But as the liquor seeped through his veins, relaxing him or at least suppressing the sudden panic he’d felt, Kyle realized there was no point in even thinking about all that. What mattered now was that he and Donna stuck to the plan. He had to lie low, keeping as far from the Thurgood place as possible despite his urge to go there, to be with the woman he loved. Donna in turn had to play her role without a hitch: the hysterical, grief-stricken wife who couldn’t let her guard down for a moment, not with the cops, not with the friends and family and other well-wishers who’d flock round her in the coming days and weeks.
He’d nearly told her where the painting was, wracked by guilt that he was keeping the secret from her. But he’d managed to hold out, and he was glad. It was one less lie she’d have to tell the cops, that she didn’t know where the picture was. There were plenty of other lies they could catch her out in, of course, but not that one.
The question was when. When would it be safe to tell her where he’d stashed the painting? The answer was: not so early that the police might still interrogate her about it, but not so late that she’d be starting to get pissed off with Kyle for holding out on her, starting to wonder if he planned to skip town with the picture and keep the money for himself.
Yeah, Kyle, he thought. Great answer. So exactly when will this mythical point come? How will you know it’s arrived?
Well, there was no use worrying about that now. He’d have to take each day as it came, follow the news reports as closely as he could to gauge the progress of the police investigation that would follow. And he’d have to find some way of keeping in contact with Donna. They couldn’t meet. They probably couldn’t even talk on the phone without putting themselves at risk. But Kyle couldn’t bear to be completely apart from her for weeks on end.
Aware that he was going to feel like shit in the morning for all sorts of reasons, Kyle took another long hit off the bottle and shuffled down on the bed to wait the night out.
Eight
The next ten days were some of the most trying of Donna’s life.
After the Technicolor chaos of that first night, with the black-and-whites massing in the driveway, their strobing lights splashing the house in garish colors which reminded Donna of the neon through Kyle’s motel room window, the cops both uniformed and plainclothed swarming all over her property, her life had settled into a routine of police questioning alternating with soothing words of comfort which she barely heard from her friends and neighbors. She stayed with her and Blair’s friends the Delaneys, the ones who’d recommended Kyle to her, for the first couple of nights, after which time her parents had arrived from Australia where they were on vacation. They’d offered to take her home with them to Miami but she declined, saying she wanted to go back to her house as soon as possible to face life there. Compromising, they persuaded her to let them stay in the house with her until she felt ready to be alone. Donna was thankful for their presence. It took her mind to some degree off Kyle, and off the painting.
Her mom gave her some of her Xanax and Donna took it for show, though she made sure she didn’t swallow another after the first dose, which left her so zonked out she felt dangerously out of control. For more than a week she kept up the pretense admirably, she believed, playing the newly bereaved spouse for all she was worth. She’d be morose and listless, then seem to perk up unaccountably before breaking down in jags of weeping.
The house stopped being a crime scene after a few days. The cops dusted every imaginable surface for prints and DNA, interviewed the neighbors, asked Donna again and again if she knew of any reason why her husband might have turned off the alarm system including the sensors surrounding the property while he was home alone at night. She’d been unable to think of one. Eventually the visits from the cops had become less frequent before stopping altogether. But Donna jumped every time the doorbell went, expecting not the well-wishing neighbor who was inevitably standing there with a home-baked pie or similar offering, but some scruffy Columbo-like detective who’d wag his finger and say: Ma’am, just one more thing…
During the entire ten days she didn’t hear from Kyle, nor did she attempt to contact him.
On the tenth day the shit hit the fan.
Her parents had reluctantly gone home to Miami, at her insistence. After they’d left Donna walked through the empty house, relishing the feeling of being alone. She debated calling Kyle but decided not to. Not yet.
That morning she had a meeting with Blair’s lawyer. Donna dressed in black, not overdoing the act with a veil or anything, and drove downtown, thankful for the airconditioning in the Mercedes and dreading stepping out into the heat in her dark clothes.
The lawyer, Bill Feakins, was a grave but likeable enough guy. He shook her hand, gave her his deepest condolences. Donna smiled quickly, business-like, as though trying to mask acute pain beneath an air of practicality. Feakins watched her steadily as he sat her down and began discussing preliminaries, and she began to feel uneasy at his manner. It was as if he was preparing her for something.
And then it all came out. How Blair had changed his will some six months earlier. How he’d not only bequeathed the Allevi painting, the multi-million-dollar work of art, to a home for stray mutts – something Donna knew already, from what Blair had told Kyle – but that he’d willed his entire fortune to assorted causes. Environmental campaigns, political think-tanks, cancer research. Stuff Donna knew her late husband – not to put too fine a point on it – hadn’t cared a flying fuck about.
It wasn’t his entire fortune, of course. That would have been too easy to contest in court. No, he’d been very careful to leave Donna with what most people would consider a “reasonable amount”. She had the house, which she wouldn’t be able to afford to maintain, though she’d more than likely get a decent price for it if she sold it, even in the current economic climate. She’d have enough to live on, if she was willing to rent an apartment in a crappy part of town, wear hand-me-downs, and vacation on some dismal local Atlantic beach once in a blue moon. But there certainly wasn’t enough to live comfortably on.
And there for goddam sure wasn’t enough to support two people.
You bastard, she thought. You gold-plated son-of-a-bitch.
Her tears were ones of fury, though the lawyer, Feakins, mistook them for signs of grief or disappointment, or both. He patted her hand ineffectually and, at the first opportunity, got his PA to come and provide a little womanly support to Donna while he excused himself, citing another pressing appointment.
And that was that. Donna accepted the woman’s sympathy and a cup of coffee, too outraged to put up any resistance. An hour later Donna was back in the Mercedes, heading home.
Well, this changed things. No longer could she afford months of lying low while she converted the painting into cash and salted it away discreetly. But if she rushed things, if the painting was sold too hastily, the already suspicious police would get wind of it.
Donna felt the shimmering summer heat crowd in on the car like a slowly tightening trap.
*
Kyle was strolling through MidTown at a loose end late one afternoon when he saw it.
Almost two weeks had passed since the fateful encounter at the Thurgood mansion. He’d cleaned pools – not the Thurgoods’, but those belonging to other regular customers of his, plus a couple of new ones – and spent his evenings frequenting bars and playing pool. As the days went by he fought an increasingly powerful impulse to get roaring drunk and get into a fight, anything to release the tension that was building within him. He avoided the attentions of women who came on to him, pissing one or two of them off with his reluctance to rise to their bait so that they clearly thought he was gay. Once he nearly succumbed, when an eighteen-year-old blonde of amazing sexiness led him onto the dance floor of a country-and-western bar and practically dry-humped him there in front of the cheering onlookers. His blood surged, the beer he’d drunk making him feel reckless, and suddenly he felt the urge for anonymous, meaningless se
x with this hot, willing girl. But he managed to resist, thoughts of Donna filling his mind, and he disentangled himself to the sounds of disbelieving catcalls.
Every day, morning and night and several times in between, he took out his phone and stared at it, his finger poised over the key that would dial her number. Just to hear her voice for ten seconds… that couldn’t do any harm, could it? But he held off. What if the cops had her phone tapped? Unlikely, but possible. No, he’d wait for her to make the first move when she thought the coast was clear.
The job this afternoon had fallen through. When Kyle had arrived at his new client’s property he’d found the gates locked. He’d called the guy, who’d clearly forgotten he was coming, wasn’t home, and asked if Kyle could reschedule for next week. Depressed by the extra hours of idleness ahead of him, Kyle had driven around aimlessly before deciding to go check out some of the electrical appliance stores.
And it was there, in the window of one such store, that he caught sight of something that froze his blood instantly, the shock of recognition pinning him to the spot.
Banks of TV screens of various sizes and shapes were stacked in the window, all of them tuned to the same channel. And on every screen was his, Kyle’s face.
Except it wasn’t quite his face. It was a police identikit picture, a computer-generated image far more lifelike than the old sketches by police artists they used to show on TV. The nose was a little too thick, the chin too small. But the hair was pretty good, and the eyes were just right.
‘Ah, shit,’ he breathed. ‘Ah, Christ.’
He stepped up to the window to try and hear what was being said, but of course he couldn’t. On the screen his face disappeared, to be replaced by an reporter from one of the local stations. The guy was standing in front of the Thurgood mansion, talking earnestly at the camera. There followed a blurred photo of Blair, evidently taken some years ago when his hair was thicker.
The reporter came back, reached the end of his spiel, and lingered for a few seconds, staring grimly at the camera. At Kyle, deep into his eyes, as if to accuse him directly.
The image cut away to another story, something about a local political rally, but Kyle had already turned away and was striding down the street, his senses heightened, every looming passerby a potential threat, every car horn the first in a cascade of sounds that would accompany his takedown and arrest. He weaved this way and that, as though trying to lose himself, finding himself on streets he’d never known existed, all the while with the heat beating up off the baking tarmac and the smells of the city a heady blend in his head.
Somehow they’d connected him with the burglary, and with Blair’s death. Somehow, he’d fucked up.
Was it Thurgood’s driver? Kyle tried to recall the man’s name. Brooker? No, Rooker. He’d been giving Kyle the evil eye from the start, had sat there smirking while Blair had slapped Donna. He’d slashed Kyle’s tires at his master’s request. Was he ratting out Kyle now? But how did he know?
Needing to find out more details, but too nervous to go into a bar and watch the TV there, Kyle walked the streets for another hour until he judged the next bulletin was due. Then he found a large appliance store and went in, the cool air sweeping over him welcomely. He wandered the aisles, politely fending off a clerk who asked if he needed any help, until he found himself among the TVs at the rear. Pretending to inspect the various models, he flipped channels. The local one came on and he waited.
There was the signature tune of the news bulletin, and there was the anchorwoman. Kyle touched the volume button, bringing the sound up just loud enough to hear.
‘…breakthrough in the Thurgood burglary and killing,’ the anchor was saying. ‘Police have issued a computer image of a man who was witnessed leaving the scene soon after the estimated time of Blair Thurgood’s fatal shooting.’ The identikit filled the screen, almost making Kyle step back. ‘The man, as yet unnamed, is described as being approximately twenty years old, six feet one or two, weight approximately one hundred and eighty pounds, with long blond hair. He is reported to be extremely dangerous and members of the public are advised not to approach him directly but instead to call the number appearing on the bottom of your screen right now.’
Kyle jerked his head round as he felt somebody approach, but it was just a teenager, giving the TVs a once-over, chewing gum and nodding his head to the sounds issuing though his headphones. The kid moved away and Kyle turned his attention back to the screen.
Again there was the old photo of Thurgood. Then Kyle got another shock, one that did make him step back this time. The anchorwoman was back on camera, but an inset in the top right-hand corner of the screen showed a different face. A young woman, dark-haired, smiling brilliantly.
Madison. The girl he’d talked to by the pool.
‘The anchorwoman went on: ‘This morning a local woman, Madison Silva, came forward identifying herself as the girlfriend of Blair Thurgood. She claimed she’d come to visit him on the evening of his death when she saw the man depicted in the computer image we’ve just shown, departing through the gates of the Thurgood property. Ms Silva recognized him as the man she’d seen cleaning the Thurgoods’ pool, and knew him by only his first name, Kyle. Ms Silva claims she tried calling Blair Thurgood on his cellphone but got no reply. Afraid his wife might be home, she left. She claims further that she was afraid to come forward before now because she believed she might be suspected of involvement in Blair Thurgood’s death. However, she told police that her conscience would no longer permit her to remain silent.’
There was some crap from the detective in charge of the investigation about how Blair was a pillar of the community and how no stone would be left unturned in tracking down his killer, before the program switched to the next item.
Kyle continued to stare unseeingly at the screen, thinking. She was there? He ran the events of that evening through his memory once more. But where? In the woods? And when exactly had she seen him?
No. It was impossible. She was making it up. She’d worked out somehow that he was the guilty party, and she was claiming to have seen him when she hadn’t. Or maybe she didn’t know anything. Maybe she was guessing Kyle was involved, or maybe Blair had told her that Donna and Kyle were having an affair and she, Madison, was using Kyle to get at Donna.
Whatever the answer was, it changed the game. It wouldn’t be long before people identified Kyle from that computer image and the cops revealed his full name to the public. He couldn’t go do any of his cleaning jobs. Couldn’t even go back to his motel. What he had to do was get the hell out of Columbus, out of the county, out of the state if need be. But where to? He couldn’t head home to Tennessee; he’d be too well recognised there. South, maybe, to Florida and the anonymity a big city like Miami could provide.
But what about Donna? And the painting? He couldn’t leave her behind, nor the picture.
Kyle stumbled out into the heat once more, the bright afternoon light blinding him temporarily. He clamped on his sunglasses, wishing they covered his entire face. Feeling vaguely absurd, he tried to recall movies he’d seen about people on the run. Should he cut his hair? Dye it? Buy a false mustache?
The noise of traffic and the pounding of the blood in his ears were so great that for a moment Kyle didn’t notice his cellphone was buzzing. When it registered with him he pulled it out and held it away from him like it was some giant humming insect he’d found in his pocket.
He stared at the display. No caller’s name was featured. But he knew it could be only one person.
Kyle stopped walking and thumbed the answer key. He listened in silence.
‘Kyle?’
‘Donna?’ Relief, and pleasure at hearing her voice, flooded through him. ‘Where –’
‘Have you seen the news?’ she cut in.
‘Yeah.’
‘We need to meet up.’
*
She was almost unrecognizable. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail which poked through the back of a re
d Atlanta Braves baseball cap. A loose-fitting T-shirt flapped untucked over eighties-style acid-wash jeans and white Converse sneakers. As far as Kyle could tell, under the big dark glasses she wore no makeup.
Almost unrecognizable. But Donna’s killer body was something she couldn’t conceal, not in heat like this.
She came walking down the street purposefully; like she was in a hurry on the way to a game or something. Kyle stepped out of the shade of an awning and fell in beside her, matching her stride.
‘Hi,’ he murmured.
‘Kyle,’ she acknowledged without looking at him.
He wanted to stop, turn her, take her in his arms. Press his lips to hers. Instead he kept walking alongside her.
‘She couldn’t have seen me, Donna. It isn’t possible.’
‘Evidently she did.’
‘She’s worked it out, somehow. But she didn’t see me.’
‘Either way.’ Her step faltered a little. Glancing at her, he could see the strain in Donna’s face, the tautness of the skin over her cheekbones below the glasses.
They were in MidTown. Kyle had suggested the rendezvous point and loitered around the chosen spot. He was nervous about returning to his truck, which was in a public car park several blocks away, in case the cops were waiting for him there. Which was paranoid and stupid, he knew.
‘We have to get out,’ he said.
Donna stopped, and it took him a second to break his own momentum. He turned to face her.
‘Where’s the painting, Kyle?’ she said quietly.
‘I need to get it.’
‘Where is it? Tell me.’ An edge had crept into her voice.
‘If I tell you they could still pull you in. You might crack.’
‘Damn it, Kyle.’ He winced, holding up a hand to signal her to keep her voice down. She continued, fractionally more quietly. ‘Stop treating me like a child. You’re the one whose picture’s all over TV. It’ll be on every newsstand by tomorrow morning, too. And you think I’m the one who’s at risk of getting caught?’
Drifter's Blues (Erotic Noir) Page 9
