Red Blooded Murder

Before I could respond, she turned, and then Jane Augustine was gone.

8

Jane sat in Zac’s studio in their basement. They always did their best talking while he worked. Her husband’s back was to her. Years ago, he used to be hunched over the wet tray in the dark room. Now he hunched in front of the computer or over his printer, searching for the blackest of blacks, switching papers from Portfolio to Silver Rag to Maestro.

“You want to tell me who it was?” He didn’t turn, his eyes firmly on the screen.

The image there was one of a pink balcony hanging precariously over an orange brick alleyway just off Belden Avenue in Chicago. Back Alleys was the title of Zac’s photographic exhibit at an art gallery here in town. He’d been successful with these photos of alleys in New York and D.C., and he’d finally felt it was time to feature the town he had called home for almost a decade. The show had been so successful, selling hundreds of photos in the three weeks since the opening, that Zac had been working constantly to fill the orders. He’d been on a roll and had been happy lately. But then he’d returned early from meeting his agent in New York and found Jane missing.

It wasn’t that such a thing hadn’t happened before. In days past, sometimes, Zac actually wanted to know a few details—what they did to her, what she did to them. Sometimes the details got him excited. Other times, he was only putting up with her and her dalliances because he loved her.

Today was definitely one of the latter.

She could tell this from the way Zac’s lat muscles tensed under his stylishly worn T-shirt, originally black but grayed from so much washing. She could tell from the way his movements were fast and sharp, rather than relaxed, almost dreamy, the way he usually worked when he was happy.

“Just some—” she started to say.

“Just some guy?” he interrupted, his voice edged with impatience.

“Something like that.” Although that wasn’t true. He was some guy who’d been following her. Some creep who’d been making notations about the most minute, private things in her life. Despite her public job, Jane hated for her life to be made public. And she’d been lucky because her affairs had always existed in a void for her.

Zac cleared his throat, a habit of his that sprang up when he had something to say which he didn’t feel confident about, but something he’d thought about for a long time.

It was so strange how well she knew him. In many ways, she knew him better than she knew herself; she understood the reasons for his behavior so much better than she did her own. For example, she was a wife who cheated, and according to most people she was wanton, immoral and wrong. And although she had her reasons for it, ninety percent of the time she agreed with those people. It was the ten percent she had told Izzy about. The ten percent that got her into trouble.

She’d promised Zac recently that she wouldn’t do it anymore, that she would be a proper wife who never strayed. She meant it, too, but it was harder than she thought. And yet, she had expected him to forgive her. But now there was this edge to his back, this fuming energy that poured off him.

“Are you all right?” she said.

He turned to face her.

He rarely looked at her during these types of discussions. Usually he kept working, as if he were more comfortable to let his words rise from a blank canvas rather than let her see his expression.

But now he was definitely looking, and there was nothing resembling forgiveness there. What she saw was anger, along with something she hadn’t ever seen before. Something like disgust.

9

John Mayburn walked in ten minutes late. I pointed at my watch as he strolled to the table.

“Sorry,” he mouthed, a smile on his face.

It was the smile that threw me.

At his job during the week, when he met with lawyers like me (the lawyer I used to be) who wanted him to dig up dirt on a plaintiff, Mayburn wore a boring navy-blue suit or slacks and a jacket, a button-down shirt underneath that was starched so stiff it could stand on its own. When I got to know him better, I learned that on the nights and weekends, he was rather relaxed. So the stylish jeans, Ramones T-shirt and beat-up brown boots he wore now didn’t throw me. It was definitely the smile.

“What’s with you?” I said, as he slipped into the seat opposite me.

“What do you mean?” He picked up a large, laminated menu. We were at a café on Webster, named John’s Place.

“You’re chipper.”

“I’ve barely said two words. Why would you think I’m chipper?” He glanced at the menu. “The Cobb sounds good, doesn’t it?” He glanced back up at me, then shook his head. “Jesus, that did sound chipper.”

“So, what’s the deal?”

He shrugged. “Sorry I was late. I had to drop someone off.”

“You had to drop someone off? Did you have someone spend the night?” Like I did, I almost added.

“Shut it.” He kept looking at the menu. “I took someone to the hardware store this morning.”

It sounded innocuous, but he still had a faint smile on his lips.

The waiter came over then. Mayburn ordered a club sandwich. I asked for an omelet with red peppers, since I hadn’t gotten to eat the one Theo made that morning.

“Are you dating someone?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone I’ve known for a while … well, kind of.”

“Is it Meredith?” Mayburn had told me that he’d once dated a gallery owner named Meredith Saga, a woman who lived for art and sex and little else.

“No Sagas for me.”

“So who?”

“Why are you so nosy?”

“Why won’t you tell me?”

Mayburn seemed to be looking at anything but me now. He studied the family at the next table. He frowned at their baby, who was in a stroller as big as an RV and blocking the aisle.

All the while, I stayed silent. It was one of the smartest things I’d learned from being a lawyer—the best way to make someone tell you something is not to badger them with questions but to confront them with silence. And then there were the things Mayburn himself had taught me—when you’re surveying someone, listen to everything, look at everything. Especially look at what people do as much as what they say. Look at what they don’t say, too.

A few seconds ticked by. Then a few more. Finally, Mayburn met my eyes. “You want to know who it is?”

“Yeah.”

“Lucy.”

One of the other things the law had taught me was to never show shock. But it was impossible at that moment.

“Lucy DeSanto?” I blurted so loud that the baby in the stroller began to cry.

“Yeah.”