A Death Before Dying (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  Only the variable of the police remained.

  At five o’clock in the evening, in a midwinter rainstorm, the police probably wouldn’t question a driver traversing this road without lights. They might keep him under surveillance, but they wouldn’t take the time to question him. This, after all, was the commute hour. And the rush hour—the dinner hour—wasn’t the time for dark deeds.

  But as the night lengthened, the park emptied. Except for the main drive, there were no streetlights. Shadows changed substance; familiar landmarks disappeared. The man-made parkland became a jungle. In the darkness, animal sounds began. Predators emerged and began to prowl—animal predators and human predators.

  And the police, too, began to prowl. Spotlights were turned on couples entwined in parked cars. Empty cars were investigated, their license plates were computer-checked. A car running without lights on a back road would likewise be checked, possibly stopped.

  But the only alternative was one of the park’s paved roads, where hiding places were far from the curbside. Carrying his telltale burden across open country, he would be exposed, could be impaled in the cold white glare of a spotlight’s shaft. He would be—

  Ahead, two shapes emerged in the windshield. Startled, he reached for the headlight switch. It was a man—a tramp, walking beside a rain-bedraggled dog, both of them turned to face the oncoming car. In outrage, the man’s mouth was open, his voice fading as the car’s speed increased: “—the fuck you think you’re—” And the dog, aroused, began to bark.

  6:10 P.M. Meredith shook out her hair, toweled off her face, and looked at her wristwatch that lay beside the washbasin. In twenty minutes the network news would begin. There was time, then, to complete the daily ritual. Standing in front of the bathroom’s steam-misted full-length mirror, she would towel herself, scent herself, comb out her hair while it was still damp. She would wrap herself in the thick white terry-cloth robe. She would then go to the kitchen, select a stemmed glass from the Lucite rack beneath the cabinet, and pour a glass of cold Chenin Blanc. With five minutes to spare, she would settle herself in front of the TV.

  Of all the daily rituals that had become her life during the past two years, this was her favorite: Sitting on the sofa, luxuriating in the terry cloth’s caress on bare flesh while she sipped the wine, feet tucked up, she could contemplate another day that was more than half finished. If he didn’t call, dinner preparations and a TV movie would get her through until eleven o’clock, when she could go to bed.

  Facing the mirror, she toweled her torso, then her arms, then each leg. That morning the scales had revealed two extra pounds. Tonight, then, she would prepare a salad. Two glasses of wine would be her limit.

  Unless he called.

  She strapped on her watch, pinned up her hair, and wrapped the tawny bundle in the towel. With her arms raised, elevating the breasts, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, another daily ritual, every woman’s fate, she’d always imagined. If a man suffered to pay the bills, then this was the woman’s penance: this daily confrontation. She allowed her arms to fall and turned to the right, in profile. Yes, the silhouette was acceptable. Still acceptable, offering the promise of a few more years, the end of a long free ride.

  She opened the bathroom door, took the terry-cloth robe from the wardrobe closet, wrapped it around herself. Years ago, she’d seen a vintage movie from the thirties, the title long forgotten, along with the plot. All that remained was the image of Norma Shearer, elegant in a thick white terry-cloth robe, her hair towel-turbaned.

  She’d been married to Gary when she saw the movie. One of Gary’s restaurants was in Hollywood and attracted a scattering of patrons from the fringes of the movie industry: assistants to assistants, bit players, a few stunt men. It had always amused her to see them coming on to each other, posing, preening, showing the profile, dropping names.

  In the kitchen, as she poured the Chenin Blanc, she glanced at her watch. Almost six-thirty. She could—

  Close beside her, the phone rang.

  She placed the glass of wine on the counter. As she turned to face the phone, she felt the numbness begin, the retreat into a waking oblivion that shriveled the soul.

  Because it must be he, calling. Who else could it be?

  7:30 P.M. With the time coming closer, preparations must be finalized. Psychic preparations, not physical preparations. The physical arrangements were complete. Since yesterday, when fate had taken a hand in the sequence of events, the chamber had been readied. The camera had been loaded, its function checked. The lighting had been optimized. After considerable thought, he’d decided on the music: Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead. Then he’d gone to the gallery and carefully selected complementary pieces: a collage by Walsh, a painting by Dubinsky, premier Mayan artifacts he’d been saving for something special. Then he’d summoned Charles, to finalize the time frame.

  After Charles was gone he’d switched on Isle of the Dead, timing the entire symphony. When the French horn began to play in the second movement, he decided, the ceremony would begin. At the crescendo ending the second movement, he would give her to Charles.

  During the time between now and then, he must prepare himself. As meticulously as the priest rehearsed the rituals of his sect, or the conductor scored a symphony, or the actor immersed himself in his greatest part, so must he bring himself to full self-realization.

  When—how—had it happened, his emergence, his realization that whatever he conceived he could command? It had begun, certainly, in the dark, secret rooms where women tended him.

  Faceless women who existed only in shadow.

  His mother existed only in light: flickers and flashes and flares. The other women were obscured. Permanently obscured.

  The women stayed, but his mother left and returned, then left again. One of the women taught him to touch her—and then she touched him, his reward.

  Other images followed: girls, boys, whispering, touching softly, touching harshly, sensations that soared, sensations that consumed, promises never fulfilled, penalties never paid.

  The only constant was the whore, his fingers locked around her throat.

  Sex, then, was the secret. But sex transcended. The price was high, the terms specific. Money was part of it, but entitlement was what remained: Certain superior beings were destined to pierce the veil, step through to the other side, take what inferiors could only covet.

  There were many who sought to self-destruct. With him or without him, they would have killed themselves. Drugs, cars, the streets—there were countless ways, all of them leaving him merely a spectator, denied his own fulfillment.

  And then had come Tina Betts.

  And then, one of life’s little coincidences, Charles had appeared. And the unity had been completed.

  And so Tina Betts had become his last duchess.

  The price—the penalty—had been Charles. Without Charles, he could never have done it. And without him, Charles would never have done it.

  “Could” and “would,” two sides of the same fateful coin. Words that could bind, deeds that would kill.

  9:30 P.M. About to touch the radio’s ON switch, she drew back her hand. Music could soothe, sometimes anesthetize, make the mind a merciful blank. But this trip must be made in silence, in full awareness.

  Because this trip could begin her liberation.

  Time had doubtless begun the process. Only yesterday, it seemed, she’d been thirty. Only tomorrow, she’d be forty. Time was running out: ever more sand in the bottom of the hourglass. But then she’d found Albert Price. She’d taken the first step, unaided. And then, one of life’s benevolent accidents, she’d met Frank Hastings, a face from the past—and more.

  It had been three hours since tonight’s call had come.

  As she’d done for almost two years, she’d begun the process of the unthinkable that had become the predictable. She’d scented herself and anointed herself with oil, a phrase from the Bible, one she’d never forgotten, because of its
poetry, its imagery. Carefully she’d made up her face, mindful, she knew, of the camera, an involuntary response, everyone a star, wishfully thinking. Because her hair would be disarrayed, she’d done it loosely. For her underclothing, a sheer lace bra and matching lace panties, on command. Like the underclothing, the dress was chosen for its sexual utility: unloosen a belt, release two snaps, and it fell free.

  Sometimes, as she dressed for him, it seemed as if she was really wearing two tassels and a rhinestone G-string.

  But other times she saw no difference between the dress she wore and the black cocktail dress, tasteful single strand of pearls—real pearls—and the impeccable coiffeur and smile that many women parlayed into seven-figure marriages, even including children, part of the package deal.

  She was driving south on Van Ness. Ahead, at the Broadway intersection, traffic was stopped; a police car’s signal lights were flashing, alternating red and blue.

  Fate had taken a hand, then, delaying her arrival. She would, of course, mention the traffic problem. He’d told her to be there by ten o’clock, a direct order.

  Now traffic was moving; the lights on the police cars were no longer flashing. Reluctantly she put the Mercedes in gear.

  When she searched for answers, asked herself why she did it, was doing it, had she factored in the Mercedes? And the condo? And the clothes? And had she admitted that, yes, the games they played excited her?

  She’d heard about snuff films and the games. She’d heard that, once aroused, the edge of oblivion could make her orgasm explode. He’d offered to show her. And she’d accepted—just as she’d accepted the car, and the condo, and the clothes. He enticed, she went along. What pervert could ask for more—for a better return on his investment?

  But the first time she felt his fingers at her throat, the first time the edges of her consciousness began to blacken, she knew she’d gone too far. Finally she’d gone too far.

  It was then that he’d told her about Tina Betts. That very night, as they lay in bed, afterward.

  And it was then, months ago, that she’d first thought about a psychiatrist. Some women drank. Some took drugs to ease the pain. She’d decided to try psychiatry.

  The next day, at random, mostly because his office was at 450 Sutter, a prestige address, she’d called Dr. Price.

  And tonight, after she’d finished dressing, she’d taken Frank’s card from her purse. She’d gone to her desk. She’d selected a sheet of thick, blue notepaper and a matching envelope. Like the desk, and the tooled leather blotter, and the other accessories, the notepaper had been chosen for her, all a part of the grand design. She’d addressed the envelope to Lieutenant Frank Hastings, at the Hall of Justice. After some thought—with the time going fast—she’d decided to begin by thanking him for lunch. Then she’d said she’d like to buy him lunch, what about next Tuesday, same time, same place? She knew he was busy, she said. But there was something, she went on, that she had to talk to him about. Something very important.

  At lunch she’d tell Frank everything. Even though she was ashamed, she would tell him everything. He would tell her what she must do. A sealed letter telling everything could be put in a safe-deposit box, to be opened in the event of her death.

  Suddenly it seemed a favorable omen, this sequence of events. If she hadn’t gone to Dr. Price, she wouldn’t have met Frank. It was a miraculous coincidence. She had helped herself, and would now be helped by others. In Reader’s Digest, long ago, she’d read about upward spirals: people who ascended, people who descended. Both spirals, the article had said, had their own momentum.

  She turned the last corner and brought the Mercedes to a stop in front of his house. The time was exactly ten o’clock. As she set the alarm and locked the Mercedes, she let her fingers linger on the roofline above the door. She would miss this car.

  10:45 P.M. Charles realized that, yes, the tension of the last half hour had become palpable. It was important, he knew, to acknowledge the tension, recognize it for what it was. He was afraid. This time he was afraid. The first time there’d been no fear. Instead, two years ago, there’d been a kind of schoolboy bravado: dare and double dare. Then her eyes had rolled up, and her whole body had begun to twitch.

  They’d done it.

  They’d agreed to do it. They’d planned to do it. But until that last moment it had been theory, not fact. It had been the perfect synthesis: the carnal and the aesthetic and the theoretical, the Tina Betts unity. But when her eyes had rolled up and she’d begun to twitch, and her urine had soaked the bed, the unity had shattered. They’d been scared. Just plain scared. Terrified.

  Then he hadn’t known what the ending would be.

  Now, tonight, he knew.

  Two years ago, before the fact, he hadn’t been able to define why he did it. Was it pure aesthetics? Was it ambition? Greed? Then, an actor without a script, he hadn’t known.

  Now, tonight, he knew.

  He stood guard at the head of the staircase. Resting on the intricately carved newel post, his hand was slightly trembling. Was it fear? Anticipation?

  Two years ago there’d been no time for anticipation, therefore no time for fear. Thus doth conscience make cowards of us all. It was a line from Shakespeare. Except that conscience really meant thought, reflection, worry. The teacher had been careful to point that out. Miss Crawford, the eleventh-grade English teacher. He’d been one of her favorites. She’d sensed his special talents. “They’ll hear from you, Charles,” she’d once said. “You may be famous someday.”

  10:50 P.M. Eyes closed, she felt his fingers touch her breast, at first so lightly, so delicately. Now she felt her body beginning its response. It was an autonomic response, a term she’d learned in nursing school, so long ago. Her body, then, would go along with the game, just this one last time. Leaving her free to let her eyes close, let her thoughts run free. Sometimes she was a child again, laughing as she opened presents. Christmas presents, usually. Especially the Christmas she got a two-wheeler. The memory of that Christmas morning with the bike beside the tree was magical.

  But now, tonight, the images failed her, turned back on her: phantasms, fugitive from nightmares. In bed—a narrow bed in a small, dark room—she’d awakened at the click of the doorknob. Two clicks, really: two tiny sounds, nothing more.

  But after he’d first done it, come into her room the first time, and drawn back the covers, and come into her bed, those two clicks had seared her consciousness. At first there’d been the clicks, followed by the squeak of the hinges as the door opened—followed by the sound of his footsteps on the bare floor of her room. Then came the odor of his breath: harsh, stale liquor. Always the odor of liquor. Then came the touch of his hand on the bedclothing, drawing back the covers.

  He’d never been able to change the sound of the doorknob clicking. But, after the first time, he’d oiled the hinges so they wouldn’t squeak.

  She bought a skeleton key at Taylor’s Hardware, but the key hadn’t worked. Neither had another. Or another. Using her allowance money, she’d gone downtown to another hardware store. She’d bought a set of three skeleton keys, with instructions. One of them worked.

  Three nights later the rattle of the lock had awakened her. One rattle, then another rattle. Instantly she’d realized the danger: Her mother would hear the angry rattling. Her mother would know.

  So she’d gotten out of bed and unlocked the door.

  Two small metallic clicks, when she was eleven years old.

  Transformed, now, into the almost inaudible whir of the video camera.

  11:15 P.M. As he placed his hands on her shoulders he saw her eyes close. It was an aberration, utterly out of phase, an impermissible liberty. She knew the importance of precise replication. She was aware that her eyes must remain open until her knees touched the floor. Therefore, discipline was mandatory. But the flays were beyond his reach—and time was passing. His contract with Charles was self-limiting, inherently irreversible.

  Slowly, therefore, he
exerted pressure, forcing her to her knees beside the bed. The floor was oaken; the small Persian rug marked the camera’s field. Her knees were touching the rug, centered. Thus the circle was closed.

  Unless she opened her eyes.

  At the thought, he felt the first flicker of fear, the first telltale tremor. It was expected, already factored in, therefore discounted. His breath was coming quicker. That, too, had been anticipated, combining arousal and apprehension. The word, after all, cause and effect, was “murder.”

  Her breathing, too, had quickened. This was the sign, the signal. As he moved his body closer, his flesh upon hers, precisely as he’d instructed her, his last command, he was aware that his hands were moving. Without conscious volition, his hands were moving in unison, moving from the firm flesh of her shoulders to the softer, more yielding flesh of her throat.

  Without volition, therefore without guilt.

  11:18 P.M. She felt his hands move slowly from her shoulders to her throat. His touch was delicate, incredibly knowing, a master’s touch: artist’s fingers, probing, shaping, exploring. Sometimes he whispered: strange, fragmented phrases. Sometimes he was silent, as he was tonight. She realized that her body was arching, moving closer to his. His fingers caressed the back of her neck, under the hair. His thumbs rested against her throat, one thumb on either side. The music was swelling; the crescendo was approaching. Rachmaninoff had become her fate. Where the music went, she must follow. Until death—The Isle of the Dead. Had he intended it to be a joke, one of his little jokes? She would never know.

  Never know …

  Was this room—this chamber—soundproofed? She’d never thought to ask. Had she ever heard a sound from outside? She couldn’t remember.

  In the mailbox at the corner of her block the letter to Frank awaited collection, her salvation.

  At her throat, the pressure was increasing. The music was swelling. Her eyes came open. His eyes were wild: stranger’s eyes, a madman’s eyes. Struggling to rise, she struck at him, felt fingernails sink into flesh. But the music was fading; her legs were failing. With consciousness caught in her throat, bursting, clogging, the center was falling away, a confusion of lights dancing against darkness. Her arms were growing heavy; her legs had gone slack. Only memories remained. Random images: the patent-leather dancing shoes she’d loved, the pink-colored conch shell Grandma Ferguson kept on her coffee table—