“Mr. Phillips.”
I sat opposite her again. She wouldn’t look at me. “You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“Jury duty. We served together. He used to pass that very picture around. He loved that dog like I loved Albert… I don’t understand… He was nice. He was the last one to vote guilty. He said he couldn’t condemn another man, no matter how horrible what he did.”
“It’s not your fault; you know that, don’t you?”
She thought a while before answering. “No.”
She wasn’ t the only one.
2
Orchard Heights is an exclusive developer’s dream come true. Once a farmer’s rolling field off Orchard Street west of downtown, it sits high enough to both “afford” a view and to overlook but not actually see Interstate 91, which separates it from Brattleboro. The field consists of five low hills, each crowned with a $200,000 ranch-style house that looks down on a narrow, winding street, fed like a stream by one slim driveway per house. Token trees have been planted tastefully here and there, hitting a medium between privacy and the view. In all, the effect is so carefully manicured that even the mountains, the snow, and the distant woods look totally artificial, as if some low-key, expensive Hollywood set were awaiting the arrival of the camera crew.
The sun’s first predawn pallor was just staining the far horizon as I turned off Orchard Street into the Heights in George’s borrowed squad car. I didn’t need to check for the house number-I recognized it from the photo in Phillips’s puppy album. It would have been hard to misughs in any event. Of the several homes I could see, it was the only one lit up like a bonfire, complete with strings of Christmas lights. It was a tan brick, one-story affair with columns in front and a carport on the side-as unique to Vermont as to Pasadena, California.
One half of the paneled double front door jerked open as my finger approached the bell. A wreath hanging on the door’s knocker fell to the ground and rolled into the snow. The woman I’d seen holding the poodle stood before me, fully dressed and made up, her face drawn and anxious.
Her eyes flicked from me to the police car and back again. “Oh shit,” she muttered and turned and walked away. I followed her in and closed the door behind me.
Through the hallway, I saw her sit down on a living room couch. She crossed her arms tightly over her stomach and stared furiously at the floor-a curious mix of sorrow and rage. As I entered the room, its festiveness struck an incongruous note: the fire was burning, the tree lit up, poinsettias and evergreen boughs abounded, and strings of cranberries and popcorn laced back and forth in front of the mantelpiece. Christmas had been over a week ago, yet all this looked like a permanent display, as in a museum of American culture or an advertisement for Smirnoff vodka.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid he is.”
“That stupid dog.”
Her tone was so flat I couldn’t tell if she meant her husband or the poodle in the pictures, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to ask; her reactions were odd enough already. I waited hopefully for more, but she was silent, so I sat on the end of the armchair opposite her and kept quiet, watching her rocking back and forth in her seat. I don’t get much practice telling people their companions have had their necks atomized by little old ladies with shotguns.
“Mrs. Phillips?” I finally asked.
“What?” She didn’t look up, but she didn’t explode either.
“What was your husband doing out there?”
“Getting the dog.”
That seemed a decent enough opener for something more comprehensible, but she obviously didn’t think so. As if having explained all there was to explain, she lapsed back to her silent rocking.
I got up and took off my coat. “Could I have a glass of milk?”
That seemed to do it. She looked up at me as if I’d just walked in. “Milk? Of course. I should have offered.”
She got to her feet and efficiently marched through a set of swinging double doors to the dining room and the kitchen beyond-the perfect hostess skating on ice. I followed her.
The kitchen was enormous, white and dazzling. No appliance was below industrial quality, no pot or pan lacked either a copper bottom or a French-made high-gloss paint job. Knives worthy of a Swift packing plant gleamed along magnetic wall strips, yards of thick unscratched cutting-board counter space stretched in all directions. Just as the front room was pure Family Circle, the kitchen was high-techghtas high Gourmet magazine.
I sat down at an island separating production from consumption. Behind me was the eating area-table, chairs, a sofa, two La-Z-Boys and a TV set; in front, where Mrs. Phillips had set to work, were the makings of the cleanest, most expensive, futuristic greasy spoon I’d ever seen.
She didn’t talk nor did I. By chance, I’d hit on the best possible therapy for her, and I wasn’t about to screw up what dumb luck had handed me. But I was starting to regret I hadn’t ordered breakfast.
She made a pot of tea for herself, and as I watched, her distress surfaced through her automated gestures. She put water on to boil but not enough for a single cup, much less the pot, and had to start over. She took a bag of lemons from the steel-faced fridge, ignoring several precut slices, and carved up a new one with a dull butter knife, butchering the lemon in the process. She grabbed a glass the size of a tankard and poured my milk into it until it overflowed. It was not a comfortable performance to watch.
Finally, her Christmas-bright dress splotched with the debris from her efforts, she loaded up a tray, moved it from her counter to mine, and unloaded it.
“Sugar?” she asked.
“No, thank you. I’ll just take the milk.”
Her perfect, brittle smile twitched just slightly. “Of course. How silly, I forgot.”
I reached gingerly for the milk and slid it toward me without spilling too much. Mrs. Phillips perched on a stool and began poking at the tea bag inside the pot with the butter knife-she’d forgotten a spoon.
“Do you feel you can talk a little?” I asked.
She didn’t answer at first but just kept jabbing away. Finally the bag punctured, releasing a flurry of tea leaves, and she stopped.
She bit her lower lip and put both her hands to her cheeks. Her eyes were dry and terribly, terribly sad.
“Yes, I’m sorry about all this.”
I smiled at her. “Don’t worry. You should see where I usually go for breakfast.” I paused, and she placed her hands flat on the white counter. Her wedding band, unlike Thelma Reitz’s, rested around her finger-an attractive and impermanent piece of jewelry. “Why was your husband out there tonight?”
“He went to pay the ransom for our dog, Junior. Jamie was very attached to him. He even carried around pictures of him.”
I refrained from blurting out that I had seen them. “How long had the dog been missing?”
“Several days-long enough to make Jamie really frantic.” She shook her head slightly. “It was my fault, I guess. He didn’t say that, but it wouldn’t have happened with him.”
“What wouldn’t?”
“Junior wouldn’t have been stolen. Jamie always took him for walks, you know? On a leash? It always seemed so stupid to me-I mean we’re almost out in the country. I used to just let him outp›‹ let hi when Jamie wasn’t around and call for him after he’d done his business. He’d always come back. When he didn’t that last time, I had to tell Jamie what I’d been doing.”
“Was he upset?”
“He was stunned. Not angry with me though. He never was.”
She stopped speaking for a few seconds. “That dog was like his child. We don’t have any children; and Jamie didn’t have any by his first wife.” She held up her ring finger. “We haven’t been married very long-just four years.”
“And the kidnapper called?”
“Yes-yesterday. He told Jamie to deliver a thousand dollars to a certain address or he’d kill Junior.”