Warning Signs

by Stephen White

"Leo Bigg's story came up in a therapy session. I just thought that you might have known him."

  "Leo's not dead, Alan. He's in prison. And, yes, I do know him. He was a good doc-is a good doc. Everything you'd want in an oncologist. But my suspicion is that that's not what you wanted to know. You want to know about his tragedies, don't you? You want to know whether he was the kind of guy who would do what he did?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Everyone who knew him was shocked at what he did. Everyone. He found something most of us, thank God, never find-he found his breaking point. The weight of his heartbreak must have simply overwhelmed him. I can't explain what he did any other way."

  I thought about Marin, the rape, and I nodded. "Did you know his family? His wife?"

  "I probably met his wife at parties, but I don't remember her well. Those were the days before Jonas was born, and the Biggs already had kids. Plus the Biggs always floated a few social strata above Peter and me. They wouldn't hang with us. It would have been slumming for them."

  "Lauren and I hang with you."

  "Like I said, slumming."

  Anvil had succeeded in curling up on Adrienne's lap. Emily was still nosing around in search of treats, nudging Adrienne in the flanks as though she were reluctant livestock. Adrienne relented and gave each of the dogs a biscuit from her pocket. She rarely went outside unprepared to indulge the dogs.

  She said, "Now tell me about Rin Tin Tin."

  Instead of answering I asked, "How's Susan Peterson doing?"

  She laughed. "You want me to discuss someone else's bladder control with you? Are you psychotic? Tell me-who's Rin Tin Tin?"

  "The woman is someone I met recently. She's a disabled police officer who trains K-9 dogs to supplement her income. She likes to take her dogs on what she calls 'field trips' as part of their training. I offered to let her use our place. She came in here by mistake."

  "That's the best you can do?"

  "Most of it's true."

  She laughed loudly.

  "The rest I can't tell you."

  "Figures. Bet you want me to keep my suspicions from your wife, too, don't you?"

  "How'd you guess?"

  She stood and returned her attention to the boxes. I asked her if she wanted my help finding something.

  She said, "You think I want you to search through my stuff? There're important things in here."

  I jumped down from the workbench and started to leave the barn.

  Adrienne said, "I ever tell you that being your neighbor is no picnic?"

  "Yeah, you've told me. That being the case, it's probably fortunate for me that you love me."

  "True. By the by, call my office and set up a time with Phyllis. I think I do want to get a nice slow feel of your prostate."

  Under my breath, I said, "Fat chance."

  Adrienne said, "I heard that."

  CHAPTER 25

  L ucy Tanner didn't go home right away after leaving Alan's office.

  Shortly after she'd been old enough to drive she'd discovered that nothing she did gave her the succor and peace she felt when she was alone behind the wheel of a car. As a younger woman, she'd required open roads and speed to achieve the contentment she sought from her automobile. During the first few years after she'd graduated from college, she'd thought nothing of driving alone from Colorado to San Diego and back on a long weekend to sneak in a few hours surfing in Encinitas.

  The trips were a lark. The surfing was usually a thrill. The driving was a necessity.

  Now she could achieve some modicum of solace simply by driving city streets or cruising the narrow canyons that snaked into the foothills above Boulder. The speed to which she was once addicted was no longer necessary. A dirt lane up Magnolia served her purposes as well as a wide-open interstate on Floyd Hill up I-70. The turbo boost on her cherry-red Volvo was about as essential for her as a box of condoms was to a nun. She was thinking it was time to trade the car in for something else, though she couldn't decide exactly what.

  When she left Alan's office, Lucy headed north on Broadway, paralleling the naked hogbacks that ridged Boulder's western rim. Her fiancé, Grant, lived in a townhouse in Niwot, a once-charming rest stop of a village that had grown into an extra bedroom for Boulder's expanding family. She weaved east until she connected with the Diagonal Highway and started the familiar route to her boyfriend's house a few miles down the road. She barely noticed the soft colors that were illuminating the clouds above the hogbacks.

  Lucy knew Grant wasn't home. He was in the field, somewhere in central Wyoming, doing a wildlife survey. She'd received an e-mail from him that morning and had sent one back his way, a don't-worry-about-me-I'm-doing-fine pack of lies. Her journey to his home wasn't about seeing him; it was about driving to see him. She looped past his house twice, finally parking for a moment in the place beneath the big cottonwood where she usually left her car when she was spending the night.

  Her engine running, she listened to Gloria Estefan sing something in Spanish. The backbeat was invigorating but the tone was lamenting. Gloria obviously wasn't pleased about something, but Lucy didn't remember enough of her high school Spanish to know exactly what. As the song ended and the disc jockey moved into a commercial for an herbal elixir that he promised was just as potent as Viagra, Lucy touched a button to change stations, pulled out from beneath the cottonwood, and steered her way back onto the Diagonal, this time heading toward Boulder.

  She stayed on the Diagonal until it ended, and then stayed on Iris until she reached Broadway, where she turned south. She'd arrived at a decision as she was stopped at the light at Twenty-eighth Street. Her next stop was going to be the home of the Bigg family. She'd already checked their address. They lived south of Baseline in a cul-de-sac below Chautauqua.

  She cruised the cul-de-sac only once. Four houses on big lots. The garage door was open on one of the houses on the corner. Somebody was working on an old motorcycle with a sidecar. A dozen lights were ablaze in the two-story Bigg home. One car-a six- or seven-year-old BMW-was parked in the driveway; two more cars were on the street nearby.

  She jotted down the plates on all the vehicles, hoping that she'd happened upon an evening visit by the man named Ramp. But she didn't think so. Lucy wasn't feeling particularly lucky.

  Sixth took her back toward downtown. But she didn't make it all the way downtown. All along she knew that the Peterson home would be her last stop before heading back to her place.

  She cruised Jay Street twice, slowing each time in front of the Peterson house. The lawn had been mowed for the first time that spring. The crime-scene tape was down. The do-not-enter warnings were gone from the front door. The light in one of the upstairs windows was dim, not dark. The ubiquitous flicker of the television screen from Susan Peterson's bedroom, present. She's back home, Lucy thought during her first pass. She felt an urge to park around the corner where she'd always left her car during her prior visits, but resisted, settling instead for permitting herself one more loop past the house.

  On her final drive by the house she wondered if she wished things were the same as they always were. As they were a couple of weeks before.

  She couldn't decide. She found that interesting, still.

  Although she'd promised herself that no matter what she saw in the upstairs window, she absolutely wouldn't stop, she pulled over to the curb and parked her car behind an aging Toyota pickup, killing the engine in the middle of a melancholy ballad by Sinéad O'Connor.

  That's one girl, she told herself, who's more confused than I am.

  Lucy reached over to the passenger seat and checked her purse to make sure she had everything she might need.

  She did.

  The air was heavy, the way it is in July when a thunderstorm has just passed. But the April night was dry. A chill permeated her clothing. Lucy kept her head down, counting curb sections, reading the dates imprinted on the borders of the cement work. The oldest section she found had been installed in 1958.

  Ni
neteen fifty-eight must have been a very good year for concrete. The pour was still in good shape. By comparison, some of the newer sections, including one done in 1993, already appeared due for replacement.

  She had to cross over Pleasant Street to get to the Peterson home. When she looked up from her reverie to check for traffic, she was almost hit by a bicycle riding on the wrong side of the street.

  The walkway that led from the sidewalk to the Petersons' front door was constructed of brick pavers set in a herringbone pattern. The path meandered from start to finish in the elongated shape of a lazy S. Lucy cut the curves, straightening the path into a line.

  She had no illusions that she'd find Susan Peterson home alone. She suspected that Susan would have convinced someone-one of her doctors, probably-that her husband's murder had left her in need of a full-time aide. Lucy knew that there was another possibility-that instead of an aide, Susan's caretaker might be one of Susan and Royal's daughters.

  Either way, Lucy knew that whomever she discovered in the house would be a woman.

  Susan didn't like men close by.

  L ucy had never used her key in the front door lock, didn't know if it would even work. Since she'd had the key, she'd always come in through the back door.

  She tried the key in the front lock. The thin metal wand slid into the brass slot naturally, as though it belonged. She rotated her hand and the key turned evenly in the lock. She depressed the thumb lever and pushed the heavy door inward. It released with a gentle whoosh and Lucy stepped inside the house.

  She paused. The living room was to her right. She tried not to think about that night. About Royal.

  About Sam.

  "You okay, Luce?"

  She failed in her attempt to ward off memories of that night; the images flooding her left her feeling a momentary pulse of disorientation. The same almost-vertigo she'd felt when Sam was kneeling over the body.

  "Holy shit. You know who this is, Luce?"

  She shook her head to clear the slate. Ever since she was a little girl she'd cleared her head the same way she'd erased images from her Etch A Sketch. This time it took two shakes.

  The stairs to the second floor were right in front of her.

  Lucy heard water running in the kitchen at the rear of the house. That would be the aide or the daughter.

  Staying to the far right edge of the staircase because Royal had warned her once that a couple of the treads squeaked, Lucy took the stairs one at a time. She didn't touch the banister.

  From the landing at the top of the stairs, she could see that the door to Susan's bedroom was almost closed. Through the narrow opening Lucy could hear the distinct sound of the television.

  Martha frigging Stewart.

  She paused and thought about Grant.

  She was consciously aware that she was looking for a reason to go back down the stairs, back out the door, back into her bright red Volvo. But Grant wasn't going to be that reason. He'd find out everything soon enough and at that point he'd do what he'd do. Lucy thought he'd run like hell, but allowed for the possibility that he might surprise her.

  With her left hand Lucy reached into her purse. With her right hand she pushed open the door.

  Susan looked up, probably to demand something of the aide.

  Lucy said, "Susan. We need to talk."

  CHAPTER 26

  L ucy e-mailed her fiancé before she scrubbed the makeup from her eyes and slid into bed. She wrote to tell him that she loved him, but she knew in her heart that her words were nothing more than shouting in a canyon.

  What she really wanted to hear was the echo.

  W hen the phone rang twenty minutes later, she still wasn't asleep. Wasn't even close to being asleep. She checked the time out of curiosity. The clock read 11:05.

  "Hello."

  "Lucy Tanner?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Brett Salomon from The Daily Camera."

  In a clear voice, a cop voice, Lucy said, "How the hell did you get this number? I've told you before, Mr. Salomon, I'm not giving interviews. Good night. Please don't call here again."

  "Wait, please. Don't hang up. This call is a courtesy for you, Detective Tanner. Hear me out. In tomorrow morning's edition we will be running a story concerning you and the Petersons, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to comment prior to publication. It's up to you, but I suggest you hear me out."

  Lucy's heart felt as though it were a new thing in her chest. The suddenly rapid beating got her attention like a loud knock at the door. She swept her hair off her forehead. "Concerning me how? What's the story about?"

  When he started talking again, Lucy thought Salomon's inflection had changed, as though he was reading, or reciting something that he'd rehearsed. He said, "Detective Tanner, we will be reporting in tomorrow morning's paper that Susan Peterson is your mother and we will be characterizing your relationship with her. Feel free to comment. I'd like to print your side of the story, as well."

  Lucy pressed the mouthpiece of the phone into her right breast and told herself to breathe. The room was dark and the foot of her bed faced the wall. She thought she saw brilliant flashes of light, like flames, erupt in three or four places where she should be seeing nothing but the familiar shadows of her room at night.

  She could still hear Brett Salomon's voice. It sounded disconnected, hollow, distant. But urgent, pressured. He was saying, "Detective? Detective? This is your chance to comment. Detective Tanner? Detective Tanner?"

  Lucy hung up the phone and then she vomited all over the sheets.

  CHAPTER 27

  I misled my wife in order to get out of the house after midnight. An emergency, I said. Lauren, half asleep, assumed that I meant an emergency with my practice. And now, sometime shortly after midnight, I was sneaking down the street, head down, collar up, hoping no photographers' lenses were pointed my way as I hustled into the old house on Pine Street where Lucy Tanner had a second-floor flat.

  I was surprised how cold it was outside.

  L ucy had been crying. A pile of spent tissues marked the place on the sofa where she'd been awaiting my arrival.

  Her flat was dark, a solitary light from the kitchen spilling shadows into the living room. Even in the muted light I could tell that the room was elegant yet comfortable, a pleasant mixture of the modern and the ancient. An alluring step tansu filled much of one wall. A gorgeous old highboy secretary marked off the transition to the kitchen. The sofa where she was sitting was covered in a rich tapestry. It was the kind of room that took either serious bucks or an exceptionally high credit limit from Visa.

  "Thanks for coming," she said. "I didn't know who else to call." Lucy was wearing a black robe that reached to mid-thigh. As she sat on her sofa, she had to tug the hem of the robe carefully into place to maintain modesty. She grabbed a wadded tissue from beside her and stretched out one corner of it as though she were about to use it to blow her nose. She didn't. She said, "My fiancé is in Wyoming," as though that explained why she'd called me instead of him.

  "Sure," I said.

  "After I left your office today, I drove around for a while. I do that sometimes. Just drive around. It helps me relax. You ever do that? Just drive around? Does that make me weird?" The last question informed me that she was aware at that moment that she was talking to a mental health professional.

  She pulled on a different corner of the tissue, and it ripped. She slipped a fingertip through the hole.

  I shifted my weight so that I was leaning forward, closing the space between the chair where I was sitting and Lucy.

  She went on. "During my drive I went, well, I went a lot of places, but one of the places I went was the Peterson house. Susan's moved back home. Did you know that? I saw the lights on upstairs. The TV screen was flickering."

  I said, "I didn't know she was back home."

  "Me neither. I was kind of surprised, actually."

  For a split second she lifted her eyes and looked at me. "I don't have many friends, A
lan. Did Sam tell you that about me? That I don't get close to very many people?"

  "I think he's told me that you're a private person, Lucy. That's all."

  "Sam's nice," she said. Here in the dark with something important on her mind, her voice was almost girlish. "My boyfriend says that I seem to love it when he's intimate with me but that I don't want to be intimate with him."

  Almost reflexively, I said, "You say that in a way that makes me wonder whether his words make sense to you." It was a shrink phrase. In that room at that time it was as out of place as a bright red clown nose.

  She exchanged the ripped tissue for a fresh one and dabbed at her left nostril. "I've heard it before-things like my boyfriend said-from other men. But I always thought that when they were talking about intimacy, they were really talking about sex. That when they complained that I was too distant, they really meant they were unhappy that I wasn't sleeping with them. Or wasn't sleeping with them as often as they wanted."

  I wondered where we were heading. I honestly didn't have a clue. I assumed the reason that I'd been summoned from my bed was weightier than this. Lucy had to be warming up for something.

  "But it's not that way with Grant. Grant really wants me to be open-you know, to talk to him." She laughed. "Don't misunderstand. He wants to sleep with me, too. But he says that he wants me to tell him… things. What's going on. How I feel about what's going on. You know."

  I didn't want to repeat my mistake. I said, "He sounds like quite a find, Lucy." It's something I never would have said in therapy. I know that's why I said it then-to remind myself that I was meeting with Lucy as a friend, not as a therapist. Maybe I wanted to remind her, too.

  "He doesn't want me to tell him what's going on right now, I promise you that. Anyway, he's not around."

  Here it comes, I thought. The reason I'm not home in bed.

  She narrowed her eyes and continued. "You know what that means for you and me? It means that tonight, instead of being intimate with my fiancé, I'm going to be intimate with you."