Up close, the anchorwoman's face was flat and large, the colors the ersatz hues of television. Her eyes were the blue of sapphires, her lips a supersaturated pink. She kept talking silently, opening and closing her mouth. Judy looked everywhere on the TV console. Where was the volume?
Film of Marta came on, talking in front of the Criminal Justice Center. Behind her was its modern stained glass. It must be file footage from the Steere trial. Judy was panic-stricken. Had something happened to Marta? Was she shot, too, like Mary? What about the security guards? Judy searched frantically for the TV buttons. No controls. She groped the console. Cool, seamless plastic. Fuck! Where was it?
"Where's the volume?" Judy shouted, though she knew the floor was empty. There hadn't even been a receptionist at the desk when she came up to the floor. "HEY!" she shouted. No one came running but she didn't want to leave the TV. Maybe it was remote-controlled. Judy twisted on the chair and scanned the room for the remote. The coffee tables, the end tables, and the seats were bare.
On the TV screen, Mayor Walker was giving some sort of press conference. His face looked grave behind the microphones and a podium with the city seal. To his left stood his chief of staff, looking equally somber. At the top of the screen it said LIVE. What were they saying? Did it have to do with Marta? With Mary?
Judy spotted a small plastic panel under the screen and hit it to see if it would pop open. It didn't. She hit it again but the panel still wouldn't open. She hit it harder, pounding with her fist until the lid came up. Tiny dials protruded from a recessed compartment, and Judy twisted them back and forth with bloodstained fingers. The fake colors on the TV switched from flesh tones to hot orange, from royal blue to black. Judy still couldn't hear the TV. Where was the fucking volume?
On the screen, the police inspector was being interviewed, standing in front of the Roundhouse in the snow. What was going on? A commercial came on. The news report was over. No! Was someone shooting them all? Who was behind this? Steere? Judy couldn't let him. She'd fight back. She needed to hear. She hit the TV panel until the lid broke off, then pounded it harder, cracking it into sharp plastic shards, straight through the fucking panel. Smashing it, destroying it, obliterating it. Killing all the phony colors with the force of her might and her will and her pain. Raging until her hand was covered with blood and finally it was her own.
* * *
Judy sat in her chair with her hand packed and bandaged with gauze. She'd taken three stitches and refused a sedative. She'd scrubbed her snowpants and washed her face and hands. A nurse had brought her an antibacterial soap and it had taken off most of the blood on her good hand. She felt drained, her emotions spent. She watched the scene around her with an odd detachment.
Bennie Rosato had arrived, in jeans and a sweater, her large face un-madeup and drawn. She made sure Judy was okay, then sat trying to comfort Mary's mother, an elderly, birdlike woman with teased hair. The mother sobbed as she sat with Mary's father, a short, bald man whose laborer's body had gone soft. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was comforting his wife.
With them sat Mary's sister, Angie. Angie was Mary's identical twin. Her hair, though shorter, was the same dirty blond, and her eyes were as brown and large as Mary's. Her mouth was a perfect match, full and broad. Judy liked looking at Angie. It was as if Mary were in the waiting room, whole and healthy again.
Angie was speaking in low tones to her parents and to Bennie. The four of them sat huddled close together, a nervous, weepy circle. Judy couldn't hear from where she was sitting, but she watched Angie's lips move like the anchorwoman's on TV. The DiNunzios were on mute, in two dimensions. Everything around Judy seemed distant. She wanted to keep it that way. Let Bennie comfort Mary's parents, she would know what to say. Judy had to figure out what to do.
31
Marta dashed down the snowy dune behind Steere's house and ran toward the left side of the house. The security lights blasted her with light as soon as she reached their invisible ambit. She picked up the pace, sprinting beside her leaping shadow, spraying snow with each bound past the house's back entrance. As tempted as she was to follow Alix into the mansion, it was too risky. Lights were going on inside, and Marta needed to see what was happening.
She made it to the shadow of the side wall and turned the corner. The security lights blinked off. It was dark again. Marta leaned against the house, breathing hard. Her ribs speared her insides. She hadn't exercised this much all last year. Wind and snow gusted off the ocean and whipped through Marta's hair. Her eyes stung with snow and salt and she clung to the rough shakes of the wall, blinking. Snow buried her gloved fingers and stuck to the wooden shakes in splotches. Snowdrifts reached to her knees.
She had to keep moving. Marta inhaled deeply, steeling herself for the familiar rib pain, and ran through the snowdrifts alongside the house, sliding a hand along the wall so she wouldn't fall. The windows were high and light poured over Marta's head from the house. She hurried along the wall, reached the front of the mansion, and peeked around the corner. The facade of the house was even grander than the back and its frontispiece was an immense wraparound porch. A bank of arched windows dominated the front wall and light shone through them, illuminating a living room.
Bookshelves filled the room, showcasing fussy leather volumes of red and brown. Victorian couches and antique chairs surrounded a carved mahogany coffee table. There wasn't a TV in sight; it wasn't Steere's taste, maybe it was a decorator's or Alix's. On the other side of the fireplace was a darkened dining room and a kitchen presumably beyond; Marta had shopped for enough old houses to know. Alix was nowhere in sight, at least from a parallax view. Marta would have to move center to get a better look. Small dunes nestled in front of the house, and Marta spotted one that sat about thirty feet from her. Wind off the ocean roared at the dune and blew snow from its crest in a frosty fan.
Marta scrambled for the dune and was in front of the porch when she was jerked back suddenly. Her coat was caught on a wooden fence. She pulled but it wouldn't come free. Marta was in plain view of the living room, standing in a square of light. She tugged her coat and looked at the window, then froze.
Inside the house, entering the living room from another entrance, was Bogosian. Marta almost screamed. Bogosian was right across the porch on the other side of the glass. He could see her if he looked out to sea. His head was swiveling left and right. He was looking for something. Someone.
Marta panicked. She yanked her coat with all her might, but it was still caught on the post. She was totally exposed, struggling with the fucking fence. If Bogosian spotted her she'd be dead. She tore at the coat and was about to slip it off when the fence shuddered violently and the coat came free. Marta fell backward into a chilly snowdrift and lay still as a dead snow angel, her thoughts feverish.
Where had Bogosian come from? Had he driven here? Where was his car, the garage? Marta hadn't bothered to look for tracks in the snow, she'd been too distracted by Alix. She hadn't seen Bogosian following Alix, so he must have been here already. Waiting. Maybe he'd figured Marta would try to search Steere's beach house. Or maybe he'd arranged to meet Alix here.
Marta was too frightened to answer the questions. Snow froze her neck and fell behind her ears. She lay perfectly still so she wouldn't draw Bogosian's attention. Still, she had to find out where he was. She gathered her courage and peered over her boots at the house. The living room was empty. Where was Bogosian? Was he coming after her? She could make a run for the truck.