W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 03 - The Victim

by The Victim(lit)

  Three years after their father died, she allowed Stephen to move back into the house. Or didn't throw him out when he moved back in without asking. She didn't want to fight with him, the court suit had been a terrible experience, she was lonely, and they could at least take some meals together.

  But that didn't work, either. Stephen's young friends proved to be difficult. They didn't like him; she saw that. They were selling themselves to him. There wasn't much difference, she came to think, between her father's "secretaries" and Ste-phen's young men. While there probably was not an actual cash payment in either case, there were gifts and surprises that amounted to the same thing.

  And when the gifts and surprises were not judged to be adequate by Stephen's young men, there were either terrible scenes or the theft of things they saw in the house. That came to a head with a handsome young man named William Wal-ton, who said he was an actor.

  She went to Stephen and told him she was sure that his friend, William Walton, was stealing things, and Stephen told her, almost hysterically, that she didn't know what she was talking about. When she insisted that she knew precisely what she was talking about, he said some very cruel things to her. She told Stephen that the next time something turned up miss-ing, she was going to the police.

  It did and she did, and the police came and did nothing. When Stephen heard about her calling the police, there was another scene, ending when she told him he had two days to find someplace else to live.

  Stephen had moved out the next day. She had come down the stairs as he was putting his suitcases out and he had seen her.

  "I'm sorry it's come to this, Stephen," she said.

  He had looked up at her with hate in his eyes.

  "Get fucked!" he had shouted. "You crazy goddamn bitch, get fucked! That's what you need, a good fuck!"

  He's beside himself, she decided, because I told him to get out and because he knows that I was right, that his William Walton doesn't 't really like him for himself and really is steal-ing things. As long as he could pretend he wasn't stealing things, he could pretend that William Walton liked him for himself.

  She had turned and gone back upstairs and into the gun room and wept. The gun room had been her father's favorite place, and now it was hers.

  What Stephen had said, "Get fucked," now bothered her. Not the words but what they meant.

  Why haven't I been fucked? I am probably the only thirty-four-year-old virgin in the world, with the possible exception of cloistered nuns. The most likely possibility is that I am not so attractive to men so as to make them really try to overcome what is my quite natural maidenly reticence. Another possi-bility, of course, is that my natural maidenly reticence has been reinforced by the fact that I have encountered very few (unmarried) men who I thought I would like to have do that to me. Or is it "with" me?

  And there is another possibility, rather disgusting to think of, and that is that I am really like Stephen, a deviate, a latent Lesbian. Otherwise, wouldn't 't I have had by now some of that overwhelming hunger, to be fucked, so to speak, that all the heroines in the novels are always experiencing? Or, come to think of it, some women I know have practically boasted about? Why don't my pants get wet when some man touches my arm-or paws my breast?

  Realizing that she was slipping into depression, which, of late, had meant that she would drink more than was good for her, she resolved to fight it.

  She took out a bottle of the port her father had liked so much and taught her to appreciate, and drank two glasses of it, and not a drop more, and then left the gun room, carefully locking it after her.

  In the next two days there were more thefts of bric-a-brac and other valuables, and she called the police again, and again they did nothing.

  So she got in her car and drove downtown to see Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, one of the senior partners in the law firm of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester in the Phil-adelphia Savings Fund Society Building. Colonel Mawson wasn't there, but another senior partner, Brewster C. Payne, of whom, she remembered, her father had spoken admiringly, saw her.

  She told him what was going on, of the thefts and the break-ins, and how the police had been absolutely useless. He tried to talk her into moving out of the house until the police could get to the bottom of what was happening. She told him she had no intention of being run out of her own house.

  He told her that Colonel Mawson and Police Commis-sioner Czernick were great friends, and that as soon as Col-onel Mawson returned to the office, he would tell him of their conversation and that he felt sure Colonel Mawson would get some action from the police.

  The very same day, late in the afternoon, Harriet Evans, the gentle black woman who-with her husband-had been helping them run the house as long as Martha could remem-ber, came upstairs and said, "Miss Martha, there's another policeman to see you. This one's a captain."

  Miss Martha Peebles received Captain David Pekach, commanding officer of the Highway Patrol, in the upstairs sitting room. She explained the problem all over again to him, including her suspicion that Stephen's "actor" friend was the culprit. He assured her that the entire resources of the Highway Patrol would from that moment guarantee the inviolability of her property.

  Somehow in conversation it came out that Captain Pekach was not a married man. And she mentioned her father's weapons, and he expressed interest, and, somewhat reluctantly, she took him to the gun room.

  When he showed particular interest in one piece, she iden-tified it for him: "That is a U.S. rifle, that is to say, a military rifle, Model of 1819-"

  "With a J. H. Hall action," Captain Pekach interrupted.

  "Oh, do you know weapons?"

  "And stamped with the initials of the proving inspector," he went on. "Z. E. H."

  "Zachary Ellsworth-" Martha began to explain.

  "Hampden," Captain Pekach concluded as their eyes met. "Captain, Ordnance Corps, later Deputy Chief of Ord-nance."

  "He was born in Allentown, you know," Martha said.

  "No. I didn't know."

  "There are some other pieces you might find interesting, Captain," Martha said, "if I'm not taking you away from something more important."

  He looked at his watch.

  "I'm running late now," he said.

  "I understand," she said.

  "But perhaps some other time?"

  "If you like."

  He gestured around the gun room.

  "I could happily spend the next two years in here," he said.

  He means that. He does want to come back!

  "Well, perhaps when you get off duty," she said.

  He looked pained.

  "Miss Peebles, I'm commanding officer of the Highway Patrol. We're trying very hard to find the man the newspapers are calling the Northwest Philadelphia serial rapist."

  "Yes, I read the papers."

  "I want to speak to the men coming off their shifts, to see if they may have come up with something. That will keep me busy, I'm afraid, until twelve-thirty or so."

  "I understand," she said. Then she heard herself say, ac-tually shamelessly and brazenly lie, "Captain, I'm a night person. I rarely go to bed until the wee hours. I'm sure if you drove past here at one, or even two, there would be lights on."

  "Well, I had planned to check on your property before going home," he said. "I've stationed officers nearby."

  "Well, then, by all means, if you see a light, come in. I'll give you a cup of coffee."

  After five minutes past one that morning Martha Peebles could no longer think of herself as the world's oldest virgin, except for cloistered nuns, perhaps.

  And her father, she thought, would have approved of Da-vid, once he had gotten to know him. They were very much alike in many ways. Not superficially. Inside.

  Martha knew from the very beginning, which she placed as the moment, post coitus, that he had reached out to her and rolled her over onto him, so that she lay with her face against the hair on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart, feeling the
firm muscles of his leg against hers, that David was the man she had been waiting for-without of course knowing it-all her life.

  Captain David Pekach drove directly from the meeting in Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's office at Bustleton and Bowler to 606 Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill. He parked his unmarked car in one of the four garage stalls in what had been the carriage house behind the house, then walked back down the drive to the entrance portico.

  The door opened as he got there.

  "Good evening, Captain," Evans, the black guy, greeted him. He was wearing a gray cotton jacket and a black bow tie.

  "What do you say, Evans?"

  "Miss Martha said to say that if you would like to change, she will be with you in a moment."

  "We're going to dinner," Pekach said.

  "So I understand, sir. Can I get you a drink, Captain? Or a glass of beer?"

  "A beer would be fine, thank you," Pekach said.

  "I'll bring it right up, sir," Evans said, smiling.

  Martha had told David that Evans "adores you, and so does Harriet," and Evans was always pleasant enough, but there was something about him-and about his wife-living in the house and knowing about him and Martha that made Pekach uncomfortable.

  Pekach climbed the wide curving stairs and went down the corridor to "his room." That was a little game they were playing. The story was that because he lived to hell-and-gone on the other side of Philadelphia, he sometimes "stayed over." When he "stayed over," he stayed in a guest room, which just happened to have a connecting door to Martha's bedroom.

  Every time he "stayed over," which was more the rule than the exception, either he or Martha carefully mussed the sheets on the bed in the guest room, sometimes by even bouncing up and down on them. And every morning either Harriet or one of the nieces made up the guest room bed and everyone pretended that was where he had slept.

  When he went in the guest room, there was clothing, not his, on what-because he didn't know the proper term-he called the clotheshorse. It was a mahogany device designed to hold a jacket and trousers. There was a narrow shelf be-hind the jacket hanger, intended, he supposed, to hold your wallet and change and watch. He had never seen any clothing on it and had never used it. He hung his uniforms and clothes in an enormous wardrobe.

  When he opened the wardrobe to change into civilian clothing, there was another surprise. He had expected to find his dark blue suit and his new gray flannel suit (Martha bought it for him at Brooks Brothers, and he hated to remember what it had cost). The wardrobe was now nearly full of men's clothing, but neither his dark blue suit nor his new gray flan-nel suit was among them.

  "What the hell?" he muttered, confused. He turned from the wardrobe. Both Evans (bearing a tray with a bottle of beer and a pilsner glass) and Martha were entering the room.

  Martha was wearing a black dress and a double string of pearls long enough to reach her bosom.

  My God, she's good-looking!

  "Oh, damn, you haven't tried it on yet!" Martha said.

  "Tried what on?"

  "That, of course, silly," she said, and pointed at the cloth-ing on the clotheshorse.

  "That's not mine," he said.

  "Yes and no, Precious," Martha said. "Try it on."

  She took the coat-he saw now that it was a blue blazer with brass buttons.

  "Honey," he said, "I told you I don't want you buying me any more clothes."

  "And I haven't," she said. "Have I, Evans?"

  "No, Captain, she hasn't."

  There was nothing to do but put the jacket on. It was double-breasted and it fit.

  "Perfect," Evans said.

  "Look at the buttons," Martha said. He looked. The brass buttons were the official brass buttons of the Police Depart-ment of the City of Philadelphia.

  "Thank Evans for that," Martha said. "You have no idea how much trouble he had getting his hands on those."

  "Where did the coat come from?"

  "Tiller and Whyde, I think," Martha said.

  "That's right, Miss Martha," Evans confirmed.

  "What the hell is that?"

  "Daddy's tailor-one of them-in London," Martha said. "Precious, you look wonderful in it!"

  "This is your father's?" he asked. The notion made him slightly uncomfortable, quite aside from considerations of Martha getting him clothes.

  "No, it's yours. Now it's yours."

  "I suggested to Miss Martha, Captain," Evans said, "that you and Mr. Alex were just about the same size, and all his clothes were here, just waiting to feed the moths."

  "So we checked, and Evans was right, and all we had to do was take the trousers in a half inch, and an inch off the jacket sleeves, and of course find your policeman's buttons. Evans knows this marvelous Italian tailor on Chestnut Street, so all you have to do is say 'Thank you, Evans.' "

  "All of those clothes?" Pekach said, pointing to the ward-robe.

  "Mr. Alex always dressed very well," Evans said.

  Captain David Pekach came very close to saying Oh, shit, I don't want your father's goddamn clothes.

  But he didn't. He saw a look of genuine pleasure at having done something nice on Evans's face, and then he looked at Martha and saw how happy her eyes were.

  "Thank you, Evans," Captain Pekach said.

  "My pleasure, Captain. I'm just glad the sizes worked out; that you were just a little smaller than Mr. Alex, rather than the other way around."

  "It worked out fine, thank you, Evans."

  Evans smiled and left the room.

  "I don't know what I'm going to do with you," Pekach said to Martha.

  She met his eyes and smiled. "Oh, you'll think of some-thing."

  Martha walked to where Evans had left the beer, poured some skillfully in the glass, and handed it to Pekach.

  "I love it when I can do something nice for you, my Pre-cious," she said.

  He kissed her gently, tasting her lipstick.

  "I better take a shower," he said.

  She came into the bathroom, as she often did, and watched him shave. She had told him she liked to do that, to feel his cheeks when he had just finished shaving.

  When they went downstairs, Evans had brought her Mer-cedes coupe around to the portico from the garage, and was holding the door open for her. Pekach got behind the wheel and glanced at her to make sure she had her seat belt fas-tened. There was a flash of thigh and of the lace at the hem of her black slip.

  For a woman who didn't 't know the first fucking thing about sex, he thought for perhaps the fiftieth time, she really knows how to pick underwear that turns me on.

  He put the Mercedes in gear, drove down the drive to Glen-garry Lane, and idly decided that the best route downtown would be the Schuylkill Expressway.

  Just north of the Zoological Gardens, Martha asked if they had caught whoever had shot the policeman.

  "No. And we don't have a clue," Pekach said. "Just be-fore I came... to your place"-he'd almost said "home"- "we had a meeting, and Tony Harris, who's running the job, and is a damn good cop, said all he knows to do is go back over what he already has."

  "You almost said 'home,' " Martha said, "didn't you?"

  He looked at her and was surprised to find they were hold-ing hands.

  "Slip of the tongue," he said.

  "Nice slip, I like it."

  "You too."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I like your slip," he said.

  "Oh," she said. "Thank you."

  She raised his hand to her mouth and kissed it.

  There was the howl of a siren. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw a Highway car behind him and dropped his eyes to the large round speedometer of the Mercedes. The indicator was pointing just beyond seventy.

  "Shit," he said, freed his hand, and moved into the right lane.

  The Highway car pulled up beside him. The police officer in the passenger seat gestured imperiously for him to pull to the curb, the gesture turning into a friendly wave as Officer Jesus Martinez, a stricke
n look on his face, recognized the commanding officer of the Highway Patrol. The Highway car suddenly slowed and fell behind.

  "I hate that," Pekach said. "Getting caught by my own men."

  "Then you shouldn't speed, Precious." Martha laughed. "You should see your face!"

  "It's this damn car," Pekach said. "They don't know it. If we were in my car, that wouldn't have happened."