Mulch (29 page)

“Kristina.” She rolled the word out of her mouth slowly, sensually, so that it sounded like an invitation to the Casbah. Then she whispered, “What a beautiful name.”

Hoffman deflated like a punctured beach ball, seeming to shrink into his crumpled white parka. “It hasn’t been the same without her.” He muttered this, then fell silent, his chin pressed down on his chest, his mouth drawn down in sadness.

She hated to disturb the quiet. But she had to know the answer. “So … why did you think you had to
kill
her?”

He looked at Louise as if for the first time. “Lady, you are
so
naive, here in your leafy bower in the suburban woods.
Only a provincial person like you could live in the social structure of the most important capital in the world and not know what you don’t know. Do you know who I am? Let me tell you: I am an arms dealer. I have my own company, right in friendly downtown Alexandria, near the Potomac River, and, incidentally, a lock on some armaments that this country desperately needs. Long before that, I was with Army intelligence, where I just happened to meet the guy who is now president. He has a few old warts of his own from Vietnam. I am a killer. I have killed, not just gooks famous and not so famous, but an occasional American who got in the line of fire.” His voice had taken on a conspiratorial ring, as if Louise had passed a security test and could be told anything. “I have
had
to kill. A woman once, in Europe. That’s the one they wonder about at the FBI. Then there was the man who didn’t know the meaning of paying his debts. He just had an accident. And then, regrettably”—he bowed his head—“Kristina.”

He sighed a deep sigh. “That goddamned Paschen made me do it. And Kristina. She was so goddamned emotional about my leaving her, she wouldn’t
let
me leave her. But I had to. We’ve got this president who says he has known no woman except his wife—if you can believe that you can believe anything—a president who’s forced to play to the right-wing assholes in our fucked-up society. Can’t afford more scandals … ’safraid he won’t get reelected next year. So,” and his voice trailed off, “that’s why I had to get rid of her—to get the job. She wouldn’t go quietly.” His head dropped to his chest.

Louise frowned. She knew they were approaching closure. Something had to happen soon. She was torn between a concern
for her own safety and the need to tie up a couple of loose ends. “Ah, could I just ask—you mean Tom Paschen, the president’s chief of staff?”

“Yeah. Tom Paschen. World-class bastard. You may think
I’m
evil, but this guy runs circles around me. He destroys people just for the fun of it.”

“And the letters. Kristina, the woman in the house on Martha’s Lane … she was
heard
from, that’s what Mike Geraghty told me.”

Hoffman shook his head in disgust. “You are so unbelievably naive. Here’s a clue for you: I have connections in Hong Kong. Now, how much trouble do you think it is to send some letters that you want mailed back to the States? I bet you think everybody in the world is
innocent.
Have you ever heard of faking a letter, faking evidence in court, faking a bill of sale for a million dollars in arms?” His voice was rising with irritation. “What the hell do you think your neighborhood cops do? They frame suspects all the time—dropped guns, dope planted on them during a body search.
Stealing
dope, cops steal
millions
of dollars’ worth of evidence. Lawyers, fuckin’ lawyers, ninety-eight percent of ’em are crooks. I bought my own lawyer so he doesn’t dare fuck me over. But see, I
own
him; most people can’t afford to
own
their lawyer.”

She listened to him carefully. She was satisfied now that she knew the story. She also knew that this man was right on the edge. And he wanted her dead. If his mood changed again, she might get raped first, but eventually she would be dead.

“And judges,” he was saying, “on almost any level below federal, and a few at the federal level, can be bought, for Chrissake.” She looked straight at him, while in her peripheral
vision she collected the scene around her, her eyes searching for weapons. Of course. To the left of her left hand by just two feet: The coffee. She needed to get him closer, without arousing suspicion. Her heart thumped, but she told it to be quiet.

She threaded her fingers through her long brown hair and pushed it slowly back from her face, a gesture that was a come-on, at least for Bill. “Peter,” she said in a low voice, “I feel … sorry for you. What can I do for you? I know you want me to do something. Just what is it?” She gave him a smoldering look; she hoped he didn’t see through her and hit her in the face with the gun.

He bit. He smiled, and a light came into his tired eyes. Never say die to sex, thought Louise. He struggled up out of the chair, where he had become comfortable in the hot room.

“It’s funny,” he said lightly. “You’ve sensed it; all this is a turn-on for me. Now I find it’s a turn-on for you, too.” He was about three feet away, probably planning on using the day bed against the wall.

With her strong backhand she reached and grabbed the hot coffeepot and with a crushing forehand flung the steaming liquid into his face.

“Jeee-sus!” he bellowed, dropping the gun to cover his face with his hands. In an instant he made toward Louise like an angry giant, grabbing her around the neck, shoving her against the stove. Her head crashed against the yielding stovepipe, and its sections broke apart, releasing black smoke into the small room. She screamed. The backs of her legs were burning.

He shook her like a rag doll. In a moment she would be too weak to resist. Through the swirling soot she sensed rather
than saw another weapon. She reached far back and grabbed a plant, the billbergia, knowing it was the billbergia by the pain in her hands where its sharp edges cut into her flesh. Lifting the plant and shoving it pell-mell into Peter’s face, eyes, nose. Pink and blue blossoms torn and falling, black dirt splayed about, falling in her eyes, her mouth. Grunting and shoving it deep into his face.

He screamed and let her go and his hands went up like claws. “My eye, my eyes!” he yelled. “You incredible bitch!” With horror, she saw him swoop down and grab for the gun. His face was scored with heavy scratches and gouges, and one eye was spurting blood, but he was like the unstoppable monster in a Saturday-night movie.

“Oh,
God
, don’t
shoot
me!” she yelled, jittering around like a frightened animal.

She had never felt so alone. She would either beat him at his own game, or he would kill her. Desperately she looked around and spied her only remaining weapon: the poker stand. It was a heavy, black wrought-iron thing, but she picked it up as if it were weightless and slammed it into the side of Peter’s head.

Screaming in pain from his new wound, he stumbled back against the chair and fell to the floor. Not completely out, she saw with dismay, just momentarily disabled. She raised the black stand above her head. The door opened.

“Ma!” It was Janie, carrying her book bag, and Chris, basketball in hand.

Louise held her second strike. “Kids, get away!” she warned.

“Chris,” yelled Janie, “do something!”

The prone man swept his arm back and forth on the flagstones until he found the gun. “No!” she yelled. Before she could strike again, Chris raised the basketball in both hands, swung it far back of his head, and then flung it at Hoffman, with all the force and accuracy accumulated in a seventeen-year lifetime. The gun clattered away. “And take that too, you jerk!” cried Janie. She slung her book bag into his bloody face, knowing, as fighters do, that injuring your opponent’s face can be decisive.

Hoffman lay back and moaned. But one hand still groped feebly for the weapon, looking to a horrified Louise like the involuntary twitching of a slain animal. At that moment, Detective Geraghty’s large presence filled the door of the hut. Uniformed men hovered behind him. “Peter Hoffman,” Geraghty warned needlessly, “just leave that gun right where she lays.”

“T
HERE YOU ARE, ALL TUCKED IN, LIKE A BUG
in a rug. Getting a little warmer?”

“Yes, darling. Thank you.”

“The doctor wants you to take a pain pill. Otherwise, he doesn’t think you’ll be able to sleep. Here’s a glass of water to swallow it down with.”

“Thank you, sweetie.”

Her husband had arrived home soon after the police, although not in time to see Peter handcuffed and taken away. Just as well: Bill’s eyes were filled with rage
when he saw her
cuts
and burns. She had never seen him so upset. He had shoved the questioning detectives aside and rushed her to the hospital to get her wounds dressed.

She shuddered under the white comforter.

“Still cold, huh? Uh … Geraghty wants to ask just a few questions. Do you feel up to it?”

She shivered again. “Sure. If it will help.”

He invited the detective to step in for a minute, then sat on the bed beside his wife.

Geraghty lowered himself cautiously into the only available seat, the apricot boudoir chair. He looked at Louise and Bill uncertainly, as if he had interrupted something intimate. “First, I want to tell you how sorry I am that you were attacked. I have been laboring on this case since early this morning, trying to get hold of Hoffman, and it hasn’t been easy. People like him are harder to track, and he was out of his house yesterday.”

“Why were you going to question him?” Louise asked.

“On the basis of what your daughter and her friend Chris reported to me yesterday afternoon.”

“Janie’s
in on this?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Jane and Chris. They got real suspicious of the guy at your party. I’ll be happy to tell you all about it when you’re feeling better. But now I need a few details that will help nail this guy—then I’ll be gone. Do you remember what time Hoffman showed up?” He held his usual notebook on his wide thigh, pencil poised to record her answer.

“I … wasn’t wearing my watch, and there’s no clock in the hut.” Silence. A silence that condemned someone who didn’t care enough about time cither to wear a wristwatch or
to have a clock handy. “I don’t know. I worked for a long time, and I looked up and it had snowed a lot … let’s see …”

The detective scratched his short-cropped white hair. “Let’s look at it from another angle: How long was he there before we arrived?”

“About half an hour.”

Bill, who was perched on the bed beside her, turned to her. “Half an hour—I didn’t know he was there
that
long! What the hell did he do for half an hour, besides choke you and throw you against a hot stove? For Chrissake … Louise, have you told me everything?”

Gcraghty watched with his cool, marble blue eyes. It was as if he were doing research again on the behavior of couples.

She put a placating hand out to him. “Believe me, Bill. Nothing … like that happened. First—did I tell you this? I threw a pot of hot coffee in his face. He must be badly burned. I
hated
throwing it at him, but it was all there was….”

Bill patted her. “Good for you!”

“And I jammed him in the face with the billbergia.” She grimaced as she imagined the pain she had inflicted.

“Mmm,” said Geraghty. “Is that the plant we found in pieces on the floor?”

“I think so,” said Bill. “The one with leaves like swords.”

Geraghty’s big fingers riffled back through the pages of his notebook. “Uh … billbergia? I thought she said something about bromeliads—that the same thing?”

Louise smiled faintly. “All in the family.”

“So that’s what blinded his eye.”

“Oh, my God,
blinded,”
moaned Louise and put her hand
to her own eye. “I
knew
I hurt it! It was spurting blood. But then I had to hit him in the head with the poker stand. He finally fell down. I was
sure
I was killing him.” She began to sob.

Bill gripped her shoulder. “Honey …”

Geraghty’s harsh voice interrupted. “Mrs. Eldridge, get a grip! Stop doing that to yourself. Hoffman’s a murderer, not a choirboy. He was trying to
kill
you. You did right laying into him like that. Think of it—
you
caught a killer. And you’re alive to tell about it. You should be proud of what you did, not lying there crying about it.”

“He’s right, Louise,” said Bill. Then he chuckled. “You realize what happened? You vanquished the arms dealer, the master of modern weaponry. With nothing but ancient techniques of warfare: scalding, jabbing, clubbing …”

She smiled, then sobered. “It’s funny; we keep talking about the violence, but the violence only took a minute. And then Janie and Chris came in. They were really brave.
Most
of the time Peter was just talking, sitting there in the big chair. He had that gun pointed at me the whole time. God, I was so
afraid.
And he told me those terrible things about killing Kristina—and the other woman three years ago—and people in jungles … but I guess that was part of the war….” She shook her head as if to rid herself of the memory. “What a terrible man.” She looked at Geraghty. “And then Bill called you and you came. Thank goodness you came quickly.”