Twisted: The Collected Stories (35 page)

He’d be embarrassed because he was acting so paranoid. But then there’d be another little thing, and he’d get suspicious again. Like the wine. Sometimes he’d meet his wife at the door of their spacious Colonial in Westchester County, after she’d been out; he’d walk up to her fast and kiss her hard. She’d act surprised, all the passion and everything. But occasionally he’d smelled wine on her breath. She’d claim she’d been at a church fund-raising meeting at Patty’s or Kit’s. But do you drink wine at church meetings? Dennis Linden didn’t think so.

Dennis’s suspicions of his wife smacked of midlife crisis. But they also made some sense. He was too generous—that was his problem—and the women he’d ended up with in his life had taken advantage of him. He never thought it would be that way with Mary, a sharp, ambitious businesswoman in her own right, but not long after they’d been married, five years ago, he’d started to wonder about her. Nothing big, just being cautious. Sometimes in life you have to be smart.

But he hadn’t really found any proof until about three months ago, in late September—after Dennis had met his best buddy, Sid Farnsworth, for drinks in White Plains.

“I don’t know, I have this feeling she’s seeing
somebody,” Dennis had muttered, hunched over his V&T.

“Who? Mary?” Sid had shook his head. “You’re nuts. She loves you.” The men had known each other since college and Sid was one of the few people who’d be completely straight with Dennis.

“She made this big deal out of going on a business trip to San Francisco last week.”

“Whatta you mean, made a big deal? She didn’t want to go?”

“No, she
did
want to go. But I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.”

“
You
thought it wasn’t a good idea?” Sid hadn’t understood. “Whatta you mean?”

“I was worried she’d get into trouble.”

“Why you think that?”

“ ’Cause she’s a beautiful woman, why else? Everybody’s always flirting with her and coming on to her.”

“Mary?” Sid had laughed. “Gimme a break. Guys flirt with women. If they don’t they’re gay or dead. But she doesn’t flirt back or anything. She’s just . . . nice. She smiles at everybody.”

“Men take it the wrong way and then, bang, it could be a problem. I told her I didn’t want her to go.”

Sid had sipped his beer, cautiously eyeing his friend. “Listen, Denny, you just can’t tell your wife you’re not going to
let
her do something. That’s bad form, man.”

“I know, I know. I didn’t go that far. Just kind of said I didn’t want her to. And she got all upset. Why’d she have to go? Why was it so important?”

“Duh . . . ’cause she’s a senior marketing manager and she needed to go on the trip?” Sid asked sarcastically.

“Except she doesn’t cover the West Coast.”

“My company has its conferences all over the country, Den. So does yours. Has nothing to do with territory . . . You thought she was going to meet somebody? A lover or something?”

“I guess. Yeah, that’s what I was worried about.”

“Get real.”

“I called the hotel every night. Couple times she was out until eleven or so.”

Sid had rolled his eyes. “What, she’s got a curfew? It was a
business
trip, for Christ’s sake. When you’re away, how late do
you
stay out?”

“That’s different.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Different. So why do you think she’s cheating on you?”

Dennis had said, “Just a feeling, I guess. I mean, I don’t know why she would. Look at me. I’m only forty-five. I’m in great shape—check out this gut. Solid as a board. Not a single gray hair. I bring home a good paycheck. I take her out to dinner, movies. . . .”

“Look, all I know is, I cut Doris some slack. She’s my wife and I trust her. Do the same with Mary.”

“You don’t understand,” Dennis had responded sullenly. “I can’t explain it.”

“What I understand,” Sid had laughed, “is that Mary volunteers for the Homeless Coalition, she’s on the church board, she puts together parties like Martha Stewart and she still works a full-time job. She’s a saint.”

“Saints can sin too,” Dennis had snapped.

Sid had whispered, “Look, you’re so worried about it, check up on her. Keep track of where she’s going, how long she’s away. Go through her receipts. Look for the little things.”

“The little things,” Dennis repeated. He smiled. He liked that.

“I tell you, buddy, you’re going to feel like an idiot. She’s
not
cheating on you.”

But the irony was that Sid’s advice didn’t clear Mary at all—not in her husband’s mind. No, he
found
some little things: the trips home from work that took longer than they should have, the funny tone during phone calls, the wine on her breath. . . . All of which fueled his obsession to find out the truth.

And now, tonight, a snowy evening two weeks before Christmas, Dennis found a
big
thing.

It was five-thirty. Mary was still at work and would be late tonight because, she claimed, she had some Christmas shopping to do. Which was fine with him, honey, take all the time you want, because Dennis was ransacking their bedroom. He was searching for something that had been gnawing at him all day.

That morning just before he’d left for work, Dennis had slipped off his shoes and walked quietly past the bedroom where Mary was getting dressed. Dennis peered into the room and saw her take a small red object out of her briefcase and quickly hide it in the bottom drawer of her dresser. He’d waited a moment then stepped into the bedroom. “How’s my
tie?” he asked loudly. She’d jumped and spun around. “You scared me,” she said. But she’d recovered fast. She’d smiled and didn’t glance at either the open briefcase or the dresser.

“Looks fine to me,” she’d said, adjusting the knot, and turned back to the closet to finish dressing.

Dennis had left for his office. He did a little work but spent most of the day brooding, thinking about the red object in the bottom of the dresser. It didn’t help that his boss told him there was a client meeting in Boston next week, would Dennis be able to attend it? It reminded him of Mary’s trip to San Francisco and left him thinking that maybe her trip had been optional too. She probably hadn’t had to go at all. Dennis left the office early and returned home, ran upstairs and ripped open the dresser drawer.

Whatever she’d hidden was gone.

Had she taken it with her? Had she given it to a lover as a Christmas present?

But, no, she hadn’t taken it; after a half hour of prowling through every conceivable hiding place in the room he found what he’d seen. It was a red Christmas card envelope, sealed. After he’d left she’d taken it out of the drawer and put it in the pocket of her black silk robe. There was no name or address on the front.

He cradled the envelope and it seemed to him that the card was a burning ingot. His fingers stung and he could barely lift it, the cardboard square felt so heavy. He went into the bathroom and locked the door, just in case Mary came home early. He turned the envelope over and over in his hands. A dozen
times. Two dozen. He studied it carefully. She hadn’t licked the flap completely; he could pry up most of it but one part was firmly fixed and he couldn’t get it open without tearing the paper.

He dug under the wash basin and he found an old razor blade then spent a half hour carefully scraping away at the glue on the flap.

At six-thirty, with another quarter inch of flap to go, the phone rang and for once he was actually glad to hear Mary’s voice telling him that she’d be late. She said she’d met a friend at the mall and they were going to stop for a drink on the way home. Did Dennis want to join them?

He told her he was too tired, hung up, and hurried back to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, he scraped off the last bit of glue and with shaking hands he opened the flap.

He pulled the card out.

On the front was a picture of a Victorian couple, holding hands and looking out over a snowy backyard as candles glowed around them.

He took a deep breath and opened the card.

It was blank.

And Dennis Linden understood that all his fears were true. There was only one reason to give someone a blank card. She and her lover were too afraid of being caught to write anything—even a harmless note. Hell, now that he thought about it, a blank card was far worse than an inscribed one—the understood message was of such deep love and passion that words wouldn’t convey what they felt.

The little things . . .

Something within his mind clicked and he knew
without a doubt that Mary
was
seeing someone and probably had been for months.

Who?

Somebody at the company, he bet. How could he find out who’d gone with her to San Francisco in September? Maybe he could call the company and pretend to be somebody with an airline, asking about travel records. Or an accountant? Or he could call the men in her company phone directory . . . .

Rage consumed him.

Dennis tore the card into a dozen pieces, flung them across the room, then fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a half hour. Trying to calm himself.

But couldn’t. He kept replaying all the opportunities Mary’d had to cheat on him. Her church bake sales, her drives to and from work, her lunch hours, the nights she and Patty (well, she
claimed
it was Patty) would stay in the city after shopping and a play . . .

The phone rang. Was it her? he wondered. He grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?”

There was a pause. Sid Farnsworth said, “Den? You okay?”

“Not really, no.” He explained what he’d found.

“Just a . . . You said it was blank?”

“Oh, you bet it was.”

“And it wasn’t addressed to anybody?”

“Nope. That’s the point. That’s what makes it so bad.”

Silence. Then his friend said, “Tell you what, Den . . . I’m thinking maybe you shouldn’t be alone right now. How ’bout you meet Doris and me for a drink?”

“I don’t want a goddamn drink. I want the truth!”

“Okay, okay,” Sid said fast. “But you’re sounding a little freaked out, man. Let me come over, we’ll watch the game or something. Or go up the road to Joey’s.”

How could she do this to him? After everything he’d done for her! He’d put food in her mouth, a roof over her, he’d given her a Lexus. He satisfied her in bed. He struggled to keep his temper in check. And the one time he hit her . . . hell, he apologized right after and bought her the car to make up for it. He did all of this for her and she didn’t appreciate it one bit.

Lying whore . . .

Where the hell was she? Where?

“What’d you say, Den? I couldn’t hear you. Listen, I’m on my way—”

He looked at the phone then dropped it into the cradle.

Sid lived only ten minutes away. Dennis had to leave now. He didn’t want to see the man. He didn’t want his friend to talk him out of what he had to do.

Dennis stood up. He went to his dresser and took something that
he’d
hidden not long ago. A Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.

He pulled on his down jacket—a birthday present from Mary last October, one that she’d probably bought on her way to a hotel to meet her lover—and dropped the gun into his pocket. Outside he climbed into his Bronco and sped down the driveway.

Dennis Linden was nobody’s fool.

He knew the location of all the watering holes
between Mary’s office and the house—places she’d be inclined to stop at with a lover. But he also knew where she’d be likely to go on the way home from the mall. (He regularly made stops at many of them just to see if he could catch her.) He hadn’t snared her yet but tonight he felt that luck was on his side.

And he was right.

Mary’s black Lexus was parked outside of the Hudson Inn.

He skidded to a stop in the middle of the driveway and leapt out of the truck. A couple driving toward the exit had to swerve out of his way and they honked at him. He slammed his fist against their hood, shouting, “Go to hell!” They stared in terror. He pulled the gun from his pocket, walked up to the window and peered inside.

Yes, there was his wife: blonde, trim, a heart-shaped face. And she was sitting next to her lover.