Bonne Femme

Chapter 14

A Different Game

 Cartier, September 1

        September brought early frost, falling leaves, and alternating crisp, clear and warm, foggy mornings to the Lower Peninsula.  Saturday arrived misty.  Jill took dishes to the sink and came back to the table with a second cup of coffee.

"I called your uncle about the car," she announced.

"What about it?"

"I want to buy it."

        Richard was alarmed but quickly concluded that argument would be futile.  Mic had contacted neither of them for over two months.  When they had chanced to see him, he was invariably with the coed Jill had seen at the clothing store.  Richard was tempted to believe, even hoped, that he had lost interest in Jill, but he didn't believe it.

"He says I may make payments."

        Jill had driven the car when they returned it after getting Cougar back.  He remembered his surprise when she had told them that they were engaged.

 

250.

"Is that why you told them we were engaged?" he asked.

"What?"

"It would help you to . . ."

        "To make the deal?  That is insulting," she said.  "I forgot to take the ring off, and your aunt asked about it.  What was I supposed to say?"

She got up from the table.

        "I need my own car.  Unless I have some independence I might as well be your prisoner again."

        Jill busied herself at the sink with abbreviated motions.  When she pulled the stopper to empty the sink, he came over to help put away the dishes.

"Can we at least talk it through?" he asked.

        In icy silence, she dried her hands, folded the dishtowel, and placed it carefully on the counter before speaking.

        "He has not contacted us since we came back from Kevin's.  Maybe it is finally over.  I am not ready to live alone again, and you have been very solicitous of my privacy, but this constant . . . shepherding is . . . is confining.  I feel like a child."

"Jill, I don't know how to say this without it sounding condescending," he began.

        "Then maybe it is condescending," she said irritably.  "Hear me, Richard.  I do not need your permission for this, so do not be unpleasant."

Since there was no dissuading her, he tried to salvage what he could.

        "All right.  I know it looks like he may have lost interest.  It's natural to think that way, but dangerous to assume.  It's like routine patrol.  You go out so many times without anything happening and you start relaxing and---"

"I love these military analogies."

He chose to ignore her sarcasm.

        "Then I'll continue.  If you go out without expecting the worst, you lose your edge.  And then when something does come down, you can't react in time.  Jill, the analogy fits.  He can play it any way he wants, choose his time and place.  You just have to remember that as long as he's here, so is the danger."

 

251.

         "I will buy the car and I will go where I want when I want.  Will it reassure you if I carry my phone and inform you when I get to my destination and when I leave?"

"If you're careful where you park and remember to lock the car."

"It is settled then," she said, tiptoeing to put dishes into the old cupboard.

        Suddenly he ached at the sight of her, ached for the apartment to be their home, not the minimum-security prison he knew she felt it to be.  But he could no more say that than he could go over and encircle her small waist in his arms, something he also ached to do.  Ironically, now that they shared the apartment and ate every meal together, she was further from him now than before Bonne Femme.

        "Marta and I are going to the mall this afternoon," she announced without turning around.

"Okay."

She turned and stared at him earnestly.

        "Richard, you are reluctant to consider it, but perhaps you are wrong about him.  I know that he is abusive to women.  Believe me, I know that he enjoys hurting people---like that boy he beat so badly.  But perhaps the rest is not true."

He was dismayed that she was beginning to doubt what she was once sure of.

"Maybe you are . . . "

"Imagining it?" he finished.

        "Perhaps.  Or perhaps he only did things over in Somalia where there was no law.  I do not know.  Only nothing has happened in over two months."

        "Are you forgetting that Rose Ford's nude, frozen body was dumped where it could be discovered as soon as we got back?  What do you make of that, Jill?"

She stared at him, white-faced.

"You think it was because of us?  Because we went away and he became angry?"

        "I don't know," he said honestly.  "All I know is that he knew her and he's capable of it."

"I know that you think he is capable, but---"

 

252.

         "Jill!  The girl in Missouri was strangled.  The one I found him with in Mogadishu was strangled.  Rose was strangled.  He told me he would strangle you.  You told me he put his hands around your neck."

        "Yes," she said wearily.  "But you do not understand.  I cannot live my whole life in fear."

        "Then you need to get the hell out of here!  If I get the money for you, will you go back to France to finish your degree?"

"Stop cursing at me!  And no, I will not go back.  I will finish here."

"I can get the money.  Please consider it."

        "Doctor Russell says that after I get my Masters degree, he can get me into a doctorate program at Auburn University.  I have no one who can get me such a position in France."

        "Then I'll make sure that you're safe while you're at Pere Marquette, but you've got to help me."

        "Thank you," she said curtly.  "Now let us not argue about the car.  We can agree on procedures---with the phone, I mean."

"Okay, but you---"

"Stop!  I am not foolish.  I will be cautious---much more cautious than I was with you."

"You mean when I took you to Bonne Femme."

"I will never again let a man isolate me like that."

"Jill, I'm sorry."

"So you have said.  Let's not speak of it further."

        Her determination to be more independent was beyond his control but he couldn't let it go without one last word of warning.

        "Senter told me that if he had killed the girl in Missouri and also killed Rose, then there are probably others."

"I know this, Richard.  I have researched such things."

        "I'm not trying to scare you," he said.  "Just the opposite.  You see, he didn't really outsmart any of them.  He just took them unawares because they didn't know what he was.  But we know.  It's a different game now."

How much of a different game it was, they were soon to find out.

 

253.

 

 Vulnerability

September 3

        Jill sat at an isolated table searching bound British Foreign Office documents for a telegram to the Foreign Office she thought she remembered originating in Cairo concerning Nazi contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Immersed in her research, she took little notice as someone emerged from the stacks.

Suddenly hands landed on her shoulders.

"See how easy it would be, Baby?" Mic whispered.

        When she tried to wrench away he pinched down on the tendons between her neck and shoulder.  He released her, but pushed the armchair toward the table imprisoning her.  Her eyes darted around the room, looking vainly for help.

        "If what he's been telling you was true, I could take you any time I wanted," he said, placing a hand on the table and leaning down to look her in the face.  "And if I really wanted him out of the way . . . so that I could get at you---"  He paused to smile.  "Believe me it wouldn't be no problem."

        "Then just leave us alone . . . and . . . and everyone can just forget about it," she managed.

        "Just go away?" he said as if considering it.  "No.  I don't think I can do that.  Too much unfinished business here."

        "I will speak with him if you want.  I do not want any more trouble between you and Richard," she said, immediately wondering why she was falling into his game, trying to reason with him.

"I could snap his neck like a stick.  You know that?"

Jill's eyes flitted around the room again, but still no one was in sight.

"Of course you could make sure nothing happens to your fiancé."

He reached toward her cheek, and she flinched away.

"What do you say?  Want to find out what a real man's like?"

"You know nothing of being a real---"

 

254.

The slap left her reeling.

"Hey.  Look at that," he mocked.  "Right in public."

Through blurred vision she saw two students walking toward them, lost in conversation.

Mic leaned in.

"Tell Ricky to call off Reeves," he whispered harshly.

 

        As soon as he left, Jill fled to the bathroom without returning the books or taking her notes.  She locked herself in a stall and sat listening fearfully, sure that he would follow her.  The very silence of the room intensified her terror.  When the door opened threw her hand to her mouth, but two coeds came in laughing and she took a ragged breath of relief.  After they were gone and her heart had slowed, she went to the mirror to examine her face.  Mic had hit her high on the side of the head.  She touched it and felt no pain.  Perhaps there would be no bruise.

        She wanted to run away and hide, and was amazed to realize that the first place she thought of running to was not home to Aunt Mirabelle, but back to Bonne Femme with Richard.  The incident had taken away her ability to think clearly as unexpected violence does for people to whom it is unfamiliar.

        Jill drew a deep breath and looked at her visage in the mirror wondering if she should tell Richard.  Then she cried.

        Finally collecting herself, she washed her face, reapplied her lipstick, and fixed her hair.  Then she called Richard.

        "I . . . uh got through in the library earlier than I thought," she said hoarsely.  "Can you pick me up for lunch?  I . . . there's something I'd like to talk to you about."

"Sure.  I'll be there in about maybe ten minutes.  Are you okay?"

        "I'm fine.  Pick me up in front of the library," she said.  "I have to return some reference books to the desk."

"You sound funny.  Are you sure everything's okay?"

"I just have a headache.  Everything is fine."

"You saw him," he said.

 

255.

         Jill looked in the mirror again, and was about to tell him what happened.  Then she had a vision of Mic beating the boy in parking lot.

"He is taking classes so it was inevitable that I see him eventually."

"I'll be there in a few minutes," he said.

Only after he hung up did she remember that she had driven her own car.

 

        When Richard arrived he expected to see her waiting out front, didn't, and anxiously began scanned the street and parking lot for her car.  Then he saw her coming through the doors and down the sidewalk. 

"Where do you want to eat?" he asked as she got in.

"Perhaps Bartleby's.  They have good coffee and . . . we can talk."

        He parked near the entrance to the bookstore and they went inside.  Richard tried not to wince as he paid for the privilege of overheated, overpriced coffee and crumbly pastry.  They found seats at a three by three table in the reading lounge, and Jill sipped delicately at her espresso as she concentrated on breaking a blueberry scone into roughly equal halves.  Jill gathered the largest of the inevitable crumbs and chewed it somberly.  She had barely spoken a dozen words since he picked her up.

"So what's on you mind?" he asked.

        "That town in Missouri," she said.  "I can be away for a few days, and I think I'd like to go there with you."

"Why now?"

        "Seeing him today unnerved me I suppose," she said rearranging the napkin holding the remainder of the scone.

"Did he say anything to you?"

She continued to stare at the table rather than meet his eyes.

"Jill?"

        "Oh . . . uh no, he . . . I just saw him and he . . . I do not think he has forgotten about us after all."

She exhaled audibly and raised her chin.

 

256.

"We should research his past to either verify or disprove your theory."

He nodded, wondering what had really happened.

"I have to know, Richard."

 

        Marta called at eight-thirty, and Jill took the phone to the bedroom to talk.  He was just pulling a street map of Cassville, Missouri from the printer tray when she came out.

        "Alberto, Marta's fiancé, is coming for a visit the day after tomorrow," she said.  "He will be here for three days.  We should be back in time to see him, should we not?"

"Seeing we don't have the money to stay very long, sure."

"Then I will pack.  When do we leave?"

"In about five or six hours," he said as he shut down the computer.

        Jill lay awake, trying not to think about Mic.  She hoped the trip would hasten the end of her nightmare but feared it might only intensify her terror.  Sleep came late and left early.

 

 A Trip of Discovery

September 4

        Jill gasped and sat up abruptly at the sound of the alarm.  Disconnected fragments of a dream beat a path back to the dark recesses from whence they had come, leaving behind only their disturbing aura.  She tried momentarily to gather the pieces, but decided that it was probably not a good idea.  Stripping off the oversized T-shirt she had slept in, she pulled on an equally loose-fitting sweatshirt, and a pair of walking shorts.  Richard was sitting fully clothed in the dark when she came into the living room.

        "The suitcases are in the bedroom if you wish to take them to the car while I shower," she told him, stifling a yawn.

"Take your time.  I already shaved, so we're ahead of schedule."

       Jill changed into jeans and a long sleeved shirt after showering, put on a denim jacket and grabbed a pillow, and went down where Richard sat in the idling car.  The starry night brought memories of Bonne Femme and the rite of passage Richard had unwittingly forced upon her by making her face her own mortality.

 

257.

Yet, here I am, she thought as she got into the car with him.

 

        Richard's tension ebbed as the Cougar rolled through dark countryside skirting the lakeshore.  Jill curled safely asleep next to him, and they were leaving Mic behind at least for a while.  He had no illusions as far as his investigative ability was concerned.  He was a rank amateur.  Jill, on the other hand, was an excellent researcher and would find any paper trail that existed.  Interviews worried him the most.  He had seen JR question people, but it had always concerned minor stuff like, "What was the fight all about?" or "Who was in the car with you?"

"I haven't even had interrogation 101," he muttered softly.

        When he hit I-80 west the clear, fogless dawn brought the sun directly into his mirror, so he stopped at a waffle house to let the sun rise a few degrees before continuing.  Jill awoke as he turned off the ignition.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Calumet City."

        Inside, the place proved to be as packed as the parking lot, but a harried waitresses bustled about efficiently and soon they had coffee in hand and breakfast on the way. 

        "It'll be kind of touchy talking with people who knew the girl down there.  Country people are pretty reticent, especially with outsiders.  Maybe you'd have better luck talking with them than I would."

"American men take women no more seriously than do French men."

"No man alive could resist talking to you."

        "Yes.  They would think I'm cute," she said dryly.  "You speak with the men.  Perhaps I will speak with the women."

"You can gather the public information, right?"

"It is easy, only time consuming," she said.  "We begin at the local government offices."

"The courthouse."

        "Yes.  They will have all the Boyd family documents for the time they lived there:  births, deaths, marriages, divorces, adoptions, and other court proceedings, also the land transactions.  From newspaper files we must get the articles concerning the murder of the girl, and all the police reports involving him.  Of course we need a criminal history if he has one."

 

258.

"That should take care of the documentary part then."

        "No.  That is only the first step.  When we analyze it then we will know what else to look for."

        "We'll need a victim profile too," he said.  "We'll have to talk to people who knew her so that we can find out what she was like---the same with him.  And, of course, we need to see how many times their paths crossed.  I'd like to see the case file and evidence, but they won't let me near that because I'm a civilian."

He noticed a dark spot at the corner of left eye.

"I think you smudged your mascara or something," he said.

        Jill frowned.  She had applied no makeup since showering.  In her hurried preparation this morning she had failed to notice any discoloration.

        "I bumped into the door when I went into the bathroom last night," she improvised.  "I did not want awaken you so I failed to turn on the light.  Does it look bad?"

"It looks like it hurts."

She touched it gently and winced.

        "Could you go to the car for my sunglasses while I go to the restroom to see how bad it looks?  I placed them in the storage compartment in the control panel---the glove compartment."

After splashing water on her face, she studied the bruise in the mirror. 

"That bastard actually gave me a black eye," she murmured. 

 

She slipped on the sunglasses as Richard sat down.

        "I do not have correct makeup to cover it.  I must buy some.  I am a vain woman."

"You are the least vain woman I know," he said.

        The waitress who had come with refills heard only his comment and at the comment, raised an eyebrow.

 

259.

       "I want to find out about his childhood," said Richard when she was out of earshot.  "I want to see of he fits the stereotype Senter talked about."

        Although Richard hadn't used a specific term like "predator" or "sexual sadist," Jill felt the small hairs tingle at the nape of her neck.

What could he have done to me? she wondered.  How close was he to doing it?

"Can he really be one of those . . . monsters?" she asked.

        "When Kevin and I found him that day, he seemed pretty comfortable hanging around the that woman's body.  I think those guys like to hang around sometimes---even go back to visit bodies."

"Yes.  Well that makes one's skin crawl, but it proves nothing."

        She stirred her coffee distractedly.  He decided that she didn't want to talk about it, but then she continued. 

        "Richard, he is smart.  So why does he not do better research?  If he killed Rose Ford then why did he not leave the body near a more credible sex offender, one whose . . . method is more consistent with the crime?"

        "Instead of near a pedophile with no history of violence against adult women?  Maybe there weren't any in the area."

        "There are two excellent candidates in the county:  a paroled rapist who attempted to strangle one of his victims, and another who also attacks women.  I discovered this in a matter of minutes.  Why could he not?  If he is what you say, then he thinks about these things all the time."

She saw his surprise.

        "Knowing about one's fears is the best way to deal with them I think," she said with a shrug.  "Since I . . . first began to believe you about what is happening, I have researched this topic.  I have spent more time at it than my studies." "

        "There is something else I do not understand," she continued.  "There is one very important thing about him that does not fit."

Richard thought Mic fit perfectly.

"What doesn't fit?" he asked.

 

260.

       "These men never let people know what they are really like until it is too late.  Why does he make threats instead of trying to keep what he is thinking secret?"

        "Senter says that they might not all be alike except that they all want to get their victims alone and under control."

        Alone and under control, she repeated to herself, remembering Mic's fingers twisted into her hair, her head held against the headrest, his breath on her face, and his hand enclosing her exposed neck.  Then she remembered how she felt on the way to the island.

I was certain that he would use me as a plaything and then kill me.

She tried to shake away the thought.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly.

"I was replaying things," she said before sipping at her coffee.  "I should stop it."

Instinctively, she sought to turn the conversation theoretical.

"What mechanism produces the sadistic personality?"

        "I think it's male instinct somehow perverted.  Maybe it's something left over from our distant, savage past."

        "Male reproductive dominance leads to killing women?  That makes no sense within a biological frame of reference.  It is counter survival."

"I have no idea why a man would be tempted to substitute violence for---"

        "I do not want to think about that," she said, forcing an end to the repulsive strand of conversation.

        "There is something more tangible that bothers me," she said.  "Why did he tell you about this something he did as a teenager?  Why would he reveal this?"

"His anger overrode his good sense," he said.  "Remember, he was drunk at the time."

"No.  He wanted you to know about this murdered girl."

"Why?"

"Because fear is a way to control people."

 

261.

He looked at her closely.

"You know what, Jill?  You're a lot smarter than I am."

 

        By the time route 57 turned south angling toward I-70 and St. Louis, Jill was asleep again.  Without makeup, she looked even younger than she was.  When the N. P. R. station that had been helping him eat up the miles began to break up as they crossed the Mississippi, she stirred. 

"Where are we now?" she asked as she stretched and tilted her seat back upright.

"Coming into St. Louis."

She looked at the dash.

"Two thirty.  How much further do we have?"

        "Two fifty, three hundred miles.  Drive right through and we'll get to Springfield by maybe seven or so."

        They stopped at a large truck stop on the western outskirts of St. Louis.  After filling the tank, they walked to the edge of the lot overlooking a sapling-choked pasture being reclaimed by second growth forest.  If the sign planted in it was more than hope, it was soon to become Meadow Brook Estates.  The city was spreading like ink on blotter paper.

        "The highway takes us into the Ozark country," he said.  "Silver Dollar City and Branson are just beyond Springfield down there.  Branson is a sort of hillbilly Las Vegas without the gambling.  Cassville is a bit east of there."

"How large is Cassville?"

        "Too small for us to go unnoticed asking about the murder," he said.  "I wonder how touchy they'll be about that after all this time."

 

        Forty-four barreled straight from St. Louis to Springfield in the southwest corner of the state.  Richard held the speedometer just past seventy, occasionally maneuvering around semis and slower local traffic while Jill gazed out the window.  Jill was quiet for so long that he knew that she hadn't been contemplating the scenery.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

        "Aunt Mirabelle.  There are not many people like her anymore.  She has virtues that are uncommon today."

 

262.

"She never married?"

        "No.  She was too formidable," she said, giving the word its French pronunciation and inflection.  "She is very strong willed.  French men say they like that in a woman, but I think they do not."

He could think of nothing to say that wouldn't sound self-serving.

        "Perhaps she intimidated her suitors.  I think no man could get close enough to appreciate her, which is sad.  She would have made the right man a wonderful wife.  Beneath all her severity, there is such tenderness.  It went wasted."

"She produced you."

Jill's eyes were turned toward the window, but focused on another place and time.

"She did not give me birth, but she was a wonderful mother."

She turned to look at him.

"Your Uncle Bill seems such a jovial man."

        "Yeah.  Great guy.  I always wanted to be like him.  When I was a kid I used to pester him for war stories from Vietnam.  He never told any.  I didn't understand that until I'd seen a little of it myself.  Of course it wasn't the same for me.  I didn't go through anything like he did."

        Jill knew that Somalia had wounded him deeply, yet he refused to put his experiences on a par with those of his uncle.  She doubted that his uncle carried baggage comparable to Richard's boy soldier.

       "Aunt Wanda and Uncle Bill never had kids of their own, but when I little I spent as much time over there as I did at home.  Mom and Dad worked, and they looked after me in the summer time because my aunt was a cook at the high school and had summers off.  Uncle Bill worked part time as a deck hand on the lake, and ran a guide service out of his home.  He used to take me with him when he took the fishermen out.  When business was slow we went fishing ourselves, sometimes out to . . . Bonne Femme."

        "Anyway," he continued.  "I used to practically live out there, but like I told you, I'm staying away from them until this mess is over."

        It was the way she felt about Marta, only it was too late to prevent her from being drawn into it.

        "I'll take you out and show you where I spent a good part of my childhood when this is all over.  That is if you want to."

 

263.

"Will it ever be over?"

"It will," he said.  "I promise you it will be."

Richard hadn't yet learned not to make hasty promises.

 

A Mistake

 

       Though late in the day, it was still warm when they stopped for gas and sodas at Rolla, a college town located on the edge of Ozark Plateau known as the "lead belt."  A bank of low clouds in the west promised eye relief from the sinking sun as they continued southwestward.  As the last leg of their journey began, Jill scanned the radio, finally settling on the student-run station of the University of Missouri at Columbia.  Like a benevolent ghost from a more innocent time came the voice of Neil Sedaka's I'm Living Right Next Door to an Angel.  The signal held for an hour before fades and skips forced her to turn it off.

        Like most modern roads, I-44 had been laid out by connecting the dots and "landscraping," straight-line gouges through the terrain with no effort to minimize the violence and no thought of the economic impact on smaller municipalities.  Many of the smaller towns were dying or had already become mere named places.  It was the old story of changing trade routes.

        At seven-thirty Springfield passed to the northwest as they turned through Republic back east onto the two-lane that led to Cassville.  After a winding half hour they hit a turn-off through a newer residential area down to the valley where the old downtown lay.  A main street ran through a single block of false-fronted brick buildings before sweeping right and back up to the bypass.  They found a moderately priced motel, an older, but well maintained complex consisting of a two story L-shaped string of about fifty apartments.

        Jill waited in the car while he went in where a small featured woman with a Pakistani accent, signed them in and slid keys across the counter, giving him directions to a ground floor room three doors from the office.  After carrying in the luggage, he parked the Cougar at the far edge of the lot, concealed from the highway by a fence surrounding the winterized pool on the off chance that Mic had followed them.

"There's a restaurant next door, if you feel like splurging a little," he said.

Jill looked up from her unpacking.

"That would be nice, but I must change first."

 

264.

"You look fine.  I'm sure they won't throw us out."

        "One dresses for a restaurant.  If you wish to go the way we are, then a drive through would be appropriate."

 

        Richard scraped away the last of his beard and examined his face in the steamy mirror over the lavatory.  As he pulled on a sweatshirt, Jill came from the shower room, barefooted, but dressed in a light green dress.  Looking into the mirror, she put on small, hoop earrings.

        "Thank you, Richard," she said as she sat on the bed to slip on heels.  "It will be nice to feel normal."

        He looked from her back to his own image in the mirror.  Contrasted to her elegance, his casual dress seemed slovenly.  He took a button-down shirt from the suitcase and went into the bathroom to change.

"This is the best I can do," he said when he came out.  "I only brought jeans."

"You look nice," she said, ignoring the wrinkles caused by his careless packing.

As they were about to leave, she said.

        "Richard," she said in a serious voice as she snapped closed her small purse.  "That sweatshirt you had on reminded me.  Did you hear that the state legislature might change the name of our university?"

"From ‘Pere Marquette?'  To what?  Something like "West Central Michigan State?"

"No.  Only to ‘Pere Marquette State University.'  Is that not awful?"

"It's not that bad."

        Jill did her best to deadpan as she repeated the joke she had heard earlier in the week.

        "You would enjoy attending a college known as PMS U?" she asked, grabbing his arm playfully as she delivered the punch line.

        He reacted with a laugh and threw his arm around her waist.  When she stiffened he withdrew it awkwardly.

"Sorry," he finally said.

"No.  It was I . . . and . . ."

 

265.

She looked up at him, blinking and unsmiling.

        They stood close yet not touching.  Then Jill reached up with both hands and pulled his head down to hers.  When they kissed he felt her breasts against his chest.  Aroused, he pulled her closer, and his hand, almost of its own accord found her breast.

"Don't," she said, as she gabbed his wrist.

She disengaged and sat heavily on the bed.

"Oh no," she murmured desolately.

        "I'm sorry," he mumbled, afraid to move toward her, but wanting more than anything to salvage whatever had happened.

"Do not apologize," she said wearily.  "I did this."

        He was at a complete loss.  All he knew was that his elation had turned to confusion.  He wasn't sure of anything except that she was upset, and he had no clue as to how to change that.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

        "We cannot . . . afford this.  It is . . . it was . . . the last thing I wanted to let happen."

"Just tell me what it meant," he said.

        "Maybe something and maybe nothing," she said enigmatically.  "But it cannot happen again."

She looked up at him and pursed her lips.

"It was my fault and I apologize.  I have never been a . . . I am just sorry."

"Let's talk about it," he said softly.

"Not now," she said, standing up and clutching her purse.  "Let us go." 

 

        Because of the spacious interior they had relative privacy while they dined.  The food was excellent and the service good, but the awkwardness turned the meal into an ordeal for both of them.

 

266.

"So, what do we do tomorrow?" asked Jill as she pushed salad around her plate.

"Like you said, we'll start at the courthouse."

After the exchange they finished the meal in silence. 

        They walked back side by side, but not close.  Richard wondered if they would ever be closer, or if they were just destined to walk parallel paths for a time, sharing nothing but Mic.  He wondered if she would have ever had anything to do with him if not for Mic.

He opened the door and reached in to turn on the light.

"I'll rent a second room," he said.

"There are two beds," she said.  "Besides, it is foolish to waste the money."

She rubbed her fingers over the engagement ring, studied it.

"Richard, nothing has changed.  Nothing can change until this . . . thing is over."

        Of course something had changed.  He was smart enough to know that; he just wasn't smart enough to know how it had changed.

"I just don't want to do anything wrong," he said.

        "You do not have to walk on eggs----I mean on egg shells with me," she said as they stepped inside.  "We will continue doing what we have been doing.  We have a plan . . . and we will stick to it.  We will . . . "

She suddenly fled to the bathroom and closed the door.

He stood near the entrance, debating whether he should ask her if she was all right.

"I'm going out for a walk, Jill," he called.

She didn't respond.

"I'll lock the door when I leave."

 

267.

       Once out, he realized that there was nowhere to walk but the parking lot or on the shoulder of the highway.  Walking on the almost non-existent shoulder could be dangerous, and walking residential streets behind the motel was a good way to be stopped by the police.  Instead, he took the Cougar, and drove aimlessly, trying to concentrate on his investigation, but unable to think of anything but the way she had looked and how he had felt when she drew him to her.  He could smell her perfume, feel her lips.

That wasn't a nothing kiss, he told himself.  It's got to mean something.

 

        Jill sat in the dim light feeling like a fool, still unable to understand why she had allowed herself to do what she had done.  Now, he was out there somewhere trying to sort out her mixed messages.  The kiss was a mistake---but not a lie.

"I cannot afford this," she muttered.

A knock at the door caused her to jerk in alarm.

"It's me," he called.

When she opened the door, he stood there holding two ice cream cones.

"We didn't have time for desert before we left the restaurant."

"Come inside," she said as she took the ice cream.

"Can I say something first?  I think it needs said."

She stared at him without smiling.

        "I think I understand.  Things are already complicated enough, and . . . you don't want to do anything that could confuse it more.  So, I was thinking that we should just try to forget that anything happened because---it didn't really.  You were just being spontaneous and I got carried away . . . and . . . well, it just . . ."

        "It is the situation, Richard.  We have been alone together since May, and in such . . . an emotionally charged situation, something like that . . . could just happen.  That is all it was."

He looked at her mutely.

"You agree, do you not?"

"I don't guess I'm smart enough to think through my emotions."

"Do not put pressure on me."

        "No pressure.  You just . . . well, here," he said, handing her a cone.  "Let's eat our desert before it melts."