“Do you have his address?”
“} can get it.” He looked over at me.
“What about the son’s first name?”
“Same as his father’s. Her house is right around this bend. Look how dark the lake is. It’s like a tar pit.”
“That’s right. And you know Emily wouldn’t have followed its shore at night. Creed’s story verifies that.”
“I’m not arguing. I wouldn’t take that route.”
“Benton, I don’t see her car.”
“She could be out.”
“Marino’s car is there.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t out.”
“It doesn’t mean they are.” He said nothing. The windows were lit up, and I felt as if she were home. I had no proof, no indication, really, but I sensed her sensing me, even if she was not conscious of it.
“What do you think they’re doing in there?” I asked.
“Now, what do you think?” he said, and his meaning was clear.
“That’s cheap. It’s so easy to assume people are having sex.”
“It’s so easy to assume because it’s so easy to do.”
I was quite offended because I wanted Wesley to be deeper.
“That surprises me, coming from you.”
“It should not surprise you coming from them. That was my point.” Still, I was not sure.
“Kay, we’re not talking about our relationship here,” he added.
“I certainly didn’t think we were.” He knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth. Never had I been so clear on why it is ill-advised for colleagues to have affairs.
“We should go back. There’s nothing more we can do right now,” he said.
“How will we find out about her car?”
“We will find out in the morning. But we’ve already found out something now. It’s not there right this minute looking like it hasn’t been in an accident.”
The next morning was Sunday, and I woke up to bells tolling and wondered if I was hearing the small Presbyterian church where Emily was buried. I squinted at my watch and decided probably not, since it was only a few minutes past nine. I assumed their service would start at eleven, but then, I knew so little about what Presbyterians did.
Wesley was asleep on what I considered my side of the bed. That was perhaps our only incompatibility as lovers. We both were accustomed to the side of the bed farthest from the window or door an intruder was most likely to come in, as if the space of several feet of mattress would make all the difference in grabbing for your gun. His pistol was on his bedside table and my revolver was on mine. Odds were, if an intruder did come in, Wesley and I would shoot each other.
Curtains glowed like lamp shades, announcing a sunny day. I got up and ordered coffee sent to the room, then inquired about my rental car, which the clerk promised was on its way. I sat in a chair with my back to the bed so I would not be distracted by Wesley’s naked shoulders and arms outside the tangled covers. I fetched the printout of the image enhancement, several coins, and a lens, and went to work. Wesley had been right when he’d said the enhancement seemed to do nothing but add more shades of gray to an indistinguishable blob. But the longer I looked at what had been left on the little girl’s buttock, the more I began to see shapes.
The density of grayness was greatest in an off-center part of the incomplete circular mark. I could not say where the density would be in terms of the hours on a clock, because I did not know which way was up or down or sideways for the object that had begun to oxidize beneath her body. The shape that interested me was reminiscent of the head of a duck or some other bird. I saw a dome, then a protrusion that looked like a thick beak or bill, yet this could not be the eagle on the back of a quarter because it was much too big.
The shape I was studying filled a good fourth of the mark, and there was what appeared to be a slight dent in what would be the back of the bird’s neck. I picked up the quarter I was using and turned it over. I rotated it slowly as I stared, and suddenly the answer was there. It was so simple, so exact in its match, and I was startled and thrilled. The object that had begun to oxidize beneath Emily Steiner’s dead body was indeed a quarter. But it had been face up, and the birdlike shape was the indentation of George Washington’s eyes, and the bird’s head and bill were our first president’s proud pate and curl at the back of his powdered wig. This only worked, of course, if I turned the quarter so Washington was staring at the tabletop, his aristocratic nose pointed at my knee.