FrostLine (22 page)

Chapter 21

The kissing started on the wrong side of the screen door. It was long and hungry and when we finally got inside, we were kind of bitten up. Rubbing alcohol occasioned rubbing.

Our fall into bed was the culmination of a slow tumble that had started last winter at that lunch at Fox Trot. It was worth the wait.

If you tumble into a fall, what happens next? Fling? Swoop? Dive. Plunge. Immerse. Emerge.

“Don't stop!”

We left the lights on. We drank a little beer. We demolished my stash of sensible protection. We raided hers. Deep in the night we got hungry and we went down to the kitchen and I made omelets. And though I garnished them with my last can of
pâté de fois gras
, I doubt we tasted them any more than reconnaissance jets refueling in the air.

Partway up the stairs—old friends by now—we grew impatient, and acrobatic. DaNang, who had taken a shine to Julia, thumped his tail enthusiastically. I asked him to go out and hunt rattlesnakes. Back in bed, I told Julia she was the strongest woman I'd ever known. Her sleek arms and ripply legs were hard with muscle. She benched-pressed me to prove my point, and told me she worked out to burn excess sexual energy. I told her how glad I was the regimen hadn't worked. While she rested, I turned us over and practiced curls.

Birds woke us and we slipped together like we'd known how since the Ice Age. I was gone after that, like a skydiver minus chute, who had enjoyed every second of the trip. Suddenly, I awakened, thinking how wonderful life was, and only gradually realizing that something was wrong.

Julia was curled on the far side of the mattress, her body tight, and shaking with sobs.

I reached for her. She stiffened. I went to hold her. She pulled away.

“Don't.”

“What's the matter?”

“Please don't.”

I climbed out of the bed, walked around it, and sat on the floor where I could see her face. I kept my hands to myself and said, “If it helps at all, you've made one person very happy.”

“Great. You're happy. That's just wonderful.”

“Well, I am.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“Up until just now I thought you felt great.”

“It was great. Thanks a lot.”

“I've heard sweeter tones from sergeants of firing squads.”

“Would you please just leave me alone. I'll be okay in awhile. I really will.”

I retreated to the kitchen figuring, okay, she's feeling guilty about King, or mad at herself for betraying him, or mad at me for seducing her into it. I brewed some coffee and brought it upstairs, hers in a covered mug. She had curled under the sheet, small as a child. When I eased back into bed, she took the sip offered, then tentatively pillowed her head on my thigh and closed her eyes. Her face was streaked with tears and new ones kept creeping from her lashes.

I think if murdering someone would have made her happy I'd have done it on the spot. She let me stroke her hair. After awhile, I asked, “Can you talk?”

“I don't want to.”

I waited some more. “Mind if I guess?”

“Yes, I do mind.”

“It might help.”

“Just because I slept with you doesn't give you the right to know my whole dammed life.”

“I don't want to know your whole dammed life. I just wish you could be happy right here and now.”

“This isn't about you.”

“I was hoping it was about us.”

“Well, it's not,” she snapped angrily.

“So it's about him.”

When was I going to learn to keep my mouth shut? She sat up, bundling herself in the sheet, and glared. “It's about my wasted life. Okay? Not yours. Not his.
My
wasted life. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Your face is bleeding.”

“Just from washing.”

“I'll fix it.” She stalked to the bathroom—a sight to sizzle the retinas—ran warm water on a washcloth and dabbed my cheek. Then she rummaged in the medicine cabinet for Band-Aids and gently covered the cut. Being busy had stopped her tears, and when she was done with the Band-Aid, she kissed around it. “Hurt?”

“No.” In fact, I told her, our night had done wonders for my aches and pains. Better, much better, than Aleve or Jack. Although in the interest of medical science, I wondered whether more testing was in order.

“Could we do it without talking?”

I nodded.

***

When next she woke, she said, “You're smiling.”

“Yup.”

She sat up and inspected the Band-Aid. “I hope you don't have plans to get punched before this heals.”

“I'm planning to spend the rest of the year in this bed with you.”

“Tell me it's not past nine.”

“Eight-thirty.”

“I gotta go.”

“That door is barred.”

“Oh, I wish.” She spotted the covered mug. “For me?… Oh, God. Thank you. You even make coffee.” She looked around my bedroom. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

“Burned 'em,” I said. I showed her the shower and gave her a towel and a toothbrush and had fresh coffee ready when she came out. This was one houseguest I wanted coming back.

I was surprised, considering the time, that she accepted my offer for breakfast. Coffee, toast, and Aunt Connie's strawberry preserves.

“So what are
you
doing today?”

“Reminiscing.”

“You sweet thing. No more fights?”

“I think I'll make it a phone and paperwork day.”

Ollie was on my list. I had to build up a timeline for the hours the state trooper could have killed Dicky and dynamited the dam. No way to get a look at his log for the weekend of the Fox Trot party. But I could read the police reports in the
Clarion
to find the various miscreants Ollie had nailed speeding, cited for failure to maintain control of their vehicles or for making a restricted turn—his two favorite results for his traffic accident investigations—and arrested for beating up their wives.

And while I was in, check out Henry King's government status with the Admiral, which would entail waiting around for return calls.

Julia stroked the head DaNang had dropped on her lap. “Real estate or Mr. Butler?”

“There isn't much real estate in late August. I've got plenty of time for Butler.”

“Well, I'll push Henry today. Can I tell him what you're doing?”

I'd been wondering about that all night. “There are a couple of theories going around that maybe Dicky Butler didn't blow the dam.”

“Isn't that the state police theory?”

“The cop theory says Mr. Butler helped Dicky, which makes him an accessory. Another theory says Mr. Butler blew the dam alone—and had the incredibly bad luck to accidentally kill his son in the process.”

“Coincidence aside, that has a logical ring to it. Is there another theory?”

“Neither of them did it.”

“What?” She stopped patting. DaNang groaned and nearly turned over the table as he tried to get his head under her hand again. Julia asked, “Who, then?”

“It's just possible that Dicky was already dead and his killer blew it up on top of him to get rid of the body.”

“Are you serious?”

“They could count on a favorable post mortem.”

“Is this your theory or the cops' theory?”

“I
thought
it was my theory. I worked it up with Tim Hall and Ira. But every place I go to ask a question Detective-Sergeant Boyce and weaselly sidekick are there ahead of me.”

Assuming the worst—King killed Dicky, and Julia reported everything to him—he'd at least have to wonder whether the sudden death of an unarmed real estate agent would solve all his problems.

“Is the weasel Bender?”

“You've met.”

“They were up at Fox Trot.”

“When?”

“Well, the day of the explosion, of course. And several times since.”

“What did they ask?”

Julia shrugged. “Josh dealt with them. He said they were following up on the explosion.”

“Speaking of Josh. He warned me off you, you should know.”

“You didn't listen.”

“Does he do that often?”

“You're the first,” she smiled. “He knows me too well.”

“Are you safe around him? I mean, is he obsessed or something?”

“Don't worry about me, Ben. If I didn't feel safe Henry would fire him.”

Julia looked at her diamond-crusted watch. She had carried it in her bag, last night. It would have been ostentatious in the Yankee Drover. And scratchy in bed. But I recalled my years of sending ladies Rolexes instead of roses, and couldn't help but notice room on her other wrist for a Cartier bracelet.

“Gotta go. Thanks for a great time.” She kissed me on the mouth. “Many great times.”

“I'll call you,” I said.

“Listen, I'm sorry about before.”

“Don't be. You've got a lot of balls in the air—Oh, Jeez, that sounds—I meant—”

Julia laughed. “You're blushing.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, I am. You deserve better. I'm really mad at myself for taking it out on you.”

She scooped her flowers off the kitchen table and cradled them to her breast. “It's like there's two of me. Rational and irrational. I'm caught between them—and so are you.”

One last kiss. Then another, interrupted when Alison banged on the screen door. “DaNang? Walk time! Oh….Ben, what happened to your face?”

“Slipped in the shower. Come in. Come in.”

She came, downcast eyes taking in the flowers and the breakfast dishes.

“Alison, I'd like you to meet Ms. Devlin. Julia, this is Alison Mealy, my neighbor.”

Alison extended her hand, as I had taught her, and said, “How do you do?”

Julia shook her hand and said, “Oh, I've heard so much about you. How are your riding lessons coming along?”

Alison shuffled her sneakers and mumbled that they were going to start jumps today.

“Good luck. It's very nice to meet you. Bye, Ben. We'll talk.”

Alison watched her hurry down the drive. “Is she buying a house?”

“If I'm lucky.”

“She's kind of skinny.”

“She works out a lot.”

Alison's gaze swept again the toast plates for two. “Do you trust her?”

“I beg pardon?”

“She wouldn't look me in the eye.”

“Maybe she was surprised to see you just then.”

“I don't like her.”

“She's very nice,” I said, gently.

It had taken her ages to cotton to Marian and then only because she adored Marian's five-year-old, Jason. She was polite to my friend Rita, but never warm, though a ride in Rita's Jag convertible had melted her some.

“You haven't said anything about my hair,” she said.

“I noticed it's longer.”

“You did?”

“Sure.”

She laid a hand partway down her shoulder. “When it gets to here, Vicky's going to make me curls.”

“Excellent,” I said. “There isn't anyone who knows more about curls than Vicky.”

She was loyal to Vicky. Vicky who did her hair for her. Vicky who let her watch her make up. Vicky whom Aunt Connie said Ben ought to marry before he lost an excellent woman.

She tugged at her hair as if to accelerate the growth. “Can I ask you something, Ben?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you trust her?”

“Julia? Because we're very similar. We think alike.”

“Oh, that's a great reason.”

“DaNang likes her.”

“She probably fed him behind your back. Let's go, DaNang! You traitor.”

“Hey, Alison! Where's that
Clarion
I was saving?”

“Under his dish.”

The Police Report indicated that Trooper Moody had had an unusually busy weekend, even before the biggest dam in his territory was blown to bits. There'd been a slew of traffic accidents and several break-ins. On top of that, Plainfield Barracks had issued him a new laser speed detector, which he had put to enthusiastic use. Scooter had published a photograph of him pointing the damned thing at the camera like a Klingon death ray. It had worked so well that I was going to need help tracking down everyone he'd nailed.

I telephoned Aunt Connie and read her a list of speeders starting with Mildred Gill and ending with Al Bell.

“I read all that in the
Clarion
,” she said. “Are you aware that none of these people are younger than seventy-five?”

“I'm giving you the older ones.”

“People our age don't speed.”

“The laser doesn't lie,” I said. “And apparently it allows him to get you coming or going, which you might remember next time you unleash your Lincoln.” (Her thirty-year-old Continental was powered by a pre-pollution-control, pre-guzzler-tax engine Lincoln had built to compete with NASA's moon shots.)

“Just ask what time were they stopped? How long did it take Ollie to write the ticket? And what was his mood?”

“Triumphant, I'd imagine.”

“Please don't put words in people's mouths. Just get their impressions.”

“They'll get the impression that I'm the biggest busybody on Main Street.”

I then got on the phone to several younger ticket recipients whom I knew personally. Indignation ran high, shame low. Steve LaFrance's “Thirty-two fucking miles an hour in a thirty zone,” pretty much capsulized their mood. As to Ollie's mood, smug and gloating were terms repeated frequently.

All remarked, too, on the briskness of the encounter. He had wasted no time on unnecessary registration checks and less on his famous lecture that concluded with an ominous, “I don't want to have to pull you over again,” when you both knew he just couldn't wait to pull you over again.

I phoned my condolences to a couple of Danbury Hospital patients recovering from a River Road head-on. Ollie, it seemed, had proved Solomonic in an attempt to hasten the investigation, slapping both colliders with “excessive speed for conditions.” A Jervis had been nailed for DWI. Abe, a half-breed—Jervis father, Chevalley mother—who might talk to me. No way I could phone him, however. The telephone company has never run lines into their woods, knowing full well they'd be pulled down for copper. And while, like any respectable modern criminals, they used cell phones and beepers, these numbers were guarded closely. So I drove out to the River End Bar, a dirt-road juke-joint in the deep north woods that made the White Birch look like the Rainbow Room, hoping to find Abe Jervis bonded to a barstool.