Bad Desire (43 page)

He's no Reeves, Slater thought as the conference was concluded. He reached out and shook Koehler's hand. “Good man,” he said. “Good man.”

Never in the history of Rio Del Palmos had there been such a funeral, never such an outpouring of anger and frustration and remorse. The entire town shut down for the hour of the church service. Policemen from all along the western coast formed an honor guard to accompany the coffin. The procession from the church stretched for nearly two miles. Cars were parked three across in the cemetery lanes. By some estimates as many as three thousand mourners attended.

There were those who said Henry Slater's eulogy could not have been more inspired. Time and again his words were punctuated with angry cries for revenge from the crowd. But they were quieted by Slater's promises that the murderers would be caught and made to suffer the harshest justice.

Later that afternoon, Faith made herself drive down to the Reeves's house to pay her respects. She had to. She was the mayor's wife. Winding her way through the countless neighbors who were there to help, she finally found Mrs. Reeves in her bedroom, surrounded by family, hysterical with grief. Faith meant only to take the time to tell the distraught woman that she and the mayor would help in any way, but Mrs. Reeves begged her to stay, to sit with her son. And then to see the child sobbing convulsively. Faith couldn't help it—her eyes grew wet, and once she'd started she could hardly stop. Here, too, she understood well what had happened. He had done this awful thing. First Rachel, now Burris Reeves. She had known it as soon as she heard the news.

Who am I, she thought, that I can still love a man who could do these things? Who am I that I could get to this place myself? The man should be put away. But I can't, God help me, I can't.

She stayed as long as she could, loathing it but staying. Suddenly she had to get out of there. A great rage had overtaken her. Rage at him. All that dignity at the funeral, all the fine pretense about Reeves and what he'd meant to “the city.” And no one the wiser.
Only I know
. She wanted to tear him apart.

34

It was driving him crazy.

He couldn't get used to it—it was like an insane joke of fate seeing them together. At the end of the day, coming in through the door to the laundry room, he would hear their laughter in the kitchen. Slater never knew what to expect, but he was surprised to see them walking around in their stocking feet, pouring some sort of drink. Sheila was too young to drink.

“Want something, Henry?” Faith asked. They appeared to be completely comfortable, infinitely relaxed with each other. How could this have happened? And so quickly? After Marjorie Sanders had given her permission for Sheila to stay with them, what could he say? He had to give in. He shook his head and went to the bedroom to change clothes. Down the hall, he could still hear their voices.

Faith and Sheila. Sheila and Faith.

Who could have known that she would have invited her to
stay
here? In my house!

It seemed he hardly had time to put out one fire before another sprang up somewhere else. I'm dying the death of a thousand leaks. If only I could talk to her alone, he thought. If I could touch her. She was in his blood, running through his veins, eating through him with a sweet burning. But Faith was always there. And so kind, so damnably kind. To Sheila. To him.

At night as he was getting ready for bed, Faith sometimes moved up close to him and for a brief moment she was familiarity itself. With Sheila two doors away. It was maddening. He didn't want to touch her, didn't want to be near his wife.

Every day dawned glassy and clear; the eucalyptus and jade plant hedges turned a deep ocean green. Every morning, dressed for the office, he went down the hall and, on the other side the door to the guest room, he could hear the sound of water running—Sheila taking her shower. If only he could wrap her in an enormous towel and carry her back to bed.

He missed her almost more than he could bear. He was lifeless without her. He waited for a chance to see her alone in the evening and then dreaded the thought of going home because more and more they weren't there. Faith had started leaving him annoying little notes—notes that he quickly grew to hate:
Sheila and I are at the club. Why don't you join us?
Or,
We've gone shopping. Be back late
.

“God,” Henry said, under his breath. “God, God, God.”

Nights he spent drinking alone, trying to make some sense out of things. He saw that Sheila was changing little by little over the week, then the week and a half she had been living there. He was powerless to stop it. And the way she had begun to carry herself, her expressions. Just like Faith's. He wanted to shake her, hard, shake some sense into her. He wanted to rave at her: don't you see what she's doing to you?

They sat at the dinner table, waiting for Luisa to serve dessert. Faith was talking; he hadn't a clue about what, and Sheila was listening attentively, toying with her hair, lifting strands first over one ear then the other. Never once stealing a glance at him. Running her fingertips inside the gold chain of her necklace, she lifted it to her mouth, drawing the bright thread slowly through her teeth. His palms were clammy.

She was getting down glasses from the wall cabinet one evening when he came in from the office. It seemed the perfect coincidence for them to be suddenly and unaccountably alone. The sight of her stretching upward lured him on. Sheila had her back turned; he needed only to be beside her for a moment, perhaps to let his hand fall over hers as she filled the glasses, when he heard Faith entering from the back balcony. “Darling,” she said, both of them looking at him now, “how was your day?”

When he could bear it no longer, he went to his study and finding no peace there, he went to bed early. He lay awake, listening, following their little sounds through the house, footsteps up and down the hallway and back again to the guest room. Sheila's room. Doors opening and closing. The rustle of nightgowns, whispers, a muffled giggle. Girl talk, he thought, goddamn girl talk. Once late at night while Faith slept beside him, he woke to the click of a doorknob in the hall. He lay waiting for Sheila to appear, perhaps in the door, perhaps to beckon him, but Sheila didn't.

When he was home, he couldn't escape the thought of her. The look in her eyes was different, lovelier perhaps but different, and her makeup was different. She would smile at him, her eyes shining. Nothing else. On one of those few occasions when Faith wasn't in earshot, he said, “When can I see you?”

“You're seeing me.”

“Sheila,” he whispered desperately, “I don't care what happens, as long as I can see you—as long as we're together.” He was nearly out of his mind. He looked for that sensuality in her eyes and it was there. Smoldering. He knew that she felt it. But she wouldn't do anything about it.

One evening when they left him to attend a benefit for the Women's Club, Sheila was wearing Faith's simplest black sheath, and pinned at the center of it, above her breastbone, was Faith's cameo.

Another night when Sheila brushed by him on her way to her room, if he had closed his eyes, it might have been Faith. It was Faith's scent, her perfume:
Ma Griffe
.

It was driving him crazy.

35

Sheila had been living with the Slaters for nearly three weeks when Faith accepted a dinner invitation at the club for Saturday evening and invited Sheila along. “You don't mind, do you, Henry?”

“Why should I mind?”

It was after six when Slater arrived home, expecting to find them preparing to go, but Faith's car wasn't in the garage. A misty, whispering drizzle had begun. He stood under the eaves for a moment, looking out at the edge of the gray-green hazy woods, dripping with rain. Where are they? he wondered, angrily. They're never where they should be anymore.

He went inside to take his shower. He had finished shaving when Faith rushed into the bedroom. “Sorry we're late. Traffic was horrendous. How long will you be?”

“It's yours,” he told her.

He was buttoning his shirt when he heard the spray of her shower. Looping his tie around the back of his neck, he needed to see what he was doing and leaned toward the triple mirrors of her vanity to complete the knot. At first he noticed nothing unusual—her vanity was a shambles, as it always was—but then he caught sight of a thin edge of paper protruding from under her silver tray. Curious, Slater pulled it out.

What's this? he thought. Some kind of letter? And why had Faith hidden it? Why was it torn in half?

Slowly a flush darkened the coppery skin across his cheekbones. Slater held the two torn pieces of paper in his hands, gazing at them as if dumbstruck. He saw that originally it had been a single sheet of notepaper folded over once—it was obvious that the two halves fit together, that it had been a letter. For a moment, the handwriting blurred before his eyes—all except for the signature:
Rachel Buchanan
.

An awful fear began to steal through him—a chill that raised goose-flesh on his arms. His world seemed suddenly as fragile as glass, full of broken cracks through which he would fall forever. In an instant everything changed.

It has to do with Henry
.

The words stared up at him with simple, untouchable truth. He understood exactly what it meant. It was like the dawn of death.

Faith did this
.

His hatred was a living thing.
It was Faith
. The bedroom went black before his eyes. He stood absolutely still, far beyond pain.
It was Faith! Faith's been doing these things
. But as his rage increased so did his sense of helplessness.
She knows everything!
He looked at the bathroom door, dreading the sight of his wife, blinking to clear the burning in his eyes. He had never hated anyone so much as during those ghastly first minutes.

He looked for a date on the letter but there was none. He lifted the tray and looked under it, searching for an envelope. No luck. When did Faith receive this? What did it matter? Clearly she had gotten it before he killed Rachel. If she knows about Rachel, she knows about Sheila! And probably about Reeves. Was anything more vile, more detestable?

She put that dress in my office. It must've been her
. His mind reeled. For a long moment he could do nothing but strain against the impulse to tear the letter to shreds. But he didn't. He put it back quickly, as he had found it. He had stumbled onto her vicious secret and now it was hidden, the way she had intended it.

You'll never know, he thought.

He heard her returning to the bedroom and fought his way desperately to the surface of his own terror. Okay, he muttered to himself. It's okay.

He was aware of movement behind him, through the light. His throat was tight. Did you say something, you sly bitch?

“If I'd known you would disapprove, I'd never have invited them,” he heard her saying.

I should have sensed the danger a long time before.

What a laugh, he thought, what a goddamned laugh. He was boiling with fury. “No,” he said, he had to stop his voice from trembling. “I don't want to have the Fergusons over for dinner.” The stunt was to keep talking—to keep her talking.

“I don't think I can change …” She made things sound so normal and sane, as she always did.

He kept his eyes turned toward the window. “Why did you ask them for Wednesday … anyway?”

Keep talking, he thought, and pretend …

“I had to ask them.”

“I don't know why.” Swiftly and precisely, Henry picked up the wire brush from the edge of her vanity and ran it through his hair. He was packed with violence.

“I'm sorry,” Faith was saying. “I kind of had to. Can I do anything for you before we go?”

He summoned self-control from somewhere deep, deep within him. He shook his head.

She said, “Will you tell me if there is anything?”

Only stay away, Henry thought. Stay away from me. If you don't, I'll hurt you. There's nothing I can do about myself anymore. This thing's going to kill me. With the back of his hand he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “Yes,” he said.

When Faith looked over her shoulder at him, Henry was standing by the bay window, his hands clasping his hips, staring at her. His face showed no emotion whatsoever. Then she noticed something happen—not a change of expression, exactly, but a flicker behind the eyes. He smiled at her and it was a smile of recognition, almost of welcome.

“Henry …?”

But he abruptly turned and left the room. He had the feeling he had spent hours, not inescapable minutes, with her. He went through the living room. In the garage, he hit the electronic door opener and the wide door ratcheted to the ceiling. The rainy, humid air struck him with its dampness.

Slater was shaking so hard he had to steady his right hand with his left to light the end of his cigarette. She's the one; she's behind it all. She did everything. Reeves was for nothing. Running his hand through his hair, he paced the floor, consumed with misery and hate. This is it. This is the end, Faith.

Ten minutes later, when Faith and Sheila came out, he was standing at the open garage door. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the night. “Ready?” he asked, still tasting of some primeval, unreckoning fury.

Sheila was wearing a strapless black evening dress, her hair catching the light. She was young and irresistible and fatal. But he couldn't hold her close, couldn't say the things he longed to say. Not yet. The night shut down around them as they pulled out of the garage. Cars flew past them at the bottom of the hill, chrome flashing in the rush of lights. Slater knew he had to find a way to be alone with Sheila.

The smooth running lights of passing cars lost their dimension in the swirling white layers of fog and rain. It was raining more heavily as the Cadillac rumbled over the Rialto River Bridge, the girders appearing and disappearing in endless symmetry. The wind was howling on the wires; he saw the rainy night float by his windows and knew that this was the last time the three of them would be together.