Authors: Robert W. Walker
"Well...no...not till now."
DR.ARTHER BELKUIN couldn't stop shaking. He was almost caught inside a police station with a box containing the severed right hand of Mira Lourdes. It had been the second package he had delivered to Dr. Meredyth Sanger, while Lauralie had delivered a second package to Detective Lucas Stonecoat. And still she had not explained why they were doing this.
He thought of his practice, his livelihood, his clients, and the multitude of animal patients he helped each day, and he thought of how it would play in the newspapers if it should ever come out that he, Dr. Arthur Belkvin, Professor of Animal Surgery at the Dean King School of Veterinary Medicine, had been arrested for misusing his surgical skills to pick apart a dead woman's corpse for sexual favors from a woman half his age, one of his students. Being a murder accomplice somehow did not bother him so much as the humiliation he'd brought down on his profession, a profession that had its own Hippocratic Oath— to do no harm.
He shivered at the thought of being found out. Of being called out. Of being labeled a man who had once been a fine upstanding practitioner in the art of saving life, but who now dealt in death. But I've killed no one, he told himself. She's done the killing. I couldn't even swing the ax hard enough. Anyone can see that I'm not the monster here. No, he told himself now, I'm not a monster... just an Igor to her twisted Frankenstein.
As Arthur drove home, anxiously checking his rearview for the flashing lights in pursuit, certain that at any moment they would come, he wondered at his own hold on reality. Common sense told him that most certainly someone had taken down his license plate, but another voice kept saying he could—if caught—end it all here and now! Flag down a cop and put the blame where the blame belonged, square on Lauralie, whose very presence turned him into a spineless lapdog. God, someone had to know why he did what he had done.
How certain he felt that someone had recognized the make and model of the car. He pulled down the street on which he lived, for the first time calming as he saw his apartment come into view. He could see his two greyhounds in the window grown big with excitement on seeing his approach. Smart boys, they knew his car from sight. Lauralie was somewhere inside the apartment as well, likely watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which he hated.
Lauralie awaited him inside, but he hesitated going any further toward the steps. "Am I crazy? This isn't me! I don't behave like this. I'm not a psychopathic maniac, but what I'm doing...that's psychopathic, man! What the hell else do you call going about the city delivering parcels stuffed with the remains of a dead woman! Maybe 1 am mad. And to what purpose? And to whom do I owe this deviant behavior if it's not to please Lauralie? And what is her purpose in all this?"
A neighbor, walking a dog, having watched him talking to himself in such animation, embarrassed at now being seen, waved and called out, "Howya doin', Dr. Belkvin? Nice night, huh? Not too many good ones left before that old East Texas cold's going to set in."
"Doing fine, thanks." Lauralie's shadow was doing a sensual dance behind the blinds, music blaring. The neighbor watched her form gliding about for a moment before saying, "Well...got to walk dinner off. Later, Dr. Belkvin."
"Later. Harvey."
Harvey would have something to talk about when he got home, Arthur thought.
Lauralie now peeked elflike from behind the drapes, having put the dogs into the back bedroom. So lithe and beautiful a prize Lauralie represented, a symbol of an ideal of sorts, something of a joie de vivre that raced around in his brain—a Tinkerbell, always fragile, always just out of reach even when you had her in hand, Arthur thought. Joy, yes, but she was also an annoying ethereal scratch across Arthur's soul, because Arthur knew that he denied the truth that lay in wait, that Lauralie would never be possessed by anyone, and could never truly be his. She was like the lover who sang in the song, We'll sing in the sunshine, we'll laugh every day-yay...and then I'll be on my way. That folk-song character promised a year before she had to leave, and Arthur knew that he'd have even less time before Lauralie flew away, despite her protestations and promises and declarations of love.
She gestured for him to hurry up, her large lips puckering into a teasing kiss against the glass. No doubt she was anxious for his report on tonight's success. She'd want to know all about it, every detail of how he had infiltrated Sanger's world. He'd have to make it good; he must keep her happy, but what about his own happiness? He was far from happy, he told himself as he made his way to the front door.
He jammed the key in the lock. "Well, God damn it, it's time I got some details," he shouted to the empty night.
"I couldn't agree with you more," she said, pulling open the door, revealing herself as nude, and tugging him inside.
Arthur fell into her warm arms, his determination to get to the bottom of her obsession with Dr. Sanger put on hold. Lauralie's young body, radiating a passionate heat, her eyes aglow in the soft light of the apartment, her arms tightening around him, her thighs wrapping about him, inviting him into her, to become one with her, all conspired to melt away his fears, doubts, questions, and agitation.
Arthur couldn't resist. He embraced her, and she kicked the door closed, passionately pawing at his clothing and alternately kissing him and pleading for the details just as he'd expected. "How did it go? Did you place the package on her desk like I told you to?"
She was turned on, her body heat permeating through his clothing. She swallowed his mouth in hers, sucking in his tongue. Gasping for breath, he pulled away only to hear more words spilling from her. 'Tell me... damn it, out with the details!" she insisted as her hands roamed over his clothing, tearing away at his buttons and his belt.
He replied with lies between panting breaths and kisses, "Yes, yes...just as planned. Went smooth as silk."
"Tell me everything...while we make love. Tell me what her office looked like." She went to her knees, ripping his pants and under shorts away to get at the prize she wanted, and he hoped that with her mouth around him, she would be stopped from asking any more questions.
"Like... any...office, but big, large."
"What kind of pictures did she have on her desk? You see a photo of her parents? I've got to learn more about them." She somehow talked with him inside her mouth.
The alternating of talk-suck, talk-suck, talk-suck only heightened Arthur's delight, making him gasp out answers he snatched from his imagination while at the same time seeing lights exploding in his head.
She had him on the floor now, and he was in her and pumping with eager anticipation over her, driving into her, glad she had finally shut up with the questions, when she asked, "W-what... k-kinda pictures a-and paint-ings...she h-have on...her walls?"
"Pictures?"
"Paintings, photographs, prints, what?" She choked him with both hands. 'Tell me! Fuck me and tell me!"
"I...didn't really... pay...much..." He gasped. "Heed!"
Arthur came inside her and fell atop her.
"Think!" she demanded, pushing him off and onto the rug where they had remained in the foyer. "What graced her walls? And what little knickknacks did she have on her shelves and on her desk? A paperweight with a photo inside, a Waterford crystal ball, a letter opener, a calendar, blotter? Any trinkets or mementos? Personalized pen set?"
"Jesus, I was only there a second or two when someone came waltzing by and I had to rush out, Lauralie."
She pushed away from him, getting to her knees over him. "You've got to remember something!"
"All right...all right...she had a Van Gogh print on one wall."
"Which one?"
"Which wall?"
"No, damn it, which Van Gogh?"
"Ahhh...the one with all the stars."
"Sure...yeah...Starry, Starry Night. That figures. She's one of those eternal optimists, I bet. The bitch. So what did she have on her shelves?"
"Books, lots of books, and one of those plastic models of the brain, and...and a photo of that guy, Stonecoat, and a lot of papers, stacks of papers," he continued to lie.
"The bitch has a full life, doesn't she. An excellent job, good money, the lover she wants. All of it is coming to an end...and soon, soon."
Arthur wondered why the very paintings on the other woman's walls were so important to Lauralie, and he wondered if she would ever learn of his lies. He wondered if at some time this Sanger woman had taken a lover away from Lauralie, if maybe it was this guy Stonecoat or that other guy Lauralie had mentioned, Byron Priestly.
Arthur wondered how Lauralie would react if she ever learned that he had no idea what was on Sanger's walls and shelves and desk. That he had not gotten past the shrink's outer office to have one damn look in her actual office. He certainly couldn't tell Lauralie the truth at this point, that he'd had to leave the parcel in the garage for Dr. Sanger as she pursued him out the building. It was a secret he felt best kept in a vault inside his head.
He propped himself up on his elbow. "When are you going to tell me what this is all about and why you hate her so much?" he pressed Lauralie.
"I want to hurt her, hurt her badly."
"That's rather obvious, but why? What's it got to do with her cop lover, Stonecoat? Did the two of them once hurt you?"
"She did."
"And him, Stonecoat? Did he hurt you?"
"It's enough that she loves him. I hurt him, I hurt her. Simple as that."
"How did she hurt you?"
"Enough. I don't want to fucking talk about it." She lowered herself over him and swallowed up his penis in her mouth again to shut him up, her hair tickling his stomach and groin as she worked to make him groan and end his list of questions.
When she finished, she propped herself on her elbow and said, "I left the big package for Stonecoat with UPS addressed to him at the precinct. It'll arrive tomorrow. This one'11 kick ass."
CHAPTER 7
AN UNUSUAL SILVERY spray of desert rain played lightly over their features, awakening Lucas and Meredyth where they had slept with the creatures of the rocks, here beneath the starlit night that'd become twilight morning. The first of the eastern sun rays had still not reached the boulders, and now Meredyth sat watching the light creep in, creating long dark fingers out of standing cactus plants until these shadows stretched across the desert to them. On first awakening, Meredyth had found herself in the crook of Lucas's arm, and it felt not only good but safe.
They had agreed to turn off their cell phones, and so no one had been able to disturb their evening. On waking, Lucas had pulled free, checking any messages he might have as he rummaged about in the picnic basket and said, "Hey, you hungry? Let's see what's left to drink and eat. Makeshift breakfast here."
She was checking her messages, three—all from Byron Priestly—still desperately seeking her forgiveness. Let him beg another week, she thought, then cut him off at the knees. Byron had caught her at her private practice downtown, where they had often met for dinner and the theater in the past, but this time, she had stormed off from him, leaving him standing in the garage. She'd told him not to call or to come by, but here he was, bugging her.
She joined Lucas and they finished off what was left of the wine and bread, and after watching a circling pair of screeching hawks claiming the territory, Lucas suggested they start back for the city and the other reality awaiting them.
"We didn't make love," she commented on the trip back.
"We were too busy making love to the desert," he countered, "together—of one mind. It was great."
She smiled at this. "You're more the romantic than you pretend, aren't you, Chief? My Wolf Clansman."
Lucas and Meredyth arrived back in the city and at Meredyth's place a few minutes past nine A.M. in a steady rain, and the day doorman, Stuart Long, greeted them with an envelope from Byron and complaints. "Lost time on the job over this thing...long and frustrating hours spent with that sketch artist. So I took over Max's shift last night, and so here I am, bloodshot eyes, dog's at home alone, nobody to feed 'im, putting in long hours here—get it, Long hours. Hi and hello," he added, taking Lucas's hand, shaking it. "I'm Stuart Long."
"Detective Stonecoat, Lucas." Lucas then asked, "So, you got a sketch done at the station house?"
'Talk about long hours...going downtown to give a statement and a description of the guy who left that damnable parcel with me. I told 'em what little I know, Dr. Sanger, but it wasn't much. The guy was an everyman type, you know, nothing whatever to distinguish him. The guy was like medium everything, medium height, medium weight, medium shoe size, medium brown hair, glasses, kinda geekish-looking, wore a buttoned-up Ralph Lauren polo shirt knockoff over ordinary slacks. Nothing about his features stuck out. Clean shaven. I think the composite they did may's well be a blank slate."
Meredyth had tom open Byron's envelope, glanced at the communique, and angrily stuffed it into her purse when she could find no nearby trash container. In her purse, she came across the folded copy of the sketch Kelton had given her the night before. She snatched it out, offering it to Lucas.
He frowned and stared at the depiction—mostly blank space—and said, "Hmmm...I see what you mean, Mr. Long. This... this is extremely"—useless, he thought but didn't wish to insult—"extremely helpful."
"BS, Detective. It's all medium... everything about the guy was medium, even his nose. When they showed me those books of collected ears, noses, eyes, chins, shit...all I kept picking out was the medium ones," Stu continued nonstop as if on speed, his shoulders rising and lowering as if on automatic. "I'm for damn sure going to be more observant in the future."
"Not at all, Stu," replied Meredyth, waving him down. "Thanks for taking the time going in and giving the artist what you could."
"Did you notice any odors clinging to the man?" asked Lucas out of the blue.
"Odors... hmmm... That's interesting you should ask." Long bit his lower lip, contemplating this. "On account-a-there was something... something odd like...like...can't place it now."