Whiskey Beach(21)
“Ten minutes.”
“Ten,” she agreed. “Where do you want me to set up? There’s plenty of room up in your bedroom.”
“Here’s fine.” Stuck, he gestured toward the main parlor. He could push her out of the house faster from there.
“All right. Why don’t you start a fire while I set up? I’d like the room warm.”
He’d intended to light a fire. He’d gotten distracted, lost track of time. He could start a fire, give her ten minutes—in exchange for her leaving him the hell alone.
But it still pissed him off.
He hunkered down by the hearth to stack kindling. “Aren’t you worried about being here?” he demanded. “Alone with me?”
Abra unzipped the cover on her portable table. “Why would I be?”
“A lot of people think I killed my wife.”
“A lot of people think global warming is a hoax. I don’t happen to agree.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I might do under any given set of circumstances.”
She set up her table, folded away the cover, movements precise and practiced—and unhurried. “I don’t know what you’d do under any given set of circumstances, but I know you didn’t kill your wife.”
The calm, conversational tone of her voice infuriated him. “Why? Because my grandmother doesn’t think I’m a murderer?”
“That would be one reason.” She smoothed a fleece cover on the table, covered it with a sheet. “Hester’s a smart, self-aware woman—and one who cares about me. If she had even the smallest doubt, she would have told me to stay away from you. But that’s just one reason. I have several others.”
As she spoke she set a few candles around the room, lit them. “I work for your grandmother, and have a personal friendship with her. I live in Whiskey Beach, which is Landon territory. So I followed the story.”
The lurking black cloud of depression rolled back in. “I’m sure everybody did around here.”
“That’s natural, and human. Just as disliking, and resenting, the fact that people are talking about you, reaching conclusions about you, is natural and human. I reached my own conclusion. I saw you, on TV, in the paper, on the Internet. And what I saw was shock, sadness. Not guilt. What I see now? Stress, anger, frustration. Not guilt.”
As she spoke she took a band from around her wrist and, with a few flicks, secured her hair in a tail. “I don’t think the guilty lose much sleep. One other—though as I said I have several—you’re not stupid. Why would you kill her the same day you argued with her in public? The same day you learned you had a lever to dump some dirt on her in the divorce?”
“First degree wasn’t on the table. I was pissed. Crime of passion.”
“Well, that’s bullshit,” she said as she retrieved her massage oil. “You were so passionate you went into your own house and prepared to take three items—arguably your property? The case against you didn’t stand, Eli, because it was, and is, weak. They proved the time you entered because you switched off the house alarm, and have the time of your nine-one-one call, and because people know the time you left your office that evening. So you were in the house for less than twenty minutes. But in that small window of time you went upstairs, into the safe—taking only your great-grandmother’s ring—came down, took the painting you’d bought off the wall, wrapped it in bathroom towels, killed your wife in a fit of passion, then called the police. All in under twenty minutes?”
“The police reconstruction proved it was possible.”
“But not probable,” she countered. “Now we can stand here debating the case against you, or you can just take my word that I’m not worried you’re going to kill me because you don’t like hospital corners on your bed or the way I fold your socks.”
“Things aren’t as simple as you make them.”
“Things are rarely as simple or as complicated as anyone makes them. I’m going to use the powder room to wash up. Go ahead and undress, get on the table. I’ll start you faceup.”
In the powder room Abra shut her eyes, did a full minute of yoga breathing. She understood perfectly well he’d lashed out at her to push her out, scare her off. But all he’d done was annoy her.
In order to expel stress, dark thoughts, frustrations with massage, she couldn’t hold on to any of her own. She continued to clear her mind as she washed her hands.
When she stepped back in, she saw him on the table, under the top sheet—and board stiff. Didn’t he understand that even that weighed on his innocence for her? He’d made a bargain, and though he was angry, he’d keep it.