HardScape (12 page)

Alison's big eyes narrowed with wary bewilderment. “Why do you want me to wear braces, Ben?”

When I hesitated, bubbly tears pooled and dribbled down her cheeks, and her mouth started to quiver. Her mother reached to comfort her. But Alison's jaw set and she squirmed away, up and out of her chair, glaring across the table, demanding an explanation.

“I don't get it, Ben. What are you doing?”

“Hush,” her mother cautioned.

“No, Mom. He has to tell me.”

I turned imploringly to Vicky, who asked, “Sweetheart, why are you crying?”

“I'm not crying.” Alison slapped impatiently at her tears, blinked them away.

“Then why are you mad at Ben?”

“He hates me.”

“Hate you? No I don't. I like you, very much.”

“He thinks I'm ugly.”

“No I don't. As a matter of fact, I think you're a real cutie pie.”

“
No you don't
!”

I was flabbergasted. Considering the number of orthodontists who keep polo ponies in the area, I had assumed that braces were as American as apple pie. Plenty of Alison's school friends wore them, I knew. But if I had forgotten that she wasn't a Main Street girl, her mother remembered.

She put a finger to her lips, counseling silence.

But Alison turned away. “I thought you liked me.”

“What's going on here?” I said. “I
do
like you. Come on, hon, you know I do.”

“No you don't,” she cried, and this time the little girl dissolved sobbing into her mother's arms.

I thought I knew her and I thought she trusted me. She had tagged after me all summer, playing in the garden, borrowing my tools and books. And when her bum of a father suddenly showed up drunk, it was to me she'd come, to talk it out. Maybe that was why I'd made the mistake of thinking she was wiser than her years. Solid as she was, I'd cracked her armor for sure.

Mrs. Mealy stared at the table top, shaking her head, and asked in a small voice, “Why?”

As it was clear from whom Alison had inherited her teeth, I doubted Kissinger himself could have finessed an answer. At that moment, a kind God made the phone ring.

“It's Rita Long,” came her soft, low voice. “I have to talk to you.”

“What's the number? I'll call you right back.”

“I'm home.”

“You're
home
?”

“Bail. Can you come over?”

“I'll be there as soon as I can.”

I hung up the phone and faced the kitchen table. “Alison, no one says you're not pretty already. Braces are just a way of becoming prettier. Right, Vicky?”

Vicky was staring at the phone.

“A girl can't be too pretty, right, Vicky?”

Vicky looked at me as if I had just urinated on the steps of Town Hall. She reached for Alison, got her arms around her shoulders, and left the lower half of her on her mother's lap.

“Sweetheart,” she said cozily, “here, let me hold you.…I'll explain. Ben's heart is in the right place, sometimes. But mostly, he's a jerk. He's very shallow. You know what I mean, shallow?”

Alison, held between the two women like a roll of carpet, glowered at me through her tears and said, “Yeah.”

“Pretty isn't important,” Vicky went on gently. “Women are much, much,
much
more than their looks. And when you look good inside—when you like the way you look—then you look great.”

Janet Mealy studied a burnt spot on the table and worried a button on her sweater.

“Ben thinks I'm ugly,” said Alison.

“Hey,” said Vicky, shaking her hard, “Ben's so shallow he wouldn't be your friend if he didn't think you were pretty. Do you think he'd be
my
friend if he didn't think I was pretty?”

“Now hold on—”

“
Would
you?” she rounded on me.

“We're friends. Who notices—”

“You do,” she shot back. Her face got red. And then
she
started crying.

“He treats women like dolls,” Vicky sobbed. “Every time he looks at me I think there's something wrong with my hair.”

Alison squirmed around and combed her fingers through Vicky's curls. “I love your hair. I want hair like your hair.”

Vicky sniffled.

Alison hugged her hard in her skinny little arms. “I know just how you feel. Ben's always trying to change us.”

“That's right.”

“He does it to me too.”

“How did I ever try to change you, Alison?”

“You make me pick spinach.”

“You
like
picking spinach.”

“Don't you intimidate her,” said Vicky.

“
You
thought braces were a good idea.”

“I'm rethinking it. You're forcing a little girl onto a treadmill of vanity.”

“He's always bugging me about potatoes,” muttered Mrs. Mealy.

“
Treadmill of vanity
? That ought to be in one of your speeches.”

“It should,” sobbed Alison. “It should.”

“She's pretty enough,” said an emboldened Mrs. Mealy. “
I
never had braces.”

“I wish I didn't,” said Vicky, though her grimace revealed a bite that would have done a Bechstein proud. “They hurt.”

“They hurt?” asked Alison. “Ben never said they hurt.”

“Ben never said a lot of things.”

“It's for health, dammit. I spoke with the doctor this morning and he assured me that braces are vital for healthy gums.”

“Ben, go for a walk or something. Look what you've done to this child.”

I backed out of my kitchen. Slinking by a few minutes later with my wallet, coat, and car keys, I heard Vicky promise to set Alison's hair in curlers.

***

I called Rita Long on my new car phone and told her I was coming out. She sounded lower than I was. I asked if I could bring anything. “Milk,” she said. “I just got home. There's nothing here.”

“Have you eaten?”

“They let me out before dinner.”

“What would you like?”

“Nothing.”

“You'll be hungry later. What would you like?”

“You decide.”

Wondering where the hell her husband was—and all the high-priced lawyers—I turned around and drove back to the Grand Union, shopped, and arrived at the Castle with two bags of groceries, the day's papers, and a bottle of wine, though presumably somewhere in the Castle's dungeons was a stocked cellar. I saw her sitting on the front steps as I drove up. They, like everything else in the house, were oversized, and she looked like Lily Tomlin's little girl on a giant set. She had her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail and was wearing jeans and sneaks and a thick Irish sweater. Her makeup was exquisite. Her hand was freezing.

“Getting cold?” I said.

“You have no idea what it's like to be outdoors after being locked up.”

“I remember,” I said. “I brought some basic eats. There's a bottle of wine here. Like a sip?”

“I'm afraid of crashing to pieces.”

“Some tea?”

She hesitated. I saw her gaze sweep the lawns. The daylight would linger another hour. I said, “Stay here. I'll make the tea and bring it out.”

“Thank you. You have wine, if you like. There's a champagne in the fridge, I think.”

I made two teas and while the water was boiling I unpacked chicken breasts, chopped veal, linguini, broccoli, greens and carrots, breakfast cereal, a loaf of bread, a couple of quarts of milk, some orange juice, and some local apples. I found her where I had left her on the front steps, drinking in the sunlight on the lawn, which was striped in long shadows. She wrapped her hands around the mug.

“Heaven,” she said after a moment. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“You brought me tea the other day, didn't you? I found it by the bed.”

“Dr. Greenan slipped you a mickey.”

“When I got home today I stood in the shower until I ran out of hot water.”

“I'll bet.”

“Alex Rose said I should call you.”

“Why?”

“He's my husband's detective.”

“I know.”

“He said you could explain a few things.”

“I doubt that.”

“He said you could help me.”

“Did he say how?”

“He said you'd explain. What's going on?”

I stood up and walked down the steps and kicked the gravel in the motor court.

Rita said, “I don't understand your connection. It was just coincidence you were here when we…found Ron.”

“It was,” I agreed. “Sheer coincidence.” In actual fact, I had to admit I had been wondering how much coincidence it was. She had invited me out. She had invited me to drink champagne in the turret. She had spotted Ron. She had moved him. She could have established me as a sort of witness to the discovery, and a sort of accomplice in moving the body. But she had invited me
before
Ron was shot. Had she set the whole thing up? Coldbloodedly decided to kill him and coldbloodedly planned our discovery? No way, I thought.

“He said you'd explain.” She was insistent.

I kicked some more gravel. It was the small size, rolled into an oil layer atop only the best driveways. Money stone. Damned little of it kicked loose.

“Well?”

“You're not going to like this.”

“I haven't liked anything since last Saturday.” She had a bleak look in her eyes, a wary expression, and now, a hard edge in her voice.

“Your husband knew about you and Ron.”

She blinked, stood up, stammered, “What do you mean?” She didn't have a clue. I wondered what sort of talking they had done with all the lawyers and jail guards listening. “Oh, my God.”

“Didn't Jack tell you?”

Rita sank to the steps again and put her head in her hands. “We left it unspoken that Ron was here for the obvious reason. Jack was very forgiving, very supportive. He said it was his fault for being too busy to stay close with me. He
knew
?”

“A lot's been going down,” I said. “Where is he now?”

“New York. He drove me home and left. He said he needed time to think. He'll be back to sit in on the next meeting with the lawyers, whenever that is. I'm not allowed to leave Plainfield County.”

“How much was bail?”

“A million and a half and my passport. What's your connection?”

“You're not going to like this.”

“Tell me.” She was getting angry now, jerked around by too many people, and now another jerk was dancing on her driveway.

“Alex Rose is the connection. Your husband ordered him to collect evidence of your affair with Ron Pearlman. He followed you around New York.”

“We didn't do anything in New York.”

“I know. He got a picture of the two of you in a taxi and some talk from waiters who served you lunch.”

“That skeeze. That slimy fat skeeze. There's something so disgusting about Alex Rose. He took
pictures
?”

“And talked to waiters.”

“I'm not allowed to have lunch with a friend? That's all it was, just lunch.”

“The waiters thought you were a lovely couple.”

“Jesus! So where do you fit in?”

“I was the raccoon.”

“You lost me.” But not for long. She jumped to her feet, dropping her tea mug, which cracked. “You were in my woods?”

“Yes.”

“Spying on me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Rose hired me to shoot a video of you and Ron for the divorce lawyers.”

“You're kidding.”

I didn't know if she meant I was kidding about divorce lawyers or kidding about taking the video. She cleared that up. She meant both. “Divorce lawyers? Jack was going to
divorce
me?”

“Rose thought so.”

“Beat me to the draw? I was going to divorce him.”

“Were you?”

“I don't know. I didn't want to hurt him—You had a camera?”

“Rose gave me a camcorder.”

Standing a couple of steps up, Rita Long looked down at me like a snake that had just slithered off the lawn and was heading for the warmth of her house. “You took our picture. A video. You disgusting—”

“I erased it.”

“You saw me and Ron—where?”

“In your studio.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Her eyes cast back to that night. “Oh, no.”

“You were fully clothed.”

She cast back again. “No. I took off my—”

“I never saw your body.”

“I took off my blouse.”

“All I saw was your face.”

“You saw me kiss—”

“No. I only saw your face when you turned to the window. I stopped the camera. I threw away the tape. It fell on the lawn and I ran out to get it. That's when you heard me. When I got home I erased the tape and hid it. All I gave Rose was his camera and a blank cassette.”

“Get off my property.”

“Could we talk?”

“Get out of here.”

“It wasn't like that.
I'm
not like that. It was a stupid thing to take Rose's job, but it just seemed sort of funny when I didn't know you, so I took it.”

“And now you
know
me,” she echoed scornfully.

“I knew you that night. That's why I stopped filming.”

“What did you know?”

“I knew you were happy.”

Rita Long stared, her mouth hard, until her eyes filled with tears.

I said, “I knew the two of you better than I knew anybody in the world. I was happy for you both. And I was head over heels in love with you.”

“Through a window?”

“I never felt so close to anybody in my life.”

Still crying, she said, “My god, what did you think at the cookout the next day?”

“I almost grilled my arm.”

She shook her hair and gave a baffled groan. “What kind of game is Rose playing?”