Джеффри Дивер - Transgressions

4. Please indicate the sex, approximate age, and apparent nationality and/or race of each victim:

The empty lines on the questions were like an itch — aggravated by hot-shot LaTour’s condescending attitude.

“Hey, there, Boss.” Shellee, Tal’s firecracker of a secretary, stepped into his office. “Finally got the Templeton files. Sent ’em by mule train from Albany’s my guess.” With massive blonde ringlets and the feistiness of a truck-stop waitress compressed into a five-foot, hundred-pound frame, Shellee looked as if she’d sling out words with a twangy Alabaman accent but her intonation was pure Hahvahd Square Bostonian.

“Thanks.” He took the dozen folders she handed off, examined the numbers on the front of each and rearranged them in ascending order on the credenza behind his desk.

“Called the SEC again and they promise, promise, promise they’ll have us the — Hey, you leaving early?” She was frowning,

looking at her watch, as Tal stood, straightened his tie and pulled on the thin, navy-blue raincoat he wore to and from the office.

“Have an errand.”

A frown of curiosity filled her round face, which was deceptively girlish (Tal knew she had a twenty-one year-old-daughter and a husband who’d just retired from the phone company). “Sure. You do? Didn’t see anything on your calender.”

The surprise was understandable. Tal had meetings out of the office once or twice a month at the most. He was virtually always at his desk, except when he went out for lunch, which he did at twelve-thirty every day, joining two or three friends from a local university at the Corner Tap Room up the street.

“Just came up.”

“Be back?” Shellee asked.

He paused. “You know, I’m not really sure.” He headed for the elevator.

The white-columned Colonial on Meadowridge had to be worth six, seven million. Tal pulled his Honda Accord into the circular drive, behind a black sedan, which he hoped belonged to a Greeley P.D. officer, somebody who might have the information he needed. Tal took the questionnaire and two pens from his briefcase, made sure the tips were retracted then slipped them into his shirt pocket. He walked up the flagstone path to the house, the door to which was unlocked. He stepped inside and identified himself to a man in jeans and work shirt, carrying a clipboard. It was his car in the drive, he explained. He was here to meet the Bensons’ lawyer about liquidating their estate and knew nothing about the Bensons or their death, other than what he’d heard about the suicides.

He stepped outside, leaving Tal alone in the house.

As he walked through the entry foyer and into the spacious first floor a feeling of disquiet came over him. It wasn’t the queasy sense that somebody’d just died here; it was that the house was such an unlikely setting for death. He looked over the yellow-and-pink floral upholstery, the boldly colorful abstracts on the walls, the gold-edged china and prismatic glasses awaiting parties, the collection of crystal animals, the Moroccan pottery, shelves of well-thumbed books, framed snapshots on the walls and mantle. Two pairs of well-worn slippers — a man’s size and a woman’s — sat poignantly together by the back door. Tal imagined the couple taking turns to be the first to rise, make coffee and brave the dewy cold to collect The New York Times or the Westbrook Ledger.

The word that came to him was “home.” The idea of the owners here shooting themselves was not only disconcerting, it was downright eerie.

Tal noticed a sheet of paper weighted down by a crystal vase and blinked in surprise as he read it.

To our friends:

We’re making this decison with great contenment in hearts, joyous in the knowldge that we’ll be together forever.

Both Sy and Don Benson had signed it. He stared at the words for a moment then wandered to the den, which was cordoned off with crime scene tape. He stopped cold, gasping faintly.

Blood.

On the couch, on the carpet, on the wall.

He could clearly see where the couple had been when they’d died; the blood explained the whole scenario to him. Brown, opaque, dull. He found himself breathing shallowly, as if the stains were giving off toxic fumes.

Tal stepped back into the living room and decided to fill out as much of the questionnaire as he could. Sitting on a couch he clicked a pen point out and picked up a book from the coffee table to use as a writing surface. He read the title: Making the Final Journey: The Complete Guide to Suicide and Euthanasia.

Okay... I don’t think so. He replaced the book and made a less troubling lap desk from a pile of magazines. He filled out some of the details, then he paused, aware of the front door opening. Footsteps sounded on the foyer tile and a moment later a stocky man in an expensive suit walked into the den. He frowned.

“Sheriff’s Department,” Tal said and showed his ID, which the man looked at carefully.

“I’m their lawyer. George Metzer,” he said slowly, visibly shaken. “Oh, this is terrible. Just terrible. I got a call from somebody in your department. My secretary did, I mean... You want to see some ID?”

Tal realized that a Real Cop would have asked for it right up front. “Please.”

He looked over the driver’s license and nodded, then gazed past the man’s pudgy hand and looked again into the den. The blood stains were like brown laminate on cheap furniture.

“Was there a note?” the lawyer asked, putting his wallet away.

Tal walked into the dining room. He nodded toward the note.

Together forever...

The lawyer looked it over, shook his head again. He glanced into the den and blinked, seeing the blood. Turned away.

Tal showed Metzer the questionnaire. “Can I ask you a few questions? For our statistics department? It’s anonymous. We don’t use names.”

“Sure, I guess.”

Tal began querying the man about the couple. He was surprised to learn they were only in their mid sixties, he’d assumed LaTour’s assessment had been wrong and the Bensons were older.

“Any children?”

“No. No close relatives at all. A few cousins they never see... Never saw, I mean. They had a lot of friends, though. They’ll be devastated.”

He got some more information, and finally felt he had nearly enough to process the data, but one more question needed an answer.

9. Apparent motives for the incident:

“You have any idea why they’d do this?” Tal asked.

“I know exactly,” Metzer said. “Don was ill.”

Tal glanced down at the note again and noticed that the writing was unsteady and a few of the words were misspelled. LaTour’d said something about them drinking but Tal remembered seeing a wicker basket full of medicine bottles sitting on the island in the kitchen. He mentioned this then asked, “Did one of them have some kind of palsy? Nerve disease?”

The lawyer said, “No, it was heart problems. Bad ones.”

In space number nine Tal wrote: Illness. Then he asked, “And his wife?”

“No, Sy was in good health. But they were very devoted to each other. Totally in love. She must’ve decided she didn’t want to go on without him.”

“Was it terminal?”

“Not the way he described it to me,” the lawyer said. “But he could’ve been bedridden for the rest of his life. I doubt Don could’ve handled that. He was so active, you know.”

Tal signed the questionnaire, folded and slipped it into his pocket.

The round man gave a sigh. “I should’ve guessed something was up. They came to my office a couple of weeks ago and made a few changes to the will and they gave me instructions for their memorial service. I thought it was just because Don was going to have the surgery, you know, thinking about what would happen if ... But I should’ve read between the lines. They were planning it then, I’ll bet.”