A Perfect Crime (29 page)

Got him!
“We’re partners, Whitey. I’m on your side.”

“What do you mean you did it for me?”

“I’m familiar with the psychiatrist’s testimony, Whitey. I know she’s responsible for the . . . perturbations in your past.”

“Perturbations? Are you accusing me of fucking my own mother?”

“No, no, no. Perturbations, Whitey.” How to explain it?
Think, think
. Whitey took another step. “Ups and downs,” Roger said, perhaps too explosively, perhaps too loud. “Ups and downs.”

Whitey halted. “You killed her because of that?”

“If I’ve gone too far, forgive me, Whitey. It was with the best intentions. And what kind of a life did she have, anyway? The crux of the matter is that we’re partners. Share and share alike. If you’ve spent any time in this house, you know a certain amount of wealth is represented. Why, the Arp alone is worth its weight in gold.”

“What’s an arp?”

“What a character you are,” Roger said. “He was a famous sculptor, and I’ve got a rare piece of his, down on the bookcase in the living room. For your next birthday, shall we say? Why don’t we go down and take a peek at it?”

“Fuck that,” Whitey said. And that look in his eye, the one Roger didn’t like, which had faded a bit, intensified. Unaccountable.

“I hope I haven’t offended you, Whitey. As your partner, the last thing I’d want to do is violate your amour propre in any way.”

Whitey made a little flicking gesture with the blade of the ax, as though warding off insects, came closer, close enough for Roger to see the tiny drops of pus seeping through his stitches. “Killed her and set me up for that, too.”

“No, no, no. Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
Heard,
but not understood. Yes, dumb, a dumb animal, almost preverbal. How to put it in his vernacular, to accord him the respect his like always craved? What is the right vulgarism?
Something bodily, no doubt. How about:
“I wouldn’t step on your toes, Whitey. Not for anything.”

The expression in Whitey’s eyes worsened dramatically, became animal, in fact, and Roger’s mind flashed a quick memory of the eyes of a wolverine he’d cornered in the boathouse at the Adirondack camp as a boy. “But you did step on my toe, you son of a bitch,” Whitey said, and raised the ax.

Not getting through, not getting through
. Roger’s brain was frantically pursuing various strategies, spinning with permutations and combinations, scattering scraps and tailings of this or that scenario in the mental air—
think,
moron, think—
when the door opened at his back.

Francie peered out, blinking in the light.“What’s all the noise, Roger?” she said. “And I smell something odd.”

“Impossible,” Roger said. “It’s completely odorless.”

Francie’s eyes adjusted to the light. She saw the second man, recognized him at once from the police photograph—Whitey something. His eyes, awful eyes, locked on hers. She looked to Roger. “What’s going on?”

“Improvise,” Roger said, more like a mumble, as if to himself.

“What are you talking about?”

“The chaos butterfly,” Roger replied.

“I don’t understand you.”

Roger snapped his fingers. “But I understand you,” he said, “only too well.” He pointed at her, his eyes every bit as awful as Whitey’s but in a different way. “There’s your manipulator, Whitey, at long last. This is your big chance. The only chance you’ll ever have. I can’t dumb it down any more than that.Don’t blow it.”

Odorless? Manipulator? Butterflies? What was he saying? Francie opened her mouth to speak, but Whitey spoke first.

“I won’t blow it,” he said. “But she’ll keep.”

“No,” Roger said, “that’s specious reasoning, if we can even dignify it with the term.You can’t possibly—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Whitey said, and swung the ax like a baseball bat—Roger’s eyes incredulous—swung it so hard Francie heard it whistle in the air, right through Roger’s neck, the blade sinking deep into the wall. Then came a horror of spouting blood and screams, hers and Whitey’s, and in that time of horror and nothing else, with the ax stuck in the wall, Francie had her chance, too, her only chance, to get away, but she froze.

The screaming stopped. Whitey jerked the ax out of the wall. He stared at her. “You’re just like her,” he said, “but way better.”

Francie closed the robe at her throat. Was he talking about Anne? Anne’s killer, talking to her like this? She shook, but felt nothing but fury. It washed away everything else—horror, fear, grief, confusion.

“Never,” she said.

“What do you mean, never? I haven’t even said anything yet.” He came toward her, still holding the ax, but in one hand now and low, the blade dripping.

“Never,” Francie said, and heard for the second time that day the sound of her inner voice, her true voice.

“You got that wrong,” Whitey said, still coming. “Like right now is when, while we got this buzz buzz happening. It’s going to be incredible. Master’s away and puppet plays. Fuckin’ poetry.”

His free hand flashed out, very quick, got hold of Francie’s robe. “Don’t you touch me,” she said, and kicked him in the groin with every bit of strength she had. He doubled up, blocking the hall. She kicked him again, not as accurately, and got both hands on the ax, yanked it, but not free. He held on. They wrestled for it. And fell, rolling down the bloody hall, coming to the top of the stairs with him on top, the ax handle caught between them.Whitey wedged his forearm into her throat.

So heavy. So strong.

“Going to be even better now,” Whitey said. “I like all the smells. ” He arched his back, pulled at the ax handle, forced it slowly up between their bodies, the blade slicing through Francie’s robe.He gazed down at her, his face a foot away. “I’m going to come in holes you don’t even have yet.”

Every hair on her body stood on end.
Never
. Francie got a hand free, tore at his face, tore and tore and tore, ripping out the stitches, redoing all Anne had done, and more. Whitey screamed, jerked aside. Francie scrambled out from under him, grabbed the ax, rose, and was starting to swing it when he charged up from under her, inside the arc, caught her in the stomach with his shoulder, and she went down with him on top again, and again they were rolling, but this time down the stairs, Francie, Whitey, the ax, rolling, tangling together in—what was it? A garden hose. Francie got her hand on the hose, whipped a length of it around Whitey’s neck as they fell, tried to jam it between the banisters, tried to break his neck, but he punched her, full in the face and very hard, and she let go.

Then they were on the floor in the hall, and Whitey was up first, both lips split wide, baring all his teeth. Bleeding all over, but up first, and with the ax, while she was still down—and everything had gone snowy, like bad reception.

“Nice try,” Whitey said, looming over her. He raised the ax.

The hose: wrapped around his ankles. Francie rolled aside, but so slowly, as the ax came down, and pulled, but so weakly, on the hose. Whitey lost his balance, almost fell, but didn’t. Francie heard the thunk of the blade sinking deep, felt no new pain. Whitey went still.

“You stupid bitch,” he said.

Francie, on the floor, saw his leg, inches away, and the ax, buried deep in his thigh, and high up.

“Thought you could trip me?” he said. “With my sense of balance?”

He pulled the ax out, stood over her, started his backswing—but blood came gushing from his leg. Francie could hear the flow. He gazed down at what was happening, went white. He toppled over soon after. Francie lay on the floor as the warm pool grew around her.

Splintering sounds at the front door. Francie sat up. The door cracked open. Savard burst in, and others. They said, “Oh,God,” and things like that.

He knelt beside her.

“Sorry I’m so goddamn slow,” he said. “You all right?”

“No.”

He took a long look at Whitey.

“Why are you looking like that?”

“I don’t mean to be looking like anything.” He turned to her, the savage expression still on his face. “I owe you,” he said.

Francie started crying.

“Don’t cry.”

But she couldn’t stop. She cried and cried. “Is it all right,Anne? Is it all right?”

He picked her up and carried her outside. Flashing lights everywhere. “Oh,Anne.” But she said the name softly now, and soon got hold of herself.

“I can walk.”

“You’re sure?” He watched her carefully, his face softened now, close to hers.

“Yes.”

He put her gently down. Nora ran up from a squad car, took Francie in her arms. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Whose was it?”

“Not yours, sugar, not yours.”

Would she ever be able to talk herself into that?

Someone in the house said, “Open the windows.”

36

F
rancie didn’t hear from Savard until the spring, a few days after Nora’s wedding; she thought she knew why he’d waited. “Read about it in the
Globe
,” he said. “Were you there?”

“Of course.”

“Nice time?”

“Very.”

“I’m not married, myself.”

There was a silence.

“Ice is breaking up,” Savard said at last.

“You called to tell me that?”

“Not really. I wondered if you were interested in bears.”

“I know nothing about them.”

“Good. Maybe you’d come up here and take a look at something for me.”

Francie went. Savard met her in Lawton Center, shook her hand. His was big and warm, full of latent strength but reserved at the same time, if she could read that much in a handshake. “You’re aware of this supposed resemblance to my former wife?” he said, his gaze on Francie’s face.

“Yes.”

“I don’t see it at all.”

He drove her in the Bronco out to his cabin on Little Joe Lake. The radio was on.

“—and we’re delighted to welcome a new station to the
Intimately Yours
network today, KPLA in Los Angeles.My name’s—”

Savard switched it off. With Em in the house: that was the part Francie still hadn’t been able to understand. At that moment, the same moment she realized Savard must have had the radio on for a purpose, she remembered something Anne had said, just before asking for a surefire recipe:
He cares so much about his career
. Maybe in the end Em had come second, not first. The burning-up feeling, which had accompanied every thought of Ned since that last day in his house, was absent for the first time.

Savard parked by the shore of the lake. It was a clear, windless day, the blue sky reflecting dully off the still-frozen perimeter, brightly off the open water beyond. They got out of the car, approached the little foot-bridge. Francie stopped. “I’m a poor picker of men,” she said.

Savard started to reply, held it inside.

“Go ahead,” Francie said.

“One out of three ain’t bad.”

Francie laughed, her natural reaction, and she let it happen. They walked across the bridge to the cabin, where Savard paused and added, “If I’m not being presumptuous.”

Their eyes met. “Let’s see these bears of yours,” Francie said.

Savard nodded. “But I want your true opinion.”

“Everyone says that.”

“They do?”

“But no one means it.”

Savard went a little pale. He unlocked the door. “After you.”

Francie walked into the cabin and looked around for what seemed to Savard an unendurably long time.

“So?” he said. “Good or bad?”

About this Title

Distraught by a failing marriage, Francie Cullingwood enters into a secret affair with charismatic radio psychologist Ned Demarco. But what seems like a refuge takes a decidedly dark turn. An unfaithful wife. A cheating lover. A loyal friend. A jealous husband. In this stunning thriller, four lives hang in precarious balance—as a cunning killer prepares their roles in A Perfect Crime.

More praise for
A Perfect Crime

“Francie Cullingwood . . . is believable both as a sophisticated art expert and as an unhappily married woman caught up in the thrill of an affair. Her callow lover, his emotionally delicate wife, and their young daughter are also real enough to be your neighbors. The tricky work, though, has gone into the bad guys—Francie’s egomaniacal husband, Roger, and the ex-con named Whitey he recruits to do his killing. Despite the madness of their actions, they remain human-scale monsters.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“[
A Perfect Crime
] confirms Peter Abrahams’s talent—as displayed in
The Fan
—for turning a single character’s obsession and revenge into a peg onto which to hang a plot. It contains tight, seamless storytelling that begs to be turned into a screenplay.”

—Chicago Tribune

“Abrahams has crafted a thoroughly absorbing novel of the decline and fall of a modern marriage—in which murder replaces divorce. The characters ring true, the suspense keeps the pages turning, and the ending is a shocker.
A Perfect Crime
is a perfect thriller.”

—L
ISA
S
COTTOLINE

    Edgar Award–winning author of

    
Rough Justice
and
Legal Tender

“The nonvillains, whose flaws lie within the ordinary human range, are engaging and fully rounded, especially the women. . . . Only when
A
Perfect Crime
is over do we see how Abrahams, a plotter even more skilled than [the villain], has manipulated us. We don’t mind too much, because in this case the conventions of the genre have packaged not only the expected thrills but that always unexpected bonus: good writing.”

—Los Angeles Times

“This literary thriller has a great deal going for it. The characters are as acutely realized as if painted by a photo-realist. . . . The plotting, and the plot twists, are complex and compelling. The dialogue is sharp and almost flawless, exposing facets of character without need for narrative that might slow the pace. And it’s satisfying: there’s sex and violence, but there’s also a subtle sense of the mathematical certainty to the denouement.”

—Booklist
(boxed and starred review)

“
A Perfect Crime
is fast-paced, tense, even witty as it careens to its bloody conclusion. . . . Abrahams weaves a tight web of deception and intrigue.”

—Library Journal

“An extraordinary high-water mark in the art of suspense . . . Abrahams’s method is like close-up magic, tricks done at a table right in front of your eyes. . . . He creates suspense that is nothing less than amazing . . . . Abrahams can do it all. He writes dialogue that sounds like real people talking. He can characterize someone by what he eats for breakfast. He can hide the basis of future plot twists in plain sight. He even creates a shower scene—unbearably frightening, excruciatingly long, and the blackest of black comedy—that will make you forget the one in
Psycho
. He can freeze your blood with a word or two. . . . A wickedly wonderful entertainment.”

—barnesandnoble. com

“Absorbing . . . The tension rises as Abrahams cuts between the plot participants. . . . Abrahams will keep readers very much engaged.”

—Publishers Weekly