LITMIR.BIZ

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voice is icy. “Something the Secret Service can’t find out about someone.”

      “For instance,” the unflappable Mauro continues, “who did Ms. Bright see when she was here on the Monterey Peninsula?”

      “See?”

      “Friends, associates. She must have had a reason for coming here.”

      The older man, Hillars, leans forward slightly again. I am alerted to the fact that my answer to this is important. They are setting a trap. But for who?

      “Mr. Mauro, pardon me, but you’ve obviously done your homework. You must know Marti wrote and photographed several stories here and in Santa Cruz about the homeless. She won awards for those stories—they weren’t exactly hidden in a drawer somewhere. Again, why are you asking me things you already know?”

      He smiles, though there is no warmth in those gray eyes. In fact, they are so flat and cold they remind me of a pit bull sizing up its next meal. “I suppose you might say I’m more interested in why Ms. Bright came here so often over the years, not that she did. Why here, when there are so many other cities with these problems? In fact, bigger cities with bigger problems?”

      “Maybe she liked the weather,” I snap.

      “Or maybe she was having an ongoing liaison here with someone,” Mauro says smoothly, not skipping a beat.

      “A what?” I am momentarily startled. Then I can’t help laughing. “A liaison? You mean an affair? Good God. You don’t know as much about Marti as I thought.”

      Mauro narrows his eyes. “Why do you say that, Ms. Northrup?”

      “Because Marti was all-business. She didn’t have time for liaisons, she didn’t care about anything but her work.”

      “Are you speaking of just lately, Ms. Northrup?

      Or was she that way when she was here fifteen years ago, as well?”

      I have purposely told him Marti did not come here until fourteen years ago. Did he forget—or is this part of the trap?

      The only thing I’m sure of now is that it’s time I took a stand. Rising, I say firmly, “Agent Mauro, I need to go home and feed my dog. If you don’t have some sort of subpoena in your back pocket, I’m not answering any more questions—until, that is, you tell me what this is about.”

      Mauro looks at Hillars, and a question seems to pass between the two men. Hillars gives a microscopic shrug. Mauro closes his notebook and slips it back into his inside coat pocket. Both men stand, and Hillars gives me a look that seems to border on either anger or contempt. I can’t be sure, as it’s quickly gone.

      Mauro, courteous as ever—on the surface, at least—extends a hand. “Thank you very much for your cooperation, Ms. Northrup. We may need to talk with you further. If so, we’ll be in touch.”

      I accept the hand and am rewarded when he drops mine after a brief clasp. He is clearly irritated with me.

      Good. Whatever he brought me here for, he didn’t get.

      A heavy silence fills the room after they leave. I turn to Ben, my voice as cold as my hands. “I’d like to go now.”

      Ben looks at Arnie, who shrugs. “I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

      Ben nods. Standing, he walks around the table to my chair. The tie comes off. So does the jacket. The shirt sleeves are rolled up, and he smiles.

      The wall comes down. Or so he thinks.

      He is, after all, a man.

      Ben pulls his black Explorer to a stop in front of my house.

      “Just let me come in with you,” he says for the second time. “I just want to be with you, Abby. You shouldn’t be alone.”

      I jump out and speak through the open passenger-side door as my hand prepares to slam it. “No thanks. I prefer to be alone.”

      “Goddammit, Abby, I had to cooperate with them! I would think you’d be grateful, for that matter.”

      “Grateful?” The amazed tone in my voice says it all: what I am feeling, thinking, remembering about that cold office, that cold chair and the cool, un-emotional presence of a man I had only hours before made love to, allowing questions that were slanted to make me give the Secret Service of the United States some piece of information that might, for all he knew, incriminate me.

      “Yes, dammit, grateful!” he says. “If you’d been Jane Doe off the streets, you think it would’ve been that easy? Maybe you should spend some time finding out what usually goes on when a suspect is being questioned.”

      He clamps his jaw shut. Too late.

      “Suspect. You’re calling me a suspect now. Damn you, Ben. It’s my name, right? My name in the dirt where Marti died. Is that what this is all about? Did the sheriff call in the Secret Service? Or did you? How else would they even know about me? And what the hell does the Secret Service have to do with any of this, anyway?”

      “You know damned well I didn’t call them,” he says. “You should also know that if Arnie hadn’t called me—if he hadn’t told them you and I were friends—it could have gone a whole other way.”

      “And you should know that you are one son of a bitch, Ben Schaeffer.”

      I slam the door. Ben grinds the gears of his Explorer, pulling away from the curb. As I turn to my house, my heart, which is heavy, lifts momentarily at the thought of walking through the door and having a big ball of canine fluff jump into my arms.

      Woman’s best friend—her dog.

      3

      Murphy isn’t at the door waiting for me, the way he usually is. While that worries me a bit, there have been times when he’s sneaked out with Frannie, my part-time housekeeper, and she hasn’t taken the time to find him and bring him back. Frannie has a family at home to feed at night, and she’s often in a hurry. Murphy doesn’t stay gone for long, at any rate. He likes keeping an eye on me, like a mom who thinks her toddler, once out of sight, must be up to no good. I figure he’ll show pretty soon.

      Dropping my purse on a table in the hallway, I head for the kitchen, seeking a glass of wine. The kitchen sparkles in the late-afternoon sun, not only from Frannie’s cleaning but from sunlight on the sea. Tall windows look out on the Pacific Ocean from every room. A million-dollar view, people have called it. Six million would be more like it, in today’s market. For this—a house that cost less than a hundred thousand to build twenty years ago.

      I have been envied for my house. Most of the homes in Carmel have names rather than addresses. Mine is called Windhaven. A major movie was filmed here in the fifties, and you can see Windhaven on the movie channel at regular intervals.

      There is less beach now, of course, as the shoreline’s been eroded by recent storms. But the house and its view have been photographed by Better Homes and Gardens, Sunset and Architectural Digest. When Jeffrey and I were first married we moved here and opened Windhaven for tours during the Christmas season. That was before Clint Eastwood won his run for mayor of Carmel. Jeffrey, who dabbles in real estate, but whose obsession is politics, was working with Eastwood’s advisors pre-campaign, and we had tons of friends then—artists, writers, actors, politicians. We decorated with holly garlands and strung lights on everything, including the stately pines along the drive. A wild patch of lawn stretches out from the terrace of Windhaven to the cliff, and along the edge of the cliff are Monterey pines that Jeffrey and I planted as windbreaks. In terms of trees they are still infants, yet already they lean to the south from the north winds that buffet them all winter long. If one were to look carefully, one might detect how Jeffrey and I lean, as well, from the buffeting our marriage has taken over the years.

      At what point, I wonder, taking a wineglass from the rack beneath the top cupboard, does a marriage begin the downward slide?

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