Dark Lady

by Richard North Patterson

  “That’s part of it.” Brett’s eyes filled with apprehension. “But there’s something else I didn’t tell you …”

  “What?”

  “We fought that night.” Brett stopped, and then said, “It was over her….”

  Facing James in the darkness, Brett shook her head, as if to clear it. “There are too many surprises, too close together I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” There was pain on his face, and somehow this made her angry. “What do I mean? Besides this latest thing?” James studied Brett with new intensity. “Her? It’s over” She stood straighter. “Do you have any idea how much you hurt me? Do you think me finding you fucking that bitch was something sad that happened to you?” Her voice filled with wonder. “Do I even exist for you outside of what you need from me?” He stretched out his hands. “Brett, please. Will you stop punishing me?” Her voice went cold. “I didn’t punish you enough. That’s

  why you’re able to feel so picked on. And why I still feel so much pain and anger that I wake up at night and see you in bed with her.” Her voice carried on the water. James looked around them, as if they might be overheard. More quietly, he said, “I know I hurt you. I saw it on your face. When I started crying that night, ashamed of what I’d done, did you think it was just for me?” It did not seem to help. Tonelessly, she said, “Who knows.” James came toward her. “I know.”

  “Well, I don’t. I can’t. Not yet.” She shook her head. “I need time, all right, to know if I can trust you again. And now you tell me I’m out of time. Because of something else I have no say in. Just a little problem involving drugs that has you jumping at every noise in the woods. Or so you tell me …” Turning from him, Brett walked to the water’s edge. After a time, she heard his footsteps behind her, then saw his faint reflection in the water next to hers, a slender profile with hands jammed in his pockets. He made no move to touch her. “What are you going to do?” he asked. She hunched her shoulders, helpless. “I don’t know …. “

  Even in the rain, Brett’s face was tear-streaked. “I was afraid to tell you,” she murmured. “About being so angry at him.”

  “Because you thought it would look bad?” Brett shook her head. “Because it was like I’d done something bad.” Her voice seemed to fill with superstition. “Like I’d been so angry that it somehow killed him …. ” Caroline was suddenly shaken. Carefully, she asked, “Is that what you think happened?”

  “No.” Brett’s voice was fierce now. “But when you said they might think that drugs made me lose my temper, it scared me. Like I could never admit we fought.”

  Caroline faced her. “Well,” she said softly, “you don’t have to admit that. Even to your lawyer.” Brett stared at her. Before she could ask, Caroline said, “They’ve decided to arrest you, Brett. For first-degree murder.” Brett seemed to take a backward step, face filling with shock. “Why?”

  “Because of Megan. She claims that you stalked James out of jealousy and threatened both their lives. From where Jackson sits, he may not have much choice.” There were no tears now, no protest. In a dispirited voice, Brett said, “She must truly hate me …. ” Caroline gazed at her, trying to decipher the meaning of that. Then she made herself say, “Jackson wants you to come in voluntarily, by tomorrow afternoon. He’ll keep you in Connaughton Falls. I think you’ll have to stay there.” Brett closed her eyes. “Brett,” Caroline said gently, “your parents already know. Before you decide anything, all of you will have to talk this over I’ll try to help find you a lawyer” Slowly, Brett nodded. There was something in the gesture that Caroline found wrenching; it was as if Brett had lied and thus earned Caroline’s abandonment. Swallowing, she opened her eyes. “Tomorrow,” she asked simply, “will you be there?” Caroline hesitated and then saw the look on Brett’s face. “Yes,” she said softly. “Of course.” Silent, they turned, hands in their pockets, and walked together to the house.

  The next afternoon, when she came for Brett, seemed to Caroline incongruously bright. Brett was waiting on the porch with a duffel bag. In an awkward clump beside her were her parents and her grandfather Channing looked shaken, haunted, and much older; it was as if, Caroline reflected, his own mortality had seeped to the surface of his skin. Betty and Larry were grim, uncertain of what to do or say. Betty had the wounded eyes of someone who has received a shock too heavy and sudden to absorb; she looked at Brett with such inarticulate fear and love that Caroline could not watch it. Facing Brett, she spoke to her quietly. “We should go.” Brett nodded. As she turned to her family, Caroline edged away. She watched Betty hug her stiffly, kiss her dry-eyed on the cheek, then fold her arms and look at the porch. Saw Larry’s wan smile as he clasped Bret’s shoulders. And then Channing, the one with tears in his eyes. His voice was rough, strong. “Don’t worry,” Caroline heard him say. “I’ll have you out soon. Believe that, Brett.” An old man’s useless promise, Caroline thought, in a time that has outlasted his power. As if knowing this, Brett pulled her grandfather close. Awkwardly, the girl turned from them, walked to Caroline, and nodded. As they turned to leave, Betty gazed at Caroline as if she had stolen her child. In the car, Brett said, “I told them not to come. It would only make things worse.” Caroline nodded. “Did you bring books?” “Yes.” As Caroline started the car, Brett turned to her. “What will this place be like?”

  “Somewhat bleak.” Caroline tried sounding matter-of-fact. “The good thing is that it’s a converted county hospital, so it wasn’t designed as a prison. An economy move in the great New Hampshire tradition.” For that moment, the misery in Brett’s eyes eased. Calm, Caroline guessed, was what Brett needed. So for the twenty-minute drive, Caroline was calm. It was the longest twenty minutes in her recent memory.

  The arraignment itself, quick and quiet, was a blur to Caroline; her clearest impression was of Brett’s stoicism. And then, as promised, Jackson let her come with Brett to the county prison. The converted hospital in Connaughton Falls—a three-story red-brick building from the late 1800s—also served as

  the police station. Caroline and Brett crossed its shaded grounds, flanked by two police officers, Brett gazing at the windows in the upper floors. “I’ll be up there?” she asked. “Yes. They’ll have a separate cell for you.” Brett’s steps slowed. She turned, looking at the sunlit grounds. Caroline waited, hand on the double door, until Brett went inside. The booking desk waited in a stark green rectangle. Next to the young patrolman at the desk waited Jackson Watts, with a short-haired female trooper. All that he said to Caroline was, “They’re ready for her.” The young cop booked her, printed her, input the bare facts of her life on an old computer. Jackson stood in a corner, Caroline close to Brett. The stoic look Brett fought to maintain pierced Caroline’s heart. Was it possible, Caroline wondered, that she had not killed him? Or had Caroline simply crossed the line between lawyer and someone else. The policeman, she realized, was looking at her. “We’re done,” he said. Startled from thought, Caroline turned to Brett. Softly, she said, “It’s time now.” It changed something in Brett’s face. As if to brace her, Caroline clasped her shoulders. “You’ll be all right.” Bret’s pleading eyes were her sole answer; by now, Caroline knew that Brett would not ask her to stay. Silent, Brett turned her head. “It’s all right,” Caroline murmured again, and pulled her close. “I didn’t kill him” She felt so slight, Caroline thought. Over Brett’s shoulder, she mouthed to Jackson, “Wait.”

  He nodded, eyes intent on Caroline.

  She held Brett as the girl wept without sound. For this, at least, Caroline had nothing but time.

  A few moments passed; Brett seemed to have wept

  herself out. But it was Caroline, now, who did not know how to leave. Slowly, Brett looked up at her. Her eyes showed both fear and resolve. “It’s okay …. ” Caroline felt Jackson watching her, the last monitor of reason. And then, against her will, she took Bret’s face in her hands. “I’ll stay,” she said gently. “Until you don’t nee
d a lawyer.” Beyond Bret’s expression of surprise and gratitude, Caroline saw Jackson’s look of astonishment. When the deputy took Brett away, her eyes were still on Caroline. Jackson watched them both. Caroline turned and left through the wooden doors. It was done.

  Alone in her room, Caroline did not call Masters Hill. She did not speak to anyone. On the bed beside her was the number of the Cahill Knife Company. In what felt like a final loss of will, Caroline reached for the phone. “Cahill,” the operator said. Caroline read the name she had written, asked for the clerk. When she answered, Caroline sounded quite calm. “This is Caroline Masters. You may remember I called the other day. About a serial number on a Cahill knife.” A moment’s silence. Coolly, the clerk told her, “Like I thought, we can’t tell you where we shipped it. Not who bought it, or even who sold it to them.” “I understand.” Caroline paused. “You thought you might know the year it was made.”

  “Yes.” The voice was more patient now. “I can tell you that much.” A brief shuffling of papers, muffled by the phone. “Here it is. From what I’ve written down, it was made in 1964. Early in the year.” Caroline kept her voice steady. “Nineteen sixty-four.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Thank you,” Caroline said politely, and put the phone down. With an odd detachment, she held her hands in front of her and saw that they were shaking.

  PART THREE

  SUMMER 1964

  CHAPTER ONE

  When Nicole Masters proposed to take her to Martha’s Vineyard three weeks earlier than planned, Caroline had been surprised.

  “It will be the two of us,” her mother said with a smile. “A little time, perhaps, before we exile you to boarding school.”

  Caroline adored her father and would miss him. But she loved the house at Eel Pond, the days spent sailing in the Crosby catboat her father had bought the summer before. And her mother’s excitement pleased her. Nicole was often distant, her moods so mutable that Caroline was never quite sure how her mother felt about her, or about Channing himself: as she moved toward young womanhood, Caroline had become preternaturally sensitive to the growing silences between her parents, divining some intricate scheme of cause and effect—in her father’s affection for her, Caroline felt her mother’s withdrawal.

  To Caroline, the signs of this withdrawal were, as so often with her mother, unspoken. Her occasional trips with Channing to New York City—which had seemed Nicole’s greatest pleasure—no longer occurred, though Caroline did not know why. Nicole’s response was to take less interest in their home and village. She spent long days in her room; with the other women of their class—e wives of lawyers or doctors or bankers—Nicole maintained a polite acquaintance, the by-product of their husbands’ prominence, which now lacked all pretense of intimacy. This spring, Caroline had noticed that her mother, who loved small things of

  beauty, no longer planted the bright flowers she once maintained in the rear garden. With instinctive caution, Caroline did not ask her why. The trip to Martha’s Vineyard happened suddenly. The three of them were at the dinner table; Caroline’s father was describing, as if to Caroline alone, how his grandfather had come to have their summer home pulled by oxen to Eel Pond. Across from her husband, Nicole listened with a politeness so unvarying that Caroline could feel the minutes passing in her mother’s mind. As if to compensate, Caroline said to her father, “I can’t wait to go back. When will we?” Her father smiled. “July. Only a month now.”

  “Perhaps you can go sooner.” Her mother had not spoken for some time; as Nicole turned to her, Caroline felt surprise. “I may be able to discard my many obligations, Caroline, and leave early. With your father’s consent, of course.” This cool touch of irony made Caroline glance at Channing. But his fathomless gaze was fixed on Nicole. Her look at him was steady; perhaps only Caroline would have felt this as a challenge. In her own discomfort, Caroline said to Channing, “Do you think we could, Father? I could sail the new boat.” For another moment, Channing considered his wife. Then he turned to Caroline with a small, reflective smile. “Of course, Caroline. It was rather a long winter. For both of you.” Watching him, Caroline realized that the thought of having Nicole to herself, away from here, felt like desertion and yet came as a relief. And that her father knew all this. They left one day after Caroline finished school. They stopped in Boston, bought some summer dresses, had cocktails and dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. The next day, eyes alight, Nicole presented Caroline with a gold bracelet and her first set of expensive earrings. “We’ve become so provincial,” Nicole said lightly, “that we’re both at risk of becoming like the heroines of an English Gothic novel, so

  earnest and unadorned that no one will read our pages. A tragedy for us and the world alike.” By the time they got to Martha’s Vineyard, the trip had begun to seem like an escapade, a high-spirited rebellion against a dreariness that only her mother felt. But Caroline was happy to sustain the mood. One afternoon, they played tennis at the Edgartown Yacht Club and then had dinner at that bastion of Republicanism and plaid pants; after much laughter and perhaps too much champagne, Nicole had wondered aloud why Barry Goldwater had so much compassion for Southern blacks that he would not burden them with the difficulty of voting. If a few heads had turned, Nicole did not care. “These people,” she murmured on leaving, “will forever wonder why everyone can’t be more like them, while I will forever wonder why they wear such foolish clothes.” But beneath this, her mother’s feelings were more serious. The island was alive with civil rights ferment—church services, rallies, speeches by young summer residents now working in the South. The next Sunday, a somber Nicole took Caroline to a memorial service for Medgar Evers, the murdered civil rights leader. Though her mother had said nothing, Caroline could not help but wonder whether she was thinking of her own family. When she touched her mother’s hand, Nicole squeezed Caroline’s fingertips. Yet much of their time was light, almost airy. When they went to the movies, Nicole chose a Taylor-Burton romance over The Longest Day, just as she chose a Beatles album for the record collection. When they played croquet on the lawn above Nantucket Sound, Nicole poured another glass of wine and began changing the rules: their contest became so antic, the antithesis of Channing’s geometric game, that Nicole and Caroline forfeited competition to laughter and shared the rest of the wine. But Nicole followed the presidential race with an intensity that brooked no humor: the night the Republican convention shouted down Nelson Rockefeller, she shook her head and murmured, “Frightening. And to think that last year there was Kennedy.” Then,

  a short time later, she said, “Now Americans will have their own racist war.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Vietnam. So murderous and yet so provincial—to learn nothing from the one thing the French truly have to teach: ethnocentrism.” To Caroline, it was like discovering a stranger, mordant and despairing, who lived below the shifting surface of her mother’s moods. Caroline found this sudden window on her mother’s soul both exciting and disturbing, as if discerning the distance that Nicole had moved from them, her family, beneath the cover of her silence. Not once in their first days together did Nicole refer to her husband. It was this realization that most unsettled Caroline. But it did not truly strike her until the night the telephone rang and, as Nicole answered it, Caroline knew that the call was not from Channing Masters. Perhaps it was a rise in her mother’s voice, the slightest change in her slender body, now catlike in its stillness. “Who was that?” Caroline asked. They sat ‘on the screened porch as sunset spread across the water. Nicole put down her wineglass; the veiled, considering look she gave Caroline seemed imported from New Hampshire, so different was it from their last few days. “Oh,” she said casually, “a friend—you remember Paul Nethelm. He hopes to see us sometime.”

  “All of us?” Caroline asked. A second’s pause, her mother’s look keen, then vanishing with a wave of her hand. I suppose it depends on the time.” Her voice became dry. “But I will give you plenty of
notice.” So she knows how I feel, Caroline thought. She was not sure that this was a comfort.

  Caroline had disliked Paul Netheim’s smile before she sensed her father’s feelings. There was something about it that Caroline did not care

  for—perhaps, she thought now, the way it seemed to linger on her mother. “You’re very tall,” he had said to Caroline. “Like a dancer or an athlete.” It had been the summer before, when Caroline was thirteen. She was not yet used to being taller than Nicole; her breasts had not filled out, and she was afraid of looking too much like her father. Knowing this, her mother had answered, “More like the runway model I could never become,” sparing Caroline the necessity of saying anything. As if in sympathy for Caroline, Channing Masters did not smile. Their family—Channing, Nicole, and Caroline—stood in the entryway of Nerheim’s summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. Caroline felt their presence as the kind of arbitrary social act peculiar to adults: for some reason, Nerheim had asked them here; someone—her mother, Caroline assumed—had accepted; and Caroline could not understand why anyone had bothered. In a vague way she knew that Nerheim was an investment banker from New York; that he had met her parents on the night when Nicole had inveigled a reluctant Channing into a summer dance in Edgartown; and that Nerheim was an acquaintance of John F. Kennedy. But what she sensed most keenly was that this man would never be her father’s friend. They even looked different: Nerheim with his even tan, white tennis sweater, gold-coin watch; Channing with his slacks, plain shirt, comfortable hiking shoes. Even Nerheim’s thin face, mobile eyes, and lively gestures seemed the opposite of Channing’s quiet dignity, his air of watchful judgment. Nicole stood smiling between them, lightly touching Nerheim’s arm. “You were so kind to ask us, Paul. And your ‘country place,’ as you put it, is lovely.” And it was, in a way. They had taken a twisting dirt road through the woods of Chilmark, close to the unseen bluffs of the Atlantic, which opened unexpectedly to an acre of green manicured lawn, fronting a mansion so eccentric that