A Knife Edge

TWENTY-TWO

The restaurant was jammed. Fortunately Colonel Selwyn had left a reservation with a guy at the front desk who could have been Mr. Salty himself — beard, squint, tattoos. Popeye the Sailor had a doppelgänger. I was ten minutes early, the colonel was twenty minutes late. I ate my roll. Then I ate hers.

“Hey, sorry I'm late,” said the voice behind me.

I felt a light hand on my shoulder as Clare Selwyn surfed past on a wave of French perfume and took the seat opposite. Her blond hair was loose. She wore a green top tied at the waist over a white T-shirt, a swishy white skirt that ended below her brown knees, and leather sandals. Her toenails were painted red. Selwyn's makeup was minimal, the way I liked it, and she glowed with life.

“No problem. I passed the time with your roll.”

“That's OK — I don't do carbs,” she said.

An old woman arrived and poured glasses of water. She might have been Salty's wife, or maybe his twin sister. The beard gave it away. “Get you folks drinks?” she asked.

“Thanks,” said Selwyn, looking up at her. Candlelight danced in her eyes. I cleared my throat.

Mrs. Salty placed menus for food and alcohol on our table and walked off to baby-sit a rowdy table nearby.

“You've changed your shirt,” said Selwyn as she picked up her napkin and smoothed it across her legs.

“It was about time. The girls were starting to play their ukuleles.”

“I like the one you're wearing better.”

“This old rag?” Actually it was new, bought from the BX. It was fitted and vaguely khaki.

Selwyn smiled approval, then said, “I know what's good here. Should I just order for us?”

“You're a colonel. I'm a major. I'm not arguing.”

“Good,” she said.

The bearded lady returned to get our order. Selwyn chose a Napa Valley Chardonnay. I had a glass, for the sake of politeness, then switched to Moosehead. The food came fast — a couple of clam chowders followed by soft-shelled crabs, plus scallops and prawns. Selwyn ate her fair share. Nice to know her trim figure didn't come from eating with a calculator, counting calories. Nice also to have dinner out with a woman, any woman, even one who outranked me. It had been a while. Months, in fact, not including the surprise take out with Anna in my apartment. Suddenly, thinking about Anna made me feel uneasy. Why? This was just dinner, wasn't it? And Anna and I were … well, what were we? On the rocks, foundering, a hole in the keel, great whites thrashing about for the pickings, our relationship's blood in the water? I snapped out of it. The colonel was talking.

“…Selwyn's my maiden name, by the way. As I was saying, Manny stays with his grandparents, my parents. He goes there every second Thursday night — overnight. They moved to Panama City from Seattle when Dad retired. They said they always intended to settle down there, but I'd never heard them mention the place — ever — and then suddenly they're living there.”

“Any other grandparents helping out?”

She hesitated. I sensed that if not for the wine, Selwyn would have left it at that. “You really want to know?”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

She took a breath and let it out. The flames on the candles twitched and swayed, shifting the shadows across her face.

“Getting married was the one truly dumb thing I've done in my life. Now I realize it was just an attack on my parents. They resented the fact that I took my medical degree and joined the Air Force. My dad was a thoracic surgeon, and pushy about me following in his footsteps.”

She took a sip of her wine.

“Anyway, the guy I married was a developer. My folks had visions of me marrying a doctor, of course, or at least a dentist. I met him on vacation in the Caribbean. We flew to Vegas at the end of it and tied the knot. Three months later I was pregnant. We both knew it wasn't going to last forever. We weren't talking much toward the end, but he loved Manny. We were pretty much done when he was killed in the plane crash. His parents were divorced and remarried and didn't want to know about their grandchild.” Selwyn lifted the glass to her lips again. “What about you — I notice you're not wearing a ring. You single, or just traveling in disguise?”

“Divorced six months ago. We just ran out of steam.” I was happy to skip the details.

“What about a girlfriend?”

“I'm not sure. We've been bouncing around. She's in Germany.”

“Oh, right, one of those relationships.”

“Meaning?”

“Long distance. It's a killer.”

I was anxious to move on and I was unlikely to get a better opportunity. “Which reminds me, you had a toxicology report for me?”

“Yeah, that pill. I can tell you what it is and what it's for — but I can't tell you whether it was medication Ruben Wright was taking. Unfortunately his remains have been cremated and we don't have the appropriate tissue samples. As for the dead roaches, they weren't significant. The sugar coating on the pill wouldn't have killed them. They might have recently checked out of a nearby roach motel and come to die where it was nice and warm. And, like I said, an earlier tenant could have dropped it.”

“I get you. There are caveats. What is it?”

“A four-milligram serving of Tizanidine hydrochloride.”

“Taken for…?”

“It's used to relieve spasticity in the muscles.”

“Who takes it?”

“Someone who's had a stroke or a spinal injury…”

“So it wasn't Wright's medication. He couldn't have jumped with—”

“It's also taken by people with MS — multiple sclerosis,” she said.

Multiple sclerosis? That could put a spin on a couple of calls Wright had made to certain numbers in Pensacola. “I'm not exactly sure what MS is,” I said.

“It's bad.”

“That much I know.”

Mrs. Salty cleared our plates as Selwyn poured the last of the wine into her glass. Those big brown eyes of hers weren't quite so big now, I noticed, but her speech was still sharp and without any hint of a slur. “It's a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, where the nerve pathways are gradually destroyed. The symptoms, which get progressively worse, are vertigo, muscle spasms and weakness, loss of coordination, numbness, loss of memory. Speech is affected, as is vision. There's no cure, but drugs like Tizanidine can ease the symptoms. MS attacks its victims in different ways, but it's often debilitating and can be fatal. There are better ways to die.”

“Like cutting yourself out of your parachute harness?” I wondered how Wrong Way would have taken the news that he was going to take a long, slow journey into a pine box, most of it either on crutches or in a wheelchair. I also wondered, if he did have MS, where he kept his drugs. None were found in the house after his death.

“If Sergeant Wright was suicidal because he had MS, and he'd decided to jump to his death, as I said when you first arrived, why wouldn't he just pass on pulling his rip cord? Why go to all the trouble of cutting through the harness?”

Yeah, it was still a good point. In fact, it was the crux of the investigation. I thought back to the Ruben Wright I knew: Mr. Invincible. He was strong, self-assured, athletic, and very hard to kill. MS seemed unlikely, every bit as unlikely as suicide. If he had it, he'd be trying his damnedest to beat it into submission. If I had to put money on how he died, I'd still be betting on murder. But for the first time there were, I had to admit, faint fluffy clouds of doubt on the horizon.

Tables were being reset for the morning's breakfast trade. We were the last patrons to leave and already, at the periphery of the restaurant, lights had been turned off. A waiter swept the floor nearby, noisily shifting chairs around. I could take a hint. “Looks like we've outstayed our welcome,” I said.

Outside, the night air was cool and still. The distant traffic sounded like waves, or maybe it was the waves arriving on the beach nearby sounding like traffic. There weren't many vehicles in the parking lot out front. One was my SUV. I wasn't sure which one was Clare's.

“Do you mind giving me a lift home?” she asked. “I think I've probably had too much to drink.”

I detected the first signs of slurring. “Where's home?”

“Other side of Fort Walton Beach.”

I deactivated the SUV's alarm and opened the door for her. She climbed up and I noticed the colonel's calves. I liked what I saw: slim, tan, and toned. “You spend much time at the beach?” I asked, keeping it light.

“Yeah, the sea is one big playroom. Manny builds things out of sand; I like to run on it.”

I couldn't help but admire her. I knew plenty of couples bringing up kids. It appeared to be a tough enough job when the parenting was a double act. Going it alone was close to heroic in my book.

“So, what's next?” she asked as I accelerated into the traffic.

“There are a few people I need to see in Pensacola.”

“No, I mean tonight. Between you and me?”

“I'm going to drive you home.”

“And then?”

“You're a lieutenant colonel and I'm a major, ma'am. The Air Force has rules.”

“I don't see any uniforms.”

“Are you going to order me?”

“There's an idea.”

I smiled at her and she returned it.

“Single moms can have sex, Vin. We're allowed, you know. In fact, it has been so long this particular single mom is climbing the walls.”

“How long is so long?”

“Too long. Anyway, the house is empty, the bed is warm, your maybe-on-maybe-off girlfriend is on the other side of the planet, and what goes on tour stays on tour, right?”

“Are you always this pushy?”

“Does pushy scare you?”

I glanced across at her. She was leaning against the door, warm air from the dash vent blowing through her hair. One eyebrow was arched so that she looked playful, seductive, and hungry all at the same time. Her hand slid into her lap. I couldn't help noticing that her legs were apart, outlined by the sheer fabric of her skirt.

“You're making it hard for me to drive,” I said, my throat suddenly dry.

“Good,” she said. “Hold that thought. Better still, let me hold it.”

I smiled. “Why me?”

“Do you want your ego stroked, too?”

“If you think it'll help.”

She laughed. “OK, I've thought about this — about you. To start with, I like you. Also, to be honest, you're just passing through. It can be uncomplicated — no rumors, no bullshit, no games. You won't want a piece of me, or my life, so I can concentrate on my son. And, if you haven't noticed, there's an overpreponderance of macho types here. I've been watching you. I like a man who has a brain as well as a penis.”

“Yeah, well, pity they gave me only enough blood to operate one at a time.”

That earned another laugh. “Take the next left, after this set of lights.”

I took the turn and Clare directed me through a maze of side streets. The house we eventually pulled up outside was a seventies prefab. The front yard was painted silver by the moon; a silver tricycle nosed into a bush, a silver station wagon parked in the driveway.

“Are you going to come in for coffee?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Coffee keeps me awake.”

“Then I'll make sure it's brewed strong.” Clare reached across and took a handful of my shirt. She pulled me toward her and we kissed. Her mouth tasted of wine. Mine tasted of Moosehead. Fair trade.

Clare's bedroom smelled of fresh flowers. Her head was on my shoulder. I listened to her breathing as she slept, and felt her breath ruffle the hairs on my chest. We'd skipped the coffee. Her body was lean and long, hard in some places, soft where it counted. She obviously spent plenty of time running on that sand. Perhaps it was to work off the excess energy she would otherwise have expended between the sheets. She'd told me that it had been “a while.” Going into the second orgasm, I'd begun to think of that as maybe a warning. Heading into the finishing straight of the third, I was damn sure of it.

Groggy with sleep and sex, I stared at the ceiling, where events of the past couple of weeks were playing like the broken cuts of a movie trailer: I saw the probes blasting from the end of a Taser; I watched Anna close my apartment door as she left; I saw the disk pushed under the door; I imagined I saw Sergeant Wright the moment before he hit the ground, curled into a ball; I saw the fine blond hairs between Clare's legs and recalled her salty sweet taste; I saw a pile of cigarette butts mashed into the steel deck of the Natiísima; I saw a monster shark, bloodred water streaming from its gills as it snapped off Tanaka's head and shoulder from the rest of his body; I saw Amy McDonough and her firecracker hair; I saw a panda armed with a carving knife attack a woman on a park bench; I saw a silver station wagon parked in the driveway; I saw Tanaka's hand grasping for Boyle's wallet as it slipped twirling into the shark's wake.

My eyes opened. My body clock was linked to Air Force time and it told me to wake the hell up. I checked my watch: 0530. I must have spent the night unconsciously processing the pieces I had on the Tanaka case because the fitful sleep had brought me to some kind of conclusion about what had happened to him. I still didn't know why he was killed, but I'd woken up with a hunch about the “who.” I hoped the feeling wouldn't evaporate as the day wore on.

It was still dark and Clare was asleep, but there was enough light to turn her hair into molten silver. It flowed across the top of an exposed breast that rose and fell with her breathing. I was aware of my erection an instant later, at precisely the moment Clare stirred and her hand brushed it. “Good morning,” she said sleepily, stretching, purring, full-stopping her stretch in the middle of it with a playful squeal when she realized what was beneath the sheets, waiting impatiently.

“Morning,” I replied.

She faced me, her eyes closed. “I see you have a little something for me down there,” she said. I felt her hands wrap around my shaft.

“Little?” I said.

We showered separately but had breakfast together. The sun didn't rise till nearly a quarter to seven. I wanted to be out long before it did. Part of the reason was the full day I had ahead. The other part had something to do with the curiosity of Clare's neighbors. I didn't want to give them something to talk about. When I'd mentioned this, Clare said, “Jesus — I'm not a nun. Don't worry about it. The woman on my left is an old widow. Doesn't go out much — give her something to talk about in her chat room. The people on the right are even older — the lady's deaf and her husband can't see past the weeds in his lawn.”

We finally had that coffee. “I know you planned it,” I said after the first grateful sip.

“Planned what?” she asked.

“This. Having me stay over.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked, in uniform, leaning back against the kitchen counter, her fingers interlaced around a mug.

“You told me last night you'd had too much to drink to risk driving. Your vehicle's in the driveway. You left it here so that you could get a lift.”

She put down her mug and took the two steps across the kitchen and gently cupped my testicles. I felt the heat of her hands, warmed by the hot mug, seep through the fabric of my pants. “So, what you gonna do about it?” she whispered. “You wanna pull me in for questioning, Special Agent? I promise I'll come quietly. On second thought, maybe I'll scream a little — you seem to have that effect on me.”

Old faithful stood to attention. Again.

She whispered in my ear as she undid my fly and slipped her hand inside. “And I seem to have a certain effect on you.”

In order to keep up with Lieutenant Colonel Clare Selwyn in the sack, I figured I'd have to run at least fifteen miles a day. We kissed and I said I'd call her later, exhaustion permitting.

It was light, but the sun still hadn't cleared the pines on a distant low hill. I decided not to drive back to Hurlburt Field, but to keep on going to Pensacola. I had the addresses and phone numbers in my notebook, and a bunch of questions in my head.