Love Nest

by Andrew Coburn

  He remembered nothing beyond a few sloppy kisses exchanged on a nameless road through woods where houses now stood. She dropped an ash.

  “It was once,” she said, “that’s all. You never called back.”

  “You were seeing someone else.”

  “What did it matter at that age?”

  He pushed that ashtray toward her. “Why are we talking this way?”

  “First time I’ve had cards in my hand. But don’t worry, I’m not going to play any.”

  He sighed. “What’s the matter, Fran? Things lousy at home?”

  “No worse than usual. Why didn’t you ever marry, Sonny? Did you know something I didn’t?”

  “You were too quick, I was too slow.”

  “You went into the army.”

  “The navy.”

  “Then the police.”

  “It was what I wanted.”

  Cold air stretched in when the door flew open and a yellow-helmeted work crew from Massachusetts Electric trooped in and took seats at the counter. He swallowed coffee. She dashed out her cigarette and picked up her bag. “In some ways we’re alike, Sonny.”

  “What ways?”

  “I don’t think you’d want to know.” She reached for her coat, which was rugged-looking, practical. He rose to help her on with it and afterwards slipped on his own. He paid both checks. Hers included a breakfast. “Walk me to the bank,” she said. “Make me feel young again.”

  He consulted his watch. “I can’t.”

  “That’s right. You have a killer to catch.”

  He held the door for her and followed her out into the cold, where their breaths ran ragged. He said, “She was beaten to death.”

  “Billy told me.” She drew her coat tighter together and prepared to cross the street, a lean figure hidden in wool. “Sonny.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll never find another like her.”

  • • •

  The exercise room overlooked an indoor swimming pool at the far end of their house. Harriet Bauer, her knees braced over the rail of a slant board, was doing sit-ups. Silently she counted off twenty, then twenty more, her midriff flashing out of her sweat suit each violent time her back struck the board. Alfred Bauer was in the pool. He swam the length several times, once underwater, where he was a glow of pink flesh curving as if through sleep. He pulled himself out, his blue eyes bloodshot and his chest expanded. Harriet Bauer was still at it, still counting, her hair in her eyes and her nostrils flared like those of a horse. He pattered to her with a towel slung around his wet waist. “Enough,” he said, but she kept going as if some inner mechanism demanded it. “Harriet!” Finally she fell back, her heart pounding. Her voice wafted up.

  “I’m fine.”

  He dipped down, smelling of the pool, and brushed her hair aside. Then he gazed at her with an intentness that tried to see past her skin. With a sudden grip, his strength formidable, he brought her to her feet. Her loose trousers hung low on her hips, and her stomach was sucked in like a soup plate. Her breath hit hot against his face.

  “I could’ve done a hundred.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “More than a hundred.”

  “You’re riding high,” he said.

  “That’s the point,” she said.

  He guided her over a gym mat and through a swinging door into a room that housed three wall lockers, a stall of frosted glass, and a portable refrigerator. She slaked her thirst with a blend of fruit juices that came from the health store and wiped her mouth on her gray sleeve. Then she teetered for a moment, still full of nervous energy and shaky strength. She tugged at her top to get it off.

  “Need some help?”

  “I can manage.”

  They showered together, a ritual, the soap passing between them, the spray lukewarm. The opaque glass, tinged in iodine, cast them in a ghostly sepia. He pressed shampoo into his palm. “I wish I had hair,” he said, lathering hers, old gold when wet. She soaped his chest.

  “You have plenty here.” A little later she sponged his head, which, lowered, shone like a brass ball.

  He said, “Are you worried about Wally?”

  “I always worry. He’s our baby.”

  “Maybe he should see the shrink again.”

  “Turn around.” She sponged his shoulders. “I don’t think that’s wise. God knows what he might tell him.”

  “It’s privileged.”

  “I wouldn’t depend on it.”

  “The guy’s like a priest. Besides, we own him.”

  She soaped his back, her fingers at times digging in. “But not the cop.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said with steel in his voice as she embraced him from behind, the water beating upon them. One of her legs muscled its way between the two of his. “How much, Alfred?” Her words rippled through the spray against the heat of his neck. “How much did you love her?”

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  Her embrace quickened into a sudsy grip, slippery but secure. “I’d never play second fiddle, not even to a memory,” she said, her nails digging deep.

  “You’re hurting.”

  “Who’s stronger?” she asked.

  “Don’t test me.”

  “I always win in bed.”

  “That’s where I give an advantage.” He started to say something else but stopped when they each heard a footfall outside the stall. A shadow flickered on the rough glass, and the milk white shape of a face could be seen. They thought that their son, who had left less than an hour ago for school, had inexplicably returned. But the voice was a woman’s.

  “When you’re finished,” Paige Gately said.

  • • •

  Their bedroom was commodious and richly carpeted. The four-poster bed, bedecked with a satin spread, looked more for show than for sleep. In the depths of the room, where Alfred Bauer was dressing, was a series of wardrobe doors, with mirrors nearby. Bauer put on a thick-striped shirt. His shirts were made to measure, some silk, the rest of quality cotton, his tailor an Italian in Lawrence, the same skillful fellow who made his suits, which were a continental cut. Harriet Bauer, wearing only a bra, stood with a foot on the bed and rubbed a moist towel over the leg she had just shaved. The calf, smarting from the keenness of the blade, was strong and shapely, the thigh sumptuous. Knotting his tie, Alfred Bauer said, “Isn’t she something?”

  For longer than a moment there was no response from Paige Gately, who had followed them into the bedroom no farther than the matching towels they had let fall. She wore a fitted cashmere coat molded across her hips and held kidskin gloves in one hand. “She could easily get five hundred dollars. Is that what you want me to say?”

  Harriet Bauer looked up slowly, precisely. “I used to get a thousand for a weekend.”

  The gloves twitched. “That was years ago, I understand.”

  “Yes, Paige. When the dollar meant more.”

  Alfred Bauer breezed forward, slipping on his jacket and buttoning it. The suit was Cambridge gray, with a bit of silk overarching the breast pocket and complementing his tie. “She was the best, Paige. Take it from me.”

  “I’m not arguing.”

  He took Paige Gately’s arm, gently.

  In the study the smell of charred logs drifted up from the grate. The morning wind made dire sounds at the windows, like computer music, and a tree hovered close enough for twigs to tick on the panes. “Please, sit,” he said, but she stayed erect, still bound in her snug coat, her mouth an oval of red in a smooth, ageless face. She spoke low.

  “Where’s your son?”

  “In school, of course.”

  Her face turned waxen. “Everybody knows he was at the motel yesterday. Certainly Dawson does.”

  “I’m aware of that, but what does it mean? Nothing.”

  “He’s your worry, Alfred. Yours and Harriet’s.” Her red mouth seemed to ignite her words. “The less I know the better.”

  “That’s understood.”


  “I don’t want him near the Silver Bell again.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “He needs help.”

  “In one way or another we all do,” Bauer said calmly and turned to the cherry book cabinet, a shelf of which was devoted to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, whose politics he had detested, but whose prestige, charm, and power he had admired.

  “You’re a cool customer, Alfred.”

  He reached for something on the high top of the cabinet. It was a gold pen, which he clipped to the inside pocket of his jacket. On the pocket, in silver stitching, was his monogram and the date the suit was made. He said, “I have no use for people who panic. What gives me confidence is knowing you never would.”

  “I’m flesh and blood.”

  “You’re more than that, Paige.”

  “What about Dawson?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s not your usual policeman,” she said firmly. “He’s not even your usual man. He’s all emotion when you think he’s all business. And he’s all business when you least expect it.”

  Bauer’s attention had been fixed on the vibrations of her throat. Now it alternated between the taut brightness of her lips and the careful cut and silvery shimmer of her hair. “Let me assure you,” he said with equanimity, “that is your usual cop.”

  “What am I to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  They let several seconds skip by, during which time they calmly regarded each other, nothing in their expressions to suggest collusion or even interest. He walked her to the foyer, watched while she fastened the top button of her coat, and waited while she put on her gloves and flexed her fingers in them.

  “I’ll tell Harriet you said good-bye.”

  Then he opened the door for her. The cold sun, a shot through the clouds, shocked their eyes. Shielding hers, she said, almost as an afterthought, “When this is over, I want to talk with you about the Silver Bell.”

  “You want out?”

  “On the contrary.”

  His smile turned lenient, indulgent, while the rest of him went on guard. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing unreasonable.”

  “You swear?”

  “I do.”

  “Nothing that would displease Rita O’Dea?”

  “You have my word,” she said.

  He had held his smile. “Then I’ll breathe easier for the both of us.”

  She took a tentative step out into the cold, the wind rocking her until she squared herself. He was about to close the door when she turned and stared at him over the drawn collar of her coat. The wind seemed to disperse her voice in every direction. “Tell me, Alfred, will you miss her?”

  There was no reaction, not even a breath. His blue eyes stood up to the sun, though not very well. She lifted a gloved hand, as if she might pull his head against her heart.

  “Come here.”

  He stretched forward, certain feelings no longer submerged. His eyes carried a desolating sense of loss. Their kiss was dry, shallow, and ambiguous. “A part of me went with her,” he said.

  The drive did not take long, thirty-five minutes from the police station in Andover to the bowfront brownstone in Boston’s Back Bay, where Melody Haines had shared an apartment with two women her senior by five and seven years. They were waiting for him, for he had telephoned much earlier, catching them before they left for work. They did not know the whole reason for the visit but anticipated something bad and greeted him grimly. The studio room he stepped into had a clean uncluttered air and a subtle scent of furniture polish. The older of the two, almond-eyed and fresh-skinned, intriguingly tall, said tightly, “Yes, you’re the one. You’re Sonny.”

  He nodded. Melody had mentioned them only once, but he remembered everything. This one was Sue, Delaware-born, Amherst-educated, a writer for medical periodicals at Tufts. The other, hanging back under a ball of briar-brown hair, was Natalie, a native of New Hampshire, short and dumpy, blind without her glasses, shy to hostility with those she did not know. She too worked at Tufts.

  Sue said, “Your eyes, they’re as green as Melody said. But you’re old.”

  “Yes.”

  “But from Melody’s perspective, not so much from mine. I’m not flirting with you, Sonny. I’m simply delaying what I don’t want to ask.”

  Not knowing any other way to put it, he said, “She’s dead.”

  Sue stood fixed while Natalie took a short backward step, her round face swelling under her brittle hair. Sue’s face went expressionless and gaunt, which brought out its bones, all of them narrow and keen, patrician in their structure. “Shit,” she said. She turned, put her back to him, showed him the endless pale stalk of her neck. “How?”

  “It was a homicide.”

  “What?”

  “A homi — ”

  “Yes, I heard you!” Her voice was high-toned, and she calmed it, gradually faced him again. “Who did it?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Natalie retched, a hollow sound, and at once pressed a plump hand over her mouth. Sue said, “Easy, kitten.” The bedrooms were to the left, one with a door open enough for Dawson to glimpse the glamor of a travel poster and the ruffles of a bedspread.

  “I’d like to look through her things. Would you mind?”

  “Yes,” Sue said with some hoarseness. “At this point I don’t know why, but I’d mind very much.”

  “Later, then.” He buried his hands in the pockets of his topcoat and stood woodenly. “As far as I know, she didn’t have a family.”

  “She had no one.”

  “She had us,” Natalie said from her distance, though her voice was hardly heard, her face hidden. Then she pulled back, tears starting.

  Dawson said, “Would one of you identify the body? It’s a legal thing.”

  “Why can’t you?” Sue countered.

  He did not answer.

  On the way out of the building Sue kept a close eye on Natalie and whispered steadying words. They were each bundled in quilted jackets and woolen caps. A sleazy-looking young man emerged from the steamy warmth of a sidewalk vent with his hand out. They ignored him. Sue said to Dawson, “Melody would’ve given him something.”

  “I know,” Dawson said and unlocked his unmarked car.

  The traffic was fitful on Storrow Drive and worse at the bottleneck leading to Route 93. Sue, who had been quiet, said, “We know what Melody did. We’ve always known.” He could see the movement of her mouth and the top of Natalie’s hair in the rearview mirror as he milked the brake in the gush of merging traffic. No driver gave an inch, not even those in the flimsiest of cars. Sue said, “We tried to warn her.”

  “And I tried to help her,” he said and saw her mouth bend.

  “Some help.” Then immediately she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lay that on you.”

  On Route 93 he swung to the inside lane and let the bulk of traffic tear by. The sun was a welcome blast as the wind cut through cracks in the car. Passing the Medford exit he heard Sue say, “Sit up, Nat.” Natalie’s groan seemed more a child’s than a woman’s. Between Stoneham and Reading the roadside was bleak with bushes baring their thorns.

  Farther on, traffic thinned, and Dawson slipped lower behind the wheel. A knot in his neck dissolved, though a tenseness in his shoulders remained. Sue sat forward and gripped the back of his seat. “Drive faster, please.”

  Lawrence General Hospital sat on a hill amid the brickwork of a tiny old industrial city that lay like rubble near the sprawling affluence of Andover. Andover’s history stretched back to the Puritans, some of whom burned witches, while Lawrence’s past extended only into the last century when Boston money men created it as a business enterprise, erecting stupendous mills and loading them with immigrants, among them Dawson’s great-grandparents.

  He pulled into a parking space reserved for a doctor, and the three of them plodded through a haze of mortar dust from a nearby reconstruction project and entered the
hospital through a side door below ground level. A security guard passed them on, and a white blur of hospital personnel ignored them. As they neared the morgue Natalie grew unsure of her footing and dropped her head to one side as if something had jarred it. At the door she said, “I’ll wait here.”

  “No, I need you,” Sue said with authority.

  The morgue hummed with a chill, smelled of cold metal, and tasted of chemicals, some sweet. A handsome black woman in a spotless smock came forward over an expanse of floor that looked as if it had just been swabbed. She had been expecting Dawson and drew him well to one side. “For you,” she said quietly. It was a copy of the medical examiner’s report, which he tucked away without looking at it.

  “Anything interesting in it?” he asked.

  “There was no sign of recent sexual activity,” she said in a half-whisper. “The doctor thought that odd. Her stomach contents suggested her last meal was at Burger King or McDonald’s.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Internal hemorrhaging. Her ribs were in her lungs. It’s all in the report. A copy’s gone to the district attorney.”

  “Did he ask for it?”

  “Yes,” she said. There was a sound from Sue, a smaller one from Natalie. The woman said, “All of you?” He nodded, and she directed them into another room, where the chill was greater and the hum heavier.

  The body was covered to the neck with a sheet that resembled canvas. The top of the head was swaddled. Only the face showed. The bruises and swellings had softened, but the skin had gone gray, claylike. Natalie gave a partial look, Sue a full one, her lips drawn tight. Natalie whimpered and pulled back.

  Sue, with an emptiness of spirit and tone, said, “Yes, that’s our pal.”

  Their movements were mechanical after that. Dawson said to the woman, “Do you have something for them to sign?” She guided them to a less forbidding section, where an ordinary desk, like a teacher’s, was cluttered with papers and held a glass ball, the kind that stormed when shaken. Sue was given a pen.

  “I’ve never signed anybody’s life away before,” she said, and did so with a flourish, as if making a flower of her name. Natalie’s signature was a scratch.