“Mrs. Gunner is having some personal problems, rather serious. Mr. Gunner doesn’t want anything spilling onto the boys.” Bodine handed him a check. “This is for your help.”
“No need of that!”
“Mr. Gunner prefers it that way.” Bodine rose from the bench. “He knows the boys are in good hands.”
“Wait a minute.” Pitkin glanced at the check. “What’ll I tell them?”
“You’ll think of something.”
Bodine returned to his car, the finish reflecting his approach and the mischievous beauty of blossoming ivy creeping over stone. The rest of the day was his. His and Regina’s.
• • •
At ten and again near noon, Chief Morgan rang up the Gunners’ number, each time reaching only the answering machine, with Paul Gunner’s voice telling him to leave his name and number, which he didn’t do. He had nothing really to say to Beverly Gunner, but he felt acutely responsible for whatever might be in her mind. After lunching at the Blue Bonnet, he drove to the Heights.
Newspapers — Times, Journal, and Globe — lay on the wide steps leading to the Gunners’ grand front door. He stepped over them and rang the impressive bell, several times. Pushing through shrubbery, he looked in windows and saw only stately furniture in a context of fine walls and floors. Glass strips in the garage doors revealed a handsome automobile in each stall.
He reconnoitered. Nothing foreign floated in the pool. Gardens sprang up only flowers. Walking over the clipped lawn, he saw a deck chair in the distance and went to it, though it told him nothing. He sat in it, feeling both foolish and uneasy.
He drove back not to the station but to the Blue Bonnet. Reverend Stottle was coming out, and he walked with him onto the green. The reverend had a dreamy look. Their pace was slow.
“Ever feel you made the wrong career choice, Reverend?”
“I’ve had doubts all my life,” he said. “Doubts are what make us human. Today distorts yesterday, and tomorrow surely will give today a different twist. It may even bend it all out of shape.”
Morgan waved to a woman he’d known since the first grade. She had sons in high school and a daughter in college. He said, “I never seem to come up with clear answers, only more of a muddle.”
“Central truths are all that matter,” Reverend Stottle said with force and clarity. “The peripheral you don’t have time for.”
“I’m not sure I’d know the truth if it hit me in the face. That’s scary for a policeman.”
“Our small darknesses grow deeper as we grow older, Chief. And each of us lives different, rich man, poor man, fat fella, thin one, but we die the same. The lights go out, we eat the ground.”
Morgan suspected he and the reverend were a little out of sync, but it didn’t bother him. Birdsong filled a void, the sound touching him. “I thought we went to heaven, Reverend.”
“We do, and the vehicle that will take us there is a beam of light, nonpolluting, energy-efficient. How does that grab you?”
“How do we get to hell?”
“No transportation needed. Hell is here.”
Morgan let the reverend wander on without him. Flower beds on the green were never the same from week to week. Much multiplied, sprang loose, roamed. After several steps Reverend Stottle looked back.
“My wife is worried about you.”
“I’m a little worried myself.”
“A psychiatrist using hypnotism can bring you back to the baby bottle but not back to God. Come to church this Sunday, Chief.”
“That’ll do it?”
“No, but you’ll hear a super sermon.”
• • •
Harley Bodine was in her house. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, the reproof mildly delivered. She was attending to plants, picking off dead leaves, her back to him. He embraced her from behind and told her how good she felt. Then he told her about the Gunners, the aftermath, Stoneham, Hanover House. “Christ,” Regina said, staying in his grip. “She really stabbed him? Scissors?”
“Several times.”
She was shocked. Then she wasn’t. “He must’ve had it coming.”
“Nobody deserves that.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said, still in his grip, his face in her hair. Hanover House. She’d heard of it. A discreet place for the rich and famous. Bette Davis was said to have dried out there — or was that at Baldpate? Bodine’s hands ran up to her armpits.
“Can we go somewhere?” he whispered.
“Where do you want to go? No, don’t tell me.”
“I could meet you there.”
She inclined her head. “You’re getting too much of a good thing.”
“You’re teasing me,” he said.
“You complaining?”
“Never.”
Through his voice she heard a sound, which her keen ear interpreted. Her head dropped back. “Kiss me,” she said in her most seductive tone, and he did, protracting it. She took his hands and ran them over her. Her stepson stood in the doorway.
“Are you spying, Anthony?”
Bodine leapt back as the boy vanished, like a fish that had been still. With a jolt it was gone. “My God!” Bodine said, his face pale. “I’m sorry, Regina. I’m really sorry.”
She smoothed her hair, her dress. “You’d better go.”
“Yes.” He turned. He stopped. “What can I do?”
“Nothing, Harley. Seems you’ve already done it.”
“Will I see you again?” he asked, his eyes panicking. Hers were quite steady.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
When he was gone, she picked a sere leaf off the floor. It was brittle as a bug, and she crushed it in her hand. She walked over hardwood. She had a long, gliding step, purpose to it. She mounted the stairs. Anthony stood at a window in his room. His legs ran straight. Such a handsome boy.
“I wouldn’t say anything about this if I were you, Anthony. Not a word. It would break your father’s heart.”
He wouldn’t look at her. “I know that, Mother.“
“Don’t call me ‘Mother,’ I’m not your mother.”
“I know that too.”
“This will be our secret,” she said. “You’ll tell no one and live with it. Not a word to Patricia. If you do, I’ll tell your father myself.”
“You’re good,” he said. “You’re better than anyone.”
“I’m glad you see that. From now on, you keep your hands off my daughter, and I’ll do what I can to keep Bodine’s off me. Deal?”
“Please,” he said. “Get out of my room.”
• • •
May Hutchins took time doing her face, muting the liner around her eyes, adding peach to her cheeks. Her lips, brightly painted, were a careful flame. Hearing sounds, she gave a final look at herself and stepped out of the bathroom. Downstairs, she gave a little screech and turned on her husband with anger.
“You scared me half out of my wits!”
“Who’d you think it was?” Roland said. “I made plenty of noise.”
“You didn’t make enough.” The anger disguised anxiety. “What are you doing home?”
“Can’t I come home if I want? What are you all fixed up for?”
“I like to look nice. That a crime? I thought you were still on the Stoneham job.”
“Job’s finished.” He washed his hands at the sink. Clean white coveralls gave him the appearance of a milk bottle. May imagined tipping him upside down and pouring him down the drain.
“I suppose you want something to eat.”
“No,” he said. “I’m going to lie down for a while.”
Frustration joined her anxiety. “What’s the matter? You sick?”
“I’m fine. Can’t I take a nap if I want?”
He stretched out on the sofa in the parlor, his shoes off. She waited a few minutes and then hurried upstairs and used the bedroom phone. Her voice was low and peremptory and blew hot and cold while her eyes counted age spots on her arms, too God-
damn many. Replacing the receiver, she assigned blame for her personal predicament on the way the world is run.
Her great-grandfather, fumigated and deloused in Liverpool, was thirteen days in steerage coming to America, where he was turned back at Ellis Island. His voice, so the story went, was shrill and one eye rolled, which put off the doctor, who promptly rejected him as a mental defective. A year later, smart bugger that he must’ve been, he entered the States through Canada and found work in an apple orchard in Bensington. And here she was more than a century later, sitting on the edge of a bed like a cow in heat afraid to moo.
She picked up the phone, punched out the same number as before, and said, “Meet me at the library.”
• • •
Regina Smith stood in a wide window and looked out at the pool. Patricia and Anthony, wearing nearly nothing, were lolling on chaises, laughing. Anthony’s laughter was not altogether natural, nor was the expression on his face when he rose from his chaise as if someone had cued him, freed him from a chain.
Regina watched him hover over her daughter and press down with his fingertips. Patricia, responding, opened and bloomed, the merest material holding her tits together.
Fists clenched, Regina saw him insinuate his hands over Patricia the way she had manipulated Bodine’s over herself.
Slowly Anthony looked up and locked eyes with her. He was mocking and challenging her all at once.
An ice pick in her heart, she stood frozen. Her vision blurred.
When she could focus again, Anthony was perched on the diving board and lobbing a kiss to Patricia. Then he seemed to lob one at her, which put a second pick in her heart.
She stepped back. The skirmish was his. She conceded it without a second glance.
• • •
Chief Morgan, beside himself, made a third visit to the Gunner house and came upon a BMW parked in the drive. Harley Bodine was collecting the newspapers from the stone steps. Morgan slipped out of his car and approached him with a casual step, the casualness forced. “How are you doing?” he said.
“I’m doing fine, Morgan. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for them. Where are they?”
“If they wanted you to know, I’m sure they’d have told you.”
Stepping closer to him, Morgan said, “I want to know where Mrs. Gunner is.”
“It’s not my place to tell you.”
“I think you’d better.”
Bodine’s smile was faint and indulgent, that of a man with the upper hand. “Someone seems to have tipped Mrs. Gunner over the edge. We suspect it was you.”
“What are you saying?”
“She had a nervous breakdown, in the course of which she assaulted her husband.”
“I don’t give a damn about him, I want to know about her.”
“Isn’t Kate enough for you?”
Morgan let that pass. He had no choice. “Tell me where Mrs. Gunner is.”
“It’s not a police matter, strictly domestic.”
Morgan grabbed the front of Bodine’s shirt, crushing up the tie with it. “Tell me!” he said, panic rising in him, as if all facts were imperfect and primed to create only confusion.
“Take your hands off me,” Bodine said with utter disdain and cold superiority.
Morgan let go.
Bodine smoothed his shirt, checked buttons, and straightened his tie. His voice unaffected, he said, “Mr. Gunner is recovering from stab wounds at a private clinic. Get the picture, Morgan? Best thing you can do is lie low, though it probably won’t help. I’ll be surprised if Mr. Gunner doesn’t tell me to bring suit against you and the town.”
Morgan watched him shift the newspapers and lift a key from a pocket. The key was to the front door. “You’re his lackey, aren’t you?”
“Gratuitous remarks like that don’t help your cause. Don’t you know the deep shit you’re in?”
“I think you and Gunner have had business with Dudley. You remember Dudley, don’t you?”
“Quite well, and yes, your kind of mind would eat up his garbage.”
“I think you had your son killed. And Gunner his daughter.”
“How criminally stupid you are.”
Morgan watched him key open the door and then looked away. The day was tilting toward evening. A single dark cloud looked as if it had been hammered into the sky. His thoughts were of Beverly Gunner. Where was she? Bodine pushed open the door.
“I’m curious, Morgan. Don’t you have a life of your own? Yours so empty you have to get into others'?”
14
THE SAME AMBULANCE THAT HAD TAKEN PAUL GUNNER AWAY brought him back four days later, though the doctor had wanted him to stay longer. His color was off, his strength lacking, and pain remained throughout his upper body. The same attendants who had lugged him out assisted him in. Harley Bodine greeted him. Two Hispanic women who had worked part-time at the house were now full-time. A male nurse was there to monitor him around the clock. The nurse, who had a serene face and arms like a wrestler’s, shifted him into the hospital bed that had been set up downstairs, a room near his study.
Gunner said, “I want the boys back.”
“This afternoon,” Bodine promised.
“They’ll have to know what their mother did. I don’t want her back in this house. She’s homicidal.”
“She’s comfortable at Hanover House.”
Gunner licked his lips, which were dry, and through a bent glass straw sipped orange juice the nurse had provided. “I’m thinking of moving to California, Palm Springs. Get in touch with a real estate agent there.”
“What about this house?”
“Put it on the market.”
“The market’s soft.”
“Not for a house like this. Not for money people.” Abruptly he lifted an arm, which he shouldn’t have done. The pain was sharp. “No VCR on the TV!”
“We’ll get you one.”
The climate of his body affected his moods. His thumb mashed the button of a buzzer attached to a cord. “Where the hell is he?” The nurse, briefed on his moods, brought him cognac. A taste warmed him. “What the hell was that?” A burst of rain had come while the sun shined. Light foamed the windows. “I’m jittery. Any minute I expect to see her with those fucking scissors.”
“No need to worry about that,” Bodine said quietly as the nurse left.
“Where’s my weapon?” Bodine opened the drawer in the bedside table and showed him. “Give it to me.” Bodine placed it in his hand, and he inspected it with respect and pride. It was a semiautomatic pistol with a ventilated barrel, a gift from the National Rifle Association, to which he was a generous donor. “What do you think?”
“Fine means of defense,” said Bodine.
“She comes at me again, I’ll blow her away.”
“The police chief thinks you already have.”
“Good. Let him make a fool of himself.”
“He’s already that,” Bodine said and returned the pistol to the drawer.
• • •
At Hanover House Beverly Gunner knew long nights, too many wakeful hours, but enjoyed the daytime. On the sun porch she made a path between wheelchairs, walkers, and canes, struck by the seductive way the very old smiled out of their robes for attention. She spent time with each, no more with one than another, for jealousies arose. She read chapters from a storybook to Miss Whittleton, small, sere, and ethereal, who, she was certain, would scatter like pastry crumbs if left unattended too long.
At the indoor pool, in the far wing, she sat with her feet dangling in the heated water beside Mrs. Aldrich, whose body age had given its own idiom of twists and turns. Mrs. Aldrich complained that women far outnumbered men at Hanover House, which made it a hennery.
In the common room, Mr. Skully showed her his pecker.
His voice creaked. “Would you be my girlfriend?”
“I’m spoken for,” she said gently.
She and Isabel strolled near a shower of willows to a list
ing stand of birches. A squirrel clawing the grass stopped, stood up, and stared. Isabel said, “Some day you must meet my Mary, though I’m not sure you’d get along with her. You’re much more stable than she is.”
The thought of meeting someone from the outside did not engage her. Isabel did. Isabel’s face, brimming with blush, apricot makeup, cerise lipstick, and magenta eye shadow was a baroque ornament. Most of the time Isabel looked angry, but it was possible she was not. Beverly said simply, “I like it here.”
When they turned back, Isabel said, “We must do something with your hair.”
Evenings she spent with her mother-in-law, who was a trial, a voice too much in her ear, a pressure on her sensibilities. Lolling in the consoling heat of a bath, old Mrs. Gunner demanded explanations. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“It’s for the best,” she said, waiting with a towel.
Later, bundled in a robe and sunk in a club chair, Mrs. Gunner wanted her hair brushed, her feet massaged. “The others don’t do it as well as you,” she said, her voice heavy with presumptions. Her potty needed emptying. There was a stool in it. Beverly, drawing the line, told her she would have to do that herself.
They watched Home Box Office until Mrs. Gunner indignantly changed channels. “I don’t like all those sex scenes in today’s movies,” she said with a snort. “You never saw Greer Garson tearing at Clark Gable’s fly.”
Beverly’s eyes were closed. She had not been watching.
“You asleep?”
Her eyes opened. She sat in the fixed glow of a lamp that had the effect of confining her, isolating her. Her voice was clear. “I think Paul was responsible for Fay’s death.”
Mrs. Gunner reached into a dish of hard candy. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“I think he paid a man to do it.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Candy rattled against Mrs. Gunner’s dentures. “Time you went to bed.”
• • •
Dick English spotted Kate Bodine sitting alone at the country club bar and lavished on her the same look he gave to fine automobiles. Altering his course, he approached her with a pampered abundance of silvery hair, a brilliant smile, and a fine baritone voice. “May I?” Waving away the bartender, he perched beside her. She was a bold figure in tennis whites. “True you’re back in television?”
Voices in the Dark Page 24
