Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

“No. Unless you do …”

“I'd better not.”

Waiting for him, she prowled the room. It was the first time she'd been there since the accident, and it felt odd. Katy's house, Katy's pride and joy—a legacy now. Blue and white decor, lots of crystal and cut-glass accessories, all chosen by Katy to her tastes. Her paintings on the walls, the huge dominating one she'd called “Blue Time”: rectangles and rhomboids in various shades of blue, splotches of white, three little dollops of yellow. Abstract Expressionism. She'd thought Jackson Pollock was the greatest of all American painters. Yet her own work was more in the style of Mark Rothko, whom she'd also admired—simple, sensuous color shapes rather than explosions of color. Rothko had once said that his paintings were façades, telling little but just enough about his perception of the world and his own life. “It's the same thing with my paintings,” Katy had been fond of saying. “Façades, little snippets of the real Katy Mallory.” And when someone had asked her what the snippets were, a wink, a grin, and: “That's for you to figure out, sweetie.”

Cecca had always liked this room, the house, but today it depressed her. Her mood, coupled with Dix's. She sat down on the blue brocade couch. She was staring out through the tall windows, watching a small plane circle for a landing at Los Alegres Airport across the valley, when Dix came down from the bedroom.

He'd put on slacks and a pullover, run a comb through his brown hair. His shoulders still wore their burden of fatigue. His jaw was set tight; she could see ridges of muscles at the corners of his mouth. He looked grim. Worse than he had the day after the accident. He had something in one hand, but his fingers were closed tight around it and she couldn't quite tell what it was. A box of some kind?

He said as he sat down across from her, “There's something I have to know, Cecca. I need you to tell me the truth—the complete and honest truth. Will you do that?”

“If I can. Of course.”

“Was Katy having an affair before she died?”

“… An affair? Dix, what on earth?”

“Was she?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“You don't think so? You're not sure?”

“She never said anything to me about an affair.”

“You were her best friend.”

“Yes, but she didn't confide everything to me.”

“To Eileen, then?”

“No. There was a private side to Katy, you know that. Parts of herself that she never shared with anyone … any of her friends, I mean.”

“Not with me either. I thought I knew her so well, but now …” He shook his head. “She could've kept it a secret,” he said. It wasn't a question.

“She could have, but that doesn't mean she did.”

“Did you suspect she was cheating? Any suspicion at all?”

“No.”

“Something she said you could interpret that way now?”

“No. Not to me.”

“Eileen? Somebody else?”

“Oh, she said something once that Eileen … well …”

“What was it?”

“I don't remember exactly. I didn't believe it—you know how Eileen exaggerates—so I didn't pay much attention.”

“Try to remember.”

“It … something about having too much excitement in her life. It could have meant anything. Or nothing.”

“When was this?”

“A couple of months ago.”

“And Eileen thought it meant Katy was having an affair.”

“She took it that way, yes, but—”

“She tried her damnedest to find out, I'll bet.”

“Without any success. Katy laughed it off.”

“But she didn't deny it?”

“For heaven's sake, Dix, what's this all about? Why do you think Katy had a lover?”

“A man told me she did,” Dix said. “In detail. Plenty of graphic goddamn detail.”

“What man? Who'd do an ugly thing like that?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know who told you?”

“A voice on the phone. An anonymous caller who claimed to be Katy's lover. At first I took it for a filthy lie—”

“Oh my God,” Cecca said.

“What's wrong?”

“Anonymous caller, you said. Only that one call?”

“No, several. They started right after the funeral. Just breathing, then he'd hang up.”

“When did—” The words caught in her throat. She coughed to loosen the constriction. “When did he tell you all that about Katy? What day?”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday. Was that the first time he spoke to you?”

“Yes, why?”

“Unnatural voice, like a computer's?”

He sat forward jerkily. “Jesus … not you, too?”

“For about the same length of time. Nothing but breathing until yesterday afternoon.”

“What did he say to you?”

She told him.

He said, “But there was nothing to it, nothing wrong with Amy.”

“No. But I was half frantic until she came home. Dix … do you think he's dangerous?”

No response. He was looking at her, but there was a remoteness in his eyes, as if he were seeing something—or somebody—else.

“Dangerous,” she said again. “More than just a telephone freak.”

“I don't know,” Dix said slowly. “In any case, he may not be a liar where Katy is concerned.”

“You don't believe he really was her lover?”

“I didn't until this morning.”

“What happened this morning?”

“He left a message on my machine, telling me to go look in the mailbox. I found this. He must have put it there sometime during the night.”

He opened his fisted hand, extending it so she could see that what he'd been gripping was a small white jewelry box. She took it, lifted the lid.

Frowning, she said, “Katy's favorite earrings.”

“Made especially for her. No other pair like them.”

“But how could he—?”

“She was wearing them the night she died.”

“She … oh no, you must be mistaken.”

“I wish I were,” he said. “She had them on when she left here that night.”

Cecca shook her head: confusion, dismay.

“They should be lumps of metal, melted and fused by the heat of the fire. The only way he could've gotten them is if he were with her before the accident.”

“She could have lost them—”

“Both? And he just happened to find them? No, Katy must have given them to him for some reason. Or else he took them from her.”

“Even if that's true, it doesn't have to mean they were lovers. There could be another explanation.”

“The only one I can think of is a hell of a lot worse.”

“What …?”

“That her death wasn't an accident.”

She stared at him. “What do you— Suicide?”

“That's the first thing that occurred to me. An affair that had gotten out of hand, guilt, depression … I thought it might be possible.”

“But now you don't.”

“Now I don't. There was that private part of her, yes, but I can't make myself believe it was that bleak. She loved life too much to give it up voluntarily. She was full of life. You agree with that, don't you?”

“Yes.” She made herself take a long, slow breath before she spoke again. “You mean murder, then. You think Katy could have been murdered.”

“I didn't say that's what I thought. I said it's a possibility that occurred to me. I shouldn't have mentioned it.”

“Dix, you're scaring me.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.” He moved over beside her, took her hand. “I think we'd better just drop this before our imaginations run away with us.”

“Random violence, is that it? Katy being in the wrong place at the wrong time?” She was trying to talk herself out of crediting it, even a little, by dealing with it directly. But the questions served only to open up her fear. “Or … somebody stalking her? The same man who … the man on the phone … if you're right about Katy, then he could be—”