Category: WritingCommunity

Chapter Ten – Victimology

Sleep was no longer safe from nightmares. Poor neglected Bruce, locked out in the storm, rattled the knobs and howled at the windows, permanently off his meds and raving. How dare they forget him? Of course he was angry, of course he was cruel. He would get even with them all. How well she understood him now.

At four in the morning, her shattered selves reassembled. Husband and his best friend slept tangled in tandem, Jarod snoring faintly through his nose, Roy’s parchment-thin lids shivering in flight. She staggered free above them, kicked away entangling bedclothes, pulled on t-shirt and jeans.

Her head throbbed fiercely. She took three aspirin. In the mirror she beheld a self no different; paler, perhaps, the grape-juice colored veins surging more swollen in her forehead as though impregnated with pollutants. Comforting to think of herself in the third person: “She walked down the stairs to release the animal from his pen.” Digger cared nothing for spent emotion or spoiled flesh; he raced past her eager to begin his day.

Rather than reclaim the ruined kitchen she bought coffee on the road. Broken could be reassembled soon enough. If the purpose of memory is to treasure the good times there must be the things we choose to forget, episodes that vanish in the past like gifts rejected and returned.
She parked her car at the old reservoir and climbed a logging road to the summit. Ordinarily this was a beautiful view, but she watched sightless as the sun broke over three counties. So The Thing had happened to her. She had joined the women, the legions and legions of women, to whom The Thing had happened. Even she, behind moats, behind castle walls, guarded by a dragon and a wolf, it had happened to her. Yet it would always remain legend, because no one would believe it. She had been the victim of a neat trick; doubled and so doubly witnessed, out-manned and outmaneuvered.

What was she to do? There must be steps to take, and yet she felt utterly alone on an airless atoll without a map or rulebook, without even the soul’s guide that had never abandoned her before.
She was a prisoner in her body — a body that shook with rage as if with a fever; then cooled and jelled to glacial freeze. She tried warning Digger as he danced near the edge; you are not immortal. Listen and believe; you will fall, you will not fly, you will break and bleed.

Still, as long as there was life there were plans to make. For one thing, it would never happen again. She knew Jarod had been lusting to trample her virginal whiteness into dirty snow the first time he laid eyes on her. He was just another graffiti artist who prides himself on leaving his smarmy mark on everything; “Jarod was here.” Men who bragged about “having” women, had exactly nothing. He had only slimed her, like a primitive tribesman who “possesses” by eating it for dinner. There was no speech that could communicate to such a person? If anything, she was angrier with Roy.

Some people – her first husband for example, would say, “It’s only sex. What’s the big deal? When it’s over it’s just as if it never happened.”

She suspected that might be Roy’s tack. A dare regretted, like complaining about bad service at a restaurant where the food, too, turns out to be appalling. Better to forget the whole thing.
She could almost hear him demanding, why make such a fuss about a little ill-timed physical release? Sure, looking back on it, it might be a mistake. But wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. Give me a little bad judgment to savor in the nursing home.
It’s a victimless crime on a body wired for surrender, Persey thought. A cut, a bruise, a fever and then the foreigners invade; for that moment in time you are not yourself. But you rally and expel intruders, re-take your soul. Cut me and I laugh, she told Digger, tickle me and I bleed. That didn’t sound right. Could it be the other way around?

The sound of her own voice reassured her and she focused all her pain on Roy. His casual cancellation of her personhood made her blood boil. Did he think she was his pet? But also she accused herself; she should have seen it coming. Look at the weird, inexplicable way his possessiveness melted around Jarod; overtaken, apparently, by his hunger for acceptance and approval. Were they lovers or had she hallucinated? Easy to blame the party mentality, where all present binged and gorged on whatever was available.

Roy wanted to be Jarod; it was as simple as that, to escape from himself into someone he saw as a less conflicted being. He had never appreciated or understood his own beauty. As for Jarod, he just wanted whatever the golden boy had.

She used to feel so safe with Roy. That was why she married him. He called her Sleeping Beauty, the bastard. There must be some way to pay him back, to cut him with his own knife. Didn’t he know the end of the story? Sleeping Beauty wakes up.

She wished it wasn’t too early to call Ned. He would really think her nuts if she dialed him now. But she longed for his limpid intelligence. He not only knew how to hunt, he knew how to classify the prey; and he was righteous. He believed. He believed that it all made sense.

She had qualified at one of his sports. It was time to conquer the other. But if she spoke to him, what would she say? Could she keep the “victim” from her voice? He must never know. No one must ever know. She could hear them all telling her she had “an appetite for destruction.” No. She would not allow it. That night he had first seen her she had been at the peak of her beauty, the pinnacle of her power. She would not fall off for him or any man.

As she walked down the hill she remembered what she had wanted to tell him; look at the motel room. But now that seemed such a stupid idea; the sleaziest motel has housekeeping; what would be left for him to find? Bruce needed a place where no one went, a secret fortress against the world.

But pain refines ideas to brilliance and a fresh idea struck her. She stopped so still Digger barked frantically as if she had abandoned him. Even lowly Digger was a cut above Roy and his best friend; her body alone would never be enough for him.

She was thinking of the storage locker. Roy had a storage locker out at Lake Warner for all his extra toys. She should know, she paid the bills. Come to think of it, Jarod’s name was on it too. But they never mentioned going there. What a perfect place for Bruce to hide out. Perfect from the point of view of Babe and Roy certainly, seeing as it was a good twenty-five miles away. Far enough that Persey herself had never even been there. The only excuse given for such a distant location was the presence of the lake.

She was consumed with thirst to venture there. This must be the solution, but if she told Ned couldn’t be certain Jarod wouldn’t hear of it. Killers took trophies and so did hunters; now she needed one too, an article of faith subverting disbelief.

Roy and Jarod thought themselves immunized from her judgment. There was the familiarity of trust, and there was the familiarity of contempt. They planned her initiation on their schedule. The only thing to do was fly above the maze.

Had Roy forgotten that everything she needed to enter the locker was in her own well-kept files? She herself had clipped the spare key and the extra code card to the manila jacket. She strode purposefully down the logging road, and bundled Digger efficiently into the car.

Jarod’s truck was gone from her driveway. Good riddance, since he could feel no guilt. It would make Roy easier to deal with.

Roy was in the shower. She stripped the bed of its disgusting, rumpled, smelly sheets and rolled them into wads. These must be thrown away – maybe the mattress too. No amount of bleach could ever get them clean.

When Roy emerged he glanced at her uncertainly, his contact-less eyes especially vulnerable and defenseless because he could not read her face. He knew he had broken their pact. She could tell he was playing for time when he toweled his head, thus keeping his own eyes hidden. Was this the final acknowledgment that she too had power?

She could tell by the way he turned his back on her to dress that he was embarrassed to have her, clothed, regard him, naked. She threw herself across the empty bed, chin on elbow, the better to judge more critically. The scissoring of tiny white scars Bruce left behind ornamented both arms and legs; the tattoos he’d chosen stood out black and blue against his sunless skin like dirty bruises that could not come clean. He really was too thin. He should work out more. What did Jarod call it? Dieseling. “Gettin’ deezed.”

Roy pulled out a pair of boxers and jerked them on while she studied him. She could tell that, unlike Jarod, he didn’t care for silence. Once his package was covered he could dress more slowly, watching her through the intermediary of the mirror. Was he bracing for what she might regurgitate from the dinner they had shared last night? There was what she had seen, for example, out of that corner of her inner eye, the men who need each other. Was that the forbidden agenda between them?

He dressed all in black like a man in mourning, crisp, new clothes emphasizing both respect for the dead and relief that they were gone. Last item was fresh contacts from a box in the drawer, new eyes with which to see. Beauty first, vision last. She should say something; she was allowing him to gather strength. Yet her eyes were drawn hypnotically to little gold razorblade he always wore trembling in the hollow of his throat. Like quivering water before the hurricane it warned her.
Was she afraid of him now? Was that what it had come to? If anger is too dangerous, how about scorn? What did they owe each other? She staked her space out carefully.

“I don’t want what happened last night to ever happen again,” she told him. When he turned away from the mirror to face her, he was calm, clean and beautiful, mask intact.

“Don’t you ever want to get pregnant? Jarod’s wives got pregnant when he looked at them.”

So that’s what this was about! Rage exploded inside her more powerful than any orgasm. She launched herself at him.

“As if! I would abort every one of his hairy little brats!”

His hand rose to strike her, but behind the anger in his face, she saw Bruce, the blood-filled eyes of the crazy man who had been put away. The hand was halted; Bruce’s brother stored his rage for later, grabbing her shoulders painfully and shuttering his eyes. He fights like a girl, Persey thought spitefully.

Would they bargain over what she had seen? Or was he remembering he was the lucky twin who didn’t have to fight, who bore his father’s name and spent his father’s money, the one with the beautiful wife who loved him? Violence can be protection; but bringing it home is bad for the baby.

Whatever his thoughts, he released her, and seated himself on the dressing table chair, the better to pull on his boots.

“I won’t allow that kind of talk in my house.”

His possessive, righteous tone was harder to deflect than rage.
“What have you got to complain about? You seemed to like it. Didn’t we
show you a good time?”

He had many forbidden weapons he could use, like his private knowledge of
his wife’s anatomy. Didn’t she have to come to get them to stay away from her? Tickle me and I bleed… Falling backward to the naked bed she felt like crying. Why couldn’t he see all that he’d destroyed?

“Jarod is just a user,” she choked helplessly, thinking; now I’m the one who fights like a girl. “Why can’t you see that? He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about anybody.”
“He loves you.” Her husband corrected pointedly. Smugly. “The man’s had five kids. He’s only trying to give you what you need.”

“That is such bullshit!” Sitting down on this disgusting bed had been a mistake. It was a sign of submission. Needing something to do, she rose to fetch fresh sheets from the bathroom closet. Cleaning and repair might not fix the damage but it certainly concealed it.

She had worked on this house than her own face. She wasn’t going to allow him to ruin everything. She chose dark sheets, to match his mood; funereal. As she had guessed, the physical work of making the bed relieved her. Egyptian linen – the same they used to wrap the dead — cracked beneath her hands like whips. Like gunfire. He should learn to fear her. She had weapons too. He made no move to assist. Erasing the night’s romp was women’s work.

Over her shoulder she could hear Roy clicking on his jewelry, perfecting his suit of armor. Rings on fingers, Randall in knife belt, Rolex on wrist; confidence complete. She longed for the time when men left their knives outside the bedchamber door. Their eyes met in the mirror and he smiled, just like old times. He always loved to watch her perform housewifely tasks.

“Wish it could have been my kid,” he said.

She flushed so hotly; the purple veins in her head twisted and throbbed. He was lucky her shotgun wasn’t here. Should she level with him now about her closed and tidy womb or was that a card to play for later? She had been raised to politely play along; but for those who wait for others’ to take their turns the game always goes too far. He had settled on his story; soon, the truth would be unreachable; lost to history. If she did not wish to become a lie, it was up to her to refuse the poisoned cup.
She chose offense.

“Where’s Bruce, Roy? Tell the truth, for once. Isn’t Bruce out of control?” Score! His face emptied of the color raging into hers. They were like Siamese
twins sharing a blood system; he came up empty. Standing with his shoulders curved forward like a wrestler, he slapped his wallet against his pants and missed. He stood for a moment idly slapping, as if he might beat her with his money. She tried not to smile at the irony, something Bish had taught her to appreciate. Not a popular philosophy around here.

Microexpressions of shame, guilt and fear chased across his face. His familiar face. He could deny everything but a wife could not be fooled. She had held him in her arms so many times; massaging him through emotions he dared not show his aggrandizing mirror of a friend.

“Where is he, Roy?” she coaxed. “Tell me where to find him so he can’t hurt anybody else.”

It took two hands to get that wallet into his pocket. No cash for Persey today, in spite of her outstanding performance and her mastery of this new game.

“Bruce is dead, Persey,” he told her. “He won’t be coming back.” Now he picked up his car keys and bounced them in his hand. Behind the wheel of his truck he would be invincible.
She crossed her arms against her chest. Wouldn’t play along. Not this time. “That’s not true and you know it,” she insisted. “Tell me where he is.”

A dazzling smile broke over his bony face, lighting his blue eyes from within.

“Cold, cold ground, darlin’. I should know. I saw him die. I saw the light fade in that motherfucker’s eyes while I sliced him like a pie. I killed him. With these hands.” He held up his scarred digits admiringly. “You’re safe, Persey. I always keep him away from you. Rely on me.”
He was whistling as he ran down the stairs.

Chapter Eight – Wound Catalogue

When Persey finally turned onto Jarod’s country road her cargo deck was loaded with groceries and farmer’s market flowers. The flowers were her gift to herself. Because, “I deserve to get something out of this.”

Roy didn’t appreciate flowers. Sometimes he criticized her purchases just to remind her who paid the bills. More than a single bouquet meant he was sure to ask, “Who died?”

According to Roy flowers en masse were funereal, ergo depressing; but now that Persey knew Bruce’s funeral for the sham it had been she felt a lot less apologetic. And if Roy didn’t know about it, then he should have.

Let him ask, “Who died?” Persey was ready with her answer: “Not Bruce, apparently.” Let him chew on that along with his steak.

It was her first visit back to Jarod’s house since the party. Already the place looked subtly different; shopworn; as if the excesses of last week had not really been cleaned up. Was it just her private knowledge that it was now a house of contention? But how could divorce with all its attendant appraisers and lawyers, make a home look so abandoned? She had tried calling Stormee on her cell, but Stormee wasn’t taking calls from Persey either. Her voicemail was full.

Persey parked in front of the barn and let Digger out. Untroubled by humans and their conflict, Digger inhaled zestfully, romped from plant to plant and left his mark on a straggling delphinium which rightfully should have been staked.

The house seemed shut tight; the barn door, usually open to disgorge cars, pulled and locked. Why was the newspaper box stuffed and overstuffed, ads spilling to the curb? The main building stared back at her blankly from its multipaned windows.

Persey felt the hiss of dread lift its tail and rustle within her again. That was three times in one day, it should be weak from over-use. Why be such a coward? If Stormee had decamped, all she had to do was leave a note. Any house without Stormee was a whole lot less scary than one with her in it. Reason it out; Stormee would never allow herself to be dumped; Stormee was the kind of woman who always had somebody – several somebodies probably – waiting in the wings. She was off with her lover touring Big Sur. Ha, ha on Jarod.

Persey comforted herself by conjuring up Detective McKick. He thought that she was brave, so she must be. Just look at her walking resolutely towards this spooky-looking barn.

Persey used all her strength to drag the barn door far enough along its runners so that she could look inside. But there was Stormee’s red Miata. OK, change of story. Stormee and the lover flew to the Caymans, after emptying Jarod’s bank accounts and selling all his furniture. Maybe.
She walked up to the house, stepping carefully between paving stones pushed up by questing roots of restless trees. The night of the party, these claws from down under threatened to fell her, but this afternoon they tripped in vain. Half naked, wearing four inch heels she was vulnerable; in sneaks and shorts the terrain was less threatening.

She peered through the front door’s mottled glass into a darkened front hall. Nobody. She knocked. She rang. Nothing.

Hadn’t Stormee threatened suicide? Stormee threatened lots of things. Anything to win purchase in an escalating argument. And then there was the ongoing problem of uppers, the downers, steroids and the sleeping pills, all washed down by rivers of alcohol. It would be just like Jarod to send his friend’s wife to find a body, the creep.

He couldn’t know she’d already proven herself in that department. He wasn’t brave, in spite of all his posturing. With a Glock on your shoulder and a knife in your belt anyone can seem brave. He was a fake, preferring appearance to reality because it took less work. She twisted the knob, braced for the noise of a security alarm. Fortunately she knew the code; that number that upside down spells “boobs”; Jarod thought it funny. If she had to, she could recall it. But even from here she could read the glowing red “disarmed” message.

The house was freezing cold. You could hear the noise of the air conditioner ceaselessly running, as if stuck on zero. Stormee was legendarily thoughtless in that regard. She regularly pissed Jarod off by using air conditioning with a fire in the fireplace. Priding herself on creative ways of getting even, she might find this amusing.

I can walk away, thought Persey. Jarod couldn’t force her to search his house. She’d phoned, she’d knocked, she’d rung the silly bell. She’d even stepped inside, calling. She shouted Stormee’s name, certain now that it wouldn’t be answered. It wasn’t. She could leave a note and flee.
So why did she push onward, into a dark and frozen house? The Headless Woman, that disgusting tavern side Jarod knew she loathed, lay waiting breathless in the shadows. She felt the fear and let it go. Persey Royall, Fearless Cadaver Hunter. Wouldn’t Ned be proud?

She climbed the stairs. If Stormee had taken off, her bedroom would show it. And if she toured the upstairs first maybe she could avoid going past that damned sign. Logic. Stormee needed pounds of unguents, pills, jewelry and appliances. All of them were who Stormee was. That was her identity.
Persey’s teeth were chattering now. She should have turned off the goddam thermostat; she should have draped herself in the hall rug. But she kept going.

The place was like a meat locker. This was beyond “get even.” Nobody could tolerate this. Unless…
She found a beige sweater on the newel post and donned it hastily. Right there at her feet she saw the first overtly scary thing. A used condom. Nasty. Stepping over that was the bravest thing she’d done so far.

Could she really keep going? She was unstoppable. Stormee’s bedroom door swung at her command. There she was. Stormee was home, or at least part of her was, the part she’d tended so feverishly, so faithfully. Red hair flowed over her face to her hips. Persey couldn’t tell where extensions ended and entrails began. Her chest, those hard high breasts of which she was so proud, were a mass of sticky red. She lay naked, splayed on the bed with a black shotgun pushed up between her legs, wearing only red high heels. The room was a mess, tossed with bits of paper – Monopoly money? —confetti’d everywhere like snow.

Backing frantically out the door Persey almost fell down the stairs. Outside the sun still shone but that didn’t stop her shivering. Digger, waiting patiently by the car door, regarded her with his look of fuzzball concern. She remembered Ned’s cell number but hadn’t stored it in phone memory and she had a hell of a time dialing it with her shaking fingers. Finally she sat in the front seat of her car, turned the heat on and when it was blasting, she was able to get the connection. Digger licked her neck sympathetically.

“Yes?” His voice. Thank you, God.

“It’s me. Persey. I found another body. Stormee’s dead. I think she committed suicide.”
There was a moment’s pause. She wished her teeth would stop chattering. It made her jaw hurt. She didn’t want to have to repeat herself.

“Where are you?” he asked finally. She gave thanks that he was intelligent and real.
“At Jarod Gunver’s house. I found Stormee. She’s definitely dead. All over the place. And there’s a gun.”

“Who else have you called?” “Only you.”
“Is there anyone else in the house?”
What a horrible idea. She honestly didn’t know. “I don’t think so. But I didn’t
look. I found her right away.”
“Are you outside? Get out of the house.”

“I’m in my car.” Now he was panicking her. That wasn’t nice. He was
supposed to offer comfort; instead he implied a universe pulsating with armed killers. She locked the car doors. “The blood was dry, and the place is freezing. I think I’m alone. I don’t think anyone alive could stand that cold.”

“Can you wait for me?”
Where would she go? “That was the idea.”

“Then stay put. Lock your car doors and leave the engine running. I’ll be right there.”
She was finally able to turn off the heat but it had made her dizzy and she had to put her head between her legs. How to forget the things she’d seen? Think of it as a special on Animal Planet: “When the lions have eaten their fill the vultures arrive.” Wasn’t that was how the Bird Lady stayed sane for all those years?

After twenty minutes Ned drove up in a battered green Toyota. Wearing a checked shirt and faded jeans he morphed back into the man she had met at the party; the man she mistook for a hastily summoned plumber, looking for a leak. But his face was gray.

Persey jumped out of the car to meet him, Digger following. Ned opened the back of his own car and Digger jumped in like he owned the place. She tried to apologize but her teeth were still chattering. At least she wasn’t crying. To her surprise he enfolded her in a warm embrace. His heat was more comforting than the sun.

“Hey. Calm down. You didn’t do it, did you?” She shook her head.
“Touch anything? Change anything?”

She tried to think. “I opened the front door. I opened the bedroom door.” Then she remembered the sweater. Suddenly she was fighting to take it off. It had become a straitjacket. Ned held her.
“What are you doing?”

“It’s her sweater, it’s her sweater!”
He helped her take it off.

“I found it on the stairs. It was…it’s so cold in there. The air conditioning’s
going full blast.” She tried to throw the sweater to the ground, but he took it away from her.

He opened his car trunk, and from among the kid’s toys, the Jaws of Life, the tire chains and the jack handles, he gave her a jacket that read “Police”.
She tried to joke, “Does this mean we’re going steady?”

He dampened her spirits by responding, “I hope not.” All business. “Did you take her pulse? How can you be sure she’s dead?”

“Of course I didn’t take her pulse! Her insides are hanging out!” Maybe she was angry about the “hope not” comment or maybe she was just angry at a universe that expected her to resuscitate a “Thing”. I find them, she thought. I don’t resuscitate them.

“Hey, relax. These are the questions we always ask. Didn’t I believe you this time? I even called it in. The crime scene van might come while I’m inside.”

“She used to threaten to off herself,” she said, feeling the illogic. Explanation made no sense; there had to be a shorthand version. “I only showed up to invite her to dinner.” Not exactly true. The shorthand version never is.

He let it go. “Sit in my car, OK? You going to be OK?”

“No.” She clutched him. No need to be brave any more. “Don’t leave me. Wait for the crime van.”
He seated her on his front passenger seat, folding her legs as if she was a mannequin. She kicked at the fast food wrappers littering the floor. “What a slob you are.”

“I was having lunch with my kids.”
He ate. He was a parent. He was real. She held his wrist through the car window.
“I’m sorry I took you away.” He was the law, why couldn’t he say the magic words and calm her? She tried to calm herself, explicating.

“Jarod set me up. He made me come. He said he couldn’t reach Stormee by phone and I couldn’t reach her either. He wanted me to check on her.”
A sob bubbled through her voice. He patted her shoulder reassuringly. He wasn’t scared by frightened people.

“I’ll be right back.”
“Leave me your gun.” Some lawman! Leaving her unarmed! Roy wanted her
to have a gun for the car. She should have accepted.

He smiled at her. “You don’t need a weapon. You’ve got me.”
Were these the magic words? She let him go.
“Three minutes. I promise.” He knew the furthest limits of what she could
tolerate; so he must be magic. He took off his watch and gave it to her. “Time me.”
She accepted the gift. “She’s upstairs,” she whispered.

The watch was distracting. She held it in two hands and studied it. Silver in color and almost as heavy as Roy’s Rolex. But probably cheaper. It was burdened with dials she didn’t presume to understand. Wind chill? Phases of the moon? She flipped it over. The inscription was so old it was almost worn away. Love? From Delphie? The metal was warm from his hand. He’s alive, I’m alive, and it’s a sunny day. Weren’t those the magic words?

He was back. He held her wrists to apologize for breaking their connection. “Sorry.” The pulled-down eyes of his sad clown face showed just how sorry he was.
She let her sadness leave her like a breath, watched it spiral upwards. Everything would be OK now. She smiled as she gave him back his watch.

“Why apologize? Did you do it?”
“No. But it is a nasty find.”

It began to rain, so there must be a rainbow somewhere. Ned jumped into the
driver’s seat and they watched the drops together.

Ned was talking on the radio. He mentioned her name. He couldn’t protect her this time. Maybe nobody could protect anyone from anything.

He joked, “I thought we agreed to stop meeting like this.”
“Never explain, never apologize. You gave me your card this morning.”
“You’re some kind of corpse magnet. It’s a hell of a coincidence.”
She dismissed the idea. “Ever heard of synchronicity?”

He was interested. It was like the sun turned on. “And what’s that?” She
could feel his distance melting.
“Things that happen at the same time are happening for an underlying reason
that may be invisible but is knowable.”

“I like it.” He cocked his head appreciatively. “How long have you known
Stormee?”
“Since Jarod married her…I guess that’s three years now. We went to their
wedding. Roy was his best man.”

“What made you think suicide? Was she acting suicidal?”
Persey considered. “I guess because she and Jarod were splitting up, and that’s always hard. She told me once she had to stop taking cortisone because it’s a depressive.”

“Was she having any affairs that you knew about?” The word “affairs” hardly dignified Stormee’s hookups.

“Supposedly they had an open marriage. But there was lots of scorekeeping.”
He chuckled. “People can’t check their jealousy, not even at an open door. But you don’t know of anyone she was involved with specifically?”
She thought of Bish’s comment about the party. Hadn’t he said he turned her down? She would just move on to someone else.

“No,” she said shortly. “She had appalling taste in men.” She didn’t mention that it didn’t need to be a man, though Stormee found out pretty fast that another woman wasn’t much of a weapon against Jarod.

“So what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were going out to lunch with your husband.”
“I got held up. We changed it to dinner.” She gasped with a horrid realization. “Should I call Jarod?”

“It’s out of your hands. We’ll call him.” He looked straight ahead, into the rain. Did he think that if she couldn’t see his eyes she couldn’t read his thoughts?
“Was there a lot of violence in that marriage?”

Persey answered honestly. “I’d have to say yes, but Stormee gave as good as she got. She could bench press 250. Nobody went to the hospital, but they did leave marks on each other. I think most of the time they just smashed things and yelled.”

He nodded. “Did you recognize the shotgun? Was it one of theirs?’
He thought she stood there studying the gun!

“Jarod has a lot of guns. Lots and lots of guns.” She shivered, remembering
the black, streamlined barrel between the bare, bloodied legs. Roy and Jarod often bought the same new toy, or traded back and forth. God, she hoped it wasn’t Roy’s gun.
“You know it wasn’t suicide,” Ned said abruptly. So that was why he looked away. That was delicate of him. “You saw where she put the shotgun. Suicidal women don’t do that. If she triggered it with her toes, who put on her shoes?”

Who wanted to even think these thoughts? She guessed he did. This was his business. There must be something about it that appealed to him.

“Could it be your guy?”
He said, “I don’t think so,” and touched her hand. “Brace yourself. You’re about to go public,” and stepped out of the car.

Two police cars rolled up, escorting a white crime van. Doors slammed, engines quieted, large men heaved and postured in the road. She shrank down in her seat, nestling in the police jacket so only her eyes peeked out, willing herself to disappear. There was a way she could have avoided all this. By calling Jarod.

Jarod would have hustled her away. Instead, a silver haired man whose his long, skinny neck poked out of his gray plastic raincoat like a tortoise’s came over to take a peek at her. He walked stiffly, as if imprisoned in a back brace.

She could tell by the exaggerated way Ned moved his arms while speaking that this man was his superior. Then they both paused to look at her. Digger, who disliked men in groups, growled low in his throat. Persey gave him a restraining pat.
Uniformed police entered the house, guns drawn. One of them was a woman; Persey wished she could take her aside and warn her what she was about to see. Crime scene techs wearing Hazmat suits and carrying black plastic tubs hung back under golf umbrellas for permission to approach.
I’m inside the zone, thought Persey. I wandered too far. I need to get out of here. She quieted her panic by identifying the smells inside Ned’s car; cheeseburgers, leather, aftershave.
The medical examiner drove up in a state car with a chipped gold and red insignia. A geek-necked uni began laying out traffic cones and unwinding crime scene tape. Ned stepped back into the car and activated the wipers.

“I get to drive you home,” he said.
“Can’t we take my car?”

“Sorry. It’s part of the crime scene. You have to wait for them to clear it.” Wind was knocked out of her. “But that’s outrageous. What about my
groceries? My flowers?” Jarod wouldn’t allow this to happen to one of his friends.
“The flowers will be fine,” he said. “Forget the groceries.”

“How far away should I have parked to be outside this mess?”
He gave her a sidelong look. “You couldn’t have parked far enough away. I warned you already that the body-finder is a person of interest. But they won’t take long, not since the husband sent you. Believe me, they’re trying to rule you out. You don’t fit the profile.”
If I started shooting people, thought Persey, I wouldn’t begin with her. “Better get out of here before the satellite trucks arrive”, said Ned.

She assumed he was joking, but they passed WGBN setting up at the
highway turn. A police car moved allowing Ned to pass.

“They always follow the crime van,” Ned told her. “Vultures.”
He turned on the highway. From the sound of it, his muffler was on its last
legs.

”You could have cleared my car, I bet.” It still bothered her.
He looked over at her. “I don’t dare,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been right.” A lot of things weren’t right, she thought.

He was still speaking. “So, in answer to your question, it’s probably not the same guy.”
Did she want an answer to any question he’d had so long to think about? “It’s a personal, not an impersonal crime,” he said. “Indoor versus outdoor,
shotgun versus knife, fluids present versus fluids absent. No body dump.

Disorganized versus organized, unless it was staged. Probably someone known to the victim.”

“What’s staged?”
“Maybe the disorganization. But I think the air-conditioning took reasoning.
What did the Monopoly money say to you? ”
“He was telling her she’s a fake.”
He seemed surprised by her answer. “Interesting,” was all he would say.
“Maybe you should have my job.”
The rest of the drive both were silent.

Two matching red monster trucks overwhelmed Persey’s driveway. Jarod
and Roy had matching trucks as well as matching tats. The only way you could tell their vehicles apart was by their bumper stickers; Jarod’s said, “The One Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins”; Roy’s “Protected by Smith & Wesson.”

Try to look on the bright side, thought Persey. I don’t have to make Jarod dinner.
“That’s Jarod’s truck,” She told Ned.

“Let me be the one to tell him,” said Ned. He parked at the curb.
Alerted by the racketing muffler, the front door opened and Roy peered out, caught in a motion-sensor glare. He wore a waffle-weave long-sleeved undershirt and low-rider jeans. Behind him the hall was dark.

To Persey he seemed different, as if her experience had changed him. He expected something terrible; she could see it in his eyes. Or was it just because his wife drove up in another man’s car?
Ned helped Persey out and she released Digger. She trailed the detective up the walk. He should do the taxpayer-paid-for heavy lifting. She held his jacket over her head against the rain. Roy would see her in another man’s jacket after all. It sure was strange the way things worked out. Just thinking about something seemed to have the power to birth it into the world.

She heard Ned clearing his throat as if practicing his announcement; but hadn’t he performed this task before? What would he say? Excuse me, sir, did you use to have a wife?
Roy opened the door at its widest. Over his shoulder Boz Scaggs sang out about the sad, sad truth. The dirty lowdown.

“Thank God,” he said, sweeping Persey into his arms, kissing her dizzy. “I’ve been so worried. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I left it in my car.” She was reassured; she’d got her old Roy back. She was like a ghost returning to her widower. Now she knew what he looked like when he worried about her. Old, pinched, broken, ashen skin graying, matching his pale hair. Babe was right; she should never make him worry again.

Blessedly immune to subtext, Digger kissed Roy with his nose before scramming for the kitchen. A toilet flushed and Jarod emerged, buckling his belt. His hawkish white face with its pointed receding hairline floated in the poor light. As he came closer he looked sharply groomed, as if he’d passed the day in the barber’s chair, getting ready for his close-up. Even his furry caterpillar brows were tamed, as if Ned had come to capture him for posterity. He was hardly overdressed, however; gangsta jeans and a “Class Slut” muscle shirt rolled up to show his “Loyal to Death” tat. One of those Special Forces things. Roy had the same one.
“’Sup, bro?” To Ned. “You looking for me, buddy?”

The duel was between them; Roy backed away. How short Ned looked compared to Roy. No one was as tall as Roy.

“Jarod Gunver? I’m Ned McKick, with the homicide unit. We met at your birthday party. I’m afraid I have very bad news for you.” He held out a hand. They touched knuckles ritualistically.
“Someone blow up the mother ship?”

He meant the new police services building. A black glass fortress, it had
always seemed alien in the lush countryside. Persey saw a vein bulge in Jarod’s forehead, and now that it was safe to look at him, noticed for the first time that one of his eyes was appreciably bigger than the other. Were Jarod’s frightful fantasies, regurgitated from his empty soul, festering inside him?

She wondered if Ned’s vision could be so clear. Would he overlook the bite mark on Jarod’s ear, the wrestling burn along his neck?

“Worse than that. I’m afraid it’s the worst news a person can get. Your wife has been assaulted at home. Persey found her.”

“Oh, my God,” said Jarod, and he did look appalled. Roy reacted more strongly, but Persey thought she knew why. He didn’t like this man using his wife’s first name; she was supposed to be “Mrs. Royall.” Just like Babe.

“I’m so sorry, Persey,” said Jarod. Yeah, right. Favor time.
“They took my car.”

“I’ll get it back for you,” growled Jarod, and Ned said at exactly the same
moment,
“You’d better come with me.”

A pause. Jarod stroked his jaw as if trying to recall his line.

“Man up, blood,” said Roy to his buddy. They thought it was so cool to act
like members of the same gang.

Jarod repeated hollowly, “Man up. Let’s go.”

Roy divested Persey of Ned’s parka and threw it to his friend. Then the pair of them were gone, phantoms in the rain. Roy slammed the door and the connection was broken. The Lady shivered, but the unicorn was smiling.

Roy overwhelmed her with his citrusy sweat. He and Jarod must have been roughhousing.
“Jesus, I was worried,” he groaned. “Thank God you’re safe. Poor baby.”

Suddenly she was the baby. The role was unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. Did he have a way to minister to her without sex? It would be pleasant to let him try.

“There’s no dinner, Roy,” she said. “I’m sorry, but the groceries are in the car.”

“Fuck dinner. You’ve been through hell. Let’s get right to bed.” He pulled off her clothes right there in the hall, smelling for her familiarity the way Digger reclaimed a toy, kissing the holy trinity of belly, breasts and armpits. Did he suspect she had been replaced by an evil twin? It was funny, in a way, knowing what she knew.

She hoped he wasn’t in the mood for sex. If so she would be too tired to join in.
Although his gaze was hungry, he was more generous than that.
“What can I get for you? What do you want?”
“Hot tub. Glass of wine.”

Here the music was louder. She surrendered to the delicious boiling water,
trying not to smell Jarod. He had been in this room. The music boiled her brain clean the way the hot water scourged her body.

“Lunatic fringe….I know you’re out there…
…hiding…I can hear you coming and I know what you’re after…”

She sank beneath the purifying foam, emerging only to claim her glass of wine. How the roles were reversed! I could get used to this, she thought. Roy didn’t offer to get in, but handed her a pill.
Persey could barely open her eyes. “What is this?”

“Pinot Grigio.”
“I mean this thing.”
“Xanax.”

Xanax! Just what the doctor recommended! He would be so pleased! “Shouldn’t I take just half?” She was so tiny; any drug had a big effect. “I’ll be
out like a light. ”

“Would that be bad?”

Maybe it wouldn’t. She took the pill and waited for the drug to slam into her
system. Without water the wine was strong, flooding her brain; but sometimes you had to just give in. Maybe overdose is the only possible reaction to overkill. She felt so powerful, so uplifted now. She was not afraid of Bruce. She could master all of them.
Roy lifted her up, dried her, carried her, dressed her in her favorite fleece pajamas; pink ones picturing bunnies that romped with lambs. She tried to speak, to thank him, but her voice was slurry.

He was gone now and she didn’t need to bother with him or with anyone, sinking gratefully beneath the duvet like a mermaid sliding back into her element, into the past where her dream self waited.

Chapter Seven – Model Prisoner

If Ned hadn’t been standing right there, she would never have agreed to have lunch at Duvie’s. Duvie’s was a nasty cop bar; a smelly Irish pub where the only females were tired barmaids and teeth-gritting token cops – an acceptance that was more of a rejection really, Persey thought, or it must feel that way to them. Probably they knew that behind their backs their colleagues said they were all “dykes” anyway.

And the food was atrocious. Duvie’s idea of cuisine was pouring melted cheese the color of marker dye over everything they served. Ambiance? – Dense plumes of smoke — in spite of the smoking ban —and yelling over whatever sport was on television.

Even worse than this was its location — in the heart of the industrial section. The only way to get there was by crossing the river on a chute-like bridge that strained all Persey’s phobias and set her heart to fluttering. It took three terrible minutes to cross that bridge, and that was only if the traffic was good. Persey tried to convince herself that she could tolerate three minutes of anything, but you still had to take a breath. And what if there was no breath to take?

Roy made public fun of his wife’s phobias, but in private he was sympathetic. Roy had plenty of phobias of his own; most notably small spaces. Whether triggered by having to share his mother’s womb with a stronger rival, or years of compressing himself in cupboards to hide out from his brother’s wrath, everything now had to be big. Big beds, big cars, big trucks. Walk-in closets with their own windows and furniture.

Knowing how she felt about Duvie’s it was a little weird that he’d invited her. Under ordinary circumstances, Persey would have sweet-talked her husband into an agreeable swap, but there was Detective McKick, standing right beside her, all prickling skin and bulging ears and eyes, many-layered brain cells clicking visibly away.

She regretted it now. She’d promised to ask Roy about Bruce, but when it came right to it she wanted to put it off as long as possible. She shouldn’t do it in front of Jarod. It would take a lot of nerve to confront him – nerve she would have lost crossing that damn bridge. Better to get Roy drunk and ask him late at night. Possibly after sex, and a wonderful meal. Leave Jarod out of it. Talk about brain cells – you couldn’t get Jarod drunk enough to stop thinking of his advantage.

What would Jarod think about it anyway? To Roy, Bruce’s antics might be a source of humiliation, but to Jarod, a homicidal twin brother might be just another trophy. Jarod loved a bad-ass. Just another big, dangerous thing; the bigger and more dangerous, the better. Jarod was the only person Persey could think of who might actually brag about having a rapist in the family. It was an article of faith to him that “rape” didn’t in fact exist; he called it “seller’s remorse”. Jarod even talked admiringly serial killers. Wouldn’t he love to meet one in the flesh?

It made more sense to Persey that Jarod knew Bruce’s whereabouts and Roy did not. Roy couldn’t keep a secret from Jarod –wouldn’t want to – but she was certain Jarod kept plenty of secrets from Roy. The manipulative SOB. He’d never tell Persey anything.

She tried imagining a surprise meeting with Roy and Babe. She knew from experience they would unite if forced to — against her. Bad news is always the messenger’s fault. Detective Ned — charming as he was, interesting as he was, had given her a hopeless mission.

She put her foot on the accelerator so the wind in her hair would blow out all these terrifying thoughts. If Bruce was alive — and that was a big if, because hadn’t McKick admitted the fingerprint was sub-standard — then where the heck was he? Instantly she thought of the motel room. Thanks God it hadn’t occurred to her when she was talking to the detective – he would have read it on her face.

Maybe she should call him and tell him right now. She envisioned the scene’s unfolding, safe and distant, displayed on the nightly news; a SWAT team capturing dangerous Bruce and freeing this family from its lies.
But the scene collapsed inside her like an airless, poisoned soufflé. It would mean Roy had known about Bruce all along. Was that why Roy’s rage at his brother had never cooled down? We are always so much angrier at the living than the dead.

But Roy lying to Persey? Over and over? She just couldn’t believe it. Her first husband had been a liar, but the thing was, Persey could see through Roy. One of the things she loved about him was his transparency. Like a child’s.

Babe could lie. She resembled those people Jarod bragged about, who can pass a polygraph because they believe their own lies.

Turned along the canal road another idea occurred. If there was a liar in this story, why wasn’t it Ned McKick? She knew the police were allowed to lie to suspects – Jarod said so. What if he was just poking her, like a bug under a rock, to see what she would do. Sometimes you can’t trust anybody.

Well, that wasn’t true. She could trust Digger. Maybe that was the reason for his existence. Here he was beside her, adorable clueless, reared up in the passenger seat surfing the turns.
She shouldn’t have brought him. What was she thinking? She’d felt obligated because –walkless — he’d plastered himself to her. But maybe she had really brought him for reassurance. She felt challenged to be more competent, more responsible, when Digger was around. She was the leader and he was the follower, he was the pack animal and she was the alpha bitch. Or maybe her animal self had no plan of actually crossing that bridge to Duvie’s. Her animal self knew better.
What was it planning?

Then she saw it; the looming medical building containing the fertility clinic. With relief she embraced that previously unwelcome subject. The morning she’d run downstairs to gather up the little pieces of Roy’s shredded letter, she’d come face to face with a big surprise. She could recall no other incident of Roy cleaning up his own mess. There had to be an important reason for it; something he didn’t want Persey to see. Roy’s test results? What else would make him so angry? If she walked in now and demanded a copy of the lab results they would have to give it to her. And here was the building now, with its beautiful view of the river for wives to gaze at while their husbands had to concentrate on pornography to summon up a sample. She turned in automatically.
She allowed Digger out a moment to run around the parking lot, marking a territory. Things were so much easier for dogs.

A van slowed down on the canal road and a man leaned out his window to drink her in. Maybe that was why she took Digger everywhere; just to feel safer. Maybe her paranoia – previously the paranoia of any beautiful woman – was better-based than she knew. Think: if she knew all about Bruce, he knew all about her.

Bruce must be rabid with jealousy. Roy had everything; the business, the wife, the house, the toys. Bruce was a jailbird on the run, a sex offender who lived in a hole with nothing; an outcast. His playmates were all dead women.

She had to stop thinking these things. She was driving herself crazy. But telling yourself to stop can produce the opposite effect. What made her so sure she would recognize Bruce if she saw him? Maybe it was that man in the van. He might look very different after years in prison and years on the run. They might be linked through Roy, through Babe, but could she rely on a warning electricity to pass between them?

As she whistled for Digger, she conjured up the usually reassuring memory of beautiful Roy coming out to California to rescue her from her appalling mess of a first marriage. A mess from which she had not been able to save herself. That first kiss had ignited all the secrets of high school. The years apart melted away. That was Roy for certain. His brother could never have impersonated him.
She locked Digger in the car and tucked her purse decisively beneath one arm. Soon at least there would be one less secret. She breezed her way through the blond-oak doors, feeling the eyes of hopeful couples upon her, wondering about her “condition”. Putting on her most charming face she leaned right into the receptionists’ glass compartment for a confidential whisper.

“This is kind of embarrassing. I’m Persey Royall. You sent my husband’s lab results to the house, but he destroyed them and now he won’t talk to me. He seemed pretty upset. I just wondered if you could print me a copy …seeing as I’m his wife and all.”

To herself she sounded like an idiot. What happened to “never explain, never apologize?”
The woman with the freeze-dried hair responded, “Of course, Mrs. Royall, I remember you,” but seemed uncertain what to do next.

Talk about liars. These people never told the simple truth. Everything they said was a euphemism for something worse. You could see her mentally searching through the Approved Phrase List for something to say. Never allowed to make decisions on her own, doubtless. The sentence she chose was the old standby; “Why don’t you take a seat?” A command disguised as a question.

Persey turned away, hoping she’d concealed her annoyance. Why make it a production number? Why not hand her the friggin’ sheet of paper? Unable to sit, she paced, hugging her shoulders. All the couples were staring at her now. She felt their suspicion hover in the air. She hated this place and they could sense it, hated what went on here and the way it made her feel. She could feel them turning against her, agreeing with Babe. This overdressed, bejeweled woman’s problem could be solved by a pair of twins and a double helping of mayonnaise.

At least the receptionist was in motion, trying to do something. They couldn’t trap Persey here forever. She’d be late. Of course Roy expected her to be late; but there were limits. She imagined calling Roy, “Just dropped by the fertility clinic. Won’t be a moment.” He’d forget all about Duvie’s, that was for sure!

She pretended to read the fervent testimonials illustrated with baby pictures, adorning the walls. She could make herself as small as possible if she folded her shoulders forward like a contortionist. Maybe she would disappear. It was certainly too late to flee. The receptionist was whispering with a nurse, and now they were both staring at her.

Persey couldn’t remember why she had wanted so badly to know. She was just trying to get out of going to Duvie’s. The Bird Lady was wrong; sometimes it was better NOT to know, better to simply surmise. Bad news for Roy was good news for her. If he couldn’t have children of his own he wouldn’t want to adopt and this whole stupid subject would just go away. Was she too vain to admit to Babe that she’d finally found something she couldn’t get Roy to do? Ask him yourself. He won’t tell me.

She was just at the point of deciding never to visit a doctor’s office again, ever, under any circumstances, even if she was dying, when the door to the Sacred Chamber opened and the nurse said, “Mrs. Royall? The doctor will see you now.”

Persey’s nerves were quivering. She felt the concentrated rage of the waiting room visited upon her back as they witnessed her special treatment. People always jumped to that conclusion about her, that she sashayed to the front of every line while they remained imprisoned behind the velvet rope. If only she could explain! She wanted to scream out loud, “I DON’T WANT TO SEE THE DOCTOR, I NEVER WANT TO SEE THE DOCTOR AGAIN”, but reminded herself, hey, if I leave in one minute waving a document, that will tell them. Better get this over with. Then they’ll know.
The nurse opened the door to the doctor’s office. “He’ll be free in just a moment.”

Oxymoron! A free doctor! Was this whole charade just to justify billing us again? Persey braced momentarily in the doorway, then forced herself forward like a tantrumy child. Get it over with. At least it was his office and not the examining room. That really was the worst. Persey didn’t ever want to be touched like that again unless she was getting an orgasm out of it.

If she and Digger really were connected and he could sense her imprisonment, how long would it take him before he started tearing out car upholstery? Damn! She refused to sit, refused to “get comfortable”, refused to make herself at home. She turned her back on the nurse just as if she was reading the multiple diplomas. Serve them right if she looted the doctor’s desk. That would teach them.

But the file probably wasn’t in here. She should sit in the doctor’s chair, right behind his desk; how would he like that? But of course she lacked courage. Ultimately she always did. Never shared her big talk with anyone. The only person who thought she’d do anything daring was McKick; and he was wrong. Finding those bodies was an aberration. She’d fatally misled him about her personality and all these disasters had resulted.

I’ve got to get out of here, thought Persey. This is stupid. But then the door opened and there he was.

He was a young man, unfortunately. This would be so much easier if he was old and withered the way he ought to be. He had a receding, puffy dark hairline and a softly olive, well-shaven face. She could imagine him at the end of the day, taking off his lab coat, settling down in some hushed paneled club with a double bourbon and a fine cigar. The nurse was nowhere to be seen. She realized this was the first time they had ever been alone together.

He took her by the elbow. Why do men do that, wondered Persey. Do they think it’s a handle? We don’t do it to them. Roy himself was guilty of it sometimes, when he wanted her to move faster. It could inflict a tender bruise.

The doctor looked at her with his moist dark eyes and asked in his fake warm manner, “Wouldn’t you like to take a seat?”

No. She wouldn’t. This man had goo-gooey dark eyes just like Jarod’s. She was so disgusted with euphemisms right now. They wouldn’t get anywhere that way. She hadn’t come to this office to walk out carrying one of his chairs.

“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this,” she said but even to her own ears her voice sounded uncertain and teary. What inner well of tears – triggered by those damned photographs probably – had opened inside her? Restlessly she banged her wrists in front of her just like a captive.
“I think you’d better sit down.” He insisted. He was used to being boss.

He got what he wanted as they always do. Anything to speed this up, to get this over with. She could feel the panic rising. She was growing a new phobia now; trapped in the doctor’s office. She collapsed into the leather-studded chair provided. The chair designated “patient”.
He sat down too close to her, right on the edge of his desk. His white lab coat opened; revealing a packed crotch in lightweight wool, unpleasantly close to eye level. This man who had seen parts of herself even she had never seen, who had exerted mastery over the deep places within; he was now far too close. What if she had a panic attack right here, in the doctor’s office? If she escaped at this moment she could head it off. The trouble was, once you imagined something it was alive. She would never get rid of the idea now.

She tried concentrating on his face and pushing her own thoughts down into white noise. He had dark, oily skin with bottomless pores and those scary reflective dark eyes in which she could see herself mirrored. Like a scared white rabbit. Like those rabbits Roy and Jarod loved to hunt, whose bodies they dirtied with death and brought back for her to “clean”. Jarod said a rabbit screams before it dies in a feminine way. He told her that because he saw it upset her.
“I understand your husband destroyed the lab report before you could see it? And you asked him about it?”

She tried being honest. “He was yelling. He didn’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s upsetting for most men,” he said comfortably. He would never be one of those men. To the right of his hip photographs in silver frames were planted, pictures of progeny turned to face the viewer as if he would never need to look at them. They were part of his advertising now. They existed for the same purpose as those diplomas on the walls.
Suddenly he took Persey’s hand and she jumped. Was this the same hand that had been inside her up to the elbow? But what could do? She simply sat there. Was this what powerlessness felt like? If she had spent her whole life avoiding it, why was it so familiar?
“Mrs. Royall, your husband’s sperm is tailless. There is no possibility of fertilization. Now, artificial insemination provided by another donor is a service we offer here and I believe that would be a good—“

Did he mean him? Provided by him? Was he offering himself as sperm donor or was she the one being disgusting? She took the opportunity to snatch her hand away.
“Tailless?” she echoed. In her imagination little black and white paisleys sprang off the film screens of high school health class and lay there before her. But they weren’t writhing and wriggling. Roy’s paisleys were out of their element; inert, immobile, fish out of water.

“You mean, they’re…like dead?”
“They’re not dead. They just can’t go anywhere. It’s a rare condition but I
had heard of it before. I would guess—“
“But if all it takes is one sperm with a tail—“
“True. But we didn’t see a single one. I think it would raise hope falsely to –“ “What causes this?”

One of Roy and Jarod’s complaints was that the
government used people as lab rats. Experimental drugs, mind-and body- altering exercises, toxic chemicals; throw them together in a stew with a bunch of soldiers just to see what happened. Jarod offered this tale as an excuse; the world owed him what he chose to take. But what if Roy had actually been poisoned? Or had he been born this way, and his twin brother poisoned too? She thought of all those millions of dead sperm rushing into her. All dressed up and nowhere to go.
“Something environmental?“ she prompted.

“Unknown,” said the doctor, gazing wetly with his gooey eyes. Priding himself no doubt upon his “bedside manner”. Euphemisms! “It’s likely genetic. The tail is the repository for the mitochondrial DNA that comes from the mother –interestingly –– so when the sperm sinks its head into the egg, the tail drops away. That’s why mitochondrial DNA passes only through the female. For your purposes, any search for explanation would be counter-productive.”
He knows nothing about my purposes, thought Persey. Idiot. He can’t even find a tiny IUD, much less fathom what I’m thinking. Mitochondrial DNA…it was all Babe’s fault! Had Roy’s deep wish for motherlessness finally been granted? If only she could get him to understand, they could celebrate together.

She imagined clinking champagne glasses at Duvie’s. But Jarod –father of at least four children that he knew about – would be there. When Jarod was around Roy was forced to posture and pose.
What a joke! Poor Babe’s coveted gene pool was a toxic waste dump after all. Who would ever tell her? Persey wouldn’t do it. Why give her all the awful jobs? Why couldn’t she be a liar like the rest of them, covering everything with lies and rage?
She must have startled the still-talking doctor by launching out of her chair. “You’re not out of options,” the doctor called as she grabbed for the door
handle.

But I’m out of here, thought Persey. Politeness forced her to murmur “Thank you for telling me,” over her shoulder. She almost collided with the nurse who must have listened at the door. The poor woman staggered back, embarrassed. Look out, sister, thought Persey. Curiosity killed the cat.
The doctor pursued her, like the bad guy in a horror film. He offered Xanax, threatening, “delayed reaction.” He thought she wanted children! When I do lie, thought Persey, at least I lie effectively. The waiting couples seemed confused. The doctor was stressed out, but the patient seemed relieved. What could it all mean?

It means the truth shall set you free, thought Persey. Pushing through revolving doors, she smelled the river and the distant forests. Digger saw her coming and danced in his seat. What would life be like, she wondered, if she never again did anything she didn’t want to do? Like lunching at Duvie’s, for example.

She fished out her cell phone, dialed Roy and let Digger out of the car to play. Because marriage itself was a balance and a bargain, she would have to offer something in exchange. But marriage was a shifting deck where she thought she knew just how to stand. If she cancelled lunch, she’d offer dinner. Just like a game. “See you and raise you.”

Her mood was dampened by the fact that Jarod answered Roy’s cell.

“Sweetmeat!” he exclaimed. His name for her. Gobble-gobble. “Your number two here.”
Number two. That was about right. He was a great big turd for a fact. She managed to control her voice.
“Hi, Jarod. Roy around?”

“He’s in the can. Aren’t we seeing you in ten short minutes?”
He was teasing. He never thought she’d come.

“I’m sitting here at the bridge and it isn’t moving. Literally blocked solid.” It
was another lie but it was so effortless. This man of all people did not deserve the truth. “You know I hate the smoke in Duvie’s. I had a better idea.”
“Which is?”

She hadn’t been planning on explaining the whole thing to him. Where the hell was Roy? She gritted her teeth.

“Inviting you to our place for dinner instead. How about that?” Major concession, since an evening with Jarod was low on her list of fun. On the other hand, Roy could play with Jarod while she spent the night in the kitchen.

“Sounds great. Would you invite Stormee, too?”
Goddamnit! Stormee was work. She had been congratulating herself on never having to deal with Stormee again.

“I thought you two were on the outs.”

“We’re trying to make it work,” Jarod wheedled. “I know I’ve been a shit. But now she’s not answering her phone.”

She tried to find hope in this sentence. Jarod was a shit. Maybe, even if he wasn’t finished with Stormee, Stormee was finished with him.

“I don’t want to sit through another evening while you two fight,” threatened Persey .
“That won’t happen.” Typical Jarod overconfidence. “Here’s what you do – don’t invite her, just stop by and see how she is. She’s not even taking Roy’s calls. I’m worried about her.”
Roy was calling Stormee why? And was that Roy now, whispering in Jarod’s ear, or was it the wind off the river, moving through her hair?

“Is Roy there yet?” The unattractive whine in her own voice set her own teeth on edge. Why couldn’t Jarod butt out?

“Not yet, sweetest. Talk about all backed up! Come on, do it for me. You know you owe me one.”
She agreed grudgingly. It was true. Good reason not to have friends, if it cost this much to keep them happy. In her head she was planning, limiting her own liability. If she shopped first –- bought some nice melty ice cream, for instance — that would give her an excuse not to have to hang around, listening to Stormee’s plaints.
“Steaks at our place, then.”

She knew what he liked. Jarod’s special food was the heart attack menu. Steaks, Gorgonzola, red ale, cheesecake. It was just like feeding Digger, really. Maybe he would croak in the middle of dinner. She could mop him up like a stain. Otherwise let him gorge while she spent the night polishing silver. “Tell Roy I love him,” she said curtly, before hanging up. In case he – or Jarod — had forgotten.

Chapter Six – The Visual Cliff

“Dissociative, violent behavior.” He repeated his point. “Bedwetting, animal torture, fire setting.”
She tore her eyes away from the distant woods. She knew he had seen her jerk of recognition.
“Mean something to you?” He smiled at her with twisted lips.
Roy had accused his brother of all those things. It was a coincidence.

“I heard of a guy like that, but he’s dead now. So what’s your profile?” “Pardon?” He regarded her thoughtfully. For the first time she looked deep enough into his eyes to note the chips of topaz buried in his peat-brown irises. Flaws, a jeweler would call them. Usually, a flaw denoted imperfection. Unless the jewel happened to be an opal. In which case, the more flaws, the more intriguing.
“I asked what’s your profile, Mr. Profiler?”

“I don’t have a formal one yet. I haven’t been asked for one. And God knows what the Feds would say. But I see a man who likes to play with dolls. Our unsub – unknown subject – keeps these corpses to play with until forced to get rid of them. He has such serious masculinity issues I wonder if he was raised as a girl, or something weird like that. On the other hand, he’s extremely well
organized in victim selection and body disposal, so you wouldn’t know him to look at. I’m sure he’s done time – probably for rape – and doubtless was a model prisoner. He knows how to play the game. Good manners, probably friendly and engaging. He’s older than his victims and physically fit. Whatever job he has allows him a lot of free time, but I can’t see him as married though he probably has a girlfriend. He has a private place with an earth floor where he can take his victims. Say a basement or a barn.”

No one she knew. Certainly didn’t sound like Jarod. She felt an obscure relief.
She teased him; “Want to see the basement before you leave?” Nothing down there. No earth floor, that’s for darn sure.

“I’m an investigator,” he joked back. “I like to see everything. Hey, you’re shivering. Would you like my jacket?”

So high school! A sweet gesture but – she could just imagine Roy suddenly appearing and her wearing this guy’s jacket. Now there’s an image to make you shiver.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Maybe I just need more coffee. How about you?” He said, “I’m fine,” echoing her phrase. Probably they both were lying.

“Got any suspects?” she inquired.
He seemed so reluctant, as if she was rushing him. “There is one fingerprint. Thanks to you.”

She should have taken him up on that jacket. She was forced to hug her shoulders. “Thought you had to wait to get results.”

“Not her fingerprint; his. We got it off the belly of the one you found. Center of her stomach. I doubt he realized what a favor he does us by handling them.” “You got a fingerprint off her skin?” News to her that this was even possible.

“We fumed her. Sometimes we get lucky if they’re fresh enough. Who’s to say how much longer that fingerprint would have lasted? Maybe not an hour. You found it just in time.”

I need a better poker face, she thought. Roy had always said so. She recognized this man’s stillness. His focus, his intensity — he was approaching his quarry. After all, he was just another hunter.
“Funny how things work out,” she said, dry-mouthed. Let him take his time. I have all day.
“Funny,” he agreed.
“You’ve identified the print? It was in the system?”

He pulled his upper lip, as if there used to be a moustache there. “We got a
hit. It’s a six-point match, which isn’t good enough for court but might be the best you can do with a single print. Naturally we’d prefer his whole hand.”
She recognized the storyteller’s pregnant pause. “So who was it?” She knew he was going to tell her.

He read from the sheet before him, as if he couldn’t trust his memory. “Bruce Bryan Royall, BD 1-22-75.”

Whatever she expected, it wasn’t this. She gaped at him, trying to process the words. “That’s not possible. Bruce is dead.”

So it wasn’t strange after all that Bruce had popped into her head. He’d been sitting here all along, just between them. Her eyes lasered to the unopened file still in Ned’s lap. The one anchored by the ringless finger.

He held it out. “I made copies for you,” he said. “You can keep this.”
She did not want to open it. You are not lost, the Bird Lady always said. Keep your eyes open and pay attention. When plunged awake into the land of dreams, learn the rules. Every system has rules. Figure out a way to keep control.

Patiently he explained. “He has to be alive. Dead men don’t leave fingerprints. Not on fresh corpses.”

“I thought fingerprints could be faked.”

She could tell by his twanging jaw muscle that he was working to hold his
face steady. “Not in the victim’s blood. When did you think that he died?”
“He was supposed to have hanged himself the Christmas he was seventeen.

That was years ago. His family talks about him all the time… but as if he’s dead.” Could they be faking it? She asked herself privately. Could the fog
surrounding Bruce’s death be deliberate?

He seemed to pick up on the all but imperceptible hesitation in her tone. Bish would have, too. He pounced.

“But that was just something that you heard? You heard it at the time?” “It’s a family story. I didn’t hear about it till … Roy and I got married years later. When we were in high school Roy never even mentioned his brother. I’ve never met Bruce.” That you know of, a voice sneered horribly inside her head. The fine platinum hairs along the back of her neck lifted and quivered. Her husband’s identical twin brother. Was it possible that two men could share the same wife, or was she the sick one for even thinking it? Would it explain loving, gentle Roy and angry, raging Roy? She had thought nothing could be worse than the pictures she had just seen. This idea was worse.

“I can see you’re upset,” said Ned. She could feel him backing away from her, as if he’d learned she was contaminated. She was a suspect, to him, she could see it now. She had never been this man’s peer. She was another quarry to be tricked and trapped. Maybe Roy and Babe were right when they said you can never trust anybody.

“I’m not upset!” Her voice was so loud even she could hear the panic. That was a dead giveaway. Persey never yelled. Persey never cried and she never yelled. Who was this man, her tormentor? She had to forget about him and whatever he might be thinking and focus on herself. Protecting herself and her way of life.

The troublemaker said, “I can understand that a family might want to keep this guy quiet. Bruce has a prison record …that’s why we had his prints. He served time for rape. 1995 through 2003. Several rapes, actually. They let him out early. “

He pushed open the file in her lap. “He was a model prisoner.”
Was he laughing at her? Odd-sized Xeroxed pages spilled out as if fleeing.

They wanted to get away from her too. As she bent to pick them up she saw they were copies of newspaper pages from The Pocono Packet, December 1995. Relief: these pictures were in black and white. So distancing. Maybe she could handle it. It was important she not humiliate herself again.

Trailside Rapist Gets Twenty-Five Years. That name triggered a memory. When she was at college in California her father used to send emails and links about the case. He only had two subjects of interest to him, seemingly, this horrible case and his wife’s failing health. Made Persey afraid of computers. She hadn’t wanted to hear any of it. Maybe Will seemed so attractive because she desired a new unencumbered existence. A blank slate on which anything could be written. But it turned out all she had really been doing was preparing herself to be sandbagged now.
No, it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. It never is as bad as fantasy. This gaunt man with the scraggly hair didn’t look like Roy at all. She had been correct in thinking that terrible deeds marked a person. In his prison jumpsuit and raggedy beard he looked more like the kind of protester who waves a sign, “The End Is Near” than he resembled her beautiful husband. A homeless man, pathetic. Just about everyone’s idea of a rapist. The man who couldn’t get a date, a man who makes girls run away from if he comes up behind them.

Roy told the truth when he said his brother was sick; crazy in fact, needed medication to control destructive urges. The only thing Roy had lied about was saying his brother was dead; and really, who could blame him, reading out his brother’s reign of terror?

Her previous idea – the shared wife – that was just disgusting. No way this man could ever impersonate Roy. Jarod would know. Babe would know. Even Digger would know and would back away snarling. See here, in this picture, how he towered over the plumply burnished deputies, a wolf beset by mountain men. Turning the pages she encountered an amazing picture of Babe when young; how beautiful she’d been! Babe’s beauty was something else Roy disparaged, saying it was all in her head, she looked like a man in drag, that his father couldn’t get away fast enough. But in these court pictures she resembled a movie star.

Because of the family dissolution, she hadn’t met Babe when she first knew Roy. But the white faced goddess with the jet-black hair was in every trial shot, in tight short-skirted suits and chunky gold jewelry, holding tightly to her shackled son, telling reporters about her other son, proudly protecting his country in the Gulf.

No wonder the mention of his brother’s name made Roy so angry!

Here were photos of his “accusers” – or “victims”, depending on whether it was the defense or the prosecution talking — women who allowed their identities to be revealed in the sentencing phase, “to set an example.” Scarily, both were blondes, but that was all they had in common. Jo Lee Palladini, a waitress, called herself a grandmother but certainly didn’t look like one, and pretty young Monica Falkin was a high school student.

According to the paper, the Trailside Rapist had as many as twelve other victims and the prosecutor was holding back four more cases he was prepared to bring to court if Royall achieved an acquittal or turned down a plea agreement. As it was, all victims declared themselves satisfied with the verdict and the ones who had not testified were relieved to be spared the grilling Jo Lee was subjected to by Defense Attorney Tim O’Banyon.

Prosecutor Jeremiah Everett declared that it had been necessary to try a case with at least two victims: “We needed to show the jury they were dealing with a serial.” Bruce’s defense, that sex was consensual, “and some like it rough”, while weak in the instance of a high school student to whom he had never been introduced, gained some credence in Jo Lee’s case when it was proved that he was a frequent patron at her place of employment, she had been known to date customers, and had accused at least one of her previous husbands of abuse and later withdrawn the charge.

But ultimately the idea of virginal high school juniors cruising walking trails to solicit rough sex from strangers was too hard for this jury to believe. Bruce got twenty-five years for each rape, sentences to run concurrently.

The story gave background on the other cases. Most occurred in the proximity of the Green Path hiking trail in early morning hours. The rapist targeted fine-boned blondes, small women he could easily overpower. In one case he attacked a woman whose boyfriend was running just up ahead of her (he didn’t notice she was missing for ten or fifteen minutes) and in two instances, he attacked women with dogs. One would-be victim chased him away with pepper spray and several testified they had left scratches on his body, especially on his face.

The rapist invariably wore a black knitted ski mask with red-outlined eyeholes to prevent victims from getting a look at him, but most could testify that he seemed to have blonde facial hair and no body hair, and one had succeeded in tearing off the mask. The composite drawing that had been generated was no help; looked nothing like Bruce Royall. The rapist frequently stated, “If you show me your breasts, I won’t hurt you.” It wasn’t true.

The rapes took place fast, and the rapist often praised the women’s looks, apologized to them, or acted as if this was a social occasion and he was on a date.

Frequently he requested their names, and in the case of one woman, who refused to even give a first name, stole her wallet. He restrained victims forcibly and seemed very strong, but he did not beat or punch women who did not resist. Those who put up a physical fight were slammed in the face with his fist, turned over and sodomized.

The prosecution’s psychologist, while declaring him competent to serve trial, called him a “power reassurance rapist” who “probably feels he is doing nothing wrong in securing compliance to his wishes which in his own mind take precedence over those of his victims. They are not real people to him.”

However, it is obvious that he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he took steps to avoid identification. He usually used a condom and took it away with him, although in the case of Monica Falkin, the high school student who was attacked on the high school jogging trail, he had no condoms and asked for one from his victim. (She didn’t have any either. She was a virgin.) In spite of the risk of leaving identifiable biological evidence, he could not resist raping this victim and leaving the evidence that would ultimately convict him. He never confessed – detectives on the case stated that the most you can expect from this type of criminal is that he might brag to another felon.

Veteran court watchers expressed surprise that such a fortunate young man from such a good family “could not get a girlfriend.”
Persey closed the file.

“What happened to Bruce? When he got out?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know. He was supposed to register as a sex offender but he never did. His mother says he disappeared.”

Babe! Trying to drag her to Bruce’s “grave!” She had a lot of gall! To soothe herself she focused on the distant trees.

He popped The Question. The one he’d been holding inside his cheek ever since she opened her door to him. “No idea where he is?”

She flushed awkwardly beneath his professional gaze, feeling like a liar while telling the truth. This is why innocent people fail polygraphs, she thought.
“They insist he’s dead. He even has a gravesite.”

“They may wish he’s dead, but if he’s hanging around here, it’s hard to believe he’s not maintaining touch with somebody. I spoke to your mother-in- law but — ” he shrugged helplessly, “it’s hard to get a straight story out of her.”

Persey had to laugh. “No kidding. Have you talked to my husband?”
“I can’t force him to return my calls. I was hoping you’d do that.”
More panic at the very thought of bringing this up with Roy. How could she
explain the surrounding facts to exculpate herself? She’d hate telling Roy about the bodies now. If he knew she could keep secrets from him of that dimension, he would never look at her the same away again.

“I can’t believe Bruce would contact his brother. Roy hated Bruce.”

The detective raised his disbelieving eyebrows, as if it was manifestly impossible that twins should ever be enemies.

“Would he pay him to go away?”
And keep it a secret from me? Persey considered. Was it possible? In Roy’s stories, Bruce was all-powerful and he was the weak one.

“Bruce was always bigger and meaner,” she tried to explain. “They grew up in Germany and were home-schooled – so they were stuck with each other. Bruce had that homicidal triad thing – that thing you mentioned before. Roy says he didn’t even know what happiness was until his parents split up and he – Roy — moved in with his dad. Bruce stayed with Babe. Then supposedly Bruce died, long before the rapes. But they must have sent him somewhere.”

And Roy, determined to start fresh, changed his name, began high school, met me.
A cell phone rang. Ned began fumbling with his belt. “Is that me ringing or you?”

It was Persey’s phone. Alas. “Hi, hon. No I haven’t had lunch yet. OK, I’ll meet you there.”
She was glad of any excuse to terminate this conversation. “My husband. I’m meeting him for lunch.” She ducked her head to unlock their eye contact. “I promise I’ll ask him what he knows about Bruce.”

On the way to the restaurant she would think of a way to bring it up. It would be so much easier in a public place. Jarod would probably be there. He would know all about Bruce, too. Maybe she could think up a lie, say she’d come across these articles, or something on the Internet. Get them talking. If she told Roy the policeman came to her house, he’d be so angry.

She kissed a regretful goodbye to her fantasy about Jarod, Serial Killer. Be careful what you wish for! Persey understood the illogicality of magical thinking, but she couldn’t help feeling guilty and responsible. She found the bodies. She unleashed these furies.

Detective McKick assembled his files, but slowly, as if he really didn’t want to leave.

“I appreciate it.” She left the file he had given her behind her on the chair. Where was the place her husband was least likely to look? She’d have to hide it in the laundry room to keep this red-hot material away from Roy’s eyes.

In the hall the cop hesitated at the umbrella stand. Something new for him to look at; previously been concealed by the open door.

“What’s that?”

She sighed. This guy was so outstaying his welcome. “It’s a Mossberg M-9.” “I can see it’s a shotgun, but who does it belong to?”

“It’s mine.” Carefully she rearranged the umbrellas and walking sticks so the
gun was invisible once again. She opened the door pointedly.

“May I ask what it’s doing there? I have to tell you as a public safety officer that’s not responsible storage.”

Persey attempted to master her irritation. “I hate guns, but my husband worries about intruders. He says if you use a shotgun you don’t even have to aim.”
“Well, that’s true enough. I hope it’s not loaded. May I look?”

“No.” She stayed his hand. Of course it was loaded! Otherwise, what would
be the point? Tell a home invader, “Just a minute, I think I have some ammo upstairs?”
He chuckled; discomfited.

“I can see I’m persona non grata. You’ll give me a call?”
She recognized that look he gave her. As if to say, you’re one high
maintenance dame.

She agreed but her voice was frosty. “It’s been a lot for one day.”

He touched her hand briefly, then relinquished the link between them.
“I’ll be in touch.”

She was afraid of that. This man had only bad news. On the doorstep he
looked back.

“Your name…” he asked. “Is it short for something?” “Persephone,” she told him. “It’s Greek.”

Then she was alone.

Chapter Four – Jeopardy Surface

After Babe left, there was still one mission to accomplish so important she couldn’t even wait for that longed-for cup of coffee. She dialed Bish’s number.
To her considerable relief, Cinda answered.

“Hi, Persey here. Hope I didn’t wake you up. Just checking to see if you’re still speaking to me.” Jarod’s parties usually took a full day of recovery. Possibly several.
“We’re fine. We’re sitting in the Jacuzzi. Bish woke up in somebody’s flowerbed.”

A flowerbed? But whose? How far into the surrounding neighborhood was Jarod’s infection – all right, “party” spread? The detective talked about a “jeopardy surface.“ Still too early in the day to try out this novel turn of phrase on Bish.

“Whose flowerbed? Are you all right?”

“Don’t be silly Persey, we had a wonderful time. Those people are so crazy! I only wish I could be more like them. I admire anyone who’s managed to unload all their inhibitions!”
“Aren’t inhibitions a mark of civilized progress?” said Persey, thinking of the serial killer. Somewhere out there was a man without inhibitions. A man with the power to make fantasy come to life. And then to death.

Returned Cinda, “Bet you really want to talk to Bish.”

Cinda was usually pretty good-natured about the fact that Bish was Persey’s closest friend in their triad. A fact that, obviously, needed to be concealed from Roy. A man jealous of a dog was more than capable of ruling out a friendship even with a happily married man of whatever libidinal wattage.

Bish’s voice sounded faint and reedy as if he struggled with a long illness. “Hello, gorgeous!”
Such a relief to hear him. She could picture his pale and scoliotic body in the
foam, the few scraps of silver-blond hair he had left clinging to his enlarged skull.

“You OK? Did you get pecked by crows? Catch a case of blight? Or mildew? Anything?”

“Princess,” he drawled, “you are uselessly, yet so flatteringly protective. I had the night of my life. Freedom’s a bitch and that’s a fact, yet as Homo sapiens we must step to the plate. Where have these parties been all my life? Adults in – and then out – of costume!”

Persey remembered all too well. If only Bish had not chosen to attend disguised as a medieval Scottish king.

“And it wasn’t a mere flowerbed,” he continued with dignity. “It was a field of roses. But I do feel I caught a touch of something. Possibly greenfly.

O Rose–” quoted thrillingly —
“Thou art sick!
The invisible worm

That flies in the night

In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy
And his dark secret — love
Does thy life destroy.

Possibly I have a previously undiagnosed allergy to roses. Cinda says it
seems she is allergic to the full Brazilian. That’s why we’re sitting in the Jacuzzi. This itching is torture.”

“Tell her that goes away,” said Persey. “I don’t know about greenfly.”
“Away, alas, alas,” sighed Bish sentimentally. “Like everything else. Away, away. The things you say, Persey! As the poet Swinburne so nobly said –”
Persey hastened to derail him.

“So how did you get there? Do you even remember?”
Odd how strong the link was between her and Bish. She encountered the
worms he poeticized about. And there had been a lot of them. Yet she was fine;
no greenfly here; stronger if anything. Maybe one of the reasons she liked Bish so much was because he was the only person in the universe frailer than she. They could nerve each other up, so to speak.

“I remember perfectly and I’m not going to share it with you. Alas my Royal Stewart is ruined but it did not die in vain. Suffice to say that as a self-slain god on his own strange altar I achieved transcendence. Last night will remain a cherished memory in my boring, quotidian existence. One last gasp of youth before senility and arthritis overwhelm the pulse of manhood. Unless you invite me to another of the adorable Mr. Gunver’s parties.”

“We’ll see,” sighed Persey, still feeling exasperated. Why did everyone like Jarod so much? Because he was the original pusher-man? Anything people needed, he provided, and the cops did not come calling. Well, he couldn’t provide Persey with her “fix”, which was his own absence. She would never ask Jarod for another favor ever again as long as she lived, if she could help it.
He’d claimed a hideously unpleasant reward for this one; a sloppy and disgusting French kiss. And Roy just stood there, beaming at the pair of them.

Persey struggled to express her complicated idea. That was one of Bish’s wonders; you could say anything around him. He helped her understand and acknowledge her own most elusive ideas.
“I feel I need forgiveness if I’ve compromised your morals.”

“What morals? Princess, you make me feel so old. No, no, no, no, no. Here’s a motto for you; never explain, never apologize. La Princesse Lointaine will seek neither permission nor forgiveness. If you had any idea how humbly I aspire to decadence… what was that hostess’ name – Misty, Smokie –“

“Stormee.”
“Whatever. She came on to ME! Me! It was glorious. A never-to-be-forgotten moment in the annals of Bishop DeBarr. She even promised to do all the work, like a rider mower.”
Persey laughed in spite of herself.

“Don’t be too flattered. Stormee comes on to inanimate objects.”
“Thank you very much,” Bish said frigidly, “But I’m virtually certain she was
responding to my personal charms. I declaimed to her my epic poem-in-progress about footballers and she seemed really interested. Of course I changed it to bodybuilders to intrigue her interest.”
“Well, don’t take her up on her offer. You’ll catch something worse than mildew. But I’m relieved to hear you both had a good time.”

“Call it a marriage-therapy-cum-encounter-qua-bonding bondage weekend packed into just a few short hours. How the Maenads danced! I had no idea my wife was such a limbo champion. Win, place and show. There wasn’t a competitor who could touch her.”

She heard Cinda’s barking voice followed by a struggle for the phone.

“Sorry, Persephone. Dropped the cordless in the water but it doesn’t seem any the worse. My only regret is that you had to rush back to your tower and miss all the excitement, but I understand your fairy spell of solitude. Ah, the Lady of Shalott shall web her loom of life these weary hours. By the way, are you coming to book club next week? We’re doing James Tiptree, Jr. He was a she. You can borrow my collected works if you’d like.“

“I’d like,” said Persey, thinking, I am not under a fairy spell of solitude. Think how she could surprise everybody, if she chose! Bish was the one person she could safely tell about her “adventure”. If he promised not to tell Cinda he could even be relied on to keep that promise.
“Don’t worry about me, Princess. I’ve been running my own life with modest success since I turned thirty. See you at book club, or before if you choose to pick up a well-thumbed volume. Kisses.”

As she hung up the phone the clock swelled to exaggerated size, the numbers seeming both to mock and threaten. She didn’t want to have to tell Roy she’d passed a full day without working. She was lucky he allowed her to go to book club, with his attitude towards literature as a snob’s game. His prejudice against poetry was particularly ridiculous, since he’d memorized every rock lyric of the past twenty years. Neither he not Jarod could lead their lives without a soundtrack provided by very artistic young men.

But of course everyone was a mass of contradictions. If she didn’t point out Roy’s, he wouldn’t point out hers. Deal. Putting her wine in the refrigerator, she poured herself a ceremonial cup of coffee and went downstairs to tackle the bills.

Persey’s desk was in the basement laundry room. That was her choice. If she had wanted something as ostentatious as Roy’s wood paneled study with the glass gun cabinets and the Civil War memorabilia, the house was big enough to allow it. But the basement had the advantage of being cool, quiet and utilitarian; a place she only visited when she had a job to do; a place she could leave just as soon as “the job” was done. In some inchoate way Persey felt the house resembled her own self; glamorous, artful surfaces masking unplumbed depths. She was Roy’s bookkeeper, and bookkeeping was a lot like spying. Made her feel a little dirty. In need of a shower.

She certainly would never go near Roy’s computer; she had learned her lesson there. Just jiggling buttons while dusting unleashed a Girls-Gone-Crazy popup “pornado”. Persey understood; with men, sex is visual. “Leave the light on” crossed with male curiosity equals Internet marketing bonanza. A plague of medieval intensity had taken over Roy’s desktop, even his start menu. More summits for him and Jarod to egg each other on about.

In Persey’s considered opinion her husband’s “bro-mance” was a transparent attempt to replace his long-dead twin. He might say how much he’d hated his brother, but there had to have been a time when they were close, before competition for inaccessible, quarrelling parents slid the knife between them.

At any rate, it felt better not to think about it. An appetite for computer porn was way preferable to her first husband’s taste for real live women – in his case waitresses in need of a job. Terrified of and disgusted by disease, Roy was too fastidious for real live women. He openly despised them, comparing each aloud unfavorably to his goddess of a wife. In his eyes, Persey was perfect. He didn’t even nag her to get a boob job, as her first husband had. Cinda, who referred to Roy as “that glam Nazi,” claimed to envy their relationship.

Usually she listened to the washing machine while sorting through receipts. The bliss of white noise triggered her mind to wander. If she worked till four, then she could pick Digger up and get something for dinner.

Wanting every expense charged to the business, Roy was a meticulous saver of receipts. Showed how little Babe knew when she said Persey had no idea what Roy did all day. His trail of receipts tracked him as effectively as an all-seeing eye. From $1.99 for coffee at Dunkin Donuts to $14,408 for an ATV, she typed them in haphazardly and let the software program sort them out. Leaving her mind just where she liked it; free to roam and speculate.

What code could she give for example, to a motel receipt? $499 for the month of June. She knew what it was for; Jarod needed a hideaway from Stormee. But it surprised her that he had chosen such a grimy, industrial backwater. She had seen “The International Coach House” from the highway. Why should Jarod select a sleazy spot if someone else was paying? She took a thoughtful sip of coffee and leaned back in her chair.

How delicious if Jarod was the serial killer! If you thought about it, it even made sense. She should figure out a way to run the idea past that detective. He was local, he had the requisite repulsive He was local, he had the requisite repulsive personality, he was always bragging about killing people (legitimately of course, so he claimed.) Think of the pleasure of getting rid of him! In spite of what she’d said to Babe, the truth was he’d worn out his welcome. And now that he was a partner in Roy’s business he was ubiquitous.

It was disturbing that Roy needed Jarod’s approval so badly. Once Persey had been enough for him. She thought about it while shifting laundry into the dryer. Babe seemed determined to flatter him as well; could mother and son be competing now for Jarod as they had once for Roy Senior, and even for Bruce? If partners had fallen in their complex dance, was Jarod now the mirror that aligned them with each other?

It was interestingly bizarre, but not anything she dared mentioning to Roy. He had no patience for “psychobabble”, and if you tried theorizing around Babe she’d make you sorry. Still, this was the kind of tangle Bish loved to tease apart, even if it felt a tad disloyal. And it gave Persey something interesting to think about during boring household tasks.

Alas, much as she yearned for it, her imagination failed to picture Jarod as a serial killer. He was so damn lazy! He routinely roped in other people to do his dirty work. And hadn’t McKick described the victims as prostitutes? Jared was a vice cop, he had his fill of hookers. No big deal to him, a victimless crime as far as he was concerned. Persey didn’t think he was all that interested in women, to tell the truth. He was acquisitive, all right, but probably a disaster in bed – one of those men who feels they’ve won the moment you say yes, so the act itself is humdrum and needs to be rushed through; like paying for dinner. He was a lot more interested in pimps and big league drug dealers. Just another powerful male seeking out other powerful males. And there was something else.

Jarod was a fake. That was the thing Roy just could not see about him. He enjoyed hiding behind the power of the law. In spite of his big talk, he was much too careful of his tender hide to actually risk it on a leveled playing field.

Now the hall clock chimed five as Persey came in the front door overloaded with groceries, pursuing an Airedale as clean and fuzzy as a plush toy. She had to drop the groceries to disarm the security system. It was hurry hurry now. Even if he planned to go out later Roy usually appeared about six, tired, filthy, horny and hungry; wanting everything at once.

She had to change; Roy wouldn’t want to see her in a tracksuit. He demanded something special, just for him, with a plentiful display of such cleavage and she could muster.

No time for a shower; a cropped lace top and jean shorts was the best she could do at a moment’s notice. She wore a sprinkling of the diamonds he so loved giving her, and a larger selection of the opals she so loved receiving.

She placed the deposit slip from Babe’s money transfer on Roy’s side of the bed, then pattered barefoot down to the kitchen to feed the dog and pour her wine from lunch into a balloon glass. The ice had melted by now; the drink was cold and weak. Perfect. She’d had nothing to eat all day, her gut was clenched as usual and anything strong would likely knock her over. As she worked she turned on the television, wondering if there would be any public mention of her discovery .
“Cadaver hunter,” she said aloud, and laughed out loud. She placed a pasta pot of water on boil and pulled the tails off shrimp.

Roy came in angry. She heard the oval stained glass door shiver as he slammed it behind him. He would break that glass eventually, probably while cursing its cheap construction. Too bad. It was the one gift from Babe she really liked – not counting the house. Babe had bought the stained glass Lady and the Unicorn because she said — “Persey, it’s you!” True, the unicorn wore a sappy expression but the colors were glorious and certainly it was unique. The Lady with the long blonde hair was sufficiently lovely that comparison was flattering. Persey would have preferred one of the questing heroines of the Bird Lady’s tales, but no one seemed to want to commemorate them.

Still, looked like its time on earth threatened to be short. Persey fretted that it seemed as fragile as a butterfly wing. Extra glass or Lucite would guarantee it a future but diminish the pleasure of its present. So often that was the way with beauty. It was transient. All you could do was appreciate it for the second it touched you.

This didn’t seem to be one of Roy’s ordinary rages, such as those usually caused by the rudeness of drivers and the ignorance of salespeople. He was shrieking, “THOSE ASSHOLES!”

She turned down the flame under the Newburg sauce, grabbed a Red Dog from the refrigerator and ventured into the hall in time to see him tear a letter to bits and fling it to the floor.
Even though she was never the target Roy’s rages could be scary. Keeping her thoughts to herself was best, examining statements carefully before she made them, that was key. She knew better than to say anything that would set him off. There was something cosmic about this level of fury; he seethed as if he had a volcano inside him. He turned to look at her with his lips pulled back and his eyes flared, like a riderless horse.

“Hon, what is it?” She was afraid even to offer the beer. He looked as if he was searching for something to smash.

His eyes lit on the vase. “What the hell is that?”

Fortunately he didn’t lunge for it immediately. The mention of his mother’s name would hardly calm him down, so for the moment she had to take responsibility. There was a chance he wouldn’t smash it if he thought she had chosen it.

“It’s new,” she said as calmly as she possibly could. Roy expected women to shop and to buy ridiculous things. In his world, that was what they did with their time.
“We’ll get rid of it if you don’t like it.”

Much as she desired its demise she recognized that smashing it would only increase, not defuse, his anger.

“Well, it’s as ugly as sin,” he said. He was coming down now, panting like a runner.

“Then it’s out of here.” Now was the time for beer. She stepped over the paper pieces on the floor, inquiring almost idly, as if she couldn’t possibly care about it,
“What was that?”

“Junk mail.” His mouth worked with difficulty as if he’d suddenly forgotten how to speak. “Those assholes at the lab…those bastards can’t get anything right. Jarod was right… can’t trust the system. Don’t give them anything. ”

“Come sit down and talk to me,” Persey coaxed, deliberately slowing her voice to create a hypnotizing circle of calm. She had learned the trick of matching her breathing to his to slow his down.

“I’m cooking. I can’t leave the stove.”

He looked longingly at her, wanting to be soothed. He tossed back the beer
and crushed the can in his hand. It joined the trash on the floor. He ran a hand over his head and shook off some concrete dust.

“I’m filthy.” He seemed uncertain, as if the dirt had happened to someone else. “I should take a shower.”

She could tell by his tone that wasn’t what he wanted.
“It’s just us, eating in the kitchen.” She reached out and touched his chest. It felt hot, like a feverish child’s. She said seductively, “You know I like the
way you smell,” and was rewarded by his special smile.

According to him, “their” smells were special. Other people stank,
perspired, sweated up a storm, but he and Persey together created odors that entranced, misting the pair of them in a shimmering but unbreakable erotic bubble.
He shook the front of his shirt a little apologetically. “I’ve had a shit day.” “Would you like to eat in the hot tub?”

It would mean cleaning it after, always an annoying chore. But she could tell
by the gratification on his face that she’d nailed it.

“You go on in. I’ll bring in your plate.”
“Only if you get in too. Miss me?”

“You know I did.” When she touched him she could tell the last of his
fireworks had drained away, popping harmlessly in the air like party favors. The beer returned a faint wash of color to the sharp-edged planes of his bony
face. He looked past her hungering for another.

“Bring you one first thing,” She promised. Several if that’s what it took. “You
go get in the tub. Dinner’s ready, I’ll be right there.”

She had been thinking of making a salad and steaming some peas; no time for
that now. Instead she sprinkled cooked rigatoni directly onto Boston lettuce and topped it off with shrimp and Newburg sauce. A little Parmesan cheese, a shake of pepper, put the plates on the tray with napkins, forks, a half bottle of wine and two extra Red Dogs and she was good to go.
Carrying it in, she constructed for herself a conversation that would never happen; Roy asking, “How was your day,” and her reply, “Very successful day cadaver diving. Got a matching pair.”

But Roy thought he already knew how her days went. Bo–ring. Housework, bills, walk. Yawn. Dog, shop, cook. Snore. Already the scenes she had lived this day were sinking down to the deepest part of her mind, the place that stores and generates dreams. It began to feel like something she had overheard, something seen on television happening to someone else. Once upon a time, long, long ago…

She set the hall dial on the surround sound for relaxation; “easy listening”.
He was already in the tub, his filthy clothes cast away along the floor, not far from where hers had been, this afternoon. Another trash bag would soon be pressed into service.

Someday she would have to plan something to say in case Babe garbled out a version of Persey’s misadventure. Since Roy routinely said his mother’s eyes and brain mind were going, it might be easiest to go with that. In the evening’s semi darkness she stepped around the room quietly lighting candles. With just the right lightning, especially tired as he was, he might never notice the scratches or bruises, and if they made love without the light – and he owed her that –any imperfection noticed tomorrow could be attributed to him. Pity to mislead, but an unfortunate necessity when his temper was so volatile. And was it any wonder?

He was a survivor, after all, not just of a competitive, unloving, rage-filled, lonely childhood in a foreign land, not just of his brother and father’s deaths and his mother’s bizarre treatment, but of all the terrible Gulf War stories he and Jarod told. Some of them Persey couldn’t believe – they smiled too much as they one-upped each other. But sometimes the horror shone all too starkly in his eyes.

Those eyes were closed now, and with his pale hair slicked back, he was so handsome he was almost beautiful, with his sharp silver brows and his perfectly cut mouth. Together he and Bruce must have been astonishing, a dizzying display. Lying back against the marble, water bubbling around him, he seemed a spell-struck prince. Talk of a matched pair. Always, always, they had been so perfect together. People often said they seemed like brother and sister. She set the tray on tiles and pulled off her own clothes.

She felt a gush of pride at having snagged him. He was a “catch” – everyone had known it. But the timing was so bad. He was too intense for high school, wanting to marry before she was eighteen, before she had seen the world. She wanted college, he hated school. California was too far away, and when her own mother died, and her father remarried and moved to Florida, there seemed no reason ever to come back here.

Timing was in fact a bitch. When ready to marry she chose the college sweetheart on whom she’d invested everything. It was like using electro-shock on a dying relationship. A predictable disaster. But she hadn’t known how to get out til Roy appeared.

When she saw her husband’s physical fear of Roy she gloried in the primitive pleasure of how good that felt. Though he was thin, Roy was usually the tallest man in any room, and fearlessly confrontational. He loved to fight. Will had backed down immediately and she was free. It helped that she didn’t need anything of his, since Roy had plenty. Like a refugee she ran away in the clothes she stood up in.

As she poured herself a glass of wine she wondered, what set Roy off tonight? It might be the lab results she hadn’t seen in the pile of mail, or some business thing. Well, the good news was Roy never cleaned up after himself so those pieces would still be lying on the floor for her to reconstruct. She would find it out eventually, whatever it was.

He opened his eyes when he heard the pop-top snap. She ministered to him, helping him manage his plate.

“God, this is good,” he said. “What’s in here?”
“Sherry .”

Roy was easier to handle when he was a little drunk. He finished his third
Red Dog and started in on Persey’s wine. She topped off the glass for him.
As if diving for freedom, a shrimp slid into the water. Persey retrieved it and
flicked it away across the tiled floor. Roy ate and ate; all of his food and half of Persey’s, before he fell back with a sigh.

Taking advantage of his receptive mood, Persey asked a daring question. “You know, your mother said something odd today. She said you found
Bruce’s body. I always thought you told me she found it.”
Roy’s erotic mood was pricked; he lifted his hand from his wife’s breast.

“She’s such a liar!” he barked. “You can never believe a word she says.”
Persey pressed her chest against his shoulder. “Well, what did happen?”

Roy’s jaw worked angrily, as it did sometimes in sleep. He was supposed to wear a mouthguard, but he almost never did. He said tightly, “I don’t know, do I? I wasn’t there.”

As if to punish her for inquiring, he fought back. “That fudge-packer friend of yours made a spectacle of himself at Jarod’s party. God knows what you see in that guy.”

Persey felt his words like quick thrusts to the heart. This brand of assault was deeply unfair, but all too familiar from her own childhood: “Once again your mother made a spectacle of herself,” “Your father’s drunk as usual.”

She had learned never to show that a hit had gone home, otherwise in future they would know just where to strike. She raised her thin, almost white eyebrows and pulled her body. “I thought making a spectacle of yourself was the whole point of Jarod’s parties.”

“We don’t usually get the he-shes,” said Roy, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “You can catch things from those guys.”

Talk about a double standard, thought Persey. She had tried time and again to explain to Roy that Bish was a happily married man with children. So what if he had a fey manner? Why freeze interesting diversity into boring black and white? And look at him and Jarod; they were plenty touchy-feely, covering each other with “wrestling burns”. Why not get all homophobic about that?
Instead she said shortly, “I’m not going to have sex with him. He’s not even gay.” Bish had actually said he was bisexual, but he also said everyone was bisexual. Wouldn’t sweeten Roy’s mood to tell him that.

“He was wearing a skirt,” said Roy. “Everyone saw it.”

“That was a kilt. His great-grandfather was a Scottish lord. The Kings of England wear kilts.”
“There are no Kings of England,” said Roy loftily, his lazy hand languidly encircling her neck. “They only have queens over there.”

They kissed while the bad moment boiled away. Seal’s voice swelled around the corners, oozing from the walls, warning them to cry no more. Roy sang along. “In my bed…in my head…” He knew all the words to this one, too.

He was pretty high now, past the rage, totally relaxed. Soon all would be buried except his need for her. Under his eyelids, the orbs twitched back and forth as if he watched a mind-movie. She could imagine what it depicted. If he fell asleep it might be hard to get him out of the tub. Better not let him go too far.

She touched him between his legs. He woke up all right. She climbed into his lap.
He stood up, bearing her aloft, water running off his skin. Persey enjoyed the contrast of sudden cool air stinging her nipples.

“Want dessert?” she teased him. “Yes,” he said. “You.”
She ducked her head to conceal her sudden smile.
“Suits me.”

She had to admit she enjoyed extremes; mixing things up, hot water to cold
air, wetness to dryness, rage to lust. It spiced up the erotic momentum and activated the slow inevitability of the launch sequence. Aggression lent savor to the poetry of lovemaking. Already her spirit fled up the carpeted stairs to throw itself in excited anticipation upon luxurious Egyptian linen sheets. Contrasts give life its pleasure, she thought, even though the shock of soft to hard might leave a bruise or two behind.

Bruce was dead, those poor hunted girls were dead, but she and Roy were more than alive. The definition of life was not just feeling and provoking but imagining and remembering. If the fisherman fought to reel in his fish they both slept better after. And the deeper the sleep, the wilder were the dreams that bubbled up, as if from nowhere.

Chapter Three – Pattern Injury

She dropped Digger off at the Pride ‘n’ Groom. It was still early afternoon, but as she pulled up to her house, she was presented with yet another hill to climb. Babe’s eggplant-colored Cadillac was parked (askew as always – she complained that the driveway was wrongly calibrated) right out front.
It wasn’t that Persey didn’t like Roy’s mother. It was just that Babe was so much work. Like a cranky old furnace, she burned up the available air. Conversations with her were like being caught in an undertow; it was always better to just stop struggling and marshal your strength. Babe delivered insulting admonitions and requested in return advice she wouldn’t follow. Most of the
advice she sought concerned her son, and how to get on his good side. But since she would never stop needling him, but it was like telling the wind not to blow.

When Babe and Roy complained about each other to Persey she felt like a human shuttlecock. It simply wasn’t possible to please them both. She feigned as much sympathy as she could summon to Babe’s dilemmas, but after all, she had vowed to God to put Roy first, and vows made on a beach were just as binding, even with leis and swimsuits subbing for the more traditional black and white.

Persey sighed as she slammed the car door. Well, this time Roy would not be the first subject of discussion. The fact that Persey looked like she’d been pulled through a hedge would not go unremarked.

She was grateful that she didn’t have to bring cops and bodies into it. What had she been thinking? Parties were mass hallucinations, everybody agreed; how had she managed to have her hallucination twelve hours later? She could no longer remember why digging up dead things had seemed like fun.

Her big problem was preventing Babe from reporting this to Roy. Babe loved the idea of having secrets with Persey, but in fact she was the biggest blabbermouth on God’s earth. Anything resembling a weapon had to be pressed into immediate service, so how could she resist telling Roy something about his wife he didn’t know? Trump cards appear when the stakes get high, and Roy finding out his wife came home from her “walk” looking like she’d been rolledby sailors was an invitation to the apocalypse. Safer to take advantage of her husband’s insistence that since his mother exaggerated everything, no story of hers could ever be believed. Exaggeration was definitely Babe’s style, thought Persey. It was like a heavy foreign accent; after awhile you figured it out. And didn’t allowances need to be made for everybody? One way or the other?

Babe had let herself in with her own key, disarmed the security system and was busy setting up a massively hideous silk floral display in a three-foot tall knockoff vase pretending to Famille Jaune. She looked magnificent as usual, sporting a nubby-weave amber-colored skirt that showed her legs and a high- collared silk blouse buttoned above her loosened throat. Faux pearl earrings the size of headlights glittered in her ears. With her high-teased dead-black hair and pansy stained dark eyes Persey thought she looked ready to sing Madame Butterfly.

Babe adored dispensing gifts; but her “gifts” felt like loans. Her things had to be displayed her way. She was forever attempting to clutter up the white spaces of Persey’s front hall. Persey treated these gestures politely since she couldn’t seem to get her mother-in-law to see that the interesting architectural details of a trapezoidal room required no embellishment. This vase was an obscene object; and the flowers were just unspeakable, but Babe would never get it. Imagine flowers that you had to dust! Wait till Roy saw it! The whole mess was fated for a serious “accident.”

It was easy to be polite because Persey pitied her mother-in-law from the bottom of her heart. To the unenlightened, rich and glamorous Babe might seem a fortunate being; but if unrequited love brings the most painful suffering in the universe, then hell was Babe’s permanent residence. First Bruce, the son she “won” in her divorce hanged himself at age seventeen, and nothing she could ever do or say would trigger love or even respect from her sole remaining child. Roy held her responsible for his father’s departure, for the divorce, for his twin’s death, his father’s death, everything. Babe was sentenced to seeing all her advances spurned and treated with contempt; usually as publicly as possible.

“Oh, hi, honey,” called Babe over her shoulder. “Look what I got for you when we closed the show house. Your front hall is just so bare. It’s unwelcoming. When you pull in the eye, you pull in the person.”

Sociable herself, she took it utterly for granted in others. Persey calibrated the seconds until Babe was no longer touching the vase – the accident shouldn’t actually occur in her presence – before she spoke.

“Trick or Treat.”

Babe’s expression of anticipatory delight turned clownishly to horror. “Good
God! Honey, what happened to you?”

“I know I’m an idiot. Digger got stuck in a briar patch.”

Babe’s nostrils flared with anger – at Digger, Persey realized too late. Damn!
She should have blamed a passing stray. Before her eyes the carefully applied color of what her mother-in-law referred to as her maquillage leaked away. What if Roy and his mother bonded together against the “filthy animal” that absorbed so much of Persey’s time and care?

“Honey, that’s blood,” she said, touching Persey’s arm. “How can you ever take care of another human being if you can’t you learn to take care of yourself?”
Blood? Persey felt momentary faintness –- had she touched The Thing? But it was her own blood bubbling wetly out of one long scratch along her arm.

“Sweetheart, this needs stitches. I think we have to get you to a doctor.” Babe seemed touchingly upset.

It was something of a surprise. Babe feared the invasions of age, but she feared doctors even more. She kept rafts of shamen and herbalists on speed dial. Recently she had been forced into mainstream medicine for disc surgery and had been complaining about it ever since. Maybe she thought doctors were OK for other people. She had been the one insisting on a fertility clinic when time was passing and no infant appeared.

Persey, braced for interference and disapproval, was almost undone by sympathy. Knowing Babe considered hugging “messy” she gave her mother-in- law a reassuring pat.

“All I need is hot water and chlorine,” said Persey. “It looks worse than it is.” “What good is that damned dog, I’d like to know. He’s supposed to be protecting you. You got the wrong breed, I’m afraid. Airedales! It’s not too late to trade him for a Doberman.” Babe’s attitude towards pets – “filth-mongers” was even more disapproving than her attitude towards plants — “allergens”.

“Where is Digger?” She looked hopeful, as if perhaps he had been lost or even killed.
“He’s getting his grooming, and now I’m getting mine,” said Persey, making her way towards the sunroom and hot tub as tactfully as she could without seeming to abandon her unwanted guest. She had hoped to undress without being scanned for a “baby-bump” but no such luck. Babe pattered after her on the same stiletto heels that had triggered her back surgery.

“You know I hate to agree with Roy, honey, but maybe he’s right this time. Your walks are getting a little too far ranging. The world isn’t as safe as you apparently believe. A girl who’s trying to become a mother can’t live just for herself anymore. I’m behind you on the exercise – we all know that’s important – but why can’t you go to the gym?”

Because gyms were full of Stormees and Jarods. Competitive thighs, lifeless surfaces, angry eyes, frozen dreams, lustful sighs. She smiled, appreciating her insta-poem. Bish said everything could be poetry. He called Persey his Muse.

She pleaded, fully despising her beggy tone. “He’s learning voice command. We’re almost there.“
“Honey, there’s no controlling him. That dog weighs as much as you do. “

Naked people can’t argue effectively and Persey had already dropped her clothes. She sank gratefully into the boiling water, turned on the jets, closed her eyes and gave herself up to purification.

“I see more than one scratch,” Babe chastised, pulling up a chair as if Persey was the floorshow. “And I think you’re skinnier than ever, if that’s even possible.” She clucked her tongue disapprovingly but at least restrained herself from wondering aloud what man could possibly be attracted to a grown woman with the body of an eleven-year-old girl. Persey gave silent thanks for small favors, but apparently her mother-in-law had other things on her mind.
“Look at you! You could have picked up any one of those tick diseases. That’s a systemic illness, you know. It could affect your baby and his heirs for all eternity. I’ll get some nettle tea from Dr. Zu.”

Persey smiled at the thought that it was OK to drink nettles but never to play in them. She had serious doubts Zu was even a “doctor”. “Doctor” of fleecing rich old ladies, she thought.
“I just need some antiseptic,” she said out loud, “And a bandaid. There’s a First Aid kit in the downstairs bathroom.”

But it wasn’t going to be possible to get rid of Babe that easily. Babe was going over her daughter-in-law’s clothes with a ragpicker’s care.

“Why does such a pretty girl allow herself to be seen this way?” she asked aloud. “You should realize, Persey, you haven’t the luxury of being “off-stage.” Someone is always watching.”
Not true, thought Persey. That’s why I go on those walks: no cameras, no mirrors – no memory even. There I can be utterly, entirely alone. Now an unpleasant thought struck her. Ned had seen her both at her best – in full make up as a mermaid at Jarod’s party – and at her absolute worst, as a thrill-seeking grub-hunter. She’d proven something to herself, all right, but what had she proven to him?

“I’ll just throw these in the kitchen trash,” said Babe, “They’re too far gone even to donate. There’s no point in washing them.”

Throwing perfectly good clothes away was something Roy had inherited from his mother, much as he wanted to pretend he was a changeling. Both of them think there’s no such thing as clean, only new. They see stains invisible to others. Roy couldn’t even bear distressed jeans.
Persey sank beneath the water wondering if she could feign sleep. She tried pulling the roaring water into the acoustic foreground of her brain. Delicious white noise.

This octagonal glass gazebo was her favorite room in the house. Containing only plants – real ones — candles and a hot tub sunk into the tiled floor, it was impervious to Babe’s meddling. Persey lifted her arm to study it. Already the scratch looked better. As long as her face was unmarked, a scratch or two was nothing. She could handle Roy. She always had.

Babe appeared trailing a trash bag from each hand.

“I’m double-bagging them,” said Babe, who probably talked to herself when no one else was around. “That way if there’s anything on them it won’t transfer to the house.”
She knotted the bag securely, brushed off her skirt, and then settled back down in her chair as if she had all the time in the world.

“Untreated allergies lead to autoimmune disorders, you know. Cancer. Imagine me, mother of two little boys and no one could figure out what was wrong with me. And all the time I was allergic to Roy Senior’s sperm!” she shook her head sadly. “He was slowly killing me. Divorce is unthinkable but sometimes you just have to protect yourself.”

Persey could not bear going over this again. According to Roy his father was the one to leave, “Couldn’t stand her shit for one more second” but Babe told quite a different tale. The only way to derail this train was to throw her naked body across the tracks and brave the skewering glance. Forget towels. She stepped out of the comforting hot water and walked to the door for a terrycloth robe.

“And you’re looking so well now,” she said brightly. Manifestly false but Babe would probably buy it. Anything to change the subject.

“Well, it’s been a rough menopause,” commented her mother-in-law, blinking. “It seems my body can’t let go of youth.”

Or her memory of every slight. Persey said heartily, “I need a drink!” It had never been truer. “How about you?”

These were magic words. Babe snapped out of her loop and gladly followed her daughter-in law into what she called “the living room” and Persey thought of as “the drinking room”, since that’s all that goes on here. But hell, Babe bought this house, so she can call the rooms anything she wants. Here the afternoon sun checked by skylights was more flattering to her mother-in-law’s carefully constructed looks. Babe checked a pocket mirror and patted her face to reassure herself that the emotional moment had dissipated with maquillage intact. This was her favorite room in her son’s house, dominated as it was by her own massive portrait.

“Double old-fashioned, please,” she said comfortably, just as if her daughter- in-law didn’t know. “Not too much ice.”

Persey rarely drank before – or even with lunch, but it was funny how you needed a drink when Babe was around. She splashed white wine into a Tom Collins glass, added water and ice. As she crossed the room to give her mother- in-law the glass, Persey gazed around dissatisfied. This decorating was botched by too many cooks. Babe took an interest in the colors since she was donating her portrait whose colors must be showcased, not competed with. She fought against
Persey’s favorite pastels as potentially “unmanning” of her only son. The sole color agreed on was white; but the effect was chilly. White sofas, white pillows, white flokati rugs. Only alcohol could warm them as they gazed upward at the massive portrait whose subject, a romantically beautiful dark haired woman, once wore twin boys on either side, as matched accessories.

Now she embraced a single lopsided boy, while her other arm encircled a muddy paint-pool. Bruce being painted out was the condition Roy made on accepting this gift, and to Persey’s considerable surprise, Babe went along with it. But just because a thing was hidden didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Persey often thought she could detect the lost boy’s eyes peering out at the assembled company – Pleadingly? Threateningly? — behind his new disguise.

The effect was heightened if you’d had a few. According to her watch it was way past lunchtime. She really should serve something to mop up all this alcohol. There was leftover Chinese in the refrigerator. She was wondering if she could dress it up enough to make it presentable when her mother-in-law spoke.

“I thought we could go shopping and out to dinner,” she suggested. “A day without shopping is like a day without sunshine.”

“I’ll call Roy,” said Persey guardedly. “But I think he’s got plans.”
“Such as what?” demanded his mother.

“Oh, you know.” Persey was vague. “Something with Jarod. Last night was
Jarod’s birthday party.”

“Jarod again?” sniffed Roy’s mother. “You know I love Jarod – he’s certainly been good for Roy — but haven’t they been spending too much time together? Don’t you feel neglected?”
“Not at all,” said Persey. “I have a lot to do around here. The house. The bookkeeping.” She didn’t dare admit how much she relished her alone time.

Babe chose a different subtext. “Beauty rituals are so time-consuming, men just don’t understand. The more beautiful one is, the more time it takes.” she sniffed. “And then they want you ready for anything. Well, if Bryan wants to be a party pooper it’s a good thing we don’t need him in order to have fun.”

Must be the liquor that made her slip up and refer to Roy by his baby name. If he was present, he would set her straight. Babe had named her sons after dead twin uncles, but when Roy Senior had his heart attack and Bruce was already dead, Roy took his father’s name. Not as just a fresh start, Persey thought, but a way to capture closeness with a dead and distant father, and also spite a mother who’d tried so hard to enlist him in her campaign against her husband.
Babe could reliably spark Roy’s worst behavior – “accidentally” of course — just by using his old name. Even Persey would have corrected her but Babe was in spate.

“You and Bryan are too alike. He was always such a daredevil. He egged Bruce on. All my pleading and begging never made the slightest difference. I didn’t realize until it was too late that it Bruce who was the fragile one, even though he was firstborn. They had one of those relationships where everyone else is shut out; no one else knew what was going on. Poor Bruce was only trying to match Bryan’s physical courage. Trying and failing. And now you’re doing it, Persey. I can’t lose you too.”

Persey felt no longer clean as hopelessness washed over her. Easy to understand Roy’s rage against his mother when Babe carried on like this. What was she implying now, that Bruce’s death was not a suicide? She was an expert at rewriting history. Persey, had met Roy’s father but never Bruce, who died too young, so circumstances of his death were still foggy. Heavens knows Roy didn’t want to talk about it. In Roy’s rare tales about his brother it was Bruce the Evil who raged through his timid brother’s inhibitions like a tornado. Roy said Bruce was on meds to tame violent, possibly psychotic behavior. He broke things, smashed things, threatened people; even killed the family dog. He cut scars into Roy you could see to this day. Why did Bruce’s death have to be Roy’s fault? Couldn’t Babe see how proportioning blame fatally separated survivors?

By the time Persey arrived on the scene Roy was already living with his father. He’d switched high schools, that’s what caused him to fall across Persey’s path.

Whether Roy chose his father or his father chose him she could never get clear, but the boy left with Mom killed himself. So it was certainly forgivable if Babe chose to go a little nuts. But why Babe felt the need to endlessly rehash all this misery was beyond Persey. Why complain about Roy’s rejection and yet stubbornly bring up all the subjects that made him the angriest?

Yet in Roy’s absence this might be a primo opportunity to find out what really happened. Or possibly, by getting another story, triangulate between the tales to real events.
“Were you the one who found him?” Persey asked abruptly.

Babe’s lips froze; she seemed almost as if surprised she had a listener. Usually one drink did not take hold to this extent. Her mouth worked under the pressure of self-censorship.
“Oh, no,” she gasped. “I was at least spared that. Bryan found him.”

This just had to be an outright lie. Roy had always claimed to be with his father during the time of his brother’s death. Would Babe lie about a fact so central? Persey had to admit that she probably would, just to distance herself. Facts to Babe were only raw material, and Babe enjoyed the challenge of twisting them into fresh, exciting new designs. Hard to blame her, really, when what some people called “lying”, was just “information management” to Babe; another business tool. Even Roy was guilty of this to some extent. It was a way of controlling your self-presentation. One thing they agreed on was that it was stupid to let others see your cards.

Babe was after all a successful businesswoman with a finely tuned instinct for what people needed to hear. People needed careful leading to pre-chosen conclusions. With her own ears Persey had heard statements like, “Everyone’s after this property,” “Madonna’s trying to buy into the neighborhood”, “He is our most trusted developer”, “There have never been any complaints about this well water”, things Persey knew quite definitely weren’t true. But not only was Babe capable of saying it, she was capable of acting like she believed it. Maybe she did believe it.

However, Roy might walk in at any moment, so she shouldn’t be encouraged in her fantasies or he could blow up at the pair of them. Roy held himself eternally ready for “pissing matches,” but Persey did not.

Instead she made her mother-in-law another drink. She changed the subject. Forget the past. There was always the future.

“So where are we going tonight?” she inquired.

Babe rattled her ice appreciatively. “That new French place. They must know how to make a decent Béarnaise. You know, Persey, I can count your ribs. Any word on Roy’s test?”
Jeez, conversation with this woman was loaded with minefields. The pleasurable effects of the hot tub had completely worn off. That damned fertility problem again. Roy was some how able to flee his mother but here was Persey, perennially stuck to soldier on alone. The irony of wailing about previous children’s shortcomings while yearning for a birth was totally lost on Babe.

Persey abandoned her own drink. Too easy just to drink the afternoon away. Certainly it was easiest to drink Babe’s visits away. Hot tea – or strong coffee – was what was needed here.
“Not yet,” she admitted.

When first Babe started nagging for a grandchild Persey assumed Roy, who resented the attention Persey paid a dog – would set his mother straight, but Babe knew her son’s weaknesses too well. Any implication that he might be “shooting blanks” would galvanize him. Persey didn’t want to know, so no news was good news but she’d not yet checked today’s mail, email or answering machine. Sensitive information required privacy. With Babe around, Persey played defense, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up.

“We’ll be sure to let you know,” she promised.

Babe tapped her foot in annoyance. The grip of the past was powerful. She always had to say that one last thing.

“I’m glad it was Bryan who found him,” she stuttered, spit gathering at the cracked edges of her purple lipstick. “He needed to see the results of his cruelty. He cut his brother off, like that!’ she snapped her fingers. “After they’d been so close. But you know, once he appreciated the consequences of his actions, he did change. Not with me, Persey, but with you. It balms my heart to see his gentleness with you. Roy wouldn’t be such a good husband if Bruce were still alive.”

Another of Babe’s mantras — every good thing about Roy came, ultimately, from her.
This is all my fault for feeding her alcohol, thought Persey.

“Let me fix lunch. Don’t move if your back is bothering you. I was going to make a Chinese salad.”
Babe visibly blanched at this unattractive offering. She was very fussy about her food.
“No, thanks. We had brunch at the show house. I’d really like to do some shopping. Panique is closing over at the Outlet and there ought to be some good deals. Then later I thought I might visit Bruce’s grave. I’d love it if you could join me.”

Very sneaky to suggest visiting Bruce’s grave. Babe was always trying to get everybody to visit Bruce’s grave. Even though he had been cremated, Babe had insisted on a full size casket, loaded, according to Roy, with Bruce memorabilia. In her usual spirit of overkill, she had purchased not just one plot, but four. The second was called into surprise service with Roy’s father’s sudden heart attack; conveniently before the divorce became final, allowing Babe to sweep the pot. Yet Babe never mentioned visiting Roy Senior’s grave, a trip that might have interested her son. Those visits made Persey feel distinctly odd. She knew she was expected to bunk in here somewhere, maybe with Roy Jr. She was such a small person; why should Babe buy her a plot of her own?

“Sorry,” she said. “I played all morning so I should really work all afternoon.”
Babe waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t think your boss will mind if you play hooky. I’d say you pretty much have him wrapped around your finger.” She sighed. “I wish I’d ever been loved by anyone the way Roy loves you.”

Persey knew she should argue with this. Babe’s current squeeze Mickey – usually referred to as Mickey-the-Mayor even though he’d only been president of a condo association – was amazingly loyal and attentive. But Persey just didn’t have the energy.

“You trained him right,” she toasted her mother in law. Babe was happy now, swinging her foot, gazing around a room she felt reflected her best achievements. She was good for five more minutes. “If you don’t mind I think I’ll just go change,” Persey transitioned smoothly.
She donned a pink fleece tracksuit to emphasize the fact that she wasn’t planning to go out. While she dressed she considered joining Babe for the promised dinner.

If Roy was hanging out at Jarod’s it was possible, and if Mickey was there it might even be enjoyable. Babe was easier to handle with Mickey around. He put his shoulder to the heavy lifting. His equable temperament poured soothing oil over even the most troubled social interactions. He knew, for example, that the thought of his mother marrying again put Roy in a rage and worked hard to reassure him this would never happen. Persey suspected Babe only kept Mickey around because she was thrilled by what she chose to see as Roy’s “jealousy”. Even Persey could tell that it was his dead father Roy was protecting and not Babe at all, but Babe exulted in any vestige of power over her son and sometimes oozed over Mickey just to needle him.

Mickey himself was never possessive; he seemed happy to be picked up and put down whenever it suited Babe’s fancy. In fact he registered such a low libidinal wattage that Persey had been unwise enough once to wonder aloud to her husband about whether the two ever had sex.
“Babe hates sex,” Roy told her. “I can’t believe you don’t know that about her. She’s always hated it.”

True that at Babe’s house Mickey was relegated to a sort of closet off Babe’s room, not that he seemed to mind, but Persey thought Roy was probably kidding himself. He wouldn’t be the first son to prefer immaculate conception where his mother was concerned. Another subject better left alone.

In the kitchen she threw together a platter of cheese and crackers, apples and grapes. Somebody should eat something.

Babe hadn’t moved from her spot. Her drink was empty and there was a sad expression on her face.

“Cheese?” Persey offered hopefully. From where she was standing the slant of afternoon light picked up a dimpled repair on Babe’s portrait at the exact spot where Bruce had once thrown a chair through the painting, instead of at his mother. Persey often wondered what it would have been like to meet Bruce. They were identical twins. It would be freaky to stand between two Roys.

“Call Roy,” wheedled Babe, pushing the cordless into Persey’s hand. “If you invite him he might come,” she flattered. “You know you can get him to do anything.”

Clever Babe. Smart enough to know that if caller ID registered her cell number, Roy might not even pick up.

Eavesdropping on this call to Roy was another of Babe’s terrible ideas. Why set herself up for anguish? But when Babe saw Persey’s hesitation she oiled up her weaponry. When angling for a favor, she laid praise on thick — with guilt- edged corners.
“You can sell it, honey. It was the luckiest day of Roy’s life when he met you. I hate to say this – knock on wood – but sometimes I worried he would go the same way as Brucie. I don’t know how he ever managed to graduate high school. He was so far behind. Well, I do know. You made the difference. And then when you split up he was devastated. Just devastated. I’m not saying you did anything wrong – I told him of course a girl that young doesn’t want to be tied down. She needs to see something of the world; naturally she is going to choose college over you. It’s no personal insult that the college she chose is all the way in California; everyone wants to go to California.”

Persey dialed as hastily as she could but that didn’t shut Babe off.
“Make something of yourself, I told him. Women like to be won. Show her a man she can respect. That’s why he went into the Army – just to impress you – and it worked out better than any of us could have hoped. Of course he had Jarod to help him there. When he came out he was so discouraged to find out you were married, he almost gave up. I thought I was going to lose him to the drugs. I said, “Having a husband doesn’t mean she’s happy. Find out for sure. Declare yourself. What the hell are you waiting for? You’ve already lost her once. And thank God Jarod backed me up. “

Utter, utter bullshit, thought Persey. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the universe to make any of this sound true. She held her fingers to her lips to stem the flow, hoping Babe knew better than to let Roy know she listened in.

Roy’s voice in her ear, at last, tender and lazy as if he’d wakened from a nap. ”Lo, doll.”
Babe watched Persey so closely it was as if she pushed her own lips toward
the receiver. Sometimes she acted as if her son was an animal and Persey was his trainer. Better warn Roy this wasn’t an intimate conversation.

“Your mom is here –“she began. Roy’s disgusted snort could be heard across the room. She tried talking over it in a loud, upbeat way.

“–asking if we can go to dinner tonight with her and Mickey. That new French place in Brandywine.”

“Tell her to screw herself,” said Roy, “We just saw her last weekend. Give her an inch and she takes the whole backyard. I’d rather go to the dump than hang out with her. And don’t you go either. I need you. ”

Persey was still trying to smile for Babe’s benefit.

“OK, honey. Whatever you want.” She covered the mouthpiece and cobbled together a face-saving story. “Roy’s exhausted. He wants to stay in. Just us.”

“Make sure she doesn’t leave without giving you a check,” Roy said in Persey’s ear. Persey kissed him through the phone before hastily hanging up, and Babe pursed her own lips disbelievingly.
“You two have nothing but time together. Come out to the lagoon this weekend. Mickey bought a new boat.”

Throw her a bone.

“Sounds like fun,” Persey agreed apologetically.

“Really, Persey,” Babe pouted, “You should yank the leash on that man. You never know where he is or what he’s up to.”

Roy was certainly right when he called his mother Snoopy. Who could blame him for piling up the barricades against her?

“Jarod’s party was such a big deal,” said Persey. “It was a lot of work. Big deal turning forty.”
“Well I suppose I can’t invite Jarod, then, if they’re still busy. But I really should get him something for his birthday,” said Babe. “He’s been such a. sweetie. Be a dear for me and find out what he wants.” With a put-upon sigh, she opened her purse and pulled out her checkbook. “So long as you both promise to come for the weekend.”

Only a born sucker could call Jarod a sweetie. Persey already knew what he wanted; that man wanted everything. He cast his envious eyes over Roy’s toys, Roy’s life, even Roy’s wife but Roy, desperate for male closeness, was just too blind to see it. Persey was so grateful not to have to solicit the check more directly she was willing to keep nodding as if she agreed with everything.
Asking Roy’s mother for money was more embarrassing than telling Roy later what she had committed him to. Four days before she had to spring it on him. Sometimes the very best you could accomplish was to simply postpone the evil day.