"Of course it’s clear, Leo," Collins said. "I simply don’t believe it." He shrugged. "And for me, that throws a monkey wrench into our whole investigation. If Brian Fisher didn’t rape her, who the hell did?"
"Uh-huh. Well, I believe that he did rape her. But the point is, Fred, even if he didn’t, then the bald and unattractive fact remains that he did indeed
kill
her, and that’s what we’re interested in here. Am I right?"
Collins said nothing.
~ * ~
It is ten years later and Maude and Peter are talking, filling the air with chitchat that is better than discussing their love life, which has become nonexistent in the last few weeks, though neither can pinpoint why.
Maude says, in answer to a question Peter asked her hours before, "No, they never really found her murderer." She turns her back to Peter so she can put on a blue negligee. She believes that his eyes are on her, and she resents it.
From the bed, with the blankets pulled up to his chin against the cold, early winter night, Peter says, "Someone confessed. I was talking to Lynn today"—the house’s previous owner; she’s holding the mortgage and keeps in regular touch—"and she said that someone confessed."
"I know that." Maude turns, faces him.
"You look very nice," Peter says, and smiles appreciatively.
"Thanks," she whispers, as if not wanting to acknowledge his remark.
"Really," he says with enthusiasm. "You look very fetching. Do you wear that every night?" He pauses, though not long enough for her to answer, then goes on, frowning a little, "Yes, I guess you do."
She nods slightly, as if embarrassed. She indicates the negligee. "It’s getting too cold for this thing."
"I’ll keep you warm," he says with a leer.
"Sure, thanks," she says without enthusiasm, and comes to bed, climbs in next to him, but lays on her back and puts her hands behind her head. "I still hear her," she says.
"Our ghost?" he says.
She nods.
"Same time, same place?" He grins.
She looks sharply at him. "Don’t joke about it. Please."
He looks at her a moment, decides she’s being serious, then says, "Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never heard her—"
"So you think I’m crazy?"
"No." Silence.
"That was a very unconvincing negative, Peter."
Silence.
She glances at him. His gaze is on the ceiling. She says his name. He looks at her, grins. "Let’s make love," he says.
She looks away. "I can’t. I’m sorry."
He sighs loudly. "Can you give me a reason?”
“Do I need to?"
"I asked for one."
A short pause, then, "I don’t have one, I guess." Another pause. "I’m just not in the mood.”
“Headache?"
"No."
"Maybe you don’t find me attractive anymore?”
“No."
"No?"
"Yes, I find you attractive—"
"It’s
her
, isn’t it? It’s your ghost."
Silence.
"She’s made you . . . shy, or something.”
“That’s absurd."
Peter shakes his head quickly. "I understand now. I understand completely. You think she’s
watching
us." He smiles, though he realizes it’s a mistake; he can’t help himself. "You think some woman who was murdered
ten years ago
is going to watch us making love so you . . .
just
don’t
make love. My God, my God, that’s—"
"She was murdered
here
, dammit. In this house. In this very
room
, for all we know—"
"Not true. She was murdered downstairs. That’s what Lynn told me."
"Oh, fuck Lynn!"
"I may have to." Peter closes his eyes. He’s put his foot in it now, he realizes. He whispers, eyes still closed. "Sorry. That was stupid."
Silence.
He looks at Maude. She’s crying softly. He sighs. "Really," he says. "I didn’t mean it. It was a real, real stupid thing to say."
Maude shakes her head.
"That’s not why you’re crying?" Peter guesses. Maude nods. She manages, "I’m crying because of her."
"Lynn?"
"No, for God’s sake! Will you shut
up
about her. I’m talking about Anne Case. I . . . feel her in the house. I feel that she is very sad, and that she needs someone. A friend."
"You?"
Maude shakes her head."I couldn’t, even if I wanted." A pause. "And I
do
want—"
"Now you’re spooking me."
She says, as if in sudden revelation, "Let’s make love. Now. Right now!"
Peter pulls back from her. His brow furrows. "What an invitation to a hard-on."
"But . . . I mean it. Let’s make love. You don’t want to make love?"
"Of course I do. But not because you think your . . . friend is going to be watching. Not to show her you sympathize, or that you understand, or that you’re willing to share me with her—"
"That’s disgusting! That’s repulsive! How can you talk like that? How can I make love to someone who talks like that?"
"Maude," he says, "you’re sounding very
unlevelheaded
."
She says nothing for a moment. She wants to say,
You mean, I sound female right?
but she’s not sure which way that will take them, or the discussion. She’s trying to steer the discussion, and she knows it. She says, "I don’t mean to sound that way." She pauses, adds, "Some of what you say has merit."
"Some of it?"
"Most of it." Another pause. "All of it."
Now Peter’s amused. "You’re kidding. You wanted to
share
me with a ghost just to show her you could be her friend?" He smiles. The smile becomes a quick chuckle.
Maude says, "I didn’t realize it until you brought it up."
"It’s incredible. It sounds like a
National Enquirer
headline:
Woman Shares Husband with Ghost
. It’s a hoot."
"Please. You’re being unkind."
"To her?"
"Who else?"
"Darling, she does not exist. You may not believe that, but it’s regrettably true."
Maude says nothing. She knows that Peter will come around sooner or later.
They don’t make love that night.
T
he middle-aged woman who wrote of her own death couldn’t get it right because part of her was still bound to the earth and so she looked at death incorrectly.
"The
missusgathered
," she wrote, "and wept
weeree
teers
invane
for the
maen
lying
ded
."
What she saw with the misted eye of her memory was the end of existence. She saw a body being shuffled into the ground and dirt thrown over it and decay starting.
She wrote, "And he had
ben
a
goudman
, yes, and
thair
were
meneechildren
left two
weepand
remember."
As if it were a dream, she disguised herself from herself by changing her sex and her marital status (for in life she had been divorced, without children).
Only sometimes, when she looked back, she saw a silver thread rising up from the man’s body; she wrote of it, "Then the
spidersthair
were hard at
wirk
awl
atonce
tieing
himup
," although this characterization annoyed her and made her feel that she was being dishonest, though she couldn’t imagine why.
When she slept, she dreamt of her previous life, of the man she had loved then, of her mother, of a niece she had cared for. She walked with these people in her dreams, or she caressed them, or talked with them of the things which had once concerned her. And when she woke she remembered snippets of these dreams, the quick glimpse of a face, a smell that came and went as quickly as the beat of a wing. She told herself—as did many people here who had had similar dreams—that these were visions of things to come, people yet to arrive, situations not yet formed; "those on the horizon," they were called.
There were names in her dreams, too. She remembered some of them clearly. Rebecca, Mark, Jason. Like many others, she mouthed the names from her dreams often. She whispered them under her breath, sang them, said them aloud at odd moments, surprising herself with them, as if they had escaped, unbidden, from within her. And like the others here, she had no idea what names were for. She knew only that when she said them, they brought her a feeling of happiness, or sadness or, sometimes, a feeling of deep closeness that made her skin tingle.
Her father was here, though he was not nearby. He was in one of the cities. And she saw him, too, in her dreams, though distantly; in her previous life, she had known him only a little. He had died when she was just starting school.
She wrote, "The
missusgathered
wept
weery
teers
for the woman,
buthey
needant
." She reread it and wondered about it. It spoke some truth to her, she realized, but it was a prickly and uncomfortable truth because she could not get hold of it. She stared at what she had written for a long time, trying to fathom it.
Elsewhere, others were doing similar things. Some who painted, some who wrote music, or sculpted, or wrote—all in answer to a great need within them—stepped back from their creations and wondered at them, heard the whisper of new truth in them, but could not hear it well enough to make sense of it.
But this did not happen to everyone. And when it happened, it was like the unexplained passing of a chill through the body (when it is said, perhaps, that someone has "just walked over my grave").
~ * ~
David knew that he was going to go back. He knew also that he’d have no trouble getting there.
It was here with him even now, in this hospital room—the smell of pine tar and dust and the distant sound of happy voices.
He’d have no trouble getting back.
It was nearly as simple as . . . stepping over.
("David Case?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"My name is Leo Kenner. I’m a detective with the Homicide Division of the Batavia Police Department. Sir, do you have a sister named Anne Case?"
"I do. She lives in Batavia. She’s fine."
"I’m very sorry, Mr. Case, but—"
"She’s
fine
, I told you! I spoke with her very recently. I know what you’re going to tell me.
You’re going to tell me that something’s happened to her. Some . . . accident. You’re going to tell me that she’s hurt. But you’re wrong."