J. Jance - Until Proven Guilty

The conversation was light, fun-filled nonsense. It was only when the coffee came and we were working our way through two final glasses of wine that she turned serious on me. I knew enough to be wary by now, to tread softly and not force her beyond her own speed.

“Do you want me to tell you about Milton?” she asked softly.

“Only if you want to, only if you think I need to know.”

“It’s the same version they wrote years ago. He sounds like a monster who took advantage of a young female patient, doesn’t he?”

“That’s why he lost his job, isn’t it?”

“People were only interested in how things looked. No one cared how things really were. It’s too much trouble to look beneath the surface.”

“But he committed suicide.”

“He didn’t do it because of his job,” she said “He was dying of cancer. He didn’t want to go on. He didn’t want to face what was coming. I understand that a lot more now than I did then.” She paused. “How old are you, Beau?”

“Forty-two, going on sixty.”

“Milton was sixty-three when I married him.” She made the statement quietly and waited for my reaction.

“Sixty-three!” I choked on a sip of coffee.

Anne smiled. “I’ve always gone for older men,” she teased. The smile faded from her face, her eyes. “He was the first person who believed me.”

I struggled to follow her train of thought. “You mean about Patty?”

She nodded. “I had been locked up in that place for five years when I met him, and he was the very first person who believed me.”

“How is that possible?”

“You told me yourself. This isn’t the best of all possible worlds, remember? I stayed because my mother had enough money to pay to keep me there. I’d have been pronounced cured and turned loose if we’d been poor.”

She watched in silence as the waiter refilled her cup with coffee. “Doctors became omnipotent in places like that. They have the power of life and death over you. The smallest kindness becomes an incredible gift. He took an interest in me. He promised he’d take care of me if I’d have sex with him.”

Outrage came boiling to the surface. “When you were thirteen and he was fifty-seven?”

“No. I said I met him then. I was seventeen when it started.” She was holding her cup in both hands, looking at me through the steam, using it as a screen to protect her from my sudden flare of anger. “There’s no need to be angry,” she said. “He kept his part of the bargain, and I kept mine. He saw to it that I got an education, that I had books to read, that I learned things. On weekends he would get me a pass and take me places. He bought me clothes, taught me how to dress, how to wear my hair. I don’t have any complaints.”

“But Anne…”

“When my mother died, I was nineteen. He hired Ancell Ames, Ralph’s father, to lay hands on the moneys left in trust for me, money my mother had been appropriating over the years. He got me out of the hospital, and we got married. Everyone believed he married me because of the money. Nobody cared that he had plenty himself. It made a better scandal the other way around.” For the first time I heard a trace of bitterness in her voice.

“Did you love him when you married him?”

She shook her head. “That came later. I loved him when he died.”

She set down her coffee cup, gray eyes searching mine. “Do you want to know about the money?”

I reached across the table and took her hand. “No,” I said, laughing. “I don’t want to know about the money. Maybe you should get Ralph to draw up a prenuptial agreement. Would that make you feel better?”

“What’s mine is yours,” she said.

“Me too,” I grinned, “but I think you’re getting the short end of the stick.”

She sat there looking beautiful and troubled. A lifetime of tragedy had swirled around her and brought her to me. I wanted to free her from all that had gone before, to set her feet firmly on present, solid ground. I took her hand and held it with both my massive paws around her slender fingers. “Considering what you’ve been through, you have every right to be totally screwed up.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed,” she replied. “I am totally screwed up.”

“So where does all this leave us?” I asked.

“I’ve talked to Ralph. He’s coming back up tomorrow night. I want him to be a witness. What about Peters?”

“He’s out of town,” I told her, guiltily remembering that I had assured Peters the wedding would be postponed. It was too late to do anything about that, however.

Anne must have seen my hesitation. “You do still want to get married, don’t you?”

She sat waiting for my answer; both pain and doubt visible in her face, her eyes. I succumbed.

“I think all my objections have just been overruled,” I said. “Would you like to dance?”

She nodded. There was a piano player in the bar, the music soft, old and danceable. I’m a reasonably capable dancer, and Anne flowed with my body. The admiration of those watching was obvious, and I enjoyed it. I wanted to be seen with her; I wanted to be the one who brought Anne Corley to Seattle and kept her there.

We danced until one. I was sleepy when we got back to the apartment. Anne said she was wide-awake and wanted to stay up and rework the last chapter. She wanted to send it with Ralph on Sunday. She also said she planned to jog early in the morning. I kissed her good night in the living room.

“Thanks for a wonderful evening, Anne. All of it.”

“It was good, wasn’t it?” she agreed.

“Promise we’ll have a lifetime of evenings like this.”

She didn’t answer; she kissed me. “Good night,” she murmured with her lips still on mine.

“Good night yourself.”

I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just. Peters wouldn’t be bringing me any surprises when he came back from Arizona. Anne had finally told me everything.

Freshly shampooed hair, newly dried and fragrant, awakened me on Saturday morning. Anne slipped into bed beside me, her body still warm from a steamy bathroom. “Been out running?” I asked.

“Yes.”

She rested her head in the curve of my neck and ran her fingers along the stiff stubble on my jaw.

“What time is it?” I asked, not wanting to turn to see the clock.

“Six,” she replied.

“In the morning?” I groaned. “On Saturday? You get up and run at this ungodly hour on Saturday?”

She closed her teeth gently over the muscle on the side of my neck, sending involuntary chills through my body. “What’s the matter with being up at this hour?”

“Nothing at all,” I said, “now that you put it that way. ”I rolled over on top of her, pinning her beneath me.“ You shouldn’t start something you can’t finish.”

“I can finish it,” she replied, placing her hands around the back of my neck and pulling my lips to hers.

What she said actually turned out to be a gross understatement. She was a wild woman, frenzied in her demands for gratification. Had I not known better, firsthand, I might have thought she had gone without for years. She crouched naked astraddle me, plunging herself down on my body with wild abandon, her head thrown back, her face reflecting a fleeting mixture of pain and pleasure. I held back as long as I could, wanting to prolong her enjoyment, but that wasn’t enough.

She came back again for more, kissing me, touching me, renewing me until I was able once more to probe inside her, to touch that part of her that had gone for far too long untouched. This time she collapsed on my chest afterward, breath coming in short gasps, her heart thumping wildly from exertion. “Not bad for an old man,” I managed.