A Perfect Crime

7

“Good show this afternoon, Ned,” said Kira Chang, vice president of Total Entertainment Syndication, raising her glass. “Here’s to Intimately Yours.”

Sitting at the table in Ned’s dining room, they drank to the show: Anne, at the far end; Trevor, Ned’s producer, on her right; Lucy, the director, next to him; Ned at the end; Kira Chang on his right; Trevor’s assistant next to her. Ned didn’t like the wine at all, wished that Anne could have done a little better. And he wished she could have done better with the whole dinner, despite the late notice.

Ned had called at 3: 30, and Anne had said, “I wasn’t planning any dinner at all-isn’t it Thursday?”

For a moment he found himself holding his breath. “Meaning what?” he said.

“Thursday, Ned. When you stay late to plan the shows.”

“Yes. Normally. But Kira Chang’s in town.”

“Who’s she?”

“I told you. Sweetheart. The syndicator.”

“I thought that was next week.”

“The meeting’s next week, but she happened to be in town today and she dropped in. Trevor says it’s a good sign, so we should take advantage of it.”

“I’ll do my best,” Anne said.

Her best: the oyster stew, the lemon chicken with snow peas, the tiramisu from Lippo’s. And this marooncolored wine, possibly Romanian-he couldn’t read the fine print on the label.

“Delicious, Anne,” said Kira Chang. “And I hear you’re quite a tennis player, too.”

Anne smiled nervously. The light in the dining room was a little too strong; it made her look washed out, or was that just the effect of Kira’s presence?

Trevor refilled his glass-not for the first time-and said, “One thing we’ve never discussed, Kira, is the name of the show. What do you think of it?”

Kira looked at Trevor across the table. “There’s only one answer to questions like that-I’ll let you know after we poll the audience.”

“To see what it thinks, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“Isn’t that leading by following?”

Kira smiled at him. “This isn’t art, Trevor. It isn’t even politics. It’s just entertainment.”

“Total entertainment,” said Ned.

Kira laughed. “Bingo.”

She left soon after. Ned walked her out to the waiting taxi. A cold wind blew down the street, ruffling her glossy hair. She turned to him.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said. “And don’t forget to thank Anne again for me. I hope I didn’t upset your routine.”

“Not at all,” Ned said. Their eyes met. He said what was on his mind. “Did you really like the show today?”

“Not much,” Kira replied. “But that’s what I like, right there. The way you asked that question. You’re good with women, Ned. That’s your strength. And it goes a long way in this business.”

“But the show?”

“Too early to say. I hope you understand that when we green-light something like this we often bring in our own people on the production side.”

“The show was Trevor’s idea in the first place.”

“The cast-iron sincerity in your tone-that’s part of the appeal, for sure,” she said, opening the door of the taxi. “But the metaphor to keep in mind, if you want to make it big in broadcasting, in anything, is the multistage rocket.”

“Meaning the booster falls away?”

“Good night,” she said, closing the door. The taxi drove off.

“Did it go all right?” Anne asked when they were in bed.

“Fine.”

“What a relief. She made me so uncomfortable.”

“How?”

“She’s so poised, so… everything I’m not.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ned said. The booster falls away: that meant ruthlessness, and he wasn’t the ruthless type. He rolled over and tried to sleep; the headache awoke over his right eye, unfolding like a flower.

“Francie?”

Francie opened her eyes. Roger was standing by the bed, looking down at her. A jolt of adrenaline rushed through her, washing away decaying fragments of terrible dreams.

“Hope I didn’t scare you,” he said with a smile. “Not going in today?”

Francie started to speak, but her mouth was too dry, her throat, her whole body, hurting. She tried again. “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty. You slept through the alarm.”

Francie glanced at the clock radio.

“I shut it off,” Roger said. “How can you bear that station?” He smiled again. “Coffee?”

“You’ve made coffee?”

“Should be just about done.” He reached out as though to pat her knee under the covers, thought better of it, went out. Francie sat up, saw her damp clothes lying in the corner. She rose, aching in every muscle, kicked the clothes under the bed, got back in just as Roger returned with a tray: buttered toast, marmalade, steaming coffee.

“You should stay home,” he said. “You don’t look at all well.”

“I’m fine.”

Roger pulled up a chair, watched her sip the coffee. “Working late last night?” he said.

“Yes.”

He nodded. “I hope you’re appreciated,” he said. “Some especially important project, is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean by especially important. The acquisitions committee meets next week-it’s always a busy time.”

“Seen anything you like recently?”

“What do you mean?”

“Objets d’art. What else could I be referring to?”

“Nothing.” But it had been years since he had discussed her work. “I’m recommending a few pieces.”

“Such as?”

“There’s a photographer in Providence. She does old people under streetlights, in black-and-white. Mostly black.”

“Any paintings?”

“No paintings,” Francie said.

Roger dressed warmly: turtleneck, chamois shirt, thick corduroy pants, ski hat, Gore-Tex gloves, his L. L. Bean boots. He went into the garage, opened Francie’s car, looked in the glove box, found a wrinkled envelope with a map drawn on it jammed at the back, as he’d been sure he would-he knew her, and nothing she did could change that. Directions to B. ’s, she’d written in her neat hand. He studied the map for a minute or so, replaced it. Then, putting a shovel in the back of his car, he drove to a hardware store. The clerk made keys from the two patterns. Roger filled his tank and headed west, out of the city. His car had four-wheel drive and good tires, but the sky was low and dark and snow was in the forecast. He switched on his headlights and set the cruise control prudently to fifty-five.

Snow was falling by the time Roger stopped in front of Brenda’s gate-marked wrought-iron g. on the map, as he recalled-falling, but falling hard enough to have obliterated any trace of tread marks? Roger’s eyes followed the track that rose up the hill beyond the gate, white, smooth, unbroken. He had his first moment of doubt.

The gate was padlocked. Roger got out of his car, took out the two keys. The first one worked. He drove through, his wheels spinning slightly as he came to the top of the hill, and cautiously down the other side, foot on the brake the whole way.

He parked by a stone jetty, covered in snow, and looked out at the island in the river. Snow, clean and pure, lay deep on everything: the trees, the roof of the cottage, the river. Roger remembered going out in the Adirondack woods as a boy to cut down a Christmas tree with his father’s man, as they called him, Len; how Len had pretended to chop off his own foot, having brought along a Baggie of ketchup to complete the illusion: red stains in the snow, Len laughing his toothless laugh, a drop of mucus quivering from the tip of his hairy nose. Roger’s father had fired Len that very day for putting such a scare into the boy.

Roger stepped onto the jetty, saw no sign of tracks across the river. Doubt again. Was he seeing ketchup and thinking blood? He gazed down onto two dinghies, filled with snow. It was falling harder now, the flakes bigger. Roger reached into the nearest dinghy, picked up an oar, and jabbed it on the river ice. Solid. He lowered himself onto the river and started across, testing the ice with the oar at every step.

Roger walked onto the island, past the giant elms, also reminding him of his boyhood, up to the front door of the cottage. Snow on the porch, snow on the glider, even a little mound of it clinging to the upper hemisphere of the doorknob. Doubt. He took out the remaining key. It worked. Roger went inside.

He closed the door, took off his boots, took off his gloves. Kitchen: a wine bottle on the table, half full. Roger reached for it, stopped. Flake of dandruff falls off your head, you fry. Strange, how the mind worked. He put on the gloves, drew the cork, tilted the bottle to his lips, not quite touching, and tasted the wine. Still good, although not much of a wine. He stuck the cork back in, left the bottle in the same spot on the table.

Roger opened the refrigerator, empty, and the cupboards: dishes, glasses, the expected. He went into the living room, ran his eyes over the books, mounted the stairs. He glanced into a bedroom with a bare mattress on the bed, moved into the bathroom: bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo in the shower. He picked up the shampoo with his gloved hand. Principessa was the brand, and the writing on the bottle was Italian. A towel hung over the rail; he could see it was dry.

Roger went into the last room, another bedroom, this one made up. He checked the closet: two life jackets and a terry-cloth robe on the rail, something silver glinting on the high shelf at the back. He reached for it, a box, a silvery slippery box that he almost dropped. Lancome face powder: would have been messy. He put it back. Then he knelt, peered under the bed, saw dustballs. He pulled back the duvet, checked under the pillows, stared at the sheets. White sheets, spotless. He bent over the center of the bed until his nose was almost touching the bottom sheet and sniffed. He smelled nothing.

Ketchup, instead of blood. Had he built a huge construction on a foundation of nothing? Then, straightening, Roger saw brown-tipped flowers in a glass vase by the window, dying but not dead. Irises? Yes, but even if they were, what then? Nothing certain. A foundation of very little. If he had made one mistake in his life, in his work, it was letting his brilliance speed him along too quickly. Homo sapiens was a jealous species.

Roger smoothed the duvet, went downstairs. He stood in the kitchen for some time, watching the snow fall. Then he put on his boots and went out, making sure the door was locked behind him.

Roger walked back across the river, poking ahead automatically with the oar, his brain rearranging the few pieces-irises, wine, wet boots, call-in show-and projecting the shapes of missing ones that might not even exist. He almost didn’t notice the bump in all the white smoothness of the river, a protrusion like driftwood covered in snow.

Bending over it, Roger dusted off the snow. Underneath he saw not driftwood but a brown-paper-wrapped package, frozen stiff. He got his hands on it, pulled; the package didn’t budge. Clearing away more snow with the blade of the oar, he saw that the package, tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, was stuck in the ice.

Roger went to his car, returned with the shovel, chipped away carefully. After a few minutes, the package came free. Then he was down on his hands and knees, tearing at the frozen paper.

A painting. One half blurred and damaged, all murky brown and green. But the other half showed a crumbling plinth, a few dangling red grapes, the front wheels of a skateboard.

The wind began to blow at the wrapping paper. Roger scrambled around, gathering it up. He came upon a white envelope, threw off his gloves, ripped it open. Inside a note: To Ned, with all my love, Francie.

Roger stood in the middle of the river, snow falling harder, wind whipping icy flakes at him from different directions. His mind was the same-a turmoil of thoughts, racing by too fast for even him to examine. Must clear, must clear, must clear, he thought, and with great effort he forced his brain to stop, his mind to go blank. He stood panting, his head empty, feeling nothing, not cold, snow, wind.

And into this calm, a meditational calm, although he’d always despised the idea of meditation, came a first brief thought, or rather, memory. A perfect crime: it’s got to be absolutely unconnected-a penny drops off the Empire State Building, goes right through your skull.