Chapter Ten
Ten
Roger had arrived just after nine, as Beverley was anxiously turning a whiskey sour in her hands.
She knew she couldn’t ask him about Emily Roswell, the name she had heard on the radio, straightaway. She’d likely get as much information as he’d given her about Cheryl Herrera, which was next to nothing. So she’d removed his coat, hung it on the rack and allowed him to lead her upstairs.
It’s the behavior of a mistress, a shameful routine she has mastered since things began, with a crappy cup of coffee at a diner off the interstate.
Henry had been sentenced and was already at San Quentin.
Roger had kept in touch, telling Beverley to drop him a line if she ever needed anything, anything at all.
He was grateful for how she had cooperated with the police when they were looking to strengthen their case after Henry’s arrest. Beverley had given them everything, whatever they wanted: free rein in the house, access to Henry’s business papers, her family’s calendars, photographs, water from the taps and food from the fridge.
At that point, she’d have done anything to ward off the finger-pointing, the of course she knews.
But there was something else. She felt she owed Roger.
When Henry had been arrested, Roger was one of the only people to treat her with kindness instead of hostility and suspicion.
She had been dumbstruck, entirely numb, when the police knocked on her door and told her why they were taking her husband, but Roger had placed a hand on her shoulder and gently told her to pack a bag and grab some clothes for Benjamin and the baby.
“We’re going to take you to a hotel and check you in under a different name, okay?
” His voice was gravelly but warm. “The press won’t know you’re there.
You’re going to stay there for a few days while we search your home. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Those were the words she’d needed to hear, and she’d clung to them. She still does.
She was so lonely, back in the house, once the cops had eventually left, when there was no more digging and probing and the walls rang with silence.
How could they expect her simply to tidy up behind them and continue with the rest of her life?
She had been granted an emergency divorce from Henry; he hadn’t contested it.
She had money of her own, from her modeling when she was a teen, and she owned the house, not Henry, so in theory she would never need a man again.
But the isolation, the shame, the endless, gnawing questions, the waking up to find the planters smashed out front, the accusations hurled from the open windows of passing cars—it all got to her after a while.
So she’d called Roger, and gratefully swallowed the kindness he extended.
“Is there anything I could have done to stop it?” she asked him as they sat across from each other, her nails picking at the flimsy checkered tablecloth.
She’s seen it since—survivors of tragedy will often look back and talk about the small signs of impending disaster.
The minute yet seismic details that indicated that their day was about to be different, that their life was about to change.
They’d smashed a glass that morning, perhaps; there was something uneasy about the quality of the air in their house; they’d burned their toast. But Beverley hadn’t known, hadn’t woken up feeling any differently at all on the morning Henry was arrested.
The diner smelled of frying onions and stale coffee.
Hamburgers sat untouched on Beverley’s and Roger’s plates.
Curtis Lee was on the radio, “Pretty Little Angel Eyes.” She’d waited for the detective to answer.
She needed him to say no. She needed him to say there was nothing she could have done differently.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Lightfoot.”
“It’s Edwards now.” She glanced nervously at her plate. Relish was oozing from the burger.
Roger sighed, reached for his food, then thought better of it, folded his arms. “It’s possible he displayed some transgressive behaviors that you missed, but you can’t be blamed for that.”
Her eyes shot up to his, her heart quickening with gratitude. He didn’t blame her. He didn’t think it was all her fault.
“These guys”—he slowly leaned back in his seat, spread his legs—“they’re clever.
They pass by unnoticed, get away with these things for so long, because they are masters at manipulating those around them.
” He leaned forward again, put his large hand flat on the table, and she was sure she could see his forefinger move almost imperceptibly toward hers.
“A woman like you didn’t stand a chance. ”
Roger came around after that. She was careful to keep their trysts hidden from the children.
Benjamin and Audrey were still very young—they wouldn’t know what was going on—but hiding it all from them meant she could almost pretend to herself that it wasn’t happening, that she hadn’t become the sort of woman her mother would despise.
She rarely asked about his wife. The details she gleaned from Roger’s passing comments did nothing to make her feel any better about their deception.
Enid was British; she knew that, at least. Her family had moved over after the First World War and had settled in California.
Enid had been a schoolteacher for a while—kindergarten—before Roger’s job took over their lives.
She was athletic, Beverley gathered, accomplished—golf, swimming, that sort of thing.
Beverley could barely lift a tennis racket.
“There are three kinds of police officers,” Roger says now as he steps under the showerhead, his hair darkening to slate in the hot water, “because there are different reasons people become cops.”
She asked him why he’d joined the police.
It’s a habit of hers: asking questions that demand complex answers—a means to keep him here, with her.
She steps into the shower and reaches for the soap behind him, then runs the bar vigorously across her nails.
She resents the fact that she will never feel truly clean again, no matter how hard she scrubs in the shower.
“You’ve got your guys who fall into it,” Roger continues. “Maybe their fathers were cops, or they didn’t know what else to do, figured it would be an easy life—free coffee, paperwork at the station—the guys who do the bare minimum, wear the uniform, get fat, collect their pension.”
She begins lathering his chest, comforted by the feel of his bones, his flesh, the hard reality of his body.
“Then you’ve got your guys with a point to prove.
Now, these guys can be dangerous. They’re here for a reason.
I heard about a guy in Saratoga”—he lifts his elbows so she can soap his armpits—“who joined up because his own daughter was murdered. Smart guy, a good cop, but emotionally he wasn’t fit for it, wound up shooting two innocent guys because he liked them for a kidnapping case.
Obsession—that’s what happens when you bring your own baggage into the job. ”
“And the third?” She reaches around to his back, smoothing the soap over the muscles there, once taut but now softened with age.
“The third are those who do it because they know what’s just.” He moves a strand of wet hair from her forehead. “They know there are people born bad, and that those who aren’t, the people like you, need protecting—simple as that.”
“I take it you’re the third kind?” She smiles. She knows Roger feels overlooked in his job, always playing second fiddle to Cornwell.
“Well”—he tips his head back, allows the water to fall across his face—“if you think it fits, I’ll go with that.
” He grins, then bends to kiss her, hard.
She lets him, allowing the tension in her body to uncoil as he moves his mouth down, across her neck, to her breasts and stomach, until he is kneeling before her.
When he kisses her there, the hot water easing the knots in her shoulders, she feels herself unspooling, and any thoughts of the police ebb with the steam.
When he has finished, they return to the bedroom and Roger asks her to fetch his cigarettes. She quickly obliges, pulling on a robe and descending to the hallway. She reaches for his coat and pats down the pockets—putting aside movie stubs and receipts for car repairs—to retrieve the box.
Back up in the bedroom, Roger pushes the corner of a towel into his ear and jiggles it. Beverley takes a Lucky Strike from the box and places it between his lips, slowly lighting it for him. He takes a drag and leans his head back blissfully. She uses the opportunity to ask him about Emily Roswell.
“Sure. We found a girl,” he admits, blowing out a curl of smoke.
She knows Roger secretly likes that she takes an interest in his work. She knows Enid doesn’t. She knows he likes it because it gives him a chance to sing his own praises.
“Where was she?”
She knows the answer—she heard it on the radio—but she wants to see if he will be honest with her this time.
“On the golf course.”
She holds his gaze.
“Where on the golf course?”
Roger takes the cigarette away from his mouth, tilts his head suspiciously. “The divers found her.”
“Did she drown?”
“No, she didn’t drown.” He flicks ash into the tray. “She was dumped there after she was killed.”
“Strangled?”
“Bev.”
“Was she strangled?” She repeats the question with feeling. Cheryl Herrera, the young track athlete, had been strangled.
“She had been stabbed, okay?” Roger concedes. “Multiple times.”
“Damn it.”
“What do you mean, damn it?” Ash has fallen on the bedspread. He flicks it off. “Bev?”
“Were there any unusual details?”
“What’s going on here?” He studies her face.
She knows that means there must have been something. She ties her nightgown and reaches for his shirt, then holds it out to him. He plunges his arms in, one by one, like a child, then sighs.
“Her hands,” he says quietly.