Sue Grafton - R is for Ricochet

On the street in front of my place, we kissed one last time before I got out of the car and watched him rumble away. With any other man, I might already be fretting about all the dumb things women worry about – would he call, would I see him again, had he meant even one small portion of what he'd said. With Cheney, I didn't care. Whatever this was and whatever came next, it was all fine with me. If the entire relationship ended up encapsulated in the hours we'd just spent, well, wasn't I the lucky one for the experience?

I slept until ten, skipped the run, lollygagged around the house, and finally drifted into the office shortly before noon in time to break for lunch. I was just about to unwrap my cheese and pickle sandwich when I heard someone open the outer door and slam it shut. Reba appeared in the doorway, her face suffused with rage, manila envelope in hand. "Did you take these?"

I felt a spurt of fear at the sight of the envelope, given that I had its identical twin in my drawer.

She leaned across my desk and slashed the air in front of my face with the corner of the envelope, shaking it so close to my eyes she could have taken one out. "Did you?"

"Did I what? I don't even know what you're talking about." This was world-class lying, me at my best, rising to the challenge, unflinching in the heat of battle.

She undid the clasp and snatched out the prints, which she slapped down in front of me. She leaned forward again, this time supporting her weight with both hands. "Some fucking little creep came to the house and asked to speak to me. I thought it was a parole officer doing a home visit so I take him in the living room and sit him down to have a chat, cheery as all get-out just to show what a good little citizen I am. One thing I know he's handing me these and laying out a line of shit like you wouldn't believe. That's Beck, by the way, in case the light's too grainy – I picked up the black-and-white prints and made a display of sorting through them, trying to decide how to play this. I placed them on the desk and looked up at her. "So he picks up some hooker. What do you expect?"

"Hooker, my ass." She took one photo by the edge and pointed at the woman with such viciousness she nearly ripped the page. "Do you know who that is?"

I shook my head, my heart thudding in my chest. Of course I knew. I just didn't want to admit it to her.

"That's Onni. My best friend."

"Ah."

She made a face. "I don't give a shit if he had sex, but with her?"

"Yeah, you'd think as a courtesy, he could have screwed his wife instead of your best friend," I said.

"Exactly. I didn't expect him to be celibate. I certainly wasn't."

Ooo, what did she mean by that? With whom had she done what? In prison, the options were limited, or so one would think.

"You know what pisses me off? I'm supposed to have dinner with Onni. Tonight. Can you picture it? I'd be chatting away, happy to be with her because I missed her so much. The whole time she'd be sitting there, laughing up her ass. The friggin' bitch. She knows I'm in love with him. She knows that!" Her face suddenly took on that pinched look that precedes tears. She sat down abruptly. "Oh god, what am I going to do?"

I waited for a moment, listening to the tight squeezed-up sound of her weeping. This went on for a while, but once the sobs had subsided, I said, "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay. Does it look like I'm okay? I'm going out of my mind. I could have gone my whole life without this."

Like a shrink, I picked up the box of tissues from the corner of my desk and pushed it over to her. She took one and blew her nose. "Hell with it. I wasn't going to do this, but I really can't help myself." She opened her bag and took out a fresh pack of cigarettes. She tugged on the thin band of red, peeling away the top of the cellophane wrapper. She tore off one half of the foil and smacked the bottom of the pack on her hand to force a cigarette forward out of the tight pack. She reached for her gold Dunhill lighter and nicked it, bending to the flame with a rapt expression on her face. She inhaled, drawing smoke into her lungs like nitrous oxide, letting it out again in a soft stream. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. This was like watching someone shoot up. I could see the sedative effect as the nicotine permeated her system. She opened her eyes again. "Better. That's awesome. I hope you have an ashtray."

"Flick it on the floor. The carpet's shit anyway."

She was probably light-headed, but at least the outrage had been erased and replaced by an artificial calm. She allowed herself a thin, mocking smile. "I should have known when I bought the pack I'd crack it within a day."

"Just don't drink."

"Right. I won't. One vice at a time." She took another drag from her cigarette, tension draining from her face. "It's been a year since I smoked. Shit, and I was doing so well."

"You were doing great." I was still picking my way across what felt like a minefield, wondering if I could tell her the truth without bringing down fire on my own position.

"What's sick is the damn thing tastes so good," she said.

The subject of Beck was beside the point, now that she had her smokes. "So now what?" I asked.

"Beats the hell out of me."

"Maybe the two of us can figure it out."

"Yeah, right. What's to figure? I've been had," she said.

"I'm puzzled about the fellow who came to the house. I don't get that. Who was he?"

She shrugged. "He said he was FBI."

"Really. The FBI?"

"That's what he claimed, all superior and smarmy. As soon as I saw the first photo, I told him to get the hell off the property, but he wanted to sit there and spell it out for me, like I was too dumb to get it. I picked up the phone and told him I'd call the cops if he wasn't out the door in five seconds. That shut him up."

"Did he show you his ID? Badge, business card? Anything like that?"

"He flashed a badge when I first opened the door, but I didn't pay attention. Parole officers carry badges. I thought that's who he was so I didn't bother to check his name. I mean, what's it to me? I didn't see what choice I had so I let him in. When he pulled out the envelope, I figured he had forms to fill out, like he'd be filing some report. By the time I realized what he was up to I was so damn mad I didn't care who he was."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm sure as hell canceling my dinner date. I wouldn't sit down with Onni if I had a gun to my head."

"Don't you think Beck's the one you should be mad at? You went to jail for the guy and this is what he does in return."

"I never went to jail for him. Who told you that?"

"What difference does it make? That's the word around town."

"Well, I didn't."

"Come on, Reba. You might as well come clean. I'm the only friend you have. So you're crazy in love and took the fall for him. Wouldn't be the first time. Maybe he sweet-talked you into it."

"He didn't sweet-talk me into anything. I knew what I was doing."

"I have a hard time believing that."

"You want to argue the point? You ask me to be honest and then you sit there and make judgments? How fucked up is that?"

I raised a hand. "Right. You're right. I apologize. I didn't mean it that way."

She stared at me, assessing my sincerity. I must have looked like an honest woman because she said, "Okay."

"Anyway, whatever the motivation, you're saying you didn't embezzle any money from him?"

"Of course not. I have money of my own, or at least I had some back then."

"That being the case, how'd you end up in jail?"

"The discrepancies showed up on an audit and he had to account for the missing money somehow. He thought they'd let me off easy. Suspended sentence, probation – you know, something like that."