Kissing the Beehive

Same red hair, same face, same clothes I had seen her wearing in an old photograph I kept framed on the wall in front of my desk. For a few seconds a hundred years long, everything I had known, lived, thought about for the last months went up in smoke. Everything I believed was wrong. She was alive!

I was so overwhelmed by the apparition that it took more seconds to realize it wasn't Pauline, but Veronica made-up so perfectly that she could have fooled anyone into believing it – for a short while.

She clapped her hands like a child and laughed. "It worked! I can't wait to tell Cass! She said you'd never fall for it but you did. You thought I was her!"

I wanted to strangle her. "Where is my daughter, Veronica?"

"Oh come on, give me some credit, Sam. For two seconds I had you. Did you see this?" She jumped up and ran over to the wall where Pauline had done her artwork. "Look! Pauline did it –"

"I know, Veronica. I saw it. Is that what this is about? Is that why I'm here, so you can show me some letters cut into a goddamned wall?"

She turned away and touched the words. Her hand slid slowly down the white wall and dropped to her side. It was the most defeated gesture I had ever seen. She stood there, motionless. "No, that's not why. But I didn't know you'd already seen it. It was going to be a little extra surprise for you." She walked back to where she had been sitting and dropped to the floor again. "I have to tell you what I discovered. It's going to change your whole book, Sam. Do you know about John LePoint?"

I could barely contain myself and was just able to ask, "No, who is he?"

"Edward Durant's cellmate at Sing Sing. He's still alive. I found him for you. He lives in Power, Maine. You have to talk to him. You have to."

"I don't give a shit about the book, Veronica! I want my daughter. Just tell me where she is. Tell me and I won't say anything to anyone. No cops, nothing. Where is she?"

She dropped her head to her chest so I could only see the lush red hair spilling down, covering everything. Another wig, another trick. "Why can't you ever just be yourself, Veronica? Why do you always have to lie or pretend you're another person?" Looking at her bent over like that, repentant again for yet another awful act, my anger took precedence over everything else.

Her head rose slowly and she looked at me with a crooked smile that gave away nothing. When she spoke, her voice was cool and distant. "Because you were the one. The person I have loved and admired most. It began a long time ago and then for a little while it was happening. We got so close I could smell it, I could feel it in the palm of my hand! God God God!" She shuddered and closed her eyes.

"When I realized I'd done it all wrong, again, I thought maybe I could be someone else you'd love. But I kept getting that wrong too, didn't I?" She shook her head and shrugged, defeated. "I met Cass's mother. I followed her around one day and struck up a conversation in Bloomingdale's. What a loser, Sam. What a stupid, vacuous loser she is! All Armani and half a brain. But you married her didn't you?" She slammed her open hands on the floor. The slap echoed throughout the cavernous room. The jolt to her body caused a small revolver to jump out of a dress pocket and fall onto the floor.

I took a step backward. Mustering my courage, I managed to whisper, "Where is my daughter? Please."

She picked up the pistol and put it in her lap. Then she took a deep breath and let it out, her cheeks ballooning. "At the Holiday I

Amerling was only two miles away. I could be there in ten minutes. I took a step toward the door. She stood up so quickly that I didn't have a change to take step two. The gun was in her hand, pointed at my head.

"Don't move! You have to listen to this! I've been looking and looking. I wanted to help you so much that I stopped everything else. All I've been doing is research. And I found it! I found everything, Sam! Everything you need for your book. Talk to John LePoint. That's all I'm asking. I swear to God I'll leave you alone. Just promise you'll go talk to him –"

"I don't care about the book, Veronica. Burn it right now, right here on the floor, I don't give a damn. Let me go. Let me get Cass and take her home."

"The only women you love are your daughter and Pauline. The only ones. You can't love anyone else. Except yourself.

"But you know what? Your daughter likes me! She likes me a lot. That's what she said before I came over here. 'I pray you work this out with Dad.' I don't care if you believe that, because it's true. That's exactly what she said!"

I stabbed a finger at her. "I believe you, but which one does she like? Huh? The real Veronica Lake, whoever that is, or one of those masks you carry around in your pocket like breath mints? Yeah! Breath mints, to cover up the smell –"

"Shut up! Stop it, Sam!" She turned the gun from me and put it onto herself. "You can't love me? Fine. But I can haunt you. That's good. Second best. Good enough! You're going to watch this and I'll live in you forever!"

"No! Don't do it! Please!"

Her face softened and she lurched forward. At first I thought she was throwing herself at me. I heard shattering glass and saw a great jet of blood shoot out the middle of her chest. As she moved, she was hit again. Only then did I know she'd shot herself! She did it, she shot herself!

But that couldn't be, because she had the gun to her chest and she should have gone backward, not forward, like someone had given her a hard push from behind and the blood would have gone the other way and her pistol was so small so how could there be so much blood and why was it coming from the wrong way and . . .

After the second shot, her arms flew up. The pistol sailed out of her hand and hit me in the face. I twisted away as she pitched forward and slid a long way across the floor.

I went down and grabbed her. Her blood was everywhere, smears, gobs. It continued to pump out, still alive, deep red and shiny.

"Veronica!"

Her eyes fluttered and closed.

Deep and distant in my mind I knew someone out there had shot her but I could not move. I could not give up her body even if it meant a good chance of seeing who had done it.

I held her and looked at her face – half Pauline, half Veronica. Then my mind cleared and I put my hand on her chest and felt soft ooze. No skin anymore. I was touching only warm slippery things and sharp snapped bones. I pulled my hand out and looked at the blood and viscera covering it.

I don't know how long I sat with Veronica's body in my arms. I spoke to her for a long time. I don't remember what I said.

When I was able to, I lowered her gently to the floor and stood up. At the door, I turned and looked back. She lay in the middle of the room. The only thing keeping her company was Pauline's old love line on the opposite wall. The two dead women in there together.

I walked down the hall and went outside. On the porch directly in front of the door was a bouquet of flowers exactly like the ones I had received earlier in Co