Mulch (20 page)

P
ETER WALKED INTO THE LIVING ROOM, IMMEDIATELY
drawn to the gold-and-white brilliance on the couch. He narrowed his eyes so he could focus more closely. His wife, Phyllis, sat with her legs tucked under her. To think he had once thought her chic. In fact, she was considered chic by most people, all the more so when he took her away from Washington for trips to New York or Paris. Tonight she wore white leather pants with a matte finish. Her sweater was a white angora confection
sprinkled with gold objects of some kind. He knew he had paid dearly for it.

It had lain out on her bed one day and he had reached down and flipped the I. Magnin price tag over in his big hand, then bent down to be sure he was seeing correctly. “Holy Christ. Eighteen hundred dollars for a mere sweater? You could buy a designer gown for that.”

“Darling, it is a designer
sweater.
It’s a Sophie. You know how much Sophies cost.” At the time she said this, she had been doing aerobic exercises on the Ultrasuede mat in the bathroom next to the Jacuzzi. She didn’t even bother to escalate it to an argument, just kept on sawing away at her imagined cellulite excesses with muscles already too thin and hard.

Tonight he noticed something different about her hair. It had been colored this time not with the usual blond coloring, but a concoction with red and orange highlights.

It made her clash all the more against the refined Mies van der Rohe couch she occupied. He had chosen that couch, and everything else here. It was a tribute to understated good taste. She clashed not only with the couch but with the whole place, the pale marble-lined bathrooms, this room, with its white, taupe, and walnut coloration and its towering two stories of glass, even the kitchen, where, extraordinarily enough, her brassiness outshone the copper hood and hanging copper pots.

Just over a year ago, when he’d bought the place, he considered Phyllis gave it just the right amount of extra color, extra spark. They were newly married then. He had thought
this marriage might be different. But it had gone sour, just like the other two.

As he stared at Phyllis, he realized she was sitting just the way Kristina had been sitting the night he had strangled her. Two women more different had never been born. One, gentle and loving—the one he had killed. Why hadn’t he …

“What’s the matter with you now, Peter?” Phyllis’s shrill words broke in, and he started. “You’re just standing there, staring at me.” She glowered at him. “You are so strange lately. What’s with you?”

“Sorry, Phyllis.” He had better be careful or he’d lose it. This was no time to lose it. “My thoughts were a million miles away.” No, he had to do better than that. Phyllis was a suspicious sort with a woman’s hypersensitive antennae; he used to admire her for that; he didn’t want it turned against him now. With a nonchalant stride he crossed the room and joined her on the couch.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I was thinking about our invitation.”

“To the Eldridges.”

“Yes. Did you know he’s with the State Department, EUR?”

“And EUR means exactly what?” She reached out a well-manicured hand to him, friendlier now that he was sharing the couch with her. He took it and absentmindedly examined it while they talked, then focused in on it closely. Examined its carefully tanned skin, its absence of freckles, its absence of
innocence.
He caught himself, dropped her hand, and felt a sudden sweat. His thoughts were out of control. Some fucking
psychiatrist would probably tell him he was suffering from the Macbeth syndrome.

He’d had a couple of lapses like this lately, and he needed to do something about them. This was no time for lapses. There were lots of parties where he had to show himself off, a meeting with the president, two or three appointments where he was supposed to kiss ass with congressmen on the Hill. And then of course he had to manage all the little details necessary to keep the murder hidden, including Kristina’s mail, which was a hell of a lot more voluminous than he’d expected. Here he thought she had been a loner, and instead she had friends writing to her from all over the world. Handling a dead woman’s mail was a shitty job, and every time he laboriously answered a letter, it depressed him a little—and scared him, too, for any time he could make a misstep.

It all took its toll.

Right now, it was keeping Phyllis happy that mattered. He had taken so long to answer her again that she looked at him with suspicion.

He tried to make his voice steady and ordinary. “EUR stands very simply for the Bureau of European Affairs.” To gain time, he sat back, took off his thick glasses, and wiped under each eye with his forefingers. He peered at her myopically. “He’s one of that precious crew of foreign service officers who get stationed in London, Paris, or Rome—livin’ the high life while
we
American taxpayers foot the bill.” He was interesting her; she’d forgotten his strangeness. “Yeah, the State Department crowd: a bunch of incompetents. They do second best what others like the NSC do best. They ought to
be out of business.” His tone turned conspiratorial: “You know what this Eldridge really wants?”

“What, darling?” She looked interested.

“He wants to look me over.” Peter sat back, relaxed now, confident, over the rough spot. “He wants to see me close up, one of the bad boys of international arms but good at inventing war toys. He could be a spook.”

“A spook?” asked Phyllis, her eyes wide. She loved spy thrillers and mysteries; he would play to her strong suit. “You mean a spy?” She sat up straighter and wriggled a little with excitement.

“We’re talking
The Third Man
here.” He gave her a quick smile. “Maybe more like George Smiley without the paunch, or one of the sexier guys out of a Ross Thomas novel.” He looked into his wife’s face. “Dead giveaway: There’s no reason for him to invite me over to dinner. Nobody from the State Department ever holds a dinner party that isn’t job related. So he’s probably not State Department.”

He could tell she wanted more. He gave her more. “I hear Eldridge’s very attractive: You’ll probably get all hot over him.”

“Really, Peter.” She shoved him away in mock anger but could not repress a pleased smile. “Am I that transparent? But I’ve met his wife at two swim club meetings—you were at one of them, you remember. Tall. Perhaps a little ungainly. She isn’t
that
bad-looking, but she ought to know women over forty shouldn’t wear such long hair.”

Peter remembered meeting the wife there, too—Louise, or some such name. The hair fantastic. Big hazel eyes, terrific legs, soft-looking breasts, a concave belly. And with that freshness
that Kristina possessed: a perennial innocence. It always blew his mind.

At the thought he felt himself hardening. He reached over and thrust a hand under Phyllis’s fuzzy sweater to surround a thin, exercised breast with his large hand. He put the other hand between her muscular thighs. Not a soft body like Kristina’s…. No, he had to forget that.

“Darling, I didn’t know you still cared,” said Phyllis. She smiled her little coy smile. Playing games with him. Never sincere.

He leaned near her, playing with her breast, feeling the nipple harden despite herself. He said, “What I want us to do at this party of theirs is play the part well. The acceptable candidate and his faithful wife. This bastard Eldridge has something to do with Paschen; you can bet your life on that.”

With scant attention she murmured, “You mean the president’s in on this?” Her breathing was shallow and she was intent now on Peter’s caresses, directing his hand to where she wanted it to go between her thighs.

“Only indirectly. Fairchild doesn’t give a damn about anything but my military expertise. Tom Paschen’s the one—he hates my guts. He’s using this argument that I’m some sort of a barbarian who isn’t even acceptable with the Washington power elite.”

“Darling, since I’ve known you, you’ve never bothered to even try to be acceptable.”

He rubbed his nose against hers and growled suggestively. “Maybe it’s time your Peter grew up and learned how to act like a little gentleman. Shit, I could charm the pants off the Congress, the joint chiefs of staff, Sally Quinn, Ben Bradlee,
or anyone else in Washington they have that needs impressing—and most certainly, the esteemed Bill Eldridge.”

“But don’t start just now,” she said breathlessly, and wrenched her sweater over her iridescent hairdo to give him more room to work.

L
OUISE COLLECTED THE MAIL AT THE CURB, AND
wandered back to the house. Armed with a fallen branch, she poked and prodded among the leaves but knew well she would find no green in late November—no little magical rosettes of emerging plants to cheer her sober heart. She quit her futile search, and scanned the woods. All was beautifully in place—the trio of robust rhododendron, waiting for spring to belt out their beauty, like three Italian tenors. The two free-growing amelanchier
for balance. The carefully placed camellia, and the new little cluster of plants near the path. The craggy witch hazel, waiting to give forth its spidery yellow flowers. Scores of bulbs hiding beneath the ground, waiting to come up. Only the Concord grapes had not worked out, so the pergola was still bare.

Despite this perfection, her yard seemed neglected. Truth to tell, she hadn’t been out here, not even to shoulder up the oak leaf mulch around the plants, hadn’t had the heart to do a thing outdoors since that Sunday a month ago when they un-bagged the leaves. Humps of leaves dotted the back corner, left whatever way the police had left them. She hoped they did not smother the skunk cabbage, but did not have the will to go and look. Anyway, she had an inkling that skunk cabbage was as tough, underneath, as she was.

Somehow the murder had spoiled this place for her. Working outdoors gave her bad vibrations. But she had no time for that kind of self-introspection right now: She had a writing job to finish, and finish soon.

As she turned to walk back in the house, she saw a bright figure across the cul-de-sac. Walking a little closer, she saw it was Mary Mougey standing at the curb. When Mary beckoned her, she welcomed the excuse to stay outdoors a moment longer.

They met in the middle of the cul-de-sac, and Louise did a double take.

“Why, Mary …” She stopped, not wanting to offend her neighbor. From being a rather colorless person with graying blond hair, Mary appeared to be almost a new person.

The smile was the same, or was the smile different, too?
“Ah,” Mary said with satisfaction, “you noticed, I’ve gone and done it—had my hair colored—as well as a few other, uh,
amenities.
Face-lift, actually.”

“It looks—very nice.” Combined with her stylish winter white sports outfit and shrugged-on car coat, her neighbor suddenly had become high fashion.

Mary shook her head, as if regretting the whole thing. “You don’t have to approve. I didn’t want to do it, myself. I have always deplored bottle blondes and face-lifts, but fifty comes and goes, and then
sixty
looms ahead.” She stepped closer to Louise as if sharing a confidence. “If you want to know the truth, I did it for the children.”

“The children?” said Louise. “You mean …”

“I mean, my dear, the big donors are a funny bunch. They live lives wrapped in cotton—you know, only going to certain places, clubs, stores, vacation spots, to their fourteenth-floor offices in the district, or their fortieth-floor offices in the suburbs. Most mingle with—and are used to looking at—people who have gone to a great deal of trouble about their appearances.

“So,”
she added briskly, “I decided an upgrade of my image as graying earth mother was in order. And here I am. Same person underneath, just shinier on the surface. Now—are you up for lunch? How about going with the new me for barbecue at the Dixie Pig?”

“I’ve seen it while driving by, but must admit I’ve never been there.”

“Then you know it’s only a couple miles from here—one of the wondrous attractions of Route One.” Mary’s eyes twinkled. “Route One also includes high-rises, brothel motels,
fortune-tellers, and those ghastly new condos that eventually will elbow out all the good old stuff like the Pig.”

She told Louise she needn’t change out of her garden clothes, and when they arrived at the restaurant, Louise could see this was true. Its welcome sign featured a porky pig and would have discouraged anyone wanting to keep their figure, she decided. Sure enough, entering the restaurant just ahead of them was a vastly overweight family, father, mother, and son, mouths obviously watering for the barbecue. The sunny booths were filled mostly with men in work clothes who had not bothered to remove their billed caps.

“Richard and I come here sometimes on Saturdays,” Mary told her. “We love their barbecue sandwiches. Barbecue brings out the South in me.” It turned out she was from North Carolina, but living in many different parts of the world had subsumed her Southern accent and left her speech with simply an anonymous softness.

Mary had clout here, and Louise had a suspicion that was true of the finest Washington restaurants as well. To the cheery waitress behind the counter, she said, “Can we please sit in the bar? We’re having—a sort of
meeting.”
The waitress hesitated a moment, then responded to the golden smile, and took them and two plastic-protected menus into a tiny bar room at the front of the place. She flipped on a set of dim lights, and said, “Sit anywhere. Want your special, Mary?”