The Accidental Detective and other stories (3 page)

“Where was I? Oh, your dilemma. The thing is, I can hook you up with someone who can help you find the best deal, but you might want to consider taking action against your lawyer. He could be disbarred for what he did, or at least reprimanded. Clearly a conflict of interest.”

“True, but that won't help me in the long run.” She sighed, then exhaled on the dandelion head, blowing away the fluff.

“Did you make a wish?” Alan asked. He wasn't handsome, not even close. He looked like Ichabod Crane, tall and thin, with a pointy nose and no chin.

“I did,” Sally said with mock solemnity.

“For what?”

“Ah, if you tell, they don't come true.” She met his eyes, just for a moment, let Alan Moore think that he was her heart's desire. Later that night, her children asleep, a glass of white wine at her side, she plugged figures into various mortgage calculators on the Internet, as if a different site might come up with a different answer. She charted her budget on Quicken—
if she traded the Porsche for a Prius, if she stopped buying organic produce at Whole Foods, if she persuaded Molly to drop ballet.
But there were not enough sacrifices in the world to cover the looming shortfall in their monthly bills. They would have to give up everything to keep the house—eating, driving, heat and electricity.

And even if she did find the money, found a way to make it work, her world was still shrinking around her. When Peter first left, it had been almost a relief to be free of him, grouchy and cruel as he had become in midlife. She had been glad for an excuse to avoid parties as well. Now that she was divorced, the husbands behaved as if a suddenly single woman was the most unstable molecule of all in their social set. But Alan Moore's gaze, beady as it was, had reminded her how nice it was to be admired, how she had enjoyed being everyone's favorite confidante once upon a time, how she had liked the hands pressed to her bare spine, the friendly pinch on her ass.

She should marry again. It was simple as that. She left the Internet's mortgage calculators for its even more numerous matchmakers, but the world she glimpsed was terrifying, worse than the porn she had once found cached on Peter's laptop. She was old by the standards enumerated in these online wish lists. Worse, she had children, and ad after ad specified that that would just not do. She looked at the balding, pudgy men, read their demands—no kids, no fatties, no over-forties—and realized they held the power to dictate the terms. No, she would not subject herself to such humiliation. Besides, Internet matches required writing, not listening. In a forum where she could not nod and laugh and gaze sympathetically, Sally was at a disadvantage. Typing “LOL” in a chat room simply didn't have the same impact.

Now a man with his own children, that would be ideal. A widower or a divorcee who happened to have custody, rare as that was. She mentally ran through the Dutton School directory, then pulled it from the shelf and skimmed it. No, no, no—all the families she knew were disgustingly intact, the divorced and reblended ones even tighter than those who had stayed with their original mates. Didn't anyone die anymore? Couldn't the killers and drug dealers who kept the rest of Washington in the upper tier of homicide rates come up to Northwest every now and then, take out a housewife or two?

Why not?

I
N A SCHOOL RENOWNED
for dowdy mothers, Lynette Moore was one of the dowdiest, gone to seed in the way only a truly preppy woman can. She had leathery skin and a Prince Valiant haircut, which she smoothed back from her face with a grosgrain ribbon headband. Her laugh was a loud, annoying bray, and if someone failed to join in her merriment, she clapped the person on the back as if trying to dislodge a lump of food. On this particular Thursday afternoon, Lynette stood on the sidewalk, speaking animatedly to one of the teachers, punching the poor woman at intervals. Sally, waiting her turn in the car pool lane, thought how easily a foot could slip, how an accelerator could jam. The SUV would surge forward, Lynette would be pinned against the column by the school's front door. So sad, but no one's fault, right?

No, Sally loved the school too much to do that. Besides, an accident would take out Ms. Grayson as well, and she was an irreplaceable resource when it came to getting Dutton's graduates into the best colleges.

Three months, according to her accountant. She had three months. Maybe Peter would die; he carried enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage, with plenty left over for the children's education. No, she would never get that lucky. Stymied, she continued to make small talk with Alan Moore at baseball games but began to befriend Lynette as well, lavishing even more attention on her in order to deflect any suspicions she might harbor about Sally's kindness to Alan. Lynette was almost pathetically grateful for Sally's attention, adopting her with the fervor that adolescent girls bring to new friendships. Women appreciate good listeners, too, and Sally nodded and smiled over tea and, once five o'clock came around, glasses of wine. Lynette had quite a bit to say, the usual litany of complaints. Alan worked all the time. There was zero romance in their marriage. She might as well be a single mom—“Not that a single mom is a bad thing to be,” she squealed, clapping a palm over her large, unlipsticked mouth.

“You're a single mom without any of the advantages,” Sally said, pouring her another glass of wine.
Drive home drunk. What do I care?

“There are advantages, aren't there?” Lynette leaned forward and lowered her voice, although Molly was at a friend's and Sam was up in his room with Lynette's Duncan, playing
The Sims.
“No one ever says that, but it's true.”

“Sure. As long as you have the money to sustain the standard of living you had, being single is great.”

“How do you do that?” Asked with specificity, as if Lynette believed that Sally had managed just that trick. Sally, who had long ago learned the value of the nonreply, raised her eyebrows and smiled serenely, secretly.

“I think Alan cheats on me,” Lynette blurted out.

“I would leave a man who did that to me.”

Lynette shook her head. “Not until the kids are grown and gone. Maybe then. But I'll be so old. Who would want me then?”

Who would want you now?

“Do what you have to do.” Another meaningless response, perfected over the years. Yet no one ever seemed to notice how empty Sally's sentiments were, how vapid. She had thought it was just men who were fooled so easily, but it was turning out that women were equally foolish.

“Alan and I never have sex anymore.”

“That's not uncommon,” Sally said. “All marriages have their ups and downs.”

“I love your house.” Logical sequences of thought had never been Lynette's strength, but this conversation was abrupt and odd even by her standards. “I love you.”

Lynette put a short stubby hand over Sally's, who fought the instinctive impulse to yank her own away. Instead, it was Lynette who pulled back in misery and confusion.

“I don't mean that way,” she said, staring into her wineglass, already half empty.

Sally took a deep breath. “Why not?”

Lynette put her hand back over Sally's. “You mean … ?”

Sally thought quickly. No matter how far Sam and Duncan disappeared into their computer world, she could not risk taking Lynette to the master bedroom. She had a hunch that Lynette would be loud. But she also believed that this was her only opportunity. In fact, Lynette would shun her after today. She would cut Sally off completely, ruining any chance she had of luring Alan away from her. She would have to see this through or start over with another couple.

“There's a room, over our garage. It used to be Peter's office.”

She grabbed the bottle of wine and her glass. She was going to need to be a little drunk, too, to get through this. Then again, who was less attractive in the large scheme of things, Alan or Lynette? Who would be more grateful, more giving? Who would be more easily controlled? She was about to find out.

L
YNETTE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN
in love when she blurted out that sentiment in Sally's kitchen, but she was within a week. Lynette being Lynette, it was a loud, unsubtle love, both behind closed doors and out in public, and Sally had to chide her about the latter, school her in the basics of covert behavior, remind her not to stare with those cowlike eyes or try to monopolize Sally at public events, especially when Alan was present. They dropped their children at school at 8:30 and Lynette showed up at Sally's house promptly at 8:45, bearing skim-milk lattes and scones. Lynette's idea of the perfect day, as it turned out, was to share a quick latte upon arriving, then bury her head between Sally's legs until 11
A.M.
, when she surfaced for the Hot Topics segment on
The View.
Then it was back to devouring Sally, with time-outs for back rubs and baths. Lynette's large, eager mouth turned out to have its uses. Plus, she asked for only the most token attention in return, which Sally provided largely through a handheld massage tool from the Sharper Image.

Best of all, Lynette insisted that, as much as she loved Sally, she could never, ever leave Alan, not until the children were grown and out of the house. She warned Sally of this repeatedly, and Sally would nod sadly, resignedly. “I'll settle for the little bit I can have,” she said, stroking Lynette's Prince Valiant bob.

“If Alan ever finds out …” Lynette said glumly.

“He won't,” Sally assured her. “Not if we're careful. There. No—there.” Just as her attention drifted away in conversation, she found it drifting now, floating toward an idea, only to be distracted by Lynette's insistent touch. Later. She would figure everything out later.

“Y
OU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS
,” Sally told Lynette at the beginning of their third week together, during one of the commercial breaks on
The View.
“Peter found out about us.”

“Ohmigod!” Lynette said. “How?”

“I'm not sure. But he knows. He knows everything. He's threatening to take the children away from me.”

“Ohmigod.”

“And—” She turned her face to the side, not trusting herself to tell this part. “And he's threatening to go to Alan.”

“Shit.” In her panic, Lynette got up and began putting on her clothes, as if Peter and Alan were outside the door at this very moment.

“He hasn't yet,” Sally said quickly. “But he will, if I fight the change in the custody order. He's given me a week to decide. I give up the children or he goes to Alan.”

“You can't tell. You can't.”

“I don't want to, but—how can I lose my children?”

Lynette understood, as only another mother could. They couldn't tell the truth, but she couldn't expect Sally to live with the consequences of keeping the secret. Lynette would keep her life while Sally would lose hers. No woman could make peace with such blatant unfairness.

“Would he really do this?”

“He would. Peter—he's not the nice man everyone thinks he is. Why do you think we got divorced? And the thing is, if he gets the kids—well, it was one thing for him to do the things he did to me. But if he ever treated Molly or Sam that way …”

“What way?”

“I don't want to talk about it. But if it should happen—I'd have to kill him.”

“The pervert.” Lynette was at once repelled and fascinated. The dark side of Sally's life was proving as seductive to her as Sally had been.

“I know. If he had done what he did to a stranger, he'd be in prison for life. But in a marriage, such things are legal. I'm stuck, Lynette. I won't ruin your life for anything. You told me from the first that this had to be a secret.”

“There has to be a way …”

“There isn't. Not as long as Peter is a free man.”

“Not as long as he's alive.”

“You can't mean—”

Lynette put a finger to Sally's lips. These had been the hardest moments to fake, the face-to-face encounters. Kissing was the worst. But it was essential not to flinch, not to let her distaste show. She was so close to getting what she wanted.

“Trust me,” Lynette said.

Sally wanted to. But she had to be sure of one thing. “Don't try to hire someone. It seems like every time someone like us tries to find someone, it's always an undercover cop. Remember Ruth Ann Aron.” A politician from the Maryland suburbs, she had done just that. But her husband had forgiven her, even testified on her behalf during the trial. She had been found guilty anyway.

“Trust me,” Lynette repeated.

“I do, sweetheart. I absolutely do.”

D
R
. P
ETER
H
OLT WAS HIT
by a Jeep Cherokee, an Eddie Bauer limited edition, as he crossed Connecticut Avenue on his way to Sunomono, a place where he ate lobster pad thai every Thursday evening. The driver told police that her children had been bickering in the backseat over what to watch on the DVD player and she turned her head, just a moment, to scold them. Distracted, she had seen Holt and tried to stop but hit the accelerator instead. Then, as her children screamed for real, she had driven another hundred yards in panic and hysteria. If the dermatologist wasn't dead on impact, he was definitely dead when the SUV finally stopped. But the only substance in her blood was caffeine, and while it was a tragic, regrettable accident, it was clearly an accident. Really, investigators told Holt's stunned survivors, his ex-wife and two children, it was surprising that such things didn't happen more often, given the congestion in D.C., the unwieldy SUVs, the mothers' frayed nerves, the nature of dusk, with its tricky gray-green light. It was a macabre coincidence, their children being classmates, the parents being superficial friends on the sidelines of their sons' baseball games. But this part of D.C. was like a village unto itself, and the accident had happened only a mile from the school.