Cole Perriman's Terminal Games (24 page)

Nolan smiled slightly. It was Clay, and he could count on Clay to understand that he didn’t want to be bothered right now.

“Hey, guy. Could we keep this short and simple? I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Sure, no problem. I just got back from the DNA joint.”

“They ran the tests?”

“Some of them.”

“So what’s the news? What did they tell you?”

“Well, they can’t say much without a match. But guess what?”

“What?” Nolan asked, shuffling his feet irritably. Clayton obviously hadn’t taken the hint that he wasn’t in the mood for guessing games.

“Gauld’s killer was a woman,” Clayton said.

Nolan staggered slightly, then sat down in a kitchen chair. He felt his heart rate change. He couldn’t tell if it was beating dramatically faster or dangerously slower.

“Are you still there?” Clayton said.

“Yeah. Are they sure?”

“It’s the only thing they
are
sure of at this point. Guess this puts the Hedison woman back in the running, huh? Boy, you’ll never let me live it down if she turns out to be the one. Of course, you could still be wrong.”

“Thanks for calling, Clay,” Nolan said simply.

“Sure,” Clayton said, sounding a little surprised at Nolan’s brevity. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

Nolan hung the phone up gently.

Why did Clay
have to call just now?

The evening had been so perfect, so rare. It had been wonderful to learn that he could still cook for more than one person at a time, that he was capable of entertaining a guest in his own home. It had been so long since he had had such an opportunity. And he had shared thoughts and feelings with her that he had never expected to tell another living soul.

Of all times, why now?

He looked out the kitchen doorway toward the living room. Marianne was turned slightly away from him, facing the fire, lost in its flames. Nolan walked slowly toward her, feeling as if he were moving through some thick gel. Whole days seemed to pass before he found himself standing beside the chair where she was sitting. He sat down on the arm of the chair. It was the closest he had allowed himself to approach her all evening. She looked up at him, her green eyes reflecting the cheerful firelight.

Nolan knew that his life was changing unalterably as every millisecond passed. He had no idea how. All he knew was that it felt terrifying and splendid at the same time.

“Has something happened?” Marianne asked quietly, with a concerned look.

Nolan said nothing for a moment. He took Marianne’s warm hand in his and began to stroke her thin fingers. If Marianne was startled by the gesture, she didn’t show it. Nolan wondered why he wasn’t startled himself.

“Clayton just got word that Renee’s killer was a woman,” Nolan said, almost in a whisper.

Marianne tilted her head slightly. She looked intrigued, but not shocked or surprised.

“How do they know?” she asked.

“They did a test on blood and tissue samples found at the scene.”

“Am I a suspect, then?” she asked calmly, without averting her gaze from his.

“You might be asked to take a DNA test,” he said.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

“Marianne, don’t jump to any decisions.”

“Why?” she asked. “Do you think I’m guilty?”

Nolan smiled at her warmly.

“What do you think I think?” he asked.

Marianne returned his smile.

“This kind of testing is still controversial,” Nolan continued gently. “It might be unreliable. Like a polygraph, you know?”

“I’ll take a polygraph, too,” she said.

“Marianne, listen—”

“Nolan, I want to. If I don’t, I’ll only cloud the issue by remaining a suspect. I’ll get in the way of your search for the real killer. I’ve got to do whatever I can to clear this up. I’ve got to do it for Renee.”

Nolan studied her face for a moment, then reached out and pulled her body against his. She gasped slightly and tucked her head into his chest, clinging to him as he held her. He began gently rubbing her back.

Nolan stared into the fire. He worried that his hands were cold—that she might feel their coldness through her blouse. But her shoulders melted into his fingers, and he realized with surprise that his hands were warm—and more confident than
he
was.

What am I doing? What am I feeling?

It seemed to be loneliness—a distinctive kind of loneliness it took two people to feel. It was a loneliness he could remember experiencing from time to time with Louise. He felt eerily isolated
with
Marianne, about to instigate something both of them might very well regret. He knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, but did that make it right? It seemed too big a decision for only two people to make.

*

You probably should leave now. This can’t be a good idea.

But how could she get up and move away from something this warm, this comfortable? And where did she have to go? Her hotel room? Her home? Did either of those places have rows and rows of lovely pictures and a fine, gentle man who wanted nothing more than someone else with whom to share his wonderful capacity for love? Were either of those places inhabited by happy ghosts, by lives fully lived?

Nolan put his hand on Marianne’s cheek and leaned over and kissed her. A powerful emotion swept over her. She recognized it at once.

Gratitude.

She felt grateful for his evident desire, and deeply, deeply grateful for her own chaotic overload of emotion and sensation—a kind of glorious, dizzying panic sweeping her along like a roller coaster ride. It had been a long, long time since she had felt this way.

“I think it’s too late for me to leave,” she murmured.

“I think so too,” Nolan said, kissing her repeatedly.

But good sense scored one small point before the splendid panic carried her completely away. She drew back from Nolan slightly.

“I didn’t … bring anything,” she stammered.

The words sounded so painfully awkward.

Oh, for the way it happened in the movies, so seamlessly, so gracefully ...

But real life was fleshy, sweaty, and more than a little dangerous, and certain protocols were necessary.

Nolan looked embarrassed, too.

“I’ve got some condoms upstairs,” he said.

“Fine. I’ll go up and use the bathroom,” she said.

“There’s a robe hanging in the bathroom you can use,” Nolan said.

“Thank you.”

Marianne walked upstairs, went into the bathroom, undressed, and washed. Then she found her way into the bedroom, which was lit only by a small lamp on the end table. Nolan was standing by the bed wearing a robe of his own and holding a condom packet in his hand. The covers on the bed were turned neatly down.

Nolan looked at her a bit shyly for a moment, set the packet on the end table, and drew her to him. She could feel his erection against her. Then Nolan led her to the bed and pulled her under the covers. He ran his hands under the robe across her bare flesh.

She closed her eyes and focused on the sheer sensation of his hands searching the surface of her skin, of her own hands running everywhere on his body—over his slightly sweaty skin, through the shaggy fine hair on his head and the curled hair on his chest and the coarser and tightly curled hair surrounding the smooth skin of his cock. She reached across the top of the end table for the packet, tore the damp condom free from the foil, and delicately pulled the sheath over him.

*

It had been so long since Nolan had been with a woman that he feared that their first encounter would be a little peremptory. He expected to be slightly impatient, slightly abrupt. He expected to have to apologize a little afterward, ask her indulgence, promise to be more attentive the next time around.

But the moment he was naked with Marianne, his concerns vanished. Every movement, every touch slowed down, stretched out, prolonged itself. He became lost in their kinesthetic bond as he pressed his mouth on every part of her body and his fingers stroked and caressed her smooth, narrow torso—so alarmingly thin and delicate.

There was no mistaking her growing excitement as he ran his outstretched fingers across her nipples, as the muscles of her belly rose along the heels of his hands. At each point of contact, he felt an electric charge coursing through his own body.

*

Marianne was aware, with some surprise, that Nolan was taking over the process of their lovemaking. He asked no questions, said nothing at all, simply let her responses lead him.

She thought fleetingly of Stephen …

Odd, how he never entered my mind till just this instant.

…
and how sex with him was a negotiation.

Will you do this for me?

What do you want me to do?

There was none of that now. Marianne wrapped her arms around him and lifted her knees on each side of his body. She was surprised at her openness as he varied his pace and direction.

Marianne cried aloud as a deep, shuddering force drove her back arching upward and exploded all the way through her body.

*

When Nolan came, there was no sad awareness of temporality, no aching realization that the moment would quickly be lost and gone. Finally he pulled out of her and flopped over beside her. He pulled off the condom and tossed it into a dish on the bedside table. He rolled onto his back and pulled Marianne’s head onto his shoulder.

*

The flood of sensations ebbed, and Marianne was left with a mild sense of surprise. She was surprised that it had happened, that it had been good, but also that it had been so simple.

The missionary position, for God’s sake.

Sex with Evan had been one experiment after another, with countless positions, locations, and roles. It had taken variety to keep Evan excited, and Marianne did her best to accommodate him. Evan devised all the scripts and plans, of course, and he also determined afterward whether the experiments had been successful. There was no point in Marianne trying to tell him that lying on her back in the woods was downright uncomfortable or that most of the odd positions really did nothing for her.

He sure talked a lot. So does Stephen.

She realized that words had always dragged her out of that deep place of physical pleasure she could only reach through the sensation of touch. Would things continue with him like this? Would things continue with him at all?

A little while later, they made love again, with the same simplicity and intensity. Then she drifted off to sleep in a deeper state of relaxation than she could ever remember experiencing.

*

Marianne’s head was nestled warmly on Nolan’s shoulder. He mentally replayed the events leading to this moment of shared quietness, marveling at how something so perfect could have happened so unpremeditatedly. When they had finished making love that first time, he had avoided asking the fatal question:

“Was it all right for you?”

He had avoided it this second time, too. On one hand, it seemed only considerate to ask. If there had been any attention she had missed or needed, he could he more careful, more aware in the future. On the other hand, asking would certainly seem vain or pushy, and Nolan wanted nothing more than for her to feel comfortable with him. He’d have to trust her to communicate with him in her own way.

Their second lovemaking had seemed less turbulent but no less fulfilling. Thinking back, Nolan had no idea how long they had spent either time. Time had played no role whatsoever in the entire experience. How could something that remarkable happen without time passing at all?

Now Nolan could feel little twitches of near-sleepfulness throughout Marianne’s frame. Soon came the first hint of a feathery snore. Nolan, too, drifted along the precarious edge of sleep. He felt the boundaries of his body blur, fading in and out of hers, and he vaguely imagined that he was actually experiencing her sensations—the grip of his own strong fingers on her delicate shoulder, the gust of his own warm breath sneaking across the back of her ear.

There was a whispery eroticism about this drowsing union of minds and bodies that was easily as entrancing as their lovemaking had been. At last came a wave of silent warmth. Nolan felt himself vanish into Marianne’s slumbering body.

10001
CONTROL QUESTION

Opening segment of the transcript of a polygraph test taken by Marianne Hedison in reference to the murder of Renee Gauld, 1:30 P.M., Thursday, February 3:

Q: Is your name Marianne Hedison?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you live in Venice, California?

A: No.

Q: Aside from the events in question, have you ever deliberately caused serious bodily injury to another person?

A: No.

Q: Do you live in Santa Barbara, California?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you ever, for any reason, conceal yourself under the bed in Renee Gauld’s condominium unit?

A: No.

Q: Is this interview being conducted on a Thursday?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you ever, for any reason, conceal yourself in the bedroom closet of Renee Gauld’s unit?

A: No.

Q: Are there four people in this room?

A: No.

“I can’t believe this,” Stephen said. “I just can’t believe it.”

“Sit down,” Marianne said.

“I don’t want to sit down.”

“Can I fix you a drink?”

“I don’t want a drink.”

Stephen was furious. Marianne had never seen him furious before. As far as she could remember, she had never seen him in
any
state of high passion—unless she were to count sexual arousal, and she preferred not to.

She was sitting on her couch, and he was standing in the middle of her living room. He looked terribly awkward. His feet were planted slightly more than shoulder’s width apart—a little too wide to maintain a comfortable center of gravity. His arms hung slightly outward, as if attached to strings. And his face was flushed with an unattractive shade of lavender.

He could pace around, at least. That’s what angry people normally do.

But the truth was, Stephen didn’t know how to be angry. He could cook a very good continental meal, he knew his wines, and his golf stroke was quite excellent even by Santa Barbara standards, but anger wasn’t in his repertoire. Marianne felt guilty for forcing him into something at which he wasn’t proficient.

“Didn’t we talk about this?” he exclaimed, still standing square in the middle of the floor. “Didn’t I tell you not to cooperate with the police?”

“Yes.”

“And now you’ve gone and taken
both
a DNA test and a lie detector test!”

“The police needed my help.”

“They needed your help! Yeah, damn right, they needed your help. They needed you to help them convict
you
of murder.”

“They’re not going to convict me of anything.”

“Marianne, they’re cops. You’re supposed to let
them
figure out ways to violate your basic constitutional rights. It’s their job. It’s what the taxpayers pay them to do. You’re not supposed to do it
for
them.”

“Look, it’s done. It’s all over.”

“It’s not over.”

“What do you want me to do, take back my blood sample, take back my answers? I signed a release. That part’s done. Listen, it’s going to be all right.”

“Not if you flunk.”

“I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m innocent.”

“So what? Do you think those tests are perfect?”

“Stephen,
think
a minute. Taking both tests actually helps my odds. What do you think the chances are of an innocent person flunking
both
a polygraph and a DNA matchup? If I fail one or the other, I’m no worse off than when I started. If I pass both of them, I’ll be out of the running and the police can get on with their work—and that’s all I want.”

Stephen looked a little less angry now, but he still hadn’t budged from his position in the center of the floor. He looked at his hands for a moment, as if he had suddenly become aware of his inability to use them very expressively. Then he stuck them in his pockets. Marianne might almost have laughed if she didn’t feel so painfully sorry for him.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Marianne,” he said, talking more quietly now. “I left one message after another on your answering machine yesterday, and you didn’t call back.”

“I was in L.A. I called as soon as I got back home.”

“Don’t you ever call your machine to check your messages?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. When I go out of town, I don’t like to lug my whole life around with me. Stephen, I really wish you’d sit down.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”

“Why do you think I didn’t tell you? Look at yourself. Do you think I wanted to upset you like this?”

She wished now that she’d simply lied about the whole thing. When she returned his calls, why hadn’t she just said she’d gone back to L.A. to wrap up all the work she’d left undone? Stephen would have been much happier if she’d lied, so why hadn’t she? Perhaps the unsettling experience of taking the polygraph test had left her disinclined to lie.

“I’m awfully sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t mean to hurt you. But this is my problem. You’ve got to accept that. She was my friend.”

Stephen looked at the floor, shuffled his feet slightly, then looked straight into Marianne’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I’m sorry she was killed. I know she meant a lot to you. But Marianne, I don’t understand what’s going on between us. I don’t understand what’s happening to our relationship.”

Relationship?

The word gave Marianne a sharp jolt. She was grateful to have the couch underneath her to hold her up.

Our relationship?

It was an ordinary word, but Stephen had imbued it with all kinds of meaning—much more meaning than Marianne could possibly be comfortable with. She had never thought of herself and Stephen as having a relationship—at least not in the way he meant it. They were friends, chums, companions, occasional sex partners. Did this constitute a
relationship?

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m talking about all this
drama,”
Stephen said. “Things used to be so simple when we were together.”

Marianne sighed miserably.

So that’s it. Inconvenience. Things have gotten inconvenient between us.

She couldn’t blame him. Convenience was supposed to be what their friendship was all about. What business did she have bringing all this drama into his otherwise staid and pleasantly bland life?

“Stephen, we’re doing a terrific job of upsetting each other,” she said. “I told you I’m sorry. I want to leave it at that. Can I get you a drink? Could we talk about something else? Would you like to sit down?”

Stephen looked at her blankly for a moment.

“You know where you can reach me,” he said at last. He picked up his jacket and left.

Marianne sat motionless on the couch, feeling demoralized and unhappy. The scene with Stephen had just capped off an already unpleasant day.

She shivered at the memory of the tests she had undergone that morning. She wondered if she would have volunteered for the polygraph if she’d known how disturbing it would be. The men conducting the test had wrapped Velcro around her fingers, a blood pressure pulse cuff around her arm, and something called a pneumographic tube around her chest, making her feel too constricted to think clearly, much less to feel confident of her own veracity.

And then there had been those awful questions …

“Have you ever deliberately caused serious bodily injury to another person?”

That one had thrown her into such a panic that she might have fled the room if she hadn’t been solidly strapped down.

What do they mean by “serious bodily injury”? What do they mean by “deliberately”? And what in God’s name can they possibly mean by “ever”? Am I supposed to search my whole life for the answer to that question right this second?

But she had to answer the question on the spot with a simple “yes” or “no.” She said “no”—and had felt as if she were lying.

After the test, Nolan had explained to her that this was a control question. She was
supposed
to feel vaguely dishonest about any answer she gave. Her physiological responses to the control question would tell the testers what her personal style of deception would look like on the graph. If she was innocent, her responses to questions about Renee’s murder would look very different from her response to the control question.

This logic had struck Marianne as completely absurd.

After that, it came as a relief that the DNA test required nothing more than the jab of a needle and the drawing of some blood.

Chromosomes don’t get flustered by tough questions. Even if my physiological responses go berserk, I can count on my blood-cell nuclei to keep their cool.

Still, the blood-taking was far from pleasant. And now she was faced with a suspenseful wait to learn the outcome of the tests. Would her own blood and body responses label her a liar? A lot was hanging over her.

Aside from all of that, another set of questions had been lurking in the back of her mind. Now they demanded her attention.

A woman? Why would a woman kill Renee?

When she had heard that news, her immediate concern had been to avoid sidetracking the investigation, to give the police proof of the one thing she was sure of—that she had not killed her friend. Nothing else had even entered her mind. But now that she had time to consider it, Marianne felt shocked at the idea of a woman murdering Renee.

My own chauvinism.
After all, women did commit murder—although in smaller numbers than men. Why did she find it easier to picture a man attacking Renee?

One reason, she realized, was the image in her mind of
Auggie
pushing Renee beneath the water—a loud, crass, vulgar, and utterly
male
clown. But why should she assume that the computer animation accurately portrayed the killer? Surely Marianne had never seriously believed that a man in baggy pants and bright red wig had actually killed Renee. So why
couldn’t
the killer have been a woman?

Marianne kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up on the couch. She sat in a huddle, her arms wrapped around her body.

Why would a woman kill Renee? Jealousy, perhaps? Was Renee having an affair with someone’s husband or lover?

No hint of anything like that had come up during their last conversation. But would Renee have told her? Sure, Renee liked to talk about her relationships with eligible men, however fleeting they might be. But would she have opened up about something really illicit or dangerous?

Not unless I’d asked.

And if she had, Renee would have said yes or no, pure and simple. But Marianne hadn’t asked.

She tried to focus on the single fact at her disposal. A woman had stalked Renee and drowned her. What kind of woman? Where was she now? What might she look like?

Sturdy. She’d have to be strong, wouldn’t she, to hold Renee down?

Marianne leaned her head back and closed her eyes tightly, trying to picture the woman murderer.

Where? She must have been at the party.

Marianne visualized a tall, heavyset woman in a dark dress—no, it was a silvery dress, metallic and hard-looking—a female warrior with dark eyes and short, severely styled hair. The woman was holding a glass of something …

Scotch.

Yes, Marianne was sure of it. The woman gazed around Renee’s living room in a proprietary way. No one seemed to know her, although someone occasionally stopped to speak with her. She exuded an aura of power. The other guests thought she was a casting director or a producer.

Then the woman abruptly vanished from Marianne’s mind.

The image simply wouldn’t stay in place.

If I had gone to the open house, I could have met her. I could have asked her name. I could have seen through her terrible plan and forced her to leave.

Marianne smiled sadly at the childishness of her fantasy—at the wishfulness of assuming that she could have sensed the woman’s malice. She sighed deeply. She hadn’t done very well by her friends lately. She had not helped Renee. And now she had hurt Stephen. She hadn’t meant to, but she had hurt him. And she shuddered at a new question.

What if he knew about Nolan?

But maybe that wouldn’t matter. All that really concerned Stephen was that things stayed simple between them. He probably didn’t care
who
Marianne got involved with as long as it didn’t bring any new drama between them.

Convenience.

That was what Stephen wanted.

Only a short time ago ...

(How long was it? A week? Two weeks?)

… convenience had been all Marianne wanted, too.

But that had changed. Convenience wasn’t enough for her now. She didn’t know
what
she wanted, but convenience wasn’t it. And that realization abruptly put a whole universe between her and Stephen. There was nothing to be done about it.

And what about Nolan—this rough, charming man she had known for only a short time? What was going to happen between them now? Marianne closed her eyes and remembered waking up that morning with his warm body entangled with her own. She remembered her arm hugging his wide chest and her head resting on his shoulder. She remembered how her ear had grown numb from resting there so long. She remembered thinking that Nolan’s whole arm must have been numb where she had been sleeping on it.

The memory made her smile. But at the same time, she felt an almost unbearable yearning to be with Nolan right this instant. The distance between them seemed intolerable. And what would happen when they saw each other again? Would the spark they had struck catch fire again, or would they treat each other like strangers?

Would
they see each other again?

Marianne’s heart raced and she felt lightheaded. She also felt a dislocated kind of hunger—an emptiness in the center of her chest instead of in her stomach.

I wonder how this would read on a polygraph?

She imagined the interrogator asking one last question, and herself giving one last answer.

Q: Are you falling in love with Lieutenant Nolan Grobowski?

A: No.

In her mind’s eye, the needles skidded all over the graph, creating a ludicrous array of zigzags before they tore the paper to shreds.

She couldn’t stand this for another moment. She reached for the telephone and called Nolan’s extension at the division headquarters. The very second she heard his gruff “Hello,” her spirits soared.

“Is this Lieutenant Nolan Grobowski of the L.A.P.D.?” Marianne asked in a slightly disguised voice.

“Yeah, who is this?” Nolan asked tersely.

“It’s
me,
you officious grouch,” Marianne replied.

“Hey, I’m glad you caught me,” he said, sounding happy to hear her voice. “I was just getting ready to call
you.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll bet you use that line all the time.”

“No, seriously, I was.”

“Really?”

“Well, don’t get me wrong,” he said with a laugh. “It’s not because I miss you or anything …”

“Me either.”

“… although I
do
…”

“Me, too.”

“It’s just that I’ve got good news.”

“Which is?”

“You passed the polygraph.”

Marianne laughed delightedly.

“You mean I’m
innocent?”
she asked.

“Did you have your doubts?” Nolan asked.

“For a while there, yeah.”

“Well, it’ll take a little more time to get the DNA match—ten to fourteen days.”

“That long?”

“It will be okay. I’ve got faith. If we catch the killer in that time, it will be a moot point anyway. I’ve got a hunch we will.”

“You just keep getting those hunches, Lieutenant. Any other news?”

Nolan lowered his voice. “None—except that I had a date last night with a classy lady from Santa Barbara.”

“Yeah? How did it work out?”

“At first I was worried that she was a little out of my league, me being a redneck working-class bozo and all. But things worked out okay.”

“‘Okay’? What’s ‘okay’ supposed to mean?”

“Well, I fixed her dinner and we talked and we listened to music and we talked some more and one thing led to another and … well, you know.”