Джонатан Келлерман - When the Bough Breaks

“Elena had a real gift for drawing them out – the kids no one else could work with. She had patience. You wouldn’t have thought it to look at her. She was flashy. She used lots of makeup, dressed to show herself off. Sometimes she looked like a party girl. But she wasn’t afraid to get down on the floor with the children, didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. She got into their heads – she dedicated herself to them. The children loved her. Look.”

Another photograph. Elena Gutierrez surrounded by a group of smiling children. She was kneeling and the kids were climbing on her, tugging at the hem of her skirt, putting their heads in her lap. A tall, well built young woman, pretty rather than beautiful, with an earthy, open look, the yellow hair a styled, thick shag framing an oval face, and contrasting dramatically with the Hispanic features. Except for those features she was the classic California girl. The kind who should have been lying face down in the Malibu sand, bikini top undone, smooth brown back exposed to the sun. A girl for cola commercials and custom van shows and running down to the market in halter and shorts for a six-pack. She shouldn’t have ended up as savaged, lifeless flesh in a refrigerated drawer downtown.

Raquel Ochoa took the picture out of my hands and I thought I saw jealousy in her face.

“She’s dead,” she said, putting it back in her purse, frowning, as if I’d committed some kind of heresy.

“It looked like they adored her,” I said.

“They did. Now they’ve brought in some old bag who doesn’t give a damn about teaching. Now that Elena’s gone.”

She started to cry, using her napkin to shield her face from my eyes. Her thin shoulders shook. She sank lower in the booth, trying to disappear, sobbing.

I got up, moved to her side and put my arms around her. She felt as frail as a cobweb.

“No, no. I’m all right.” But she moved closer to me, burying herself in the folds of my jacket, burrowing in for the long, cold winter.

As I held her I realized that she felt good. She smelled good. This was a surprisingly soft, feminine person in my arms. I fantasized swooping her up, featherweight and vulnerable, carrying her to bed where I’d still her painful cries with that ultimate panacea: orgasm. A stupid fantasy because it would take more than a fuck and a hug to solve her problems. Stupid because that wasn’t what this encounter was all about. I felt an annoying heat and tension in my groin. Tumescence rearing its ugly head when least appropriate. Still, I held her until her sobbing slowed and her breathing became regular. Thinking of Robin, I finally let her go and moved back to my side.

She avoided my eyes, took out her compact and fixed her face.

“That was really dumb.”

“No it wasn’t. That’s what eulogies are for.”

She thought for a moment then managed a faint smile.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” She reached across the table and placed a small hand on mine. “Thank you. I miss her so much.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” She drew her hand away, suddenly cross.

“No, I guess not. I’ve never lost anyone to whom I was that close. Will you accept a serious attempt at empathy?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been rude – from the moment you walked in. It’s been so hard. All of these feelings – sadness, and emptiness and anger at the monster who did it – it had to be a monster, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Will you catch him? Will that big detective catch him?”

“He’s a very capable guy, Raquel. In his own way, quite gifted. But he’s got little to go on.”

“Yes. I suppose I should help you, shouldn’t I?”

“It would be nice.”

She found a cigarette in her purse and lit it with trembling hands. She took a deep drag and let it out.

“What do you want to know?”

“For starts, how about the old cliche – did she have any enemies?”

“The cliched answer: No. She was popular, well liked. And besides, whoever did this to her was no acquaintance – we didn’t know anyone like that.” She shuddered, confronting her own vulnerability.

“Did she go out with a lot of men?”

“The same questions.” She sighed. “She dated a few guys before she met him. Then it was the two of them all the way.”

“When did she begin seeing him?”

“She started as a patient almost a year ago. It’s hard to know when she began sleeping with him. She didn’t talk to me about that kind of thing.”

I could imagine sexuality being a taboo topic for the two best friends. With their upbringing there was bound to be lots of conflict. And given what I had seen of Raquel and heard about Elena it was almost certain they had gone about resolving those conflicts in different ways: one, the party girl, a man’s woman; the other, attractive but perceiving herself in pitched battle with the world. I looked across the table at the dark, serious face and knew her bed would be ringed with thorns.

“Did she tell you they were having an affair?”

“An affair? That sounds so light and breezy. He violated his professional ethics and she fell for it.” She puffed on her cigarette. “She giggled about it for a week or so then came out and told me what a wonderful guy he was. I put two and two together. A month later he picked her up at our place. It was out in the open.”

“What was he like?”

“Like you said before – a creep. Too well-dressed – velvet jackets, tailored pants, sunlamp tan, shirt unbuttoned to show lots of chest hair – curly gray chest hair. He smiled a lot and got familiar with me. Shook my hand and held on too long. Lingered with a goodbye kiss – nothing you could pin him on.” The words were almost identical to Roy Longstreth’s.

“Slick?”

“Exactly. Slippery. She’d gone for that type before. I couldn’t understand it – she was such a good person, so real. I figured it had something to do with losing her dad at a young age. She had no good male role model. Does that sound plausible?”

“Sure.” Life was never as simple as the psych texts but it made people feel good to find solutions.

“He was a bad influence on her. When she started going with him was when she dyed her hair and changed her name and bought all those clothes. She even went out and bought a new car – one of those Datsun-Z turbos.”

“How did she afford it?” The car cost more than most teachers made in a year.

“If you’re thinking he paid for it, forget it. She bought it on payments. That was another thing about Elena. She had no conception of money. Just let it pass through her fingers. She always joked how she was going to have to marry a rich guy to accommodate her tastes.”

“How often did they see each other?”

“At first once or twice a week. By the end she might as well have moved in with him. I rarely saw her. She’d drop in to pick up a few things, invite me to go out with them.”

“Did you?”

She was surprised at the question.

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t stand to be around him. And I have a life of my own. I had no need to be the odd one out.”

A life, I suspected, of grading papers until ten and then retiring, nightgown buttoned high, with a gothic novel and a cup of hot cocoa.

“Did they have friends, other couples with whom they associated?”

“I have no idea. I’m trying to tell you – I kept out of it.” An edge crept into her voice and I retreated.

“She started out as his patient. Do you have any idea why she went to a psychiatrist in the first place?”

“She said she was depressed.”

“You don’t think she was?”

“It’s hard to tell with some people. When I get depressed everyone knows about it. I withdraw, don’t want anything to do with anybody. It’s like I shrink, crawl into myself. With Elena, who knows? It’s not like she had trouble eating or sleeping. She would just get a little quiet.”