by E H Davis
“What was that?” Teddy, lurched from the car, alarmed.
His father shook his head. “Freak thing. Slammed it too hard.”
Teddy studied him. “You okay, Dad?”
“Let’s go,” Corbin answered. “Can’t let a little thing like a cracked window spoil our trip.”
He got in and they drove off.
Leaving Laurent cursing himself for not curtailing his anger. He knew better. He was trained. A thousand sleepless nights had taught him the virtue of mastering his emotions.
But would he be able to, now that he was back in the real world?
Chapter Seven
At last she lay in the claw-foot tub she so loved, up to her neck in bubbles, celebrating her solitude now that she’d shipped Jens and Teddy off to the mountains with the admonishment to be nice to each other.
With a pleasurable moan, she sank down into her sudsy heaven, submerging, surfacing — a submarine breaching the depths — the sea rolling off her breasts, belly, and thighs, her skin tingling, steaming.
What luxury, not to have to worry about anyone else. Not attend to the needs of others. No after-school pickups, doctor’s appointments, shopping, liaising with teachers, guidance counselors, or parents on Teddy’s behalf. Truth be known, though, Jens shared equally the burdens, if not the joys, of raising their son. True, he handled most of the family business, too: banking, insurance, utilities, home and car maintenance.
And moi? Mother, artist, dreamer, creator, lover.
She spat out a mouthful of soapy water inhaled with her laughter. She sponged her arms, torso, and legs, all the while thinking about the painting she’d been working on.
A watercolor of the Hampton Beach salt marshes captured in late August, the leafy trees and grasses shimmering, resplendent, in tones foreshadowing fall’s color riot — of cranberry, chrome green, lambent yellow, pale white, lilac, vermillion and, her favorite, the scintillating ultra blue of the sky.
Hyperrealist, painting from color prints from her camera, she wasn’t satisfied with her rendition of the marshes. In her painting, grass greens and stalk browns bled into the white areas — unacceptable — destroying the illusion of silhouetted blades of grass.
The thought of this imperfection roused her from her bath. She rinsed off, skipped shaving her legs, which she did only occasionally to please Jens, which was less and less often.
She dried off, wrapped a towel around her wet hair, and stepped from the tub into flip flops and her terry cloth robe. She thought about her loss of desire. Was it hormonal? At thirty-nine, wasn’t she was too young for menopause? No hot flashes yet, thank God. Still, it had been a long time since she thought about making love to her husband as other than a duty. Despite last night, which she could not account for.
The part of her past that she had disciplined herself never to glimpse or acknowledge, not ever, pushed itself into consciousness. The image of the man she’d once loved, her childhood sweetheart, dead to her for decades, reappeared. Teasing, tantalizing her painfully with the icon of their bittersweet love, the kind that comes only once in a lifetime, if we’re lucky.
In flashes, vivid fragments from their time fluttered behind her eyes, tormenting, beckoning. Why now?
Oh, God! She was a teen again, uncomfortable in her woman’s body, desperate to escape the unnamable shame at the core of her being. Shame generated by the monster, who’d come to live with her and her mother after her father died, isolating and tormenting her, cutting her off, making her willing to do anything to escape her sordid life.
Enter her savior, young Armand Laurent, handsome, well-spoken, educated. An aspiring artist from a family of pulp paper manufacturers, looked upon as landed aristocracy in the mill town of Berlin, New Hampshire. She’d cleaved to him with abandon, loving him with that part of her that was unspoiled, intact, despite the cuttings and the suicide attempts and the bloody forced abortion.
Even after she’d betrayed Laurent, long after he’d been taken away for murder, she’d been faithful to him — in her heart. But the years had passed, and he’d pushed her away to do his time. She’d gone off to university and started a career as an artist, loved another man, married, and had a son. And now?
“Armand,” she whispered, choked with emotion. His luminous, teen-handsome face beamed down upon her as he wiped her tears and murmured endearments, bringing her back from the edge, from the abyss. As he always had.
“Armand,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”
Chapter Eight
Driving in their Subaru, father and son were approaching the crossing of the White Mountain Highway and Route 16 near the town of Ossipee when a speeding Escalade suddenly appeared behind them, bearing down as it pulled out to pass.
“What’s he doing, ninety?” Teddy’s head turned as the Escalade blew past, then swerved recklessly in front of them onto the exit ramp, nearly clipping them.
Jens cursed under his breath.
“Eight thousand pounds of gas-guzzling road hog.”
To anyone born and bred in the conservative atmosphere of New England in the late 70s, like Jens, driving a Cadillac, let alone an Escalade, was like giving everyone else on the road the finger.
“Asshole,” they said in unison, breaking into laughter. Exchanging looks with Teddy, Jens proudly noted that his son had grown a half a foot taller, seemingly overnight.
“Can we stop for drinks?” Teddy pointed to a strip mall ahead on the right.
Jens pulled off the shoulder into the parking lot of a convenience store named Foothills Pickup.
As they exited the car, he pushed from his mind his perennial concern for his son, who suffered from attention deficit and processing issues, which materialized primarily as an utter disinclination for anything academic, and accounted for his poor grades. It seemed he was only interested in working out, girls, and Xbox.
Jens had come to fathering in his 30s and couldn’t help indulging his only offspring, who brought him back to a time of innocence and promise. Recalling his own preoccupations at that age, he reminded himself that sex had been on his radar, very much so. But so were books, theatre, art.
Vivian was quick to accuse him of being too hard on their son, for not accepting him as he was — with his differences, not limitations. She warned him that his severity with Teddy over his studies was planting deep seeds of resentment. This weekend, Jens had set himself the task of not showing his disappointment and simply enjoying the boy’s company.
That’s what the hurried “don’t worry” he’d tossed Vivian, as they loaded up the car this morning, was meant to convey. Skeptical as always, she’d only raised an eyebrow.
She’d hugged Teddy but not Jens, which he interpreted as her way of saying, “You got yours last night.” Vivian, Jens reminded himself, was not one to confuse sex with sentiment, and he tried not to take such slights personally, common as they were. But how could he not?
Inside the store, Jens drew himself a coffee from the urn of “gourmet” blend and smiled at the dowdy, gray-haired woman behind the counter. She stared back at him, a sheen of sweat on her brow, despite the droning air conditioner.
“That be all?” Her voice was a breathless rasp.
Jens nodded as he added a dab of milk to his coffee and watched it dissolve, sending his thoughts back to the scene he’d been writing the previous day, of a body face down in a tidewater pool framed by sea grass. Like all of his crime novels — this was his fourth — it began with the discovery of a body, the corpus delicti, revealing the details of his story with seasoned reliability.
But this time, that wasn’t happening. He was blocked, and had been for too long to remember. Despite his patience, an array of corpses in situ had come and gone, but none had triggered the usual flow of imagery, character, and plot needed for writing a novel.
The shucking of the cash register as it opened brought him back to the present. The woman behind the counter was silent as she made change. Jens noticed her labored breathing. He glan
ced at Teddy to see if he’d noticed.
Just then the SUV that cut them off earlier careened into the lot and parked. A spry old man with a shock of white hair and a harried yet authoritative air pushed into the store, made a beeline for the drinks cooler, and grabbed several cans of Red Bull.
“Look who’s here.” Jens glanced at Teddy.
“The A-hole who cut us off.” Teddy seemed perplexed. “Must have gone off road for a while, or he’d be here before us.”
Jens nodded, discretely eyeing the older man.
“White Gold Rolex Presidential — 18k dial with diamonds and sapphire markers,” he whispered.
This was a familiar game they played, guessing at a stranger’s identity and background from clues, like a character in a novel.
“Distinctive, elegant, and very expensive,” answered Teddy, enjoying the game.
Jens smiled at his word choices, which constantly surprised him with their sophistication, despite his son’s aversion to academics. It reminded him of the precocious transitional words and phrases Teddy used as a first grader, like “incidentally,” “in contrast,” and “decidedly,” which amazed his teacher, though she thought him slow in other respects, and had been the first to raise the alarm about his attention deficit.
“That watch would pay the taxes on the house in Lee for the next few years.”
“Retired?” Teddy discreetly looked the stranger up and down.
Jens nodded, deciding Mr. Red Bull, for lack of a name, had fulfilled a position of authority in life, as he still projected an aura of self-importance.
The old man, his face lined with fatigue, plopped his cans on the counter in front of Jens.
“Do you mind?” Not waiting for an answer, he waved a large bill at the cashier.
Jens held up a mollifying hand.
“You go right ahead since you seem to be in a hurry.”
Red Bull glared, reaching over him to pay.
Stepping aside, Jens noted his manicured hands, too delicate for a man his size. He was wearing wrinkled cotton pants and shirt, both of light ply. Jens glanced outside at his dirt-caked Escalade, looking for a plate to confirm his suspicions, but the SUV was parked nose in, with no license plate in front.
“From Florida, doctor, most likely,” he told Teddy, no longer concerned about the rude stranger overhearing.
“I get Florida. Why doctor?” Teddy hissed.
“Hands — manicured, educated.”
Teddy nodded, dubious.
“Want a bag?” the cashier asked the impatient older man. She seemed distant, her face pasty with sweat. “Well?” she insisted, her voice a hoarse whisper.
Suddenly, she put a hand to her throat, and her face turned red, contorted with pain. With a gasp, she clutched her chest and stumbled back, pawing the air.
“Can’t ... breathe.”
As she fell backward, her arms strobed the shelves of cigarettes, cigars, and candy behind her, sending everything crashing. She collapsed onto the floor, sucking for air, eyes filled with terror.
Jens bolted into action, charging around the counter to where she lay. Her face was livid, her body rigid. He turned to the older man.
“Don’t be offended, friend, but I know you know what’s wrong with this woman and what to do about it. You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
He didn’t reply. His mouth was drawn tightly, deliberating.
Meanwhile, the woman clawed her throat, unable to draw a breath. Her eyes fluttered and closed. She went limp, her skin damp, pallid.
Jens tore his eyes away from her, found Teddy.
“Call 911!”
Jens glared at the man he knew was a doctor.
“You going to help or what?”
Teddy came around the counter and scrambled for the phone in its cradle on the wall. Jens slid his knees under the cashier’s head, lifting her gingerly, overcoming his reluctance at handling a stranger.
In the background, Teddy could be heard reporting the nature of the emergency and their location, his voice rising shrilly. Jens looked up at the older man, who observed the woman’s condition and Jens’s desperation with ambivalence.
Finally, the stranger came around the counter and stooped beside her, his movements steady and economical, as he positioned her on Jens’s knees so that her head was raised higher. Then he took her hand, felt her pulse, pried open her eyelids, and noted her labored breathing. He seemed to nod to himself, certain of his diagnosis.
He groped in the woman’s pockets. Not finding what he was looking for, he turned and probed under the counter, finding the woman’s pocketbook and dumping the contents onto the counter. He shook his head, stood, and scanned the immediate shelves.
“What do you need?” asked Jens, voice strained.
“Aspirin,” he answered. “She’s having a heart attack. Apparently this is her first; otherwise she’d have digitalis handy. Have to thin her blood,” he added.
Jens exchanged looks with Teddy, who dropped the phone and peeled off toward the aisles, hands fumbling along the shelves until he found the aspirin.
“Which kind?” he shouted, holding a handful of bottles aloft.
“Bring the lot,” answered the older man.
Teddy spilled his cache on the counter. The old man scanned the labels on the bottles, broke the seal on one, removed the lid, and shook out two tablets.
He bent over beside the woman, forced her mouth open, and inserted the tablets between her teeth. He manipulated her jaws, forcing her to bite down on the aspirin and masticate. He massaged her throat until her swallowing reflex took over. Within a few minutes her breathing subsided and the color returned to her face. She opened her eyes.
“Where am I?” she croaked, her voice a whisper. She clutched at her heart. “It hurts something awful.”
“You’ve had a heart attack.” The older man stood. “You’ll be okay until the medics arrive. In the meantime, just rest easy.”
Jens looked at him in disbelief.
“You can’t leave now — she needs you.”
He held Jens’s eyes for a long moment, started to speak, shook his head. He walked to the door without a moment’s hesitation, pulled it open, and left.
Chapter Nine
The next day, at the New Hampshire Art League Gallery in Portsmouth, Laurent stood in front of one of Vivian’s signature watercolors, striking an unlikely pose, chin in palm, arm supported at the elbow.
Scenes from his fiasco at Vivian’s home in Lee and his recklessness at the gas station disturbed his vision, overlayed like transparencies.
Finally, back at his motel room in Kittery, he’d collapsed on his bed and slept until late morning, as though drugged. Freed from the roar of white noise that cons learn to sleep through, it had taken him a while to block out the random noises of life in the civilian world and fall asleep. Now, without the routine of prison, he slept like the dead.
In his dream, he’s in the Corbins’ bedroom pointing a gun at Corbin, smiling, mouthing, “Dead-Bang! Gotcha!” He pulls the trigger.
Boom!
He lurched awake, groping madly for his Glock.
Then he remembered.
He’d lost it, running from Corbin’s farmhouse last night.
“My name is Belinda and I’ll be your art consultant today. Do you have any questions?”
Laurent jolted back to the present.
“What can you tell me about the artist?”
Belinda Crockett, the lanky, straw-haired woman with sharp eyes who’d greeted him at the door, now surveyed him.
In his new clothes — belted trousers, open muslin dress shirt, Bostonian loafers, bought with a thick wad of cash tucked into his pants pocket — he looked better than he had when he’d gotten off the bus from Concord State Prison a week ago.
Given his rugged features, he knew he appeared intimidating. But dressed decently now, he could pass. He was a tourist, up on a day bus from Boston, taking in the quaint sights, buying overpriced baubles, rubbing
elbows with the locals in the trendy breweries along the wharf.
He’d shopped earlier with the money he’d earned in prison — $1.50/day for two decades working in the library, minus expenses for cigarettes, soap, stamps, razors — leaving him with a tidy sum of $3200, in the form of a registered government check, handed him upon his release. At the only check cashing place that would take it without a state-issued ID, he’d had to pay the maximum cashing fee of 12%. Bastards! Still, the cash bought him time and time is what he needed. His Rambo act just wasn’t going to cut it with Vivian.
“I can see why you like her art,” said Belinda, pushing back a strand of hair, striking her own pose. A hand on her hip, the other gesturing at the painting, she extolled its virtues. Her delivery was rote, as if she wanted to get it over with, move on to a more refined client.
“It’s a fine example of hyper-realism ... keen eye for detail, precise, accurate strokes.” She smiled; Laurent could see it was an effort for her.
“You from the Seacoast?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, if you were, you’d recognize the location — a few miles south of here, on Route 1A, between here and —”
“Uh-uh.” Laurent pretended to be listening.
“— Hampton Beach ...” she droned on, her hands fluttering at the painting, birds on a string. “Golden light ... luminescent ... transcends the literal ...”
Laurent tuned her out, let his mind wander back to a day when he and Vivian were in high school, before they were married, before the “thing” happened and he’d gone to jail.
They’d been taking the bus down to Boston on Sundays, to tour the art museums, her passion. Dragging him from one museum to another, treating him to a visual smorgasbord, from the Renaissance to Cubism. They had to see it all, she’d insisted.
Her obsession: the artists’ use of light — whether abstract or representational — as a commentary on the presence of good and evil. Her intensity, as she wavered between insight and perplexity, repelled and attracted him. She was on a crusade, her holy grail an answer to the question of why evil exists.
