Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress? (14 page)

“Hi, Mom. How about pancakes?” Little Rob said as he peeped at Karen's cereal bowl in disgust.

“Not this morning. Toast a bun in the toaster and put some jelly on it.”

Guns were the most distinct possibility.

A few years ago Rob had taken her plinking with a twenty-two rifle. The twenty-two seemed more like a toy than a weapon. A heavier rifle would be harder to come by, and then she'd read how they could trace bullets …

Pistols were small and easily carried, but the cowboys in their shoot-outs would stand ten or twenty feet apart. Rob had said that a handgun was completely inaccurate in anyone's hand but an expert's. Most pistol murders happened like Helen's. The victim knows the murderer, and they are practically sitting in each other's laps when the crime takes place.

She ripped the paper up impatiently.

“Poem no good, Mom?” Little Rob said through a mouthful of English muffin.

“No good at all,” she replied.

The tea water was boiling and she made herself a cup. Surely, there was one good method of murder. After all, people killed each other every day.

Tavie Garland reached orgasm for the first time in her life in Will's apartment. She didn't know whether that delighted or saddened her, and she turned to run her hands over Will's back as he dozed. The smell of musk seemed to fill the room, and that had never happened before either.

She got out of bed and wandered through the small apartment. She noticed that the bed was a box spring and mattress supported by cement blocks, and that a straight chair and bureau were the only other furnishings in the small room. In the living room her bare feet could feel the cigarettes ground out in the nap of the rug. Books overflowed from the bookcases and covered every available surface. Beer cans and empty liquor bottles stood near overflowing ashtrays. In one corner, a stack of newspapers reached halfway to the ceiling; in another, fishing rods and a gun case stood at sloppy attention. She decided that the kitchen would be a worse shambles and vowed to avoid it.

“You've got a cute bottom,” Will was sitting up in bed pouring a drink.

“Thank you, sir,” she said with a nude bow.

“Have a drink.”

He handed her a water tumbler half-filled with rye. “Do you think this will replace pink ladies?” she asked.

“Quicker—cuts out the middleman.”

“Will?”

“Hmm.”

“If you were going to kill someone, how'd you do it?”

“Like Helen Fraser for instance?”

“For instance.”

“I'd screw her to death with a bottle of booze.”

“Seriously … well, half-seriously.”

He lay back in bed and contemplated the ceiling for a moment. “You know, I've covered a lot of murder, manslaughter and aggravated assault cases. Eighty percent of the cases involve one family member trying to do in another, the other twenty percent are robberies. In robbery, it's usually the handgun; in family fights, I've heard of everything from garden shears to dynamite. Still, guns seem to lead the popularity contest. I guess I'd take a gun.”

“Guns are hard to get and can be traced.”

“Handguns are hard to get in this state for everyone but the guy who wants to knock over a liquor store. Anyway, too unreliable. Now, a shotgun is easily obtainable, no ballistics evidence, and at ten feet you could hardly miss. Forget it, Missy. It's not your cup of tea. You'd have to beat her to death with a volume of Robert Browning.”

“Not heavy enough.”

He laughed. “Hey, what time do you have to be home?”

“Anytime. Rob's away on a business trip and my mother's with the children. I'm covered.”

“You're becoming a real pro.”

“Did you know that I made it?”

“Delightful.” He half-drained his glass.

“Listen to me. I mean really made it. For the first time.”

“You're kidding?”

“No.”

“Bet you say that to all your lovers, Baby. You aren't thinking of cleaning up the place, are you?”

“Hell, no.”

“That's good. When the broads start the mother bit—picking the butts off the floor, I'm in for trouble … that's when they go.”

“It's a fine pigpen. I love to wallow here, but I wouldn't want to live here.”

He reached over and began to fondle her breast. She felt warmth between her thighs as her nipples hardened. “I like your breasts,” he said.

“They're too small. I've always been self-conscious about them.”

“Maybe that's why you never made it. How many lovers have you had?”

“Well now, let's see. You, my husband, my father, and the third battalion of the U.S. Marines.”

“Cut the shit. How many? I need research for my book.”

“What book?”

“The one about you. I've already got the title, ‘The Lady's Not for Screwing.'”

“From you that's practically a compliment.”

“How many?”

“Seriously?”

“No, not seriously. I always babble like this.”

“All right. You, my husband, and the first time.”

“Tell me about the first time.”

“It was lousy. I was twenty-two years old and had never been screwed. He was in my class, we were both seniors, and we made it on the back seat of his car. It was crummy.”

“And that's all?”

“Believe it or not, no one had ever asked me before that.”

“You were hardly the aggressive type.”

“Hardly. And you—do you always rape your conquests?”

“You were hardly raped tonight.”

“Is that right?” she said. Her hands began to move across his body, over his chest and stomach, and down across his thighs. “Tell me.”

“I'm the breaking horse of the newspaper. All new girl reporters, secretaries, anything under fifty and below 300 pounds, is exposed to Will Haversham. After their initiation they're thrown into the pool of general consumption.”

“How romantic.”

She bent over his thighs and her mouth closed over him. His hands gently caressed the back of her head as she began to move over him. He groaned and she increased the tempo.

“Christ, that's good,” he said.

She looked up at him. “This is the whore in me; maybe you'd prefer the woman in white gloves.”

“Screw the gloves, don't stop.”

“Do something for me?”

“Anything, come on, will you?”

She bent over him again for a few moments and then lifted her head. “Find Helen for me, Will. Find Helen as soon as you can.”

Oliver and Tavie were having tea in her living room. She felt that somehow Oliver was out of place here, that he didn't really exist except in the confines of his own study. Even now, as he sat in Rob's easy chair, he seemed somewhat uncomfortable, as if the room were more attuned to Rob's laughter than Oliver's contemplative moods.

“Thank you so much for coming, Oliver.”

“I've been worrying about you, Octavia.”

“I'm fine, really I am. They've got my psyche straightened out and everything put back together.”

“Good, I'm glad.”

He examined her and drank his tea slowly. To break the moment she got to her feet and started to the kitchen. “I'll be right back,” she said. “I have something I want you to read.” In the kitchen she took her latest poem from the desk and returned to the living room.

He put on his reading glasses and read the poem slowly. He seemed to go back and read it again. After finishing the poem a second time, Oliver looked over the rim of his glasses in a disapproving and professorial manner. “I can't use this, Octavia. ‘Reflections from a Mad-house,' that's not your style.”

“My recent experiences have changed me.”

“The bent is disturbing.”

“What do you mean by that, Oliver?”

“It's … it's almost irrational. Your work has always been characterized by a clear and precise style. This … this is chaos. Disorderly, unclear, and chaotic.”

“Don't you sometimes think life is chaotic, Oliver? The best laid plans and all that sort of thing. There are too many variables—it's hard to plan.”

He took off his glasses and swung them slowly back and forth. “That's what you and I have always tried to do, Octavia. We've tried to put an order into nature.”

“That's it, Oliver. We've tried to do it with words, with feelings, and all the time we've sat in our musty studies the world has swirled around outside.”

Before he could answer, the phone rang, and her fingers lashed out to pick up the extension. “Hello,” she said.

“Hanging in there,” Will said.

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“I've got my payment.”

“I'm sorry, I don't need any more magazines.”

“Cut the crap, Hon. I know where Helen is.”

“If you insist, I'll look at your list. Stop by tomorrow.” She hung up quickly and turned back to Oliver. “What I'm saying is that for my whole life I've been trodden on. Rob's affair would never have happened, a lot of things would never have happened, if I hadn't been such a dodo.”

“You can't rail out at the world to get what you want.”

“You can stand up and fight for it.”

“In some ways, not like a Helen, not like an animal.”

Tavie looked out the window to see birds fluttering over their feeder. There must be a dozen varieties out there, she thought. In fact, last year they'd gotten a bird book and identified ten species. “You know,” she said to Oliver, “early this summer we took a cat to Maine with us. Every day, I swear, every single day, that cat came to the front door with a bird in its mouth. You've been up there, you remember how delightful it is to wake up in the morning with the birds on all the trees. That cat hadn't been there a week before they were gone, those he didn't get wouldn't come near our house. We got rid of that cat, Oliver. And when he was gone the birds returned.”

“Don't carry that analogy too far, Octavia.”

She laughed. “Of course not, aren't analogies always figurative?”

He agreed with her, and she wondered if he knew she lied. By tomorrow she would know where Helen was, and now she knew how she was going to do it.

CHAPTER NINE

The highway followed the river gorge with high hills to each side. Tavie drove easily and smoothly. The trees in northwest Connecticut were already beginning to turn to fall foliage. Although they were only a few miles from Hartford, they'd left the plains of the Connecticut River Valley and were now in the rolling foothills of the Berkshires.

She glanced quickly at Will who sat with his arm around her shoulders. “How come I always have to drive?” she said.

“To give me two free hands.”

“Oh, really? Where are we going?”

“We turn onto her road in a few more miles.” He put his hand under her shirt and began to massage her breast. “Christ, Tavie, don't you ever wear a brassiere?”

“Do you really think I need one? Now cut it out, I'm too old for groping in cars.”

“Bullcrap. No grope, no directions.”

“I swear to God, Will. I never met anyone more decadent.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“I said knock it off.” She hit him in the Adam's apple with her elbow.

“Hey, that hurt.”

“It was meant to.”

“You're becoming a tough cookie.”

“Survival.”

“Why do you stay with him?” Will said.

“Who?”

“Your husband, stupid. Who else?”

“Why shouldn't I? We've been happily married for twelve years.”

“I bet he's screwed around the whole time.”

“Just this once.” She began to wonder and to doubt Rob.

“That you know of.”

“What difference does it make to you?”

“I'm always interested in the personal lives of my mistresses.”

“I sleep with you only because you're useful to me.”

“I know, but you also like it.”

“You're a dirty old man.”

“Dirty yes, old no.”

She turned to look at him as he stared morosely out the window. He wasn't a bad-looking man, she thought. In fact, he even seemed to be taking better care of his clothes, and this morning she'd found his apartment had been cleaned … His yearly cleaning, he'd quipped, but he looked a little sheepish.

“Did you love your wife, Will?” she said.

“Crap. There's no such thing … except maybe for children. People like to screw and kids need parents, society created the rest of the fable.”

“You can sleep with lots of people, why me?”

“Because there's no string with you. Young chicks eventually get the marriage syndrome.”

“How do you know I won't get hooked on sex and want to run away to Pango Pango?”

“Turn to the right here,” he said. “It's about two miles down the road. You'd be better off with me than that idiot you're married to.”

“You've never met him, how do you know he's an idiot?”

“Any guy who takes Helen over you is a jerk.”

“I think you're a romantic.”

“Bullshit. Slow down, that's the house on the right.”

She slowed the car to thirty as they passed the house. The area was heavily wooded, and the next neighboring house was a quarter of a mile down the road. Will was thrown against the door as she noticed a logging road to the left and quickly swerved into it.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he said.

“Just wait.” The logging road ran parallel to the main road for a hundred yards before turning into the woods. She drove down the rutted path until opposite Helen's house and stopped the car. At this point the trail was fifty feet from the road or a hundred feet from Helen's house. The house could be partially seen through the underbrush.

She examined every detail—it was a long low ranch house of common design. She imagined that the long room over the garage would be the living room; the room to the right with the large window, the kitchen; the breakfast nook overlooking the front lawn, and the bedroom past that down a rear hall.