Chapter 4
Evette walked down the hall to the living room and stopped outside the wide, door-less opening. Her mother was sitting on the sofa with a nearly full martini glass in her hand and she was looking up at Evette's stepfather, Harry McPherson, as he talked in his dry, clipped, Bengal-lancer accent. He was thin and middle-aged and had a Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. go-to-hell mustache. He had been in the lumber business in Portland before he had come to Thornton several years ago and started building tract houses and practicing law. He probably had been a lawyer in Portland, too, but she knew he had been in the lumber business some way or other. Harry McPherson was very British but had never been closer to jolly old England than Mil pitas, California. But one thing you could say for Harry, he knew where the geetus was.
Evette's real father, Roy Warwick, had been born with money and had blown it. Now he was a drunk nobody thought much about any more. Harry had started out from nowhere, Evette thought (even though he claimed to have come from a rich English family in Portland), and he had made a pee-pot full. He was a very fast guy with a buck and knew how to leave things out of tract houses he built that the people who bought them didn't know weren't there. Harry wore two-hundred-dollar suits and used cologne that smelled like billy-goat piss, just to prove he was all man, even if he pretended to be English.
Evette's mother, Ann Warwick McPherson, was unlike Evette in that she was tall and slim, and she was beginning to show her age. She was forty-five but looked perhaps a year or two older than that. The strange thing about this, Evette thought, was that only a year or two before her mother had passed for less than forty, for middle thirties or maybe thirty-eight.
That was the way it hit you, she thought. All of a sudden you were old. Well, it wouldn't matter a hell of a lot to her. By the time she was her mother's age, she would have lived a full life and would be ready to get old or drop over dead or lose her sex. She didn't really care much how she would be when she was forty-five. Probably she wouldn't live that long.
Harry McPherson interested her. She didn't like him, actually, but she didn't dislike him as she did King Virdon. He was a little like King in some ways. He had vanity that most men didn't, but he had other things, too. He knew how to make money and, even though making money didn't impress her, whether she liked to spend it or not, a man who had the capacity to make it had some abilities that the muscle-brained King Virdon who worked for the county sure as hell didn't have.
She stood outside the opening of the room, out of sight and listening to the conversation.
"I would just as soon stay home tonight," Harry McPherson said in his subdued English accent-a lancer too long in India to remember just how he had spoken the language at Sandhurst.
"Don't be silly," Evette's mother said. "We promised two weeks ago. It will be a good party."
"I'm not in the mood for a party tonight."
"Something went wrong today, didn't it?"
"No. Nothing went wrong today. I just feel like staying home for once. I get tired or running around all the time."
"I thought you liked parties."
"I do," Harry said, "but not every damned night. You know, once in a while I'd like to stay home and watch television or just make love to my wife."
Ann Warwick McPherson did not answer. Evette could not see her mother from where she stood out of sight and she waited to see what she would say to that. Harry wanted to slip the blocks to her and she hadn't said anything. Was that the way you got when you were forty-five? At nineteen Evette thought that people copulated until they died or became eighty-six.
"Don't talk like that," Evette's mother said.
"Well, I do talk like that. I'd like to have a little around here once in a while."
"Do you want me to crawl into bed with you? I will if you want me to."
"I want you to want to," Harry said.
"I can't manufacture something that isn't there, Harry."
"This change of life thing is a damn bore."
"Stop saying things like that. It sounds as if you read it in a book somewhere!"
Evette heard the sound of breaking glass. He must have thrown his martini glass into the fireplace. It was a very good Victorian gesture; almost as good as a partiotic V R shot into the wall, Sherlock Holmes style.
Evette came into the doorway. "Well, hello, everybody."
"Where the devil have you been?" Harry snapped. "Outside the door listening?"
"I was in the hall," she said innocently.
"Eavesdropping is no better than masturbation."
"Harry!" Ann cried.
"Well, she doesn't know what the word means anyway."
Nuts, Evette thought, but smiled sweetly to her stepfather.
"We're going out tonight," Harry said. "Harriet will get your dinner."
"I thought you wanted to stay home," Evette said.
"You were listening."
Ann McPherson looked into her daughter's face, wondering, trying to understand her a little. "Were you listening, dear?"
"I wasn't listening. I was in the hall. I just heard you yelling."
"We weren't yelling," Harry said.
"You were talking loud. I only heard you say you didn't want to go anywhere. Is that a crime? For God's sake, Harry, I-"
"Don't use the Lord's name in vain. It smacks of harlotry," Harry said.
"What's a harlot, Harry?"
Harry turned quickly towards his wife. "This girl needs discipline, Ann. She needs-"
"I'm of age," Evette said.
"Then why don't you get married or something and leave our marriage alone?" Harry said.
"I like to look after Mummy's best interests," Evette said coyly.
"Dear," Ann said, "You're baiting Harry and that's not a thoughtful thing to do. You love your stepfather and we don't say things like that to those we love."
"I apologize, Harry," Evette said brightly.
Harry glared at her without answering. Then he turned to his wife on the couch. "Come on, let's go to the party." He walked out of the room.
Ann McPherson stood up and kissed Evette on the cheek. "Don't stay up too late, dear. Remember, tomorrow is a school day."
"I won't."
Her mother left the room and Evette stood alone staring at the big empty doorway. She didn't understand her mother much. She knew something about good old Clive of India and he didn't deserve the razzing she gave him, but she couldn't help herself. As far as her mother was concerned, she really drew a blank. Her mother wanted to be kind and generous to her and always wanted to love her but had never learned how. Her mother was a colossal screw-up who had never grown mature enough to realize it or understand it. Now she was middle-aged and didn't want to make love with Harry or any man. Evette felt sorry for her mother and wished that the woman had been able to love her, because it would have been nice if somebody had.
Her father, Roy Warwick, had loved her when she had been a little kid before the divorce. His breath had always smelled hard or sour or sharp and she had not known why until a few years later. He had been a lush and it had been the juice she had smelled. But he had loved her. His arms had gone around her many times and he had squeezed her, and she could remember the times he had pushed her far out in the big swing and it had seemed as though the world were a trivial and small thing and that she, Evette, had been the most important person alive.
After her mother and father separated, after Roy was gone, Evette never had that special feeling again. Her mother and other people had pushed her high and hard in the rope swing afterward, but she had not been able to recapture that sensation she had known when her father had catapulted her towards the sky in the swing.
Because there was nothing better to do, she went into the kitchen and had flat-faced, old fat Harriet give her dinner. Harriet was probably high-grade moron, Evette thought, or at least she looked like the sample photos in the psych textbook. She was no pinhead or Mongoloid idiot, but moronic.
Evette did not bother to speak to her and Harriet went about her work. Harriet never talked unless someone said something to her.
Evette left the kitchen and went up to her room. It was a plain room and the walls were not covered with the adolescent foolishness many girls involved themselves in. There were two mundane pictures on the wall her mother had given her and the bed was covered with a heavy white chenille spread. The whiteness of the spread had been a joke with her ever since she had been fourteen.
The dressing table was a large one and the mirror over it was even bigger than the table. This was one thing about the room that Evette liked. She sat down slowly in front of the huge mirror and began to brush her hair carefully. She did not believe any of the stories of well-being tied to hair brushing; She only did it when she didn't feel like smoking a cigarette.
Evette's mouth turned down suddenly and she dropped her hand with the brush on the table. She needed men and she didn't have a man right now. Paul Moran would have been her natural selection at the moment, but she had lost him ... and it was probably a good thing. Eventually she would become bored with him again, and he had a girl; not much of one, but a girl, and he probably wanted Margaret Carlson. Frosty drawers, Evette thought; she probably couldn't go worth a damn but she would like the intellectual stuff Paul had to spout.
She needed a challenge of a sort. Going back with Paul could offer it, but she wanted somebody new.
Evette thought about Peter Wilson and this was really her kind of meat. He was a weird kid, a wild child. This guy was really nowhere. He chewed his fingernails and he had a lot of problems. Ordinarily, a boy like this wouldn't have attracted her, but this one did. There was something about him that attracted her and she didn't know what it was. He was afraid of her; he was afraid of all girls, as far as she knew. He was nervous and screwed-up. That interested her; well, maybe, anyway.
Perhaps she wanted to pick on him. Peter was weak and there was an infinite fascination in that weakness. He had limp brown hair and washed-out blue eyes and three or four little red pimples on his face. He perpetually had three or four pimples. But there was something else, she knew. There was a certain desperation, a certain malign threat of violence that throbbed through his personality. It attracted her ... and probably because of his weaknesses.
Peter was no numb-noggin, as a lot of the boys called him. There was a viciousness in him the other young men at the junior college couldn't generate; not the football players or any of the other athletes.
Peter was not the type, nor did he have the build, to run over anybody or to break jaws. He couldn't manhandle anyone. But with a good weapon he could kill; he had the kind of weakness that could give an excuse to a killer. Behind his weakness there was the determination of a young person who had been cheated in his life, and she understood something of this.
Evette thought about Peter Wilson and she knew that he would become important in her life. She would reach out, touch him, lead him, pull him toward her. She had already made overtures; he was afraid of her, a little anyway, but she hac made it hard for him and she had spotted that pretty quickly. He hadn't been able to ignore her even though he had appeared to try.
But Evette Warwick understood men; she'd had a lot of experience in the last few years. Peter Wilson wanted her. A lot of men did, but Peter had something she was interested in. He was a weak, little, crocked-up guy, but there was some thing about him. It was an inherent viciousness that perhaps only Evette saw or appreciated. But it was there. She needed a weak man who was dangerous.
Peter might even kill somebody someday. He probably would. She wondered if she would be that vague victim.
But this was only daydreaming on her part, thinking things that were probable but very un-likely.
She daydreamed too much, she thought; but she enjoyed doing it and continued it. What was the harm in daydreaming?
How else could Evette amuse herself at moments when she felt at odds with the world?
Evette remembered those first times with Paul Moran, when Paul was on fire with his desire for her. Evette smiled. Paul was really something, eager, superhuman in his virility and in his ability to excite her as she had never been excited before.
They had been walking through the park together, and Paul was still not sure that Evette was the thing for him. Not that he was that much older, just that he figured that the age difference was something he'd have to deal with.
The truth was that Evette had already slept with men far older than Paul, but he didn't know that. "Isn't that your place?" Evette said as they emerged from the park. "That's it, all right," Paul answered. "Let's go in and have a drink!" It couldn't really hurt, Paul thought. Most of the kids in town drank beer, and he knew it. A few minutes later she was finishing off a glass of beer, perched on Paul's living room sofa.
He was sitting opposite her, watching her with a smile on his face. When she finished, he stood up, thinking he would now finish walking her home.
Instead, his mouth gaped open in surprise as Evette calmly pulled off the sweater she was wearing, revealing the loveliest breasts that Paul had ever seen.
Her skirt followed, and then her panties. She wore no bra. Evette stood before him, grinning wickedly. "Here's your reward for the beer," she said.
Paul couldn't speak.
She walked over to him and gently cupped his swollen crotch in her warm hand. Paul groaned, his resolve melting quickly. He had never faced such a wanton, uninhibited woman in his life.
Nor one quite so young.
Evette fell to her knees and unzipped his trousers. Then she hauled out his swollen, thickening flesh, delighting in its size.
As she was about to put it in her mouth, Paul jerked her roughly to her feet. He kissed her hard on the mouth, feeling his shaft rubbing between her smooth, well-fleshed thighs.
Then he led her to the bedroom, and flung her on the bed. He had never been so sexually excited in his life, and it was with trembling hands that he completed disrobing.
Then he was on her, entering quickly, her sharp intake of breath music to his ears. She knew what she was doing, Paul understood that. He didn't want to know how or why he found himself in bed with Evette-all he knew was that he had to possess her.
She coiled her legs around his back, urging him on with her heels. He felt her warm interior and swayed gently in the saddle as she rocked her hips, working him in all the way.
Then he was stroking hard, trying to punish her for the ease with which she got her way with him. It wasn't right-a man should be in charge, Paul thought. He felt like a stud called upon to perform, and as much as he loved what he was doing, he didn't like the feeling that went with it.
His orgasm was swift and powerful but no match for the intensity of sensual pleasure that swept through Evette's body. She was delirious with joy, whimpering and crying, unaware of where she was, or who she was with.
At that moment, it never occurred to Paul Moran that someone was going to kill Evette Warwick.