“Of course you do. That’s when the fear started. I was trapped. It wasn’t that anything actually happened. It’s that it could have and I would have been helpless. And it wasn’t even Robbie, it was all the jerks who hung around him who were egging him on. The whole school thought we were secret lovers, but I’d never had anything to do with him. He wanted people to think that. So when those boys caught me at the back of the bus, he thought he had to do something to prove we were together. I could see what was coming. I was terrified. If two of my girlfriends hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened.”
She was quiet again. I didn’t know if she was finished, so I lit a cigarette to fill the dead air. She did have one more thing to say.
“There was never a time when I didn’t wish him dead. And now this evil old bastard trying to force him on me. Threatening me. Threatening you. What could I do?”
The bugs were out in full, though the bay was quieter than usual. I was glad to have the cigarette to occupy my hands. I took a puff and let the smoke drift on its own out of my mouth.
“You could make a calculation,” I said to her softly. “Of the two Milhousers, Robbie was the bigger threat. Literally and emotionally. The old man was spooky, but without his son, less able to intimidate. Or maybe it was Robbie’s turn to put the pressure on. Call you the day after the fire and ask you over to his project. ‘Come on, Amanda,’ he’d say. ‘Think how easy this can all be.’ Wouldn’t be hard to convince him to come alone. Could be just you and him in the big, dark, empty house.”
This time her whole body shook, as if a little tremor had started at her shoulders and run down to her feet. She put the wine glass on the table.
“Dear God,” she said.
“Before you leave, you pop the trunk of the Audi and look around for a little protection. Maybe in the heat of moment you forget the stapler was mine, maybe you remember but don’t think about things like fingerprints or UPC codes. The stapler was too convenient. Heavy and hard edged, but slim enough to slip into the back waistband of your jeans.
“You get there and Robbie’s alone as promised. He’s on his best behavior, trying to win you over with his boyish charm. All this does is convince you that his interest is both commercial and romantic. This is beyond intolerable. It can’t go on anymore. It has to end there.
“It’s easy to say, ‘Okay, handsome, show me around the place.’ Which puts him in front of you as you walk about, so when you get out to the sunroom there’s plenty of room to get in a good swing. The first one drops him. But he’s pretty big, so it takes a couple more to finish him off.
“But now what? You hadn’t planned for this, exactly. In a slight panic, you run outside and throw the stapler into the beach grass. Then you do the only thing you can do at that point. Run. You need time to recover. And until you recover your self control, stay clear of the cops and other suspicious types. Like me.
“As it turns out, you don’t have much to worry about. All the attention is immediately drawn to me. Since you know I didn’t do it, you have all the confidence in the world they won’t be able to prove it, especially with Burton looking after me. But I’m such an obvious suspect nobody even thinks of looking anywhere else. And certainly not at you. The only one who could do that was me.”
“You really think I’m capable of such a thing?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I do. I saw you the night of the fire. I recognize the condition. Blind, crazy fury, fueled by bitterness, disappointment and fear. So yes, I think you are capable of such a thing, under those circumstances. That was the most obvious assumption as I stood there with Sullivan in the squad room, even without all the other evidence popping up. In particular, the so-called incident on the bus.”
She looked like she was about to say something, but I raised my hand to cut her off.
“My brain had all the answers, but my heart wasn’t in it,” I said. “I wanted to believe there was a different truth out there. Only now I’ve got an interesting little problem. I had to find a way to track down this alternate truth without making things worse for me, or drawing attention to you. Especially among the people I usually count on to help me figure things out.”
Especially them. Beloved people who had enough worry on their minds. Some of whom, like Burton, loved Amanda, too. The isolation I felt, with my greatest fears locked out of sight, had been another lesson. There was a time when I locked my whole self away. I didn’t want to go back there.
“What do you believe now?” she asked, when I gave her a chance to speak.
“What should I believe?”
“That I wanted to kill Robbie Milhouser. And you’re right. I could have. But I didn’t. And now you want me to say that. It’s important to hear the words.”
“It is,” I said. “And I believe you.”
She took in a long breath.
“I never got to use your insulation kit,” she said. “The subs showed up the next day. I don’t even know where it is.”
“That’s ’cause you left the box at the house, didn’t you. You don’t know by now what happens to your tools when you leave them on the job?”
I tossed my watered-down Scotch, uncharacteristically neglected, out on the lawn. Then went to get a fresh one.
I stayed at her house that night and watched her sleep, overcome with relief and exhaustion. But no chance of rest for me. I had a head full of calculations and probabilities which were enough to keep me awake most of the night. That was fine. I now only had one theory to concentrate on. And I admit it, the favored of the two, once not much more than a matter of faith and hope.
My alternate truth.
I worked in her bedroom on a yellow legal pad, a soft reading light over my shoulder. It wasn’t an easy workspace, but what the heck. There are worse ways to spend your time than looking at Amanda doing anything, awake or not.
TWENTY-SIX
THE NEXT DAY I was in Jackie’s office going over my plan. She fell in love with her part right away. Especially when I wouldn’t share all the other parts.
“You’ve
I stopped her before she had a chance to launch the usual barrage.
“Jackie, I need you to do this for me.”
“What if he won’t play along?” she asked.
“I think he’ll have to. But I won’t know till I try.”
“Dammit, Sam. I told you not to hide things from me.”
“I have to for a little while. Not just for my sake. Other people could be affected. And if it all blows up, you’ve got deniability. Come on, Jackie. I’ve been a pain in the ass, but I’ve never let you down.”
She wasn’t used to personal appeals. It shut her up more effectively than I would have thought. I didn’t sell past the close, getting out of there as fast as I could. I made it down to the sidewalk before she called from her second-story window.
“Catch,” she yelled.
It was a cell phone with a twelve-volt charger trailing behind like the tail of a kite. It’s a good thing I have quick reflexes or I’d have been sweeping microcircuits up off the concrete.
“It’s an extra,” she said, giving me the number. “If anything screws up during the day and you want to abort, call me immediately. I’ll do the same.”
The cell phone was such a good idea my first call was to Amanda with similar instructions. It was fun talking to people while I was driving the Grand Prix. I hadn’t done that since I lost the company car somewhere in Bridgeport, with the phone still in it. A bonus for the car thieves.
The first big hole in the plan was slipping out of town, technically jumping bail, in a 1967 Grand Prix. I held to the back roads as far as I could before hopping on Route 27 heading west. After passing Quogue and clearing Southampton jurisdiction, I breathed a little easier, even though I was now officially in serious trouble with the
