Acts of Malice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  It wasn’t so odd that she would turn to him. Of all people, she and Collier could understand each other. She wished she could pour out her worries to him.

  Longing and desperation, she thought. He would know how she felt because he worked under even worse conditions, with more criminal cases and more court work. Above all, he would understand what she had just been thinking, that when you’re committed to dealing all day with the consequences of hatred, greed, and vengefulness, you begin to realize how grotesque it is to act normally, to brush your teeth and comb your hair.

  You ought to be crying, tearing your hair out, gnashing your teeth like some biblical mourner, fighting every second . . .

  Then the sun comes out and you’re out there taking a sunbath in the snow, soaking up the rays and napping amid the corpses.

  ‘‘You okay, Bob?’’ she called, opening the bedroom door.

  ‘‘Are you gonna help me with my algebra?’’

  ‘‘In five minutes. Just one more call.’’ She closed the door again and told herself that it couldn’t wait another day. She should have called the night before.

  ‘‘Ah, damn it, the day’s shot anyway,’’ she said to that very reluctant part of her that was resisting picking up the phone.

  Jim was home. ‘‘How are you?’’ she said.

  He sounded faint, far away at first. ‘‘It’s good to hear from you,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve been jumping out of my skin. The only thing that seems to help is cleaning up the mess the police made. What’s going on? Did you find out anything about Heidi? Or about what the police are going to do?’’

  ‘‘That’s why I’m calling,’’ Nina said. ‘‘To check in.’’

  ‘‘Thanks. You called me on a weekend. You knew I was worried. I appreciate that.’’

  ‘‘I got your ski boots from your father’s car.’’

  ‘‘You talked to my father?’’

  ‘‘Yes. I shipped the boots off for some tests.’’ She explained. Jim listened carefully.

  ‘‘I’d laugh if I wasn’t so angry about all this,’’ he said. ‘‘You won’t let them railroad me, will you, Nina? Find something in those photographs that isn’t there?’’

  ‘‘Here’s what I think will happen. We’ll turn the boots over as soon as they ask me for them. The boots could exonerate you. The coroner has to have some reason for this suspicion he’s developed. There may be some kind of mark on Alex that’s inconsistent with the fall, or at least Clauson thinks it is. But if the boots don’t match the mark, that will be the end of it.’’

  She heard a groan on the other end of the line.

  ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Nina said. ‘‘It’s not easy to listen to this stuff.’’

  ‘‘It’s monstrous. You should see the way the people at the lodge look at me now. The way my own father looks at me.’’

  Nina thought again of Philip Strong, of the look in his eyes. Had it been doubt?

  ‘‘He doesn’t give a shit about me. It’s always been Alex. He favored my brother. Of course,’’ he said, suddenly thoughtful, ‘‘Alex was a fantastic guy. I wish you could have known him.’’

  ‘‘I talked to Heidi, Jim.’’

  ‘‘You what? Where is she?’’

  ‘‘Listen. Here’s what happened.’’ She gave a full account of her talk with Philip Strong, of her meeting at Jake’s with Heidi, trying to take it easy on him. But how could you minimize a demand for a divorce?

  When she had said all she wanted to say without a single interruption, Jim still didn’t say anything.

  ‘‘Jim? Are you there?’’

  ‘‘Let me get this straight,’’ Jim said. ‘‘I asked you to help me find my wife so I could talk to her. That’s really all I wanted. It was the main thing.’’

  ‘‘That was part—’’

  ‘‘It was the main thing. The main thing. This other stuff, this crap about Alex. It may not come to anything. But talking to Heidi, that’s the main thing. So my father’’—he spat out the word—‘‘tells you where to meet Heidi, and do you call me and tell me? No. You wait until Heidi’s long gone. You go talk to her yourself, without consulting me. You keep it from me.’’

  ‘‘It was the only way I could see her, Jim. I had to promise—’’

  ‘‘So promise. Then call me. You act like my father hired you, or Heidi, not me.’’

  ‘‘I gave my word.’’

  ‘‘Your word! Who are you, Mother Teresa? Your word!’’ He sounded furious.

  ‘‘I’m sorry. I really am. I really tried with Heidi, to get her to call you. She’s adamant.’’

  ‘‘You gave your word to me, didn’t you?’’ Jim said. ‘‘You’re my lawyer, aren’t you? So why did you do this to me? Not tell me, not let me go?’’

  ‘‘Jim, I . . .’’

  She took the receiver away, looked at it in astonishment.

  He had hung up on her.

  ‘‘Mom! How much longer?’’ Bob called from downstairs.

  ‘‘Be right there!’’ She took a few breaths, rubbed her temples, wondered if Jim was right. She didn’t know. She’d had to act and she’d done what seemed like the right thing to do. She’d given her word.

  She went downstairs, grateful that middle-school algebra always had an indisputable right answer.

  At eight o’clock, she and Bob were climbing the freshly shoveled steps up to the front porch after their walk, Hitchcock already barking at the door, when Collier pulled up. He came down the driveway rapidly, and she had the insane impulse to run to him and bury her face in his chest, but what would Bob think of that? And what about her resolution?

  He stopped awkwardly at the foot of the steps. ‘‘Hi,’’ he said. ‘‘Sorry I’m late.’’

  ‘‘Sure. Uh, Bob, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Mr. Hallowell.’’

  Bob stuck out his hand like the well-mannered kid he sometimes was, and they shook hands, Collier saying, ‘‘Call me Collier,’’ and taking a good look at him. They all stood on the porch for a moment. Then Nina said, ‘‘Would you like to come in for a minute?’’ Since he’d just driven across town to do exactly that, the invitation sounded moronic, but now they were acting for Bob’s benefit.

  ‘‘Sounds good.’’ They all wiped their feet and clomped inside. Collier looked around at the new Danish rug and the fire in the free-standing fireplace, nodding. He seemed nervous. ‘‘Very—very well done,’’ he said. He was wearing a thick gray sweater and corduroy pants, his hands in the pockets.

  ‘‘Bob, don’t you need to go take your shower?’’ Nina said. She had had the sudden thought, we can’t talk here.

  ‘‘As a matter of fact, Collier and I have a short errand to run,’’ she went on. ‘‘Work stuff. You go ahead and get ready for bed, and I’ll be back in half an hour.’’

  They both looked surprised to hear this, but Bob went off obediently enough and Nina said, ‘‘Well?’’ and Collier held the door open as she went back out into the star-flung night.

  They got into his car, and Collier started up the motor. Nina put her hand on his warm thigh and felt the tightness of it through the corduroy as he started up and guided the car down the road. ‘‘I just had to leave,’’ she said. ‘‘Just for a minute.’’ Her hand stayed on his leg.

  ‘‘No need to explain.’’ He drove through the neighborhood to Jicarilla, a dead-end street with a turnaround shielded from the nearest houses by the trees. The night was silent, crystalline beyond the windshield.

  ‘‘Collier,’’ Nina murmured. ‘‘Hold me?’’

  He already was holding her. He opened her mouth gently with his mouth. She held onto him.

  There was only the breathing and the motor running and the heater sending out its warmth as he moved over on the seat and she moved onto his lap, still mouth to mouth, never losing that connection while they struggled with their clothing.

  And finally they were one again, where they belonged, connected at mouth and groin and chest. They began moving in
the ancient, primitive, deeply comforting rhythm. For that timeless time she was only a woman. With him it was simple and joyful and good, better than good, much, much better than good.

  9

  NINA SNEAKED INTO work on Monday morning, ashamed. She was ashamed because she was in love.

  In love. Not the exasperated playful love she still felt for Paul, in which so great a part of her remained unaffected. Not the practical kind of love she had felt for her ex-husband, Jack. With Bob so young and her career just starting, her union with Jack had felt like two oxen yoking together to pull the heavy load. Not the nostalgic affection she still felt for Kurt, Bob’s father, whom she had loved so long ago.

  She had diagnosed herself. It was crazy fool love, exactly what she had feared and prepared against during the soul-searching months following her divorce.

  For two years she had been mother and lawyer, challenges enough. She had bought a house and her own bed where she could sleep diagonally if she chose, rip off the covers if she got hot, snore if she had a cold. She made fruit smoothies for dinner in the summer and soup in the winter, with no stubbly male presence to give it a dubious look and send her back into the kitchen for meat. She put up pictures she liked and spent her spare money on Italian shoes, without having to answer to anyone.

  She had made her own plans for the future, timidly at first. And she had enjoyed doing the driving. Her power wasn’t absolute—she lived with a temperamental young prince—but making her own decisions was habit forming. Once she had made the decision not to fall in love anymore, she had experienced a huge relief.

  Besides, who would want her, want all of her, a struggling lawyer in her mid-thirties whose idea of a really hot time was reading in bed, glasses on, at two A.M.?

  But as the months went by, in spite of herself she had found herself clumsily reaching out. One hand reached out, the other slapped it down.

  Why couldn’t she stay in her sere and serene solitary state? She could support herself, Bob was fine, she’d had her child, and she was, as she knew quite well, hard to live with. Not worth it, she reminded herself firmly. Burned there, done that.

  And yet, from deep in the brain stem, from the pea-sized pituitary, a stream of hormones furtively flooded her castle, bringing that longing to fall deliriously from the ramparts. She had slept with Paul, that epitome of hyper-masculinity, and had felt herself on the brink of falling in love with him. With all the strength she had left, she had pushed him into leaving her.

  And now Collier had come back to Tahoe, slipping quietly into town, no fanfare, the one who could really understand her, the one with eyes she could hardly wait to lose herself in.

  Tenderly my love

  Returns my caresses . . .

  A fallen woman she was, foolish, absurd, an object of pity, no sleep, lust burning through her underwear.

  She kicked herself for her weakness and wondered how soon she could see him again.

  Taking off the wool beret, she fluffed her hair and opened the door to the office, decorous, briefcase reassuringly heavy in her hand. Clients, crimes, injuries, divorces, all manner of unpleasantries waited therein. She was looking forward to flipping her mind back into its accustomed dry and analytical mode.

  Warmth. Bright colors. Music. Brazilian, sensuous. Sandy, in complete dereliction of duty, sat next to the silver-haired Native American from the parking lot. She was holding hands with this fellow, whispering something in his ear. He was smiling. As Nina came in, the hands sprung guiltily apart. Moving faster than Nina had ever seen, Sandy glided to her desk.

  Nobody spoke for a minute. Finally, in a tight schoolmarmish voice, Nina heard herself saying, ‘‘Good morning,’’ meaning, It’s Monday morning; there’s work to do; what’s he doing here?

  He put on his cowboy hat, stood up. He wore jeans with a thick leather belt and a silver buckle. His brown face with its big nose was seamed by the sun. He looked down, nodded at the floor several times, and looked back up at Sandy.

  ‘‘I was just leaving,’’ he said. ‘‘So long.’’ He took his grizzled leather jacket from the rack.

  ‘‘So long,’’ Sandy said, barely visible behind a vase full of carnations and snapdragons on her desk.

  The door closed.

  ‘‘I really don’t think it’s the time or place to be necking, Sandy,’’ Nina said. She knew it was herself she was talking to, but she couldn’t seem to control her tongue.

  The mood drained away. The office became just an office, plants, Sandy’s desk, comfortable chairs for uncomfortable people, an Indian basket filled with magazines on the coffee table in front of the chairs.

  Sandy didn’t answer. She held out the usual sheaf of messages, but only part of the way, forcing Nina to reach past the flowers for them.

  Sandy looked very smug and a faint smell of bay rum hung in the air. These things annoyed Nina further. Here she was, trying to lecture herself back to sobriety, and Sandy was undermining her efforts behind her back. At the very least, Sandy should try to look ashamed of herself after this garish display of affection. Affection in a law office! An oxymoron!

  ‘‘Nice flowers,’’ Nina went on, still in the grip of her inner schoolmarm. ‘‘But not appropriate. I mean, this is a business. I can hardly see you back there.’’ She began looking through the messages, conspicuously dropping the entire sordid matter, but noticing from the corner of her eye that Sandy’s face was turning that florid color again.

  ‘‘Not as nice as the ones on your desk,’’ Sandy said. Her tone was flat-out malicious.

  Their eyes met. Nina looked away first.

  ‘‘If you want to talk about appropriate . . .’’ Sandy said.

  Orchids. Extravagantly beautiful. The card said, ‘‘Run away with me for the weekend.’’ Underneath that, a poem in Collier’s printing:

  Do you believe that we have lived before

  Passed together through some ancient door

  Maybe our spirits can intertwine

  Til there’s no more of yours and no more of mine

  Nina ran her fingers along the underside of one of the white and pink orchids, which bent along with the movement, preening at her attentions.

  The phone buzzed. ‘‘It’s Paul,’’ Sandy said. ‘‘And you’re supposed to be in Zephyr Cove at ten. I got hold of her over the weekend like you said. Don’t forget. Marianne Strong.’’

  ‘‘Hey,’’ Paul said. ‘‘How’s it going, Boss?’’

  ‘‘Hey, Paul. How are you? How’s Washington?’’

  ‘‘Corrupt and scandal-ridden. Oh, you mean Washington? It’s fine. It’s drizzling today. I can see the Washington Monument from my office. It’s a big one. Freud must have laughed his head off.’’

  ‘‘Uh huh.’’

  ‘‘Keeping safe? The kid okay?’’

  ‘‘All’s well, here. Thanks for thinking about us.’’

  ‘‘Good, good,’’ said Paul. ‘‘Heard you’re having a huge snow month.’’

  ‘‘That’s right. We’re up to our eyeballs.’’

  ‘‘What else are you up to?’’

  ‘‘Oh, not much. The usual.’’

  ‘‘Interesting,’’ said Paul, and Nina thought, what, has he got e.s.p. now? She was damned if she was going to say anything about Collier. Paul would have too many opinions.

  ‘‘Well, great to hear from you,’’ she said.

  Paul ignored this cue.

  ‘‘You were wondering how I am,’’ he said. ‘‘After I finished up the big security project, I started guarding this old Senator that everybody likes. We play tennis and I let him win, and then we drink scotch and get even more relaxed.’’

  He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he said, ‘‘I miss the trouble you always get me into.’’

  ‘‘Uh huh.’’

  ‘‘You wouldn’t be in any trouble?’’

  ‘‘Certainly not,’’ Nina said, momentarily startled out of her daze.

  ‘‘Now I know you�
��re not listening,’’ Paul said. ‘‘There’s always something. In fact I heard you took a homicide case. Who’s your investigator?’’

  ‘‘Tony Ramirez. Jeez, Paul. I really have to do something about Sandy. For some reason, with you she gets a major case of loose lips.’’

  ‘‘I’m the only one she would tell. Because she knows I’ll be there to take care of it if you need me.’’

  Again he waited. She couldn’t take her eyes off the flowers. So many gradations of color. So subtle.

  ‘‘In spite of the fact that I’m in Washington, I’ve been thinking,’’ Paul was saying. ‘‘You know—’’

  She interrupted briskly. ‘‘All’s well in the mountains. I’m glad to hear things are going well for you, too.’’

  ‘‘Ah, Nina.’’ It sounded like a sigh.

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Nothing. Watch out for yourself. I’ll check in again.’’

  ‘‘Super. Great to hear from you.’’ She hung up, forgetting about the conversation immediately. Her finger went back to caressing the orchid petal.

  Sandy appeared in the doorway. She appeared to be preparing to deliver a lecture.

  ‘‘Sorry, Sandy. I overreacted,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Some personal issues I was having this morning.’’

  ‘‘This is America. I thought. Right of free association. I thought. Or maybe that doesn’t apply to us—’’

  ‘‘Oh, for crying out loud. I said I was sorry. I was acting like a jerk. I’m sorry. Really.’’

  ‘‘You know which Constitutional Amendment that is?’’

  ‘‘The First. Now, please, give me a break.’’

  ‘‘If you tell me who sent the flowers.’’

  ‘‘Collier.’’

  ‘‘Ah hah!’’

  ‘‘Okay,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Since you’ve raised the topic. Let’s discuss ah hahs. That man, for example, the one— sitting with you when I came in. Joseph.’’

  Sandy disregarded this. ‘‘You ever find out where Hallowell spent the last year?’’ she said.

  ‘‘No, we haven’t talked about it.’’