Peter Abrahams - A Perfect Crime

Francie started crying.

“Don’t cry.”

But she couldn’t stop. She cried and cried. “Is it all right, Anne? Is it all right?”

He picked her up and carried her outside. Flashing lights everywhere. “Oh, Anne.” But she said the name softly now, and soon got hold of herself.

“I can walk.”

“You’re sure?” He watched her carefully, his face softened now, close to hers.

“Yes.”

He put her gently down. Nora ran up from a squad car, took Francie in her arms. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Whose was it?”

“Not yours, sugar, not yours.”

Would she ever be able to talk herself into that?

Someone in the house said, “Open the windows.”

Francie didn’t hear from Savard until the spring, a few days after Nora’s wedding; she thought she knew why he’d waited. “Read about it in the Globe,” he said. “Were you there?”

“Of course.”

“Nice time?”

“Very.”

“I’m not married, myself.”

There was a silence.

“Ice is breaking up,” Savard said at last.

“You called to tell me that?”

“Not really. I wondered if you were interested in bears.”

“I know nothing about them.”

“Good. Maybe you’d come up here and take a look at something for me.”

Francie went. Savard met her in Lawton Center, shook her hand. His was big and warm, full of latent strength but reserved at the same time, if she could read that much in a handshake. “You’re aware of this supposed resemblance to my former wife?” he said, his gaze on Francie’s face.

“Yes.”

“I don’t see it at all.”

He drove her in the Bronco out to his cabin on Little Joe Lake. The radio was on.

“-and we’re delighted to welcome a new station to the Intimately Yours network today, KPLA in Los Angeles. My name’s-”

Savard switched it off. With Em in the house: that was the part Francie still hadn’t been able to understand. At that moment, the same moment she realized Savard must have had the radio on for a purpose, she remembered something Anne had said, just before asking for a surefire recipe: He cares so much about his career. Maybe in the end Em had come second, not first. The burning-up feeling, which had accompanied every thought of Ned since that last day in his house, was absent for the first time.

Savard parked by the shore of the lake. It was a clear, windless day, the blue sky reflecting dully off the still-frozen perimeter, brightly off the open water beyond. They got out of the car, approached the little foot-bridge. Francie stopped. “I’m a poor picker of men,” she said.

Savard started to reply, held it inside.

“Go ahead,” Francie said.

“One out of three ain’t bad.”

Francie laughed, her natural reaction, and she let it happen. They walked across the bridge to the cabin, where Savard paused and added, “If I’m not being presumptuous.”

Their eyes met. “Let’s see these bears of yours,” Francie said.

Savard nodded. “But I want your true opinion.”

“Everyone says that.”

“They do?”

“But no one means it.”

Savard went a little pale. He unlocked the door. “After you.”

Francie walked into the cabin and looked around for what seemed to Savard an unendurably long time.

“So?” he said. “Good or bad?”