20
Jane changed her clothes in her car. It was still dark when she drove to Avon and along Telephone Road. As she passed the long driveway to Chelsea Schnell’s, she took time to study the house. There were no signs that anything had changed. Sometime soon, she hoped, Ike Lloyd would repeat what she’d told him to the police officers who had taken over Jimmy’s case. They would obtain a search warrant for the little house, and find the gun, tools, and stolen jewelry. He could be calling them now. How long would it take to obtain a warrant?
Jane looked at her watch. It was 5:00 AM. She parked her Passat in the row of cars at the gas station down the road and walked back along the deserted stretch of Telephone Road to the house. If she was going to take another look, this had to be it.
This time she walked into the field by the house to the back where the stand of maple trees and the high thickets would hide her if the police came earlier than she had anticipated.
She walked to the rear of the house, climbed up onto the back porch, went to the kitchen window, and studied the room in the light thrown by the fluorescent above the stove. There were no dishes out, and the coffee pot was disassembled on the counter. She moved to the garage and saw through the side door that Chelsea’s car was parked there, went to the bedroom window and moved her eye to the corner, then pulled back.
The bed was smooth, the bedspread pulled straight and tight, and the pillows arranged neatly in a double row—bright decorative ones in front, and white pillows behind. Nobody was home and nobody had slept here.
Jane moved to the sloped cellar door, unscrewed and removed the hasp and its padlock, and went down the steps. She had not expected to enter the house, but she still had the small LED flashlight she’d brought with her to the hospital. She picked up a rag to open Nick Bauermeister’s toolbox and checked to be sure that the tools, mask, and gun were still there, then touched the middle bags of salt to verify that the jewelry was still there too. Finally she climbed the wooden steps to the kitchen.
Something had changed. The small kitchen was still neat and orderly, but it was stuffy. The air had stayed in the same place for too long because the doors and windows had been closed. She stepped to the refrigerator and tugged it open. A sour smell hit her, and seemed to be coming from the open milk carton on the top shelf. She peered through the glass tops of two drawers at the bottom and saw one full of lettuce with faint brownish streaks and leaves with curling edges. There were tomatoes with skin that had begun to pucker slightly. She closed the refrigerator and moved to the living room.
There were plants in pots lined up on a windowsill. They looked limp. Jane touched the soil in a couple of them, and they were dry. Chelsea had not been home in a while. Jane pulled her hand back into her sleeve and picked up the telephone. There was still a dial tone.
She went to Chelsea’s bedroom and checked the closet and dresser. She thought there were a few articles of clothing missing since her last visit, but most of them were still there. She moved the chair to the closet, stood on it, opened the small attic access door, and used her flashlight to look, but all she saw was a layer of pink insulation that had been installed long after the house was built.
She closed it carefully and went through the house again, looking under pieces of furniture and in the usual hiding places—the freezer, inside pots and pans, taped to the undersides of drawers, behind the plates of switches that didn’t seem to operate anything, and behind heating grates. As she searched, part of her was listening for the sound of police cars, and as long as she heard nothing, she kept searching. At last, she ran out of places to look.
Jane went down to the basement, up to the cellar door, and out. The sun was bright and glaring. She replaced the hasp and padlock and went across the field to the gas station and retrieved her car. As she drove along the road, there was a steady stream of cars going in both directions, people taking their kids to school or going to work, but no police cars. She looked at her watch. It was nearly eight already. Daniel Crane would be leaving for work.
DANIEL CRANE DROVE TOWARD HIS storage business, but he didn’t feel right about leaving home. Maybe he didn’t really have to go in today. He took out his phone and called the office.
Thompson picked up. “Storage.”
“Box Farm Personal Storage,” Crane said. “I’ve told you guys about eighty times.”
“Sorry Dan. I was on my way downstairs, and Harriman was on the phone at my desk so I had to run over here to get it, and I was afraid the caller would give up.”
“Okay,” said Crane. “Four words. Box Farm Personal Storage. I don’t know how I can build the business if you guys don’t sound professional.”
“Sorry. I’ll be more careful.”
“What I called for was to see if Mr. Salamone let anybody know when he’s coming today.”
“I haven’t heard. Let me check.” Crane could hear the rubbing sound of a hand covering the phone, and a faint voice calling across the room. “Nope. He hasn’t called or anything. Nobody’s called and asked for you yet, either.”
“Okay,” said Crane. “I’ll see you in a little while.” He hung up, then pressed the phone number of the office again.
“Box Farm Personal Storage.”
“Very good,” Crane said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He hung up again and slid the phone into his jacket pocket.
He had hoped Salamone might have called to tell him when he was coming, or even better, that he wasn’t coming. Salamone had already missed making his usual rounds yesterday, and of course, he hadn’t called. Why should he? Making people wait and not showing up was a way of keeping them off balance. They had to think about you on that day, and each day after that until you finally appeared.
Crane had wanted to stay home with Chelsea this morning. He’d had trouble with her last night, and he really wanted to see what her state of mind was going to be today.
They had gone out to dinner and a play in downtown Buffalo, and he had expected that afterward she would be bright and cheerful and talkative. The play had been a revival of O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones. To him it had been a little stagey and dull, but Chelsea had watched it intently, so he had assumed she’d liked it. She had been quiet on the drive home, but not sullen or withdrawn.
After he pulled the Range Rover into the garage and got out, she had just sat there for a minute. At first he thought she was being a grand lady and waiting for him to walk around the car and open her door for her. That would have been okay—was okay in his mind when he’d come to her door. To him it had been a sign that she was feeling comfortable with him, relishing the fact that he loved her—happy that he was attentive enough to sense what she wanted.
That hadn’t been it. When he had swung her door open she simply sat there looking straight ahead.
“Honey?” he’d said. “Chelsea?”
She had reacted only after he said her name, and then it was as though he’d nudged her from a reverie. She’d looked at him and then got out. As he followed her to the front door he said, “Are you all right?”
She had not answered at first, but then she said, “Yes.” But she had sounded too firm, too assertive.
When he opened the door she went in ahead of him and kept walking, never stopping on her way across the living room and through the gallery toward his bedroom—their bedroom. When he finished locking the door and turning up the lights he looked again and his last sight before she disappeared through the arch to the gallery was her reaching up to grasp the zipper at the back of her dress. When she did that the dress was pulled tighter across her bottom and waist. Her thin, graceful fingers tugged down the zipper a few inches and he saw the bare white skin below her neck for an instant.
He felt his pulse quicken. She was going to the bedroom taking her dress off. Chelsea didn’t usually initiate sex; she acquiesced to it. Crane began to feel good. Maybe his life was about to get even better. He tried to keep his anticipation in control. It was late, and she just might be tired. In a minute she might come back out wearing flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers and say good-night. He considered. How did he want her to see him when she returned?
He wanted to look confident and relaxed. He opened the bar hidden on the left wall and poured himself a cognac, and set a second glass next to his, with the bottle beside it as an invitation. She had turned down drinks lately. She’d said something about alcohol not agreeing with her. It had occurred to him that it might have been a reaction to the powder he had put in her drink the night they’d first had sex. He hadn’t mentioned that to her, of course. He sipped his cognac and waited, trying not to picture her in the bedroom naked, waiting for him to join her. The house was silent, and he thought he could hear his own heartbeat. Was the cognac a bad idea? He took a cocktail glass off the shelf and poured her a diet ginger ale.
He heard the bedroom door close, and then the flap of rubber on the tile floor of the gallery, and then turned to look at her.
She was wearing the tank top and shorts she’d often worn when he had visited her at her house, and a pair of flip-flops. He tried to stifle his disappointment. Okay. She looks beautiful, and in that outfit she must feel comfortable.
She didn’t. She looked anxious and miserable. Then he noticed the strap on her shoulder. What was that?
“Hi, baby,” he said, and forced a smile. “Have a ginger ale?” He held it up.
“I—” she said, then paused, like a stutterer who had to start over. “Sure.” She stepped closer and took it, then stepped away with it. She slipped the strap off her shoulder and set her overnight bag on the floor. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay,” he said. His mouth was suddenly dry. He sipped his cognac. “Come and sit down.”
She looked undecided, and he realized that she had made some plan that had not included sitting down. But she turned and walked with him to the semicircular couch coiled around the big polished walnut coffee table. Her expression was serious, troubled. Could she be breaking up with him?
As though she were answering, she said, “This isn’t working out.”
He felt an emptiness in his stomach. He watched her, silent.
She began again. “You’ve been really kind and generous, and a true friend. You were the only one of Nick’s friends who even kept in touch with me. Nobody else gave a crap. Their girlfriends, who were always chatty and supposedly my friends, didn’t bother to call after the funeral. I would have thought you’d be the least likely to care, because you were the boss and older and everything. I’ll always be grateful that you were there for me.”
Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he had first feared. He knew he was walking along the edge of a precipice, but what she’d said made him decide to be bold and honest. “I did it because I love you.” He watched her face, hoping it would show something—if not joy, at least pleasure, however mild. Even surprise would give him a foothold he might be able to use, a chance to save himself. But her head gave a tiny involuntary shake, like a shiver.
Chelsea said, “This is my fault. I didn’t intend it, but I guess I’ve been leading you on. I wanted to give us both a chance to see if we could be happy together, but I should have been smarter about this.”
“You did nothing wrong,” he said. “Don’t think of it that way.” He swallowed hard, then stood. “Jesus, my throat is dry.” He went to the bar, reached into the refrigerator and got another ginger ale, and poured it in a glass. While he was there he reached under the bar to the cardboard box there and took one of the little brown envelopes. As he walked back to the couch he palmed it and held it in his left hand.
He sat down and drank, looking at her and noting the position of her glass.
Chelsea had gathered her thoughts while he’d been away. “This is the time to be open and honest. I went out with you because you’re such a great guy, and I felt safe with you. I felt I could talk to you about anything, but that you wouldn’t make me relive Nick’s murder. The first night we went out, I enjoyed it and forgot how sad I was for a while. I was distracted, and I was drinking, and I guess that one night I got carried away.”
Crane realized Chelsea was being absolutely sincere. She had actually remembered none of that night—passing out, his carrying her to the bedroom, moving her this way and that as he’d stripped her, the sex. The powder was magical. It had absolutely erased her memory. He had never used GHB before that night, but it had lived up to its reputation completely.
He could see she was blushing, and that it embarrassed her to look at him, but she wanted to be sure she was getting through to him. If she couldn’t see his hurt, then she couldn’t be sure he was hearing her.
She said, “The next morning I realized I had passed out at some point and a lot was a blank. I must have thrown myself at you, and so we’d had sex. I decided that since I’d done that, I owed it to you, and to me—I’m not saying I was being unselfish—to try to see if this was what we both really wanted, or just a drunken mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Crane said. “I know this has been awkward for you, so soon after Nick died. But we hardly ever get to choose when it’s time for things in our lives, good or bad, to happen.”
Chelsea reached out and touched his hand, and he took it as permission to come closer on the couch. “It was good. It was,” she said. “But it’s still a mistake, and I’m so, so sorry.”
She began to cry. She bent her head down and he hugged her. He could feel her sobbing, and he could tell her tears were making the shoulder of his sport coat wet. While he held her with his hands behind her back, he tore off the end of the envelope, transferred the envelope from his left hand to his right, and poured the envelope into her ginger ale, trying to make his gesture quick and measure the dose by eye. Was that too much? He slipped the empty envelope into his coat pocket and brought his hand up to pat her tenderly. He stayed there, could have stayed there forever holding her, but after another minute or two she straightened, her head came up, and he had to release her.
He handed her the silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his sport coat. She wiped her nose and dabbed at her eyes. The black eyeliner smeared on it, and she cried some more. “I’m ruining this.”
“Keep it.” While she was occupied with staring at his handkerchief, he watched the last of the white powder dissolve in her ginger ale.
She pivoted to face the coffee table, picked up the ginger ale, took a few swallows, and set it down. She seemed to collect herself. “I made a mistake. You’re a wonderful man, but I’m not in love with you.”
“I think you are, deep down. Whenever you’re not thinking, brooding over things, everything is fine. Maybe this was too soon to start a new relationship and you weren’t ready, as you say. Maybe we need to step back and take things more slowly. We can still see each other, and over time—”
She was already shaking her head impatiently. “I’ve got to be totally honest. If I thought that could be the problem, then I’d leave things the way they are, keep my mouth shut, and wait. That’s what I wanted to do, but I can’t. This has got to be over before the future can start.”
He took a drink of his ginger ale, trying to get her to feel thirsty.
It worked. She took another long draft of her ginger ale, stood, carried it to the bar, and set her glass on the granite surface. “I need to go home.”
“Please don’t go back to that empty house now. It’s late. We don’t have to talk about this anymore. I can sleep in one of the guest rooms, and in the morning I’ll drive you back there.”
“I know it’s not fair to drag you out to drive me at this hour. I’ll call a cab.”
“No,” he said. He stood up from the couch. “Of course I’ll drive you home if that’s what you want. Just give me a minute to pull myself together.” He walked to the arch leading to the gallery and headed for the bedroom.
In the bedroom he checked the spots where she had always put her things on overnight stays. She had left nothing. It occurred to him that while he’d been standing at the bar imagining her hanging up her dress and brushing out her long blond hair in front of the mirror, she had been feverishly stuffing the dress into her overnight bag and gathering her other belongings as fast as she could.
He went into the bathroom and pissed, brushed his teeth to get rid of the smell of cognac on his breath, combed his hair, went to his closet, hung up his sport coat and returned his tie to the rack, and then took out a windbreaker. He put it on and walked slowly back up the gallery to the living room.
She was sitting on the couch again, so he could only see the back of her head, but it looked odd. She was slouching, leaning her head back against the top of the couch as though she were studying the ceiling. As he came around to the front of the couch he saw that her eyes were closed and her mouth open. He glanced in the direction of the bar and realized that while she was waiting she must have downed the last of the ginger ale.
The powder seemed to have taken her much more quickly than it had the first time. He touched her neck. Her pulse was slow, but strong. He was still a little worried. He had ordered the powder from an online pharmacy in Mexico. He didn’t know what sort of regulation there was in another country, how strong the powder was, or even if it was the same strength all the way through. But it was too late to undo this, and she had been fine the first time.
He began by taking her overnight bag into the bedroom, then unpacking it. He laid the dress she’d worn across the top of the chair and her shoes on the floor as though she had stepped out of them. He went into the bathroom and put her toothbrush and toothpaste, mouthwash, hairbrush, makeup case, and deodorant out on the counter by the second sink. He ran water over the toothbrush and shook it a bit to make it seem used. He even ran the fresh bar of soap under the faucet for a second and put it back on the soap dish.