Sacred Trust

“Geez, that’s rough, Abby. Sorry. What happened? They got a clue?”

“No. It’s too soon.”

“Are you on it?”

“For Round the Town? Hardly.”

“Even so, if you knew her…” He takes a crumpled pack of Marlboros out of a pocket, taps one out and lights it. His match sputters, and within moments the cigarette is soggy from the rain. He leaves it dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Hey,” he says, “why don’t you talk to me? Tell me all about her. The inside story, things we don’t already know, I mean.”

I look at him, wary suddenly. “What inside story, Billy?”

His pale blue eyes are bright, avid. “Well, you know, there’ve been rumors. She was pretty famous for a while, the top of the heap as far as photojournalists go. So what happened? Why did she disappear all of a sudden? Hell, Abby, no one’s seen her around for months. And what’s that ‘I LIED’ all about? And the scar on her belly?”

I stare at him, wondering how I ever got to be part of this ravenous mass of vultures called “the press.”

“I have to go, Billy.”

“I mean, if you were that close,” he insists, tossing the cigarette to the ground, “you must have some idea where she’s been. And what she’s been up to.”

Anger seeps into my zombie-like state. It is, perhaps, the first glimmer of reality setting in.

“Dammit, Billy, drop it! I don’t know!”

Turning back, I see that the small group of men surrounding Marti has begun to disperse. Ben is still there, talking to the sheriff and Ted Wright, the coroner, and a body bag is being zipped over the bruised and battered torso of my friend. A sharp pain hits me in the gut as her once-beautiful face disappears inside the black plastic. Tears flood my eyes.

Ben looks at me and strides through the mud in my direction, his jeans and running shoes becoming splattered with thick brown goo. He puts a comforting arm around my shoulders, and I lean on him only slightly, more aware now of the media and what might show up in the evening news.

“Will Jeffrey be home tonight?” he asks quietly.

I shake my head. “He’s in Washington.”

“My place?” Ben asks even more quietly. “In an hour?”

I hesitate, nodding toward the coroner’s van, into which Marti is being loaded now. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“The sheriff’s in charge out here. And there’ll be a countywide task force.” He looks at his watch. “I have a couple of hours.”

Once, I would have gone with Ben out of reckless abandon, even revenge. What’s sauce for the goose. I was still angry with Jeffrey then. Now my husband and I barely talk. We live under the same roof out of expediency, pretending at marriage while leading vastly separate lives.

My only thought at the moment, therefore, is to feel Ben’s arms around me. To slip between his cool, familiar sheets and forget.

Thank God for Ben, the safe one, I think. In all the madness of Jeffrey’s unfaithfulness, Ben has been here, a good friend, steadfast as the day is long. He’s the one I can trust not to betray me. Ever.

“I want to see her again,” I say, my voice thick with sorrow. “I never really said goodbye.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Ben stands behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist, the two of us staring out his living-room window at the leaden sea.

“Where is she now?”

“She’ll be at the coroner’s office for a while,” he says. “An autopsy, you know.”

I shiver. The coroner will take his bloody knives and saws and cut into my friend. He will break her breastbone to get at her heart and carve out her stomach to get—

“Can I see her before they do all that?”

“I’ll check, okay?”

He lifts my hair, planting a light kiss on the back of my neck before going to the telephone in the kitchen. Across the breakfast bar I see him pace as he talks, the long cord wrapping around his slightly thickening waist. Though Ben is tall, and was gangly as a teenager, his fortieth year has found him with what most charitably might be called love handles. I’ve always liked them; they give me a secure feeling, something to hold on to when the world goes topsy-turvy all around.

I can hear the kinds of grunts he usually makes when talking with others in law enforcement. Right, yeah, sure, fine. They seem to have their own language, an abbreviated one for talking on police radios that carries over into everyday life.

Coming back, he says, “Tonight, around ten. They should have her…she should be all right for you to see her by then.”

He is trying to be careful, but I know what he means: my friend won’t be in pieces. At least, she won’t look that way.

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, pulling me into his arms. “It’ll be all right. I’ll go with you.”

Gratefully, I put my arms around his neck and stand on tiptoe to kiss him. One hand pulls me toward him while another pushes my blouse aside and covers my breast, squeezing it so hard I can almost feel pain. I am instantly aroused, everything in me screaming to know that I, at least, still live and breathe.

After that, he needn’t do a thing. I am all over him, my passion swinging from tender to nearly vicious, and he allows me that, knowing the anger and hopelessness that sit in my heart, the utter futility and rage.

Spent, we lie naked side by side in Ben’s king-size bed. A tall, wide window frames a Carmel Highlands scene that has been painted by ninety percent of the artists in town: charcoal cliffs, emerald pines and hillsides dotted with seven-figure homes. Beyond them lies a cerulean sea with wild waves crashing.

Ben’s home is simple, a bachelor’s hideaway. The view, however, can take one’s breath away.

Ben sighs and stretches. “That was quite a work-out, lady.”

“You know it.”

“Feeling better?” He pulls me to him.

“Well, I haven’t got much energy left for anger.” A cloud crosses my mind. “Not right now, anyway.”

He turns on his side to face me. “You’re thinking of tonight. You don’t have to do it, you know.”

“See her? Yes, I do.”

“What can it accomplish?”

“I can say goodbye.”

“I thought you did that out on the hill.”

“It’s not the same.”

He takes my hand, which lies on the pillow between us. “You want to talk about it?”

I start to shake my head, then pause. If there were ever anyone I could tell about Marti, it would be Ben. And I need to get it out, all those old memories, the pictures of those days that have been surging through my mind since I saw her hanging there.