“This is Saturday. I wonder if it got someone yesterday.”
“Can’t do it on its own,” Barney said, “or it wouldn’t be climbing inta guys.”
“We’d better check out everyone who was at the restaurant Thursday night, everybody who’s come into contact with Smeltzer’s body.”
“Y’got yourself a job. Get on it. Do whatcha can on yer own, we’ll see where it gets us. Nobody knows but us three, we’ll keep it that way. Folks hear about this thing, they’ll go apeshit. Yer our task force, Jake. Stay on this till we got it nailed. Report t’me.”
“What about Chuck?”
“I’ll reassign him till yer done. I want y’workin alone. That’s the only way we’re gonna keep this quiet.”
“Are you sure we should keep this quiet?” Steve asked. “If people are aware of the danger, they’ll take precautions.”
“They’ll go apeshit. Or they’ll say we got loose screws. Or both.”
“I’m aware of that, but—”
“Keep yer drawers on, Apple. We don’t nail this down in a day or two, we’ll let the whole suck-head world in on it. Okay? Y’can hold a press conference. But let’s take a crack at it before we start tellin’ folks they’re on the fuckin’ menu.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alison didn’t know why she was here. She had left the house after lunch and started walking with no destination in mind, just the desire to be alone and to be outside.
The wandering had taken her down Summer Street, to within sight of Evan’s apartment. She was finished with him, but she gazed across the street at his building as if to punish herself. She saw two windows on the second story that belonged to his rooms. The shades were open. Was he inside? Was Tracy Morgan with him? Was he alone and would he see her passing by and come after her?
He didn’t come after her.
Alison had walked on, feeling empty.
Not knowing why, she’d ended up here—in the woods above Clinton Creek. The creek was swollen and rushing. It washed around islands of rock. Occasionally, it carried along tree limbs, casualties of last night’s storm.
Alison made her way carefully down the steep embankment. At the water’s edge, she noticed a familiar, flat-topped rock. During her years in Clinton, especially when she’d been a freshman and an emotional wreck, she had spent a lot of time on this very rock. Standing on it, sitting on it, sometimes with her bare feet in the water. She used to think of it as Solitary Rock. It was where she always came to be alone when she was feeling low.
She had forgotten about it. She had been down here several times over the past few months, had probably seen Solitary Rock and maybe even stood on it without remembering that it used to be so special.
Now she remembered. She stepped onto it and sat down, drawing her knees up and hugging them against her body.
This is nice, she thought. No wonder I used to come here all the time.
She heard a car cross the bridge, a sound much like that of the rushing water. She looked toward the bridge, but it was hidden by trees beyond the bend in the stream. She looked the other way and saw only the stream sluicing around a rocky curve. The slopes on both sides were heavy with bushes and trees. She saw no one, but wondered if there were couples concealed in nooks among the foliage or rocks, making love.
It was just around that bend where she and Evan…
It was a secluded, sunlit pocket with waist-high rocks on both sides and the stream at one end. A dense bramble at the other end sheltered them from anyone who might be looking down the slope. They could’ve been seen from the opposite embankment, but nobody ever went over there. They sat on the blanket that Evan always kept in the trunk of his car. They ate sharp cheddar on crackers and drank white wine from Alison’s bota, squeezing the bag to squirt it into their mouths, into each other’s mouths, laughing when they missed. When her blouse was soaked, she took it off and lay back on the blanket. Evan, kneeling between her legs, spurted the cool wine onto her neck and chest and breasts. It trickled down her skin, tickling. The laughter had stopped. He aimed at her nipples, the thin stream of wine hitting and splashing off one, then the other. Then he licked her. He made a puddle of wine in the hollow of her navel, and as he lapped at that he opened her jeans.
That had been Sunday afternoon. A week ago, tomorrow.
How could things have gone wrong so fast?
Don’t idealize it, she told herself. It had been great—fun and thrilling and then incredible. But not quite right. You only planned on a picnic by the stream. You never intended to have sex with him, not there where anyone could show up and find you at it. But when he soaked your blouse with wine, you knew what he wanted and you went along with it. For Evan, not for yourself. Because you didn’t want to disappoint him. And that is not the best of all possible reasons.
Hell, she thought, it sure didn’t bother you much at the time.
Shortly afterward, though.
If there are regrets, they start in fast, before you even have time to get your clothes back on. If there aren’t regrets, you know that, too. There had been times when Alison felt right afterward. Not recently, though. Not with Evan. Maybe not since Jimmy, the summer after high school graduation.
Jimmy. It was missing him, more than anything else, that had brought her so often to Solitary Rock during her freshman year. Especially after the letter that began, “I will always cherish the memories of what we shared together, but…” But she was eight hundred miles from Jimmy and he’d fallen for Cynthia Younger in his world civ class.
Sitting on Solitary Rock with the sun warm on her head and back, Alison didn’t feel the loss of Jimmy. She had finished with the pain and bitterness a long time ago. Instead, she inspected the memories of Jimmy and the way her life had gone since then.
The guys she had dated. The guys she had been serious about. The ones she had slept with.
Four of those, she thought, but only three if you don’t count Tom and you shouldn’t count Tom because that was only once and we were drunk. So three after Jimmy—Dave, Larry, and Evan. And it hadn’t been really right with any of them.
Good, but not right. Not wonderful. Not without those regrets sneaking in.
She wondered how she would feel about Nick Winston, the guy she’d met last night at Wally’s. Thinking about Nick, she felt no eagerness to see him again. Probably a nice guy, but…
Her rump was starting to hurt. She changed positions, lowering her legs and crossing them. Leaning back, she pressed her palms against the rock and braced herself up. She lifted her face into the sunlight. The heat felt wonderful. She imagined going now to the secluded place where she had been with Evan, taking off her clothes, and feeling the sun all over her body.
No way, she thought.
But she leaned forward and pulled her skirt up high on her legs. She unbuttoned her blouse, lifted its front, and tied it around her ribs. Then she leaned back again, bracing herself on stiff arms. That was better—feeling the sun on her chest and belly and thighs. The sun, and the mild breeze.
So I’ve struck out a few times in the man department, she thought. It’s not the end of the world. I’m twenty-one, not bad to look at. No reason to let this stuff get me down. I’m better off without Evan, better off alone than getting stuck with a guy who isn’t exactly right. Hold out for the one who is right and don’t lie to myself when one isn’t. That’s the main thing.
Later, when Alison left, she didn’t return to Summer Street. She felt peaceful, and had no need to tease or punish herself by walking past Evan’s apartment. She walked the length of the wooded park, saw a few strolling couples. She spotted lovers leaning against a tree deep in the shadows, and felt only a moment of sorrow.