Pale Kings and Princes

31

At seven-thirty in the evening Wheaton was not lively. Everyone was in watching Entertainment Tonight. The snow made things even quieter than usual. There was a town truck with a plow on the front and a sand spreader on the back moving slowly along Main Street. No cops, no roadblocks, nobody saying “ten four” into a microphone. Just a couple of teenage boys in maroon satin jackets with WHEATON on the back, in chenille lettering, near the pizza place trying to make snowballs with insufficient snow.

Caroline didn’t seem surprised to see us when we arrived. Hawk put his car in the empty stall of her two-car garage next to a Jeep station wagon and closed the garage doors. He came in carrying the shotgun and the box of shells.

“Never had a second car,” Caroline said. “Bailey always used the unmarked cruiser. Now Henry’s got it.” She stared at Hawk and the shotgun but she didn’t say anything, and she shook hands politely when I introduced them. Hawk put the shells on the coffee table.

“Will you have coffee?” Caroline said.

“No,” I said. “Keep me awake all night.”

Hawk said, “I hope you’ll pardon me,” to Caroline. “I need to take a look around.”

She smiled as politely as she’d shaken hands.

“Certainly,” she said.

Hawk moved off through the house. I heard him slide the chain bolt on the back door. Caroline sat on the couch, at the end opposite from the shotgun shells. Susan sat beside her. I sat across from them in the wing chair next to the fireplace.

“Is there something wrong,” Caroline said. She had a bright perky quality that was as natural as a neon light.

“Yes,” Susan said. “There is and we need to talk.”

“What else could go wrong,” Caroline said. It was as if she’d had a trying day where the washing machine jammed and the cat threw up on the rug.

“The Wheaton police seem to be conspiring with Esteva and are going to shoot Spenser,” Susan said.

“The police?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do,” Caroline said.

“He seemed to be making some progress toward solving the murders,” Susan said, “and interrupting the drug traffic here in Wheaton.”

That was a considerable exaggeration of my progress but I didn’t interrupt. Susan probably knew what she was doing. It was probably a nice feeling.

“My husband’s murder?”

“Yes.”

“You think the police are connected with Esteva?” Caroline said.

“Yes.”

“Not my husband.”

Susan nodded very slightly. I could see the professional self slowly slide into place. She sat perfectly still, and her nod was not firm enough for agreement, nor lateral enough to imply disapproval. It was merely a movement of the head that said, oh? tell me more.

“My husband never betrayed that uniform,” Caroline said. “My husband was an honest man.”

Susan made her little head movement again. Hawk came silently back into the room and leaned against the jamb of the archway behind the wing chair where I sat.

“He wasn’t being paid by Esteva?” Susan said.

“No, absolutely not. He was... he was too fine a man.” Her voice shook a little. “He was too fine a man to ever sell out. He cared about that job almost as much as his family. He was too fine.”

“Do you know who was selling out?” Susan said.

“No, I don’t. No one...” Her eyes wandered away from Susan. Outside the windows the snow was coming a little harder than it had, still and gentle, but persistent. “Bailey was a wonderful father,” Caroline said. “A wonderful husband. He would never betray us.” Her voice shook again and she paused and the room was quiet. None of us moved. Susan was looking at her steadily, neutrally. Behind me I could hear Hawk’s breathing. I could hear mine too.

“He loved Brett when he was little, he was always carrying him on his shoulders. He loved me. He would have stood on his head for me. He loved his little family.” Caroline’s voice was stronger now. Flattened by medication, but firm.

“But Esteva hired his son,” Susan said.

“He didn’t. I mean he didn’t do that because of Bailey.”

Susan was quiet.

“He hired Brett... Brett needed a job. Brett was a good boy. He hired him. I don’t know why he hired him. Just that Brett was a good boy. Like his father.”

Caroline was barely there with us. She was talking about people we didn’t know, about a Bailey and a Brett I’d never seen. The ones I’d seen were alike. They were both a mess, and getting messier. Until the process came to a sudden end.

“Bailey would never betray me,” she said.

The snow collected in the corners now of the window sash in little picturesque triangles. Fa la la la la.

“Who did he betray?” Susan said.

Caroline shook her head. Outside on the road a town truck went by pushing a plow, making the distinctive rattle and scrape that plows make, with the clatter of chains mixed in.

“Brett was slow,” Caroline said. She shook her head again and looked at her lap. “He tried so hard, but he was slow. He could never be the man that Bailey was, that Bailey wanted... that Bailey deserved. We tried, but...”

“It’s hard living someone else’s definition,” Susan said.

Caroline looked up at her and frowned.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“Trying to be exactly what someone else thinks you should be must be very difficult,” Susan said.

“Oh, yes. Yes, it is, damned hard. I tried for fifteen years.”

Susan made her little neutral nod again.

“As hard as I could, so hard,” Caroline said, and shook her head. She looked in her lap again. She was wearing a light gray flannel skirt and a dark blue pullover sweater. A green silk scarf was knotted at her neck, and her thick hair was carefully brushed back, and tied with a green silk ribbon.

“He wanted, he wanted everything to be right. He was so fine a man. He deserved to have it right.”

“Umm,” Susan said.

Caroline shook her head again, this time more quickly as if to shake away something.

“But it wasn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t live that way anymore.”

“Yes,” Susan said. “That would be too hard.”

Two tears started in Caroline Rogers’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. Two more followed. She wasn’t boohooing, the tears merely came as she sat there. She wiped her right eye with the knuckle of her forefinger.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Let the tears come,” Susan said. “See what comes with them.”

She wiped at the other eye, then she put her hands back in her lap and the tears came faster. Then she put her hands up to her face and her shoulders hunched as she really cried.

“I begged him,” she said. “I begged him to think of us. To think of Brett, if he didn’t care about me.”

She seemed to speak only during moments of breath catching, moments of clarity in a murk of sobbing. Susan seemed to understand the pattern.

“What did he say?” Susan said at the right moment.

“He said Brett was lucky his father had connections, he couldn’t get a job by himself.” Her breathing was very short.

Susan nodded. Caroline sobbed, struggling to talk at the same time.

“A job,” she gasped. “As if a job with a dope dealer was a good thing.”

She was panting now and crying and talking in a burst as if she couldn’t wait to get it all said.

“As if having a father who was a dope dealer was a good thing... as if a whore-master was a good thing... as if Brett should grow up and be like him...” Caroline stopped, she seemed almost to be choking. “... to be like him,” she gasped. She slipped from the chair onto her knees on the floor. “LIKE HIM,” she gasped. She had doubled over, her face in her hands, her body rocking.

I looked at Hawk. He had no expression. I looked at Susan. She was watching Caroline. The force of her concentration was almost palpable.

“Did Bailey have an affair?” Susan said.

Caroline nodded without ceasing to rock, doubled over on her knees on the floor.

“Did he work with Esteva?”

Caroline nodded again.

“Who did he have an affair with?”

Caroline stopped rocking and raised her face toward Susan, a look of amazement on her face. As if Susan had asked her which way was up. Her voice was suddenly clear.

“Emmy,” she said. “Emmy Esteva.” Who could not know that?

“That was painful,” Susan said.

Caroline nodded.

“How did you deal with it?”

“I tried, I tried to be a woman he would want, to live up to what he expected...”

“That’s hard,” Susan said. “Isn’t it?”

Caroline nodded again.

“Too hard,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“So what did you do?”

Caroline shook her head.

“Did you have any help?” Susan said.

“Not for a long time,” Caroline said. “Finally I told Dr. Wagner.”

“Yes,” Susan said. “What did you tell him?”

Caroline looked horrified. “Not about Bailey,” she said. “Just about feeling depressed and that there was some trouble in the family.”

Susan nodded.

“And Dr. Wagner sent me to see a social worker at the hospital,” Caroline said.

There was a moment of silence while the snow drifted against the windows in the living room.

“Who?” Susan said.

“A young Hispanic woman,” Caroline said. “Miss Olmo.”

“How often did you see her?”

“Once a week for about three months.”

“And you told her about Bailey?”

“Not at first,” Caroline said. “But Miss Olmo said if she was going to help me she had to have my trust.”

“Of course,” Susan said.

“So I told her everything.”

Susan nodded again. “Did you tell anyone else about Bailey?”

“Oh, my God, no,” Caroline said. “No one.”

I glanced at Hawk, leaning on the doorjamb with the shotgun. He was glancing at me.

“The thing is,” Caroline said, “even after I told her, it didn’t help. Now it’s too late.”

“It’s not too late,” Susan said. “And it will take longer than three months.”

“Until what?” Caroline said.

“Until you look forward to morning,” Susan said.

Caroline shook her head.

“Yes,” Susan said. “I’ll help you. He’ll help you. You don’t believe it now, but it will get better.”

Caroline said nothing. She simply sat and stared out the front window at the snow sifting lightly down through the darkness outside her house.