at a gruesome accident, she couldn’t seem to pull herself away.
“Tapes malfunction every day,” he was saying to the person on the other line.
Especially when you’re around, Pansy thought.
She reflected that she felt different. Perhaps what she had done today had changed her somehow. But if she had changed, Tom had not. He was the same self-absorbed, miserable bastard. He looked up suddenly, barely registering her presence before proceeding to look through her as if she were no more than a picture on the wall.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said into the phone. “You act like this bum deserves the royal treatment or something. He’s the scum of the earth.”
Innocent until proven guilty, Pansy thought.
Tom slammed down the receiver suddenly and immediately launched into a tirade, addressing her, seemingly, but nevertheless oblivious of her.
“Goddamn paperwork is going to keep me up all night,” he said. “They need to decide if they want me to sit around dotting i’s and crossing t’s, or if they want me to get out there and serve and protect.” This was a familiar theme for him, but by now it was glaringly plain to Pansy that by “dotting i’s and crossing t’s,” Tom was not referring to some pointless red tape but, rather, he spoke of the actual tasks involved in investigating a crime—tasks which Tom felt he was above having to perform. He relied solely on his instincts when he decided whose rights to violate, and those instincts had been schooled over the years with the various prejudices he had acquired, all of which he considered “intelligence,” and which rarely coincided with the evidence that kept cropping up to make him look bad. The appropriate processing of evidence was a thorn in his side, and those who pressed for details were, to him, troublemakers.
Pansy knew from experience that Tom particularly disliked being disagreed with.
She warred with the muscles in her face that were reflexively assuming an expression of acute contempt. “They don’t appreciate you,” she muttered perfunctorily, but her lips and tongue cringed over the words, and they came out sounding like an accusation.
“Damn right, they don’t,” he said, looking directly at her then, perhaps to see if there was any insincerity in her remark; for if he had any sense of reality he would never be able to trust such a comment. He got up and stretched. Pansy’s eyes moved over him, noting with loathing the way his ill-fitting uniform emphasized the unsightly bulges that stretched out across his abdomen and hips, giving him an androgynous appearance from the waistline to his thighs. She wondered if he had ever actually physically pursued a suspect and then, quite unexpectedly, a small snort of laughter burst from between her lips. She immediately covered over it with a cough.
Feeling compelled to say something in the silence that followed, Pansy asked, “Is this the same case you’ve been working on all week?”
Tom let out a long sigh. “Yeah…the Foreman case. This new jackass at the D.A.’ s office keeps sending it back to me…finding things to nitpick over.” Pansy had no doubt that the “things to nitpick over” were really holes in the case—holes that the former district attorney would have ignored, pressing forward blindly only to push for a plea in the end. That way everyone came out a winner. Everyone except the accused, that is—if he or she was innocent. And what were the chances of that?
“What’s the matter this time?” Pansy asked, stalling until she could find the right moment to escape. She wondered that he didn’t notice how different she was. She was certain she must look different. But then, even she couldn’t identify what it was exactly that had changed about her. All she knew for certain was that she had changed. She shuddered. Tom went on, oblivious of any change. He was oblivious of her, she realized suddenly.
“This D.A. actually accused me of harassment!” he said, thrilled for an audience to talk to, even if it was only Pansy. “He just won’t accept the fact that the guy is guilty.”
“What did he do?”
“He killed his wife!” Tom said, looking at her as if to say, How do you like that? “He killed his goddamn wife!”
She wondered. It was one thing to accuse someone of murder; it was another entirely to prove it. Coming from Tom she found it hard to believe. She felt an instinctive aversion to the positions he took on nearly everything now. She wondered about this new district attorney. She secretly admired him. So, he refused to play ball? Well, that was refreshing. Although, she knew from experience that the D.A. would eventually come around. They always did.
She watched Tom, mesmerized, as he poured out his troubles with the case to her. She struggled to find any redeemable qualities in him but failed. She wondered why she married him. Poor, impotent, misunderstood Tom! She pitied the people he came up against, and another wave of fear and dread came over her. Thank heavens he hardly ever noticed her. He had no inkling whatsoever that less than an hour earlier she had been in a hotel room, groveling on her hands and knees, begging to be beaten with a belt.
Finally Tom wound down enough for her to make a graceful escape, which she did with a sigh of relief. A sense of guilt lingered over her, gaining strength with each little pang of discomfort that reminded her of her time with Jack. She pondered over the guilt for a moment; she thought she had gotten over that in the car. It occurred to her that the guilt was for herself, not Tom. The love between her and Tom had been gone for many years now, but she had stayed, and this suddenly bothered her. Yet how could she leave? As inept as he was at everything else, Tom did manage to somehow keep a roof over her head. She was certain she could not manage as well on her own. Things were difficult enough as they were. It seemed to her that this was an impossible world to survive in all alone, and it seemed more difficult every day. In the event of a divorce, Tom, with his connections, would see to it that she got nothing. She would have to start over from scratch. Who would take care of her? She thought about Jack and shuddered. There was nowhere for her to go.
But the thought of Jack lingered and grew stronger. Little flashbacks of what he had done to her kept playing themselves out in her mind, giving her almost as much pleasure as the actual events had. The memories sent simultaneous surges of shock and excitement through her. But what shocked her the most was Jack’s interest in her to begin with. Why had he chosen her? She knew there was nothing remotely outstanding about her. Most men didn’t even notice her. She had never possessed any one particular characteristic that drew them to her, but then again, she didn’t feel she was especially unattractive either. There were things that she saw in herself that she felt were overlooked…perhaps Jack saw these things, too. She recalled how persistent he had been with her when they met. He had approached her quite unexpectedly in the coffee shop just around the corner from where she lived. She had gone there every morning for years, and then one day he was there. She noticed him immediately because he was the first patron of the bustling little shop ever to notice her. His eyes were always on her when she happened to glance at him, and he smiled unabashedly when she caught him staring. It was Pansy who would, at these moments, look quickly and guiltily away.
It took only a few mornings of this before Pansy and Jack began exchanging small greetings of acquaintance, such as a smile and nod of the head, or a quick “good morning.” Pansy was curious about him but had no thoughts of satisfying her curiosity. Soon Jack began talking to her while they waited together in line, which he would unapologetically saunter into at whatever place Pansy held in it. He did this so casually that no one thought to question him, least of all Pansy. He would lean in and say confidential things in a low voice meant for her ears only. Sometimes he made comments about the other customers in the shop and other times he would tell her little things about himself. These comments, made in hushed tones, seemed inordinately intimate to her and she became more
