Except for the Bones (13 page)

No.

If she went into town, and Farnsworth questioned her, then—

“Why are we here, Preston?”

Aware that the question was rhetorical, a tactical opening gambit, he made no response. She was still staring out to sea. Her features were composed. Icily composed. It was, he knew, an ominous sign. Millicent didn’t strike out at random.

“As I understand it,” she began, “we have what’s called an understanding. That’s to say, if you run across someone you want to play with for a while, amuse yourself, it’s all right as long as you don’t rub my nose in it. I don’t embarrass you, and you don’t embarrass me. The JFK solution, in other words.” As she said it, she moved her head slightly to the left, aligning her gaze with Hyannisport and the Kennedy compound, less than five miles directly across Craigville Bay.

“That’s to say,” she continued, “that Kennedy didn’t take his floozies through the front door of the White House. And he certainly didn’t take them to Hyannisport.” A hard, flat pause. Then: “Which is to say, Preston, that I wouldn’t expect you to bring your floozy here.”

On his response could depend his future. Everything. Therefore, certain words must be spoken—and certain words must never be spoken. Some marriages depended on the truth. His marriage depended on fiction—on what was known but never acknowledged. Unspoken words. Lies.

“I’m wondering,” he said, “why you’re telling me this.”

“I happened to run into Susan Piernan at the museum. We went out for coffee. It was the first time I’d seen her since I got back from Europe. She said she’d been up here—on the Cape—for three weeks, with her kids.”

Watching her profile, so exquisitely formed, so perfectly composed, he waited. If she went on, crossed the line, then everything would go. Yet, strangely, he was conscious of a composure, a distancing, as if he were someone apart, evaluating his own response:

First he must smile. But the smile must register puzzlement, not displeasure. “I’ve been here the last couple of weekends, and I don’t remember seeing Susan.”

It was the final word. If, beyond this, there were other words, they would be the first words in a legal torrent: her lawyers and his lawyers, endlessly enriching themselves.

While, at the landfill, only a few miles away, the worms were at work on the flesh of that which once had been a woman named Carolyn, last name Estes.

While, in New York, police computers were—

She was rising, stooping to pick up her beach towel and her swim cap. Saying: “I like our marriage, Preston. It’s an exciting life. It suits me, and I think it suits you, too.” As she spoke, she worked at the strands of her hair, tucking them inside the cap. She was waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to recite his required lines:

“I like our marriage, too, Millie.” And, then, extra insurance: “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”

“Good.” She snapped the bathing cap, slung the towel over her shoulder, and smiled down at him. It was a new smile, one that, most certainly, he would often see as time passed.

If
time passed, for them.

“Are you going to swim?” she asked.

“Not now. Later, maybe.” As he watched her walking down toward the ocean, he was conscious of an enormous backwash of relief. Once more, they’d dodged the bullet.

He waited until he saw her begin wading out into the surf before he opened the glass doors that led to the living room—and the slate coffee table, resting on the Persian rug.

A
S THE DOORBELL SOUNDED
she heard Carley’s voice from the bathroom. “That’s Dale. Let him in, will you, Diane? I’m still doing my eyes.”

“Right.” She went to the door, pushed the button, waited. Finally, she heard steps on the stairs, then a quiet knock.

“Dale?”

“That’s me.” It was a cheerful, confident-sounding male voice. She unbolted the door, opened it. He was short, muscular, sandy-haired. A second-year law student, Carley had said, at Hastings. Rich parents in Los Angeles. Big, happy family, the all-American sitcom cast. Dale even drove a vintage Mustang, cherried out. And he could fly, too. His father, Carley had said, owned two airplanes, one of them a biplane.

“I’m Diane.” She stepped back, gestured him inside. She liked the way he moved: easily, smoothly. His eyes were direct; his smile was easy, friendly. His clothing was all cotton, exactly right for San Francisco in the summer.

Always, even when they were only twelve or thirteen, Carley had found the right guys—the ones you brought home for dinner.

Dale, the law student. Alive.

Jeff, the Saturday-night stud. Dead. Lying beside the road in a pool of his own blood.

“You live in New York.” As he spoke, Dale went into the living room ahead of her, went to the big bay window, looked down into the street. Explaining: “I left the top down, and there’s some stuff in the car.

She went to the window, stood beside him. She could feel his closeness, his masculinity. “Is that yours? That red sixty-six?”

He nodded. “It belonged to my grandfather, if you can believe that. I spend more time worrying about that car than I do hitting the books.”

“Have you got a garage?”

“Definitely. That car wouldn’t make it overnight, parked on the street.”

“In New York, it wouldn’t make it over the lunch hour.”

He smiled, for the first time looked at her directly. “How long’ve you lived in New York?”

“Three years, give or take.”

“So are you coming back to San Francisco? Is that it? Carley says you were both born here, you and her.”

“To be honest, I don’t know what I’m going to do. My mom lives in New York, my dad lives here. I guess I’ll know more when I’ve talked to him.”

“You drove out from New York.”

She nodded.

“How long did it take you?”

“It took a week.”

He nodded, looked away, calculated. “So you averaged—what—about four hundred miles a day?”

“Just about. I didn’t push it. I—”

“I’m ready.” Carley stood in the doorway to the hall, posing for them. She was smiling her big smile. Last night, talking girl talk, she’d said that Dale could be the guy—Mr. Right.

“We’d better go, then.” Dale was moving to Carley, touching her, letting his hand linger. For a moment—one long, intimate, oblivious moment—they were smiling into each other’s eyes. Were they making it together, Carley and Dale? His touch—her eyes—said that, yes, they were making it. Did Carley realize how much one person’s happiness could hurt another person?

“That bridge traffic …” Dale was saying.

Promptly, her master’s voice, a standard strategy, Carley turned, walked briskly to the door. Calling out: “There’s some ravioli in the fridge, Diane. Help yourself.”

“So long, Diane.” In the open doorway, Dale turned back, smiled, waved. “See you soon. Welcome home.”

“Thanks.” She didn’t smile, didn’t wave in return. If it had been turned around, and Carley had come to New York, she wouldn’t just walk away with a guy and leave Carley alone. Not without asking, at least, whether Carley had plans for the rest of the day—Saturday, when everyone was doing something, sharing.

Through the open window, one flight up, she heard their voices on the street below. She turned, saw them get into the fire-engine-red Mustang, a convertible, black top. Would they look up, wave to her?

No.

She watched the car turn the corner, disappear. She glanced at her watch. Almost three-thirty. What were the options? In San Francisco, the town of her birth, the place where she’d lived for fifteen years, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, what were her options? Do her laundry? Buy a paper, check out the movies? Go to a sidewalk café, watch other people laugh?

Phone her father?

First take a pill, to calm down, and then call her father?

Soon—within days—she would need a connection, for the Valium and the Xanax. Carley had grass connections, and she had her own fake ID for the booze. But pills, that took a doctor, a drugstore—sometimes both. Or else a hustler with a talent for knocking off drugstores, the toughest connection of all, because of the danger, and the guns.

The laundromat, the movie listings, or bite the bullet and make the phone call to good old Dad. Saturday afternoon in her old hometown.

When she’d lived here, there’d always been something to do, somewhere to go, someone to do something with. She and Carley and Polly and Sue, they were always together—two of them, three of them, sometimes all four of them, always together. In the eighth grade Polly had been class president. In high school, bewildered freshmen, they’d clung together—and giggled through it. By the tenth grade, fifteen years old, crazy about boys, crazy about clothes, crazy about music, always on the telephone, they’d still been giggling.

Had it been only three years? All that giggling, all those hours on the phone?

How long did a lifetime last?

Polly’s father had been transferred to Hawaii. Sue was working at a summer camp, teaching leather craft. Carley and Dale were going somewhere in his red Mustang.

Her tote bag and the plastic shopping bags filled with the clothes she’d bought since she left New York were in the big hall closet. For five days, sleeping on the couch, she’d been living out of the tote bag and the shopping bags.

For five days, like a small animal tethered to a cord that constantly grew shorter, she’d circled the telephone, circles that grew smaller, compelling her inevitably to make the phone call that would decide it all. Everything.

Hi, Daddy. It’s me. Surprise, I’m in San Francisco.

For five days, again and again, she’d gone to the tote, taken whatever was required to make the call. But then, each time, she’d realized that she’d taken just a little too much to talk in a straight line. And so another day passed—and another.

A
S DANIELS TURNED INTO
the airport parking lot, he saw Kane’s Buick. Parked. Empty. He stopped the Cherokee, looked down the line of tied-down airplanes, saw the King Air with the air stairs lowered. Kane was inside the airplane, waiting. Good. Better to be seen together at the airplane than in a car, talking.

He parked the Jeep, pocketed the keys, began walking toward the small terminal. Even at Barnstable, for security, all passengers and air crew were required to pass through an electronically controlled door that could only be operated by an employee behind the reception desk.

Big Brother, watching …

All of them, watching, waiting, calculating.

Millicent, watching from behind her white-rimmed sunglasses. Constable Farnsworth, with his colorless pig eyes, watching. Even Kane was watching: sly, calculating glances.

The faces and the images: the amorphous shape wrapped in the blanket; the shovel, slicing through the soft, yielding earth of the landfill.

And the bulldozer blade, scraping the earth over her grave.

And, finally, the most recent image of all: the oaken floor beneath the Persian rug, after two weeks bleached white.

“Hi, Mr. Daniels.” Behind the reception desk, the plump post-teenager with brassy blonde hair smiled at him.

“Hi.” He nodded, smiled. As he waited for her to buzz him through, he reflected that, previously, he wouldn’t have bothered to acknowledge her greeting. Did democracy have its roots in fear?

Across the tarmac, in the Beechcraft, Kane was crouched in the open doorway. As Daniels climbed the air stairs, Kane stepped back into the cabin. Uninvited, Kane settled into one of the two glove-leather swivel chairs, each chair with its own communications console, its own work-table. For underlings, four smaller chairs were bolted to the floor, facing front.

Kane spoke first, another breach of protocol: “What’d Farnsworth want?” It was a brusque question, man to man, an equal seeking information. Yes, Kane was beginning to think, to calculate.

But Kane’s victim was buried in a graveyard. Not in a landfill.

Two deaths, both accidents. Two ends of the same noose. Tightening.

Sinking into the other swivel chair, Daniels shook his head. “Apparently Carolyn didn’t surface after she took a hike.”

“Hmmm.” Kane’s pale, bold eyes turned thoughtful. Then, softly: “It’s been two weeks.”

Daniels decided to make no response.

“Did—” Kane’s eyes shifted, his voice thinned as he asked, “Did Farnsworth say anything about that Weston kid?”

“No. Nothing.”

Kane nodded. Then, once more speaking brusquely, boldly, he asked, “Is that what you wanted to see me about? Carolyn?”

“No. It’s about Diane.”

“Diane?” Surprised, puzzled, Kane frowned. “Why Diane?”

“She’s—ah—disappeared. Or, rather, she’s left home. She and her mother had a fight. And Diane took off, in her car. It’s certain—almost certain—that she’s gone to San Francisco, to see her father.”

“So how do I fit in?”

“I—ah—want to make sure she’s in San Francisco. I want you to find her. She’s—as I said—she’s certain to contact her father, maybe even stay with him. He’s a lawyer, a successful lawyer. So she shouldn’t be difficult to locate.”

“So what’ll I do when I find her? Do I bring her back? Is that what this is all about?”

“No—no.” He had, he knew, said it too hastily. “No, I don’t even want her to know that you’re there. That’s—ah—why I’m not going. That and time pressure.”

“What about Millicent? Why doesn’t she go?”

He glanced sharply at Kane. Two weeks ago, it would have been “Mrs. Daniels.”

“Look—” Frowning, he leaned forward in his chair. “All I want is to know where Diane is. That’s it. When you find out, tell me. Call me, on my private line. That’s all I need from you, at least for now.”

“For now, eh?” It was a slow, thoughtful question. Then, probing: “There’ll be expenses.”

“Of course.”

As if he was satisfied on some significant point, Kane nodded. Asking, “She took off in her car, you say.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Almost two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks …” Plainly calculating, Kane nodded. Then, as if he were the interrogator, the dominant partner, he said, “That’s about when Carolyn took off.”