Troxell left his house alone shortly past seven Thursday evening. Destination: Wisconsin Street. Potrero Hill. I camped at the curb three doors uphill from the Lindens’ Stick Victorian and watched him leave his BMW empty-handed and head down the path alongside.
Then I sat in the cold, dark car and fretted about Kerry.
You live with someone long enough, you develop a finely calibrated sensor where the other person is concerned. It doesn’t take long for the bells and whistles to go off when something isn’t right. Little things, cumulative effect. The way she’d been acting lately, the brooding silences, the declining interest in intimacy. The unsatisfactory talk we’d had last night. The fact that she’d taken most of today off work without explanation at the office and without telling me; I’d found that out from her secretary. The fact that she hadn’t been home at six thirty tonight. She must have come home and then gone out again somewhere with Emily; nobody had answered my call to the condo and both their cell phones were out of service, which probably meant they were in a restaurant; we had strict rules about cells being turned off in public places. But why hadn’t she let me know they were going so I wouldn’t worry?
If the Dancer business was what was bothering her, I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t simply brought it out into the open. If it was something else… what? Some sort of medical problem? She’d had her annual physical a couple of weeks ago, but I’d asked her about it and she’d said everything was as it should be. Why would she tell me that if it wasn’t?
Me? General dissatisfaction with our relationship, our life together? That notion scared hell out of me. We’d always been so good together, so completely in synch. Problems, sure, every marriage has some friction from time to time, but nothing serious, nothing that we hadn’t managed to work out with a minimum of difficulty. She might be pissed at me for keeping secrets about Dancer and Cybil, but I couldn’t conceive of her being angry enough to lose faith, start falling out of love Another man?
Well, it had happened… almost happened… once before. Paul Blessing, Blessing Furniture Showrooms, one of Bates and Carpenter’s clients. But that had been before we were married, and it hadn’t amounted to much. Strong physical attraction, a few dates, that was all. She hadn’t gone to bed with him. Said she hadn’t, and I’d believed her-I still believed her. No, it wasn’t another man. She wouldn’t cheat on me any more than I would cheat on her.
What, then?
Round and round…
I’d figured I was in for another of those long, dull, butt-cramping waits, while Troxell took his time doing whatever he did in his private hideaway, but it didn’t turn out that way. He spent less than an hour in there tonight. When he reappeared he had something tucked under one arm, not too bulky; I could make out a faint gleam of white when he opened the driver’s door on the BMW and the inside light came on. Plastic sack? Might be rental videos, viewed and ready for return, but I couldn’t be sure at the distance.
Down off Potrero Hill, south on 101, west on 280. But he wasn’t going home yet. He stayed on 280 until the Daly City interchange, swung off on John Daly Boulevard and from there onto Skyline north, past Fort Funston and Lake Merced. Heading for the beach? Right. He took the cutoff onto the Great Highway, then turned into the narrow beachfront parking area at the foot of Sloat Boulevard. I drove on past, circled the block onto Sloat, and crossed into the parking area from there.
The BMW was dark, slotted about halfway down. I pulled up between it and one other car parked there, close enough to the BMW for my headlights to wash over it and let me see that it was empty. I shut off the lights and got out and went to where I could see down beyond a shelf of broken shingle to the beach.
Broken clouds tonight, restless and shifting under the lash of a stiff, cold wind that had driven the temperature down into the low forties. The three-quarters moon was obscured at first, the beach like an expanse of black velvet except for the trim of faint luminiscence where the surf broke and creamed over the sand. I stayed put, braced and shivering, until the moon broke free and I had a clearer view. One man down there, moving in hunched walk toward the waterline. Troxell, who else? Anybody’s guess what quirk or impulse or demon sent him beach-walking at night, in frigid weather like this.
Back in the car, I sat on my hands until they warmed up and then called Jake Runyon’s cell phone number. “Troxell went up to Potrero Hill again, but he didn’t stay long. He’s back at the beach now, taking a moonlight stroll.”
“Going home from there, you think?”
“Probably.”
“Be a good time for me to use that key.”
“Yeah.”
“Worth the risk. My opinion.”
I hesitated, but not too long, before I said, “If you’re game, I suppose I am, too. You won’t take anything, disturb anything?”
“You know I won’t.”
“Sure. Worry mode tonight.”
“Go ahead then?”
“Go. Let me know when you’re finished.”
I sat fidgeting, paying too much attention to the time, thinking that I ought to call home again and telling myself to quit worrying for no good reason. Eight thirty wasn’t late; if Kerry and Emily weren’t home by ten or eleven, that was the time to start fingering the panic button.
Less than half an hour dribbled away before Troxell trudged back to his car. Too cold on the beach tonight even for him. Go home now, brother, I thought, when he headed out of the lot.
And that was what he did.
They were at the condo when I got there, both of them. Relief didn’t hang around long; as soon as I knew they were safe, it gave way to a simmer of other emotions, one of them being low-grade anger. I had a headache, I was hungry, I wanted a beer and some aspirin and some food and some explanations. I got all of that, more or less, but none of it made me feel any better.
Kerry was sitting in her recliner in the living room, in the dark, alone except for Shameless curled up in her lap, the drapes open over the picture window and the lights of the city shining hard and bright in the distance. Emily was in her room with the door shut; I could see the light under the door. I called out to Kerry, got a lackluster response, and detoured into the kitchen. No dinner waiting, hot or cold. So I washed down three aspirin with a long draught from a bottle of Sierra Nevada, ate a cold chicken leg and a couple of carrots out of the refrigerator. Elegant dining in the bosom of home. Then, bottle in hand, I went into the living room to have a little fireside chat with my mate.
As far as I could tell she hadn’t shifted position. When I switched on one of the table lamps I saw that she was sitting half-slouched, a sloppy posture she almost never adopts, and that she had a glass of white wine in one hand. She glanced up, favored me with a skeletal smile, and refocused her attention on the city lights below.
I said, “So?”
“So what?”
“You haven’t been home long. Where were you tonight?”
“Emily and I went out to dinner.”
“Uh-huh. How come I didn’t get invited?”
“It wasn’t planned. I didn’t get home until after six and I didn’t feel like cooking.”
“I have a cell phone now. You gave it me last Christmas, remember?”
“You said you’d be working tonight. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“I was a lot more bothered not hearing from you.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I should have called.”
“Yes, you should have. How was work today?”
“Work?”
“You know, the daily grind at the city’s leading ad agency.”
“I took most of the day off,” she said.
“I know. I called your office before I left the agency.”
She glanced at me again, but only briefly; the city lights and the contents of her wineglass seemed to hold more appeal for her than I did. I sat down in my chair. The cat opened one eye for the first time, closed it again almost immediately. He wasn’t interested in me tonight, either.
“I had a lunch date with Cybil,” she said.
“Must’ve been some marathon lunch.”
“And some things to do afterward.”
“Such as?”
“Things,” she said. “Are you interrogating me?”
“I’d have to suspect you of something for it to be an interrogation.”
“Do you suspect me of something?”
“Nope. I’m just making conversation. Or trying to.”
Silent communion with her wineglass.
“How’s Cybil?” I asked her.
“All right.”
“What did the two of you talk about?”
“What do you think we talked about?”
That pushed the wrong button, turned up the heat under my frustration. “Kerry, dammit, what’s the matter with you? Talk to me. Please.”
Some time went by. She still wasn’t looking at me. Shameless got up, stretched, yawned, turned around twice and settled down again with a little trilling sigh.
Kerry matched the sigh. “I’m not angry with you, you know.”
“Angry with me?”
“I ought to be, but I’m not. With you or with Cybil.”
“Oh, Christ. So that’s it.”
“I understand the two of you were only trying to protect me, but I have the right to know the truth. More right than anybody in this world. More reason, too.”
“Cybil told you, then. All of it?”
“All of it. I dragged it out of her at lunch.”
“How long have you suspected?”
“Since Dancer died. Even before that. Something about the way the two of them interacted the few times I saw them together, as if there was a secret between them… it always made me uneasy.”
“You never said anything-”
“We don’t tell each other everything. No matter how much we pretend otherwise.”
“Kerry, I’m sorry. I promised Cybil-”
“I know. I also know you figured it out and confronted her with it. Would you have told me if you hadn’t promised?”
“… I’m not sure. I hate keeping secrets, but I didn’t want to hurt you without reason. Keeping quiet seemed the lesser of the two evils.”
Two swallows of wine before she said, “Without reason? Dancer’s child, rape child.”
“No. He wasn’t your father, Ivan was. Cybil’s convinced of that.”
“But I’m not. Not as long as there’s even the remotest chance.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Have a DNA test done. Cybil has a lock of Ivan’s hair.”
“It’s that important to you to know for sure?”
“Yes. It’s that important.”
“Why now, all of a sudden?”
“What do you mean, all of a sudden?”
“It’s been three months since Dancer died. If you suspected then, why didn’t you say something? Why wait so long to get it out into the open?”
“You’re interrogating me again,” she said.
“I’m not. I’m only-”
“Denial, all right? It took me a long time to face up to it, make up my mind.”
Logical answer, but I had the feeling it was only a half-truth, an evasion. She wasn’t looking at me when she gave it, and there was a flat, defensive quality in her voice. Her face, lamplit in profile, seemed tight-set, little white ridges of muscle showing around her mouth.
I said, “When are you going to have the test done?”
“Right away. I’ve already made arrangements.”
“Well, that’s good. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can all get past this.”
“If Ivan’s DNA is a match with mine.”
“It will be.”
“We’ll see.”
“All right, suppose it isn’t. What then?”
“I’ll deal with it,” she said.
“Would it change how you feel about your life, yourself?”
“I said I’d deal with it.” Snappish now. “One way or another.”
An uncomfortable little silence built between us. I could feel the tension radiating out of her; it was strong enough to prickle the hairs on my neck. The cat felt it, too. He got up, gave her a sideways look, made a noise in his throat, and jumped down.
“Kerry,” I said, “what is it you’re not telling me?”
Her head turned briefly, turned away again.
“You’re holding something back, hiding something.”
“Like you did the past three months?”
“Punishing me, is that it?”
“No. Don’t be silly.”
“All right, then. Why? What is it?”
No answer.
“Is there some other reason you’re in a rush for that DNA test?”
No answer.
“Kerry, please, no more secrets. Just talk to me.”
She looked at me again, locked her gaze onto mine. Slowly her face lost some of its tautness, and her eyes softened and she wet her lips and started to say something And my goddamn cell phone went off.
The thing was in my coat pocket, but it had one of those chirpy rings that seem overloud even when muffled. It startled both of us; worse, it changed Kerry’s mind, closed her off again. In the time it took for a second loud chirp, the muscles in her face retightened and her attention shifted back to the city lights.
“You’d better answer that,” she said.
“It’s probably Jake Runyon, he’ll call back. Kerry-”
“I think I’ll have another glass of wine,” she said, and got abruptly to her feet and walked out of the room. I knew that walk, the stubborn set of her head and shoulders. No matter what I said or did, I would not get anything more out of her until she was good and ready to give it to me.