Fault Line Read online

  My, my, but Jack was good. He had made it sound like the Sidney Smeeth case was the last thing in creation that would interest him. In spite of myself, I began to take notes regarding technique and style.

  Ted took the bait hook, line, and sinker. “But you should be interested in this,” he continued. “Because it is murder, And more than that, much more.”

  My estimation of Ted’s intelligence had just tripled, gullible or no. Or was there something much darker about his interest? Was he like a firebug who shows up in the crowd of spectators while the firefighters try to douse the flaming house? I held very still, hoping that Logan wouldn’t tell him to shut up.

  Jack kept his attention on my ankle. He’d just finished up with the elastic bandage and was now putting my sock back on over it, tickling my toes as he went.

  Logan’s attention flicked from Jack to Ted and back to Jack. He seemed content to listen.

  As Jack had still not risen to his bait, Ted said, “Look, this is how I’ve got it figured: Sid directed the Utah Geological Survey, sure, but she wasn’t just an administrator. No. She was all over the place. In Washington just last week, meeting with senators and congresspeople. Getting crosswise with the ones who want to open up the national parks and wilderness areas for oil exploration. Lobbying the Department of Energy about that and high-level nuclear waste. Pissing off the Indians who want to charge big bucks to have it buried on their reservation. Getting on the Religious Right for teaching creationism in schools and calling it science. Oh, and she was death on the state of earthquake preparedness for the Olympics. Climbing up everybody’s butts about planning and all. Ripping the mining interests a new asshole about the tailings ponds just west of the airport that would have failed Monday if the shock had been any bigger or had gone on just a little longer. Hell, the list goes on and on. I mean, so what do you say?”

  Jack had pulled the sock off my other foot and now began to rub it. “Well, I dunno,” he said doubtfully. “There’s lots of people as gets mad at others in the course of their work, but that don’t mean someone’s gonna kill ’em for it.”

  Oh, so it’s going to be Bubba Jack again. I put down my tea and sank blissfully into the pillows Jack had put under me. He was not only good at taping ankles; he was a master at rubbing feet. He had found my great weakness in life. I prayed that he would string Ted along for hours.

  Logan caught my eye. He was beginning to smile tartly, like something was very, very funny.

  I squinted one eye back at him, trying to tell him, Yeah, this is pretty good, so don’t interrupt.

  Logan grinned.

  I grinned back. This was fun. I hadn’t let myself flirt in ages. Just then, Jack hit an especially fine spot and I groaned. I thought, If Mrs. Pierce only knew.

  As if reading my mind, Logan said, “Keep it down, Em, or your dragon lady downstairs will call in the Vice Squad.”

  “Vice, I do,” Jack said, getting into the game. “Just love busting up something nice and naughty. I can see myself giving testimony now. ‘Mrs. Pierce, dear, yes, I observed the defendant to be enjoying that entirely medicinal foot rub I was giving her. It was dis-gus-ting. Throw her out on the street.’”

  I sighed. “Guilty as charged.”

  Jack gave my foot a final pat and stood up abruptly. “Anything else you need before I go?” he asked, a certain resonance in his voice.

  Go?

  Ted was on his feet instantly. “Hey, wait! I mean, there’s more! Maybe I could take you for a beer or something. I mean, we’re all back early, and—”

  “Sure, why not?” Jack said, as if he were doing Ted a big fat favor. “And maybe you can teach me more about that glue you guys use to keep them rocks together, too.”

  “That’s my department,” Logan said. “Ted’s the one that busts the rocks. I’m the glue guy.”

  FIVE MINUTES AFTER they left, Tom Latimer telephoned. “My condolences,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Your ankle. Your love life. Katie should be shot.”

  “Did Faye tell you?” I demanded. This was the limit. I had about enough privacy left to clothe a gnat.

  “No. Jack called on the cell phone just now to report. He’s on his way to have a beer with Ted someone and … let’s see here; I wrote it down … .”

  “Logan de Pontier. Cajun engineering geologist. You want to know his favorite color? Taste in pizza? Because that’s all I’ve got. And I don’t know why you’re calling me. I’m out of action. I’m—”

  “He told me about the bit with Katie and the radio.”

  I had to press my lips together so I wouldn’t cry. I was glad that Tom was only on the telephone, not in the room. At the same time, I wished he was there to pat me on the back and tell me it was all going to be okay.

  Tom said, “Listen, my advice? Get something to wrap your mind around. You just took a hell of a blow. You’re going to be there for a while with nothing to do. That would drive me nuts. So put your mind to the information you have already. See if you can spot the pattern in what you have. Connect the dots. Then give me a call, whenever.” His voice went deeper, more gentle. “And call even if you don’t have anything to tell me.”

  His caring was the hardest to take of all.

  FAYE SHOWED UP a couple of hours later. As she ushered me back into bed, she said, “I’ve decided that I have watched you beat up on yourself long enough. Here, I’ve brought you a book to read.”

  “What’s that for?” I asked, staring at it. Waking the Tiger, by Peter Levine. It was looked suspiciously like a self-help book.

  “For your ankle,” she said. “And for the leg you broke last summer, and everything that broke inside your mind when that happened, and when you got shot at before that, and threatened, and crashed helicopters, and almost crashed airplanes, and for all those times you came off your horse barrel racing. Not to mention every time your mother … wasn’t there for you.”

  “A book is going to fix all that.”

  “It’s a book about why the human species has so much trouble dealing with things that frighten us. A friend told me about it. Read it. It might apply.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said grumpily. “Have you read it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you read it first.”

  “I’ve got other things on my mind,” Faye said, and quickly changed the subject. “I have to hand it to old Jack-o. That boy can really put two and two together. He meets Katie just once and figures out that’s her voice over the radio and what she’s up to. Pretty good, huh? And he seems to like you.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  My blood boiled all over again. “This is great. Tom and Jack and who knows who else are sitting around down there at the FBI offices discussing what set ol’ Emmy off so badly that she’s got to take a dive and screw her ankle up. Hey, but this is the FBI we’re talking about; they specialize in invading privacy. I suppose they’ve got a tap on my phone. Or is that your department?”

  Faye pulled the straight-backed chair away from the small dining table that doubled as a desk and sat down. “Sarcasm does not become you,” she informed me.

  My ankle had begun to ache in earnest. “Listen, Faye, this is really the limit. I know you’ve got things on your mind you’d rather not think about, but making a project out of micromanaging my life instead has got to stop. Both you and Tom. And Ray. I mean, who died and made the bunch of you king, anyway?”

  “Sorry.”

  “It seems everybody’s got an agenda for me these days. You want me to become a social butterfly, Tom wants me to become Sherlock Holmes, and Ray wants me to become a Mormon housewife. Or not. No, Ray wants me to dry up and blow away so Miss Perfect can become his Mormon housewife. Start cranking out a passel of little Raymonds, keep the name going, fill up the rest of the portrait wall at Ava’s house.”

  “You’re right, I’ve been a controlling shit.” She stared at the floor.

  “You’re damned straight you have!”

 
; Neither of us said anything for a while. It was a strange moment, me all jacked up with a bad ankle and she nauseated from an unplanned pregnancy. “We’re a pair,” I said finally. When she didn’t reply, I added, “I suppose you’ve come for your car keys. Did you have to take a cab again? I can give you the money for it.”

  She shook her head. “No. The car’s at my house, remember? And I have a second set of keys. Did you get an estimate on your truck yet?”

  I laughed mirthlessly. “No. It was towed. I haven’t even called around to see where it is. I consider it my ex truck.”

  Faye continued to stare at the floor. “Well, you keep the Porsche. You’ll be driving again before I will. I mean, unless …”

  “Is that the deal? You haven’t been driving because of the nausea?”

  She squirmed in the chair. “Yeah. That, and … well, right now I don’t really trust myself. It seems too dangerous to get behind a wheel.”

  About then, I finally figured it out. “Ohhh … I get it: You’ve lost your self-confidence. Here you’re the big hot pilot, all in control, and you can’t even control what’s happening in your own body.”

  She didn’t argue.

  Trying to make it sound lighter than it felt, I said, “So you’re scared even to drive a car, let alone fly an airplane, but why not distract yourself by controlling Em’s life? Go ahead, everyone else seems to do it, and she never complains.”

  “Hardly ever. That’s why you’re in so deep with Ray’s family.”

  I let that sink in awhile. “Ouch,” I said.

  “You should have made a stink a long time ago,” Faye suggested. “Probably before you moved here. Not that I’d prefer you hadn’t come.”

  “Want some tea?” I asked desperately.

  “Nah, even herb tea makes me puke these days.”

  “That’s the pits,” I said, glad to have the topic off of me.

  “Oh well,” Faye said, letting out a long, shaky breath, “I know a cure.”

  Her words hit like a bolt of lightning. “Wait a minute! You’re not talking about getting an abortion? I thought you said you wanted this baby!”

  “I want a baby. Not necessarily this baby.”

  “Damn it, Faye, you don’t get to pick and choose. Next thing, you’re going to be one of those assholes who’s injecting genes so you’ll get Einstein on a football scholarship.”

  “But she’s got to play piano like Rachmaninoff,” Faye parried.

  I reached out and swatted her knee. “So that’s not it. What is it? Ohhhhh, I get it: Tom doesn’t want the baby. Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have made fun.”

  Faye shook her head. “No, that’s not it, either.”

  I reeled in my hand and closed my eyes. “Faye? Dear friend? I’m trying to be understanding here, and, like, figure this out, but help me a little, okay?”

  In a tiny voice, Faye said, “Tom hasn’t said anything because I still haven’t told Tom.”

  “What?”

  “I—I can’t. I keep opening my mouth, but nothing comes out.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “I don’t know! Oh hell, I know exactly. I’m afraid he’s going to be upset. I’m afraid he doesn’t want the child. I’m afraid he doesn’t want to be a father. I’m afraid—”

  “You think he’ll leave you?”

  She looked up. “Why would that be a problem? No, in fact, you may have struck on something here.”

  “Faye, you’re not making sense.”

  “I’m being droll. I … um, love Tom, but it would not be the end of the world if he left.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Well, it would simplify things. I could just raise the kid and make a life out of that, and that would be okay, right?”

  “You tell me. No, that sounds like selfish bullshit. Think of the kid, and all that. So that’s not it. So you tell me why you want him to leave.”

  Faye began to shake. “Because I don’t want to raise a kid with a daddy who might get killed any minute, that’s why!”

  I reached out and grabbed her arm. “Faye, listen. He could take early retirement. God knows, he’s old enough.”

  “Thanks a lot!” she said hotly. “I’m not getting any younger, myself!”

  “So now you’re arguing the other side of the issue, saying you need to have this child because you hear the clock ticking down. No way, Faye. I’m not telling you that you should have kept your knees together until Mr. Perfect came along, but didn’t you at least think about this before you and Tom went to bed?”

  “Well … sort of. In an abstract sort of way. A … a long time ago.”

  “Like maybe when you were eighteen, and a freshman in college, and thinking you’d like to go to bed with the first guy you fell for, and in your eighteen-year-old wisdom you decided that come what may, you could deal with it. And, as you haven’t been caught until now, there seemed little reason to revisit that decision.”

  “You’re lethal, Em.”

  “No, I just have a pretty good memory of what adolescence was like myself. But hey, now we’re almost twice eighteen. Life seems a bit more precious now, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sighed. “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Tell him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “He already knows.”

  “I know.”

  “He hasn’t left yet.”

  “That’s what scares me.”

  “Let him love you.”

  Faye looked up. “What are you talking about? Of course he loves me!”

  I shook my head. “Define love. He feels strong, warm, happy feelings toward you, yes. He’s made love to you. Now let him make love an active verb. I hear it’s what all couples have to face if they stay together long enough. It’s a lot of work to love someone. It’s a choice. A devotion. You have to give up your pride, and your privacy. Be willing to give in. Compromise. Hey, think of the word’s roots: ‘promise together.’ You’re the one who took all that Latin.”

  Faye thought about this for a long time. “But I’d also be doing all that for the child.”

  “Same but different. One relationship is adult to adult, the other parent to child.”

  “It was simpler when it was just me, the house, the Porsche, and the plane.”

  “I know.” I didn’t point out that it was in fact her, the house, the Porsche, the plane, and the trust fund. That seemed too harsh.

  “But what about Tom?” She asked. “Do you think he’s good for it?”

  It was my turn to think. “I don’t know. But it’s his child, too. Half the responsibility is his.”

  “Yes. But half the choice?”

  “Now you’re getting on marshier ground. I’m just suggesting you talk to him about it. Let him support you in this. Like he’s already doing, I might point out.”

  WE WERE INTERRUPTED by a knock at the door. Faye got up to answer it. I was just opening my mouth to say something witty about being in Grand Central Station, when she pulled the door open and I realized that it was Ray.

  He was standing there in his uniform, hands jammed deep into his pockets. His radio squawked. His patrol partner stood behind him, looking acutely embarrassed, and behind him, peering around his shoulder, stood Mrs. Pierce, looking snippy.

  Ray caught sight of my bandaged ankle. “What happened?” he asked, his face shifting confusedly from imminent thunder to partly cloudy.

  Completely startled to see him there, I said, stupidly, “Nothing.”

  Faye said, “Well, hi there, Ray. I was just going.”

  Ray turned bright red.

  I groaned. “I think he wants you to stay, Faye.”

  Ray squeezed his eyes shut.

  Faye looked over Ray’s shoulder out into the hall. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Pierce, Officer what’s-your-name, I’m here to chaperone these fully grown adults. You can go on back down to your apartment.” She pulled Ray into the room. “I’m
going into the bathroom to run some niee loud water,” she told him, then added, “Better talk fast, Ray, we live in a desert.” As she moved to close the door, she leaned out through it and called, “I said no, Mrs. Pierce. Sideshow not open today!” Instead of stepping into the bathroom, she headed out into the hall and proceeded to usher Mrs. Pierce and the other policeman toward the stairs, closing the door behind her.

  Ray shot a look as dark as eagle’s breath at the door and then turned it on me.

  “What?” I said indignantly.

  “I don’t appreciate being summoned by your landlady,” he said tightly. Then he looked at my ankle. “What happened?” he asked again. This time, it sounded almost like an accusation.

  Furious, I jumped off the bed, landing hard on that foot. My leg buckled out from under me with the pain. Ray’s expression again flip-flopped from rage to shock and sympathy as he stepped forward to catch me, but I grabbed the edge of the bed and waved him off. “No,” I said. “You stay right where you are.”

  Now Ray looked confused and anxious.

  “What,” I spat, “now I’m getting indignation? Try looking through the glass from my side. Mrs. Pierce calls you to tell you I’ve got men up in my room, and you have the gall to come over here and give me shit? Where did ‘Em’s a grown woman, Mrs. Pierce, and there’s no law against having guests’ go?”

  Ray blurted, “Did you have men here or not?”

  I glared at him. Was he jealous?

  He said, “And how do you think that looks?”

  If I had been a rattlesnake, I would have been coiling by then, ready to strike. “It looks like I sprained my ankle, Ray, and it looks like a couple of nice gentlemen helped me up to my apartment, made me a cup of tea, and bandaged me up. Just exactly what part of that justifies your anger or presumption or invasion of my privacy?”

  Ray’s normally ruddy skin turned white. “What happened to your ankle?”

  “I fell down skiing,” I growled between clenched teeth.

  Ray’s face darkened again. “How is that my fault?” He threw his hands out in confusion, asking the four walls of the room to explain this to him.