The River King (27 page)

Now and then, Abe caught Joey staring and one morning Joey stopped at Abe's desk. “Man, you're the early bird these days.”

Funny that Abe had never even noticed that when Joey was upset he pulled at the right side of his face.

“You keep it up, you're going to make the rest of us look bad.”

Abe sat back in his chair. “Is that what you're worried about, Joe? Looking bad?”

“That was my mistake on Thanksgiving. I shouldn't have brought you with me. I should have kept you out of it, like everyone said to.”

“Yeah? I thought your mistake was taking the money.”

“You're just pissed because I disagreed with you about the Pierce kid. You want me to say he was murdered? Fine, he was murdered. And maybe Frank was, too, while we're at it. Maybe somebody climbed up through his window and shot him. Is that what you want to hear?”

“If that's what you think I want, then you don't know me.”

“Maybe I don't.” Joey was looking his age and he seemed tired, even though Abe had heard he'd quit his second job at the mall. “Maybe I don't want to.”

That was the way they left it, with the distance between them, as if they hadn't been best friends their whole lives long. Now when people asked Joey where his buddy was, and why Abe could no longer be found at the Millstone on Saturday nights, Joey just shrugged.

“I'm not his bodyguard,” he'd say when asked. “Abe goes his way and I go mine.”

Joey would never have known that Abe was involved with someone if Mary Beth hadn't informed him of the situation. She and Kelly Avon had sat down at Selena's with a list of every unmarried woman in the village, thereby determining that the person in question wasn't anyone they knew. People in town wouldn't have figured Abe to go and find himself someone from the Haddan School. That's the way things were in the village still, after all these years: it was fine for the people of Main Street to do as they pleased, and a few had gone so far as to send their sons and daughters to the Haddan School, but expectations were different for anyone from the west side. Though they owned the stores and supplied the other residents with their shoes and chrysanthemums and cheese, people were expected to stay on their own side of town when it came to personal matters. And if Joey might have predicted Abe would get involved with that teacher from Haddan, he would never have guessed how often Abe went to see her, always late at night, after curfew, when the girls at St. Anne's were asleep in their beds and the hallways were silent and dark.

Abe had become so familiar with this route that he no longer stumbled over the frayed carpet. He had learned to expect stray umbrellas and Rollerblades inside the doorway and was accustomed to the rushing sound of steam heat rising from the old metal radiators, as well as the scent of bath oil and musk, fragrances that might have caused a less experienced man to lose his bearings. Abe usually parked down by the river and walked the rest of the way, so that no one would notice his grandfather's car, not that anyone attended to who was going in and out of the dorm. There was absolutely no security in the building, all Abe had to do was jiggle the knob and push his weight against the door and he was in.

Each time they were together, Betsy promised it would be the last. But this was a pledge she made to herself after he'd gone, and it was a rather flimsy pact. While Abe was beside her, she wanted him far too much to let him go. It was Abe who usually realized he had to leave, quickly, before the bells rang and the girls at St. Anne's were awakened to find him in the hallway, shirt-tails out, boots in hand. How could Betsy let him go? Every time the wind tapped at her window glass, she wished that it might be him. She could hear him sometimes, out by the roses, watching her before he let himself in the front door, and the knowledge that he was there in the garden made her so light-headed she was willing to take risks she could not have imagined before. In time, she found that what happened between them at night was spilling into her daylight hours. While she taught her classes, while she showered, while she made coffee or kissed the man she was to marry, it was Abe she was thinking of.

It was nearly the end of December when Betsy realized how dangerous a game she was playing. She knew then she would have to end it immediately. It was a cold morning and they'd stayed in bed too long, sleeping past the bells; by the time they awoke it was after nine. Snow had begun to fall, and a silvery light coursed through the window; perhaps this pale sky was the reason they'd been so reckless, for the girls in Betsy's care were already dressed and on their way to classes. Betsy could hear the front door open and close as she lay there beside him. She recognized the sound of Maureen Brown giggling as the girl leaned over the porch railing to catch snowflakes on her tongue, and that awful Peggy Anthony's high-pitched wail as her leather boots skidded on the icy steps. How easy it would have been for Abe and Betsy to be caught on this morning. Say Peggy Anthony broke her leg on the icy stair. Say Amy Elliot had one of her allergic reactions and came pounding on the door. How long would it take for the news to drift to Chalk House? Fifteen seconds? Twenty? How long exactly, before Betsy ruined her life?

She had never told a lie in her life before this. She had never believed herself capable of such subterfuge, making up excuses not to see Eric, her deceit forming with such ease she surprised herself. All that she'd wanted, the security of her life here in Haddan, would be undone by her own hand, unless she stopped now. She called a locksmith that same afternoon. After the new electronic tronic lock had been installed on the front door, Betsy insisted upon a house meeting. Her girls were told in no uncertain terms not to give the code to either boyfriends or deliverymen. Betsy then had a dead bolt placed on the door to her own quarters as well, one that the locksmith had assured her was impenetrable, except to the most experienced thieves, the sort who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.

Abe came back the next night, an inky blue night, as deep and immeasurable as the farthest reaches of heaven. Betsy heard him in the garden, but instead of going to the window to wave, she drew the curtains. She imagined his confusion when he found that the old lock had been replaced; it was an act not only of self-preservation, but of cruelty, as well. Betsy knew this, but she couldn't bring herself to face him. So she let him stand out there on the porch until, at last, he went away. Afterward, she did her best to avoid him. If a man even reminded her of Abel Grey, if he was tall or had blue eyes, Betsy went the other way, ducking behind hedges, fleeing the mini-mart before her purchases were rung up. She wouldn't even go to the pharmacy for fear she might run into him. She spent every night with Eric, as if he were the remedy, the cure for a bothersome ailment, no different than a fever or a cold.

Abe, however, was not so easy to dismiss. He had never envisioned himself as a man in love, but that was what he had turned out to be. He tried his best not to think about Betsy. He spent his days immersed in his job, gathering as much information about Gus Pierce as he could, telephoning the boy's father in New York, going over his various school records, searching for a key to Gus's intent. Why people did the things they did, whether it be on impulse or a premeditated act, was always a puzzle. The boy in the water, the shotgun hidden in his brother's room, the locked door at St. Anne's. In the evenings Abe left his files and drove past the school, far more wounded than he'd ever imagined he'd be. When Kelly Avon suggested they meet down at the Millstone, he declined; he remained in his parked car, there on school property, where he didn't belong.

The holiday season was approaching and luminous silver stars had been affixed to the stoplights to celebrate the season. At the Haddan School, white lights decorated the porch balustrades. On the night when Abe finally decided to confront Betsy, he knew it was a bad decision. A light snow had begun to fall; it was just after supper and the campus was bustling. Abe was bound to be seen, not that he cared. He thought about all the times he'd been called in to settle altercations he hadn't understood: the heated fights of divorcing husbands and wives, the battles between brothers, the agony of thwarted lovers who had slit their exes' tires in the parking lot of the Millstone. All of them had been people whose love for each other had turned sour, deteriorating into a need for revenge or justice and a desire to hurt whoever had wronged them. Now Abe knew what those people were after; it was somebody's love they wanted, and they went after it the only way they knew how, exactly as he meant to do here tonight.

Two girls were sitting on the porch steps, letting the snow fall down on them. Abe had to lurch over them in order to get to the door.

“The combination is three, thirteen, thirty-three,” one of the girls on the porch told him, forgetting Betsy's demand for security and caution.

Abe punched in the code and let himself in. It was the free hour between supper and study hall, when most students had their radios blaring and the TV in the lounge was turned up. Abe bumped into one girl who was toting a bag of laundry and almost tripped over another who sat squarely in the hallway, nattering away on the pay phone, unaware of anyone who passed by. St. Anne's seemed a very different place from the dark, silent house Abe was used to when he arrived in the middle of the night, not that the crowded corridors stopped him from going on to Betsy's quarters.

A dead bolt wasn't always as invincible as locksmiths would have a buyer believe, not if a thief came prepared. Abe had brought along a small screwdriver he most often used to tighten the loose rearview mirror of his grandfather's cruiser; in no time he had pried open the dead bolt, hoping that Betsy hadn't paid much, since it was fairly worthless in warding off any serious criminal intent. Going into her rooms uninvited, Abe had the same itchy feeling he used to have as a kid. He was breathing hard, not quite believing what he'd done, his hands were shaking, exactly as they had whenever he broke into a house. What he needed was a cold beer and a friend to set him straight, but as he had neither, he went on, into her bedroom. He ran his hand over the lace runner on top of the bureau, then approached the night table. Betsy had every right not to see him anymore. Hadn't he done the exact same thing dozens of times, not bothering to call some woman who'd made it clear she was interested, not even having the decency to explain himself? He held the earrings Betsy had left on the bureau, uncertain as to whether he wanted to understand her or punish her. Either way, he was not really surprised when he heard the door open. With his run of bad luck, he'd expected as much.

Betsy could tell Abe was there right away; she knew it the way people say they know they are about to be hit by lightning, yet remain powerless to run, unable to avoid their fate. She panicked, as anyone might have when disparate parts of her life were about to crash into each other, certain to leave a path of anguish and debris. It was true that devotion could be lost as quickly as it was found, which was why some people insisted that love letters always be written in ink. How easy it was for even the sweetest words to evaporate, only to be rewritten as impulse and infatuation might dictate. How unfortunate that love could not be taught or trained, like a seal or a dog. Instead, it was a wolf on the prowl, with a mind of its own, and it made its own way, undeterred by the damage done. Love like this could turn honest people into liars and cheats, as it now did to Betsy. She told Eric she needed to change out of her clothes, but it wasn't the blue wool outfit she had worn to the dean's for dinner that made her feel faint in these overheated rooms.

“Can you open a few windows, too?” Betsy called as she went on to the bedroom, making sure to close the door behind her. She was burning hot and overwrought; she should not have had that drink at the dean's house after the dinner to which Eric had insisted they go. She was dressed in unfamiliar clothes, with the unfamiliar taste of whiskey in her mouth, so that it seemed as though she were the stranger here and Abe, there at the edge of her bed, was the one who belonged.

By now the snow outside was falling harder, but that didn't stop Betsy from going to raise her bedroom window. The falling snow began to drift onto the carpet, but Betsy didn't care. She had a prickly sensation up and down her spine. How well did she know this man in her room? How could she know what he might be capable of?

“If you don't change your clothes he'll wonder why you lied to him,” Abe said.

The only illumination came from beyond the window, due to the streetlamp and the brilliance of the snow. In such light everything appeared distant; it was as if Abe and Betsy and whatever had been between them had already moved into the past. “He'll wonder what else you lied to him about.”

“I haven't lied to him!” Betsy was grateful for the cold air coming in through the window. She was burning with shame, the penance of her own deception. Although she had been the one to refuse him, she still remembered what it was like to kiss him, how such a simple act could turn her inside out.

“I see. You just didn't tell him the truth.” Abe would have laughed then, if he found such matters amusing. “Is that what you did when you were with me? You sidestepped the truth? Is that what happened between us?”

They could hear Eric in the kitchen, putting up the kettle, opening cabinets as he searched for sugar and cups.

“Nothing happened.” Betsy's mouth burned. “There was nothing between us.”

It was the one answer that could drive him away, and this was Betsy's intent. Abe went out through the window; he banged his bad knee against the window frame, collecting a bruise that would ache for days. The campus was already covered with two or three inches of new snow, and the falling flakes were large and swirly, the mark of a storm that would last. By morning, traffic would be a mess; a heavy snowfall in Haddan never went by without at least one bad accident, usually up by the interstate, and one local boy injuring himself on a makeshift sled or a borrowed snowmobile.