Down past the library, over by the Foundation Center and the Student Health Center, detour past the Hall of Sciences, veer left toward Guiterrez Hall, where he taught most of his classes and where his office was. Hurting inside. And disliking himself for that small nagging worm of doubt that seemed to have burrowed deep into his mind.
Three months. A long time. There would have been little indicators to arouse his suspicions, but there hadn't been. Had there? Very little physical contact between them in those three months. Not tonight, dear, I'm really not in the mood. Once that he could remember; maybe twice. Part of the vague dissatisfaction they both felt: cooling passions. That was what he'd thought, when he thought about it at all.
Another thing: She'd been withdrawn. Spent more time away from home than usual, and when she did stay in she'd preferred to be alone in the back bedroom she'd converted into a studio, working on one of her paintings.
Katy, he thought, I was faithful to you the whole time we were married. Seventeen years. Mind-sin now and then, sure, I'm no better than Jimmy Carter or anybody else, but I never did anything about it. Never even came close. Wouldn't have hurt you that way, didn't think you'd hurt me that way either. Trust.
It never happened. Not even once, let alone twice a week for more than three months. Couldn't have with somebody like that. Out of all the men in Los Alegres, not a vicious sociopath. But Katy might have had no idea of what he was because he'd kept it hidden, seemed outwardly normal. And if he was good-looking? And sympathetic, patient, reasonably intelligent, accomplished at seduction? And if the circumstances and the timing were just right?
Dix was at the student union now. Closed on weekends, nobody around except for a young man in cutoff jeans reading on one of the outside benches. The angle of the sun was such that it turned the windows into mirrors: He saw himself walking past. The reflection was shimmery, oddly indistinct, as if all his molecules and atoms had begun to separate.
Three months, three months … if it was true, then it hadn't just been a fling, it had been serious or had serious undertones. On Katy's part, at least. How long would it have gone on if the accident hadn't happened? A while, maybe, but not indefinitely. He may not have known Katy as well as he'd thought, but he'd known her that well: She hadn't been duplicitous by nature, hadn't gotten off on illicit intrigue. She had to have been under tremendous pressure. Caught and unable to make up her mind which way to go—
Driven to a third alternative?
Too much guilt, too much pressure? And suppose her lover had let his mask slip and she'd seen him as he really was?
Dix stopped walking.
What if it hadn't been an accident at all?
What if she had missed that turn on Lone Mountain Road on purpose?
The Brookside Park La Quinta Inn was just off the freeway, less than four miles from the university. Big place, three separate buildings, over a hundred rooms; visiting football teams put up there in the fall. Crowded on this late-summer Saturday: most of the parking slots were filled and twenty or thirty adults and children were making noise in the motel pool. Dix parked behind one of the shuttle vans near the lobby entrance. And sat there watching people go in and out.
I don't want to do this, he thought.
But he was there now, and the need to know was stronger than his fear of the truth. Get it over with. He prodded himself out of the car, across to the entrance.
Inside, the air-conditioning had been turned up high; the cold air was a shock. There were two clerks behind the desk, a middle-aged man and a young woman, both wearing La Quinta blazers. They were attending to three customers, one of whom was talking loudly about a restaurant that specialized in mesquite-grilled steaks. Dix hesitated, then sat down on a piece of lobby furniture. He couldn't do this with other people nearby.
It was five minutes before the customers left and the male clerk disappeared through a doorway behind the desk. Dix stood, went quickly to where the young woman was tapping at a computer terminal. Her professional smile wavered slightly when she glanced up at him. He thought: I must look like the wrath of God.
“May I help you, sir?”
“I hope so. I'm trying to find out …”
“Yes?”
The rest of the words wouldn't come. He reached for his wallet, fumbled it open to the photograph of Katy. It was a color portrait photo taken by Owen Gregory as part of a Christmas-gift package two years ago. Quite a good likeness not only in the physical sense but in that it captured Katy's vivacity, even hinted at her puckish sense of humor; Owen was the best professional photographer in Los Alegres. Dix held the wallet out so the young woman could see Katy's image.
“Do you recognize this woman?”
The clerk squinted close, lifted her head again. Her smile had gone. “No, I'm sorry, I don't know her.”
“Never saw her before? You're certain?”
“Well, you know, I see a lot of people …”
“She may have stayed here more than once. Several times, in fact, beginning about three months ago. Weekdays, afternoon check-in … Monday, Friday …”
“Then I really can't help you, sir,” the clerk said. “I don't work weekdays. Just Saturday and Sunday.”
“Oh. Oh, I see.” Sweat seeped out of him despite the air-conditioned coolness. He brushed a drop of it off his nose. “I guess I'll have to come back on Monday then … a weekday.”
“Well …”
The male clerk came out through the doorway. The bar tag over one pocket of his blazer said that he was an assistant manager. His disapproving expression said that he'd been listening and didn't like what he'd heard.
“I'm sorry, sir,” he said, “but we don't give out information about our guests.” He turned reproachful eyes on the young woman. “Joyce knows that, don't you, Joyce?”
Dix said, “I don't mean to cause any problems, it's just that I … my wife … I'm trying to find out if she stayed here …”
“Under no circumstances, sir. That's our policy.”
The young woman, Joyce, was looking at him in a new way. A look that said she'd figured out what this was all about. A look that was half sympathetic and half pitying.
Dix turned and fled.
He was almost an hour late arriving at Elliot's. He wasn't sure why he bothered to keep the appointment at all, his present state being what it was; the prospect of polite chitchat was distasteful. But he was a man who honored his commitments, and he was already in Brookside Park, and Elliot's home was close by. One drink, he thought, quick discussion about his expanded teaching schedule, then he'd make excuses and leave.
He had trouble finding the house—another reason he was so late. He'd been there twice before, but Elliot's street, Raven's Court, was one of dozens of short, twisty cul-de-sacs that made a maze of the sprawling development. Brookside Park had been built a few years before Balboa State and had grown proportionately, if indiscriminately, from an unincorporated country tract spread out along the freeway into a full-fledged town with a population larger than Los Alegres's. The ranch-style houses and tree-lined streets looked alike to an outsider. Several of his fellow professors—those with enough tenure to afford the relative luxury—lived there because of its proximity to the university.
Elliot's front lawn had sprouted a Better Lands Realty FOR SALE sign, new since Dix's last visit. He parked in front of it, looked at himself in the rearview mirror. Gaunt and dull-eyed, but otherwise not too bad. His hair was mussed and damp with sweat; he ran a comb through it before he went up and rang the bell.
Elliot didn't seem annoyed by his tardiness. He said mildly, “I'd about given up on you, my friend.”
“Sorry I'm so late …”
“Don't apologize. You all right? You look wobbly.”
“Nerves. And this damned heat.”
