Jonathan Kellerman - Billy Straight

Petra got in and slammed the door so hard the truck shook.

Stu said, “I owe you an explanation.”

“Okay.”

“Kathy has cancer.”

Petra’s throat seized and closed, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Oh, Stu-”

He held up a finger. “She’s going in for surgery tomorrow. She’s been having tests done; we weren’t sure. Now we are.”

“I’m so sorry, Stu.” Why didn’t you tell me? Obviously, not close enough. Eight months of chasing bad guys doth not a deep relationship make.

“One breast,” he said. “Her doctor found it on routine checkup. They think it’s just a single tumor.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Nothing, thanks, we’re covered. Mother’s taking the kids and Father’s dealing with the hospital.”

His right arm rested on the center console. Petra put her hand on his sleeve. “Go home, Stu. Wil and I will handle everything.”

“No, that’s the thing, I was going to take a leave of absence, but Kathy insisted I shouldn’t. She wants me home tonight to take her to the hospital, told me I can stay until she falls asleep. And tomorrow, when she comes out of surgery, I’ll be there. But in between she insists I keep working. Even when she gets radiation… maybe they can do just a lumpectomy, they’re not sure.”

“You’re planning to stay on the job?” said Petra.

“Kathy wants it. You know Kathy.”

Petra knew very little about Kathy. Gracious, pretty, efficient, supermom, never without makeup. High school prom queen, with a teaching credential she’d never used. During the family outings, Petra had observed a superorganizer.

A bit reserved-let’s be honest, more than reserved. Despite superficial friendliness, the woman had always maintained distance, and Petra had thought of her as an ice queen.

Thirty-six years old. Six kids.

Petra thought of her own father, raising five children by himself. And all the while, Stu’d been fighting to maintain.

“She’s so strong,” Stu said. “I’ve never slept with anyone else.”

Saying it with wonderment. Petra patted his arm.

“Most guys get tired of being with the same woman. All I ever wanted was Kathy. I really love her, Petra.”

“I know you do.”

“You try to do the right thing, live a certain way-I know there are no deals with God, He’s got His own plan, but still…”

“She’ll be fine,” said Petra. “It’ll work out, you’ll see.”

“Look at Ramsey,” he went on. “Has a healthy wife, does that to her. The Eggermann woman. All the things we see.”

He put his head down on the steering wheel, broke into startling, phlegmy sobs.

Vivian Boehlinger, now this.

This was different. This was part of her.

Petra reached over and held him.

As she approached the elevator, Mildred Board heard footsteps from above. Then a toilet flush, the bathwater running. The big house was built beautifully, but if you stood in certain places, sound traveled freely through the rafters.

Missus drawing the bath herself. There was something new.

Perhaps it would be a good day.

She returned to the kitchen, ate the shirred eggs and drank the coffee at the old yew-wood table, dumped the coffee, made a fresh pot and waited, allowing the missus a nice long time to soak. By 8:45 she was riding up with the second batch of breakfast.

No newspaper on the tray. But not because she’d screened it for nastiness. The delivery service had skipped the house this morning. Again. Such a slipshod world.

She’d take care of it after serving, get right on the phone with the newspaper subscription office, give them what for.

Sometimes she wished the missus would allow the subscription to lapse. There was no need to read the kinds of things they printed.

The lift let her out on the carpeted top landing. She walked past the space where the upstairs Steinway grand had stood, past the ghosts of the Regency chest with its intricate tortoiseshell front, the pair of monumental Kang Xi vases, blue as the sky, white as milk, sitting high on Carrara-marble pedestals. A patch of dust in an alcove made her stop and wipe with the hem of her apron.

The walk to the missus’s suite took her past the echoes of Chinese porcelain, the gilded cases, one filled with animalier bronzes, the other teeming with Japanese inro, jade, ivory, mixed-metal vases.

All irreplaceable. Like the boulle chest. It was illegal to kill tortoises now. Unborn babies, yes, but not reptiles.

She knocked on the missus’s door, received the expected faint reply, and went in.

The missus was in bed, wearing the cream satin bed jacket with the covered buttons-what a quest it had been finding a proper dry cleaner for that-hair wrapped in a white French towel, no makeup but still beautiful. Rosewater scent sweetened the enormous room. The only items on the nightstand were a Limoges tissue-box holder and a black satin eye mask. The bed covers were barely mused; even in sleep the woman was genteel.

But the missus was acting strange-staring straight ahead, not smiling at Mildred.

Bad dreams again?

The room was still dark, both sets of drapes drawn. Mildred stood there, not wanting to intrude, and a second later the missus turned to her. “Good morning, dear.”

“Morning, ma’am.”

Her face so thin, so white. Tired, very tired. So it probably wouldn’t be a good day.

Midred resolved to try to get her out of the house a bit-a drive to Huntington Gardens? Last month the two of them had spent a glorious hour strolling at the missus’s snail’s pace. A week later Mildred had suggested they repeat it, perhaps the art gallery, but the missus demurred. Maybe another time, dear.

Once upon a time, a driver had wheeled the Cadillac and the Lincoln. The Cadillac was gone; Mildred wrestled with the Lincoln.. how much petrol was in the tank?

If not a drive, at least a stroll out in back, some fresh air. Maybe after lunch.

“Here’s some breakfast for you, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Mildred.” Saying it automatically, so politely that Mildred knew the missus wasn’t hungry, probably wouldn’t touch a thing.

The body needed sustenance. That was simple logic. Yet, despite all her education, the college degree from Wellesley-the finest women’s school in America-the missus sometimes seemed unaware of the basics. During those moments, Mildred felt she was the older sister, caring for a child.

“You do need to eat, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Mildred. I’ll do my best.”

Mildred put the food down, drew the drapes, fetched the bed tray, and set it up. She noticed a kink in the drapery pleats, straightened it, and looked out the window. The blue-tiled pool that him had modeled after Mr. Hearst’s at San Simeon was empty and streaked with brown. The boxwood knot garden-too painful to see. Mildred looked away but not before being assaulted by a distant view of downtown Los Angeles. All that steel and glass, hideous from up close, but this far perhaps it did have a certain… stature.

When she turned fully, the missus was wiping her eyes.

Crying? Mildred hadn’t heard a sniffle.

The missus pulled a tissue out of the porcelain box and blew her nose inaudibly. Another cold? Or had she been crying?

“Here you go, ma’am, toast just the way you like it.”

“Forgive me, Mildred, it’s a beautiful breakfast but… maybe in a bit, please leave it.”

“Some coffee to stimulate the appetite, ma’am?”

The missus started to refuse, then said, “Yes, please.”

Mildred took hold of the cozy-wrapped pitcher and directed an ebony stream into the Royal Worcester cup. The missus lifted the coffee. Her hands were shaking so, she needed both to keep it steady.