“Malone knew more about books than any ten dealers I ever met. In Dallas, where he lived then, he was a major celebrity in the bookstores, though he tried not to be. I don’t know what first attracted him to me—maybe the fact that I didn’t scrape and bow whenever he walked in the door. All I know is, suddenly he was in my life. What kept drawing him back to that one bookstore turned out to be…am I vain enough to say it?…me. We had something going from the start, long before we ever talked of such things. It’s like something in the air that only the two of you can see. You know how that can be, Janeway, I know you know.”
“I know now.”
“Yes. That’s exactly right. And when it happens, you don’t care who the other person is, how old he is, how much money he’s got. People who let stuff like that matter to them are fools. Things like race, religion, politics—none of it matters. So one day Malone came in and asked if I wanted to be his assistant. I quit my job on the spot. The guy I was working for was a jerk: I’d‘ve quit in another week anyway. I didn’t even ask Malone what kind of assistant I would be. I didn’t care. I had been bouncing around the book business for a few years— libraries, bookstores—and I was tired of it. I was ready for something different. Well, I got it.
“For the next four years we went everywhere. We went all over the world looking for books. Everything I know that’s worth knowing I learned in that time. We lived in Paris for six months, went to England every summer. One of the most interesting Jack London collections—part of it’s still here, in the big room—we bought in Tokyo, of all places. You get the idea: there isn’t much more to tell. Malone never went back to Texas and neither did I. He bought this place. He liked the solitude. He liked the fact that it came with that big fence already up. You can’t put up a fence like that anymore—too many zoning restrictions—but they won’t let you tear it down either. Malone had always liked Colorado, not in the summer when tourists come swarming in, but in the dead of winter. He liked being snowed in. He was always different than everybody else. I’d still be with him, if he’d lived. I don’t think of it as a mad love affair, it wasn’t like that. But I know I’d still be with him.”
“He died, though.”
“You don’t have to ask that. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories. What’s the version you heard? Was I supposed to’ve killed him for his money or his books?”
“It was just talk.”
“Yeah, right. Well, I did kill him in a way. He was fifty years old. He smoked too much and couldn’t quit, he had always smoked and he was dying from it. I guess there comes a time when it doesn’t matter anymore. One day he said to me, ‘Rita, I’m not going to die in a hospital.’ I knew then what I was in for. During the next couple of days he tended to business. Had a lawyer come up, dictated what amounted to his last will. I knew he was leaving it all to me. It was never discussed between us, but I knew him so well, and you might not believe this…I didn’t care. We were so businesslike. That’s even how he wanted to die, according to a schedule of his own making. He’d had a lethal injection made up—I knew where it was and what it was there for, and when the time came I went to the cabinet and got the stuff and helped him as best I could. God, I was such a coward. I couldn’t keep from crying and trembling…I had never seen anyone actually die, and I know he wanted to go with me keeping a stiff upper lip but I just couldn’t. I held his head on my lap while he gave himself the shot. That should’ve been all there was to it, only…he wouldn’t die. People tell you that stuff always works: it’s supposed to be painless and you’re gone like the snap of a finger, only it didn’t work that way. The man would… not… die. I thought he just didn’t get enough. It knocked him out before… you know. And he was in such pain! He writhed and twitched… and still he wouldn’t die! So I loaded that needle and I gave him another shot, enough to kill a dinosaur… and still he lived. It was like some nightmare. Then I remembered his gun.
“I knew it was in the bedroom, but it took me a while to find the shells. I don’t know much about guns but I thought I could figure it out. I came into the room and sat beside him. His breathing was heavy and labored. He was struggling, fighting, and I took the gun and put it to his head and cocked it. I remember thinking, ‘How can I do this, how can I possibly find the strength?’ Then he seemed to relax and I knew he was gone. He just… slipped away… just in time. Another ten seconds and I might’ve been in real trouble. I didn’t even know how to uncock the stupid gun. I pulled the trigger and blew a hole in the wall. You can still see the mark. I think the sheriff suspects me of something even to this day. When they read the will, I just sat there and didn’t say anything, but it was an absolutely grand motive for murder. I knew Malone was well-off, but I was shocked at how much there really was. He never told me how much he had: it was his business and I never particularly wanted to know. I guess I was lucky: I might’ve had some real explaining to do if Malone hadn’t had the foresight to tell his lawyer what he intended. Even now there’s a lot of suspicion. To the people on this mountain, and to some in the book trade, I’m the woman who killed her boyfriend and got away with it. So I keep to myself, don’t have much to do with anyone, and that’s the story. That’s how I became rich and famous. It’s also why I’ve been giving it away in buckets. It never really felt like mine.”
The day dawned cold and wet and miserable, one of those days in the Rockies when it’s too warm to snow and too cold to rain. We had slept for a few hours, and I came awake with her head nestled under my chin and my hand cradling her breast. I lay still, reluctant to wake her. But there was a killer to catch, and today was the day, and the day wasn’t getting any younger. I thought I had narrowed it down to an either-or. Everything about it had begun to make sense, except her part in it, and that made no sense at all.
She turned over and opened her eyes. She touched my face and said, “Love me again,” and I couldn’t, couldn’t, say no. Then, spent, we lay under the covers and locked eyes and touched. At some point I said we had to get up. She said, “We don’t have to do anything, not ever again.” She did get up, though, and for a moment she stood by the bed, naked and lovely. She walked away and I heard the shower start. I stared up at the darkest part of the house and thought about it. And I thought: God bless America, I hope you’re not mixed up in this. I tell you it’ll break my heart if you are.
48
Either-or: six of one, half a dozen of the other. We came down from the mountain and I did a mental crapshoot. It came up Littleton. We rolled in on Hampden and turned south on Santa Fe Drive. The streets were still slick but it was daylight now and I had made the drive down in less than forty minutes.
I pulled into a Denny’s and stopped.