Spitting Devil (3 page)

She parked in their driveway and let them both into the house. She tried to remain calm so Evan didn’t see that anything was wrong, even though she was hyperventilating. Inside, the silent tone in her ears grew so loud she wanted to press both hands against the sides of her skull. She needed to go upstairs. She needed to run.

“Why don’t you watch TV?” she suggested to Evan.

“Okay. Can I have some pretzels and a Hershey bar?”

“Sure.”

Alison waited until he was settled on the couch. He started with cartoons, but she knew he would look for scary movies when she was gone. Anything with monsters.

“I’ll be in my bedroom,” she told him.

“Okay.”

He didn’t care. He didn’t realize that she wanted to throw herself through the bay window and fall to the ground along with the glass.

Alison backed out of the room. The tears burst through the dam of her face. She ran upstairs and into her bedroom, where she tore open the closet door and ripped at the collection of clothes. She opened every dresser drawer, throwing intimates, shorts, pants, socks, and nylons onto the floor, making a messy pile. She yanked dresses, blouses, and coats off hangars. She emptied the shelves. When she was done, the closet was empty, and she stumbled into the bedroom again, sinking to the floor and collapsing sideways onto her shoulder. Her red hair spilled across her face.

It wasn’t there.

It was gone.

“Mom?”

Evan stood in the doorway. His eyes were wide, and for the first time in his young life, she saw a glimmer of fear on his face as he stared at his mother.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

Alison smiled, but it must have been a twisted, horrifying smile. She couldn’t muster anything else. “I lost something,” she said.

“What?”

“A blouse. I lost a blouse.”

“Oh.”

Evan got down on his hands and knees on the bedroom floor. He pushed his glasses to the end of his nose and crawled on the carpet like a bloodhound.

“Evan, what are you doing?” Alison asked.

Her son raised his head and studied her seriously. “Looking for blood, Mom. I already told you. You have a spitting devil.”

*

“I’ll be late,” Michael told his wife in a monotone, without bothering to apologize. “I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

He didn’t expect Alison to protest, and she didn’t.

“I’m going to drop Evan at my sister’s place,” she replied. “I’ll catch a movie.”

“You don’t need to wait up.”

“I won’t.”

She hung up on him, as if they were nothing more than roommates coordinating schedules. More and more now, they both looked for ways to run away from each other.

Michael felt fury bubbling in his chest. He knew he had a problem with his temper, and he needed an outlet to drain the pressure. As a boy, he’d been a state championship swimmer in high school, famous for his vicious competitiveness. Back then, he could put his face down and slash at the water to work out his anger, but it was not the same at the gym, without the race, the timer, and the crowd.

Instead, he caught his wastebasket with the toe of his shoe and kicked it into the wall, showering the office with discarded papers. It didn’t help. The plastic bucket was indestructible. He got up in disgust with himself and began to gather the trash.

It was not supposed to be this way. This wasn’t the bargain he’d made. He’d worked hard and built a business from nothing; he’d met and wooed a beautiful woman; he’d fathered an amazing son; he’d built a mansion that was a symbol of everything he’d earned with his labor. Now he was watching his achievements slip through his fingers, taken for no reason and through no fault of his own. His life was being stolen.

He was angry.

“Bad day?”

Michael saw Sonia Kraft in the doorway of his office, with an amused smile on her lips as she watched him on his knees, picking up discarded papers. She was the company’s general counsel. In the wake of the recession, her job had become as frustrating as his own. She shored up the dike of his legal woes, battling litigation and renegotiating contracts, but water kept bursting through new holes. The struggle had made them partners and friends. Over her shoulder, he saw that the rest of the office was dark. They were alone at night, trying to keep the company afloat.

“They’re all bad,” he said, not hiding his bitterness.

“I’m sorry.”

He sat down again and leaned back with his feet on the desk and stared at the ceiling. Sonia took a chair opposite him and crossed her legs, dangling a high heel from her stockinged foot.

“Alison?” she asked.

Michael nodded.

“Still the same?”

“Worse,” he said.

“That’s the last thing you need now.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Anything I can do?” she asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Well, I’m here for you, Michael.”

He wasn’t blind to her meaning. He’d made a mistake by sharing his anger and loneliness with Sonia as his relationship with Alison disintegrated. It gave them a secret bond, and she’d made it clear that he could take it wherever he wanted. He was tempted. Sonia was young – barely thirty – although she was already as much a shark as any older lawyer and twice as smart. She wore above-the-knee skirts and was casual about her sexuality. Sex was a prize for smart people working hard, she said, and it didn’t need to be anything more than that.

If he wanted her, he could have her. He’d never cheated, but he’d fielded plenty of offers. What made it different was that he was watching his world fall apart, and Alison was suddenly a piece of the wreckage, rather than his partner. He needed a release, even if it was fleeting and meaningless.

Sonia stared at him as if she knew what he was thinking.

“I wish I could cheer you up,” she said, “but it hasn’t been a good day for me either.”

“No?”

“No. We’ve had setbacks.”

Michael closed his eyes. Sometimes God poured it on like a flood. “What?”

“The patent litigation. It looks like someone hacked your home e-mails and gave them to the plaintiffs. You have to watch your temper, Michael. It’s not good. You said things about the judge.”

“Can they do that? Tap my wi-fi? Is that legal?”

“No, but they claim the material came from an anonymous source, so their hands are clean. Eventually, it would have been discoverable anyway.”

“So what did I say?”

“You questioned the judge’s intelligence. And his penis size. I’ve warned you about writing down anything that you don’t want thrown back in your face.”

“Oh, hell, no,” Michael insisted. “I did not say anything like that. Someone tampered with the files.”

“It doesn’t really matter. We can’t unring the bell with Judge Davis. It’s never good to make an enemy of the judge. He can make our lives miserable.”

“Is that all?”

“Unfortunately, no. Carl Flaten won’t go away either.”

“What now? I am so sick of that bastard.”

“Michael. Please. He filed a complaint with the EEOC. He says that the litigation waiver he signed when we terminated him is invalid because he was sexually harassed, and he’s alleging privacy violations in our HR department related to his insurance claims.”

“Who the hell harassed Flaten?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“He says you bullied and humiliated him.”

Michael slammed a fist on his desk. “Fuck Carl. We paid him a settlement to go away, so make the little creep go away.”

Sonia wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and sighed. “Enough, Michael. Don’t say things like that, and whatever you do, don’t write it down. It won’t be helpful.”

“I know. I’m sorry. This is not like me at all.”

“I realize that.”

Michael felt himself spinning out of control. A blood vessel throbbed in his left eye. His muscles tightened into knots. It wasn’t the company or the lawsuits. It wasn’t Judge Davis or Carl Flaten or Sonia. It was Alison. He was falling into a whirlpool, and his wife was nowhere to be found. He was alone.

“There are days when I want to kill someone,” he said.

Sonia smiled. “Don’t do that.”

She used long fingers tipped with red nails to push herself out of his chair. She was tall and sensual.

“Your shoulders are tense,” she told him as she came around behind his desk. “I have magic fingers.”

*

Stride found Maggie Bei waiting for him when he arrived at his lakeside cottage at nine o’clock at night. She sat sideways in his leather chair next to the fire, with her short legs draped over the armrest. A half-empty bottle of shiraz sat on the carpet, and she twisted the stem of an empty wine glass in her hand. The red fringe of her hair fell across her eyes.

“Sorry I’m late,” he told her. “Did you eat?”

“You have two grapes and a hard-boiled egg in the fridge,” Maggie replied.

“Don’t eat the egg. It’s been there a while.”

Stride took off his leather jacket and bent down to kiss her on the lips. Day by day, he kept hoping it would feel more natural to do so, but it didn’t. The romance between them had grown awkward. Maggie felt it, too, and she rolled her eyes at him.

“I know I’m irresistible, but control yourself,” she said.

Maggie climbed out of the chair and stretched her muscles in a yoga pose. When she was done, she blew the bangs out of her eyes in a gesture that was casual and erotic. His partner was ageless. Her pretty Chinese face looked no different to Stride than it had ten years ago when she was thirty, but that was part of his problem. He’d always seen her as young. As a daughter or a friend, but not as a lover.

She stretched on tiptoes and kissed him the way it was supposed to be done. He felt himself respond with desire, but she broke it off.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Maggie put her hands on her hips and arched her eyebrows seductively. “You want Chinese?”

“I could do Chinese every night.”

“Really? I think you’d get sick of it after a while.”

“No way.”

“I think you already are.”

“Maggie,” he said.

“I’m talking about dinner. What are you talking about?”

Stride felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. “How about I order us a pizza?”

“Whatever you want.”

Stride’s phone rang. He was grateful for the interruption. “This is Stride,” he said.

Dead air stretched out on the line.

“Hello?” he said. “Who is this?”

Maggie caught his eye as she sensed there was something unusual about the call. He punched the speakerphone button so they could both listen.

“This is Lieutenant Stride,” he repeated. “What do you want?”

Someone finally spoke. “I have a question.”

It was a woman’s voice, so soft and broken that it was almost inaudible. He heard traffic noise in the background. Whoever she was, she was speaking from a phone outside.

“You’ll have to talk louder,” Stride said. “I can’t hear you.”

“I have a question about – about the Dead Red case.”

“What is it?”

“I was wondering if there were things about the case – about the victims – that you hadn’t told the press.”

Stride eased down into the chair by the fire. Maggie squatted next to him, listening.

“Why?” he asked.

He heard hesitation. Breathing. There was fear in her silence.

“Please, I need to know,” she said.

“Know what?”

“The victims. Their clothes. Anything you can tell me.”

Maggie mouthed to him: It’s her. Stride nodded.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I can’t say. Not yet.”

“If you have information about this case, you need to come in and talk to me,” Stride said.

“Please. I can’t do this unless I know for sure. I can’t be wrong.”

“About what?”

“Who did this.”

“If you think you know who’s responsible for these crimes, then tell me,” Stride said.

“You don’t understand. If I’m wrong – ”

“Three women have been murdered,” he interrupted her sharply. “You need to tell me what you know. Now. Tonight. We’ll protect you.”

“This was a mistake.”

He heard it in her voice. She was ready to run. To fly away.

“Don’t hang up,” he said.

“Just tell me if there’s something else,” she begged him. “Anything. If I’m going to do this, I have to be sure.”

“That’s not how this works. You tell me what you know. That’s what needs to happen.”

“I have to go.”

He was losing her. She was on the other end of a thin thread, pulling away. Maggie waved at him and tugged at the tag on the back of her shirt. He read her mind immediately. When they weren’t trying to be lovers, they were in perfect synch.

“Wait,” he said. “Tell me one thing.”

“What?”

“Tell me what size you wear. Your blouses.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. “Oh, no.”

“They’re yours, aren’t they?” he asked.

Something strangled emerged from her throat, not words, but a choked gasp of panic. She didn’t say anything more.

“Hello?” Stride said again, but the line was dead. She was gone.

*

Scalding water cascaded over Alison’s body. Her skin grew pink. Her wet red hair clung to her neck as she combed it backward and tilted her face into the spray. She wished she could stay forever in a cocoon behind the glass door, but even in her bathroom oasis, the ants found her. Where the water dripped in rivulets into the hollow of her back, she felt them on her body. They fought for traction on her slick legs and followed the glistening white trails of soap between her breasts. She couldn’t escape them.

They’re yours, aren’t they?

The policeman, Lieutenant Stride, had confirmed her worst fears. She’d known it all along since she’d seen the first photograph in the newspaper. Her clothes were disappearing from her closet and showing up on the bodies of murdered women. Red-haired women, like her. She was the missing link. Even so, knowing the truth, she couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t admit it to Stride or to herself. She couldn’t say the word.