Secret Prey

TWENTY-FIVE

Morgan Bite had such a beatific look on his face as he stood at the edge of the Bite Brothers parking lot, at the end of the line of black Cadillac limousines, still holding the check, that Audrey McDonald actually thought of killing him; actually thought that after she received all the money she was due, after all the legal matters were cleared away, after all the police were gone, she might come back some night and murder the man, for the simple pleasure of doing it.

Bite was speaking in cliches: "… able to achieve such a natural appearance that the loved one seems to be undoubtedly present among us…"

She wanted to say, "Yes-yes-yes," and run away down the sidewalk; she limped instead, putting on a stunned expression, as though she might at any moment suffer a relapse. Though, now that she thought of it, Bite might find a relapse attractive, given his profession.

"… not regret this in any way, and do not hesitate for a moment to call me at any time, day or night, with any concerns…"

She’d just given him a blank check to handle Wilson’s funeral-well, blank to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars, which he thought would be adequate to protect Wilson’s image in the business community. Whenever she’d mentioned anything having to do with Wilson’s death, Bite had seemed intimately aware of every detail, while somehow remaining unaware that she’d had anything to do with it. Come to think of it, she sort of liked that. Maybe she wouldn’t kill him.

Well: She could decide that some other time.

Audrey McDonald came with a full set of the negative emotions: hate, anguish and anger, pain, fear, dread and loathing were her daily bread, illuminated by an active imagination. Love and pleasure were not quite a mystery. She thought she might have loved Wilson, and her parents, and even Helen. She felt pleasure with the prospect of money-not with what it could buy, but the lucre itself; she loved handling it, reading account statements. She had talked Wilson into buying a hundred gold coins, American Eagles, which she kept in a box in a cubbyhole in the kitchen. Once a week she would take them out and handle them, so smooth, so beautiful and cool to the touch.

And she certainly felt pleasure with the prospect of killing.

Killing was the most interesting thing she’d ever done, and that alone was a powerful attraction. Added to the attraction was the simple reality that a killing was always done to decrease her own fear-fear of poverty, fear of helplessness, fear of low status-and to increase the amount of money she would someday have. So far, she hadn’t killed idly: so far, she’d always made a profit on her killings.

But it was dread that hung over her fifteen minutes after she left Bite Brothers, as she pulled the car to the curb in front of her sister’s house. Helen had been talking to Davenport again: she’d called to confess it, and to admit that she’d written to Davenport that Wilson had killed people.

But Wilson hadn’t. She had. And if Davenport was still sniffing around, he might trip over something inconvenient. She was beginning to fear the man, not because he seemed to be particularly bright, or especially hard-driving, or even mean, but because he simply wouldn’t go away. Now he was visiting Helen. This was all supposed to be done with. What did he want?

Helen was standing in the doorway as she limped up the sidewalk. Putting on the limp.

"I’m sorry," Helen said. "He was hurting you so badly that I don’t think I had a choice."

Audrey nodded abruptly and let Helen take her coat at the door. "Still hurt," she mumbled. And she looked terrible. The bruises were going yellow, and her hair, unwashed since the attack, looked like sticky pieces of dirty brown kite string.

"Let me get you a coffee," Helen said, bustling around.

"Why aren’t you working?" Audrey asked. Audrey hadn’t worked since Wilson’s second promotion, the one that carried him into mortgages. She’d always talked about Helen’s having a "career" in a way that made both Helen and her ex-husband feel like rag-pickers.

"I had personal time coming, and since the fight with Wilson, I thought… I just thought I ought to be around," Helen said from the kitchen. She appeared a moment later with the coffee. "How are you?"

Audrey shook her head: "I still hurt. I still feel like I’ve been in an auto accident… and Wilson…" She sniffed.

"When’s the funeral?"

"They released him today. His father’s secretary called and said his father wanted to handle the funeral, but I said no, I would handle it. It’s at Bite Brothers, day after tomorrow, at two o’clock."

"I’ll take you," Helen said.

"Thank you. I think we should go in Wilson’s Lexus, though."

"No problem; I’ll come over to your place with Connie, and we’ll all go together in the Lexus."

They talked for a few minutes about the funeral, sipping the coffee as they talked. Then Audrey asked, "What all did Detective Davenport want to talk about?"

"Oh, he just figured out that I was the one who wrote the letter about Wilson," Helen said. "And he wanted to know why I thought Wilson did it."

"You know, I’m not sure Wilson did all those things," Audrey said tentatively.

Helen looked away, flushing just a bit; this embarrassed her. "Oh, Audrey… I know you loved him."

"Yes. And sometimes… I don’t know."

"What?" Helen asked. Audrey almost never opened up. Now she seemed about to.

"I sometimes wondered myself. Something you don’t know-and please don’t tell Detective Davenport this, I mean, Wilson is gone-but I began to wonder myself. And after Andy Ingall disappeared on his boat, well, Wilson was gone the night before. He came home at three o’clock in the morning, and he’d been drinking, and we had an awful fight. And the next day, Andy sailed away. That’s when I began to wonder."

"You should have said something," Helen said.

"I… really did love him," Audrey said. "And he loved me. Nobody ever loved me before, no man did. I’m not so good-looking as you are…"

"Oh, shut up, Audrey," Helen said. "As soon as this is all over with, we’ll take you to a friend of mine for a makeover, and you’ll be amazed. You’ll have guys coming around. You’ve got the whole rest of your life to look forward to."

"Unless they send me to jail," Audrey said piteously.

"No way," Helen declared. "I asked Detective Davenport about that, and he said that the county attorney was ready to declare that it was self-defense. Which it obviously was…"

Audrey perked up a bit at that. "Maybe I could do a makeover," she said, brushing some of her sticky hair away from her face. "That would be good…"

"So you’ll be okay?"

"I think so. I have to go now, there’s more funeral things to be done. I talked to Wilson’s father; he seemed to think the whole thing was like a bad business deal. I was afraid he’d hate me. But he didn’t seem any different."

"Well, you know the old man," Helen said. She’d met him two or three times at the McDonalds’ house; he was, she thought, a spectacular horse’s ass. "Though usually, they say, having a child die is the worst thing that can happen to a person."

"Not for that old man; he is a monster," Audrey said.

"I was just talking about our folks with Detective Davenport," Helen said. She’d gone to get Audrey’s coat from a chair, and didn’t see her sister jerk around toward her.

"What?"

"Oh, you know, we were just talking, nothing serious," Helen said, as she held the coat.

"I mean, about them dying, or just that they were gone?"

"Nothing, really-just something that came up in passing."

He was sniffing around. Audrey didn’t push it, because it seemed unlikely to produce much, and she didn’t want Helen wondering about the conversation. But she would have to think about this. Go after Davenport directly? That was one possibility, as long as it wouldn’t push more investigators her way. As for Helen, she had to do something to interrupt this relationship with Davenport, which was altogether too cozy.

All this was going through her head as she went through the forms of departure, ending with, "So you’ll be at the house at noon?"

"Noon," Helen said. "And if you need anything before then, call me. Please. This is the reason I took the time off."

When Audrey pulled away from the curb, Helen was still at the door. Audrey touched the horn, emitting a polite Japanese tone, and thought, "Connie."

And no time like the present.

She drove to a Rainbow supermarket, looked up Child Protection in the phone book. "I don’t want to give you my name-I’m a teacher at South High and I’m going out of channels here-but there’s a student named Connie Bell who has been smoking a great deal of marijuana and I’ve heard from another student that she gets it from her mother; and I’ve heard that she and her mother have been fighting, and that Connie has been beaten up several times by the men who hang around with her mother. Thank you."

She hung up.

Connie smoked marijuana-Helen had confessed that; she had told Audrey weeks before that she’d slapped Connie after an argument over marijuana. There was just enough truth in her call to cause Helen some inconvenience. That was all Audrey needed for now: for Helen to look away from Davenport.