Darkness peering (15 page)

"You're still pissed off," he said.

"No, I'm not."

"Your face is red."

"From bending over."

He wouldn't touch that one.

"Do these kids a favor, Billy. Stop trying to be their pal." She
strode away, the mess of papers clasped in her arms. Midway across the
room, she turned and drew a deep breath, her features relaxing.
"Listen, I need a favor."

"Anything."

"Could you give me a lift home? My car's in the shop." She fingered
the crucifix, now caught in the fabric of her blouse. "New brake
pads."

"Sure," he said, trying to sound casual while his heart gave a hopeful
beat. "Sure, I can give you a lift."

She smiled. "One other favor?"

"Name it."

"The costumes for the school play? They're at my place. Could you
take them home with you and bring them in on Monday? I'm probably
going to ride my bike."

"Whatever." He smiled back.

Claire's apartment was a mess. It looked as if she'd emptied the
entire contents of every drawer, closet, and shelf onto the floor. She
offered to brew some coffee, and they stood in the kitchenette,
talking. He couldn't imagine sticking his hand in the sink, where
submerged silverware glistened dully in the cold, milky water. There
was a bag of moldy English muffins on the countertop, several
filth-encrusted dishrags, a black banana, various scraps of cellophane
wrapping, and the broken backs of pink Styrofoam packaging.

"I admit it, I'm a pig," she said with a laugh, spinning a bulging
trash bag and tying the top with a twist tie. She set it on the floor
and left it there, then led him into the living room, where she pushed
her dirty laundry off the sofa onto the floor and sat down. He sat
beside her, wondering when the coffee mugs had last seen soap. He
wondered what kind of person could be so sloppy and

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so strict at the same time. What kind of person could love children
so much that she'd stuhbornly resist holding their hands?

"This coffee sucks. I'm sorry." Claire got up and opened the windows,
letting in a cool breeze that ruffled the dying spider plants. "How
about some wine?"

"Really?" he said. "You sure it's okay? I mean, is this professional
and everything?"

"Funny guy." She poured them both a glass of Chablis, then sat down
beside him and kicked off her shoes.

He swallowed some of the tepid Chablis, then studied her
thoughtfully.

"What?" she asked self-consciously, stroking her throat.

"What?"

"What're you looking at?"

"Just you."

"Now you're making me uncomfortable."

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." The wine was sweet.

She shot up from the couch. "Costumes are in the bedroom. I'll get
them."

"Need any help?

"No, that's okay."

He heard her rummaging around in her bedroom and swallowed the rest of
his wine. He got up and followed her in. The bureau top was a junk
pile of toiletries, and rising from this mess was an earring tree,
loops of silver and gold dangling from its plastic branches. On the
floor she'd left a heap of dirty clothes, underpants tangled with jeans
and blouses, a tossed salad of khaki and denim and cotton. She was
rummaging through her closet, an artist's palette of color, and he
could see the hourglass shape of her backside through her clothes.

Claire glanced at him over her shoulder. "They're in here, I swear to
God." She laughed and dove back in.

His hands shook as he walked up behind her, and suddenly

she was handing him the children's costumes. When his arms were full,
he asked, "What's in the red envelope?"

She swung around. "Oh God," she said, face flushing, "you don't wanna
know."

"Yes, I do." He sat on the edge of her bed, sheets stirred like foam
in a whirlpool.

Sitting beside him, she crossed her legs and started to cough. She
coughed so hard, he was afraid she might choke. She opened her leather
bag, took out her inhaler, stuck the nozzle in her mouth and sprayed
three times in rapid succession.

After a moment, the coughing fit passed. She looked at him. "They're
from my ex-boyfriend. We met at a rock concert. I'd just gotten out
of grad school and was feeling kind of rebellious. He rode a
motorcycle and drank Kahlua straight from the bottle. He had this
incredible energy, vast reserves of it, and the best pot around. I
mean, he wasn't afraid of anything.

"But after we moved in together, things changed. I realized something
was wrong ... I mean seriously, terribly wrong with him. I kept
catching him in these lies. At first I thought it was me, that I was
out of sync somehow. Then one day he accused me of moving his stuff
around."

"His stuff?"

"Things on his bureau, I dunno. I was moving his stuff around. We
split up, and ever since, he's been sending me these creepy letters.
Sometimes I read them, sometimes I don't. I probably shouldn't be
reading them at all."

Billy's heart began to pound, a steady throbbing beat. He pictured a
biker with long greasy hair, staring at his hairbrush on the bureau top
Staring at his things. Billy wanted to kiss her, and the first place
he'd kiss her would be the damp, pale skin at the base of her throat.
The place she kept stroking with her hand.

"What do the letters say?"

She gazed at the rug and shrugged. "I don't want to repeat it. I
don't want those words getting out in the open."

"I'll protect you," he said. "I'll protect you from the red
envelopes."

She looked at him and laughed. She threw her head back, and her hair
got caught in the zipper of a raincoat that was spread across the bed.
"Owl" she cried, still laughing, and he dropped the costumes and
reached over to rescue her. He unstuck her hair from the zipper and
kissed her, but not at the base of her throat; he kissed her
sweet-smelling lips. They tasted of medicine.

"Please don't act like I'm not here anymore," he said.

"I won't," she whispered, fervently kissing him back.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Act like you don't like me?"

"I'm sorry," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I'm
self-conscious, is all. I'm very aware of myself and how I'm acting, I
analyze everything. I'm overly aware of everything and everybody ...
it drives me crazy sometimes. I'm an idiot."

"No, no," he said, "I love you self-conscious. I love the way you
touch your gold cross and ... how your lips curl back when you're mad
at me."

"I'm not mad at you. I'm attracted to you. Don't you realize how
nervous you make me?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you."

She was hanging from his neck, licking the sweat from his neck. She
writhed out of her skirt, and he kissed her greedy mouth. She tugged
on his jeans, his stubborn zipper. She peeled out of her blouse and
her hair hissed with static. He kissed her breasts through her skimpy
bra, pawing at the straps. Gasping for air, he nipped at her lips and
chin, then sniffed at her skin like

an animal; suddenly he was all over her. He could barely catch his
breath. They were halfway in the closet now, rolling over shoes and
clothes and crumpled tissue paper. He unhitched her bra and she
gasped, "Wait!"

"What?" He looked at her breathlessly.

"I can't." Her face crumpled as if she were going to cry, but suddenly
she was laughing. "I'm sorry."

"What is it?"

"I'm such a jerk."

"No, you're not. You're not a jerk,"

"Everything's just so traumatic for me."

"It's okay." They collapsed side by side, and the room slowly filled
with their breathing.

"Everything's such a drama." She shook her head and sighed. "I just
think ... I think I need to take it nice and slow. Is that okay?"

"Of course it's okay," he said, smoothing his thumb across her downy
cheek, trying to read her mind. Was this a brushoff? Maybe she didn't
like the way he kissed? "Whatever you say," he said.

"Because ... you know, the last time was such a disaster."

"Sounds like it." His chest hurt.

"I need to move slowly."

"Okay." Was she lying?

"Take it sorta slow, y'know?"

"We'll take it slow."

"I like you." She smiled, and her eyes glistened a little. "I really
do."

"I'm glad," he said, wishing with all his might she meant it.

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE FLISS FARM LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING

out of a storybook. Large white house surrounded by a picket fence,
tall silo beside a big red barn. Acres of green pasture where brown
cows grazed. On this Thursday morning, the second week in October, the
sky was filled with streamer like clouds, crisp autumn air popping
inside her lungs. Rachel drew up the collar of her winter coat, just
recently plucked from the mothballs, and knocked on the door. Neal
Fliss wasn't home. "Go on down to the barn if I'm not in," he'd told
her over the phone, so she skirted the house and descended a sloping
backyard past half a dozen stray cats and entered the barn, where the
air was warm and sweet-smelling from the alfalfa and green hay on the
cows' snorty breath.

The cows were being milked, the machines making sucking sounds.
Swallows darted in and out. She found Neal in a far corner over by the
calf pen. When she got near enough, several calves poked their heads
through the slats of the wooden fence and suckled on her fingers.

"Hey there, pipsqueak," Neal said, never one for formality. He had a
great tousled head of hair and an over bite that used to be cute but
that now made him look much dimmer than he was. He wore a filthy
T-shirt and baggy jeans, and his hands were slick with something liquid
and dark--she didn't want to know what. He wiped them on a rag and
hopped out of the pen, landing hard on his muddy work boots "We can
talk in my office," he said, leading the way.

Neal's office was located in another building just off the main barn,
connected by a chilly hallway. The pasteurization equipment

hummed noisily, alternately cooking and cooling the milk, separating
skim from cream. Neal closed the door behind them and the hum of
machinery grew muffled. She took a seat in a cracked leather chair
while he sat behind his desk, moving stacks of paperwork aside so that
they could see one another. The office smelled of linseed oil and
leather harnesses.

"So what's your liquid lifestyle?" he asked, opening the door of the
mini-fridge, and she noticed his hands were callused. "Chocolate milk?
Perrier? Classic Coke?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine."

"Mind if I have a beer?"

"Go right ahead."

"You haven't changed." He snorted laughter through his nose and
cracked a Samuel Adams.

"You haven't either, much."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Cheers." He guzzled his beer, then
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat back in a relaxed
fashion, except she knew he wasn't relaxed: his foot jiggled nervously
over his crossed leg.

"Thanks for granting this interview."

"Anything for you, doll," he said magnanimously.

She opened her notebook. "The night you dropped Melissa D'Agostino off
on Black Hill Road ... where did you go afterward?"

"Let's see." He squinted into some middle distance. "Ozzie and Dolly
took off, and me and Boomer went over to Boomer's house to play
pool."

"For how long?"

"Couple hours, maybe."

"Boomer's parents were home?"

"Yup." He looked at her over his beer. "Isn't that in the report?
What're you reopening the case for?"

"Because it was never solved."

"Listen, Rachel ..." He sat forward and picked up a snow

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globe from his desk, miniature Santa and sleigh and eight tiny
Guernseys inside. He turned it over, making it snow. "Ask your
brother where he went that night."

"I've already spoken to Billy."

"What'd he say?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you, INeal."

"Well. Ask Billy where he went after we dropped Melissa off."

"He spent the evening with Gillian Dumont."

Neal squinted at her. "Okeydoke."

Her mind raced like an anthill that's been stirred with a stick. "What
d'you mean, jokey-doke'? Are you implying he lied?"

"You're the one who's reopening the case," he said, turning to gaze out
a dust-speckled window. "You know, I was born inside that house. My
dad was born in that house. Grandpa, too. I didn't think I was ever
gonna be a farmer like my old man, and now ... look at me. Farmer
Fliss. Weird, huh? Sometimes I feel like Gary Cooper on acid. You
know what the crazy part is? I love being a farmer. Love it. And it
scares the piss outta me. Because I don't know what's gonna happen in
the future. I think it's gonna get rough."

She remembered how he used to chase her when they were kids,
threatening to pee all over her Sunday school shoes, but he never did.
She took all his curses and insults like the little love missives they
were meant to be.

"You know," he said, "as a farmer, you have to keep getting bigger or
you won't survive. Gotta offset the acreage. The margin income. I
honestly don't know how I'm gonna keep things going."

"Neal," she said, "do you have some information you'd like to share
with me regarding my brother?"

"You know," he said, looking straight at her, "I always thought that
maybe you and me would get together eventually, but we never did.
Isn't that funny? You felt it, too, didn't you, Rachel?"

"Yeah," she admitted, "once. A long time ago."

"Look," he said, smoothing his hand across the wide, worried expanse
of his forehead, "I've got nothing to say that you don't already know
deep down inside."

"Could you be a little more obscure, please?"