Against Nature Read online

  She said she hadn’t mentioned any of this to the authorities. Why should she trust them? They were probably fans of those famous jocks; they wouldn’t want to believe what Victor was uncovering. Easier to go with the obvious: a once-depressed man who couldn’t shake off the demons and jumped. If Cass wouldn’t mention his work and his recent behavior, I could understand why they weren’t taking her claims seriously. It sounded like an erratic writer took the final plunge and his special lady friend could not accept the awful truth of it. If not for the encounter with Oliver in the city, I’m not sure I would have believed her either. I still hadn’t mentioned that.

  I heard the sound of rushing water up ahead. Filly bounded back toward us. We came to a clearing at the top of a high gushing waterfall. Cass frowned, walked to the edge and peered over. When she looked up, her eyes were wet and troubled. Her body, forever a hard instrument of lust and power, looked shrunken in on itself. She wiped at her eyes and looked back over the falls.

  “This is where he went over,” she said.

  I moved toward the edge, stopped a few feet away in a rush of vertigo. I backed off and set my hand on a wet rock. I took in the view. The falls, the rock formations, the birds of prey that circled above, the entire setting felt almost holy, like a place where promises and confessions were made, and sins forgiven.

  “Victor used to hike here almost every day,” she said. “He’d bring his bourbon and sit on the rocks and sip it after he finished his writing.” She turned to me. “They call this spot All Creation Point.”

  I swept my arm across the view. “ ‘All creation, lad.’ ”

  Cass gave me a quizzical look.

  “Natty Bumppo,” I said. “James Fenimore Cooper’s character? That’s his line. Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, I used to love those books as a kid. They were set up in these parts.”

  She frowned; her eyes gave a sad smile. “You and Victor would have really liked each other,” she said.

  We let that settle. It was difficult to believe that I’d have anything but bitterness toward any man sleeping with my Cass. “My”? Poor deluded fool, just because you both almost died for each other? Had there ever been so much as a kiss, even lingering eye contact and a pause that said she might be considering something more than friendship? “Well, no, Your Honor, but I always thought . . .” Is there anything more pathetic than the platonic sap that holds out endless hope?

  “So, what do you think happened?” I asked.

  “Someone pushed him over,” she said, a matter of fact.

  “He couldn’t have fallen?”

  She exhaled with impatience. “Duck, I told you, he hiked here all the time. He knew every stone out here. There’s no way he just fell.”

  “Maybe something spooked him, like a bear or something? Are there bears in these parts?”

  “There are, and no, nothing surprised him.”

  “And he couldn’t have jumped?” I took a step closer to the edge, tried to peer down and gauge the height. My head spun with another rush of vertigo. It was a long way down, enough to put anyone out of the game. Hell of a dramatic place to check out.

  “I told you, I’ve never seen anyone as inspired as Victor. The story, Carl Kruger, it was consuming him. He was anything but suicidal. There was something closing in on him, something that had him terrified. And we were . . .” Her voice caught. “We were happy, Duck. He could not have jumped.”

  “But he tried before,” I said.

  “He tried before because he was depressed, in a shit marriage with an awful woman, and hadn’t written a word in years,” she said. “If you have any doubt about what I’m telling you, then let’s go back now. No one else will believe me either.”

  She turned and headed back toward the trailhead. “C’mon, Filly,” she called.

  “Cass, hang on, I believe you,” I said. “And there’s something I haven’t told you.”

  She stopped. “Tell me,” she said, her back to me.

  “I don’t think he killed himself either,” I said. “I think you’re right—someone probably pushed him.”

  She turned, a threatening energy pulsing off her. “Why?” she asked.

  “Before I left,” I said. “I received a warning from a guy in a Hell’s Kitchen bar. We had an, um, altercation. He knew I was coming to see you. He told me that we should be careful, that some things aren’t worth it.”

  Cass inhaled through her nose. She placed a hand on a tree trunk to steady herself. She looked at me with those black eyes, processing my withheld information like a cop who’s finally getting his confession.

  “You’re telling me this now?” she asked.

  “Cass, last night it got ugly fast,” I reminded her. “This morning I was surprised you were willing to forgive me, that you still wanted me around. Then we were off hiking and you were doing all the talking. . . .” I glanced back toward the view, unable to face her. A hawk plunged down past the waterfall, on the hunt, ending the life of some small woodland animal. “I’m telling you now,” I said.

  “Who was he?”

  “Some punk. His boss was waiting outside, I didn’t get his name.”

  “Describe them,” she said.

  “The guy I talked to called himself Oliver. Some kind of accent, German, I think. Shaved head, fit, about thirty, he had tat sleeves down both arms. I noticed some racist ink, an iron cross and the numbers 1488 across his knuckles. That’s prison symbolism, white-supremacist jargon. He must have done some time.”

  “And the guy outside?”

  She was entering into that eerie calm zone of contained rage. I remembered it well. It must have thrilled and terrified many a slave in her dungeon. Her stillness, the slowing of her breath, the way her chest seemed to rise and fall with each imperceptible inhale and exhale, it chilled me and made me move farther from the edge.

  “He was tall and trim,” I said. “Older, maybe fifty, wearing a suit and aviators.”

  “Tell me about your entire exchange.”

  “The younger guy, Oliver, walked in and came down the bar. He stopped by my booth and called me by name,” I said. “He slid in next to us, started acting ugly. Then he gave his warning and left.” I regretted the first-person plural as soon as I said it.

  “‘Us’?”

  “Just some prostitute I was sitting with.”

  “Nice, Duck. You have time to pay for some head after that?”

  “We were just talking. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” I lied. “Look, I haven’t heard from you in ages. Then you get in touch late night and ask for my help. Now I’m up here in the woods talking about your fallen lover. C’mon, Cass, I know you’re hurting, but can you stop giving me a hard time?”

  Her look stung more than any whip could. She turned and walked back through the woods toward the house. Filly tossed her head in her master’s direction and gave a quick bark. I followed her command.

  Walking back, I tried to picture Victor Wingate and his daily routine, before something spooked him out of the house and caused him to start locking doors. Waking next to Cass, was there sex first thing each morning? The normal kind, or the kind Cass liked? Their obvious connection came together and I felt a kind of prudish relief. It wasn’t about physical attraction, at least not for her. It was about finding a partner who shared her specific, kinky tastes. Maybe Victor was an eager slave that she would whip for free, or at least for free lodging. Then what? After a morning session, would they slip into a domestic routine? The writer at his desk, tapping away at the keys, sipping his coffee, while his lady puttered about the house, took out the dog, planned their lunch. Then shared a midday feast, followed by the ritual whiskey and his walk in the woods. A chance to turn over that morning’s sentences in his mind; do some mental editing, work out what came next. And when he returned, would Cass be waiting in leather, ready to tie him up and administer the pain that filled them both with pleasure?


  I watched her hiking up ahead, the way her legs and ass flexed in her jeans with each stride. Wished my tastes weren’t so vanilla.

  When we emerged from the woods and saw the house up ahead, I noticed another car in the driveway. Cass tensed at the sight of it. It was a yellow Volvo sedan, a few decades old, with weather rust along the wheel arcs. Next to it stood a weathered woman in a long tan coat and a wide-brimmed hat. Her body was full and curved, country bred, and fit into the environment as if she’d been painted there. Tangled brown hair spilled from under the hat and down her coat. She saw Cass and me and moved toward us with huffed shoulders.

  “Fuck,” said Cass. Then to me: “Don’t say anything, okay?”

  When we were within ten yards of each other, the woman raised an arm and pointed. “Bitch,” she shouted. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “Hello, Susie,” said Cass. “This is my friend Duck.” Then to me, “Duck, this is Victor’s sister.”

  I hung behind a few paces, the bad energy coursing between the two women.

  “How was she?” asked the woman named Susie. “How was this slut?” I realized she was talking at me, looked to Cass for some guidance.

  “Duck and I are old friends and business partners, Susie,” she said. “He’s visiting from the city.”

  “Hey, I asked you a question, Dick or Duck or whatever your name is. How was this whore? How much you pay her?”

  “Susie, what are you doing here?”

  She eyed Cass with an aggression I thought would turn physical. “I’m here, whore, because this is my property. Victor left this place to me, which means you’re trespassing, which means it’s time for you and your friend to get the fuck out of here.”

  “Hold up, Susie,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything about this. If that’s the case, could you give me some time to pack my things?”

  “I don’t have to give you anything,” she said. “I want you off my property. I’ll throw your shit in the street when I feel like it.”

  “Susie, I know we’re both grieving. Please, if you’d just—”

  “Mickey Knight told me this place is mine, along with everything in it,” she said. “He was the executor of my brother’s will. If you have a problem with it, call him.”

  “She’s just asking to gather her belongings,” I said. “I’m sorry for your loss, but let’s be decent here.”

  The sister eyed me with contempt. “Old partner, huh?” she asked. “What, were you her pimp at that kinky house of whores?”

  “I’m gonna suggest you stop calling my friend names,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? Or what?”

  “Duck,” said Cass. “Please.”

  “Or I’ll come up with some names of my own, like white-trash bitch,” I said.

  The words found their mark and Susie seemed to go rabid upon hearing them. She let out a grunting growl. Her eyes glazed with rage. “Motherfucker,” she snarled. She lunged at me.

  Cass stepped into her path and sent her tumbling onto the grass. Susie scrambled to her knees. She eyed us like a kicked dog, her coat whipping back behind her.

  “I’m calling the cops,” she said. “Assault and trespassing, I’ll have you in jail.”

  Cass grabbed my shirt and pulled me toward her car. “Let’s go,” she said. “I’ll deal with her later.”

  Chapter 6

  When I returned to the city, an evening storm was blowing through the streets. A hard rain fell through the lights, streaked across windshields, and splashed against the asphalt. Traffic lights of glittering green and red struggled to retain order. Umbrellas were up and shoulders were hunched and the collective mood was foul as I moved east from the Port Authority, not a lit cab in sight. There were dry bars of refuge every half block or so, but I kept moving. My thoughts were a scrambled skillet of violent memories and regret.

  How many nights had I spent missing Cass, indulging frantic fantasies that would never come true? Toasting oblivion in post-traumatic stress and tragic longing. Rescued by a rich divorcée and her son. I thought about stopping by unannounced to see Juliette and Stevie. Soaked and smiling, I’d offer bended-knee apology. It wasn’t too late. She’d take me back, if only for the improbable positive influence I’d had on her son. I removed my phone from a damp pocket and found no messages. Scrolled to Juliette’s number and typed: Can we talk? Erased it and wrote: I’m sorry, can we talk? Erased again, and wrote: How’s Stevie? Hit SEND, slid it back in my pocket.

  Cass said there was little cell service up on the mountaintop. She told me she’d call from a landline after she gathered her things and checked into a hotel. Through the window of a crowded bar on West 26th Street, I noted an attractive bartender pouring drinks. The call from Cass was the only thing keeping me outside. I wanted a dry, quiet place to chat, the comfort of my couch, where I could hear whatever happened next between her and Susie Wingate. In the car on the way to the bus, she shared a bit about the Wingate family. Victor and Susie moved upstate when they were kids, after their artist parents could no longer afford the city. They’d finished raising son and daughter in a farmhouse outside of Bearsville; their mom made ends meet by teaching at Woodstock Day, while the dad supplemented his failing artistic ambitions with pot sales on the side.

  It was a sideline I could relate to. I thought of my own father and namesake, serving 150 years in federal prison down in Butner, North Carolina. His crimes were a little more severe than a bit of soft-drug peddling. When I was twelve, we learned that he’d been defrauding his investors for decades. The scheme cost his clients a few billion dollars. The Darley name was rather sullied. My driver’s license says Lawrence Darley, Jr., which makes the occasional cop raise an eyebrow, but I’ve been Duck since before dad’s fall. I’ve never made the trip to visit him, and I don’t intend to.

  Anyway, Victor Wingate made good after his family’s city-to-country move. He studied hard, went to nearby Bard College on scholarship, and served his required years of journalistic servitude at various magazines before breaking through with a number of award-winning features. When he hit his profession’s version of the Powerball lottery with Walk Through Fire, he bought the place in the Catskills, a half hour’s drive from his parents’ homestead. Sister Susie didn’t come out quite as adjusted. Diagnosed schizophrenic as a teen, she’d been an unstable mess forever. Medication and men came and went, usually in a flurry of fury and bad scenes. When their parents died, she moved into the old farmhouse, where she lived like Grey Gardens and got by through direct deposits each month from the good brother—deposits that had shrunk in recent times as Victor’s income dwindled. When Victor met Cass, the sister assumed that she was the reason for her reduced donations. She did some Googling on her brother’s new woman and did not like what she discovered. The horrors of our last case with the McKay family produced plenty of headlines, many of which mentioned Cass’s other profession as a dominatrix. As “Page Six” once alliterated, Cassandra Kimball, aka Mistress Justine, was the “private eye of perverted pleasures.” Not something that will endear a woman to a half-crazy potential sister-in-law.

  If we were working on the assumption that someone helped launch Victor Wingate over that waterfall, sister Susie had to be a logical suspect. Unstable, capable of violent outbursts, and in difficult financial straits: a classic combination for murderous action. But why go after her own brother, why not the harpy she hated, the one playing house with her benefactor and last-remaining blood? Then again we were talking about family—and family real estate. Things were never rational. Perhaps Susie became consumed with loathing for the big brother made good, the one who’d always gotten the grades, the opportunities, and the professional success. She must have resented his financial care while she languished in the borderlands of madness at their parents’ crumbling farmhouse.

  It must have fascinated her to watch him finally struggle a few years back, to fall apart and attempt the worst, the way she’d considered—and maybe attempted—so many times be
fore. And then to watch him emerge from that darkness, the one time she felt he might be able to understand her, to emerge happy and inspired, in love with that woman, that kinky, damaged slut from New York?

  Presuming to grasp the motivations of this woman was a dangerous business, but it made a certain degree of sense. Though it did not explain the visit from Oliver and his boss. Susie may have been a nutter ready to lash out, but it was hard to imagine her capable of enlisting guys like that to do her dirty work.

  I was mulling these things in the rain when I turned onto my street and sensed something off. Two teenaged boys were stopped on the sidewalk in front of my stoop, looking at my front door. One black, one white, dressed in hoodies and holding oversized umbrellas. When I reached them and stepped past, down my steps, they shook their heads.

  “That’s messed up, man,” said the white one, pointing to my door.

  The black one said, “We know what that means.”

  I looked from them to my door. Spray-painted in red across the front were the numbers 1488. I pictured Oliver’s tattoo across his knuckles, his ugly smirk as he leered at the prostie next to me. Blood at a boil, I turned to the boys.

  “Me too,” I said. “And when I find the fucker who did this, I’m gonna tear his head off.”

  “Let us know if you want some help,” said the white one.

  They walked away, huffed and puffed with teenaged outrage. I remembered the private school around the corner, where they were probably students, where Stevie Cohen was in third grade. For fifty grand a year fortunate sons and daughters learned more than just math and science; they were also enlightened in social justice, and taught the signs of intolerance all around them.

  I found some cardboard boxes beneath the trash canisters, tore off a piece, and went inside to grab a roll of duct tape. I taped over the offending numbers, went back in, and bolted the door. Checked the rooms for signs of B and E, found none. After I boarded the bus, Oliver and his boss must have headed over to my place. They seemed to know plenty about me, and I didn’t like it. It appeared Wingate had pissed off some folks with his latest project. Maybe they thought I could be spooked away with a bit of intimidation. Maybe my altercation with Oliver would help them reconsider.