Chapter 51
I drove out to see Betty Patton through a much-too-early snowfall. The snow was accumulating on soft surfaces and melting as it hit the roadway. The streets were therefore wet and shiny as I wound through the west of Boston boondocks, and the lawns gleamed whitely. It wouldn’t last long; this kind of snowfall never did, and its transience was probably part of why it was so pretty.
I had already checked with Brock Patton’s office at the bank. He was there, though, of course, in a meeting where he was deciding the course of Western civilization, and could not be interrupted. I didn’t mind. I just wanted to be sure I could talk to Betty Patton without him. John Otis opened the front door for me as formally as if I had never had a tuna sandwich with him on Parker Hill. He turned me over to Billie who was just as formal, and she led me down the hallway to a conservatory at the back of the house. Apparently the library, where I’d been before, was Brock’s domain. Betty Patton rose from her little writing desk when I came in and walked toward me stiffly to shake hands. Billie left us.
“Please sit down, Miss Randall,” Betty said.
I did. The floor of the conservatory was stone and I could feel the heat radiating gently up from it. Outside the glass walls, the light snow fell straight down, onto the long meadow that sloped down to the river. The room was furnished with sort of fancy garden furniture as if to emphasize the connection between the room and the out-of-doors. There were a lot of plants around. Since the only thing I know about plants is a dozen yellow roses, I didn’t know what kind they were, but they seemed to be flourishing.
Betty Patton returned to her writing desk and sat and half turned in her chair to face me. She sat very straight, her hands folded in her lap. Her hair was perfect. Her makeup was flawless. She wore a Polo warm-up suit, in which, I suspected, no one had ever warmed up in the history of fashion.
“You may as well know, up front, Miss Randall,” she said, “that our attorneys are preparing legal action against you for the return of our daughter. You stand an excellent chance of being charged with kidnapping.”
“I’m all atremble,” I said.
I took the embarrassing picture of Betty Patton from my purse and leaned over and placed it on the writing desk face up. She looked at it. And looked quickly away. Her face colored slowly until it was a full blush. Good. She was human. After a moment, she turned the picture over very slowly and placed it facedown on the desk. The snow fell straight down some more outside the glass walls. The heat continued to rise gently from the stone floor. Betty Patton stared at the blank white back of the photograph. She looked out the window. She looked past me at the door I’d come in. She looked back down at the facedown picture.
“Many people allow themselves to be photographed naked,” she said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Admittedly this is perhaps a bit beyond simple nakedness,” Betty said.
I waited.
“I have needs,” she said. “Sometimes I can’t help myself.”
I nodded.
“If you knew what being married to him was like,” she said.
“You’re not married to the man in the picture,” I said.
“Of course not. I was referring to Brock.”
I knew that, but I didn’t comment.
“The man in the picture is a plumber,” I said, “named Kevin Humphries. He did some work for you once. He’s dead.”
She continued to stare down at the back of the photograph. Then she looked up and her gaze was pretty steady.
“What do you want?” she said.
“This picture is just a sample. There are more.”
She nodded.
“Tell me about him,” I said.
“The plumber?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know,” I said.
“And you think you can threaten me with the pictures?”
“Yes.”
“He came a year or so ago to put in a bathroom in my part of the house, off my bedroom.”
“You and your husband had separate bedrooms.”
“Yes. It had nothing to do with intimacy, it’s just a matter of each of us needing more privacy.”
“Sure,” I said. “You were intimate.”
“Of course, if it’s any of your business.”
“Someday I’ll figure out what my business is,” I said. “How did he get from plumber to lover?”’
“Lover,” Betty Patton said. “How quaint.”
“It seemed so much more ladylike than ‘fucker,’” I said.
“But the latter is far more accurate,” Betty Patton said, and smiled.
At least the corners of her lips moved up. I think she intended it to be a smile. It was awful.
“He was a big, strong man, attractive in a sweaty, capable way, and I could tell he was interested.”
I nodded again.
“I... as I said, I have needs.”
“And the pictures?”
“I gave them to him. I wanted him to remember what we’d had.”
“Did it occur to you that it might give him some leverage on you?” I said.
“I thought we mattered too much to each other. When it became apparent that we could no longer be together, I wanted him to have something that spoke to him of our intimacy.”
“What made you break up?”
Betty Patton looked at me as if I were far too stupid to get in out of the rain.
“I am a married woman, if you hadn’t noticed,” she said.
“Did Kevin attempt to use these pictures?” I said.
“No, certainly not.”
“Did you know he was dead?” I said.
“No, of course not, how would I? I told you we agreed to be apart.”
“You didn’t seem to have much reaction when I told you he was dead.”
“I know, I... I should. We were very close for a while. But you had just thrust that picture at me... How did he die?”
“Someone shot him in the back of his head while he was sitting in his car outside a restaurant on Route 9.”
“My God.”
“Would you have any thoughts on that?” I said.
“How awful.”
“Any others?”
“No. You think I... because of the pictures?”
“You said he didn’t use the pictures.”
“He didn’t. I didn’t mean that. I just meant you might be suspicious.”
I nodded. We were quiet. The snow was still steady, melting as it touched the warm glass walls, turning into glistening rivulets that distorted the gray light.
“There’s a thing that’s been bothering me,” I said.
She waited.
“Many of these pictures feature you and Kevin together.”
She nodded.
“This one is not your standard Polaroid nudie,” I said. “Intimate close-ups, longer full shots, interesting perspectives.”
She nodded again. There was a deep numbness about her, as if she were slipping further and further below the surface.
“Who took them?” I said.
She stared at me as if she didn’t understand the question. I waited. She took in some air and let it out, several times. She opened her mouth and closed it and opened it again.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Mrs. Patton. You’re in a pretty sizable mess,” I said. “The only way we are going to get you out of it is if you will talk to me. Who took the pictures?”
She breathed some more and did the mouth-open, mouth-closed thing again. She looked down at the blank back of the photograph, and out the window at the snow, and back at me. She was blushing again.
“Brock,” she said.
The name hung in the air between us. She tried to meet my stare but she couldn’t hold it, and finally her gaze dropped and then she put her face in her hands.
“Your husband took these pictures of you,” I said.