But, in fact, she was not sure that she would fight, was not sure that she had the gumption to fight. Even if she did attempt to defend herself, he was bigger and stronger than she was.
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re a first-rate woman in every department,” he repeated, delivering the line more provocatively than before.
Turning from the oven, she forced a laugh. “My husband would be astonished to hear that. I’m not too bad at cakes, but I’ve still not learned to make a decent piecrust, and my pot roast always turns out bone-dry. My needlepoint's not half bad, but it takes me forever to get anything done.” She slipped past him and returned to the counter. She was amazed to hear herself chattering on as she opened the box of icing mix. Desperation made her garrulous. “I’ve got a green thumb with flowers, but I’m not much of a housekeeper, and if my husband didn’t help out-why, this place would be a disaster.”
She thought she sounded phony. She detected a note of hysteria in her voice that had to be evident to him. But the mention of a husband had obviously given Art Streck second thoughts about pushing her further. As Nora poured the mix into a bowl and measured out the required butter, Streck drank the water she had given him. He went to the sink and put the empty glass in the dishpan with the dirty bowls and utensils. This time he did not press unnecessarily close to her.
“Well, I better get back to work,” he said.
She gave him a calculatedly distracted smile, and nodded. She began to hum softly as she returned to her own task, as if untroubled.
He crossed the kitchen and pushed open the swinging door, then stopped and said, “Your aunt really liked dark places, didn’t she? This kitchen would be swell, too, if you brightened it up.”
Before she could respond, he went out, letting the door swing shut behind him.
In spite of his unasked-for opinion of the kitchen decor, Streck seemed to have pulled in his horns, and Nora was pleased with herself. Using a few white lies about her nonexistent husband, delivered with admirable equanimity, she had handled him after all. That was not exactly the way a cat would have dealt with an aggressor, but it was not the timid, frightened behavior of a mouse, either.
She looked around at the high-ceilinged kitchen and decided it was too dark. The walls were a muddy blue. The frosted globes of the overhead lights were opaque, shedding a drab, wintry glow. She considered having the kitchen repainted, the lights replaced.
Merely to contemplate making major changes in Violet Devon’s house was dizzying, exhilarating. Nora had redone her own bedroom since Violet’s death, but nothing else. Now, wondering if she could follow through with extensive redecoration, she felt wildly daring and rebellious. Maybe. Maybe she could. If she could fend off Streck, maybe she could dredge up the courage to defy her dead aunt.
Her upbeat self-congratulatory mood lasted just twenty minutes, which was long enough to put the cake pans in the oven and whip up the icing and wash some of the bowls and utensils. Then Streck returned to tell her the TV set was repaired and to give her the bill. Though he had seemed subdued when he left the kitchen, he was as cocky as ever when he entered the second time. He looked her up and down as if undressing her in his imagination, and when he met her eyes he gave her a challenging look.
She thought the bill was too high, but she did not question it because she wanted him out of the house quickly. As she sat at the kitchen table to write the check, he pulled the now-familiar trick of standing too close to her, trying to cow her with his masculinity and superior size. When she stood and handed him the check, he contrived to take it in such a way that his hand touched hers suggestively.
All the way along the hail, Nora was more than half-convinced that he would suddenly put down his tool kit and attack her from behind. But she got to the door, and he stepped past her onto the veranda, and her racing heart began to slow to a more normal pace.
He hesitated just outside the door. “What’s your husband do?”
The question disconcerted her. It was something he might have asked earlier, in the kitchen, when she had spoken of her husband, but now his curiosity seemed inappropriate.
She should have told him it was none of his business, but she was still afraid of him. She sensed that he could be easily angered, that the pent-up violence in him could be triggered with minor effort. So she answered him with another lie, one she hoped would make him reluctant to harass her any further: “He’s a… policeman.”
Streck raised his eyebrows. “Really? Here in Santa Barbara?”
“That’s right.”
“Quite a house for a policeman.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“Didn’t know policemen were paid so well.”
“Oh, but I told you-I inherited the house from my aunt.”
“Of course, I remember now. You told me. That’s right.”
Trying to reinforce the lie, she said, “We were living in an apartment when my aunt died, and then we moved here. You’re right-we wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m happy for you. I sure am. A lady as pretty as you deserves a pretty house.”
He tipped an imaginary hat to her, winked, and went along the walk toward the street, where his white van was parked at the curb.
She closed the door and watched him through a clear segment of the leaded, stained-glass oval window in the center of the door. He glanced back, saw her, and waved. She stepped away from the window, into the gloomy hallway, and watched him from a point at which she could not be seen.
Clearly, he hadn’t believed her. He knew the husband was a lie. She shouldn’t have said she was married to a cop, for God’s sake; that was too obvious an attempt to dissuade him. She should have said she was married to a plumber or doctor, anything but a cop. Anyway, Art Streck was leaving. Though he knew she was lying, he was leaving.
She did not feel safe until his van was out of sight.
Actually, even then, she did not feel safe.
2
After murdering Dr. Davis Weatherby, Vince Nasco had driven his gray Ford van to a service station on Pacific Coast Highway. In the public phone booth, he deposited coins and called a Los Angeles number that he had long ago committed to memory.
A man answered by repeating the number Vince had dialed. It was one of the usual three voices that responded to calls, the soft one with a deep timbre. Often, there was another man with a hard sharp voice that grated on Vince.
Infrequently, a woman answered; she had a sexy voice, throaty and yet girlish. Vince had never seen her, but he had often tried to imagine what she looked like.
Now, when the soft-spoken man finished reciting the number, Vince said, ‘It’s done. I really appreciate your calling me, and I’m always available if you have another job.” He was confident that the guy on the other end of the line would recognize his voice, too.
“I’m delighted to hear all went well. We’ve the highest regard for your Workmanship. Now remember this,” the contact said. He recited a seven-digit telephone number.
Surprised, Vince repeated it.
The contact said, “It’s one of the public phones at Fashion Island. In the open-air promenade near Robinson’s Department Store. Can you be there in fifteen minutes?”
“Sure,” Vince said. “Ten.”
“I’ll call in fifteen with the details.”
Vince hung up and walked back to the van, whistling. Being sent to another public telephone to receive “the details” could mean only one thing: they had a job for him already, two in one day!
3
Later, after the cake was baked and iced, Nora retreated to her bedroom at the southwest corner of the second floor.
When Violet Devon had been alive, this had been Nora’s sanctuary in spite of the lack of a lock on the door. Like all the rooms in the large house, it had been crammed with heavy furniture, as if the place served as a warehouse instead of a home. It had been dreary in all other details as well. Nevertheless, when finished with her chores, or when dismissed after one of her aunt’s interminable lectures, Nora had fled to her bedroom, where she escaped into books or vivid daydreams.