Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [83]
After walking down the long set of stairs to the slip, though, her spirits sank. The place was a complete disaster. The boat was filled with skis and damp towels and life jackets, empty beer cans and a cooler full of what Marilyn guessed was rotten food. And the boat itself hadn’t been properly tied off, its prow bumping into the pilings with every small wave. In all, it was a mess so terrible that it could have been made only out of spite.
“Goddamn you, Sam,” she muttered.
She turned and walked back up the steps to the house.
She entered the kitchen through the patio, fully expecting to see Hoversten drinking coffee and reading the paper. But the house was silent. He must’ve gone back to sleep. Walking quietly, she slipped into Sam’s study, pulled back Cardiology, and took out the pack of Chesterfields. There was a box of matches next to Sam’s pipe caddy, and she lit up, then came around his desk and sat down on his red leather chair. Next to the radiator were three loaded shotguns. She’d asked him twenty times to put them away. On his desk was a picture of the two of them taken many years ago, both so young it was conspicuous how they’d aged. They were sitting in his car, a Plymouth Fury. The top was down and they were facing backward, Sam’s arms around her. This was in California in ’44, the year Sam had started medical school. He was thinner then. Had more hair. Was kinder. They were in Big Sur—the Chapmans had invited them out to their ranch—and you could make out the cliffs beyond them and a light mist rolling in off the ocean. She remembered nothing of that day except how cold she was and how Sam had resisted putting the car’s top up. This picture had replaced all her memories and come to represent a time in her life when she’d thought her husband incapable of cruelty, of their future as something unfolding toward better things, as opposed to this eternal now, where every day carried with it a choice between moving forward and calling it quits.
There he is, Marilyn thought. The man I fell in love with.
She sat in Sam’s chair with her feet on the desk and tilted her head back, watching the smoke she exhaled rise to the ceiling. She shouldn’t be smoking when she was pregnant, she knew, but the cigarette enclosed her in just this moment, when nothing reminded her of anything else but that the house was quiet. She took a last drag, then blew a steady stream of smoke at the photograph.
What to do?
In the kitchen a few minutes later, staring at a legal pad list of errands, chores, and food so long it filled the page, Marilyn considered doing none of them, acting so cool for the next twenty-four hours that her husband would be amazed by her organizational ability; and then, right around the time his guests were set to arrive, she could pack Chip and Kokie in the car, drive to her father’s house, and leave for good. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and let her thoughts drift down this pleasant path.
Dinner, she wrote, and underlined the word: cottage ham, green beans, rye bread.
Dessert, she wrote next, underlining again. She put the end of the pen in her mouth, then added: blueberry pie with ice cream. It was Sam’s favorite.
Mobius was bleeding through his bandages, thick red circles showing on his knees and hand.
Since Marilyn’s murder, Detective Sheppard had struggled with the sight of blood.
“Let’s talk time line,” Mobius said. “I’ll play detective.”
“All right,” Sheppard said.
“That morning. July third.”
“Yes?”
“You’re up early.