’t respond. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of a struggle.
“I wonder if it’ll be degrading to you as well,” he says, looking me in the eye, then adds, “I think not.”
He releases me and straightens up. He heads for the door, then stops and turns, waving one arm around the room in an inclusive gesture. “Feel free to stay here as long as you like,” he says, the perfect host. “I imagine you’ll be searching my home for evidence of some sort—well, do as you must. But please try to be neat about it.” He seems amused, and his cooperation takes me by surprise. I didn’t think he’d let me search his house so easily. He starts for the door again, and once more he stops.
“Those pictures I took of Franny—the ones in the hog barn and all the others—you won’t find them. When I read of her death in the newspaper, I destroyed them. With no alibi, I thought it best not to have them scattered around.” He hesitates just a beat, observing my reaction, then he walks out of the room, yelling back at me to lock up when I leave, adding that he’ll call me when he wants to see me again.
I hear the sound of his footsteps going through the house. The door leading to the garage opens and closes. I get up and put on M.’s bathrobe, a brown monogrammed robe. Barefoot, I walk to the living room and peek out the window. I watch until I see him backing his car out the garage and driving up the street.
I wonder where to begin. I start with the den. Looking around the room, above the desk, I see the World War II cutlass that belonged to M.’s father. I run my finger along the blade; it is still sharp, ready for use. I go through his desk and bookcases, but find nothing. Hidden in a cabinet near his VCR, I find, judging from their titles, a collection of pornographic videos and a stack of dirty magazines. I quickly flip through the magazines. Nothing I haven’t seen before. The guest rooms and linen closets, likewise, are bare of incriminating evidence.
I enter his bedroom. Searching the nightstands by the bed, I turn up a collection of sex toys—vibrators, cock rings, clips, lubricants, massage oils, dildos, nipple rings and clamps, solid metal ben-wa balls in various sizes—again, nothing out of the ordinary. I search his bureau and come up emptyhanded. Nothing under his bed. Nothing in the bathroom, although I do find his sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet. In the walk-in closet, I turn on the light and go through his clothes. This man is very neat: shirts in the same direction, the fronts facing west, all similar colors grouped together, shoes lined up like cadets awaiting inspection, evenly spaced and polished to a high shine. I look in all the boxes on the shelves—more shirts and sweaters and shoes, packed away. I get the folding step stool I saw earlier in the kitchen and bring it into the closet so I can inspect the top shelves. And then I see it on the top shelf, hidden behind stacks of shoeboxes and shopping bags filled with old towels: a large plastic container the size of a suitcase. I pull it down, take it to the bed, and open it. Inside, I find leather straps and tethers, a harness, bondage cuffs, various lengths of rope, a whip and a riding crop, a set of handcuffs, leg manacles, a studded leather collar, a heavy-duty Ping-Pong paddle, and several gadgets and devices, the use of which I have no idea. And, in one corner, a partially used roll of duct tape.
Suddenly, I feel sick. My head throbs from the booze I drank last night. I close my eyes and see Franny at the funeral home, five days after her body was discovered. In movies, you see a member of the bereaved family walking down a metal-gray corridor to identify the body at the morgue. Not so in real life. In a homicide, family members aren’t allowed to view the body until it’s been released to the funeral home.
And the details of her death, which also would have been given out freely in the movies, I didn’t learn until two months later. All I knew, at the beginning, was that it was a homicide and the cause of death could not be determined. The coroner, the ID techs, the detectives, they all said it would jeopardize their investigation to divulge more information at that time. The manager of Franny’s apartment, the older woman who discovered her body two weeks after she died, was of no help, either. It made her sick, she said, and she looked away; all she could remember was the horrible smell and the flies swarming around the room. I was left to my imagination, and as a science writer I knew what she would’ve looked like. I’ve been to autopsies. Her lips and tongue and fingers and toes would have been desiccated, dry and dark black. There would be some bloating and blisters, purged liquid from her mouth, dried blood on her body, maggots in the wounds and orifices, and lots of blowflies, large and fat. There is a universal scent of death, and even in a closed-up apartment, insects will catch a whiff of this, find a way to enter the building, and descend upon a corpse.
And then, two months later, when the investigation had come to a standstill, they told me the details. I can picture her in my mind as clearly as if I were there. I see her lying in her apartment, gagged, blood dripping off her torso, cut marks on her naked body like fine engravings carved in wood, duct tape across her mouth and wound around her ankles and wrists.
I shake my head to clear it. I sit down on the bed, picking up the handcuffs and duct tape. I set them on my lap. The bed is covered with the contents of the box, spread out like a proud man’s tool collection on display: whips, ropes, paddles, manacles, chains. This collection convinces me I’m correct about M.; still, I’m disappointed. I find no razor blades, no utility knives, no pictures of women in bondage, their bodies displaying M.’s handiwork with a knife, no pictures of Franny. Nothing, in short, that will place M. at the scene of the crime. I’ll show the tape to the police, but after nearly a year and no arrest for Franny’s murder, I have little faith in them. I can almost hear them now: anyone can buy duct tape in a hardware store.
The front door slams shut.
I freeze. My hand, about to pick up and inspect the studded collar, stops in midair. I hear footsteps in the foyer, muffled but audible, and suddenly my body reacts. I move without thinking. I jump off the bed, the handcuffs and tape falling to the floor, and start throwing everything into the plastic box, the whips, the chains, all of it.
“Nora?” M. calls out. He is in the hallway.
I grab the handcuffs off the floor and throw them in the box. Where is the duct tape? I don’t see it.
“Nora? Are you still here?”
I shut the lid, carry it into the walk-in closet, replace it on the shelf, rearrange the shoeboxes and shopping bags in front of it. The step stool. I fold it and put it behind a rack of clothes. I stand in the closet doorway, looking around, making sure nothing is amiss. The box is back where it belongs, the step stool is covered by M.’s coats and jackets and raincoat. I reach up to turn off the light switch and feel a hand, icy cold, on the back of my neck. I gasp.
M. says, “Didn’t you hear me call you?”
I shake my head.
He looks at me, questioning.
I fumble for words. “I was just getting your bathrobe,” I say, thankful I had put it on earlier. “I was cold.” I put my hands in the pockets.
“I forgot my coat,” M. says, and he walks in the closet and takes a brown suede jacket off the hanger. The step stool is not revealed. I go back into the bedroom and glance around for the duct tape. I see it on the floor next to the bureau, and I dash over to pick it up.
“I see you found my accoutrements,” M. says, walking out of the closet, putting on his jacket.
Straightening up, I say, “What?” With one hand, I hide the tape behind my back.
He goes over to the bed and picks up a black whip—the handle peeking out from beneath the sheets—which I’d overlooked in my rush to put everything away. He walks over to me, places the whip in my other hand.
“Put this back where you found it,” he says. “Do you understand?” His voice is low and controlled, purposely devoid of emotion, a voice to be obeyed.
I nod my head, not taking my eyes off him. The air feels charged with tension, prickly.
“Good,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll have occasion to use it again,” and he leaves the room.
As soon as I get home, I dial the police. In my hands, I’m holding the duct tape that I’ve stolen from M.’s house. A man tells me that Joe Harris, the detective who’s in charge of Franny’s case, isn’t in yet. I leave my name and say I’ll call later, then hang up.
The Sacramento Bee is on the kitchen table. Opening it to the Metro section, I read about two young men arguing at a basketball court on T Street in Sacramento. One of the men went to his car, pulled out a gun, returned, and fired five shots into the other man. Argument settled. I clip out the article and add it to my folder, which I’ve entitled “Death and Violence—Sacto.” Since I started it, less than a year ago, it’s become thick with articles, and I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed by all the violence. I feel lucky to be out of Sacramento, but then I remind myself that living in Davis hadn’t saved Franny.
Once more, I dial the police. In a flat, bored voice a woman tells me that Detective Harris won’t be in for another hour. I try to keep the irritation out of my voice as I leave my name once again. To keep myself busy, and while my mind is still fresh, I jot down notes from my latest encounter with M., including his memories of Franny at the hog barn. Afterward, I take a shower, feeling tainted by M.’s touch. Even though the Ivory cleanses my body, it’ll take more than soap to purge my mind. What disturbs me most is my own response last night. Knowing what I know about M., how could I have responded to him sexually? I anticipated repulsion, I had been prepared for that; but what I felt was attraction, arousal: the sex was good. I feel betrayed, defiled by my own emotions.
I dry my hair, put on some blood-red lipstick and black mascara. I decide to go for the chic-but-tough look, and dress in tight jeans, a black sequinned T-shirt, and a leather bomber jacket. I place the duct tape in a brown paper bag, and drive toward town.
The police station is on the corner of F and Third in an old cement building that, until thirteen years ago, housed the city hall. The words CITY HALL, in inlaid dark blue tile, still adorn the arched doorway. It’s a quaint Spanish-style building that had been erected in the 1930s. It is painted a pale peach color and, from the outside, looks more like someone’s home—with flower beds, a curved pebbled walkway, shade trees, a well-mowed lawn, even a bench to rest on—than a place of law enforcement. On the corner stands a bronze statue of two joggers. The only real clue to the building’s occupation is the small, unobtrusive sign, dwarfed by the overarching branches of a nearby tree, and, more noticeably, the row of blue-and-white police cars parked on the side.
I pull in the lot across the street, take the paper bag, and head for the police station. There’s a cold bite to the air, but the sky is white-blue and free of clouds. A girl, most likely a college student, is selling flowers from a cart, and a few people are sitting in front of Café Tutti, talking, oblivious to the cool weather, sipping on coffee or cappuccino. A young policeman in his dark blue uniform cruises by on a bike, part of the city’s bicycle patrol.
I cross the street and enter the building. An officer, a dark-haired short woman, is behind the front counter. Off to the left, two dispatchers are in an enclosed, glass-windowed room. I tell the woman that Joe Harris is expecting me, and she picks up the phone and calls back to confirm this. She’s new and doesn’t know me. I sit on the bench to wait. The reception area is small, wood paneled, carpeted, and it looks more like a place to pick up a business license or file an application. On one wall, a glass-enclosed case displays the local police officers on small cards that resemble baseball trading cards. I wonder if they’re for sale—to collect, to trade, to pass around among friends. I wonder which cops have an exchange rate of two for one.
After the officer confirms my appointment, I go down the steps that lead to the detectives’ offices. I’ve been here so many times since Franny died, I know my way around. Most of the people know me here, or at least they know who I am. A few say hello as I walk down the corridor, some nod, but most of them, the detectives, turn and pretend they don’t see me. I know what’s on their minds—they think, in my obsession with finding Franny’s killer, that I’ve gone over the edge. They wish I wouldn’t come to the station anymore, and they most assuredly want me to stop my importunate demands, my harangues to keep them on Franny’s case. My presence is an annoyance to them. Only Joe listens to me now.
I go back to Joe Harris’s desk. He’s a large man, in his fifties, who always looks as if he’s overflowing—too big for his desk and chair, his clothes always snug, his curly gray hair in need of a cut. He’s wearing a white shirt with buttons that strain in the buttonholes; the sleeves are rolled up, and the left collar, unbuttoned, is frayed. He doesn’t look too happy to see me, and I know he considers me a pain in the neck. He’s a nice man whose patience has been tested the past year by my refusal to stay out of the investigation. On the corner of his desk is a picture of his wife and three kids, his children all grown now but teenagers in the photo.
