Penance Read online

  “Being head of state is a difficult job,” the governor declared after only a moment’s pause. “It cannot be handled by one who lacks toughness.”

  “Crying over our problems is an indulgence we simply cannot afford,” the mayor added.

  Amy’s grip went slack on my arm. Louise looked down. Many of the other volunteers looked away. “It’s over,” one of them muttered. Only C. C. didn’t think so.

  “An indulgence, Mr. Mayor?” she asked, her voice coming from deep inside her. “A lack of toughness, Governor?” She was angry, now. “To cry over people you care about? Is that what you think? Is that what you believe? Or is it just that you don’t care enough to cry for anyone but yourselves?”

  “What the hell?” one of the volunteers said.

  “Yes, I’m crying,” C. C. said, continuing her counterattack. “I’m crying for single mothers who are forced into poverty and for their children who go to bed hungry most nights. I’m crying for low-income families who can’t afford a decent place to live. I’m crying for the elderly who are forced to eat dog food because of your policies, Governor. I’m crying for the dispossessed and the homeless who have no place to go but the cold, dirty, dangerous streets because you closed their shelters, Mr. Mayor. I’m crying for the people who can’t get jobs, for the people who can’t afford health care. I’m crying for the people who themselves cry each day because the government that is supposed to help them won’t. Whom do you cry for? I mean, besides the PACs and special-interest groups that stuff your pockets with money?”

  “My God …” Louise breathed.

  “I care about the people of the state of Minnesota. All the people. Even those who don’t have money to contribute to a campaign fund. Even those who can’t or won’t vote. I care about their problems and their fears and their tomorrows. You two … You care about getting elected. Nothing else.”

  It was a nice comeback and I wondered if Marion and C. C. had planned it all along. If they had, it was a singularly dangerous move and probably would not have succeeded if it weren’t for what came next. In response, both the governor and the mayor claimed that they cried all the time, too; that they each out-cried the others. And they offered examples. The media played along, asking questions such as, “Governor, did you weep when you slashed the University of Minnesota’s operating budget?” In reply came answers like, “I don’t believe I wept, but I am sure I shed a tear or two.” It was high comedy—or farce, if you prefer—and when the so-called debate mercifully ended, the volunteers were delighted.

  “Is Carol Catherine Monroe tough enough to be governor?” an excited campaign worked shouted. “Ask the coroner after he examines the bodies.”

  But the workers did not get a chance to celebrate long. The telephones started ringing even before the program’s closing credits had finished rolling. I had to turn the TV set off.

  “I’ve taken in over seven thousand in the last half hour,” I overheard one volunteer tell Louise as she moved from station to station.

  “Representative Monroe really is going to be the first woman governor of the state of Minnesota,” Amy told me yet again as she worked the switchboard.

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” I answered her but she was too busy to hear.

  I closed the office door and leaned against it. “You’d better sit down,” I told the two women.

  Both ignored the advice.

  “Did you get the tape?” Marion asked.

  “Dennis Thoreau is dead,” I answered.

  “Wha …” C. C. staggered backward, found a chair in front of the desk and fell into it. Marion merely spread her legs farther apart and clasped her hands behind her back, parade rest.

  The debate had ended one hundred minutes earlier. It had taken that long for the women to work the media and return to the triumphant applause of their campaign staff. Now Marion Senske was looking at me like I was a dead battery on a cold winter’s night. She didn’t need this, she really didn’t.

  “How?” Marion asked.

  “What?” I answered.

  “How was Thoreau killed?”

  Interesting question. Most people ask “When?”

  “He was shot in the face at close range,” I replied.

  “Oh God,” C. C. whimpered

  “When?” asked Marion.

  “I’m guessing Saturday, sometime after C. C. spoke with him, but there’s no way of knowing for sure until the ME determines the postmortem interval.”

  “ME?” C. C. asked weakly.

  “The county medical examiner,” I answered. “The cops would have called him long before now.”

  “You told the police?” Marion was outraged.

  “No. They arrived when I was looking for the tape.”

  Marion grabbed my forearm with both hands and squeezed tight. “Did you get it?”

  “No,” I answered, pulling away. “I didn’t have time. I doubt it was still there, anyway. Whoever killed Thoreau searched the house thoroughly. It was a very professional job.”

  “Oh God,” Marion whimpered, groping for the chair behind C. C.’s desk. Her “Oh God” sounded just like C. C.’s.

  “God had nothing to do with this,” I said feeling vaguely superior. I could have told them about the tape I found, only I didn’t know what I had yet. Probably a rerun of “Star Trek.” Besides, they had lied about Sherman, and I did not know why. Instead, I took the envelope from my pocket, the one containing the ten thousand dollars, and tossed it on top of the desk. They both stared at it.

  Finally, C. C. asked, “You don’t think I did it, do you?”

  There it was, the question I had been wrestling with since I found Dennis Thoreau, his mouth full of carpet.

  “Do you think I did it?”

  I looked into her aquamarine eyes, moist with tears; looked deep to see what truths were hidden there. I found only confusion, fear and … was it sorrow? If it was an act, it was a good one. Meryl Streep could take lessons from her.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Thank you for trusting me,” she said, and gave my hand a squeeze.

  I could have let it go at that—probably should have—but I didn’t like the way Marion was looking me up and down like she was deciding whether to choose me for her side in a game of dodgeball.

  “It isn’t a matter of trust,” I said. “If you had killed him, you would probably have the videotape already. If you had the videotape, you wouldn’t have hired me.”

  Besides, I didn’t want her to be guilty. She was just too damned pretty to be guilty.

  A light went on behind Marion’s eyes. “You said the house was searched. That means whoever killed Thoreau knew about the videotape.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s possible that Thoreau was killed for an unrelated reason—drugs perhaps. But I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “We no longer require your services, Mr. Taylor,” Marion said abruptly.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  “No.”

  “The man who was blackmailing you is murdered and the thing he was blackmailing you with is missing, but you’re not worried. If it was me, I’d be scared to death. How come you’re not scared to death, Marion?”

  “In politics you learn to go with the flow,” she answered and smiled.

  “I’ll remember you said that if I’m ever called to testify.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Marion!” C. C. was shocked by Marion’s language. I ignored it.

  “You told me that three people knew about the tape. There’s you and Carol Catherine,” I said. “Who’s the third?”

  “Thank you for your time,” Marion said.

  “It’s Anne Scalasi, isn’t it? That’s why you’re so confident. You think she’s protecting you.”

  “Your services are no longer required, Mr. Taylor,” Marion repeated with greater emphasis. “We can manage from here.”

  I stood before the desk, my ha
nds clenched. If she thought for one minute Anne Scalasi was protecting her, if she thought my best friend would cover up for murder … My God! She thinks Annie committed murder. For her. I was shaking my head from side to side when she said, “Good-bye, Mr. Taylor.”

  I was impressed by her coolness, her forced detachment. This was one situation that Marion had not planned, could not have foreseen, yet she would be damned if she was going to let it intrude on her grand design, interfere with the destiny she had ordained for herself and C. C. Monroe. Marion would do with this setback what I have always done with mine: She would deal with it. Well, I thought, deal with this … I took the four one-hundred-dollar bills from my pocket and fanned them on the desk in front of Marion. She looked at the bills and then at me.

  “Nothing in writing, remember?” I said. “I never met you. So, I have no professional obligation to you.”

  It was an expensive gesture, I know, but I wanted her to be worried about something, if not Thoreau, then me. Well, maybe too expensive. I snatched one of the bills off the desktop and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. “I had some unexpected expenses,” I announced.

  I left the office.

  “Good-bye, Holland,” C. C. called after me. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”

  NINE

  MY HOUSE IS a two-story Colonial built in 1926 by a well-to-do businessman who paid for its construction with silver dollars. In those days Roseville was all farm country. Now it’s one of the oldest suburbs in the Twin Cities, a bedroom community feeding both Minneapolis and St. Paul, populated by row after row of houses whose most prominent feature seems to be an attached garage. I don’t like the suburbs, probably because I’ve never felt comfortable there, and I don’t understand how other people can feel comfortable there. There’s no connection between the place and the residents, no sense of community. In the city you live on a street, you belong to a neighborhood. Schools, parks, the hamburger joint down the street, the bar up the block, the drugstore on the corner—they all become a part of you and you become a part of them, a fusion of identities. The suburbs? You can swap locations, mix and match the houses, change names and it wouldn’t matter, no one would notice. In the Cities, you can be an Eastsider or a Highland Parker or a Nordeaster. But you can only live in Roseville.

  I moved to Roseville at Laura’s insistence. She had wanted a suburban neighborhood. Jennifer was still a gleam in our eyes back then. Even so, Laura wanted to live where she insisted the schools were better, the crime was less and the children were safer. So we bought the house, paying more for it than we could afford, even on two incomes. Now I own it outright, having used Laura’s mortgage-insurance policy to pay it off—funny, we took out the policy on me to protect her; adding a rider for her was an afterthought. I’ve considered selling the house several times since Laura and Jennifer were killed, only I can’t bring myself to put up a FOR SALE sign under the willow tree in the front yard where Jennifer played. Maybe it’s because the house and what’s in it is all I have left of them—that and some photographs I’ve already committed to memory.

  I dropped the backpack on the kitchen table, opened it and retrieved the videotape, taking time first to read the note I found wedged in my front door. It was from Heather Schroten-boer. The note said she had come by about seven-thirty as planned and discovered I wasn’t home. She guessed I was working and said she would swing by about ten-thirty. It was now 10:23.

  I wanted to get to the videotape, but I also had to be ready for Heather. So I left the tape on the table and went upstairs to my bedroom. I unlocked the drawer built into the pedestal of my waterbed, selected a Beretta .380 from the guns I keep there and loaded it carefully. I slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans and went downstairs.

  I grabbed a handful of chocolate-chip cookies and the videotape and went into what I used to call the family room when I still had a family. Ogilvy, my gray-and-white French lop-eared rabbit, was waiting for me. I opened his cage and he hopped out. I scratched his nose for a moment and then went to the TV and VCR, turning both on. I slipped the tape into the VCR, grabbed the remote and went to the couch. Ogilvy hopped onto my lap and I petted him some more. “Want to watch a movie?” I asked him. The rabbit did not reply. The TV was dialed to “Monday Night Football.” The Bears were giving the Cowboys a game, trailing by three in the middle of the third quarter. I stayed with it for a minute, watching Steve Walsh, a local boy made good, complete his fifth consecutive pass for Chicago. I glanced at my watch: 10:35. I thought of Heather. If I worked this right, I should have time to catch the last quarter. Not that I’m a sports freak, mind you. I follow most games—football, basketball, hockey, golf, baseball—especially baseball, which we all know is the only sport God approves of. But I’m not a fanatic. I don’t go around reciting obscure statistics like the record number of consecutive Gold Gloves won by former Minnesota Twins southpaw Jim “Kitty” Kaat (it’s sixteen, by the way); it’s just a pleasant way to pass the time.

  I hit the play button on the remote …

  I sat in the dark, munching chocolate-chip cookies, watching the images flicker across the screen. I’ve seen porno films before, mostly at bachelor parties, and I’ve viewed them with disinterest. Only I didn’t know the stars of those films. This one I did. This one starred Carol Catherine Monroe.

  “She might be our next governor,” I told Ogilvy. He leaped off my lap and hopped to his cage, taking a hit of alfalfa.

  C. C. was lying in bed, nude except for a gold chain and bad lighting, caressing her co-star whom she identified simply as, “Fuck me, Dennis; fuck me, Dennis.” No inhibited language there. Dennis was an only slightly more lifelike version of the man I found earlier.

  The camera zoomed in close on C. C.’s face, her head rolling back and forth, strawberry locks frosted with gold covering her eyes. It pulled back to reveal what “Fuck me, Dennis” was doing to her, then panned in slowly again as C. C. moaned, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.”

  Oh, brother. I ate another cookie.

  I was not impressed. The film did not fill me with excitement. It emptied me, left me feeling the way I did when I was a child hiding in the bushes, watching the older kids coupling on “Bare Ass,” a white-sand beach along the Mississippi River. It was the same emptiness I felt several years later when my school friends and I lied our way into our first hard-core, quadruple X-rated film, paying five dollars to see just how unsexy sex can be.

  There was no love, no affection, no tenderness. Thoreau attacked C. C. like she was a speed bag, giving her about as much consideration. I understood him. I’ve known plenty of men who treat women as prey. What I did not understand was why a woman would put up with it, how she could find pleasure with him, how she could respond as C. C. was responding—rolling her head and wetting her lips and moaning like an animal in heat. And then it hit me and I understood perfectly.

  “It’s acting,” I said, waving my hand with a flourish at the TV screen. Acting, and nothing more.

  Someone used the brass knocker several times more than necessary to summon me to my front door, apparently not trusting the doorbell. I hit the stop button on the remote and C. C.’s film debut was replaced by the football game. Chicago had taken a four-point lead. I turned down the volume and went to the door. Ogilvy followed me.

  I peeped through the spy hole and saw Heather Schro-tenboer standing under the porch light, flicking invisible lint off her chest. Heather was dressed to kill, wearing a deep red, closely fitted slipdress that ended just above her knees, with triple spaghetti shoulder straps and a neckline that plunged to her waist. She also wore gold earrings and a gold bracelet but no necklace, although I kept searching for one anyway.

  I opened the door. “Hi, kid,” I said, turning my back to her, leading her into the living room. Did I say she looked like a high school girl? Not in my high school. I flashed on C. C. and Thoreau thrashing about the bed, warning myself to be smart.

  “Nice dress,” I told her.

  “Oh,
this old thing,” she replied, grinning.

  “You coming from somewhere?”

  “No,” she said. “I just felt like dressing for the occasion. What I was wearing the last time we met, I’m sure you thought I was a boy.”

  “No,” I admitted. “I never thought that.”

  “Do you think I’m attractive?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said slowly under my breath.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I think you’re attractive.”

  She smiled. “I think you’re attractive, too,” she said.

  “It must be the light.”

  She floated—C’mon, Taylor, get a grip!—She walked to me and ran her fingers under my collar. She spoke into my neck; her breath was sweet and warm. “Why did the police arrest you?” she asked.

  “They thought I killed a guy.”

  She didn’t even flinch. “Did you?” she asked, practically begging to become a co-conspirator.

  “How could I? I was with you.”

  “It must be exciting.”

  “What?”

  “Killing a man.”

  “Huh?”

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me hungrily, making soft animal-like moans as she ground her lips against mine. I was tempted—oh Lord, I was tempted—only that wasn’t why I invited her to my house. I pulled her arms down and pushed her away. She looked at me, more amused than surprised. Until she saw the gun I was pointing at her heart. She backed away slowly, her eyes never leaving the barrel. I waited three steps, four. On the fifth I squeezed off three rounds, angling the gun toward the carpet, careful not to splatter her dress and all that bare flesh with powder. She fell back into and then out of a stuffed chair, landing on the hardwood floor, the hem of her short skirt hiked to midthigh. She stared at me, terror stricken, her mouth hanging open.