Bad Desire (11 page)

“Oh, I'm still going to tell people about this,” she said. “Sheila's just a child, you know. So I have to think of her, what's best for her. I don't want to ruin her life when I tell the newspapers the truth about you.”

You have no authority over me, he thought.

Rachel took a step toward him, her voice beginning to quiver with emotion. “So, I'm sending her away. The week after school's out. I've already started arranging it.”

He stared at her from beneath his thick brows. “Rachel,” he said, “you've really gone off the deep end.”

“If you somehow really do care about her,” the old woman said, “then you'll let her go peacefully. It's over, Henry. If you try anything, first of all I'm going to talk to Faith. I will, Henry, I swear to God I will; I'll bring the roof crashing down, if you force me to. Some people just can't leave trouble alone, can't get enough of what's bad for them.”

He heard himself saying, “You're mistaken,” and knew immediately he had not meant to say that. “You're making a mistake,” he said.

“No,” Rachel said. “You're making the mistake. You'll never lay a hand on her.”

“You're crazy as hell,” he said. “Why don't you leave? I'd like you to leave.”

Her old rock eyes did not flinch or waver. “We understand each other, don't we, Henry?” Snick-snick.

He said nothing.

“Don't we?”

The silence deepened and lingered on. Slater just looked at her.

“Don't we?” she said a third time. “Yes,” she answered for him, “I think we do.” She wheeled past him, marched to the door and let herself out.

In the kitchenette, he opened a cabinet and lifted the crystal decanter, pouring himself a stiff cognac, drinking it down neat. It hit his stomach like acid; he moaned and blinked his swimming eyes. After a moment he walked toward the windows, his image growing more and more distinct on the glass. It was like glimpsing someone else, someone that merged with him from a different plane, transparently.

The real world below was almost unrecognizable—endless roofs and boats reduced to insignificance, pitched crazily in the sun, the sky absurdly blue. He put his hand out against the window to steady himself. His hatred was still alive and burning, but he realized that none of it was doing him any good, that it never had and it never would. Then that's it, he thought, I won't let you do it. You won't destroy me and you won't send her away, either. His shirt was dark with sweat. Was there anything more detestable than that old bitch?

Oh, God, he thought, I can't lose her.

Time was running against him now.
Three days
, he thought,
school'll be out in three days
. He wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve, his hatred rekindling, beginning to mount again.

What could he do?
I've got to get rid of her and I've got to do it myself. But how?

At first, even thinking of such a thing was unspeakable.

The afternoon sank to dusk. In the hills, Slater followed the drive to his house and parked on bricks still wet from the five-thirty sprinkling. Evenings, here, had an undercurrent of watchfulness, quiet but alive, and for a moment he was part of it, looking, listening. Then, with a deep breath, he went inside.

The lamps were lit in the living room; the dinner table was elaborately set for six. There were abundant flowers and polished silver candlesticks, each with a plum-colored candle. The gilt-edged china sat on clean white damask with his eighteenth-century silver, his irreplaceable crystal still showed the occasional bubble or flaw, a mark of the early glassblowers who had created it. In the kitchen he could hear Luisa raking a pot across the stove. A cunning mixture of seasonings and aromas intertwined in the air.

Goddamn it, Slater thought, moving on down the hall.
Six places
.

Faith was seated in the bedroom at her cluttered vanity, the one place where she allowed herself to be less than meticulous. Only partially dressed, in her underwear and a slip, she was applying her makeup. “So, there you are,” she said, glancing up at his reflection in the mirror. “I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.”

There were moments when he looked at her and nothing registered, nothing at all. She said, “You'll have to hurry and get dressed. The Brubakers and Mullers will be here any minute … for dinner. Did you forget?” She went back to putting on eye shadow.

He watched her with all the feeling of a dead memory. He couldn't remember the last time he had thought lovingly of her or of anything having to do with their life together. He seldom thought of her at all except as part of his public image and certainly not today, when his mind had been possessed with the girl and with what had to be done. As he walked behind the silk vanity bench, Slater felt so numb, so removed, that even pretense was difficult. “Who invited them?”

“Why, Henry, you did. Three weeks ago when we were leaving the party at Marietta's.”

“I did not.”

“Look, Henry Lee, there's no use in us quarrelling. They're coming and that's all there is to it. They're supposed to be here at six-thirty—we've got just ten minutes. If you're going to take a shower, you must take it now and be quick. I'll entertain them until you get dressed.”

The TV was turned on, tuned to one of the stations that played around-the-clock rock and roll, Slater saw the words “Prince's Trust” and a young Brit with shaggy hair was singing,
“Can't go on … sayin' the same thing … 'cause can't you see … we've got ever'thing, baby
,
even though you know … every time you go away … you take a piece of me … with you
…”

“How can you stand to listen to that drivel?”

Faith narrowed her eyes. “Will you lay off me? For godsake, either tell me what's wrong … No! On second thought, Henry, don't tell me. I'm through begging you.” She swung back to the mirror and held her silence.

“And another thing,” Slater said, stripping off his shirt and going toward the bathroom, “I'm not angry.”

“…
every time you go away … you take a piece of me … with you
…”

Faith watched as he vanished through the doorway, admiring in spite of herself the way his muscles laid across his shoulders. But tonight, he had set her teeth on edge. Holding the lipstick motionless in her fingers, she continued to stare in the direction he had gone. After a moment, she heard him start the water for his shower.

Turning back to the mirror, she completed her makeup automatically, her thoughts elsewhere. Something was working on him and it worried her more and more. Faith wanted to ask him what had taken all afternoon—but that would only be the first of her questions. She stood and slipped into her clothes.

In the shower, Slater set the dial as hot as he could stand it. The trouble with music was that it often seemed to be telegraphing a message to him. The refrain he'd heard in the other room drifted through his thoughts again and again.
“Every time you go away … you take a piece of me … with you
…”

The water splashed over him, beat into his shoulders. He took up the soap, building a lather between his hands, spreading it over his chest and legs. A few minutes later, wiping the water from his face, he reached for the towel and saw Faith come to the doorway, putting on her earrings. She wore her hair in what once had been called a Prince Valiant, black and smooth and roundly tucked-in just above her shoulders. Never a hair out of place. Her straight, black dress was beautifully cut; pinned to it, above her breastbone, was a coral cameo.

Slater turned toward the mirror, running his hands through his wet hair. He found himself not knowing what to say to her or how to get through the impending evening at her side. With Faith in the room, he felt trapped, but he knew he had to pacify her. “I'm sorry I growled at you,” he said. “I'm on edge. Work's getting to me, I guess.”

“Don't take too long,” she reminded him. After a moment, he heard her close the bedroom door on her way out. Knotting the towel on his waist, relieved to be alone, he walked into the bedroom to find that Faith had changed the TV channels as she went past. An attractive female reporter was speaking from the news desk. “We hope to have a live Telecam report from the murder scene later in this broadcast.” Only half listening to it, Slater rubbed the towel through his hair.

“In the predawn hours this morning state police and their trained search dogs combed the Fox Creek area south of Strathmore where the convicts were last seen. Authorities now believe that the escapees are led by William Buckram Taylor, twenty-three, who has a long history of mental illness.”

The camera cut to a black-and-white mug shot of Taylor, shabby, unshaven. This was a duplicate of one of the photographs Slater had skimmed past earlier in the morning newspaper. The convict's strange, staring eyes gave credence to the report.

“In 1982, Taylor was released from Lakewood Hospital for the Criminally Insane after serving sixteen months for deadly assault. Less than a year later, in March 1983, he was convicted of the brutal slaying of James Madison McCall after an alleged argument over five dollars …” Throwing a fresh towel around his shoulders, Slater ran a comb through his hair, opened the sliding patio door and stepped out on the back balcony. Night had fallen.

Okay, he thought, just give me a minute to catch my breath. He was trying to work up some enthusiasm for the evening ahead. He could almost feel the men slapping him on the back, the women kissing his cheek with their little bird pecks. Slater would spend the evening disengaging himself from delicate and powerful hands.

The secluded balcony was like a perch in the vast reaches of the sky. He felt himself standing on the brink of an endless black well. There was no escaping it. Far, far below, the town glittered and she was down there somewhere, too, glittering, impossible to reach, impossible to get to.

Tonight, parked in some dark, out-of-the-way place, a boy would touch her with hands already warmed by her flesh; he would look at her with eyes already drunk with the sight of her and how could she always say no? Surely there were times when Sheila couldn't say no. Just the thought of someone else touching her was driving him crazy. Yet everything about her was dangerous to him, out of his hands, out of control. A man would have to be completely crazy …

Slowly he lifted his head and looked back through the sliding door he'd left opened on the night—back at the newscast still in progress. What was it the reporter had said?

He took a deep drink of the night air and folded his towel, preparing to go inside, to get dressed. All at once, he was filled with the insane knowledge of exactly how everything could happen. It would have to be morning. Early. Faith would think he had gone jogging at the club. Not tomorrow, he thought, but the next day, or maybe the day after that. Soon though. It would have to be very soon. He would choose the time, the day, the hour.

He would have to look at the newspaper again. It was all unfolding in him now, perfectly clear, detail by detail, as if all along his mind had plotted in secret and the plan was just now breaking to the surface.

On certain mornings, her house was almost completely buried in fog.

A killer was loose.

It would have to look like the work of a madman.

7

On Tuesday evening, May 27, a blue and white Camaro convertible pulled up to the Buchanan side door. The car was occupied by two teenaged girls, Mary McPhearson, who was driving, and Cindy Perez. When Mary honked the horn, the door flew open and Sheila came out under the porte cochere, saying good-bye to her grandmother. Ordinarily, Rachel waited in the open doorway, speaking casually with the girls, then waving as the car drove away, but this evening she walked with Sheila to the car. While her granddaughter dropped her overnight bag into the backseat, Rachel, once more, went over the particulars with the girls. Tonight they were going to a party at Ellington Beach, and then later several of the junior girls would gather at Mary McPhearson's house for what they called an all-nighter.

Believing that Henry Slater might still try to make some move, Rachel had agreed with real apprehension to let Sheila stay over at Mary's, but it would be the last time the girls would have to spend together before summer vacation. Tomorrow—Wednesday—was traditionally a free day at the high school, a day set aside for the teachers to compile and tabulate final grades. Then Thursday would be a half day of school, when report cards were handed out, and at noon, the school year ended.

Rachel knew all this and yet she stayed outside with the girls longer than she had planned to; when Sheila started to get into the car, Rachel found herself saying, softly and only to her, “Sheila, why don't you just stay home with me tonight?” It was a feeling, nothing else, something she felt compelled to say.

Sheila's eyes were excited even as her smile filled with tenderness. She reached out and took Rachel's hand. “Now, Gramma, don't be a worry wart,” she said, still smiling. She put her arms around her grandmother and kissed her delicately lined cheek. “I'll be your good girl. I promise. Please don't worry so much. I'll be home tomorrow—right after we all get up.”

The Camaro pulled forward, turned around and went down the drive, and Sheila's hand came up, as always, with a last-minute wave. Standing at the edge of the drive, Rachel waved back. Then she crossed her arms and watched as the Camaro sped toward town. With her fingertips she massaged her forehead and noticed how cold and damp it was. It's my nerves, she thought. My old nerves.

Alone in the driveway, she stood looking at the empty street. If she had turned then and looked back toward the high rim of her property, she might have seen a glint of light at the top of the hill. It flashed in the stand of Atlas cedars. Still, even though her senses were on the alert, Rachel might have dismissed it as a twinkle of sunlight breaking through the dusk black trees. But she did not turn. Her thoughts were on Sheila and the night ahead. The glint of the binocular's lenses went unseen.