Aphrodite (11 page)

It was over. Without Wallace Crabbe’s body there was nothing.

As the two cops left, he heard one of them say to Brian, “What’s the story with that guy?” Brian responded, too low for Justin to hear. Then he heard them all laugh knowingly. One of the cops also said, “Hey, isn’t this where that intern’s from? The one who’s missing in D.C.?” And this time it was Gary who answered, “Maura Greer. Yeah. She was a townie.”

“You know her?” one of the Middleview cops asked.

“Went to high school with her,” Gary said. And Brian said, “Me too.”

“She looks like a babe,” the same Middleview cop muttered.

“A little porky,” Brian said. “But not too shabby.”

“Hell,” the Middleview cop said, “
that’s
who you guys should go out and find. Be a couple of heroes. Don’t waste your time on
this
bullshit.”

And they all laughed again.

Then, when he came out of Leggett’s office, Brian had accused him of rolling over. Had he? Yeah, probably. He’d spent so many years rolling over that he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. But what the hell could he have said that would have made any difference? I have a hunch? I give out parking tickets in a resort town now but my hunches used to mean something? Yeah, that would have worked. He told himself that he gave up trying to convince them because he had nothing. Somewhere inside him was the thought that he was wrong. That his instincts had dulled and atrophied and his hunches no longer had validity. That the unpleasant and compulsively tidy man hadn’t been attacked, that he did actually have a girlfriend and he was probably just spending the night with her. That was why Wallace Crabbe hadn’t answered his phone. Because he was simply leading a normal life, something Justin Westwood hadn’t led in six and a half years.

Justin made the turn onto Main Street. So what now? Too early to get drunk. Besides, he was on duty. He thought about saying he was sick and going home, smoking as much dope as he could, and blaring some R.E.M., drowning out the world and shutting his eyes for the rest of the day. But he knew he wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do it. If he did, he’d stay there a lot longer than one day. So he had to ask himself the same question he’d asked himself almost every hour of the day and night for the past six-plus years: What do I do to get through the next sixty minutes without blowing my brains out?

Much to his surprise, Justin Westwood decided that what he’d do was go see about a yoga lesson.

Deena Harper’s class was just ending. Justin peered in from the street, through the tinted plate-glass window that separated Deena’s studio from the sidewalk. She was wearing a pair of black tights and a black tank top. No shoes, just a pair of thick gray wool socks. He saw two middle-aged women doing their best to unfold their legs and stand up. And one young man—Justin thought it was the guy who ran the computer store a couple of buildings down—who seemed amazingly fit and remained in a sitting position, legs folded, breathing deeply in and out. Finally, the computer guy stood up and all three people handed Deena some money. She thanked the two women and kissed the guy lightly on the cheek, then the three students emerged onto the street in front of Justin. He nodded at them, hesitated, aware that they were all watching him as he stepped through the doorway into the yoga room.

“Hey,” he said, casually.

Deena looked up, surprised. But she smiled when she saw him.

“I’ll be with you in a second.”

She dashed into a back room and Justin had time to survey the studio. Not all that much to survey, really. A few gym mats on the floor, several more rolled up and propped against a corner. One whole wall was a mirror. There were a couple of chalk boards with strange, non-English words on them:
trikonasana
and
sirsasana
and
parsvakonasana
. Across from the mirror was a small poster, handmade, that said,
My religion is kindness.—Dalai Lama.
The room was clean and clutter free, but somehow it radiated a degree of warmth and serenity that pleased him.

Justin looked at himself in the mirror, bent down to see how close he could get to touching his toes. He got just about to his knees, heard himself grunt. He decided he should look up, check out his form. It wasn’t pretty, that much was for sure. Made less pretty by the nerdy East End Harbor Police uniform he was wearing. It looked more like a Boy Scout uniform than something that should be on a cop. And it was all made even uglier when, unfortunately, Deena chose that moment to return from the back room. Justin looked up at her, his arms dangling in front of him, his legs bent, his head cocked, his uniform sleeves snagged a few unsightly inches above his wrists. He straightened up as fast as he could, felt his back wrench, decided there was no way in hell he was going to acknowledge the pain and show this woman that he was barely capable of bending over.

“Ever do yoga?” Deena asked.

“Can’t you tell from my expert technique? I used to be a black belt.”

“Wrong discipline,” she said. “No belts in yoga. Other than that, you were totally believable.”

He winced now, wanted desperately to stretch his back, but that’s when he noticed that standing behind Deena, as if hiding, was a small girl. She looked like a miniature of the older woman.

“This is Kendall,” Deena said. “This is Mr. Westwood. Or is it Officer Westwood?”

“Justin,” he said. “It saves a lot of confusion. You can even make it simpler and call me Jay.”

The little girl poked her head out, smiled shyly, a charmer of a smile, then ducked behind her mother again. Justin knew what he should say. He used to be good with kids. Why is such a beautiful little girl hiding, that’s what he should ask her. If I were that beautiful, I would definitely not be hiding But nothing came out of his mouth. He just stood there awkwardly, looking at mother and daughter.

“So,” Deena said finally. “Is there news?” He looked startled, his brow furrowed in confusion, so she said, “You know. About Susanna and …everything.”

“Oh,” he said. “Not exactly.”

“I thought maybe you’d come to give me an update. Thought maybe you’d caught them.”

“I’m just passing by.”

“Is anything happening?”

“Sure,” he said, but it didn’t sound convincing, even to him. “Lots of stuff.”

“That’s very reassuring. I’m sure I’ll sleep soundly now.”

“Aren’t you sleeping?”

“No,” Deena said, “as a matter of fact, I’m not.”

“Bad dreams?”

She looked as if she wanted to say something, but glanced down at the little girl and thought better of it—why put bad dreams into
her
head—and just nodded. All she said was, “Are there any other kind?”

“He doesn’t know you were there,” he said.

“What?”

“You might have reasons for your dreams, what you saw. But whoever that guy is, he thinks he got away with it. He doesn’t know there was a witness.”

“And you’re telling me this because …?”

“Because sometimes when people have bad dreams, it’s not just the things they’ve seen. It’s not just what’s real. It’s the things they’re afraid might happen to them. So I thought I should make it really clear that nothing’s going to happen to you. There’s no
reason
for anything to happen. He doesn’t know you exist.”

Deena was silent for a moment. Then the right side of her mouth flickered upward in a half smile. “I guess I should have thought of that myself, huh? Could’ve helped out my beauty sleep.”

Justin was surprised to hear himself say, “I don’t think you need too much help there.”

The rest of her mouth managed to smile. They stood, facing each other, Justin shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, feeling slightly foolish.

“Well …” she said.

“Well …” he said. “I have to take Kendall over to the library. They’re having a special kids’ book thing. Somebody from
Sesame Street
or
Between the Lions
or one of those shows. A storytelling hour.”

“Is it all right if I walk you over there?” he asked, directing his question to the little girl, who was still clutching her mother’s waist and trying to remain unseen. “I’d really like to.”

Again, a quick dart of the head, an even quicker smile. “Okay,” the girl said. “It’s okay with me.”

Deena patted her on the head, looked up at Justin, and added, “It’s okay with me, too.”

9

The library was three blocks farther down Main Street, tucked into a residential block. It should have taken them no more than ten minutes to make the stroll. But they were slowed down when a blue Jaguar, driving on the other side of the road, passed them by, stopped suddenly, and began honking its horn. Justin peered across the street, heard someone call out, “Jay? For chrissake, Jay, is that you?” He knew he had to do something—the guy was getting ready to hop out of the car and Justin knew that he’d dash across the street to meet them—so he held up his hand and walked slowly, lumberingly, over to the driver.

“I can’t believe it,” the guy behind the wheel said. He looked comfortable in the Jag, like he belonged there. His clothes were casual but very expensive, and he was wearing a watch that probably cost two grand. He lifted the arm with the watch and waved his hand at Justin’s police uniform. “Is it Halloween?”

“Can I help you?” Justin said.

“It’s me! It’s Jordy. Chris Jordan! I know I put on a few pounds, but from the looks of it so have—” He hesitated, now sounding unsure of himself. “You
are
Jay Westwood, right?”

Justin didn’t say anything. He adjusted his sunglasses, tipping them a fraction of an inch higher on the bridge of his nose.

“Look,” the driver of the Jaguar said, “I heard about Alicia. I tried to get in touch with you—a lot of us did—but you kind of disappeared.”

“I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I don’t remember any Chris Jordan.”

“What?” And as Justin turned away, started heading across the street, the driver called after him, “Jay! What the hell are you doing? Jay, for God’s sake! You’re just gonna walk away? You walk away from college, you walk away from your friends, now you’re going to walk away from your old roomie?”

But Justin didn’t turn back. Even when the driver said, “Jay, I’ve got a place in Southampton. I’m listed. If you want to, call me.” He just crossed the street, didn’t turn around until he heard the car speed away. Then he went back to stand beside Deena.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” Justin said. “I guess he thought he knew me.”

“Sounds like he did know you,” Deena said. “Sounds like he knew you from college.” When Justin didn’t say anything, Deena asked, “Where’d you go to school?” When she didn’t get an answer, she said, “Justin, where’d you go, a local college? That’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. I mean, if you’re embarrassed because you didn’t go to a good school, or you dropped out, come on … I bet a few of the guys on the force here didn’t even go to college. Or maybe they went to a junior college. Hey, I didn’t go to the world’s greatest school either.”

“I don’t like to talk much about my college days,” Justin said.

Deena chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “He looked pretty successful,” she said. “The guy in the Jaguar. But being a policeman is nothing to be ashamed—”

“I don’t like to talk about that, either,” Justin said.

Then he nodded his head, jutting his chin forward, indicating that they should continue on their way to the library.

When they arrived, Kendall—whom Deena sometimes called Kenny or Ken—went running in ahead of them. By the time Justin and Deena got up the steps and to the librarian’s desk, the little girl was comfortably settled amid a horde of youngsters in a room directly behind the foyer. The room had a sliding door separating it from the entry hall, but the door was open. A middle-aged man with a large monkey puppet on his hand was already addressing the excited children.

As they sidled in closer to the doorway, the librarian looked up from her desk and saw Deena. Justin realized he’d never been in the East End Harbor Library before. Out of habit, he glanced down at the librarian’s nameplate. Her name was Adrienne.

“Terrible thing, wasn’t it,” Adrienne whispered to Deena. From the way she said the words, Justin knew immediately that she was one of those people who got extraordinary pleasure from gossiping over terrible things.

“You mean about Susanna?” Deena asked and Adrienne put her hand to her mouth. “Sshhh,” she said and pointed toward the kids nearby. Then she nodded vigorously, quietly saying, “Yes, I mean Susanna,” and Deena whispered back, “Terrible.”

“She was in here the day she died.”

“Really? Checking out a book?”

Adrienne shook her head. “Using the computer. This one right here.” She tilted her head in the direction of a large desktop model, probably three or four years old. It sat to the left of the front door, in the foyer. “She was very mysterious about it. Didn’t want me looking over her shoulder. Not that I would anyway.”

Justin stepped forward now. “What was she working on? Did she say?”

Adrienne put her finger to her lips again. “Who are you?”

“I’m with the police department here.”

Adrienne nodded vigorously again. “I can see that. Ohhhhh yes— I’ve seen you directing traffic. Seems to me you slow things down rather than speed things up. What kind of crazy system is that?”

Her quiet rant was interrupted by a chorus of laughter from the kids in the room behind them. The monkey puppet was singing a goofy song. You could see that the actor who had the puppet on his hand was really doing the singing. He was making no effort to hide that fact. But none of the kids were even looking at him. They were all staring delightedly at the fuzzy creature on the end of his arm as if he were a totally separate entity.

“Do you know what Susanna was doing on the computer?” Justin whispered.

“Don’t have a clue.”

“She went on-line?”

“She did. I collected the eight dollars.”

“But she didn’t tell you what she was looking for?”

“Didn’t tell me a thing. All I can tell you is she looked pretty intense and excited, like it was something important. And then when she left, she was kind of wobbly. Like she suddenly got sick.”