He scoffed. “You’re a writer and that’s the worst insult you can come up with? Baby sister also has the vocabulary of a maiden missionary. If you want me to, I can help you with some bad words.”
“I won’t buy into this asinine conversation, Dent.”
He finished his beer and set the empty can on the wobbly coffee table.
After a time, she said, “Van Durbin will tell them it’s a false charge.”
“Of course he will. But he’ll have to explain what he was doing down there with a photographer, which will amount to him admitting that he’s stalking you. He’ll have to do some fancy footwork.”
“They’ll trace the call to your phone.”
“They can’t. It’s a burner. The number doesn’t show up on caller ID. Eventually they’ll realize it was a hoax and let them go, but in the meantime that bloodsucker will be in
the hot seat. If there’s a god, he’ll attract a boyfriend in lockup.”
She turned away from the window. “You’re clever. You respond quickly to a crisis situation.”
“A skill that makes me a good pilot.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I guess it would also make me a good murderer, wouldn’t it?”
She sat down on the matching love seat facing his chair, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she might have to make a quick getaway. “Why did you lie to the police?”
“I don’t think it would have gone too well for me if I’d told them that I’d intercepted Susan at the boathouse and that we’d had a lovers’ quarrel. And don’t read anything into the word ‘lovers.’ I don’t mean it literally.”
“How did you know she would be at the boathouse?”
“I was driving up that lane—you know the one, that led to the pavilion?” She nodded. “Susan flagged me down. She was alone.”
“What was she doing?”
“Primping.”
“Primping?”
“She was looking at herself in the mirror of a compact, putting on lipstick, fluffing her hair. Things girls do.”
“I described to you how pretty she looked when she returned to the pavilion.”
“Oh, so now you think I’m making that up so that it fits with your recollection?”
Wearily, she said, “Go on.”
“I said something to the effect of ‘Here I am, better late than never.’ But she didn’t think so. She told me that she’d made other plans that didn’t include me. At first I tried to placate her. I apologized for choosing a ride in an airplane over her. I promised to make it up to her, promised it wouldn’t happen again. Bullshit stuff that guys say when they—”
“Don’t really mean them.”
He shrugged. “She was having none of it. I could see that what was left of my Memorial Day was rapidly turning to crap, so I got mad, told her…” He stopped, and when Bellamy raised her eyebrows, he said, “More bullshit stuff that guys say when a sure thing is no longer sure. Unlike you, I have an… earthy… vocabulary. I called her some rather descriptive and ugly names.”
She stared into space for a moment and when she refocused on him, she said, “In my mind’s eye, I can see the two of you quarreling. But I don’t remember anything after that.”
“I rode off into the sunset.”
“There was no sunset. The sky was stormy.”
“Another figure of speech.”
A thoughtful frown creased her forehead as she sank back into the cushions of the love seat, which made him embarrassed over the god-awful thing. It was a piece of junk, just like everything else in the place. When he’d sold his house, with its swimming pool and heavily wooded backyard on a bluff that overlooked downtown, he’d assumed a necessary indifference to his living conditions.
He’d rented this place because it was all he could afford. He slept here. Sometimes screwed here. Showered and kept his clothes here. He ate carry-out and hadn’t used the cookstove more than once or twice. The fridge was virtually empty.