Color of Blood(75)

***

She said almost nothing to him while driving west on the Stirling Highway, toward the Indian Ocean and the setting sun.

They had spent the day apart; Judy had worked until early evening, and Dennis had busied himself with his map and sticky notes. When they finally connected, she seemed distant and curt. He could not tell whether she was angry or just tired, but he insisted they see each other that evening to review his notes on her problem.

“Let’s get you out of Perth,” she said, driving away from the city.

“What are we having for dinner?”

“Fish and chips,” she said. “In Swanbourne: near the water. You like fish?”

“Yes,” he said. “Don’t love it, but if it means you’ll sit down and look at these phone records, then I’ll eat fish.”

She did not answer his challenge. After another ten minutes of silence, Dennis—who was no stranger to awkward silences—became restless.

“Are you pissed off about something?” he said.

“I’m not sure.”

“How can you not be sure?”

“I’m just trying to figure you out,” she said. “Simon is due back late next week, and I need to act. And I would have already acted, but you have convinced me not to disclose anything to the AFP. And I can’t figure out whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I don’t blame you for not trusting me. We hardly know each other, but if you don’t believe I can help you, then perhaps you should contact the AFP. I wouldn’t blame you.”

She drove on for another minute in silence.

“Is there something I should know about you?” she asked. “I mean are you suffering from some kind of psychological problem that I should know about? You told me that you’re seeing a psychiatrist.”

“I’m seeing a psychologist, not a psychiatrist,” he said.

“What’s the difference?”

“One gives meds, the other does talk therapy. I need talk, not meds.”

“Is it because of your wife’s death? Was that it?”

“Yes,” he said, turning away and looking at the gas stations and small strip malls whizzing by.

“I’m sure it must have been awful to lose your wife,” she said. “But are you seeing the psychologist because of your work or anything like that?”

“No: just my wife.”

“I’m sorry. You must have loved her deeply.”

“I think it was more guilt than love.”

“Guilt? What do you have to be guilty about?”

“It’s a little complicated.”

“Everything’s complicated with you. Go ahead, try me,” Judy pressed.

Dennis stared out the side window.

Judy was determined not to speak to save Dennis discomfort; she desperately needed to find out more about this man. She found him both thrilling and strange, but good strange or bad strange?

They drove on for another minute, and Dennis suddenly started talking as if he were halfway through a story.

“I usually asked Martha—my wife’s name was Martha—to pick me up from Reagan Airport or Dulles, depending on where I was coming from. This one time I was scheduled to stay in New York for one more night, but at the last moment the meeting was canceled, and I switched flights. But I forgot to call Martha, and when I got in it was eleven p.m., so I just took a cab. I called home while in the cab and no one answered.”

Judy leaned a little toward Dennis because he was talking very quietly. She pulled up to the small fish-and-chips shop and parked. The sun was sitting low on the horizon, and a cool Indian Ocean breeze whispered past the car. She wound down her window to let the air in.

“When I got home it was near midnight, and Martha wasn’t home. Her car wasn’t there, either. So I got a little worried and called her cell phone, and it just went to voicemail. After I hung up, Martha called me right back. She said she’d seen the call was from me. I asked her where she was, and she said she was with her girlfriend, Mary. She sounded a little tipsy, and I told her to take a cab or just stay over, but she insisted on driving and said she’d be home as fast as she could. I called her back a few minutes later to talk her out of it, but it went to voicemail.”

Judy heard the tension in his voice.

“About forty-five minutes later I got nervous because she should have been home by then. And that’s when I got the call: Maryland State Police. Martha had been in an accident. She had lost control doing eighty miles per hour on the Beltway and hit an abutment: killed instantly. Toxicology report later showed she was drunk.”

Judy reached over and put her hand on Dennis’s arm. “I’m very sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked you about this. Let’s go inside and get a bite to eat.”

Dennis did not move.

“She wasn’t with Mary that evening,” he said, staring at the silhouetted Norfolk pine trees bordering the street and the beach beyond. “She was having an affair with someone she worked with. Guy was divorced. It had been going on for a while. She hadn’t expected me home that evening, so she was going to spend the night with him.”

Judy felt like the air had been sucked out of the car, and she experienced a brief wave of dizziness. She dropped her hand off his arm and started to speak, then stopped.