A Perfect Crime

31

Francie had no distance from what she was doing, no inner watchfulness, no control. This, life after Anne, or at least in the first few hours after Anne, had all the intensity of loving Ned, an inverse intensity that now served to heighten pain, not pleasure. From her bedroom, Francie dialed Ned’s number, heard his mother’s voice on the machine: “You have reached the Demarco residence. Please leave a message at the tone.”

She had to see him. Francie hung up, realizing as she did that he might not be home yet-might still be in New Hampshire, or on his way back. Had to see him. On his way back: she was thinking car keys, coat, Dedham, was turning from the phone-had to see him-when it rang. She snatched it up.

“Francie, is it true?” Nora, not Ned.

“About Anne, you mean?”

“What else would I mean?”

“It’s true.”

“Oh, God. What happened?”

“They don’t know.”

“But she was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“At Brenda’s place?”

“Yes.”

“What was she doing up there?”

“They don’t know.”

Pause. “I’m coming over.”

“Not now, Nora. I’m on my way out.”

“Where?”

“Please.” Had to see him. “There are things I have to do.”

“Like what, Francie? What’s going on?”

“I’ll call you later.”

“But-”

Francie hung up.

She drove back to Dedham under a sky that was one low sagging cloud from horizon to horizon. Ned’s garage door was open, no cars inside. Francie parked on the street and waited.

The house was quiet, the curtains drawn. Francie stared at it for a while, then at the snowman with the ski pole over one shoulder. She noticed that he wore a name tag, frozen into his chest, with writing on it too distant to see. After a minute or two, she had to get out of the car, walk up the path, read it: Mr. Snowman, VP Xmas Productions. Anne humor. Francie dug the tag free with her fingernails, put it in her pocket, went back to the car. She had pulled it out three times for another look when Ned drove up at last. He wheeled into the driveway, braked in front of the garage, hurried toward his front door. Had he not noticed her?

Francie jumped out of the car. “Ned.”

His head snapped around. He saw her, began to speak, stopped himself, glanced back at the house, then came toward her, cutting directly through the knee-deep snow in the yard, ice balls clinging to the tassels on his loafers.

Then he was on the sidewalk, and she got a good look at his face. Had to see him. But what had become of her beautiful man? This blue-lipped gray face, red around the eyes, had all his features but was not him, and the eyes themselves, fugitive, blinking, burrowing things, were not him either. Francie wanted to wrap him in her arms, somehow make him better, settled for holding out her hand.

After a moment or two, he took it and then held on tight. “Oh, Francie, it hurts so much.”

Francie, determined not to cry, to hold it all in, almost did.

“I’ll never ever be the same,” he said. His voice had changed, too, lost its richness and musicality, now did no more than deliver the words. “And what about Em? Tell me that? What about Em? I’m going to have to go in there now and tell her… tell her.”

“She knows.”

“She knows?”

“Your mother told her.”

He dug a knuckle into his forehead above the right eye, hard. “Are you sure?”

“I was here.”

“You were?”

“Don’t you remember? We talked on the phone.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them. “What is happening to me?”

She stroked his hand. He withdrew it, looked back at his house. “But you can’t come here, Francie. People will suspect.”

“Suspect what?”

“About us, of course.”

“What difference does it make now?” Francie said. Over his shoulder she saw a curtain part, Ned’s mother peer out. Their eyes met. The curtain closed.

“How can you say that? It makes all the difference. I don’t want Em to ever know, ever to think that everything wasn’t… wasn’t just the way it seemed.”

That made no sense to Francie, not anymore, but the intensity of her reaction surprised her. “Is that what your life’s going to be from now on?” she said. “Preserving some past that never was?”

Ned’s arm twitched. For a moment Francie almost imagined he was going to hit her. An unworthy thought, beneath them both, contemptible-until she happened to glance down and catch his hand uncurling from a fist. But a fist could mean tension, not violence, and she knew there was no violence in Ned, had never seen the slightest sign, so he couldn’t possibly have been involved in Anne’s death, no matter what this man Savard suspected. Francie could barely allow her mind to articulate the thought. Could she have known him that little? No. Savard was far off course. She didn’t believe it, not for a second.

Ned took a deep breath. “You’re tough, Francie. That’s one of the things that… attracted me to you. But your timing’s not always on.”

“What do you mean?”

He came a little closer, lowered his voice. “What do I mean? What’s the matter with you? How can you say what you just said about my marriage? My wife is dead. Where are your feelings?”

“Where are my feelings?” Francie, who had never struck a human being in her life, did it now. Her scarlet handprint took shape on his washed-out face. She walked away.

He followed. “Wait, Francie. I take that back. I’m not myself. Please.”

He touched her shoulder; she halted. Even at a moment like this, his touch sent that familiar, irresistible feeling down her back. The man for her; it was inescapable. She swung around and asked him, “Where were you last night?”

He seemed to jerk back, almost as if she’d hit him again. “What kind of question is that?”

“Savard’s question.”

“You’ve talked to him?”

“He came to the house.”

“What did he want?”

“To know what I thought of your marriage.”

“My God. What did you tell him?”

The mark she’d made on him was already fading, but it sickened her to see it. “Don’t worry about me, Ned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I won’t let you down.”

Ned’s eyes met hers at last. “Oh, I know that, Francie. I wish I could hold you now, so much.”

“So do I.” She wanted to kiss that redness on his cheek, dared not. Was there somewhere they could go? Was that an evil thought? What was she made of?

“But it doesn’t really answer my question,” Ned said. “What exactly did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know enough to comment on your marriage.”

“And nothing about us?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Perfect as always. I’m sure that’ll take care of it.”

“It won’t, Ned, because Savard thinks she was the one having an affair.”

“That Anne was?”

Francie nodded.

“And I followed her out there?”

“Or paid someone to do it.”

He laughed, a strange, barking laugh, almost like Roger’s but lower in tone. “That’s idiotic.”

“Then why not tell him where you were last night?”

“Please, Francie, not the third degree.”

“You think this is the third degree? Why can’t you tell him? You said on the phone that it was work related. Is there a patient confidentiality issue, or something like that?”

“Something like that. Please don’t ask me more.”

“I won’t,” Francie said. “But he will.”

“He’s just a small-town cop, nothing to be concerned about.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.”

“He’s trying to find out how she-how Anne knew about the cottage.”

“I have no idea.”

“Maybe not how. But we can both guess why she went out there.”

“She didn’t know anything. There has to be some other explanation.”

“Like what?”

He had no answer.

“It must have come from you, Ned.”

“Impossible. You know how careful I’ve been.”

Had he? Careful maybe about the cottage, but not careful the one night at her house, the night of the milk run and the invented flat tire, the night he discovered she didn’t like irises. Francie, remembering the pressure gauge, turned to Ned’s car in the driveway.

“What are you looking at?” Ned said.

“Maybe she found something in your trunk.”

“Like what?” But he was already moving toward the car. Francie went with him. He opened the trunk: roof rack, rock salt, kayak paddle; and under the floor mat, tools and the spare. “What’s there to find?” said Ned, just as an old Bronco pulled into the driveway. Ned and Francie wheeled around, backs to the open trunk.

Savard got out of the Bronco, carrying a shiny metal box. He nodded to Francie, spoke to Ned. “I’d like to see your wife’s paintings, if you don’t mind.”

“Her paintings?”

“Mrs. Cullingwood hasn’t explained?”

“No,” said Francie. “I have not.”

“It’s kind of pressing,” Savard said to Ned, “or I wouldn’t be bothering you like this. We found something after you and I talked last night.” He told Ned what Anne had written on the floor of Brenda’s cottage.

He didn’t seem to understand, his eyes, those new eyes, going to Francie, back to Savard. “I haven’t even seen my daughter yet,” he said.

“I won’t come inside,” Savard said. “You could bring them out here, if there aren’t too many.”

“Her paintings?”

“I’ll help, if you want,” Francie said.

“I’ll do it myself.” Ned went into the house.

Savard gazed into the open trunk, then at Francie. “Did Anne ever ask you to buy one of her paintings for your foundation?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering whether you ever turned her down.”

“The answer is no to both.”

“You must do that a lot-turn people down.”

“It’s part of the job.”

“Do you tell them the truth?”

She met his gaze: surprising eyes, almost unguarded, almost as though interested in the answer for its own sake. “Enough of it, Mr. Savard,” Francie said.

Ned came into the garage from the house with some paintings, went back for more, leaving the door open. Francie heard Em crying in another room, heard him talking to her, his voice closer to normal, comforting, sweet; Francie knew the effort that must have taken. He came back with more paintings, arranged them all in a row of seven leaning against the wall.

Anne’s paintings: the still life with grapes, another still life with fish and wine, two seascapes, a desert landscape, an abstract with deep blue spirals, a self-portrait. Francie wanted them to be great, was already toying with a fantasy of Anne’s posthumous fame, and her its engineer. But they were not great; the still life with grapes was the best, and even it was not as good as she’d first thought, flawed in ways she hadn’t seen before; she argued with herself that the fault lay with the harsh strip lighting in the garage, and lost.

“That them all?” Savard said.

“Yes,” said Ned.

But Francie knew it wasn’t. Where was his own portrait, the one that hung over the bed in the master bedroom? Francie didn’t look at Ned, or at Savard, kept her eyes on a slightly fussy cactus in the desert landscape. How could he have missed his own portrait? She thought of Dorian Gray.

Savard examined the paintings one by one, spending ten or fifteen seconds on each. Francie had watched many people look at paintings, their levels of concentration ranging from superficial to profound. Savard’s was of the latter, but she had no idea what he was seeing. “Are there any works in progress?” he said.

“No.”

“Did she have a studio somewhere?”

“No.”

“So this is it?”

“Yes.”

Savard studied the self-portrait: a younger Anne in a black turtleneck, holding a paintbrush, a dull gold band almost invisible on her ring finger.

“Will you be needing me any longer?” Ned said.

Savard took his eyes off the self-portrait. “Just one more thing,” he said, and opened the little metal box, an evidence kit, Francie realized-she’d seen them on TV. At the bottom lay a road map of New Hampshire, folded open to a panel of the southern part of the state. She saw a small red X on the Merrimack River. “Have you seen this before?” Savard said.

Ned shrugged. “A road map. Is it important?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Ned reached for the map. Savard jerked the box out of his reach.“Haven’t dusted it yet.” He checked to see if they understood. “For fingerprints,” he explained. “We’ll also check for fibers-try to match car interiors, floor mats, that kind of thing. But does it look familiar, Mr. Demarco, at first blush?”

Ned gazed down into the box. Savard turned to Francie, seemed suddenly to notice her presence. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cullingwood. Didn’t mean to keep you so long.”

A dismissal. Polite, almost deferential, but a dismissal. Why? And why now and not before? Francie had no choice. She tried to establish the proper distance in her tone. “If there’s anything I can do, Ned.”

“Thanks, Francie.” He did it better.

Francie got in her car and drove away. In her rearview mirror, she saw Ned and Savard talking in the driveway, or more accurately, Ned talking and Savard listening, very still.

Roger took his car to an auto glass shop and had a new window installed. On the way home, he stopped at the newsstand of the Ritz, found mention of Anne, but none of Mrs. Truax, none of Whitey. He parked in his garage, closed the door, carried the ax inside, and tucked it behind the woodpile in the storage room off his basement HQ, woodpile left over from the evenings when they’d had fires. Then he went upstairs and poured himself a Scotch, drank it looking down on the street from the living room window.

Whitey was (A) dead in the woods, perhaps not to be found until spring, or (B) alive and somewhere out there. A would be lovely, but he had to plan for B. Roger tried to quantify the threat represented by Whitey, in the event he fell into the hands of the police. Not, based on the evidence on his digital recorder, that the police were much to worry about: a dumb cop confused in predictable ways. Roger had already dealt quickly with the puzzle of lover boy’s reluctance to explain his whereabouts. The answer was obvious: he and Francie had met somewhere else. Perhaps determining where might be useful.

But not exigent. Exigent was identifying the points of vulnerability represented by Whitey. A leather jacket with no label. A small sum of money in untraceable bills. A story of alligators and a disputed painting. A name: Roger. Not much, but neither was it nothing, especially the name. Roger sensed a complex equation that could only be balanced by the death of Whitey. But the problem was deeper than that, much deeper, because the perfect solution, perfect in that it rendered him blameless, even sympathetic in some eyes, had involved tying two deaths together in an invulnerable little package, and how could he do that now? That meant-my God! — that in order to be rid of Whitey, to be rid of him and blameless of that ridding, he would have to design another, completely separate, perfect crime! Roger foresaw a horrifying string of perfectly unincriminating homicides stretching on and on into a never-ending future, horrifying in the vastness of its numerology, in the demonic intertwining of its permutations and combinations. What kind of a life was that? He had a dreadful premonition-no, not premonition, no such thing-that the truly perfect part of a perfect crime might be the inevitable, wired-in-from-the-inception, inclusion of its own punishment: the perpetrator being the true target from the start. But, no, that was sophistry of the most unscientific and moralistic kind, and in this case outrageous-he was not the one in the wrong. But what a thought, Whiteys row on row, all in need of being put down with all their fingers pointing elsewhere. Chaos. Chaos leading to madness, even in a being possessed of a thousand brains like his. Oh, A would be lovely.

“Please, A,” he said aloud, as Francie came walking up the street. In a well-ordered world, in a world that meant something, Whitey would be lying frozen solid under a dark tree, but since this was what Roger had been given for a world, he had to plan for B.

And there was Francie, so alive, alive at least in the sense a cow lives, unaware of the concept of slaughter-house. So lucky, and she didn’t even know it! But what was this? As she came closer, Roger saw that she was crying; not making a sound or anything like that-her mouth was closed-but tears were streaming down her face. Why?

And then facets rotated slightly in his mind, and he thought, Of course! She blames herself, the whore. He took a little satisfaction from that, but there was more-he could feel it coming, coming: a tremendous improvisation. Nothing mystical about improvisation, nothing more than normal, logical thought process, simply speeded-up exponentially, like subatomic particles in an accelerator. His brain had an accelerator mode, and now it offered up an improvisation based on the theme of Francie’s despondency and guilt over-could he push it that far? yes! — over engineering the murder of her tennis pal, an improvisation that would end on the final triumphant note of her suicide.

There was even a coda, written for a potential reappearance by Whitey: a few simple notes that tied Whitey, the instrument, to Francie, the mastermind. What credibility would a convicted killer like Whitey have, faced with the awesome probative impact of her suicide? And how tidy. The name Roger, for example? Why wouldn’t Whitey have heard the name of the mastermind’s husband, poor cuckold?

Maybe there was a God, after all.

Francie came up the brick walkway. Roger stepped back from the window. What kind of suicide would she choose, what method would be character-appropriate? An important question. Were there any asps in the house? Roger laughed aloud. What a brilliant joke! Francie would have loved it.