The Edge

Maggie sat back down on the sofa and clicked her ballpoint pen. "I want to know what you and Jilly did last Tuesday night. Think back. It's dinnertime. Did you eat in or go out?"

"For God's sake, Maggie, why do you want to know what we did for dinner?"

"Did you eat in, Paul?" I asked, still standing in front of the window, my arms crossed over my chest.

"Yes, we did. We broiled halibut, squeezed on lemon. Jilly made garlic toast. I tossed a spinach salad. We ate. I had work to do after dinner. Jilly said she was going to drive around, nothing unusual in that. She loved driving the Porsche. She left here about nine o'clock."

"Rob Morrison said she went over the cliff at about midnight. That's three hours, Paul. That's an awfully long time to drive around."

"I went to work. I fell asleep at my desk, even left my computer on. If Jilly came back and left again, I wouldn't know. If she stayed out the full three hours, I wouldn't know that either. All I know is she left at nine." "What was her mood at dinner?" "Maggie, you know Jilly. She's never serious, always joking around. She told me a Viagra joke, I remember that."

"So what is it you're working on, Paul?" Maggie said. "You want to clone little Paul Bartletts?"

"No, Maggie, I wouldn't want to clone myself until I figure out how to regrow hair." He looked over at me. "Now you're a possibility. You've got good genes, Mac. The Germans would have approved of you, or the FBI. You interested?"

"So you put the FBI right in there with the Nazis, do you?" Why was he stonewalling? But how could a drug he was developing have anything to do with Jilly driving over a cliff?

Paul just shrugged. "Lots of parallels, as I see it."

I let it go, just shrugged. "Well, maybe I'll consider it three lifetimes from now if I turn real weird, but probably not. So you're saying that during dinner Jilly seemed perfectly normal?"

"Yes. She ate lightly. She wanted to lose five pounds."

Maggie said, "Was she taking any weight-loss pills?"

"Not that I know of. I'll check in the medicine cabinet and see what's there."

"Okay."

"Is it true you made love to Jilly every day, Paul?"

I'd swear that Paul turned red to his receding hairline. "What the hell kind of question is that, Mac? Why is that your business?"

"In February, Jilly told me about her love life. She'd never spoken so frankly about sex with you before that. Thinking back on it, something was off. She spoke about a number of things, going from one subject to the next, without pause, without emphasis on anything."

"What did she say, Mac?"

I looked at Maggie. In that moment, I would have sworn she had more than just a professional interest in what was going on here. Well, why not give her details? I said, "She spoke about her new dress, how Paul made love to her all the time, how she loved her Porsche, and she spoke about a brother and sister, Cal and Cotter Tarcher. Everything she said was in the same tone of voice, almost without emotion. Now, in hindsight, it wasn't quite right."

The doorbell rang.

Paul jumped to his feet. "Oh, God, what if something's happened to Jilly?"

He ran out of the living room. Maggie said to me, "I realize you don't want to hear this, Mac, but there was talk. Just maybe it wasn't Paul she was having all that sex with."

I wanted to punch her. Jilly screwing around? I'd never believe that. Not Jilly. I didn't have time to question Maggie about it before Paul returned to the living room. Standing beside him in the doorway was a small girl- no, a woman-perhaps twenty-five. She had dark brown hair, thick and curly, pulled back with two plastic clips. Her skin was whiter than a pair of my boxer shorts fresh out of the drier. No freckles. She wore glasses with rounded gold frames. She was wearing jeans that were too loose on her and a white shirt, probably a man's, that hung halfway down her legs and was rolled up to her forearms. "Hello, Cal," Maggie said, rising slowly. "What brings you here?"

Good grief. Cal Tarcher, in the flesh. The girl who was going to be jealous of Jilly's new dress. Sister of Cotter, the vicious bully.

I watched Cal raise her head, look furtively toward Paul, and say, "My father sent me. I'm glad you're here, Maggie. All of you ate invited to our house tomorrow night." She looked toward me. "Are you Jilly's brother?"

"Yes. I'm Ford MacDougal."

"I'm Cat Tarcher. Is Jilly all right?"