"Hi," she said.
He turned slowly and looked up at her, giving her his best smile of hello, warm, full of delight at her presence, a smile designed to deliver a compliment and instill pleasure and confidence in its recipient. He was a master of smiles, a magician who could turn an expression into a look of wonder and innocence or just as easily, a look of sophistication and innocence. His eyes could almost change color to please. Like any successful performer, he could read his audience and reach into his repertoire to produce the look, the words, the very body motion to please. It gave his prey the sense that he was there solely for her. His whole body was truly a web and he was never so proud of it and what it could trap as he was now.
"Hi," he replied. "Thanks for recommending your grandmother's place." She shook her head, smiled, and looked at the pond, the expression on her face turning quizzical as she looked at the water and the surrounding birch, maple, and hickory trees. Earlier heavy rainfalls had practically stripped the trees of their beautiful fall foliage, leaving the forest stark and dreary. She was surely wondering why was he sitting here so contentedly and looking at the surroundings? What could he possibly get out of this?
"It's so peaceful here," he said anticipating her question. "You're lucky."
"Lucky? Hardly," she said grimacing. "This is like dead-endsville. Peaceful as a cemetery. Things don't grow here anymore. They just rot, people included."
"Really? I thought it was a very busy, exciting resort area," he said.
"It's still busier than it is most of the year, but only for about ten weeks in the summer. Nothing here is like it used to be. It's dying. Look at my grandmother's place. She doesn't bother to spruce it up anymore. She's getting what she can out of it and then it, too, like so many similar small rooming houses, small hotels, and bungalow colonies, will either be bought up by some tax-free religious group or left to rot. I'm not interested in inheriting it. I can tell you that. If I don't get myself out of here soon either to return to college or just travel She left her words hanging in the air like someone hoping some mysterious and wonderful hero would come along and scoop them up, taking her and them off on a magic carpet of promise.
He turned and looked back at the pond. She's so perfect, he thought. He felt blessed. He really was blessed. Something more powerful than anything was ensuring that he would always have what he needed.
"Where would you want to go if you didn't return to college?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the pond.
"Anywhere but here," she said and followed it with a small, insecure laugh. He nodded.
"Too bad we can't stand still and have everything come to us," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"You know, all new things, exciting things come to us. We partake of them and then they move on and something new arrives. We'd never be bored." She shook her head.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"Well," he said turning back to her. "You're here and now I've come." She held her smile. Her face was still bubbling with confusion.
"It takes time," he explained. "Time to understand. I'm still in the process myself." He gazed at the pond.
"What if it takes me too long?" she asked, following it with a giggle that sounded like a pocket full of change.
He looked at her again. "I wouldn't worry, Kristin. You're too special to be left behind."
"Right, sure," she said. She glanced at her watch.
"Going to work?"
"Yes. I don't go in until noon today. I'm off at eight," she added, obviously not just to provide trivial information.
"Why don't I come around about then? Maybe we can go for a drink somewhere and you can relax and tell me more about your future plans. Would you like that?"
"Sure," she said.
"I'll be waiting for you outside the restaurant," he promised. "I'd go back for dinner, but your grandmother looks like she would consider it a capital crime for me or anyone to reject one of her meals."
Kristin laughed.
"That's for sure."
"I'm looking forward to it anyway. I never had turkey meatloaf. I hope she is a good cook. I have a ravenous appetite," he said and added, "in every sense of the word."
She raised her eyebrows and released that small, thin laugh again.
"Just tell her how good it is and she'll pile your plate sky high. Flattery, will get you everywhere. It's a family weakness," she added and started back toward the house.
"Flattery will get you everywhere? It's a family weakness? How original," he muttered.
He stared ahead. Water flies caused ripples. They seemed to continue forever in his head.
"Will Dennis said that?" Curt asked, stretching his lips as if he had just bitten into a rotten piece of fruit. "When you told him about the investigator, he said that?"
She stared at him. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what part he didn't understand. It wasn't in her to be sarcastic and short with people, especially him, but at the moment, she didn't feel anything like herself. Her stare made him squirm in the booth.
"I'll make a call," he said. "Something doesn't sound right." She couldn't resist.
"No shit, Dick Tracy."
He started to smile, thought a second time about it, and glanced instead at the menu. Before the death of Paige Thorndyke, they had made the date to have dinner at Melvin's Trout Reserve this particular evening. Originally, he was supposed to pick her up, but his court schedule and her delays at the medical offices made it better for them to meet at the restaurant. They were coming to it from opposite directions.
Terri had always hated going to and from a date alone, especially if she arrived before he did, which was most often the case. Heads turned and she could read their eyes, especially the eyes of the men with their legs dangling over bar stools as if they were riding horses. She imagined third eyes situated right at the center of their crotches.
Curt wasn't as bothered by separate arrivals, and she wondered if it wasn't simply a male-female thing. She hated that sort of explanation for anything. It truly made it seem as if they were a separate species, one more tolerant of something than the other. Men cringed at the sight of a rat just as much as women did, she thought.
But were women more romantic? Was that why it bothered her to come here alone and leave alone? In the end after the years of medical school, the degree and the professional accomplishments making her just as big a wage earner if not a bigger wage earner than Curt was, didn't she still want doors opened for her, chairs pulled out for her? The feminine in her would not, could not be denied?
He lowered the menu, deciding he would explain himself after all, her Dick Tracy remark gnawing at his ego like a termite in a heart made of wood.
"What I meant was, Will Dennis wasn't being truthful, and that suggests something to me."
"Why wouldn't the district attorney be truthful, Curt? What does it suggest?"
"I don't know. Maybe there's something going on undercover and he doesn't want to blow it."
"The man who came to my office wasn't under any cover, Curt. He was out front with a badge and all."
"Well... what the hell was he, a private detective posing as a state officer, someone hired by the Thorndykes, maybe?"
She looked up, her eyes bright.
"Yes, maybe that's it." She put folds of skepticism in her brow. "But so soon after, even before the funeral, they go looking for and hiring a private detective?"