Devil's Food (34 page)

She knew that tone of voice, and braced herself. “What’s that?”

“Guy Witten was in a car accident. He’s dead.” As he said it, Ross recalled Emily breaking the same news to him about Dana
just a while ago. Had they come full circle, then? Back to the starting line, minus a few competitors? How odd that they continued
to live while others died in midstream, without goodbyes forever. It wasn’t as if the ones left behind had escaped, either.
Each disappearance ripped and nicked, degrading the survivors’ ability to float in that giant, storm-tossed lake called Time.
Perhaps their one small hope was to cling together, risk their fates on the other’s buoyancy, and pray that the monsters beneath
the waves would gorge themselves elsewhere.

Emily didn’t move as two tears dribbled under her glasses and trailed slowly over her cheeks. “Oh dear,” she said softly.

“It says he drove off the road in the rain. The article doesn’t have much detail.” Ross watched her shuffle to the window
and stare at the downtown skyline. He gave her a half minute to launch a volley of arrows to the other side, wherever Guy
might presently be, before joining her. “I’m sorry, baby,” Ross said, folding her in his arms. “What can I do for you?”

Aside from raising Guy from the dead, nothing. Sniffling, Emily returned to her chair. She couldn’t let herself fall apart
in front of Ross. “He was a good man,” she said finally. That seemed the appropriate thing for a former employee to say about
her late boss.

“Did he have a family? Wife? Children?”

No, just hen Lot of good that did him. “A sister in Winchester,” she said. “Did the article say anything about the funeral?”

“No. Maybe there’ll be an obit tomorrow.”

Emily wiped away a fresh tear. “I wonder why no one from Cafe Presto called me.”

“They’re probably in shock. People don’t generally like to call with such bad news.”

“Bert would.” She sighed. “I just don’t believe it.”

Ross hung around solicitously for a while, then left for work. At the first pay phone, he called Diavolina. “I’m looking for
Ward. Is she in?”

“Sure she’s in,” answered Klepp. “Who are you, the steroid salesman?”

“Just put her on.” Ross waited a long time before she picked up. “I’ve got to see you right away.”

“Sure.” Ward yawned. “Come on over.”

“Not there. Anywhere else.”

She suggested a Hispanic grocerette a few blocks from the restaurant. Ross cabbed over. Despite the early hour, a half dozen
customers queued at the lottery machine. The store smelled of dried meat and room freshener. He found Ward sniff-ing some
hirsute roots in the vegetable section. She was wearing sweatpants and a mottled blue-black T-shirt that matched her tattoos.
Seeing him, she put the roots down and calmly blew the dirt off her fingers. Something about her had changed. Not outwardly:
Ward still hadn’t bathed. She just seemed ... happy?

Ross noticed the people in line staring at them: His suit and Ward’s body didn’t exactly blend into the Wonder bread. No background
music, no wayside conversations: This was no place to hear about a murderess’s trip to New Hampshire. “I saw the article in
the paper,” he said softly.

Now Ward was fingering some tiny purple peppers. “What’d it say?”

She didn’t know or she didn’t care; both possibilities worried him. Ross bought a paper and motioned Ward outside. They walked
in silence down a side street with undulating brown-stones and a little park in the middle for drug dealers. He sat on
an empty bench and opened the newspaper, “Read this,” he said.

She did, slowly. Chuckling, she put the paper aside. “I should know by now that nothing ever goes according to plan.”

“What the hell did you plan?” Ross snapped.

“I was going to throw him off the Tobin Bridge.”

After a moment, Ross realized she wasn’t joking. “Tell me what happened the other night.”

“I drove up to your cabin and waited in the rain for Lover Boy.”

“Where’d you park the car?”

“Way out of sight, up the road. What do you think I am, an idiot?”

“I have no idea,” Ross replied, watching the veins in her neck swell into relief. Maybe she was a cyborg. “Keep talking.”

“He showed up around nine o’clock with a bottle of booze. Walked right up to the door and pounded on it. Must have been drunk
or high on something because he shouts ‘I’m here, Em! Open up, baby!’ Moron couldn’t even get her name straight.”

“Did she open the door? Philippa?”

“Sure, after a while.” Ward looked kindly, trustfully at him, the way Emily had this morning. “I shot him before he went inside.”

“Christ! Are you out of your mind? Everyone within five miles must have heard the gun!”

“No one heard anything. I shot him with a crossbow. He went down like a ton of bricks.”

Crossbow? Wasn’t that something they used in the Middle Ages, like catapults and racks? For a tiny second, Ross thought he
felt the park bench levitate, the way objects sometimes did in dreams. “What did Philippa do? Scream?”

“Please. That worthless tart slammed the door shut so hard I thought a gun had gone off. She just left him lying there.”

“Wasn’t the first time. She left him in a pile of glass when you drove through the window of Cafe Presto.”

“And he still wanted to see her? Gad, she must fuck like a dog!”

Again Ross felt the bench levitate. “What did you do then?” he whispered.

“I waited. Witten didn’t move, the door didn’t open. Finally I went to the porch and pulled my arrow out of the door frame.”

“You shot a second arrow?”

“No, the first one went right through him. It’s bad form to leave them lying around.” Ward fell into a short silence. “Anyway,
he came to as I was walking away. Dragged over to the door and started whimpering for Emily. It was pathetic. After half an
hour he finally pulled himself together. Staggered to his car and drove off.”

“And you waited around all that time? Why?”

Ward shrugged. “Guess I was admiring my handiwork.”

“Weren’t you afraid that the police might show up? What would you have done then?”

“Split, I suppose. But they never showed up. I had a feeling that bitch hadn’t called them. And I was right.” Ward watched
a dog struggle to defecate as the man attached to its leash studied the shrubbery across the street. “After Witten left, I
left. It was pouring rain and I was soaked. I had no idea he killed himself driving home.”

Ross looked harshly at her. “With a little help from you, of course.”

“Don’t be so modest, chum.” Ward patted Ross’s thigh. “Don’t worry. No one will ever find out unless you tell them. Or your
sister-in-law does.” She guffawed. “I would not want to be stuck on a desert island with that dame.”

“What about the arrow wound?”

“What about it? No one knows where or how he got it. I used a broadhead with two carbon steel blades. Witten’s got an inch-wide
slit in his back and his stomach. It will look like he was stabbed with a long sword. I must have nicked his liver or something.
He probably died of internal bleeding.” Ward peered at Ross. “Does Emily know anything about this?”

“She knows he’s dead. She’s crushed.” Ross kicked at an optimistic pigeon. “May I ask a stupid question? What did Guy Witten
do to deserve this? Steal your lasagna recipe?”

Ward became very still. Nothing moved but the veins in her neck and, once, her eyelids. “He killed my sister.”

“How?” Ross demanded ruthlessly, angry at all she had done. “Gun? Poison? Bare hands?”

“He broke her heart, dear. She jumped off a building.”

Jump, jump. Emily had recently asked him about someone jumping off a building. She had seen an old clipping on Ward’s desk.
Yes, that was it, that silly little girl who had jumped off the Darnell Building years ago must have been Ward’s sister. “I’m
listening,” Ross said. “Go on.”

“Her name was Rita. She was five years younger than I, smart, bubbly.... I adored her. So did everyone else. Rita followed
me to Boston and worked as a waitress in Leo’s restaurant while she went to art school.” Ward’s face condensed into wrinkles
and hatred. “After a few months I noticed that she began sneaking around at odd hours, coming home late, lying about where
she had been, starting to drink.... It got worse and worse. One night I followed her to school. She came out holding Guy Wit-ten’s
hand. They sat in a sleazy little diner for two hours and my sister cried the whole time. Witten was married then, of course.
He just put her in a cab and went home. Two weeks later, she jumped off a building. All she left on the balcony, tucked in
a plant, was a note saying that she couldn’t go on like that any-more. She wore one red shoe. They never found the other one.”

Ross stared at Ward’s elaborate, writhing tattoos. “You’ve been planning your revenge all this time?”

“That’s right.” Ward chuckled again. “And I almost got it.”

“Almost? You got it, ma’am! You nailed him!” Ross shook his head. “And I helped you.”

“Now you’re sorry? Don’t make me laugh. If you need sympathy, go cry on your sister-in-law’s shoulder.”

Ross stood up. “I don’t think we’ll be meeting again.”

“Maybe not.” Ward suddenly grabbed his hand and kissed it. “Don’t look back, Major. You’re safe. Thank you for rescuing me.
I mean that.”

He walked quickly away.

G
uy’s dead. I dont believe it yet. But I will. Serves him right, really. No one poaches my wife and gets away with it. But
a broadhead through the liver? Jesus, that must have hurt. Ward must have been only fifty feet away when she fired that crossbow.
Brilliant choice of weapon: powerful and accurate as a rifle, only no report. And she’s got the muscles to load the evil little
contraption. Where’d she learn to use one, though? She’s damn lucky the bolt didn’t go through Guy into Philippa. Fine bloody
mess that would have made on my front porch! Almost worth it, though, to have them both down for the count ... but I mustn’t
be greedy. One is enough. In this case, one is actually better. Cleaner. Ward was right: No one knows Guy went to New Hampshire.
No one has any idea where or why he got hit. And the only witness isn’t going to be spilling the beans; she’s too afraid of
Emily. What kind of fool story is Philippa going to feed her sister this time?

I wonder if Philippa saw the arrow in the door frame. Maybe not. Broadheads are small as pencils. It was dark and rainy. The
whole thing must have happened very fast. Philippa must have been half plotzed. She probably had the lights down low and her
face wrapped with scarves the way she did for her little tryst with Guy at Cafe Presto. But why slam the door shut? She must
have heard him whimpering out there in the rain. Why not call the police or an ambulance? Why call me instead?

Because she’s a fiend. Poor Guy, oh God, poor Guy. What a way to go. Dead of internal bleeding? And how.

Emily sobbed for a long time after Ross had left for work. Guy gone? Wrong, insanely wrong. She wasn’t half finished with
him yet. As Guy’s voice vibrated in her ear, she thought of the unreturned phone calls, anguished silences, their peremptory
parting: That was it? The book would stay closed at such an awful chapter? Then the loose ends would beget more guilt than
their adulterous knots ever had! The newspapers must have made a mistake. Guy did not crash cars. He was a cautious driver.
Emily reread the small article several times. What abdominal wounds? Old ones, from that hit-and-run at Cafe Presto? The night
Guy died, she had been on a plane to L.A., watching a movie, dozing. She had heard no psychic howl at the moment of his death.
Emily smiled bitterly: Perhaps he had not called her name.

Philippa phoned once, horrendously cheerful, wondering how the breakfast meeting had gone. Emily’s mouth, not her brain, maintained
a shallow conversation. She waited until ten o’clock, when the morning rush was over, before going to Cafe Presto. Back in
operation after the recent damages, the place smelled different: new chef, new spices. Lois, as always, sat behind the cash
register, frowning at customers incapable of coming up with exact change. Bert rushed around the croissant racks, anxiously
replenishing the baskets up front. The fullback behind the counter must be Lina, Emily’s replacement. From a distance the
scene looked perfectly normal; Emily half expected Guy to stroll in at any moment.

The first sign of disaster was Lois’s coiffure, which had not received
its diurnal shellacking with hair spray. Perhaps she had not combed it at all. Then Emily heard Bert calling the croissants
cocksuckers, a word he had never used before. No one even noticed her until she stood in front of the muffins. “Hi guys,”
Emily said.

Lois burst into tears and ran from the register. Emily followed her to the kitchen. “What happened to Guy?” Emily wailed.

“No one knows anything,” Lois wept. “Except he was in an accident.”

“Why didn’t anyone call me?”

“We didn’t think you cared.”

“That’s ridiculous! Where’d you get such a stupid idea?”