Compromising Positions (19 page)

Did I look like the type who would go in for that kind of decorating scheme? “No. Whoever broke in did it.”

“You and you,” he said to the accountant and a black cop with a very sad face, “check out the house and outside.” He turned to the beautiful blond whose name tag said “Hogan.” “Okay, Jimbo, what the fuck does M.Y.O.B. mean?”

“It means mind your own business,” Jimbo said.

Jimbo. Jim. Jim Hogan. My God, Jimbo is Nancy’s Cupcake. Tall and Troy Donahue handsome, with a firm, square chin and soft blue-gray eyes, he looked like he should have a cheerleader tucked under each arm.

“Who would want someone here to mind their own business?” the gray-haired one asked. His name tag said “Brown.”

“Did you hear anyone enter the premises?” asked Cupcake.

“Did you touch anything?” demanded Brown.

“Is your husband home?” Cupcake asked.

“What does my husband have to do with this?” I inquired. They gazed at me blankly. I sat down in a chair, my elbows resting on the table, my forehead in my hands. Then, glancing up at them, I said: “Now, first of all, I didn’t touch anything except for the door from the garage and the telephone. I had to call you. I didn’t hear anyone leave, and I was out all morning at a friend’s house. Nancy Miller over on Blackthorne Lane.” I gazed at Brown as I said this, not wanting Cupcake to know that I knew. But it wouldn’t hurt if he knew I was Nancy’s friend. Maybe he’d look harder for the intruder. “And,” I said, “as far as minding my own business, I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Brown snapped.

“Easy, Roy,” murmured Cupcake.

The phone rang. I knew it would be Bob, making his prelunch checkup.

“Hello,” he said, still distant after the previous night’s fight. “How are you?”

“Fine, thank you. The police are here.”

“The police?” he demanded, not sounding anywhere near as startled as I imagined he should. “What are the police doing?”

“Someone broke in, so I called the police,” I answered.

“Is everyone okay?”

“Yes.”

“Did they take my cameras?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been downstairs yet.”

“I’ll hold on. Go check.”

“Bob, I’m sure everything’s all right. Whoever it was just sprayed some graffiti on the refrigerator door.”

“What?”

I knew an explanation was in order, but with the police milling about the kitchen, I decided to be as literal as possible. Also, I had a faint, nearly futile hope that Bob would not demand an immediate accounting. “Whoever it was just wrote M.Y.O.B. in red spray paint.”

“What?”

“M.Y.O.B.”

“I heard you. I heard you. I’m coming home.”

“You don’t have to come home, dear. I’ll manage.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you, Judith? Some goddamn crazy breaks into my house and defaces my property, and you tell me not to come home. Now, listen, just sit tight and I’ll grab a taxi. I should be home in about forty minutes.”

I hung up the phone and turned to face Brown. “You didn’t answer my question, lady.”

“The phone rang.”

“All right. I was asking you who would tell you to mind your own business.” He took his index finger, placed it in his ear, and twirled it around several times. Then he peered at me, ready to listen to my response. I glanced at his ear, with its generous tuft of gray hair sticking out. “Well, lady?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, shrugging my shoulders, trying to appear as befuddled as the police. “Maybe it means something else.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe it’s the initials of some radical political group.”

“You in politics, lady?”

“Well, I’m a registered Democrat.”

“That’s not politics. I mean, are you in any extremist group?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think M.Y.O.B. is some group’s initials? Why couldn’t it be for ‘mind your own business’? Huh? Why not?”

The sad-looking black cop returned to the kitchen. “Nothing upstairs,” he said sorrowfully. He had a round, babyish, unhappy face, like a very dark Dean Rusk. As he finished speaking, the bland, forgettable accountant/cop reappeared.

“Outside’s okay,” he reported to Brown. He peered at me. “Did you know you have a crack in your foundation, near the azalea bushes?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, you do, and you should take care of it. Otherwise, you’ll start getting water.”

Brown glanced at him with mild distaste. “Why don’t you two guys get going? We can take it from here. Actually, I can take it from here. Why don’t the three of you leave? I’ll see you later.” They shuffled out obediently, Cupcake flashing a dazzling, whiter-than-white toothy smile at me.

“All right, let’s get back to my question,” Brown urged gruffly.

“Would you like to sit down?”

“No. Now, look, I want to get down to business. I’ll say it again, lady. Who would want you to mind your own business?”

“I don’t know.” I concentrated on a thread hanging from the hem of the tablecloth, rather than on Brown and his bullet-laden gun belt. I had no doubt about what the right thing to do was: tell the police that I had spoken to some of the people involved in the Fleckstein case. But Brown seemed extraordinarily unsympathetic, incapable of registering any really human feeling beyond annoyance. And if I mentioned speaking to some of the principals in the case, I might have to tell them about Mary Alice, who, so far, was safely out of the running. I glanced at Brown, at the solid roll of fat resting on top of his belt, and realized how ridiculous it would seem to such a man that I had become enmeshed in a police matter. More than ridiculous—unnatural. I was an object, a minor pain, an itch in his hairy ear. “I really don’t know,” I reiterated.

“Well, lady, you’d better think about it. I mean, this isn’t your average burglary, where I can just go back and make a report and you call up your friendly insurance man. This is what I call a weird thing. Now, can you think of anyone...?”

“Not really.”

“Not really. All right then, I’ll tell you what. I’ve got to get back to do a few things, but I’ll be back later. Now, listen, don’t let anyone in this kitchen. Get me? The guys from forensics may want to look this over. And while I’m gone, why don’t you just sit down and do some real serious thinking?”

I promised I would, and he left after writing down my name and phone number. “Don’t forget, lady,” he called as he walked down the path toward the driveway, “try to do some serious remembering.”

I trudged up the stairs and walked into my bedroom. It looked curiously peaceful, the yellow walls and yellow bedspread and curtains gave off a warm, pleasant glow, the comfortable, hazy feeling you get lying on a quiet beach with your eyes closed. I called Marilyn Tuccio, telling her that the police would be back and asking if she could hold on to Joey for the rest of the afternoon. Yes, she said, no problem at all and sorry about my trouble.

I kicked my shoes under my dresser and lay down on the bed. For a minute or two, I managed a serious internal debate over how to handle the grand pickle I was in—the hang-out route or stonewalling it. A weepy, sniveling, embarrassed confession versus a cool, remote denial of any involvement in murderous doings. But my mind, weary, began to meander, back to college, back to old boyfriends, old pleasures, into its favorite idle pastime—recalling old sexual encounters. I was back in the summer of fifty-nine, relishing Danny Simon’s perfect seventeen-year-old body when I heard Bob’s familiar two short rings on the doorbell. Retrieving my shoes, I shuffled downstairs, knowing that when I opened the door I would be facing a thirty-seven-year-old man who had never given me as much joy as Danny had that July and August before college.

“All right. What happened? For God’s sake,” Bob blurted, pushing past me to get into the house. “Where’s Joey?”

“He’s over at Marilyn Tuccio’s. I sent him there because I didn’t want him to get upset.” I spoke in a slow, calm, deliberate voice. My soothing tone was contagious. Bob stopped his angry stomping toward the kitchen, returned, and put his arm around me. Turning, I hugged him hard, knowing that within five minutes an embrace would be out of the question, even the lightest kiss would not be considered. So I hugged his slim, tight, pampered waist and then let go, taking him by the hand, leading him into the kitchen. We stood before the refrigerator like two aborigines examining an artifact of a culture vastly more civilized and complex.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“It means mind your own business,” I explained softly.

“Oh,” he said, and took two steps to the left, as if to view the painting from another angle. “How do you know that?”

“I know it. That’s all.” My volume control was going awry; my voice was becoming loud, strident. “Didn’t anyone in high school ever say M.Y.O.B. to you?”

“Never.”

“Well, maybe you just never got involved enough with people.” It was a mean, hurtful remark, and I began regretting it as I uttered the last syllable. I began to apologize, but Bob cut me off.

“Listen, Judith, let’s get out of high school and into the present, if you will. Now, what is this all about?” Again I opened my mouth, hoping a few soothing words would spill out, but he persisted before I could find anything nice to say. “Come on. Why would someone come in and do something like this? Do you have any idea?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

“Good. Perhaps you would like to share it with me.” He brought his lips together. His mouth was tight, hard, ungenerous. His face was about a foot from mine, and I could smell his aftershave lotion, sweet, citrusy. I’ve never liked perfumed men, moving in on me like ambulatory limes.

“I think it’s all because of the Fleckstein murder.” I waited for his eyes to widen with amazement, for him to speak, to press me for details. But he just stood in place, staring at me. “The Fleckstein murder, you know.” I briefly considered extricating myself gracefully. I knew just how to do it; the script was an old one. I could stand just where I was, eyes cast down, and slowly, slowly lift my head so Bob could see two shimmering tears, one on each pale cheek. He would be moved, but only slightly, so then I would collapse softly into his arms, give a gentle sob, and sniff, “Darling, I’ve been such a fool.” And he would put his powerful arms around me and say: “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of everything.” He might even stroke my hair. “The Fleckstein murder,” I repeated. “I told you about the whole goddamn thing. Don’t you ever listen?”

“What does the murder have to do with us? Who the hell broke into my house?”

“Might I point out to you, Robert, that we own the house jointly? Don’t you think you could whip it up enough to call it ‘our house’?”

He slammed his fist against the refrigerator door. “All right,” he bellowed, “would you please tell me what that cocksucking murder has to do with our motherfucking house? Is that better?”

“You’re so cute when you’re mad,” I said lightly, and instantly saw I had gone too far. Both hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, Bob took a step toward me. “All right. Calm down. I was doing a little investigating. Nothing serious.”

“What?” he croaked.

“I asked a few people a couple of questions about the murder,” I explained, and shrugged my shoulders to show him how utterly casual I felt about the whole incident: a mere petty intrigue in a life filled with exquisitely fascinating moments.

“Judith, are you crazy?”

“You seem to be asking me that question a lot lately.”

“Well, you’ve certainly given me reason.” He had lowered his voice a little, but his fists were still clenched. When he saw me looking at them, he jammed his hands into his pockets.

“No, I haven’t. Look, you get excited by dirty public images that need laundering; I get excited by a good murder. It’s really just a matter of taste. Different strokes for different folks. You do your thing, I do mine.”

“My thing, as you call it, happens to be my profession. Now, look, Judith, your thing happens to be being a wife and mother.” He paused and seemed to remember something. “And, of course, being a historian. All of which preclude detective work. Now, please,” he began to shout, “would you tell me what the fuck you’ve been doing?” His moods were alternating with the regularity of a machine: a ting of cool rationality followed by a thump of fury, and then another ting, another thump.

“I just spoke to a few people involved in the case. I was curious, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“You have nothing more to say on the subject?”

“No. I mean, if you were interested in the murder, I’d be glad to discuss it with you, but it’s obvious you aren’t.”

“All right. I’m interested.”

“No, you’re not.”

He turned on his heels and marched out of the kitchen, very neatly, just as he had been taught in ROTC, the year before he became a liberal. I heard him stomping up the stairs. The bedroom door crashed shut.

He’s probably looking for the master list of his camera equipment, I mused. Just to check. Just to make sure that the crazed murderer/housebreaker wasn’t also a photography buff, panting to make off with his telephoto lens. I had to admit to a certain grudging admiration for M. Bruce. All he needed was a Polaroid and a few props. No massive leather bags of equipment to lug around, no malfunctioning electronic flashes to impinge on his creativity.

The bedroom door creaked open, and I listened to Bob’s funereal march down the stairs. I walked into the living room and sat on the couch in a gesture of rapprochement; I’d meet him halfway.

“He’s coming,” Bob announced from the hallway.

“Who?” I demanded anxiously.

“The guy who’s in charge of the Fleckstein investigation,” he responded casually, sauntering into the living room. He leaned against the fireplace mantel.

“Are you nuts?” I demanded. “How could you just call up someone like that without talking to me about it?”

“Judith, don’t you realize I’ve just been saying the same thing to you?”

“You’re so mature!” I screamed at him. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. I’ll always remember your kindness. A husband turning his wife in. Thanks.” I stood and turned my back toward him.

“If you’re planning on going anywhere, don’t. The lieutenant’s coming in fifteen minutes. He wants to talk to you.”