Ashes and Bones (23 page)

My heart leapt, even as I gaped.

“Ah, g’day, Daniel-san! I was wondering whether you were going to join us at all. Don’t stand there playing the diva, no one’s going to roll the red carpet out for you here. In fact, since you’re so sloppy as to miss nearly three minutes of my excellent warm-up exercises, you may give me thirty and thirty, if you’d be so kind.”

Whatever else I might feel that I’d brought on the class, there was no denying that Mr. Temple seemed to lay it on just a bit thicker because I was there, his special pet. He kept announcing that he’d begun to put me on the right track, and so I would set an example for the rest of the class. He pushed us hard, and I got a couple of dirty looks, but he pushed me hardest of all, in the capacity of exemplar.

For the rest of the class, we were all on the verge of collapse. Despite that, some of the guys, and Johanna, looked like they’d just discovered their new hero. Surprisingly, Temple stopped the class early, within ten minutes of when we would usually let out.

I didn’t dare look at the clock to confirm this anomaly, already having given Mr. Temple too many of the “juiciest” when I’d fallen behind. I couldn’t wring anything else out of my poor, beaten body. It was almost as if he had something against me, and I almost thanked him for it: It was the first time I hadn’t thought about my problems in ages. Something tore in my shoulder, once, when he threw me, but I was so pumped with adrenaline that I didn’t feel it fully until we’d stopped.

“Now, I will repeat what I said at the beginning of class for the benefit of stragglers, layabouts, and our diva, Daniel-San, over there. I will be standing in for Nolan while he is recuperating. I do not say substitute, nor do I intend to replace him, as I know the old bastard, while giving the due respect to a great warrior and brother-in-arms, is milking his recovery for all it is worth, pinching the nurses, demanding sponge baths, and stealing extra pudding.”

I could see nothing to joke about and I found my anger rising. At the same time, I marveled at how quickly Temple
had gotten here, and he’d left his family and classes behind in what must have been the wink of an eye to do it. That got him something, in my books. I was thankful as hell that he was here, but not if he kept teasing about Nolan.

“With that in mind, I will take the opportunity to mold you in my own shining image. I will work you hard and you will be piteously grateful, giving me all you have in return. You will leave it all on the mat, and if I suspect that you are holding out on me, I will make sure it is the second thing I report to Nolan. The first being that I will tell him that I have taken the liberty of upgrading his cable television while he was away. Is that understood?”

“YES, SIR!” I was surprised to hear the class bellow. The man naturally elicited it, though.

“Until Thursday, then. With the exception of Daniel-san, you are all free to go forth, and sin as much as you can get away with.”

We bowed out. I grabbed my towel and followed Temple into Nolan’s office. I was grateful to the point of tears that he did not sit in Nolan’s chair behind the desk, but sat on the desk itself. He did, however, offer me water from Nolan’s stock in the little fridge.

“No doubt you are delighted to see me. I give you leave to express your pleasure—no? Perhaps just curious as to my presence. That I will grant you. I came when I heard that Nolan was in hospital. But I also decided that I could profitably spend my time keeping up his classes, keeping myself gorgeous and in condition, and perhaps, keeping an eye on you. Clearly, you’re attracting some serious trouble.”

“Um,” was all I could manage.

“I don’t expect thanks, not from you, Emma. Old Nolan would do the same for me, it’s understood. But if my worries are justified, then you will, perhaps, give me the benefit of an extra two hours of your company a week, for private sessions. Perhaps your husband would join us.”

I looked up quickly. “How did you know Brian is here, too?”

“Nolan keeps quite accurate notes on his students, including the family relationships. Elementary, Daniel-san.”

“Oh. I don’t know about Brian…he’s pretty busy at work, right now.” I could feel my face, already hot from the workout, go another shade red. I didn’t want Brian out of the house any more than necessary.

Temple looked at me sharply, but I wouldn’t say anything else. “Very well. I will discuss that when he comes into class tonight, should he chose to do so. Now then, what does your schedule allow, in terms of more fun and frolicks with Yours Truly?”

“Well, the semester’s just started, so I’m actually also going to be very busy the next week or so—”

“Of course. So we’d better make them first thing in the morning, and perhaps the hour class with the others? Surely you can manage that?”

“Um, not really, no.”

He smiled hugely. “Splendid, I thought so.”

What was with this guy pushing so hard? “No, seriously. My schedule is pure madness for the next six weeks. I can’t possibly add more on to it now.” Big points for me, I thought, for standing up to him.

Temple cocked his head, looking very serious. “I think you can manage one extra class, can’t you?”

“No, I really can’t.” There it was, polite but firm.

Except it didn’t take. We went around the block a few more times until I finally agreed to give him an extra hour a week. I should have known I was doomed from the first: Who was going to win an argument with a mountain? Except maybe Mindy. And God, how I hate early mornings…not that I’d been waiting for the dawn chorus to wake me up lately.

Time for a change of topic before he realized that if I didn’t sleep, there were about six hours a night I could train, too. “Mr. Temple? Have you seen Nolan? Do you know how he is?”

His face darkened. “They’re letting no one but family see him—”

I had no idea Nolan had any family at all.

“—but I did find out that his condition is most grave. He lost a good deal of blood. I know of six men who are waiting for me to call and tell me that I’ve found the bastard that’s done this. Then, there will be no need for any further authority involvement.”

I chewed that over, the particularity of that very specific number, the fact that Temple could speak so casually and so convincingly of murder, for that was what was in his eyes. All I could do was nod, and I felt myself getting ready to cry again.

His expression turned to alarm. “Now! None of that!”

I felt his hands on my shoulders; Temple gave me a shake. Then he shoved a hanky into my hand. I blew my nose gratefully.

“Sorry.”

“Now, now, you’re not going to scare me with a bit of waterworks. I’ve got a wife and children, you think I’ve never seen tears before? Ha! Old Nolan’s tough as a root, he’ll be just fine.”

“I hope so. It’s my fault he’s hurt in the first place,” I said.

Though we weren’t on the mats, I’d finally managed to stun Temple. I told him how Nolan came to be outside with me the night he was shot. He listened so carefully, that I told him the rest of the story as well.

“Hmmm. It’s quite possible that it is your Mr. Tony Markham who is responsible, in which case, he’s made a very serious mistake.” He chewed it over a bit more. “It is, however, equally possible that it has nothing at all to do with you. It could be a random event, as there are a great many evil and demented bastards out there in the world. It is also possible that it is someone from Nolan’s past—about which I will tell you no more—who is responsible. If that’s the case, then I’m sorry that you were there to see it. In any case,
our six friends will also be making themselves busy in the weeks to come. You must tell me everything again.”

I did. He surprised me, taking down notes as I spoke. I wouldn’t have thought that he would believe me, care, or be so methodical about it all.

“Three things,” he said, when I’d finished.

I nodded.

“First, you really need to consider what you’ve told me about when you’ve seen this Tony person. It seems to me that while you are a sharp cookie, at least when you’re not on the mats. All of your sightings have been when you were exhausted and half asleep—in the airport—or when you had just had bad news—about your little friend Chuck—and when you were with old Nolan at the hospital.”

I nodded, shrugging. I didn’t like hearing what he said, and didn’t believe it, but had to consider it.

“Second. You know from class about being on your guard. I don’t need to tell you how important that is now. You can’t afford to feel comfortable, anywhere.”

I shrugged. That wasn’t even an issue.

“Next thing. Very important.”

I leaned in to hear it.

“Make sure, for God’s sake, you are on time when you come in tomorrow.”

I
SLEPT WELL THAT NIGHT, AND AFTER CLASS THE
next morning, I felt so good after I showered that I realized that I was going to blow off schoolwork and indulge in the radical activity of doing some grocery shopping. We were down to gulag food—coffee but no milk, bread crusts with no butter, and canned emergency rations—and needed some fresh supplies ASAP. I felt good enough to leave the house again.

Halfway down the street, I was singing to whatever song was playing on the radio. It felt good to be silly for a change, it felt good to be able to do something proactive about the situation, no matter how slight. An extra class, a little time to myself where I wasn’t obsessing, it could only do me good.

Then I nearly drove off the road with my next thought.

Artie’s absence had allowed someone to get into the unlocked house, but how had that someone gotten into the barn? The lock was still in place when I checked with Joel, and there were two copies—one on my chain, one on the spare rack on the way out of the house.

The keys.

I pulled over and rushed into CaféNation, and sure enough, the keys I’d seen before were still there, but now they were on a shelf behind the counter. The bright red metal of the carabiner caught my eye instantly, and the twinkle of the charm stood out among the white porcelain mugs. I whipped my head around, looking for Tina. She wasn’t there.

“Shit!”

At that moment, one of the kids, Isabel, came out from the back. “It’s okay, Emma. I’ll get your coffee now. Remain calm, take deep breaths.” Her smile faded as she realized I wasn’t just jonesing.

“Sorry. It’s not that, Isabel. I was looking for Tina, is she around? It’s kind of important.”

“She’s off today. Can I help?”

“It’s…it’s going to sound strange, but can I…you remember the keys that were lost—the ones back there? Well, is it all right if I take them? I think I know who they might belong to.”

Isabel frowned for a minute as she considered. The little dumbbell in her eyebrow moved as well, an added emphasis. “I guess so,” she said as she handed them to me. “I mean, Tina knows you, right? And no one’s been in to pick them up for a long while. And we know where you live anyway,” she joked.

“I’m afraid you’re not the only ones,” I said.

“Sorry?”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m just…I’ll bring them right back, if my theory doesn’t pan out, okay?”

“Sure. Maybe give me a call if you find out, okay? Just to keep us in the loop?”

“Absolutely. I have to run.”

I went back out to my car, feeling pretty stupid, but also fairly sure I was on the right track. I paused before I hit the unlock button, and decided to follow upon my paranoid feeling. Getting down on my hands and knees, I looked under the car for anything that shouldn’t have been there. While
this might have been par for the course for some of my colleagues who worked in more dangerous parts of the world, I wasn’t sure what a car bomb would look like. Of course, I’d just driven, but just on the off chance that it was something in the key that triggered it…well, just better to work with the paranoia.

I didn’t notice anything unusual, nothing new or shiny or clean that might have been the tip-off, so I got back up, and dusted myself off. I’d half convinced myself that I was really losing my mind, just as everyone kept telling me I was, but I stepped off a ways and made sure there was no one else around before I pressed the button.

I heard a faint click.

My car was now unlocked. I was sure that I’d locked it before I went into the coffee shop. I always locked it.

I tried locking the car, with the remote that I’d found in the coffee shop.

It locked. The alarm armed.

I walked around the car, ascertaining that it was in fact mine. There was my
WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN SELDOM MAKE HISTORY
bumper sticker and my sticker supporting the Democratic presidential ticket. In the backseat was a shovel and milk crate full of artifacts to study at home. In the front seat was my collection of empty water bottles.

I took out my keys, held one against its counterpart on the carabiner: There was no mistaking this. Somehow, the key to my car—or a copy of it—was left at CaféNation. The coffee shop I stopped by at least five times a week, where they knew my orders by heart. A key to my car, on a key chain that I’d been automatically drawn to, wanted to handle and play with from the first moment I’d seen it.

I now had no doubt that the rest of the keys would fit the locks to my house.

The charm was another matter. I didn’t go for good luck pieces, I didn’t naturally gravitate to Irish emblems, though there were those in my family who made more of the Irish
part of our heritage than I did. That was the only thing that was inconsistent at the moment.

I examined the charm again, and was struck by the same impressions that I had the first time I handled it. The enamel was dark green and beautifully made, the gold showed no scratches, no signs of wear at all, and the stone at the center of the leaves was probably a real, cut diamond. Brand new.

I turned it over and saw that there were initials on three of the leaves: “EJF.”

My initials.

Someone had the keys to my car. Had the keys to the house. Might not know the alarm codes, but had, at one point, most likely been inside the house.

Sometime later, my shovel scraped hard against a rock; the screech of metal on the rock jarred me. I looked around: I was in a shadowy, wooded area. The smell of pine needles, sap, and fresh dirt—a new note in the musty perfume of the woods—filled the still air. Just beyond the blade of the shovel I saw a hole in the ground, nearly filled; a small, scattered pile of dirt was beside it. I was sweating hard in spite of the shade and it felt like I’d been at work for a while. My hands were blistering—apparently I hadn’t been using good form—and there was dirt jammed deep under my nails. I looked down and saw my trowel stuck into the ground like a dagger. I wasn’t exactly certain where I was or how I’d gotten there. I recalled the visit to the coffee shop. I had driven here, I don’t know how. Muscle memory or instinct or dumb good luck got me there. I didn’t really remember anything. Hardly knew where I was.

A moment later and I recognized that I was beneath the trees at the far corner of our property. If I stretched, I could just make out the back of the barn, and I was far enough in that I couldn’t see or be seen from the house or street. A chill took me as I began to re-excavate the hole I had been filling. The soil was still soft and so the work was easy. I still had to
work half bent over to avoid the low branches. Cedars and pines that looked so soft to the touch jabbed and scratched my head and arms.

The hole got smaller as I went down, but at least I was no longer constrained by the lattice of roots knotted under the earth; I’d cut through them the first time. When it got so that I couldn’t move dirt with the shovel, I threw that aside and pulled out the trowel. That got me another few inches, the hole narrowing even more quickly now. My shirt stuck to me, broken twigs and leaves hung on to my shirt, and more dirt wedged under my fingernails.

I found the keys from the coffee shop, just where I’d buried them, and dusted them off as best I could. Then I refilled the hole, scattering the duff of dead leaves and pine needles over the top. It was almost as though I’d never been there at all.

The car was in the driveway, I was relieved to see. After I replaced the tools in the garage, I went into the house. I didn’t bother locking the door; there didn’t seem to be a point. I dropped the carabiner and keys onto the counter, then went upstairs. I stripped down and got into the shower. I don’t know how long I was in there, but after a while I realized that I could barely breathe for the steam and my skin had gone bright red and pruney. I got out and pulled on some shorts and a jog-bra, then sat in my office.

I sat for a long time before I realized that I’d forgotten to turn on the fans. I was sweating again. I drank a whole bottle of tepid water, and then looked for another one.

The charm was a present, I understood that now. Tony’d been sending tokens or expensive presents to everyone—flowers, chocolates, photos—and now gold jewelry for me. The shamrock wasn’t my taste, but I thought that was just a good guess. What really bothered me was that he knew how much I’d like the carabiner.

Does the fact that I realized what Tony was doing, that this was a gift, mean something? Did it mean that I was starting to think like him? Or was I just so weirded out that I
was reading too much into things? How could I tell what was real anymore?

I didn’t want to think that I was right. I didn’t want to think like Tony. I didn’t want to do things and then not remember them. That was crazy.

I shivered and felt myself break out into a sweat again.

Brian came home shortly after that. One look at my face, and he was at my side.

“What is it?”

I told him about the key chain and the car. I showed him the charm.

“Okay, this is bad,” he said. “But nothing’s happened to you?”

I shivered, shook my head.

“That’s something.” He looked at the key ring more closely. “Why is there so much dirt on them? Maybe that’s a clue—”

“No. It’s not.”

He looked at me sharply. “Why not?”

“I…I dropped them.” I couldn’t tell Brian about the time I’d lost. “My hands were shaking…after I tried the keys on my car. And we can forget about fingerprints, too; everyone at CaféNation will have handled them by now. What do we do?” My hands were still trembling, I felt like I had flu.

“Call the locksmith, call the cops. Check the house.”

I nodded numbly, my arms wrapped around myself. Nolan, the keys, it felt like I couldn’t even think straight, couldn’t keep a thought in my head long enough to act on it.

Brian made the calls. He found me a glass of water, and then sat down and waited with me. Suddenly, he looked up.

“The spare keys!”

I looked up; the rack by the back door where we kept the spare keys seemed to be much the same as ever. Brian rushed over in excitement, though.

“Look, they’ve been rearranged!” He picked through the keys, put them back the way that our system required. “They’ve been moved so that you can’t tell a couple have
been taken! That’s how he got into the barn when it was padlocked! There’s no valet key for the car! It’s okay!”

“What do you mean, it’s okay?” I felt more exposed than ever. “My God, Brian! Tony’s got a copy of our keys!”

“Right, but he only had time enough to grab a couple, rearrange them so we wouldn’t notice right away, and maybe that’s when he grabbed the mail with Sophia’s picture on the way out. Because we’ve used the alarm every other time, we know he hasn’t been into the house since then. So if Alfie—”

“Artie.”

“—whatever—wasn’t gone for too long, that was the only time he could have gotten into the house!”

I slumped forward in the chair. “I guess I don’t see why that makes it okay.”

“It means that it wasn’t magic, how Tony or whoever got in here. And I’m happy to move one more step toward demystifying all of this. It’s logical, and we can contain it. We also know that it isn’t any worse than changing the locks, getting someone to check out the car.”

I wasn’t so sure. If nothing else, I knew I’d be cleaning the whole house as soon as I could, just to wipe away the taint of someone having been in there.

The locksmith came, and didn’t overcharge us too badly, considering. The police came, and took a statement, took the key chain, and I gave them a copy of the rest of the file I’d been compiling about what had been going on.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night and every noise seemed to be cause for fear. Sometime around dawn, I drifted off, only to wake up to the alarm clock a few minutes later. “I’m sleeping in,” I mumbled. “I’ll go in later.”

“I’m calling in sick,” Brian announced from the other side of the bed.

“Why?” I sat up. “What’s wrong? Do you have a fever?”

“Nope. I’m fine. I’m going to stay home and we’re going to fart around today and pretend we’re normal. It’ll be the best thing for you.”

“Your deadline—”

“Can wait a day. I’ll work late or bring something home with me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why, don’t you want me here?”

“Let me get another three hours of sleep and I’ll show you how much.”

We did virtually nothing that day. Well, to be fair, we cleaned, did laundry, went food shopping, and went out for lunch and breakfast—I had pancakes at both and not only did I eat most of it, I started picking at Brian’s french fries as well. For some reason, pretending to be normal helped a lot. Fake it until you make it.

The next day, Brian left for work, and I sat in my home office because it went against every fiber in my being to leave the Funny Farm. Now it was Brian who pointed out that there was no way we should let anyone get in the way of our lives more than they already were. We’d done all we could to remove access to the house, and we’d probably even done it in time.

I might as well go to work, I reasoned, at last: It didn’t help much that I still felt haunted, even at home. And it felt like everywhere I went there was some reminder that I was being harrowed. Work, home, the coffee shop…I realized that I was avoiding places I usually went, trying to stay holed up, out of danger, always on the alert. At home, every time the phone rang, I jumped; the doorbell, when the letter carrier showed up with a package for me, almost sent me to the moon. I caught Minnie staring at the closet and it took me a good five minutes of listening for noises before getting the poker and opening the door. Quasi came shooting out, howling indignantly about having been shut in. Nothing could just be what it was, it was all freighted with the promise of doom.

But when I got to school, I found I stumbled through my new lectures and moved through the familiar ones like a
zombie. It seemed as though my arduous workouts with Temple were the only thing that gave me an hour’s precious respite.

It was a crappy way to live. I knew that I’d been avoiding a lot of things lately, deliberately not going to my favorite places, lest they be next on the chopping block. Brian was right, I
was
avoiding life. So I gave myself a goal, that afternoon, after work, to go to the liquor store to get some beer, then drop off the books I’d promised Raylene almost three weeks ago.