Joyride (4 page)

It was part of what had got him here.

He knew that now. He hadn’t at the time.

He wondered if he resented her for that. That hold on him.

It was disconcerting. Like being a kid again who couldn’t handle the raging hormones. No one else had ever brought that out in him to such a degree or sustained it for so long. Not like Carole.

He walked past her sitting in the kitchen in front of the empty cup of coffee right where he’d left her and went down the stairs to the basement.

To bag what was left of Saturday.

He would deal with Carole later. He’d find some way to deal with her. Coach her, reassure her. He had to.

First things first.

It was a slow night and Wayne noticed them the minute they walked in the restaurant.

From then on it was hard to pay attention to his customers. So it was just as well there were only a few of them.

He felt almost as excited as he had back on the mountain. He was watching two people who had killed somebody go about their business as though nothing had happened, sitting not twenty-five feet away from him in their little alcove and ordering from the same menu as everybody else in there, as the old couple behind them and the family of four and the three yuppie banker types across the room.

Phenomenal!

It was just before nine when they arrived and Lacy, the new girl, was waiting their table, looking cute and trim in her regulation Trapp-family Alpine skirt, puff-sleeved blouse and suspenders. They ordered two drinks each—Bloody Marys for her and Dewars rocks for him. He thought that the woman looked a little haggard, a little strained, but she was dressed very nicely in a red silk blouse and dark-colored skirt, black or navy, with dangly silver earrings and silver bracelets on her wrists. Her hair was dark and long and shiny.

They ate silently, talking just occasionally.

What struck him so hard was that
you would never know.

They looked just like everybody else in there. Ordinary people. Better looking maybe than most couples but other than that…

He could barely keep his mind on Ensminger and Thompson drinking drafts in front of him enough to keep their glasses filled. They were talking about fifties music or some damn thing and tried to involve him now and then but what did he know about fifties music, and what did he care? He much preferred the trio of housewives down at the end of the bar who were nursing their drinks and bitching about their families. They’d leave him a lousy tip. But at least they were leaving him alone.

He took to polishing glasses, mindless activity, so he could watch them.

He saw nothing that would call the slightest attention to them. They were invisible.

He made himself an iced tea with lemon and sipped it through a straw.

By about twenty after ten, they finished eating and were working on their coffee—and Wayne was starting to get nervous.

Dammit!

If there were only some way to get out from behind this bar, then maybe he could follow them. Find out who they were and where they lived.

He had to stop himself from snapping at Ensminger when he ordered another beer. Not that the fucking idiot would notice, anyway. He was already more than halfway in the bag. He hoped he wrapped his fucking Honda Civic around a goddamn tree.

He was a slave to this place!

None of the waitresses could cover for him. And none of the other bartenders were on tonight.

He was on his own.

It wasn’t fair. To be this close. To the mystery. To knowing them.

To finding out what it felt like.

He knew by now that eventually he had to talk to them. His life, his happiness and sanity, depended upon it.

He’d thought of literally nothing else for two nights running. There was something he needed from them. He didn’t know what it was exactly, but something. Poking and prodding its way into his sleep, into his daydreams. He met the feeling coming and going. It was everywhere.

Sure, probably there’d be other times. Other chances. They’d come in again or at least the man would, he had in the past and there was every reason to figure he would again. It could be weeks, though. Months!

He felt a tightness in his throat.

Something wanted saying.

Something wanted doing.

He shoved Ensminger’s beer in front of him, took a five out of the man’s change and went to the register, scooped a dollar and a half out of the cash drawer and slapped it down on the bar.

And then looked back to their table.

And smiled.

Because Lacy was standing in front of them. Polite and smiling, accepting the man’s credit card. His Visa or his MasterCard.

Which meant he didn’t have to follow them.

Because the card would have a name. And the card would come to him. To the register.

The name that was on the card would be in the telephone book.

It had to be.

“Buy you one?” he said to Ensminger and Thompson.

They looked at him. Wayne was buying?

He knew that look. They were going into the book for that.

RETAL.

It didn’t matter. He still felt expansive.

He considered that it wasn’t going to hurt his tip any either.

He poured the beers even though Ensminger was only half-finished with the one he’d just served him and grinning,
who the hell cared how he looked to them?
waited for Lacy.

Lieutenant Joseph Rule brushed some imaginary lint off his slacks and regarded his therapist from across the room. Marty as usual was getting right to the point.

Some days, he thought, I could deck you. You strike like a goddamn snake.

“What did she
say
to me?” he said.

Marty didn’t look like a therapist. He was built like a small Black Angus bull actually and if Rule did decide to deck him he probably should get an upgrade on his medical insurance before he tried.

“She told me to go away, basically. Not to call so much, not to go out there for a while. That she needed to get on with her life.”

Marty raised his eyebrows and nodded. The eyebrows and the nod were a cinch to translate.
Well, she probably does, doesn’t she?

“I told her I understood. That I should probably get on with my life too.”

“You said that?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you mean it?”

He’d thought about that.

The first time he and Ann had separated three months ago he thought he’d go crazy. He could get through his workday all right but after that all he wanted to do was go home and drink. Which most nights is what he did.

He called her constantly, Vermont to California, every night while he was only on his second or third vodka and still sober enough to make some sense. He guessed she’d heard his pain and maybe still had some hopes for the two of them, that he still might eventually work out his problem, his unwillingness to commit to her and her daughter Chrissie full-time—and finally, last month, she suggested he come out again and visit.

He had some vacation time coming.

He’d jumped at the chance.

It was some vacation.

It was all of two days before everything surfaced again.

“Yeah, I think I did mean it. I think it finally got through to me, the kind of hell I was putting her through, six years of me coming and going all the time. Here two days and gone five, here three days and gone four. She went all the way to California to get away from that. She said things to me like, Chrissie and I are always saying to each other, when Joe comes out we’ll do this, we’ll do that. We’ll go to Disneyland. Always putting things off because they
like
doing things with me but the point is they’re
not doing them.
Because I’m not there. I’m here.”

“Yes, but I don’t get it. What’s that got to do with you getting on with your own life?”

“Maybe I just saw her point this time. I’m not going to change. I’m just stopping
them
from changing. When they probably need to. I think I just accepted the inevitable. Who I am. What I am. I’m fucked. That’s all.”

“You’re not fucked.”

“Oh no? Then what am I doing sitting here paying you seventy bucks an hour?”

“You’re paying me so you don’t
get
fucked.”

“By whom?”

“By you. Joe Rule.”

Marty shifted in his plush black leather chair, starting to get up, the signal that their hour was over. There was a clock on the wall directly over Rule’s head and he’d often tried to catch the man’s eyes going up there but he never had. He thought there was something sort of talented about that.

“Hey, we finally got through one. A whole session. How about that.”

The beeper went off in his jacket pocket.

He flicked it off and laughed.

“Almost.”

Marty shrugged. “The only thing left to do is to hand me the check. We got through it.”

Rule fished the check out of his wallet. “Here. Toward that place at the Vineyard.”

“I already have a place at the Vineyard.”

“You don’t just rent anymore?”

“Not since last year.”

“Hell. Some cop. I don’t know shit about you.”

“You’re not supposed to.”

“Mind if I use the phone?”

“Do I ever?”

Rule dialed in. He got Rita on the desk and then Covitski.

“What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“Never mind where I am. What’s up?”

“Okay, fine. Be a pain in the ass. You’ve been leaning on a guy named Howard Gardner. Keeps fucking around on a restraining order. You and the ex have been in touch a few times, am I right?”

“Right.”

“Well, see, if I knew where you were, I might ask you to go on over there and have a little conversation with her. I mean, if you’re not out in Jersey or Connecticut or something. You know, if you’re close by. I don’t want this to be inconvenient for you, you know?”

“Enough, Covitski. What’s the problem?”

“Secretary over at the—what is it?—Inn at Green Gables, resort he owns, says he didn’t show up for work today and didn’t call in. Says this is very unusual for the gentleman. She’s been trying his condo and his car phone all day. Nothing. So I figured…”

“You figured you could hit me with this sack of shit while you go out for lunch. Why’s anybody bothering with this, anyway? How long’s he been missing, four hours? Christ, I know the guy. He’s rich and spoiled and he’ll fuck anything that doesn’t walk on all fours. Forget the wife. Check his cocktail waitresses. Hold on a minute.”

He turned to Marty. Cupped his hand over the mouthpiece.

“Is somebody waiting outside?”

Marty was sitting again. He’d lit up a Marlboro. Rule liked that about the man. He never smoked during sessions, but he did before and after. You smelled it when you walked into the room. If you minded the smoke, you got yourself another therapist. Simple as that.

Marty nodded. “Yes. Take your time, though.”

He knew that was bullshit. For Marty more than most people time was definitely money.

“All right,” Rule said into the phone. “I’ll go out there. But I’m putting this on your tab, understand me?”

“Sure, Joe.”

He hung up the phone.

“Thanks, Marty. I’ll call you when I know what the rest of the week looks like, okay?”

“Fine.” He got up and opened the door. “How’s the dolls’ house coming?”

In his spare time, such as it was, Rule was building Chrissie a dollhouse, working out in his garage. He had been for over a year now, since long before the two of them had left Vermont. He saw no reason to stop now that he and Ann were quits. It hadn’t been Chrissie’s idea.

Though how in hell he was going to pack it up eventually and ship it out to her was a little beyond him. The damn thing weighed a ton.

“Exterior’s finished. I’m papering the walls and laying in the molding.”

In fact his work on the house was two bedrooms and a second-floor hallway from completion. For some reason he didn’t feel like telling Marty that.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

The drive to Barstow was normally only ten minutes straight up 100 North. But they finally had a warm clear day so there were summer tourists out doing what tourists did, antiquing, admiring the scenery, heading for the resorts along Mount Haggarty. License plates from New York, Florida, and Massachusetts dawdled ahead of him. It was nothing like ski season or even the fall foliage season but it slowed him down a little.

He had time to admire the mountain the Abnaki Indians had called Mose-de-be-Wadso—Head Like a Moose—braced with cumulus clouds. Rule had never really seen the moose there. He didn’t figure he was missing anything. He thought that a moose ranked right up with
the anteater as one of the ugliest animals that ever lived and that the mountain was much prettier than that.

He went straight through the blinking light at the center of town, turned right at Snow’s grocery and began to climb.

The road didn’t look like much at first but that was deceptive. If you lived up here you were talking a quarter million in property minimum, even with the damn Republicans and the economy kicking hell out of housing. As you climbed the homes got bigger, the parcels of land more extensive. The Gardner place was about three-quarters of the way up. Which meant that Carole Gardner was looking at about two and a half million and change in real estate alone.

Rule didn’t ordinarily sympathize much with somebody worth that kind of money but in the case of Carole Gardner he’d already made an exception.

The woman had married the Real Estate Mogul From Hell.

There was no other way to put it. The man was arrogant, drunk, and abusive. Into knives and guns and kinky sex. Often together.

Howard Gardner considered himself an aristocrat.

Rule recalled him vividly. He’d had the pleasure of serving him a restraining order—then later of prying him off her lawn, loaded, early one morning. Then still later, of arresting him.

From what he’d learned—not just from Howard’s wife but from people who knew them both—the marriage had existed largely as a reign of terror. Carole was Howard’s partner, half owner of the resort and supposedly very strong on the financial side, while Howard rode herd over his staff and did the political and social schmoozing.

He supposed they must have been a pretty good team for a while. One day they turned around and they were rich.

She bought the big house on Stirrup Iron Road. Howard started drinking and fucking around like his idol was Teddy Kennedy.

She complained to him about it. Once.

He put her in the hospital with a broken rib.

That was the beginning.

Rule didn’t fully understand the battered wife syndrome but he knew it when he saw it. When Carole first got up the nerve to talk to somebody in the department about Howard, she talked first to Officer Joyce Clarke and then she talked to Rule. And that was what he saw. A successful, intelligent woman so demoralized she could barely speak to them above a whisper. They both advised her to press charges. Advised it strongly.

She said she’d consider it.

She went home.

That night he tied her facedown to the bed, raped her, and went at her with belt and belt buckle until her back, legs and butt were so bloody she threw out the sheets in the morning. He passed out drunk on top of her. In the morning he untied her and went to work.

While Howard was working she was busy too.

Something about this last one, something about him lying there on top of her, lying in her blood all night, had finally gotten to her.

She changed the locks, filed for a restraining order and got herself a lawyer.

Rule remembered serving the order.

Gardner was sitting at the bar over at Hunger Mountain talking to George Hammond and Bob Walker, two
brand-new Barstow city council men, telling them a story about a blind bank robber over in West Guilford who had pulled his stickup and then asked the teller to please walk him to the door, he was nervous and he was blind, he couldn’t remember exactly where the door was. The teller refused and phoned the police while the guy walked around bumping into walls trying to find his way out of there.

Rule knew the story. He even knew the arresting officer. Gardner and the council men thought it was a pretty funny story, and so did he. Only now with Howard telling it, it also struck him as cruel.

“You know the one about the real-estate developer who thinks he’s a prize stud?” he said.

Gardner looked like he’d swallowed something still alive and twitching.

“No,” he said. “What.”

“He got gelded in the courts,” said Rule. And handed him the order.

It should have ended with that, but it didn’t.

Gardner after the divorce was as bad as Gardner before the divorce. Worse.

He’d bought her out of Green Gables as part of the settlement and she’d taken up with a man named Lee Edwards, Howard’s one-time manager over at the Inn and then, since meeting her, manager at Woodchip Pines. A step down but what the hell. She had plenty for both of them.

The problem was that Howard wasn’t leaving her alone. He acted like he fully expected her back, Edwards or no Edwards.

He’d even held onto a quarter-million-dollar insurance policy in her name.

Rule thought the guy was crazy.

He thought that with an ego that big Howard could probably be president someday…

He pulled into the circular driveway and cut the motor. His old Chrysler wagon coughed once and then obeyed. He sat in silence for a moment, her white BMW parked in front of him like somebody’s snooty cousin.

The house stood on a green, well-tended ridge with about three acres of woodland rolling down the hill behind it. He’d been inside a couple of times. The interior was light and elegant, if a little too modern for his tastes and a lot too sprawling. Four bedrooms, two floors. Long and wide. Imported Italian marble sinks with slim gold faucets in the bathrooms. Restaurant-size refrigerator in the kitchen. A circular bed and massive new four-posters of brass and mahogany. Sauna and Jacuzzi.

He remembered pulling Howard off the lawn one winter at four in the morning, the man’s voice carrying for blocks through the clear, crisp air and empty streets. He was calling her a whore one minute and telling her she’d come crawling back to him the next. Waving a liter bottle of Glenlivet with about an inch left in the bottle.

“Come on, Howard,” Rule had said and took him by the arm. It was an unexpectedly muscular arm beneath the rumpled, hand-tailored jacket.

“She loves it.” He grinned. “She called you? She called the cops? Hey, that’s just a game she plays.”

“Sure,” Rule said and cuffed him.

Howard looked surprised. Then he nodded.

“You know what?” he said. “You’re very efficient. I like you. You wanna job?”

He remembered her standing at the door, a beautiful woman, haggard and worn. Edwards standing behind
her, holding onto her shoulders as though he was afraid she might break.

She didn’t break. But that wasn’t the end of it either.

He went through Howard’s file in his head.

He’d harassed them by phone every night for two months running, calling at all hours of the morning. Threats. Obscenities. The usual. Except that Howard really had a flair for it.
I’m going to carve you slit to slit,
he told her,
from cunt to lips. Then I’m going to pull you open and fuck your liver.

What a guy.

She changed her number. Twice. Both times Howard found it. Finally they put a tracer on her phone. The calls stopped dead. They removed it after two weeks and they started up again. Rule didn’t know how he knew, but he did.