“Birds of a feather.”
“Well? Aren't we?”
“I guess we are. And I guess I've changed, too.”
“Grown more self-aware.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe found out some things about yourself that you don't like?”
“That, too.”
“Things you want to change, if you can?”
“If I can.”
“… Funny.”
“What is?”
“I feel closer to you than I've felt to anyone in a long time. Closer than I was to Katy for the last dozen years of our marriage.”
“That makes me want to cry. And I'm not sure why.”
“Do you feel close to me?”
“Yes. But I don't know how much of it is comfort, a reaction to what's ripping both our lives apart.”
“Neither do I. But we'll find out.”
“Yes. We'll find out.”
Cecca left at seven. They had coffee together first, in the kitchen, and there was no awkwardness between them, no daylight doubts—as if they were old lovers rather than new ones. Dix still felt as close to her as he had in bed, in the dark. It was true, what he'd said to her, painfully true: He was closer to Cecca than he had been to Katy at any time except in the beginning. He could not have talked to Katy as he had to her, even in the dark. He could not have told Katy about his feelings of mediocrity.
After Cecca was gone he shaved and dressed—they'd showered together earlier—and then called the university and told the registrar's office he wouldn't be in today. The flu, he said. Two seconds after he disconnected, the phone bell went off. And as soon as it did, as if it were giving off some sort of negative energy that stimulated his brain synapses, he knew it was the tormentor and he knew what the son of a bitch was going to say.
The good feeling the night and Cecca had instilled in him vanished even before he heard the smarmy filtered voice. “How was it last night, Dix? Was it worth waiting for?”
He tried to walk away from the rest, out into the hall, out of the house. But the volume on the machine was turned up and he heard most of it before he completed his escape.
“Was Francesca better than Katy? What do you think, Dix? I think Katy was better, myself. All things considered, I think your wife was a much better fuck than Cecca.…”
TWENTY
Jerry Whittington's office was in a hundred-year-old High Victorian Italianate downtown that had once housed the Eagles Lodge. Twenty years earlier it had been chopped up into office space for a clutch of lawyers, CPAs, and financial consultants. Jerry wasn't the workaholic Tom Birnam had turned into, but he believed in putting in a full day; he was available for business before nine-thirty on most weekday mornings. Both he and Margaret Allen were on the premises and busy when Dix walked in at twenty past nine.
“I'm glad you stopped by,” Jerry said when they were alone in his private office. Away from his business he dressed casually and stylishly, but here he favored his clients with conservative suits and ties. Dark blue silk today. “What the hell happened last night? There're rumors flying all over town.”
“Not much to tell,” Dix said. “Louise Kanvitz had a couple of paintings of Katy's. Cecca found out she sold them for a high price to some mystery buyer. I wanted to find out who bought them and why he'd pay such a price. I asked Cecca to come with me; she knew Kanvitz better than I did.”
“Did you find out who the buyer was?”
“No. She was dead when we got there.”
“Broken neck, wasn't it? From a fall downstairs?”
“Evidently.”
“Accident?”
“What else would it be, Jerry?”
“Hey, don't get defensive. I told you rumors were flying.”
“I suppose because the police kept us for a long time.”
“They did, didn't they?”
“They asked a lot of questions,” Dix said. “They always do in situations like that. The only thing Cecca and I are guilty of is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I never thought any different. Lord, what a rotten few weeks for you. For all of us, but you especially. You must feel as if the gods have it in for you.”
“Somebody has it in for me, all right.”
Jerry didn't react. Just sat there behind his desk with an expression of grave concern on his handsome face.
Dix said, “Just when I think things can't possibly get any worse, I find out they can. First Katy's death, then her infidelity, and then Louise Kanvitz last night.”
“Katy's … infidelity, did you say?”
“She was having an affair before she died. Three months or more.”
Jerry's gaze shifted, turned into one of his lopsided squints. “I don't believe that,” he said. “Are you sure?”
“I'm sure. And the hell you don't believe it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you knew she was cheating. You as much as admitted to Cecca last week that you knew. Why didn't you tell me?”
“Oh, shit, Dix …”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't know, that's why. Not for sure.”
“Who's the man, Jerry?”
“I wish I knew.”
“You must have some idea.”
“But I don't, that's the hell of it.”
“All right, then what made you suspicious of Katy?”
“I saw her and a man together one afternoon about six weeks ago. In her car.”
“Where was this?”
“East Valley Road,” Jerry said. “I was coming back from seeing a client out that way and I passed her. Neither of us was going fast—forty, forty-five. It was Katy's Dodge and she was at the wheel; I'm positive of that. In fact, I waved. She … pretended not to see me. Looked away.”
“You didn't get a good look at the man?”
“No. He had his head down. I didn't even get an idea of his age.”
“So far it sounds innocent enough. She may not have recognized you.”
“I asked her about it,” Jerry said. “The next day—the swim party at Sid's, remember?”
“Sid's party was on a Saturday. So the day you saw her was a Friday.”
“A Friday, right.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, I wasn't trying to catch her out or anything. Just kidding around with her. You know, ‘Who was the man I saw you with on East Valley Road yesterday?’ ”
“And?”
“She denied it. It wasn't her, it wasn't her car. Said I must have been imagining things.”
“Is that all she said?”
“It was the way she said it, Dix. Nervous, flustered—guilty look on her face. And she told me not to say anything to you or anybody else about it because she didn't want rumors getting started. Practically warned me to keep my mouth shut.”
“Did you?”
“Yes and no.” Jerry tugged at the knot in his tie, as if it had grown too tight. “I asked around here and there—you know, discreetly. To see if there was anything to find out.”
“Was there?”
“No. Hell, Dix, don't blame me for that. You're one of my best friends; I figured I had an obligation.”
“So you'd have told me if you'd verified it, learned the name of her lover.”
“Before the accident, I might have. After she was dead I couldn't have hurt you any more than you already were. That's why I kept quiet when you hinted around about it on the phone last week.”
“You let it slip to Cecca.”
“She's the only one. I was worried about you. I thought maybe you were taking Katy's death so hard because you'd found out somehow that she was having an affair. And you had.”
“Not then. Just recently.”
“You have any idea who the man is?”
“Not yet. Soon, though.”