Possessions (53 page)

“Very well,” said Claude with a smile seen in courtrooms when he was closing in on a trail of evidence.

“Window display cartons,” Leslie told Bruce. “The stuff was packed in them just before they were sent back to the warehouse—past the sensors, past the guards and television cameras—and nobody asking any questions because those boxes were
supposed
to go out of the store. Katherine found them because they were there longer than usual; the regular driver was sick and Gil refused—” She looked at Claude. “Gil refused a substitute. And fired Katherine when he saw her going through them.”

Claude nodded. “I would imagine either he or Volpe was the leader. They needed two others: someone to take the merchandise from the departments to the basement storeroom, and the driver. A wonderfully simple scheme.”

“So that's all?” Bruce demanded. “You don't need anything else?”

“We need to have a chat with Gil Lister. And then, if all goes well, Heath's president. And then, Leslie, you can call Katherine back, and tell her your news.”

*  *  *

Katherine and Victoria were on the terrace when Leslie's second call came. “Be prepared for a spectacular story,” she said abruptly as soon as she heard Katherine's voice. Rapidly, she outlined what they had found. “And then we went to the little man himself, sitting in his high-backed leather throne in his little kingdom, and he collapsed like a punctured soufflé. My only regret was that you weren't there to savor it.”

“And then?” Katherine asked.

“We told the story to the executive committee, and Bruce explained the computer program—without a single vulgarity, by the way, which proves he can do it, and I got a huzzah from my president and grudging grunts from the others. The whole thing went beautifully. Bruce behaved, and Claude was
perfect—cool and smooth and devastating. Very impressive.”

“Only professionally impressive?”

“Oh, hell. You mean you can hear it in my voice?”

“What I hear is that a lot seems to have happened while I've been away. I'd like to hear more.”

“I'll tell you all about it when you get back. Mainly I wanted you to know that I'm in the clear and so is Bruce. They did a nifty job of framing him—Lister let slip that they thought he was the type who'd run from problems, which would incriminate him even more—and it almost worked: it almost convinced his own sister. But in the end Bruce was the one who did them in. What do you think of that?”

“I think you're right: it's spectacular. Now tell me more about you and Claude.”

“When you get back. It's only a few more days, isn't it?”

“Five.” The word jolted Katherine. Five days. Ross would be back from Paris in two days, and three days after that she and Jennifer and Todd would leave. Even while she said goodbye to Leslie, those words repeated themselves.
Five days. And then we'll be part of the world again.

“Sad news?” Victoria asked when Katherine rejoined her on the terrace. The dinner plates had been removed and crystal bowls of strawberries with orange zest and Curaçao were at their places. Below, the tall masts in the harbor swayed against a russet sunset, and through an open window the two women could hear the children giggling as they invented dire predicaments for their characters in Dungeons & Dragons.

“No,” said Katherine. “Good news.” She told Victoria the story, from the time Gil Lister fired her to Leslie's description of the executive board meeting that morning. “And there's more. She and Claude seem to have become very close.”

“But isn't she your age? Claude likes young, wide-eyed maidens.”

“That's what we thought. But perhaps he's changed?”

“If so, she must be a remarkable young woman.”

“She is. I hope Claude knows it. I want her to be happy and she's been wishing for a family a long time.”

“Ah.” From a fluted silver dish, Victoria spooned a small mound of whipped cream and set it floating on her coffee. “I noticed a postcard for you in today's mail.”

Katherine burst out laughing. “Yes. From Ross. Now what could have made you think of that?”

“I can't imagine,” said Victoria calmly. “You know how an old woman's thoughts skip about. Is he busy?”

“Busy and happily watching walls being torn out. And collecting postcards for all the children. The one he sent was a picture of a place we had dinner the night before we came here.”

“Postcards for the children,” Victoria said ruminatively. “When Craig was a boy, he collected postcards. I remember the first time we took him to Tahoe, he insisted someone had drained the lake because it looked so much smaller than its picture on postcards we'd sent. Hugh roared about the difference between reality and pictures but that only terrified the poor child, so finally they went out in the boat and spent the day motoring around the circumference of the lake. Hugh never sent any postcards after that. I'm not sure what Craig learned from it all.”

Craig.
Katherine looked at the harbor, lit now by floodlights: a tangle of masts and ropes, and sails wrapped in bright canvas shrouds. All that month she'd barely thought of him; no one had spoken his name; his shadow had not followed her. But now it was here. What was he doing now? she wondered. What was he afraid of now?

“If Ross buys postcards for the children,” Victoria was saying, “he should tell them they're not the real thing. Do you miss him?”

“Yes,” said Katherine quietly. She had been avoiding Victoria's questions, but now, in the chill of Craig's shadow, she wanted to talk.

“And you think about him?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Enough to interfere with my work.”

“And what is it you think about?”

“Nothing specific. Just—about him.”

“What you do with him, or what you would like to do with him?”

“Are you asking me if we're sleeping together?”

“No, no, no, I would not ask that! It may be modern to discuss such matters, but in that respect I am most emphatically not modern. That is no one's business but your own, and his. I meant, do you think of him as a husband?”

“No.” Agitated, Katherine stood, and went to the low stone wall bordering the terrace, holding her face up to the faint breeze. “I don't think of him as a husband because I already have a husband—”

“Whom you should divorce.”

“—who is also my children's father . . . What? What did you say?”

“I said you should divorce Craig. Why should that surprise you? He deserted you thirteen months ago and except for some money and one visit, from which he ran away again, you haven't heard a word from him. Do you really call yourself married?”

“I don't understand. In the past, you've always defended him.”

“So I have. In some circumstances I still might. But I also have you to think of now. And it has become obvious to me that you cannot think clearly about Ross, or indeed any man, or make an unobstructed future for yourself, until you are free of this shadow that follows you about, clouding your view.”

“I can't do that.”

“Of course you can; it is not at all difficult; Derek has done it three times. I've asked Claude about it—of course he is the perfect person to help you: discreet, almost a member of the family—and he explained it to me. In the first place, it is not ‘divorce' any longer, but ‘dissolution,' and all you need do, since you cannot find Craig to serve him the papers in person, is place a legal notice in the Vancouver newspapers, for one month, that you are petitioning for dissolution. If he does not respond in that time, you will go to court, accompanied by Claude, declare that your differences with your husband are irreconcilable, and the judge then issues the order. Claude says it takes about three minutes. And in six months it becomes final.”

“Very simple,” Katherine said. “But that isn't what I meant. I can't divorce Craig because he isn't here.”

“I have explained that he doesn't have to be here—”

“Victoria, you know what I mean.”

“Yes. Of course.” Victoria laced her fingers together. “I suppose I was trying to prevent you from talking to me about fidelity. It does not seem applicable.”

Something was nagging at the back of Katherine's mind.
Something Leslie had said. She sat on the stone wall, staring through the swaying masts at a boat coming toward the harbor, running with the wind. Running. Bruce. Someone thought Bruce would run.
They thought he was the type who'd run from problems, which would incriminate him even more.
Someone framed Bruce for a crime because he seemed like the type who would run away.

They did a nifty job of framing him . . . it almost worked . . . it almost convinced his own sister.

The boat had come into the harbor; Katherine could see the small figures of the crew pulling down the main sail and furling the jib. Dizzily she gripped the rough stone. “Katherine,” Victoria said sharply. “What is it? Come here, before you fall.”

But Katherine was thinking back, a long way back, remembering someone shouting at Carl Doerner. It was at her party for Leslie, that Friday night when Craig didn't come home. Someone had shouted . . .

Pretty free with accusations, Doerner! You're known for that, aren't you? Especially false ones—

Listen you bastard, that was two years ago. And when I found out I was wrong, I paid the costs and it was over.

“Katherine!” Victoria commanded.

Obediently, Katherine returned to the table, but she did not sit down. “Would you mind if I go out for a while?” she asked. Her voice was very soft, as if she were afraid of breaking something. “I'd like to take a walk. There are some things I have to think about.”

“Of course, my dear, if you're all right. If I said too much, I apologize—”

“No. It was nothing you said.” Bending down, she kissed Victoria's soft cheek. “I love you. I won't go far.”

But she had already gone a long way, all the way back to Vancouver, to the day Craig left. The day he ran away. Not necessarily because he'd committed a crime but—perhaps—because he'd been framed for one.

But Carl said Craig had confessed. Katherine remembered his shaggy presence in her living room as he held out an envelope with what he said was proof. And then later she'd found all those bills, past-due notices, sheets of scribbled numbers . . .

But still . . . Why hadn't it occurred to her that he might
have been framed? For ten years she had known him as a good man; he'd been good to them and she loved him.
Why was I so ready to believe my husband was guilty?

Because he wasn't there. Because he ran.

Why would he run, if he was innocent?

Maybe because he didn't know what to do, and had no one to talk to about it.

I was there, she reflected angrily; he could have talked to me. Whose fault was it that he was better at keeping secrets than sharing?

His. But maybe I didn't make him feel I really wanted to know them. What was it Leslie had once said?
You liked the life you had with him, so you didn't push.
I tried to get him to talk, but after a while I stopped, and let him have his secrets. If I'd asked more questions, maybe he would have told me about the Haywards, and about our overspending—and maybe other secrets that I haven't even thought of.

Walking along the harbor, a silent figure among crowds of vacationers, Katherine knew it was not an excuse for running. There was no excuse for Craig's deserting them. But if he thought he couldn't talk to her about what happened—whether he was framed or really did steal—didn't she have something to do with that?

Can you be married for ten years without sharing some responsibility for what happens?

If I'd been different—would Craig have run?

S
OMEHOW
Victoria saw to it that everyone was occupied and out of Katherine's way from early the next morning until well after dinner. “I don't know what is bothering your mother,” Katherine heard her answer Jennifer's question. “But if she needs a quiet time to think, we can help by leaving her alone.”

They all left her alone. She took the car that Ross had left for her to use and drove into the hills behind Menton, where ancient “eagles' nest” villages clung to the rocky peaks. In Eze Village, she stopped and sat for hours beside an old stone house hundreds of feet above the sea. Below, on the coastal corniche, cars rolled like tiny marbles on a narrow strip between the beach and wooded hills. Behind the houses of Eze, the cactus gardens were in full bloom. But for Katherine, the magic and dreamlike isolation were gone. All the questions that had haunted her before had found her here; she hadn't escaped them after all—she'd only pushed them aside for a brief time.

She remembered thinking, in Sospel, that she and Ross ought to talk about Derek—but it was Craig they really had
to talk about. And when she'd been uncomfortable, at breakfast with Victoria, thinking Ross was becoming a part of her—it was Craig she was uncomfortable about, still with her, shadowing her, part of her life. And it was Craig she had to deal with, no matter how important Ross had become.

“What time do you expect Ross tomorrow?” Victoria asked after dinner.

“He said sometime in the morning.”

Victoria nodded and returned to her book and in a moment Katherine returned to hers. They were sitting opposite each other in deep, soft armchairs, and now and then they glanced up and smiled, happy with each other. But Katherine was restless and just before midnight, when Victoria kissed her goodnight and went to bed, she went to her own rooms. The housekeeper had turned down the bed and left small lamps on, casting a soft glow over the sage green and ivory furnishings. Unbuttoning her shirt, Katherine walked from the sitting room to the bedroom and back, thinking of Jennifer and Todd asleep in their own rooms just off the playroom. She pictured the three-room apartment awaiting them in San Francisco and thought ruefully that they'd have to get used to it all over again, as they had the year before.