Stephen White: Blinded

Gibbs had backed down like a good hound ordered to heel.

And then she’d changed the subject.

What had the subject been?

I couldn’t recall.

In reply to her accusation about Sterling, I could have asked Gibbs, “Why are you telling me this? Why aren’t you at the police station with this information?” But I knew there would be a reason. Maybe not a good reason, one that might sway me. But there would be a reason, one that would teach me something important about the woman who sat across from me.

I bought time. I crossed my left leg over the right and said, “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re concerned about.”

Announcing her suspicion of her husband hadn’t robbed Gibbs of any of her composure. Her feet stayed side by side in their fashionable slides, and the smooth inner surfaces of her knees still touched as though she were intent on keeping a slip of paper clenched between them without dimpling it. Her shoulders were straight enough to please a Marine drill sergeant, and her spine erect enough to parallel a flagpole. She held her hands as though she were waiting for a photographer to finish snapping a glamour shot of her God-knows-how-many-carat engagement ring.

“I don’t really even know how to talk about this.” She adjusted those lovely hands, moving them to a position as if in prayer, but her fingertips were pointed toward me, not the heavens. “Louise was our friend in California. In Laguna Beach. But… it’s not just Louise.”

It’s not just Louise?

“Louise is the one who was murdered?”

“Yes, in 1997. While we were living in Corona Del Mar. She was killed at her apartment on Crescent Bay on Thanksgiving Day. Or nearby, anyway. We’d just finished redoing our cottage. Right from the start the police suspected that her assailant wasn’t close to her. They thought the guy who killed her might have known her, you know, casually, but wasn’t close to her. She wasn’t from there; she was British. But no one has ever been arrested.”

We’d just finished redoing our cottage?

“And you think Sterling was involved?”

“Involved? That’s a funny word. Well, I think Sterling did it. Who am I kidding? Although I don’t want to believe it, I guess I know he did. He had a thing… going with her.”

“A sexual thing? An affair?”

“Of course.”

The string of her earlier words that had initially caught my attention was still bouncing around my head like a Miller moth trapped behind a miniblind. I repeated the words aloud. “Gibbs, what did you mean when you said before, ‘It’s not just Louise’?”

“This is weird,” she said.

Tell me about it, I thought.

“What did that mean, Gibbs? ‘It’s not just Louise.’ What did you mean by that?”

“I don’t even know why I said it.”

My mind raced ahead of her, but I tried to keep my focus. I decided not to say what was on my mind. Why? What was on my mind was that I didn’t believe her most recent denial. Inconsequential to the therapy perhaps, but an important point considering the circumstances.

Things that are unimportant to the progression of therapy may be crucial to the prosecution of a murder.

She clenched her teeth and tried to smile. Maybe she was fighting tears, but as incongruous as it was, I thought she was actually trying to smile.

She raised her hands to her face to cover her mouth, then took them down again before she said, “You know Sterling, Dr. Gregory. I mean, yes, yes, yes, he has a temper. But could I really be married to a murderer? Or am I nuts?”

Two different questions, I thought.

Two different questions.

Before I conjured up a response, I remembered what it was that Gibbs had said a decade before that had earned her the memorable glare from Sterling.

Sex.

Gibbs had said something about sex.

Louise had walked down the path to Crescent Bay from her flat on the cliff above the beach a hundred times. A thousand. She could have dodged the fat ropes of seaweed on the sand in her sleep. From where the shoreline started at the foot of the trail to the beginning of the rough rocks on the north end of the horseshoe cove wasn’t more than a few dozen steps. Carrying her old trainers in her hands, she crossed the area in seconds, careful to stay above the high-tide line. The beach had already yielded the day’s heat, and the sand that crept up between her toes was cool and dry.

She wondered what he had planned.

Something imaginative, she hoped. God, she needed a man to show some imagination.

That lad in Paris? The Australian? He hadn’t been bad. But it was all about the shot for him, not about the setup.

She needed someone to care about the setup, too. The match wasn’t just about the goal.

She’d checked her watch before she left her flat. He’d said seven-thirty. She hadn’t walked out her door until a quarter to eight. She knew she was worth waiting for. Whatever he had planned, she was worth waiting for.

And she was game.

She checked the Walkman in her hand and adjusted the headphones on her ears, waiting for his next words. His first words had been “Leave it running, now. The silence is part of the mystery. Follow my commands. And trust me. Do what I say.”

At the foot of the rocks she brushed the sand off her feet and pulled on her shoes, then scampered up the rocks toward the tide pools. Her favorite pool, the big one that was shaped like Maui, would be covered by the encroaching tide already. She hoped that in the recession between waves-she thought of it as the ocean’s inhale-she could maybe steal a quick glance at the cluster of urchins in the southeast corner of the pool.

She loved those urchins, though she couldn’t have said why.

“Up toward the pools. Do it without a flashlight, now. No peeking. Let yourself be surprised.” The voice in her ears, electronically distorted, made her smile. It was a nice touch.

She wasn’t carrying a torch; she didn’t need one here any more than she’d need one to find the loo in her flat in the dark. The night wasn’t totally black, but even if it were, she knew these rock paths like she knew the cabin of a 747. She could wander these cliffs at any tidal level without a map. She knew the path all the way from Crescent Bay to Emerald Bay. She could do it in a storm if she had to.

“Keep going, my lady. Don’t be impatient. You’ll find your reward. Soon, soon, soon.” The voice prodded her. “Look up. Look down. Look, look, look.”

Finally, she spotted a basket. An old-fashioned picnic basket. High up on a rock shelf, almost above her reach.

She pulled it down, flipped open the lid, and her heart soared just a little.

Meursault. God, she loved Meursault. Fresh gherkins. Pâté. Well, she thought, I’m not a vegan tonight.

She was late. But where is he?

She removed the cork from the bottle, poured herself a glass of wine, and nibbled on a gherkin as she watched the fluorescence of the nighttime waves crash higher and higher on the rocks above the pools, closer and closer to her perch.

“Lovely,” she said aloud. “Lovely.”

“The night will surprise you. Prepare,” the recorded voice murmured into her ears.

“It’s a good start,” she admitted out loud.

Sitting on the sharp edges of the jagged rocks was less than comfortable. She moved to a squatting position and began to wonder how on earth the goal was going to be scored without scarring one of them forever on the rock faces.