Except for the Bones (6 page)

Three years ago, he’d printed
BM
on another slip of paper. It had happened less than a month before his marriage to Millicent. The man—Gordon Betts—had once driven for him, and had been fired for drinking. A college dropout with a high IQ, Betts had been knowledgeable about investments. He’d also been a talented, resourceful eavesdropper who’d remembered snatches of overheard conversations, and played the market accordingly.

Betts was also knowledgeable about the penalties for insider trading. Since he was being fired, he’d said, with nothing to lose, why shouldn’t he tell the authorities what he knew about Daniels’s “little shortcuts”? And he’d smiled: that fresh-faced, all-American smile.

At about that time Daniels had learned that Bruce Kane had once been arrested for flying drugs into the country. There’d been juvenile offenses, too, and one arrest for aggravated assault, part of a consistent pattern of violence. But Kane had never been convicted, and he’d been allowed to volunteer for Vietnam, where he’d learned to fly. He was a natural pilot. And a natural soldier, too: a born killer.

At first Daniels had considered firing Kane: there were, after all, scores of corporate pilots available. Then he’d realized that one problem could cancel out the other. The conversation with Kane had taken almost two hours out of a busy day. But never had he concluded a more effective, more subtle negotiation. He’d begun by expressing a desire to help in Kane’s “rehabilitation.” Two hours later, they’d had a straight business deal: for a five-thousand-dollar cash bonus, Kane would work Betts over, threatening to kill him if he tried blackmail again.

Three days later, Kane called him on his private line to say that “the problem” was taken care of. Later he’d learned that Betts had been in intensive care for three days.

He heard the note of the engines change, felt the angle of the floor shift. They were letting down for the landing at Westboro. He locked his chair to face backward and fastened his seat belt securely. Then he reached for the air-to-ground telephone, touch-toned Jackie’s private number.

“This is Jackie Miller.” As always, she spoke crisply, concisely. Without Jackie—someone like Jackie—he would never have done it: gone so far, so fast.

“Yes. Jackie. How’re we doing?”

“Chester should be arriving at the airport just about now. Are you down yet?”

“We’re on the approach, should be down in ten minutes. I want you to contact Chester. Tell him I’ll meet him outside the terminal, at the curb. I don’t want him to drive out on the ramp.”

“Right.” In her voice he caught a hint of puzzlement. A limo on the ramp to meet an arriving CEO was, after all, de rigueur.

“What’s my day look like?”

“I’ve got Kent Williams scheduled for two-thirty.” She let a delicately timed beat pass. Then: “He’s coming here.”

Appreciatively, he smiled. Originally, the meeting had been planned for Williams’s hotel. As always, Jackie had anticipated, taken the initiative, given him the gift of time. God, how it steadied him, hearing her calm, measured voice. He tried to express his appreciation in the warmth of his own voice as he said, “You charmed him, Jackie.” She made no reply. It was a complacent, self-confident silence. Yes, Jackie had it. And, yes, Jackie knew it. “I was going to offer Mr. Williams a ride out to Los Angeles in the Beechcraft,” she said. “Shall I? You won’t need it for four days. At least—” A delicate pause.

Delicate? Why?

“At least,” she continued, “not for business. Not that I can see.”

Had her inflection changed?

Did the change signify some secret agenda, some preliminary positioning, perhaps to distance herself from him—from what could happen? Had Jeff Weston called the police? Was it possible that the police had called from the Cape? Was there a message waiting for him? A slip of paper instructing him to call Joe Farnsworth, the overweight, ineffectual chief of Carter’s Landing’s police department?

If it happened, that’s how it would begin: with a telephone message. Good or bad, it all began with a telephone message.

“I’ll have to talk to Bruce. Don’t mention a ride to Kent.”

“Yes sir.”

He said good-bye, cradled the telephone. He was aware that Kane was gradually reducing power, beginning the approach. Off to the port side, Long Island Sound was materializing through a thin layer of haze. It was a perfect day for flying. In the cockpit, Kane was busy at the controls, bringing the plane steadily down. In New York, midtown, Jackie was coping with the unexpected change in scheduling. Uptown, Millicent would be with her hairdresser or dress designer, girding for her role in the museum banquet, a milestone that would surely lead to the chairmanship of the museum board, her most coveted prize.

While, on the Cape, Carolyn slept in a shallow grave.

As a favor, his civic duty, he’d helped with the financing of the overpass that would someday cover the landfill. He knew, therefore, that someday her body would rest beneath uncounted tons of concrete.

But he also knew that, as the trucks came to dump their loads and the bulldozers leveled the mounds left by the trucks, the blade of a bulldozer could uncover the body. It was a possibility, a short-run gamble. Long run, though, the concrete would set him free.

But never, he knew, would he be free from last night’s images: Carolyn, lying dead in her own blood. Carolyn, wrapped in the makeshift shroud. Carolyn, her body moving with the motion of the Cherokee—as if she were alive, and struggling weakly against the rope that bound her.

Carolyn—tumbling into the grave that had taken him more than an hour to dig, even in the soft, newly dumped dirt of the fill.

And, the final image: a hand or a foot or a head, turned up by the bulldozer blade.

Carolyn, rising …

“W
HERE’S CHESTER?” KANE ASKED
as he came down the Beechcraft’s air stairs to stand beside Daniels on the tarmac. Kane wore khaki trousers, a light cotton sports shirt, scuffed running shoes. He was medium height, medium stature. The short sleeves of the sports shirt revealed thick, muscular arms. He habitually carried his hands away from his body, as if he were prepared to move quickly, decisively. His sandy hair was thinning fast on top. His gray eyes were flat, revealing nothing. His manner was both watchful and self-sufficient. His face was closed. A white scar ran across his forehead, an inch above his dark, thick eyebrows. His mouth was small, his lips slightly misshapen.

“Chester’s picking me up outside.” Daniels gestured to a pair of airport line attendants waiting beside their motorized tug for instructions from Kane. “Get the airplane taken care of, then meet me in the—” About to say “the lounge,” he broke off. Then: “I’ll meet you in the bar. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“When’ll we be flying again?”

“The airplane might be going to Los Angeles tomorrow, but if that happens, you’ll have to get someone else to fly it.”

“Oh?” The question registered both puzzlement and bold displeasure. Kane didn’t like others flying the King Air. “Why’s that?”

“Because there’s—ah—something I want you to do for me, back on the Cape.”

Kane frowned. “The Cape?”

“Finish up here,” Daniels ordered curtly. “Then meet me in the bar. Be as quick as you can.” He turned abruptly. Carrying the attaché case, he walked across the tarmac toward the terminal.

I
MPATIENTLY, DANIELS WAITED FOR
the waitress to bring the beer Kane had ordered. Then he began speaking. The words were clipped and the tempo staccato, the approved mode for the commander delivering his battle plan:

“I don’t have much time, so I’m going to come right to the point. What I want to talk to you about is Carolyn—Miss Estes. You probably didn’t notice it Saturday when we flew up to the Cape, but she was in a pretty strange mood. She was—” The word was out before the terrible realization registered: he’d said
was.
Past tense. But if he corrected himself he compounded the blunder. So, smooth-talking, the maestro of deal-making, he heard himself saying: “She’s pretty heavily into cocaine. You probably don’t know that, but she is. And the past couple of days—” Projecting a wry puzzlement, he shook his head. “The past couple of days, she was really running wild. That’s, ah—” He broke off. Then, the ultimate gamble, he said, “That’s what happened last night. That’s the reason we didn’t go back to New York with you last night.”

“Ah.” Thoughtfully sipping the beer, Kane was nodding. “I was wondering, yeah.” The other man was reacting well within himself. Watching. Waiting. And, plainly, speculating.

“What happened last night,” Daniels said, “she got coked up. Really coked up. About eight o’clock, I think it was. And—well—she started an argument. A fight, really. I mean, she started hitting me. So—” He raised his pinstriped shoulders, a carefully calculated shrug. “So I hit her back. So, Christ, the next thing I know, she’s out the door. She had a set of keys to the Jeep, and she was going to take the goddamn car. And—well …” He was pleased with the pause, with the timing, the tempo. Yes, it would work out. He could feel it, sense it. “Well, I stopped her. I clobbered her. I didn’t have a choice, unless I wanted her to get into that Jeep, which I didn’t. So, Christ, the next thing I know, she’s taken off.”

Kane frowned. “She took off? Where?”

“The last I saw of her, she was walking across the dunes, toward Carter’s Landing. That was about eight-thirty, I guess. Of course, I expected her to come back, but she never did.”

“So she stayed in Carter’s Landing last night …” It was a speculative comment, dubiously delivered.

Once more, Daniels shrugged. “For all I know, she could’ve taken a cab, and gone to New York. I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“So why’re you telling me about it?”

A final pause—one last handhold, surrendered. Then: “It’s about that letter you gave me. That hand-delivered letter.”

Kane made no reply. Instead, he lifted his glass, drank the beer, watched Daniels over the foam-flecked rim of his glass.

“It was from someone named Jeff Weston. I’ve got his phone number. He was—I guess he saw what happened. Maybe he thought I was—” Suddenly his throat closed. But only for a moment. “He might’ve thought I really hurt Carolyn. Seriously. All the noise she was making—shouting and screaming—I can understand how he’d think that. So now he wants to—he wants me to call him. It’s—obviously, it’s blackmail. So what I want, what I’d like you to do, is—” How should he say it? Did he need to say it? Cautiously, covertly, he searched the other man’s face.

No, he didn’t need to say it. All he had to do was wait for Kane to finish his beer, place the glass on the table, and say, “Is it like that driver you had—Gordon Betts? Is that the way you want it handled?”

Conscious of the sudden lightness, of the overwhelming rush of relief, he nodded—once, then once again.

“Same terms?” Kane asked.

“Better.”

“Better?”

“Better. Much better.”

A
S SHE SLID HER
key in the lock and turned the knob, she felt it beginning: the leaden void at the center of herself, the heaviness dragging at her arms, her legs, even the muscles of her neck. If this was home, it was the burden that never ended.

“Diane?” It was her mother’s voice, from down the hallway, from her bedroom, her dressing room. Yes, the timing was right. At four-thirty on a given afternoon, her mother would be dressing to go out. Millicent Crowley Cutler Daniels, exactly forty years old. Gown by Randolph, probably; coiffed by François, probably. And, soon, face by whichever trendy plastic surgeon charged the most. For now, just the face. For now, the boobs and the butt were still doing their jobs, thanks to the daily workouts, and the massages, and the good genes.

Did they still make love, Millicent and Preston Daniels? Did they sweat and grunt and rut on each other, in company with the rest of the race? She’d used to imagine them, locked together. Now she didn’t bother.

“Diane—is that you?”

“It’s me.” She stood motionless in the entrance to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Her bedroom was at the far end of the hallway, the last one on the right. Escape was therefore cut off. Little girl lost.

As, yes, her mother was stepping out of her dressing room. The emerald-green cocktail gown was perfect with the eyes and the hair and the gold sash and gold slippers and the emerald pendant. The face was perfect, too. Affluence on parade, the ultimate personification of the wife as trophy. Without her—or someone like her—the Preston Daniels image would be irreparably flawed.

“So you’re back.”

She lowered her leather tote back to the hallway floor, crossed her arms, tossed back her hair, raised her chin. Saying defiantly: “I’m back. Yes.”

Standing stiff and perfect as a mannequin, hands clasped at her waist, the approved finishing-school posture, her mother spoke in a voice that matched her pose:

“Where’d you go this time, Diane?”

She had no answer. Incredibly, all during the long drive down from the Cape, she’d been unable to decide how to answer. Each plan canceled out the plan just made; doubt had preyed on certainty. One minute she’d felt like the winner, the avenger, the conqueror of Preston Daniels. The next minute—the next instant—she’d felt like the hunted one, the prey.

Who was her target—her victim? Was it Daniels? Or was it really her mother? Were they the same target? Must she destroy them both? Did she really want to destroy her mother? Could she?

Finally she’d turned up the sound system and surrendered herself to the beat of the music and the pulse of the car’s power. Later—here, now—she would lock her door, go to the bookcase and reach behind the books and take out the clear plastic envelope, her stash.

Home was where the stash was.

Did her mother realize that if she’d taken the clear plastic envelope to the Cape, risked taking it, she might never have come home?

“Well?” Still in her finishing-school posture, her mother was now looking at her tiny gold watch. Price: five thousand. Tiffany’s, of course. “Was it the Cape? Did you go to the Cape?”