Hades

15

Justin had not seen Victoria LaSalle since Alicia's funeral, and he was startled when she opened the door to let him into her home. She was as beautiful as ever. Her thick, dirty-blond hair fell down to her shoulders in waves, perfectly framing her pale face. Her skin was smooth and unlined, unmarred by contact with the sun. She was tall and slim and wiry; in her jeans and tucked-in collared shirt, she revealed the body of a teenage girl. And her hands were exactly the way he remembered them-long, tapered fingers; no polish on her perfectly manicured nails; hands that were delicate and gentle but also strong. In the more than seven years since he had last seen her, she had aged not a bit. But that was not what startled him.

What threw him, and what rendered him momentarily speechless, was that as she'd gotten older she'd come to look more and more like her sister. His wife. When he stepped into her foyer, it was as if he were staring at Alicia.

Victoria's neck was taut, and her eyes were angry. Those were the only indications of the strain she was under and the unhappiness that had to have enveloped her.

She made no movement to kiss him hello or even shake his hand. Just a curt nod and-ever polite in the way of all Providence upper-class housewives-a murmured "Thank you for coming."

She was alone, which surprised him. No one around to comfort her. As if she could read his mind, as they reached the living room she said, "There were several people here. I asked them to leave."

He nodded and said, "Okay."

Feeling the need to elaborate, she went on: "I didn't feel comfortable talking to you in front of them. And some of them wouldn't have felt comfortable having you here." She hesitated; and he got the strong sense it wasn't a polite hesitation, it was meant for emphasis, meant to be harsh. "My parents."

"I understand."

They reached the sofas. She sat first, directly in the middle of one couch, making it clear he was meant to sit opposite her, on the other side of the fabric-covered ottoman that served as coffee table. He did.

They sat in silence until he said, "I'm sorry about Ronald."

And almost instantaneously she replied, "I don't really know why you're here."

"I'm here because my father thought I could help you."

"Yes, he told me. And how is it he thinks you can help?"

"Well… at first he thought I could help find Ron."

"He's been found."

"Yes," Justin said. "I think the idea is that now I might be able to find out what happened to him. And why. If you want me to."

Victoria didn't answer. He didn't mind; he was content just to look at her, to fool himself for these few moments that he was looking at Alicia. As hard as he tried to resist, his mind drifted away into the past. To the day he'd met Alicia on campus. It was summer and her legs were bare. But it had also turned cool, and she had goose bumps running up and down her calves. It was the way he had always thought of her, for years, if they were apart and he conjured up her image: tanned, bare legs, a line of goose bumps. That ended when she killed herself. Since then, when he thought of her, the image he conjured up was of his wife sprawled on the floor, bloody, one side of her face gone from the self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Again, it was as if Victoria read his mind. Justin remembered that she'd always had that knack. In some ways, even when she was just a kid, she knew him better than Alicia did. She teased him with references that Alicia didn't understand. She always seemed to know what he was thinking about, particularly when he was thinking about things he wasn't supposed to be thinking about. He smiled at the memory, picturing her as a fourteen-year-old girl, kind of a tomboy, wanting to hang out with him and her older sister because they could do cooler things: drink and go to dirty movies.

"I look like her, don't I?"

Justin nodded. The word "yes" came out like a quick, sad sigh.

"I see it every day. I see her every time I look in the mirror."

Justin closed his eyes for a moment. It made it easier to talk with his eyes closed. "You and I, we used to be good friends, didn't we?" And when she was the one who nodded this time, he said, "It's weird. I don't let myself miss too many things. It's too dangerous. But I miss you."

"Well, I miss my sister," she said. There was an iciness to her voice, a meanness that he would never have thought her capable of. Her words were like a slap to his face, and he sat up straighter and tried not to let the hurt show.

"Is there anything you want to tell me about Ronald?" he asked.

"What should I tell you?"

"Vicky-"

"I'm Victoria now. People call me Victoria."

"Okay," Justin said. "Victoria. Do you want me to find out what happened to Ronald? Or do you just want me and it to go away?"

It was Victoria's turn now to close her eyes. When she opened them, she said, "I'm pregnant."

Startled, Justin said, "I didn't know. No one told me."

"No one knows. Six weeks. That's all. We were waiting before we said anything, to make sure everything was all right."

"It's hard to know what to say. Congratulations doesn't seem to be the right thing, but I'm happy for you."

"If it's a girl, Ron and I agreed we'd name her Alicia."

"I'm glad. It's a nice thing to do."

He could see her lower jaw trembling. Whatever it was she wanted to say was extremely difficult.

"I don't want to know what happened to Ronald. I don't care what he did or who did it or why. All I care about is that he got himself killed." Her whole body was trembling now, beginning to shake violently as if a fever were running through her. "That's all that matters to me. First my sister, now my husband. How can such a thing happen?"

"Vicky…" He moved to go toward her, but she held up her hand, stopping him in his tracks.

She steeled herself. The trembling didn't stop completely but it lessened considerably. It looked as if she might burst from the effort of keeping herself still. "But I'm going to have a child," Victoria now said. "A child who is never going to know his father. And I have to be able to tell him-or her-something about Ron. So I don't want to know the truth… but I need to know the truth."

"Then let me help you."

There was another silence. And finally Victoria nodded.

"Tell me about Ron," Justin said quietly.

"What kind of things do you need to know?" She was calm now. She sounded the way some people sounded after a good cry: both drained and relieved, weak but resolved.

"Remember, I knew him slightly when he was a kid. I didn't know him as a grown-up. I don't really know anything about him. But let's start with work. What did he do?"

"Mostly he was a financial analyst. He did work for your father sometimes."

"What kind of work?"

"He did a lot of things-research, analyzing various kinds of companies and products. For potential investors. To see what their upside was."

"Or their downside."

"Yes. Of course."

"So if he gave a bad report to an investor, someone could have been unhappy."

She frowned and shook her head. "I suppose. But not really. For one thing, companies don't really know who's checking them out. And it would be hard to pin it on one person if, say, a fund manager decided not to invest in a specific company. A lot of people have input into those decisions."

"Was there a specific area he specialized in?"

"No. Whatever interested him or his clients. He didn't always do research for other people. Lately he'd been investing OPM as well, for his firm." She stopped when she saw the faint smile on his face. "Something funny?"

He wiped the grin away. "No, of course not. It's just that I haven't heard that phrase in a long time. Other people's money. And I guess I'm not totally used to you as a thirty-year-old. So it's odd to me to hear you talk like that. I'm sorry, I'm a little bit stuck in the past up here."

There was no humor in her voice, no easing up on him, when she said, "Well, I'd prefer to stay in the present, if you don't mind." And when he nodded his assent, she continued as if there'd been no interruption. "There were things he was better at, areas he was more knowledgeable about. He was very good at his job; there was nothing he couldn't dig into."

"How about recently? Anything different or interesting going on with his business?"

She shrugged. "He'd spent more time traveling lately."

"How lately?"

"Over the past year, the last six months or so in particular."

"Where was he going?"

"Wherever he had to. California… Europe. He spent some time in South Africa over the past month or so for clients." He saw her eyes water briefly, but she pulled herself together immediately. "I kept telling him he'd better come back with a diamond."

"Would you say he was an honest person?"

He knew as soon as he said it that he should have phrased it better. The water was definitely gone from her eyes now, replaced again by anger. "Are you trying to make him responsible for what happened to him? Is that how you handle things, drag people down into the gutter?"

"No," Justin said. "And I apologize for being so blunt. I know things are raw. But if I'm going to find out what happened, I have to know as much as I can. About Ronald, about his work, about the people he surrounded himself with. And I have to ask questions. I'm not looking for any particular answer-I just need to ask the questions, if for no other reason than just so I can eliminate something. I'm starting with a blank canvas and somehow I've got to come up with a finished picture."

She nodded curtly. Didn't acknowledge his lengthy explanation, just said, "He was honest with me. He was honest about us. That's the only way I knew him, so I'd have to say yes, he was an honest person."

"Did he deal with a lot of powerful people?"

"He dealt with rich people. If money makes them powerful, then, yes, he did." She inhaled deeply. "I know what you're trying to do. See if he crossed a line with someone, see if he did anything foolish or careless. He didn't. Ronald was the least foolish or careless person who ever lived. He didn't drive fast; he always wore a seat belt; he kept an umbrella in the car at all times. He was safe. It's why I married him, because I knew nothing bad could happen around him. And now-now…" The tears began to stream down her cheeks. "Goddammit. I wasn't going to cry."

"There's nothing wrong with crying," he told her.

Her anger and her stiffness and her sorrow now erupted in sudden rage. "Don't tell me how to grieve!" she spat. "Don't tell me about crying and sadness. My sister's dead! My husband's dead! Don't tell me it's okay to cry. Does crying bring them back? Does crying make the rest of my life safe and happy… Does it keep people like you away from me?"

"No," he said quietly. "It doesn't do that." He waited until her tears were done and her breathing was back to normal. "Do you want me to stop?" Justin asked.

She shook her head. "No. I want you to ask what you have to ask."

"Do you have a list of his clients?"

She exhaled deeply, as if frustrated that, now that it was too late, she knew so little about her husband. "His assistant would have that, I'm sure. Or one of the analysts who worked for him. There were a few social occasions where we'd go out with clients-Ron would entertain them-but I never had much contact with them."

"Did he have his own firm?"

"Yes," Victoria said. "For the last year. Maybe a little more."

"All right. I'll get the client information from the people at the company, if that's all right."

"I'll call them, tell them to cooperate with you. Is there anything else?"

"Not right now. If I think of something, is it all right if I call you?"

She nodded and he stood up. As he took his first step toward the entryway, she said, "It's come full circle, hasn't it?"

His foot stopped in midair and he turned back toward her. "What has?"

"Your wife was murdered because of something you did. Now you murder someone's husband-he dies because of something she did. Full circle." When he didn't answer, she said, "Yes, I cry while I'm grieving. But I can also read the paper."

Justin stood there frozen, agonizing for what seemed like hours but was merely seconds. He said, "I'll call you if I need anything." Then he found his own way to the front door, leaving her on the couch, back straight, legs crossed, unbending and not moving. When he stepped outside, for a moment he thought he was going to be sick, and he doubled over. But he wasn't sick. Not physically. So he stood back up, rubbed off the beads of sweat that were soaking his forehead, got in his car, and drove away.

He didn't think he'd be back for quite some time.