Bad Desire (19 page)

Reeves nodded and thanked her.

A pair of older women about her age came hurriedly across the street and she went to join them. Reeves stood looking after her. The church bells started to chime the hour and he went around the cruiser to his door, hardly conscious of the expensive cars lining the street, the sleek Alfa Romeos, the Bentleys. That's right, Reeves thought, feeling his jaw muscles tighten. That makes sense. That's the kind of thing I've been waiting for. Wasn't it all just too damned slick, too damned pat! He watched Mrs. Sanders as she went up the stone steps.
A bargain with the devil
. That's just the kind of thing.

What Marjorie Sanders had told him had its own logic; it seemed right and, to Reeves, it had the reverberation of truth. Now it's up to me, he kept thinking. I'm going to find out who killed that Buchanan woman or know the reason why. You can damned well bank on that.

Coming out through the gold-tipped iron gates, the children swarmed over the sidewalks. “Rusty!” he called, “over here!” while the bells rang to a shuddering silence. Like a murmur through the open church windows, the choir had taken up the first stanza of “Old Rugged Cross.” Reeves tousled his son's hair and started the cruiser. It was time to go on about his business—an inch at a time.

Behind City Hall, the parking lot was all but deserted. Seeing that Reeves's cruiser wasn't there, Slater drove out to the house on Klamath Drive; he caught the police chief as he was backing out of his drive. “Burris,” he said, “let's get a cup of coffee. I need to know what you're doing about these convicts.”

“I'm on my way out to the Buchanan house now. Why don't you ride along?”

Rachel's house!
“You mean to the murder scene?”

“Yeah, something's been on my mind. I've got to go back out there again.”

Slater was staring at the police chief as if spellbound. Come on, he thought, get a grip on yourself. “How long will you be?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes. You can leave your car here; nobody'll bother it.”

Slater hadn't counted on being drawn back to the scene of the crime so soon or so directly, but now that he had confronted Reeves, he couldn't think of a graceful way to bow out of it. Completely aware of the risk he was taking, Slater left his car parked at the curb and got into the cruiser. Once they were moving, Reeves said, “So you want to know where we are with this Buchanan thing?”

“I can't ad lib it with the press much longer. I've got to give them some straight answers.”

Reeves chuckled. “Christ, Henry, if I had answers, I'd've called you.” He fished a toothpick from his shirt pocket and started to chew it. “All I've got is questions.”

Immediately, Slater was conscious of a needling uneasiness, an anxious feeling of trouble. His throat was dry. He swallowed and coughed into his fist, but he couldn't shake the way he felt.

“You knew Rachel Buchanan fairly well, didn't you, Henry?”

“I suppose. Probably as well as most people. Why?”

Reeves shrugged. He maneuvered the toothpick into the corner of his mouth and chewed it, the end twitching. “The picture I get of her is of a reserved woman, tight with her money, conservative, not given to sharing intimacies. Would you say that's an accurate depiction?”

“Some people might say that,” Slater told him, feeling a trickle of sweat break under his arm. “It's one side of the coin. On the other side, she was more generous.”

“Yeah,” Reeves said. “We're all like that, I guess. What I meant was: I don't see her as a gossipy woman. Do you remember her talking much about herself—you know, about her ups and downs?”

“No, not really. Rachel wasn't like that.”

“That's what I thought. That's what I wanted to hear you say.”

It hummed on the air like a pronouncement of death.
But I didn't say anything. My God, it was nothing at all
. So why did Slater feel as though he had just made the most irretrievable blunder?

The traffic that morning was thin and scattered and they drove through it smoothly. In short order, Reeves swung onto the on ramp and they were headed south on the interstate. “I wanted to have this thing neat,” the big policeman was saying, “with no loose ends. I wanted it bad. Maybe you think that laying this murder off on those convicts was the obvious thing to do—but, Henry, it wasn't. It was easy.”

All the time that Reeves was talking, his hands were moving: he kept taking the toothpick out of his mouth and putting it back, he flipped on the turn signal, he adjusted the rearview mirror. And Slater thought, What's the matter, Burris? Nervous about something? But he, also, cautioned himself not to read too much into it.

“It seemed right, at first,” Reeves said. “I bought it—the whole nine yards. So did you. We even got up in front of people and told them how much we believed it.”

Don't let on, Slater thought. Say whatever he expects you to say, act the way he wants you act. Slater raised his eyes and wondered if there was any color left in his face. He said, “So what're you telling me?”

“You're no dummy. You know what I'm saying.”

“No, I don't think so.”

They swooped down the Canyon Valley exit and turned left through the underpass, following the meandering country lane. We're going too fast, Slater kept thinking—we're getting there too fast. He could feel himself rushing headlong toward the one place he ought not go.

Reeves said, “Henry, goddamnit, it wasn't the convicts.”

You can't know what really happened, Burris. You
can't! You just can't
. Slater stared at him. There's no way. “Now, wait a minute. Hold on for just one damned minute, Burris. Four days ago, you told me this thing was cut and dried.”

“Four days ago, I thought it was.”

“You've got to be kidding. What changed your mind?”

Reeves bit the toothpick and just looked at him.

“You've found something.”

Reeves returned his attention to the curving road. “Not a thing,” he said. “I don't have a damned thing.” He was slowing down, putting on his brakes; he pulled up sideways at the end of the Buchanan driveway and cut the engine.

We're here. God help me, we're here
.

“Then how can you say—”

“Henry, this is the slickest murder I've ever seen, I have to say. Before I came here, I worked homicides all up and down this coast, and I've never seen a slicker one. We combed this place, I mean
we combed it
and I swear to you, there's not a shred of concrete evidence out here—not a single fingerprint, not a hair. I'll take that back—we did find half a shoe print, man's size eleven, which we made a cast of. But that's it; that's how slick it is.”

“Jesus,” Slater muttered. He sat looking at the band of yellow, plastic police tape that marked off the entire area around Rachel's house. He was thinking about the graveled driveway and his diamond—the countless thousands of rocks. “So where are we, then, Burris? Up the creek, without a paddle?”

“Not quite.”

It was twenty past nine, and the surrounding houses lay in a deep, slumbering silence. The sky was overcast. An occasional squirrel or bird darted among the trees, but no one ventured forth on the silent lawns. Reeves opened his door. “I want to clear this barrier before that girl comes home tomorrow.” He took the toothpick from his mouth; its end was frayed and splintered like a tiny broom—he flipped it out the window. “How about giving me a hand, before these neighbors get back from church.”

Slater felt a stony reluctance to do anything but stay in the car, but at the same time, he knew he couldn't refuse such a simple request. Unable to shake the feeling that something more was going on with Reeves, he said, “Sure, all right,” and the two men got out of the cruiser, slamming their doors.

He followed the police chief across the shallow, grassy right-of-way toward the far corner of Rachel's iron fence. “We'll be getting organized here in a minute,” Reeves said.

What does that mean?

Reeves unclasped the larger blade of his penknife and handed the knife to Slater. “You can cut it down,” he said, “and I'll roll it.”

Why did you give me the knife, Reeves? What're you trying to do?

They started at the corner, Slater cutting the bindings and Reeves collecting the yellow tape in a loose roll. Working quickly along the front of the fence and across the driveway entrance, they turned up the near side of the perimeter lilacs. “Burris, are you sure about this?”

“Henry,” Reeves said, as they arrived adjacent to the porte cochere, “did you ever have something caught in your craw? Know what I mean? It always sits right about here.” He clamped the rolled tape under his arm and massaged the hollow at the base of his throat. “You can't get it up and you can't get it down and it never goes away. I drink a glass of water and it's there; I have a sandwich and it's there; I go to sleep and I wake up and it's there. Do you know what that's like? Well, I've got this murder stuck in my craw like a goddamned rock.”

“So what're you getting at?” I can't stop sweating, Slater realized. He could feel it, wet, under his arms like hot slippery paste.

A second cruiser pulled up behind Reeves's and two younger patrolmen got out. “Henry, let me have that,” Reeves said and Slater handed over the knife. Now there were two additional cops coming toward him. What the hell's going on?

“You guys get your beauty sleep?” Reeves chided, walking down the drive to meet them. “Looks like you could use some more. Here, take down this line, pick the place up a little.” So it was nothing to worry about; Slater felt a momentary respite. “Then you can go on to your regular assignments,” Reeves concluded, starting back. “Come on, Henry, let's walk this through. I want you to look at this with me.”

Wait a minute. I can't go through it again, Slater thought. I can't. But with every step, he could feel himself drawing closer and closer to
that
place. A big drop of sweat trickled slowly through his hair, down his back. I shouldn't be here. Why did I ever come here? Now it was too late: he couldn't get away.

“A lot of little things just keep nagging at me,” Reeves was saying, but Slater was only partially aware of him. Everything was now filtered through his fear. “Nothing about this case makes sense. I have to believe there's something I'm not seeing.”

“Which is?” Slater said.

“I don't know. I don't know what the hell I'm looking for. There's something out here though—there's something; I know it—but I can't find it.”

They had come to the wide gap in the hedge between Rachel's driveway and the Malcolmsons' backyard. Slater felt as though he were entering a zone of inescapable danger. “In case you're interested,” Reeves said, tugging at an earlobe, “that's where we found her—over there beside that graveled walk.”

It's a trap. A breeze shook the bushes and Slater thought he could hear life surging from the house. It was a sound like a waterfall. What should I do? Time seemed to be speeding by him and he knew whatever he did, Reeves would not fail to notice. Can I bear to look? Or not?

“See? Where that trellis's broken down.”

I have to, Slater realized. No time to deliberate. He lifted his head and looked roughly in the direction Reeves had indicated, toward the place where he knew Rachel had fallen. He reached his hand up but couldn't stop it: he felt the phantom knife slash his throat.

“Christ, Burris,” he panted, “I don't need this. Don't forget: I knew Rachel. She was my friend. We used to live right over there, in that house across the street.”

“Sorry, Henry. I forgot about that,” the police chief said and a moment later he changed the subject. “Look at those starlings. Filthy, damned things.” When he stooped to gather a few stones, Slater noticed half a dozen or more of the brownish-black birds, sitting perfectly still on the trellises and arbor. Two were on the ground, pecking at the gravel among the broken-down clematis vines.

The birds fastened his eyes to the spot.
Blood! The blood! It's all over the place!
Slater closed his eyes but the blood was still there. For an instant, once again, he could feel Rachel struggling at the ends of his hands.
God help me! I've done it! I've done it!

“Hey, Henry, what's the matter?”

Slater gasped with relief as reality flooded back—the graveled drive, the late morning sunbeams where all was sane and orderly. Reeves clasped his shoulder. “Say, buddy—are you all right?”

“I can't help it,” Slater said, gulping a breath. “It's this place. I was thinking—Rachel. I think—it's getting under my skin.”

Reeves gave him a look of absolute sympathy. “Know what you mean,” he said. “Just try to take it easy. I never get used to it either.” Choosing a piece of gravel from his hand, he fired it at the birds. “She must've fed these starlings. I've always hated them; you couldn't drive 'em away with a bazooka.”

One at a time, he sailed the handful of stones into the garden, the birds fluttering up when the gravel struck too close to them, and then resettling. “See what I mean? There must've been a hundred out here that morning, but they're impossible to get rid of.” He slapped his hands together, knocking off the dust, and slid the garage door open on its creaking pulleys. Old and rusty, the red and brown station wagon sat before Slater like an unwanted dream. It brought to mind the last time he had seen Rachel driving it—the same evening that Sheila had flashed her fingers for him to meet her.

“What I'm going to tell you, Henry, has got to be strictly off the record.”

“Fine.” He was still having trouble controlling his voice.

“Between you and me, right?”

“That's right. The way it's always been.”