When I looked into those eyes, I understood
how some men who needed mothering could be attracted to her. There
was the kind of warmth of the eternal feminine.
But when she leaned over me to get the bowl,
I caught the sweet smell of her perfume. It was Shalimar. It ticked
off a distant memory of a fragrance. A remembered scent. And the
possibility of a girl who wasn’t telling me everything she
knew.
I caught her off guard.
“Why didn’t you tell me you screwed Chisolm
in Alicia’s sofa bed?”
Her eyes gave her away. She was incapable of
guile.
“Oh my God. He told you,” was her reflex
response.
I nodded. “He told me everything.”
“Oh my God,” she repeated.
“Why did you do it?”
She covered her face with her hands. “I’ve
never done anything like that before. It was so bizarre.”
The next guess was easier. “It was the coke,
wasn’t it?”
She wanted to find something to blame. “Yes,”
she said. “I’d never taken cocaine before then… or since. I can
barely remember what happened. It was Alicia’s fault. She said he
wasn’t satisfied with her alone. That he wanted someone new to
stimulate him, so she made me get into bed and do it with
them.”
I almost repeated the word, “Them.” I caught
myself in time. I was almost surprised. But, hell, I stopped being
surprised a long time ago at the meaning and variety of peoples’
sexual habits—about the time I stopped wetting my drawers.
“Go on,” I said.
“I’m so ashamed,” she said as she tried to
look at me and failed. I believed her. I put my hand on her arm.
She didn’t shrug it off.
“It was the cocaine,” she insisted. “I didn’t
know what I was doing. I did it for her.”
“Sure you did.” Was I a cynical, unfeeling
son of a bitch? “You got into bed and did it with them, after you
sniffed some coke.”
She nodded. “First he did it to Alicia, then
he did it to me, then he did it to Alicia, and then he did it to
me…”
I was truly impressed. “That must have been
an outstanding brand of coke. The guy’s prowess amazes me.”
She shook her head in confusion. “Oh no, no.
You misunderstood me.” Her face flushed. “He didn’t finish with
Alicia and then finish with me.” She seemed to want to set the
record straight.
“What do you mean?”
She studied the empty bowl. “Well, I mean, he
did a few strokes with me, then a few strokes with Alicia, and so
on. I mean, he didn’t actually…you know…”
“I see.” This was a new color in my paint
box. “You mean, sort of, like musical chairs?”
She flushed. “He said he couldn’t decide
which one to …you know…so he…you know, by himself.”
“Oh really?” I raised one eyebrow. What the
hell else could I say?
I think that was about all the truth or
consequences she could handle. She got up and retreated to the
kitchen. I could hear the water running as she washed the bowl.
It took her ten minutes to wash out one bowl.
Then she reappeared and stood in the doorway and stared down at me.
But she didn’t move from where she stood.
“Come over here,” I said to her in the most
supportive brother-in-law voice I could muster.
She hesitated, then finally did come
over.
“Sit down.”
She did.
“Listen. I don’t blame you for what happened.
And I don’t judge you.” I tried to assuage her, what?, guilt. “But
you have to tell me everything you can. It’s the only way I can
find the killer.”
She considered that. “You think that what I
just told you will help?”
I was honest with her. I didn’t know what
that little tidbit of perversion meant.
“Who knows? Every piece helps. My job is to
ask questions. Asking questions, getting answers, finding the ones
that don’t fit…”
“Are you going to ask Chisolm more
questions?”
“You bet. Him and his wife.” I examined her
face, but all I saw were eyes that trusted me. “What’s her
name?”
“Constance…it’s Constance, I think. She’s
from Greenwich. I know she was married before.”
“So was Chisolm. This is the second marriage
for both of them.” I grinned at her. “You know what Samuel Johnson
called a second marriage?”
She looked at me carefully. “No,” she said. I
wasn’t sure she knew who Samuel Johnson was.
“He called it the triumph of hope over
experience.”
She laughed. “I like that.” Then her tone
turned serious. “Do you think you’ll ever get married again?”
I hadn’t anticipated the question. I was
going to say, “If I had a girl like you..,” but I thought better of
it. I didn’t want to tease her.
I’d been alone so long I didn’t know if I
could handle another marriage. I was coming around to the point of
view that women were creatures from another universe, someplace
with a methane-based ecosystem. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I
don’t think I’m right for marriage. Too much of a lone wolf, I
guess.”
There was disappointment in her gaze. “That’s
a shame. A real catch like you.”
“Yeah. Catch of the day. Fresh from the bay
to your table in one day—skinned, de-boned, and split wide
open.”
Rachel said Dr. Pasternak left New York every
weekend, so I waited until late Friday night to make an unsolicited
visit to review his files. It was a bitch climbing in the window
with my bad arm. But at least there was a toehold to ease my way up
to the ledge. And all the while I kept thinking this used to be a
lot easier in Parris Island when I was a green youth, full of
energy and innocent enthusiasm. Then I had the same flashback I
always got of clawing my way up an incline in the Au Shau valley
while we took enfilading fire, scrambling for a crevasse to squeeze
into, shaking like a madman with palsy, dirt in my face, cursing
Charlie, smelling acrid napalm from the treeline, half-deaf from
incoming, wishing, just wishing we were home, warm and safe. Every
time I climbed, that same godforsaken scene came back to me.
Once I got onto the ledge it was easy. I cut
the glass, opened the latch and slid the window open. Inside the
house I skirted the ancient motion detectors without any trouble.
There was nothing of interest on the first floor. The house was so
cold and spare and devoid of any sign of humanity that it looked
like it had never been inhabited. The file cabinets weren’t in the
consulting room on the second floor where Pasternak had started
bawling like a little old lady, but after a quick search I located
them in his private office. It was furnished in the same way as the
rest of the house—sparse and uncomfortable. The desk was just a
glass top with saw-horse chrome legs, and the chair was a couple of
leather thongs on a metal frame. The decor was what you could call
early masochist.
There were three metal file cabinets. The
kind where the drawers swing out. I tried a few master keys before
I found one that worked. Obviously he didn’t think anyone was
interested in breaking into his files. They were locked for
privacy—not security.
Alicia’s file wasn’t there. It wasn’t where
it should have been alphabetically. I tried every possible
combination for her name. There was plenty of time so I went
through every patient’s file, but it was missing all right. In my
search I came across Rachel’s file. Was I human? Sure, I was human.
Were human beings curious? Does a fish swim? Does a bird fly?
Later, I said.
There was no other place in the office where
Pasternak could have put Alicia’s file. There were no drawers in
the desk.
I scanned the bookcases, but there were no
files tucked away between the books. Everything was neat and clean
and in its proper place. The books were even arranged by subject.
The guy was evidently fastidious about cleanliness and order.
The file wasn’t in this room.
Pasternak could have removed it or the police
could have subpoenaed it. I’d make a search of the house later but,
for now, Rachel’s file kept calling me like a big slice of
chocolate cake with a side of vanilla ice cream.
There were many pages of handwritten notes in
a tiny tortured scrawl, densely packed, difficult to read. She must
have been seeing him for some time. I didn’t understand most of the
terms and the notes were in some kind of shorthand that probably
only he could decipher. But I got the gist of the analysis.
What I read added a new twist to my
perception of that delightful little creature. Laura had been
speaking literally, not figuratively, when she referred to Rachel
as a whore. She had been a dues-paying member of that noble
profession for a few years. It wasn’t clear if she was actually
practicing her calling when she started going for
psychotherapy.
Anyway, that’s when Daddy’s trust fund kicked
in. The notes showed that Rachel was thirty when she was able to
have access to the money. She didn’t have to be a working girl
anymore and she settled into retirement without a pension or a gold
watch. But the profession had left scars on her psyche, and I guess
on her body too.
Her condition, as she delicately put it, was
obviously the result of her work. And Dr. Pasternak was trying to
exorcise the twin demons of lust and greed. To open up those
tightly grasping labia.
Jesus, what a story. Poetic, wasn’t it? She
could do it when she didn’t enjoy it, had to do it to survive in a
style she wanted to become accustomed to. She didn’t want to work
in a normal job or couldn’t earn enough for that style, so she
earned it the easy way—on her mattress. Now, when she wanted to
enjoy the good old in-out, she couldn’t. Fate had decreed, now that
she had all the money she wanted, no one could get into her.
It was a tough one to accept. I thought of
those eyes.
I closed the file. I’d have to sort it out
with her.
The martini was dry and cold going down. I
tossed it back and asked the barkeep for another one. Laura was
still delicately sipping her first.
I hadn’t worn my tuxedo in a while and it was
feeling a little snug. Either I’d have to let it out or pull myself
in. I sucked up my gut. Did a daily diet of fermented barley, malt
and hops over a couple of decades cause you to generate excess
avoirdupois?
I took Laura by the arm and guided her
through the French doors outside to the floodlit swimming pool.
“Where’s Mrs. Chisolm?” I asked her.
She shrugged and spread her hands. The night
was cool and she shivered as she rubbed her bare arms to warm
herself. She was wearing a little black cocktail dress that made
her look like a refugee from one of those Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn
movies.
“Have you been here before?”
“Yes,” she said. “That was when I met Chisolm
for the first time. Alicia invited me to a cocktail party just like
this one. I thought he was a dreamboat.”
I fought it, but there was still that hard
edge of jealousy. I wanted her to be virginal, even though the
horse had already bolted from the barn.
“Tell me about Mrs. Chisolm. What’s she
like?”
“A perfect bitch,” she said with a perfect
giggle. “All the men love her and all the women can’t stand her.
She’s a gorgeous society lady whose family made oodles of money
during the First World War selling some sort of inferior supplies
to the army. At least, that’s what Chisolm told me in a weak
moment.”
Two couples ambled out onto the patio. The
men were talking to each other and the two women were following
behind chattering, oblivious to their surroundings. The men’s heads
were close together and it looked like they were involved in some
kind of business negotiations. The band was playing a Cole Porter
song inside the house and the sound drifted out to where we were
standing.
We stepped back inside the house. I recalled
the upstairs bedroom with the lavender sheets and the balance bar
and wondered how many more workouts they’d been given. Justine had
been standing near the entrance when Laura and I came in, and we
exchanged a glance that was as old as civilization itself, maybe
even older.
“Show me Chisolm’s wife,” I whispered into
Laura’s ear. I didn’t have to whisper. The band was playing Begin
the Beguine loud enough to drown out any casual conversation.
There were maybe a hundred people in the
house, the men in tuxedos, the women in long dresses. Sleek,
smooth, successful. The place was drowning in new money, freshly
minted in the Nineties. These were the people who hadn’t given it
back.
Laura shot a glance of recognition at someone
across the dance floor.
“Let me introduce you to Robert.”
She led me through the crowd and stopped in
front of an even-featured young man with an easy smile.
“Ed, this is Robert McCormack. He was a
colleague of Alicia’s. They worked on several projects
together.”
He took my hand and shook it gently, a
handshake that spoke of indeterminate sexuality.
“I’m happy to meet you,” he said in a silky
voice. “I liked her a lot. I’m terribly sorry she’s dead.” He
dropped his gaze and inspected my shoe shine closely. His sandy
hair was blow-dried and thinning.
“What kind of jobs did you do together?”
He looked back up at me and then away. “We
wrote research reports. We did some on REITS and a few on defense
contractors.”
“That’s an odd combination,” I said.
“Yes, it is. I specialized in real estate and
she specialized in defense, but we enjoyed working together. She
was a great investigator, very thorough, and she often came up with
a slant that was unique.”
He checked my shoes again and said, “She was
a valuable analyst. That’s why I was surprised when Stallings
wanted to fire her.”
He had pale blue eyes that looked like they
were always ready to cry. He was in his mid to late twenties and a
full-fledged member of that new generation of young men and young
women that you saw so often in the workplace—neat, clean,
hard-working, politically correct, and so gender-neutral that you
couldn’t tell the males from the females. The boys looked the same
as the girls, they spoke the same way and they espoused the same
philosophy. No one must ever be offended at whatever cost.
Organically, ecologically, historically-correct, even though they
had trouble reconciling that with their notion that history began
on the day they were born.