On the night of Sarah Winston's annual birthday ball, the lodge is more dazzling than the Sun King's Palace. Strings of bright lights outline every beam, every window and wall; they run along the rooftop and upward to describe circles around the high castle tower.
So wrote Ferris Monty many years ago when these were all the details he could glean firsthand as an outsider looking in. And tonight-oh, tonight-he piloted his yellow Rolls-Royce up the winding driveway, fairly bouncing on the front seat, giddy as any ten-year-old with Cinderella dreams.
The car keys were handed off to a valet, and Ferris approached the lodge, resplendent in a new suit of red velvet, his nose held high. He was drunk with anticipation as he stood before the doorman, a large thug in a tuxedo, and handed over his personal invitation from Isabelle Winston- a true princess. The thug stood to one side, and Ferris was allowed to enter. Crossing the crowded foyer, he was accosted by a waiter bearing a tray of champagne flutes. Glass in hand, Ferris sauntered into the massive front room and the babble of conversations riding below the music of an orchestra. The bandstand was next to a gigantic window with the view of a second ballroom under the stars. Beyond that outdoor dance floor was a parking lot of luxury cars and ancient wrecks. Ferris wondered how many trees Ad Winston had killed to accommodate the vehicles of more than a thousand guests.
A tourist in fantasyland, he saw the most amazing sights looming over him, a flock of birds, gigantic and fanciful, carved in ice and presiding over platters piled high with lobster tails and giant shrimp. The cold air rising from these sculptures warred with the heat of a chandelier lit with hundreds of electric candles. It was like staring into the sun.
The walls were lined with real candles in sconces, with tables for two, and others had chairs for six. The orchestra changed its tempo to a livelier beat and the floor quickly filled with people. All around him, designer finery danced with secondhand clothes. Outlaw movie folk and grafting politicians commingled with store clerks and construction workers. A pedophile rock star danced past him. Oh, and there, bald as a cue ball, was a famous model-a killer drunk driver-in the arms of the postmaster.
When the newspaper syndicate tired of the story about a lost boy's bones, here, swirling round him, was enough material to provide months of columns and television interviews. And somewhere in this gathering was an ending for his book.
His pen vibrated in his pocket.
Oren pulled out a chair to seat Hannah at the table reserved for the judge's party.
"Odd," she said, looking up at the ice statues. "They're less scary when they're monster size."
"I don't think our hostess agrees with you." The judge nodded toward the solitary figure only a few yards distant, a woman with pale upswept hair, glittering combs to hold it, and a long gown of that same champagne shade.
Sarah Winston stood frozen at attention before one of the giant birds, like one piece of art regarding another. The ice sculptures were all recognizable from her private journals, and now she stared at each of them in turn, astonished and clearly viewing them for the first time.
"This is Addison 's work," said Hannah.
Apparently the lawyer had also read the lady's journals and selected these images from the darker pages. All of the giant birds had fangs. Shaken, Mrs. Winston reached for a drink from the tray of a passing maid, who defied her employer, lifting the wineglasses high and carrying them out of reach.
Oren realized that, more than anything on earth, Mrs. Winston wanted that drink, but all the gold bangles on her wrists would not buy it. And this was also Addison 's work.
Alice Friday stopped by the judge's table and leaned down to Oren. "Look over there!" She pointed to the far side of the room, calling his attention to Mrs. Winston's daughter. "That's the woman who tried to kill you."
Oren turned to catch Isabelle staring at him, and she quickly looked the other way.
"No need to dive under the table." Evelyn Straub, an imperious figure in a long blue gown, sailed stately past him on her way to the caterer's bar. "The girl doesn't have a pocket to hide a gun-not in that slinky dress."
Ferris Monty had surmised that the woman in the maid's uniform was not one of the caterer's people. She was Sarah Winston's warden, a snatcher of drinks, a spoiler of fun. The maid's head turned in all directions, and there was panic in her eyes. Her employer's wife had vanished.
He smiled with the secret knowledge of Mrs. Winston's hiding place, for he had witnessed the lady's disappearing act. Ferris rounded a screen of potted foliage and saw two women standing on a small, secluded terrace, their heads close together in conversation.
Friends? Well, this was the mismatch of the century.
Mavis Hardy was so altered, he hardly knew her. She was a bare-armed amazon in sequins. And she was barefoot-the only outward sign of a mind gone awry. The madwoman had forgotten her shoes. Ferris was oddly touched by this, and he regarded her dirty bare feet as wounds.
As a gossip columnist extraordinaire, he had only to glance at that gown to recognize the designer, and that particular fashionista had died years before the close of the last century. However, even secondhand, this dress was well beyond the purse of a librarian-but not Sarah Winston, her companion and, no doubt about it, her benefactor.
One problem-the gift of a used dress would hardly fit the style of a multimillionaire.
And now he realized that the ballgown had been given to Mavis Hardy long ago when it was new, for here were all the signs of a reunion. The women embraced, drank wine and wept.
William Swahn returned Isabelle's wave. The black strapless gown was out of character for a woman who seldom wore lipstick. And the thigh-high slit was daring. So grown-up.
He missed the little girl, the shy redheaded wanderer always looking for love and a safe place to catch her breath. As a child and a teenager adrift among strangers-and only one old friend-she had always come to his table, demanding asylum. Tonight she resumed this old custom and sat down with him again. She stared at the giant ice sculptures. They worked an unnerving effect on her.
William lifted one hand to flag down a waiter bearing wineglasses. "I saw Oren Hobbs come in with the judge and Miss Rice."
Isabelle pretended not to hear this as she lifted two champagne flutes from the waiter's tray.
"There's a law against what you did, Belle." He had intended this as a tease, a friendly rebuke for her recent streak of violence against a certain young man. When she turned to him with guilty surprise, he decided upon a different tack, an older offense. "You lied to the sheriff-that alibi for Josh's brother. I know you had a crush on Oren Hobbs when you were a child, but that was-"
"I never did."
"Of course you did. But I can't believe it lasted five years. You were sixteen years old when you gave him that fake alibi."
So why the lie to save Oren Hobbs? Had she known the boy was innocent? Did Isabelle have a suspect of her own in those days? If so, it must have been someone close to her, someone she would never give up to the sheriff.
William Swahn sat well back in his chair, pushed there, as if revelation had punching power.
Later, at the keyboard of his computer, Ferris Monty would describe his companion as a vitriolic hamster who drank a lot. The town council-woman accepted his invitation to sit down at his table.
"I don't gossip," she said.
But they all said that.
In answer to his question on the out-of-town guests, the hamster replied, "Those are Addison 's clients. Don't you read Rolling Stone or Forbes? Criminals, every last one of them." When queried on the history of the ball, she told him that this very table had once been reserved for the late Millard Straub. "Mean little prick. He sat here with his oxygen tank, and no one said a word to him all night. But his wife danced every dance and had a high old time. There she is now."
Ferris turned to see Evelyn Straub standing at the caterer's bar, a grande dame in midnight blue and pearls.
"Back in the day," said the hamster, "Evelyn was a showstopper."
He nodded in agreement, for he had known her then, but having been barred from every ball, he had never seen Evelyn dance. "Her husband died suddenly, didn't he?"
"Not sudden enough. It's no wonder his wife took up with that boy, Oren Hobbs."
"And everyone knew?"
"No, not till the day Oren came home. I got that story from a guest at the Straub Hotel."
Ferris was bent over his notebook, jotting lines, when the hamster said, "Could you write down that I killed Millard Straub? That used to be my fantasy."
"You think he was murdered?"
"Oh, no, he died of old age-passed away peacefully in his sleep. There's no justice in this world."
"My mother married him for his money," said Isabelle. "You were the one she loved."
William Swahn shook his head more in wonder than denial. Why was she so insistent on this revision of history? "Your mother was very much in love with Addison. She told me so before the wedding."
"She should have married you."
"I was a child," said William, reminding her for the second time in as many days.
"You loved her."
"I was smitten. I'll admit to that much… And then I grew up."
"You were so handsome in your policeman's uniform."
"Belle, you never saw me in a uniform. Years went by before-"
"Mom has a photograph of you. It was taken the day you graduated from the police academy."
William well remembered that ceremony and also the picture he had posed for with Sarah by his side. He had his own copy of that photograph, and he treasured it. It had been displayed on his bedroom wall for years- and recently hidden in a closet. But how did this old souvenir figure into Belle's false recollections-why this artless attempt to bind him to Sarah?
"You still love my mother. I know you do."
"I'll always be her friend… and yours." This was true. Over the past two decades, Sarah had not said more than a handful of words to him, but he was constant.
"And you'll always watch out for Mom, won't you?"
"Yes, Belle." She had extracted this promise from him days ago. It had caused him worry then-and now.
When Isabelle had left the table, he looked for Sarah in the crowd. He saw her standing on the fringe and far away, feet moving to the music, and she was a little unsteady for the wine.
He whispered, "Don't fall."
A bottle of beer-his beverage of choice-was set down on the table alongside his untouched glass of wine. "Thank you," he said, looking up at Oren Hobbs, who played the gentleman tonight, waiting for an invitation to sit down. William nodded to the empty chair.
Hobbs turned the chair around and straddled it as he tipped back his own bottle. "I wasn't the only kid in Coventry who was shipped out of town." He stared at Isabelle's retreating back. "She was sent away before I was."
William sipped from his bottle, buying time to think, and then he sighed. "Cold beer on a summer night. You've won my heart. Does that scare you?"
"Relax," said Hobbs. "She never made my shortlist. She's got the killer instinct-I can vouch for that-but her style is piss poor. I'm still alive." He insisted on a toast to Isabelle, the most incompetent of assassins, and the two men clinked glasses. From any distance out of earshot, they might be taken for the best of friends tonight.
Addison Winston stood a short distance away-watching. A guest was speaking to him, but he seemed unaware of this, so intent was he on Oren Hobbs.
Jim Web, the postmaster, sat down at Ferris Monty's table. "That story I told you about Oren and the little Winston girl? Well, this is where it all began-the very first birthday ball."
Ferris's pen was at the ready, poised over a fresh page in his notebook. What happened?"
"Lots of people would still like to know. Back then, Belle Winston was only eleven years old, skinny and shy." He pointed to the other side of the room. "She was trying to disappear into that row of potted trees. Oren was over by the bandstand. They were twenty feet apart when it happened. Ever see two children struck by lightning? It was a thing to behold. The two of them just stared at each other, circling around like little foxes scouting the territory.
"The band started playing, and people were pairing off for a slow dance. Belle was standing there, waiting so patiently. Oren couldn't take his eyes off her, but he hung back. Then the girl made it easy for him, though it cost her a lot to do it. Like I said, she was shy. She walked out on the dance floor all alone. Well, four mules couldn't have held that boy back. He moved toward her. Heads were turning everywhere. People stopped dancing to watch them. Then the crowd made a circle around those two kids when they met at the center of the room.
"The little girl smiled and lifted her hands to take Oren as her partner. He was only inches away. The boy stared at her for a second or two, and then I guess the girl just didn't make the cut. He walked right past her, left her standing there all by herself. I remember Belle looking down at her patent leather shoes-while everyone else was staring at her. A few kids were laughing. Oren kept walking-walked right out the front door. One kid in the crowd shouted out an unkind joke. And that little girl just stood there for the longest time, trying to figure out what had just happened to her… and why.
"When I showed up for the next year's ball, I saw her sitting on the staircase out in the foyer. I think she was still waiting for Oren, but he never came back."
By trade, Ferris Monty was a cheerleader for every sort of catastrophe, but tonight, he surprised himself. He found that he could relate to the public humiliation of an eleven-year-old girl. "Why did he do that to her?"
The postmaster smiled and shrugged. "It's a mystery."
Evelyn Straub looked up at a towering ice bird that stood guard over the seafood platters. She filled her plate with shrimp and scallops, while reminiscing with the small woman at her side. "I guess Oren was sixteen when I asked him what happened that night. He told me he got to within a foot of the little Winston girl, and that's when-"
"He remembered that he didn't know how to dance," said Hannah.
The judge had not come down from dancing people. The housekeeper had never learned how, and neither had the boys and girls of Coventry in those days. Children had no formal lessons until they reached the age of prom night, when the school took them in hand for ballroom classes. Hannah had not foreseen the lack of dancing lessons as a life-altering threat to a twelve-year-old boy.
Addison Winston avoided looking at his client. He stared at his glass, as if the details of William Swahn's old case eluded him. "No, I don't believe I ever saw the dispatcher's sworn statement. What of it?"
"Oren Hobbs said the woman disappeared before the police could question her. So that's true?"
"It hardly matters. I'm sure there would've been logbooks or tapes to back up what happened to you that night."
"You don't know? You never asked for the tapes?"
"William, when you were in the hospital, you didn't want to hear any details. And I don't recall you ever asking how I got you all that money."
"I'm asking now."
Addison loosened his tie. "Your settlement hung on the evidence that the police didn't produce, things they didn't want in a public court record. That's why they put your deal on the table so fast. It was all about silence and the domino effect. The LAPD had so many lawsuits pending for corruption and brutality, and they stood to lose all of them because of you. You were the poster boy for police-conspiracy theorists. I hate to admit this, but a chimpanzee could've won that damage award."
"Then Hobbs was right. My case was never investigated."
"I'm sure it was." The lawyer swirled the dregs of the wine in his glass. "But that would've ended after the nondisclosure agreements were signed.
When I do a deal, contract law trumps criminal law. They couldn't go forward with an investigation, not without breaking the agreement. They would've had to pay you triple damages." "Did you think the cops were guilty?"
"It didn't matter to me," said Addison. "But you thought so. Maybe you don't remember-what with all those drugs the doctors gave you to dull the pain. The only time you were halfway lucid was in the recovery room after the surgery. You wanted revenge, and not just against the officers who left you to die that night. You wanted to nail every cop in town. Tall order, but I totally screwed the LAPD. I gave you what you asked for."
"I want to reopen the case."
"Can't be done, William. Breach of contract. You'd have to give back all that lovely cash." Addison moved his hands up and down in the manner of scales. "Justice," he said, his right hand rising. "And money." The other hand sank like a stone. "Not a tough call."
"No it isn't," said Swahn. "I want to reopen the case."
The lawyer laughed. His client did not.
Addison felt a pain in his chest and slipped a pill into his mouth. Within seconds, the medication had done its work, and he was immortal again.
Evelyn took Oren's arm, and he led her to the judge's table. When he pulled out a chair, she settled into it with a grace that chiseled away the pounds and passing years. She nodded to the company around her and then surveyed the crowd.
"This room is ready to dance." She slapped the table. "But that music is boring. I'll have to do something about that."
She rose from her chair and crossed the dance floor for a word with the orchestra leader. Before she left the bandstand, the tempo had changed to a Latin rhythm, and she seemed lighter on her feet as she headed back to the table. Twenty years ago, her hips would have swayed. Tonight she simply stepped in time to the beat of a drum and horns, turning gracefully full circle, and then continuing on her way. Many couples on the floor seemed stalled in place, not knowing where to put their feet this time. Addison Winston waved his arms, trying to catch the orchestra leader's eyes, but the man with the baton only smiled for Evelyn Straub, a woman who knew how to spread her money around.
"That's better." Evelyn sat down and leaned toward Oren. "The next dance will be a tango. Are you up for that?"
Henry Hobbs rested one hand on his son's shoulder. "We're not tango people."
"Speak for yourself," said Evelyn. "I taught him that dance when he was sixteen." Turning back to Oren, she said, "If you could do it naked, I guess you can manage well enough with your clothes on."
The judge spilled his wine and used a napkin to dab at the puddle. "Evelyn, you must find the statute of limitations very liberating."
Rising from the table, Oren held out one hand to her. "Would you like to dance?"
"No," said Evelyn, though she was clearly pleased by the request. "I think it's high time you settled accounts with the Winston girl. And here's the best part. You won't even have to say hello."
Oren crossed the floor, his eyes on Isabelle Winston, and he was not worried that she might turn him down. He had no plans to ask for this dance. That was not in keeping with the spirit of the tango, a dance of love and war. He grabbed her roughly by the wrist and joined her to his hip, then pushed her away.
And she came back.
They owned the floor.
The music was louder, more passionate. Faster, then slower, the notes almost shy and then-vavoom. The music wrapped around them and stroked them up and down. They moved apart. He grabbed her arm and yanked her back again.
So close.
He smelled the wine on her breath, and then, with a turn of the head, the flower scent of her hair, and now her sweat and his. Lips close, almost a kiss, but no. She backed away, a tease with no remorse. He would make her pay for that.
They set out to destroy each other in every move they made. She lifted her face to his, he looked away She returned the insult. He flung her across the floor, and Isabelle came crawling back to climb his body. Oren pressed down on her shoulders, and she sank to her knees. Rising to a swaying stand, she moved in close. Her leg rode upon his hip for an embrace.
And so they danced with perfect understanding, anger and contempt, sex and longing. Her nails dug into his neck. He left impressions of his fingers on her bare shoulders.
Apart, together-heat, incredible heat. And always the rhythm kept time with two hearts pounding. Bone against bone, grind and sway, down and down, lower still, he laid her on the floor and then pulled her up by one hand, not caring if he tore her arm off.
The Latin tempo was climbing the walls and thrumming in the floorboards.
Forced down to her knees again, she clawed her way up his legs, and he allowed it. Long fingernails raked his breast, buttons went flying, and a small spot of blood appeared on his white shirt. All around the room, breath was sucked in and moans expelled. The two dancers tangoed on. The music reached a crescendo as Isabelle slapped his face-and he loved it.
The song ended like sudden death.
The dancers turned their backs on one another. Oren walked toward the terrace, and Isabelle walked toward the caterer's bar. Applause rose up like thunder.
"Well, that was different," said the judge, raising his voice to be heard above the clapping hands, the stomps and whistles. "I don't think I've ever seen blood drawn on a dance floor."
Hannah looked upon the bloodletting as progress in a somewhat stalled relationship. "I bet those two get married."
The judge doubted this, offering recent evidence that Isabelle would rather kill Oren than wed him. And Evelyn Straub ventured that Isabelle could do both. "I don't see a conflict."
"Ma'am?" One of the caterer's people stood by the table, looking down at a saucer that had been used as an ashtray.
When asked to put out her cigarette, the grande dame of hoteliers looked up at the waitress, a young girl who could be easily killed with a word or two. Yet Evelyn did nothing to harm her. Instead, she took her smoking cigarette outside in search of some small dog that she might kick.
Approaching her golden years, she found pleasure in small things.
The couple on the terrace stood close together, sheltered by the low-hanging branch of a tree and the privacy of darkness. They never noticed Isabelle Winston in the open doorway. She held two wineglasses, one of them a peace offering for Oren Hobbs, but he had found other company.
Eleven years old again, shy again, dying of it, Isabelle left them a gift of two champagne flutes abandoned on the terrace wall.
Oren bowed to his companion and gently took the lady's hand to lead her out of the shadows. He pulled her to him, and they moved to the strains of slow music wafting out from the ballroom. The dancing partners closed their eyes. Oren Hobbs held a slender woman with long brown hair the color of lions, and Evelyn Straub danced with the boy from the moon.
Sally Polk was never far behind the sheriff as he made his way through the crowd, shaking hands and flashing his politician's smile. He had yet to notice her, but she was a patient woman.
Ah, now Cable Babitt was turning her way. He saw her, and the effect was electric-a bit like a cattle prod to the private parts.
Apparently, her new party frock made quite an impression on him, though it was nothing stylish, just something grabbed off a rack in haste, and chosen only for its color. Maybe her bright green dress reminded him of some errand left undone, for now he was moving toward the door. She walked after him, taking her own sweet time, yet relentless in the click of high heels dogging him.
Can you hear me coming, Cable?