John Lutz - Pulse

Sarah was still attractive, for a woman past the edge of middle age. She took good care of herself, spent money on it. Jody had decided weeks ago that Sarah might well have employed the services of a cosmetic surgeon. There was a subtle stiffness to her features, and deepening lines running from the corners of her mouth to her chin.

“I ordered you a drink,” Jody said, as Sarah sat down on the chair across from her. “An apple martini. I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s what I would have ordered,” Sarah said. “That’s why I introduced them to you.” She settled deeper in her chair, leaning briefly to rest her purse on the floor, then did a lot of fidgeting and rearranging, like a bird settling into its nest.

The server came with her drink. Sarah accepted it, then raised her glass. Jody followed suit.

“To good friends,” Sarah said.

Jody smiled and repeated the toast. She took a sip of martini. There were a lot of people she’d choose not to lunch with before Sarah.

Sarah smiled and licked her lips. The way she always did after the first sip of any kind of drink. She seemed very much to enjoy the moment. Something Jody would have to work on.

“So how are things in your life?” Sarah asked, placing her glass on the table but leaving a fingertip touching it, as if she’d be aware if it started to wander.

“If you mean love life,” Jody said, “I’m too busy for anything like that.”

“It’s been my experience,” Sarah said, “that love lives pretty much take care of themselves, and in their own time. There isn’t much to be gained by planning.”

“Good. Because I don’t.”

The waiter returned and Jody ordered penne pasta and a salad, Sarah only a salad.

“Not hungry today,” she said. “The heat.”

Jody took a sip of her martini, which prompted Sarah to do the same.

“I never asked you about your family,” Jody said. “Do you have-”

“Children?” Sarah grinned. “Not me, and not ever, at my age. I suppose you’re wondering if I ever married, whether I’m widowed or divorced.”

“I don’t want to pry,” Jody assured her.

“Of course you do.” Sarah touched the back of Jody’s hand. “We all do, but we don’t want to step on someone’s feelings.”

“Would I be doing that?”

“Not in the slightest, dear. Both my parents have been dead for years. My mother had a fatal heart attack while swimming. My father died a month after that. He was in an auto accident. A one-car crash. I’ve always wondered if he’d made it happen, if he was simply ready to go to a place without grief.”

“You were left an orphan,” Jody said sadly.

“For a few years. I was sixteen when I found myself without parents. Or siblings. I lived in an institution-it was never called an orphanage-for about two years, then I found a job that would allow me time to also go to college. I was good at math, and was drawn into the insurance business. Started out with mortgage insurance, then life and property for several years. Then I got a job offer and moved to Manhattan. I’m an adjuster, mainly. Mostly art.”

“Art insurance. That’s fascinating.”

“Not really. Not once you get used to staring at damaged Van Goghs and Kandinskys and calculating their market worth. Which is sometimes much different from the worth placed on them by their owners.”

“Still, you must know a lot about art.”

“I know more about insurance, and how to adjust it. That’s really what I’m doing, just like with insurance on cars or, in some questionable cases, life insurance. It’s all about odds, and settling on a number.”

“Lots of things seem to be about that. Life isn’t much different from gambling.”

“We can do something about the odds, though. See me if you ever come into possession of a damaged valuable painting or sculpture, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

“Someday when I’m rich.”

The food arrived, and both women concentrated for a few minutes on arranging plates and passing this or that across the table to each other.

“You have the capacity to become rich, Jody. I really believe that.”

“I’ve been told so, often enough,” Jody said.

Sarah was obviously very interested in Jody’s future.

And Jody was interested in Sarah’s past. Had Sarah been trying to sell Jack Coil art insurance that time she’d visited the offices of Enders and Coil?

Jody wondered, did Sarah also sell insurance on property development projects?

Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986

S herri Klinger said, “I’ve been thinking.”

They were sitting in Rory’s mom’s Chevy with all the windows rolled down, letting the summer breeze wend its way through the car’s interior. The Chevy was parked well off the road and shielded from view by large pine trees. The woods they faced were beginning to fill with twilight’s shadows. Rory picked up the scent of tobacco smoke. His mom had been smoking again, even though she swore she quit months ago.

“We didn’t come here to think,” he said.

“Yeah.” Sherri smiled. “We took care of that other thing, though.”

“You’re not gonna tell me you forgot your pill, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“So what’s your famous brain been working on?”

“Now that you’re finished with my famous body.”

“Not finished. It’s just time out.”

“God, Rory!”

He settled back where he was sitting behind the steering wheel, aware that he was already getting an erection just talking about sex with Sherri. And it had been… what, twenty minutes since the last time?

“I’ve been thinking about Duffy,” she said, leaning her head against the point of his shoulder.

Rory’s erection was immediately lost. “Not much to think about now,” he said. He hoped. Sherri was a brilliant girl, but she seemed fixated on the dog. What was she going to suggest, a Duffy memorial?

Sherri snuggled closer. The breeze working through the car was cooling. “I mean, like the way his collar was discovered about a hundred feet from where somebody buried him. It was unbuckled, so he couldn’t have slipped it before he died. Somebody must have taken it there. Or thrown it. How could that have happened? And why?”

“Maybe he laid there a while before somebody found him, then they took the collar off before scooping dirt and leaves over him.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. Or it could be a fox or something dug Duffy up and moved the collar.”

“A fox couldn’t unbuckle the collar, and there were no tooth or claw marks on it. Somebody must have removed it either before or after Duffy was put in the ground the first time.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure that one out. It was like they didn’t want Duffy to be identified if he was found.”

“But he was identified.”

“A little longer underground and we wouldn’t have known him. I think whoever killed him got scared, hid the body, and threw the collar far as he could into the woods thinking nobody would ever find it even if they did find Duffy.”

Rory found himself squirming. He coughed to disguise his reaction to Sherri’s words. She had it figured exactly right.

“Either way,” he said, “the result is the same.”

“But I remember the way Duffy’s head was flattened on one side.”

“God, Sherri-he was hit by a car.”

“But maybe only injured, and whoever hit him finished him off.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t want to go to all the trouble of dealing with a hurt dog. It might bite them. And they wouldn’t want it bleeding all over their car if they tried to pick it up and take it to a vet. It would be simpler just to get rid of the dog and drive away.”