Until Death

by Alicia Rasley

  “And I don’t know what you got on your SATs, except that you must have done a lot better than I did, because no Ivy League school offered me a scholarship.”

  “I’m not one to brag,” I said primly.

  “And I don’t know what you feel about me. I can guess, but I might be wrong.”

  He was staring straight ahead, at the road ahead, and this was said in the same easy tone he’d been using all along. But I looked down and saw his hand fisted on the gear shift, and something in my chest tightened. I had to be careful. I wasn’t the only one in danger here.

  “What you guess is . . . correct.”

  He glanced at me then, his eyes suddenly alight in that way I think only I ever saw. “Good. Because now you only have six days left to figure out how to deal with it.”

  “Six days?” My week was being erased as we spoke. Oh, God. Oh, boy. I decided I’d better change the subject. “I hope this detective isn’t a friend of that homicide detective Martelli. Or we’ll be back where we started, trying to get them to notice there’s been a homicide.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE ACCIDENT investigation department consisted of a cluster of desks in front of a wall-mounted electronic map of the entire city. As I approached, a pin light flashed on the silver stripe that was I-65, but Detective Armstrong just glanced at it and then turned his inquiring gaze towards me.

  “I’m here to give my statement about the accident on Roncalli Road last night. Dr. Warren is outside, and he can give his afterwards.”

  Det. Armstrong was far more polite than old Martelli in Homicide, listening gravely as I capsulized the last evening’s events. “It didn’t occur to me till later that the pickup truck was just like the one Olen Murdoch owns.”

  “Who?” He scratched the name down when I repeated it.

  “It’s the man who is suing Will Bowie. And being sued by him. Murdoch saw me with Will at the courthouse the other day, and . . . well, gave me a message for him. Murdoch threatened to make Will sorry if he didn’t settle.” I took a deep breath, because here’s where I’d lose the detective if I wasn’t careful. “It makes me really nervous because, well, the last person who refused to settle Murdoch’s lawsuit was my ex-husband. And he died—” what the hell, the newspapers used this term “—mysteriously.”

  “Oh, yeah, the one who fell in the construction site.” He glanced towards the glass screen that separated us from the Homicide Department. “Over there, they thought it was suicide.”

  “And this was made to look like just a traffic accident on a rainy night.”

  “Yeah.” He made another note on his clipboard, and then gave me a speculative look. “I noticed something last night, looking at the scene. Even before I heard Mr. Bowie talking about the sawhorse. If he’d spun out on the pavement when he made that turn, he would have ended up going into the rocks on the left side of the road. But he didn’t. He swerved the other way, like he was avoiding something. And sailed off right into the river.”

  He believed me. Maybe it was all some departmental rivalry with Homicide. Maybe he was just bored filling out accident reports for insurance adjustors. I didn’t care. He believed me. “Let me talk to Dr. Warren and see if he has anything to add. And . . .” He lowered his voice. “No need to bring in Homicide at this point. It’s still just an accident investigation.”

  That was fine with me. The less chance Detective Martelli had to get involved, the better.

  And so an hour later, we were discreetly following the unwitting Detective Armstrong to the strip of cheap motels and fast food joints along the highway. He pulled the unmarked car into a decrepit trailer court beyond the Snooze Inn Motel. Mike let a few cars pass, then crossed into a motel parking lot. We got out and walked past the battered Buicks and Chevys to the sidewalk behind the motel. From there, by the dumpster, we got the smell of garbage and a wide view of the trailers and gravel drives, and Det. Armstrong parking his squad car between a shabby trailer and a shiny blue pickup truck.

  It was the middle of the afternoon, and the trailer park was deserted except for a dog lying sprawled on his back in one driveway. So even a hundred feet away, we could hear the sharp report of the detective knocking on the aluminum door.

  “That’s him,” I whispered, as Murdoch emerged. He closed the door firmly behind him and stepped away, so that the detective could not peer into the trailer. The actions of a man who knew about search and seizure rules, I noted. But his conversation with the policemen seemed civil enough. I relaxed just a bit, realizing that I’d been anticipating the worst again: that Murdoch would re-enact Ruby Ridge, meeting the officers with a hail of gunfire. No, he was unarmed and unthreatening, and after a few minutes, the cops walked back towards their car. No handcuffs, no arrest. The partner lingered for a moment by the pickup, but apparently saw no evidence of attempted murder in the cargo area.

  And so, disappointingly, they got back in their car and drove off.

  “Come on.” Mike took my hand and drew me back to the front of the motel.

  “Damn it,” I said, once we were far enough away we wouldn’t be heard.

  “Well, they’re probably going back for a search warrant.”

  “And by the time they get it, he’ll have disposed of all the evidence.” I didn’t realize how much I was counting on Detective Armstrong to solve this before the meeting with the insurance committee tomorrow. I didn’t have enough on my own. I needed something official to connect Murdoch with Don’s death . . . something like an arrest.

  Mike said, “They’ll be back. If only to show up Homicide. But we can’t stay here or Murdoch might see us.” He glanced at his watch. “Are you supposed to be anywhere?”

  I’d taken to doing most of my work late at night in my home office, since I hadn’t been able to sleep much for worry. And Barb owed me some latitude anyway, as it was only because of me that she now had a golden opportunity with the golden goose named Will Bowie. So I said, “No. You got plans?”

  “I’ll have to go get some sleep at some point. I’m on duty at midnight. But tell you what. Let’s go back to where we were last night and check it out in the daylight.”

  Slowly, I replied, “Okay, but it’ll be muddy.”

  “I’ll go back home and change.”

  So he dropped me off at home and returned a half hour later. Be still my heart—a clean but worn-out old t-shirt. ripped short at the sleeves. will get me every time. It made me think of Bruce Springsteen and working-class heroes and the bad boys I used to lust after in high school.

  There was also a paper bag on the seat containing the guy’s version of a romantic picnic: a single liter of bottled water, a bag of potato chips, and a pair of deli sandwiches. That single bottle did it for me. He meant for our lips to touch the same plastic spot.

  I could not believe I was melting at something that dumb. All the more reason to hang tough, because otherwise I would collapse into a mass of quivering feminine pudding.

  The river was up another two feet—still within its banks, I noted with some relief—and all the evidence of our great adventure had been washed away. We walked downstream, picking our way along the branch-strewn road, watching the river course down, its current twice as swift as usual. This area was still floodway, and it showed—the farm field bordering the road was several inches deep in water. Above us, the oak trees met like the beams of a cathedral roof, the sunlight filtering through the leaves and dappling the road ahead.

  The hood of an old Ford floated by, but we got all the way to the covered bridge without any sign of Will’s Diablo. The road curved down towards the highway, but I turned the other way onto the weed-ridden gravel path towards the water. “We can walk to the bridge. Just ignore the dead end sign.”

  “A good philosophy for life.”

  We emerged through the trees into the sunlight. The view opened
to what I wanted Mike to see: a line of willows trailing into the water, the sycamores rising slender and white above them, the shining river running swiftly towards the old covered bridge. Well, it had been covered once, but the roof had long since been plundered for the planking, and the department of roads had condemned it as unsafe. Now just a collection of floor beams and curved poplar sides, it hung there like a dusty skeleton.

  Danger! Unsafe Bridge! read the bullet-holed sign. “Do you feel reckless?”

  With his manhood at stake, what could he say but “Sure”?

  So I slithered through the space between the blockade and the railing, squirmed through a cobweb, and stood boldly on the wooden beam. “See? It’s all right.”

  “And anyway, it’s only a fifteen-foot drop, and just a few miles of whitewater to the dam.”

  So we ate our lunch there, our bare legs hanging over the side of the bridge, the sun warming our hair, the coursing creek splashing up a fine spray of mist. That is what the Midwest has instead of mountains, that Huck Finn vision of trees bending down into the river, and the water curving away into mystery.

  And I returned to this new mystery, the one that made my head spin. “Why me?” We were all alone, our voices low and intimate against the background of the creek waters and the buzz of insects. I dropped a potato chip and watched it bounce up in the current before vanishing under water. I couldn’t look at him. “I mean, you’re a doctor, and presumably solvent, and fairly good-looking in that Heathcliffian way, and you have to have other opportunities. Why me?”

  In answer, he bent and kissed me, his mouth hot and salty. “Because you’re funny,” he said, pulling away slightly. “You make me laugh.”

  “30 Rock makes me laugh. There’s got to be more going on than punch lines.”

  He frowned in that thoughtful way that made me think he actually took me seriously. “Okay, what else? You’re clever and sharp, but you take care with people’s feelings, most of the time. And you drag me into trouble, and maybe that’s what I need.”

  “Not me,” I replied, flattered. “I avoid trouble.”

  “Right. That’s how come every man who wants you ends up half-drowned.” He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him. “You are trouble. Definitely.”

  “Me and Mata Hari. What else?”

  “You’re . . . I don’t know. Self-aware, and you can’t seem to lie to yourself very well, although you can fool other people. And you care about the truth, even if you don’t always accept it. And you give even when you don’t want to.”

  “All that would be just as good in a friend. So . . .” I tossed this out there, as a sailor might toss out a lead line to test the ship’s speed, “why not just be friends?”

  His answer came slowly, interspersed with kisses. “Because . . . you make me hot. And that wouldn’t work with friends.”

  I knew what he meant. Dizzy, disoriented, delighted, I slipped out of his arms and stood up, one hand on the supporting truss. “We better get back to your car before . . .” Before we forget where we are and fall head over heels into the maelstrom.

  So we headed back up the road, stepping carefully to avoid the muddy ruts. Mike stopped at a semicircle mound of rocks left behind in the flood. Like all Midwestern boys, he had to be an expert at skipping rocks. He grabbed up a handful of the shiny flat river-pebbles and sorted through them one by one, his eyes intent. When he found the right one, he flipped it sidearm into the swift water. It bounced four times before hitting the bank on the other side. “There’s no help for it, Meggie. You’re irresistible.”

  Well, I could listen to that all day. I bit back the plea of “more, more” that rose to my lips and chastised myself for egotism and self-centeredness and narcissism and insecurity. I couldn’t get used to this, couldn’t get used to being admired and wanted, couldn’t base my self-image on it . . .

  With a wrench, I set down the mind-mirror. “That’s all well and good, but I remember you telling me that I had to decide what I needed and make that clear to everyone. You said I wasn’t good at that and should work on it, that I needed to stop hoping people would, out of the goodness of their hearts, do right by me. I decided you were right.”

  “There is a first time for everything.”

  “I decided that I wasn’t just going to let a man dictate what kind of relationship we’d have and go along with it, grateful to have a man at all. I was going to state upfront what works for me, what makes me feel good and safe, what I want. And so,” I said pugnaciously, “that’s what I’m doing. What you told me to do.”

  He took my hand and drew me closer. “The only problem is, we both forgot about magic.”

  “Magic? What’s that?” I asked with bravado, though I knew exactly what it was—that shimmer shivering through me. That . . . desire.

  “Magic. What we want more than what we need.”

  “But Mike.” I pulled away. I couldn’t think with him holding me, and therein lay the problem. “But I don’t believe in magic. I don’t want to believe in it. I don’t want to turn into some stupid teenager ready to throw it all away for some boy who makes me shiver.”

  “Is that all you think this is?”

  “No. But you know what? That stupid teenager thinks the boy with the tattoos and four ear-rings is more than that too. She thinks he’s her soul mate. She thinks they’re destined to be together. And she’ll think that about the next guy too. And the next. “I couldn’t help it, I thought of Don with his blind eyes mouthing those generic Hallmark sentiments about Wanda, and Wanda no doubt mouthed them right back, and look at them a year later, Don whining about what he lost (or he would be, if he still could), and Wanda seeking a new soul mate quick before she got too old to snare one. “And it’s just all that in-love garbage, that doesn’t have anything to do with real love.”

  Damn, now I’d gone and done it. I’d said the l-word. Even in the negative, it resonated there among the buzz of gnats and dragonflies. But Mike didn’t seem to notice. He also didn’t reach out for me or argue with me. In fact, he agreed with me, the jerk. “You’re right. It’s a gamble.”

  This made me suspicious. I wasn’t used to agreement. “You agree it’s best not to push this.”

  “That’s not what I said. I said it was a gamble. You think I’m not taking a gamble too? You think it’s easy for me to start over again, knowing what can happen and how much it hurts? I tell you, if it weren’t you, I wouldn’t even bother.”

  I had to look away. Even spoken in that sharp tone, that was the nicest compliment I’d gotten in a long time. Even nicer than that thing about being irresistible. “So you understand why I intend to be cautious.”

  “I understand why you might want to be cautious. But I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. We’re not teenagers. And we’re not stupid. And so I think that this isn’t as likely to be a total disaster as you predict. Presumably, you’ve learned something from what you’ve gone through, and maybe this is your reward for all that painful growth.”

  He always sounded so reasonable. “So basically you’re saying, I went through all this—the loss and the betrayal and the grief and the maturing and growth and suffering and self-realization—all this, so that I could more fully appreciate the opportunity here.”

  “Just regard that as the reward for all your hard work. You’re living this shadow-life. Now you get to come out into the light.”

  “You will do that for me?” I made my tone scornful, the better to resist his appeal. “You must be awfully good in bed.”

  He gave a slight smile, a little it’s-not-for-me-to-say shrug, and I groaned. “You are, aren’t you? You would be . . . I mean, your hands . . . your mouth . . .”

  “You haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.”

  I groaned again. “That’s all I need.”

  “Not all,
but some of it.”

  “Mike, you know I don’t trust this. You know how much Don hurt me. I don’t want to do that again, taking the risk of getting destroyed again. I’m scared of—” I shut up, suddenly hearing myself, blurting all that fear and weakness.

  But he was nodding. “I know. It’s going to be risky.” He sorted out another stone and studied it closely before discarding it. “There are worse places to end up than with me, you know.”

  “But it’s not an end. I can’t stay in bed for the rest of my life. Even with you.”

  “I’m not asking that. For now. I’m just asking for a night or two.”

  I saw the gleam in his eye, so I managed to avoid retaliating while he took his time adding, “Each week. And see, this way, you’ve cleared out one issue. You won’t have to worry about love and relationship. You can focus your energy on your business and your interests and all that.”

  “You think I’m not going to have to focus any energy on you.”

  “I’m a fairly low-maintenance man. Come on, Meggie. Let go. I’ll catch you.”

  I couldn’t help it, I kissed him then, and as his arms tightened around me I laid my head on the cashmere-soft fabric of his old t-shirt, listened to his heartbeat, and whispered, “Michael.”

  But then the insistent chirp of a bird distracted me. No, it wasn’t a bird—it was my cell phone.

  “Ignore it,” Mike murmured, his breath warm on my neck.

  But I couldn’t. I squirmed out from under him and grabbed the phone from my purse.

  “Hey, tell that contractor to get ready to move the farmhouse. You did it, girl!” It was Will, and I could hear Barb laughing behind him. What was she still doing at the hospital? Three guesses. Barb was great at making herself useful.

  “What did I do?” The haze was slowly dissipating from around my brain.

  “You got him arrested. They just did a special report on it. Broke into Nancy Grace.”

  “Tell her to watch the early news,” Barb’s voice interposed.