Chapter Three

1

"Those lips? Definitely collagen." Kazmaroff jabbed a finger at a county map he had perched on the dashboard as he drove. "Is it 141 where this school is? Or right off Medlock Bridge? Can you tell?"

"What kind of crack is that?" Burton sat tensed and uncomfortable in the passenger's seat. Both windows were rolled down and the late afternoon chill was succeeding in enervating, not invigorating, him.

"No kind of crack, Jack," Kazmaroff sighed and gathered up the map in his right hand. "Just an observation. That is our job, isn't it? To observe? To note? I just noted that the woman....didn't you see her scars? In front of each ear, and the guy must've been good. They were hairline, you could barely..."

"What is the point of this?" Burton turned to face him. "Going to do a gossip column for the Fulton County P.D, are you? Going to write a "Guess Who Saw Who Doing Guess What" for suspects? Get your mind out of Entertainment Tonight, why don't you? and back to work. Our job, detective, is not to ascertain who did or did not have a nip or tuck for whatever reasons. Our job is to determine the facts in order to determine the identity of the killer and then to arrest said killer. In case you've forgotten."

"Screw you, man," Kazmaroff snarled, his eyes boring a hole through the windshield. "Or, should I say Tess Andersen?"

Burton lunged at him, only able to control himself after the car nearly swerved into a passing Jeep Cherokee. The jeep emitted a long, unhappy beep and then accelerated well past the speed limit to escape them.

"What is your problem, man?" Kazmaroff was scarlet. "You trying to kill us and innocent motorists too?"

"Stop this car, you suck-faced little runt." Burton was apoplectic in his anger and impotence. "Stop this car so I can beat the shit outta you!"

"Oh, man, you are a piece of work." Kazmaroff obviously had no intention of stopping the car for Burton. "You're trying to kill us both...I can't believe the stunt you just pulled--"

"Just shut-up!" Burton said. He gripped his knees with his hands. He imagined Kazmaroff's face in his hands and he was beating it and pounding it, crushing it. "I don't want to hear your voice, your constant noise. Just shut-up.”

"Screw you, man," Kazmaroff said, but there was no heat in his words, as if he only felt honor-bound to say them.

Burton pulled himself up straight in his seat and took a deep, covert breath. "I am so sick of your bull-shit," he said tightly, not looking at Kazmaroff. "I'm sick to death of your affectations, your strange foreign accents--who are you supposed to be? friggin' Meryl Streep?--you’re pathetic, Dave." He licked his lips as he spoke and continued to stare straight ahead out the windshield. "Your pathetic attempts to be something you're not and will never be...You don't play polo, hell, man you don't even ride a bicycle. What you know about wines--this one really kills me--what you know about wines, you could fit in your left ear. And you know something else, man? I'm sick of your references to the Gulf War when the closest you've ever been to Iraq is the Middle eastern bakery on Buford Damn Highway."

"Are you through?"

"Fuck you."

"Because if you are, then maybe you'd like to hear how fond I am of you. First of all, your moods. Of which you have many."

"I'm warning you, Kazmaroff."

"You are the sourest son of a bitch I ever met. I mean, do you have smile muscles? Is everything just a complete and tremendous pain in the ass for you?"

Burton picked up the map and willed himself to remain calm.

"I've tried," Kazmaroff continued, shaking his head. "I've ignored stuff. I've taken rebuffs, out and out insults. You don't like me, fine. You don't have to like me. Plenty of guys in the department work together and don't like each other. We don't have to do Saturday afternoon barbecues together." Kazmaroff turned the car down a newly-paved road that cleaved the gray shrubs and bushes like a knife. "But now it looks like we can't even do a routine investigation together," he said.

 

Justin Traver's boarding school stood alone in a tidy woodland setting. A complicated drystone wall, composed of fieldstone, pieces of quarry rock, and red mud, curved around the front of the two-story brick façade of the school. Simple, shuttered windows hung in three rows of eight across the front.

Woodstone Academy was situated on fifty acres. Its curriculum offered students horseback riding, rugby and sailing in addition to the usual football and track programs. The school was expensive, but not prohibitively so. It was less than six miles from the lonely woodland clearing where Jilly Travers disappeared.

Burton and Kazmaroff drove the last five miles in silence, neither of the two willing to break the code they seemed to be forging. A code of separateness. Their appointment was with the headmaster of the school, George Patterson. Tall and affable, Panfel greeted them warmly in his office. Three walls of the office were covered in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the fourth wall was completely windowed to afford a stunning view of rolling green pastures rimmed by tall pines. Kazmaroff and Burton sat across from the man's desk in a small seating arrangement by the window. Kazmaroff sat in the small leather loveseat which was pocked with serious brass studs as if to definitely declare its maleness. Burton settled down in one of the matching wing back chairs, reserving its twin for Justin Travers. Patterson remained standing, as if to assure the detectives that he would not be in their way for very long.

Kazmaroff smiled politely at the headmaster and slowly opened his notebook. “Has Justin been told about our visit ahead of time, or will this be a surprise?" he asked.

"He has been told," Panfel said, nodding vigorously. "One of our brightest boys. Our very brightest. You'll get articulation-plus with young Travers. Absolutely."

"Well, great," Burton said wryly.

"Fine. I'll just get him, shall I?"

Kazmaroff smiled at the man inoffensively and then, when the headmaster had left, scowled as he glanced about the room.

The silence was palpable.

Moments later, the door opened and they were joined by Jilly Traver's only relative, her son, Justin.

Neither detective stood when the boy entered. Kazmaroff motioned him to take the last remaining seat between them.

The boy was good-looking. Fifteen years old, dark-haired with even darker eyes. The pupils of his eyes were invisible in dark pools of mahogany brown.

Kazmaroff frowned in what Burton took to be his best stab at an affect of compassion with a touch of professional detachment. Burton thought he looked confused.

"Justin Travers?" Burton said, smiling economically.

"Obviously," Justin said staring directly, confidently at Burton.

Burton gave him a sharp look. "Sorry about your mother,” he said. “You know that's why we're here today."

The boy said nothing. His eyes flitted away from the detectives and around the room. He seemed on-guard, watchful, to Burton. He did not seem very broken up by the possibility of his mother’s death.

"We need to ask you a few questions, Justin," Burton continued, annoyed with the boy's cool behavior.

"I'll make it easy for you," Justin said, his gaze returning to Burton. "I'm not at all sorry she's dead. Okay? There was no love lost. We weren't close. Not in a good way, anyhow."

"You were close in a bad way?" Kazmaroff asked, still frowning.

"You'd be surprised," the boy replied. "I suppose that statement considerably changes the tenor of your questions, huh? I mean, you can skip over the bereavement part of your presentation and get right into the meat of 'did I know of anyone who might want to harm my mother?' Yeah, I mean, I thought of doing it myself, for one."

"You wished your mother dead?" Burton asked as he leaned back into his chair.

Justin's gaze never wavered from Burton’s face. "I hated the bitch," he said flatly.

 

2

"Can you believe that shit?" Kazmaroff shifted into third gear. It caught for a moment before falling into place and Burton winced at the resultant grinding noise. "Doesn't know who his father is? Says his mother used to set her friends up to seduce him? Says his mother used to try to seduce him herself? Is this kid for real?"

Burton wished he had a cigarette. He wondered how long before the urge really went away. He'd already been off them for nearly a year and he still craved them on a more or less daily basis.

"My guess, the kid is a psychopathic liar, you know?" Kazmaroff continued.

Burton sighed and looked out the window at the North Fulton County countryside rolling by. The brown and gray pastures were now punctuated with the occasional grocery store, large and vault-like, with a scattering of cars in the cement parking lots. Jack wondered how they managed to stay in business.

"Based on what?" Burton asked methodically.

"Based on the pure hooey he was spinning." Kazmaroff turned his head toward Burton. "You buying all that stuff about being seduced by these middle-aged women? It's a teenage boy's fantasy. Can you imagine your friend Miss Andersen coming on to that pimply-faced little punk?"

Burton suppressed a wince. He knew it had been coming. Justin had insisted that he'd slept with Tess--at Tess's insistence, he said--when he was only thirteen. It was too much to hope that Kazmaroff wouldn't fixate on it.

"I don't know what to think," Burton said. "We're just gathering facts at this point."

"Bull-shit," Kazmaroff said. "We're gathering the facts and testing people's reactions and using our guts to see who's lying. Don't tell me you haven't got a read on that kid. You think he's telling the truth?"

Burton shook his head. "I don't know," he repeated.

Kazmaroff made a sound of disgust and they drove in silence.

Burton stared out again at the bleak landscape. It was amazing to him the number and variety of birds he’d noticed just forty miles north of town. He’d forgotten so much. Used to be a time he could name them all, sketch them perfectly. When he was a boy, on a warm fall day, much like this one, he and his father could sit for hours watching and waiting. He had delighted his scholarly father with his interest in birds, his patience. The two had been so much alike in all the ways that were important. And then, years later, with everything that had happened in between, he’d decided to make the police force his career. The look in his father’s eyes when he told him was like a betrayal.

It was ludicrous, of course, that the boy and Tess Andersen....but why was the kid trying to implicate himself? He had no alibi for the time of Jilly's disappearance, his school was less than six miles from the barn, and he made it clear he did not grieve her. Why? Was he trying to protect someone else?

The name "Tess" came maddeningly to mind and Burton thrust it away. Maybe the kid was just troubled. He certainly hadn't been able to shed any light on the case or Jilly's whereabouts. Justin said he hadn't seen his mother in well over a month.

Burton set his mouth in a grim line and gripped the straps of his seat belt. It was the ex-husband they needed to be talking to, he thought. And soon. This kid was a total waste of time. In more ways than one.

That's my read on it, Dave ol' buddy.

The husband was always the first suspect in any investigating cop's mind--no matter of how unlikely, initially, that looked. In this case, there being no husband to point the finger at, the ex-husband, Mark Travers, would have to do.

Feeling a little better, Burton glanced at his partner who looked like he was in the full form of an adult sulk. Deciding he felt even better, Burton was about to suggest they stop somewhere for lunch when his cell phone rang.

"Burton, here," he said.

Kazmaroff tapped his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. "Well?" he said.

Burton gave him an 'in a minute' wave with his free hand and spoke into the phone. "Okay, good, yeah, no kidding. Okay, thanks." He hung up.

"That was the crime lab," he said. "The blood's definitely her blood-type. No way to make a definite match?"

"Not without a body, tissue, something.”

“I don’t suppose Jilly would have made things easy on us by having a supply of her blood stored at one of the local hospitals for some reason?”

“I guess we could check. The Chief said we’re to treat it officially as a homicide. No way she could've lost all that blood and still be breathing somewhere."

A red-tailed hawk circled deliberately in the sky as they drove back to the city. Burton felt his spirits lift at the sight, surprised at his own reaction. Spotting hawks this far out of town was certainly not uncommon, he admonished himself. He watched the bird swoop down on his prey like a dive bomber.

But, oh, so satisfying.

 

3

Jilly tossed her long hair and smiled her most honest-looking smile. Her eyes blazed directly into his own. Her eyes said "eat me up." Her tongue, flicking the lips of her smile said: "Hurry."

Robert Shue rubbed his forehead with a callused hand and pushed the image of Jilly from his mind. Whatever she'd been, whatever she may or may not have been saying at that motel in Santa Monica three months ago, was a moot point now. He stood up and walked from his desk to the floor-to-ceiling window in his office that overlooked Peachtree Road. It was after eight o'clock and the street was streaked with red and yellow streamers from car tail lights as people prepared for their weekend. With the exception of himself, the offices of Ryan, Davis & Shue were empty.

Jilly.

He allowed himself to remember her the last time he ever laid eyes on her. She had frowned in surprise to see him, hardly expecting him there of all places, on her turf. Her body and face said immediately and irrevocably what her lips had been telling him for weeks.

It's over.

He let himself feel the anger, the humiliation, wash over him once more, just as it had then. But only now did he recall that the contempt in her face had relaxed into a softer, less repulsed, expression. She had smiled the old smile at him. Just for a minute, she had summoned a different kind of feeling than the impatience and irritation the dying relationship had fostered. He'd felt it now, had seen it then but hadn't recognized it. By then, of course, if had been too late. Way, way too late.

Shue fingered the square phone message slip in his pocket. His secretary had scribbled on it as mindlessly as if it had been just another reminder note from a creditor, a "job well done" from a client, or a "call-home" from his wife, Sandra, instead of the end of his world as surely as a bullet in the brain. The police had called. They had called and asked that he please return their call.

"I love you, Jilly. Don't you know I do?"

"So, is this, like, a proposal or something?"

She'd worn nothing. As comfortable and confident in her nakedness as most people would have been in an Armani suit. She was lounging on the motel bed, lighting a cigarette. For a moment, Shue could imagine a tiny cinder from the end of her cigarette falling lightly on that smooth, hard abdomen. He had no doubt she wouldn't have flinched, possibly not even have felt it.

He'd laughed nervously.

"Jilly, I'm married. You know that."

"So this I-love-you stuff is, what? Guilt? An addendum to dinner?"

"Christ."

"Because it certainly isn't necessary, Barry." She laughed and blew the smoke out of her nose in two thin streams. "Now, the dinner," she said. "That was necessary!"

He'd made a mistake. A big mistake. Not in sleeping with her, although that had prompted its own complications in the long run. Not even in his becoming as attached to her as he had. She was right, of course. It wasn't love. It was something else. Something that assuaged a need in him that had been growing for a long time. Something beyond the abilities of his marriage, the love of his wife, or the love for his wife.

No, the mistake had to do with secrets. Secrets told, secrets betrayed. He'd trusted her. That was his big mistake.

 

5

The little cedar-fronted ranch house was situated back from the street. Hickory and pine trees towered over it, casting shadows even on the sunniest days. Burton had made some effort to keep the bayberry hedges that lined the little drive to the carport neat or, at least, alive; they squatted in single file, in varying sizes and conditions of health.

He stood on the small porch and took a long drag from a cigarette. It was old and stale and felt like it was clawing its way down his throat, but he still found himself pinching the filter to force more nicotine up into the draw.

Inside, he could hear the laugh-track of the sit-com from the television set in the living room. He didn't hear his wife laugh or react in any way to the show. He knew she was sitting in front of the set, a Danielle Steele in her lap, a glass of Coca-Cola, no ice, on the arm of the couch. In his mind, he saw her concentrating on the commercials in between the shows with as much intensity as the shows themselves. He took a hard drag on the Salem. Maybe that wasn't fair, he thought. Probably wasn't.

He looked out onto the quiet street. It was working class, nothing fancy. Tidy. The people here cared about their lawns, their shrubs, keeping their dogs and kids carefully fenced in. There were one or two houses a couple streets over with the required car up on cement blocks, a major construction job being plotted out in someone's side yard, a child's swing set--the use of which had stripped a once-green lawn of every blade of grass. But here, on Claremont Terrace, things were tidy.

He thought of David Kazmaroff's face as he'd seen it this afternoon, twisting in disgust and affected weariness.

"Is this, like, big breaking news or something?" Kazmaroff had said in response to the call from the lab. "We're supposed to treat this as a murder?"

It didn't matter. Burton pinched off the lit end of the cigarette and ground it out on the porch. He flipped the butt into the Rose of Sharon bush that bordered the tiny porch. Dana had planted azaleas one year, even annuals--pansies or something--that lined the broken sidewalk that led to the front door. Must have been the year they moved in, over seven years ago now. There hadn't been much planting of any kind since then. It was enough, Burton thought as he listened to the screech of the laugh track, just to keep what they had alive.

Kids might've helped. They seemed like a big pain in the ass, but who knows? They might've helped.

His neighbor from across the street pulled into his driveway and waved. Burton returned the wave, trying to remember the guy's first name. Bill or Dale. He'd long since stopped remembering people's first names. The guy was German or something. Spoke with an accent. A Carolina Wren sang out from somewhere in the porch eaves. He’d always loved their song. So distinctive, so cheerful. The rush of Burton’s next thought was forceful enough that he actually gasped, shocking himself by the sound in the still evening air. An image of Tess Andersen had come to mind. Her eyes, bold and suggestive, her nude body twisting on the ground in a sensuous stretch. The fragrance of fresh hay and feed seemed to hang gently but undeniably in the air where Jack stood on his porch.

Jesus.

He licked his lips and patted his shirt pocket for cigarettes he knew were not there. Was that bastard Kazmaroff right? Was he losing his objectivity about this woman? Why was she getting to him? There was a connection between them that he couldn't explain. A connection that had been there immediately, would have been there if they'd met each other for the first time at the local Kroger. It was powerful and immediate and he found himself trusting it. His eyes sought out the dark form of his German neighbor as the man knelt in his driveway to examine a tire of his Volvo.

And, unfortunately, what he was feeling had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Tess Andersen was under suspicion for murder.

 

6

The night was unusually warm for this time of year. The pasture horses, as if sensing the lagniappe, were particularly playful. The pecking order of the small herd of twenty pasture-boarded horses had been painfully and completely established with the immediate introduction of each new horse to the group. Now they grazed and interacted with fluidity and certainty, each member knowing its place. The leader, a surly black horse that was gelded late, enjoyed the warm October evening by stampeding his herd up and down the hilly east side of the pasture, stopping abruptly each time they reached the woods which bordered the fenced end of the field. Occasionally, the black gelding would lean over and nip one of the other horses, often a mare, although mating was not an issue.

Stallions were never boarded at Bon Chance. Too much trouble, Margo thought as she watched the horses thunder past her office window. Altogether too much trouble.

The last of the Jeep Cherokees and Mercedes sports vehicles had loaded up their exhausted, dirty children with their hobbit-sized saddles an hour ago and departed in a noisy wagon train of kids, mothers and pedigreed dogs. Sometimes, Margo didn't know how she could stand another day of it.

She turned her eyes away from the horses in the pasture and stood up. She felt every inch of her forty-five years tonight. It had been a hard day. A hard week. She opened her office door and went out into the darkened corridor of the stalls. The light from her office cut a single shaft of brightness into the hallway, illuminating the straw and dirt that made up the floor. A horse in the stall to her left nickered gently and poked his nose out over his stall door. Margo absently touched his velvety nose and murmured to him. Then, she went down the hall to the tenth stall and opened the door. In the corner stood a giant chestnut horse. He had a sweet face and kind eyes. He turned his head, to watch her approach.

"Hello, boy," she said, gently, putting a slow hand up to touch his neck. "How you doing tonight, guy? Had a good dinner, I see."

Margo picked up one of the dandy brushes from the window sill, silently filing away an admonishment for Jessie for leaving it there, and began to groom the animal. Jilly had had him bought him in Ireland two years ago and had him shipped over. He was trained as a hunter but Jilly never hunted him. A Clydesdale-Thoroughbred mix, he stood over 22 hands tall--his back easily level with Margo’s head--yet he moved with the grace and lightness of a Springbok. Margo knew what Jilly had paid for him and she personally believed he was worth every penny and probably more. He was not only an elegant mover, perfectly trained and always in balance, but he was sweet-tempered. A rare combination in a horse.

She brushed his saddle area, although she could tell Jessie had already cleaned him thoroughly, then moved down to his flanks and finally, his legs, with more gentle strokes. He was, in fact, a horse of a lifetime. Eager when you needed enthusiasm, quiet when you needed a break. A damn near perfect horse. A horse to die for.

Not for the first time, Margo was struck by the contrast between rider and mount. Of course, Jilly would demand the best, and Best Boy certainly was that. He didn't begrudge his rider as so many horses do--even beautifully trained, expensive horses--but genuinely seemed to enjoy being ridden. Remarkable. And he had been owned by one of the nastiest, unhappiest riders to ever lift a leg into a saddle. As she ran her fingers through his silky mane Margo surprised herself by the sudden knowledge that she would give anything to own him. She wondered what was to be done with him now.

Finally, she gave him a plug of carrot which he took, crunching noisily. She patted him on the neck.

"Sleep well, beauty," she said softly. "We'll get you some exercise tomorrow."

After carefully securing his stall door and checking briefly on another horse that a boarder had had the vet up to see that afternoon, Margo went back to her office. She checked her watch. It was almost nine o'clock. As she approached her office, she could hear the phone ringing and she broke into a trot. She caught the phone receiver up, tripping over a tangle of leather training reins and a lunge line she'd dropped on the floor earlier.

"Yes?" she said breathlessly into the phone.

"Hey, Margo, it's me." The voice was tired, anemic, familiar.

Margo turned and kicked the office door shut. She slumped onto the couch facing the desk and held the phone with both hands.

"Jesus," she said, closing her eyes. "I prayed this would be you. Are you okay?"

"I killed her, Margo," the voice said.