one smack in the family jewels. I was thinking how lucky it was I'd said the sex was rough-it explained the bruises. I have an idea they were light, anyway, because the heart attack came right on the heels of the kicks, and the heart attack stopped the bruising process almost before it could get started.
That leads to another question, of course-did I cause the heart attack by kicking him? None of the medical books I've looked at answer that question conclusively, but let's get real: I probably helped him along. Still, I refuse to take the whole rap. He was overweight, he drank too much, and he smoked like a chimney. The heart attack was coming; if it hadn't been that day, it would have been the next week or the next month. The devil only plays his fiddle for you so long, Ruth, I believe that. If you don't, I cordially invite you to told it small and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. I happen to think I've earned the right to believe what I want to believe, at least in this matter. Especially in this matter.
"If I looked like I swallowed a doorknob," I told Brandon, "it's because I'm trying to get used to the idea that someone thinks I killed Gerald to collect his life insurance,"
He shook his head some more, looking at me earnestly all the while. "They don't think that at all. Harrelson says Gerald had a heart attack which may have been precipitated by sexual excitement, and the State Police accept that because John Harrelson is about the best in the business. At most there may be a few cynics who think you played Salome and led him on deliberately." "Do you?" I asked.
I thought I might shock him with such directness, and part of me was curious as to what a shocked Brandon Milheron might look like, but I should have known better. He only smiled. "Do I think you'd have imagination enough to see a chance of blowing Gerald's thermostat but not enough to see you might end up dying in handcuff s yourself as a result? No. For whatever it's worth, Jess, I think it went down just the way you told me it did. Can I be honest?"
It was my turn to smile. "I wouldn't want you to be anything else."
"All right. I worked with Gerald, and I got along with him, but there were plenty of people in the firm who didn't. He was the world's biggest control-freak. It doesn't surprise me a bit that the idea of having sex with a woman handcuffed to the bed lit up all his dials."
I took a quick look at him when he said that. It was night, only the light at the head of my bed was on, and he was sitting in shadow from the shoulders up, but I'm pretty sure that Brandon Milheron, Young Legal Shark About Town, was blushing.
"If I've offended you, I'm sorry," he said, sounding unexpectedly awkward.
I almost laughed. It would have been unkind, but just then he sounded about eighteen years old and fresh out of prep school. "You haven't offended me, Brandon," I said.
"Good. That takes care of me. But it's still the job of the police to at least entertain the possibility of foul play-to consider the idea that you could have gone a step further than just hoping your husband might have what is known in the trade as "a horny coronary.""
"I didn't have the slightest idea he had a heart problem!" I said. "Apparently the insurance companies didn't, either. If they'd known, they never would have written those policies, would they?"
"Insurance companies will insure anyone who's willing to pay enough freight," he said, "and Gerald's insurance agents didn't see him chainsmoking and belting back the booze. You did. All protests aside, you must have known he was a heart attack looking for a place to happen. The cops know it, too. So they say, "Suppose she invited a friend down to the lake house and didn't tell her husband? And suppose this friend just happened to jump out of the closet and yell Booga-Booga at exactly the right time for her and exactly the wrong one for her old man?" If the cops had any evidence that something like that might have happened, you'd be in deep shit, Jessie. Because under certain select circumstances, a hearty cry of Booga-Booga can be seen as an act of first-degree murder.