The Dead Past (27 page)

"Johnny," he said quietly, "come in." If he thought it was strange that I was calling at eleven-thirty at night, he didn't show it.

"Is Willie here?"

"Yes," he said, and paused. He took a step down the hall and stopped and wheeled to me again, as if he was seeing me for the first time and didn't quite remember who I was or how I got in. There wasn't much alcohol on his breath, but it wouldn't take a lot to get Doug a little high. "
Uhm
," he said, frowning. "Willie's upstairs sleeping in the guest room. He hasn't slept in two days, since they first called him." Doug scratched his chin too roughly and left angry lines. "His nerves are shot and he's completely exhausted."

"You could use some sleep yourself," I said.

He didn't hear me. "You know Willie can pack it away when he wants to, but he loaded himself with highballs all day and they didn't faze him. I thought he would never sleep, but about an hour ago he finally went up." Doug took a jump-start step again, stopped. "If only I'd known last night I would have flown home immediately."

Lisa came in from the living room, so small I didn't notice her until she stood beside me. She stooped and touched my leg. "Your leg's bloody, Johnny."

"It's okay."

"I'll get a bandage."

"I'm fine. It's already stopped."

She nodded and gave Doug a concerned sidelong glance. "We heard what happened this afternoon," she said in her
Tinkerbell
voice. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

"A lot
more's
happened since then," I said.

"Oh, God."

Doug tried to flatten and reshape his hair and wound up making modern art. I tried to imagine what he must be feeling and couldn't do it; you could see his thoughts running wild, numb exterior doing nothing to hide the depth of loss. "They didn't give out many details on the news. Why they call it news, I don't know, since they never seem to inform us of much. Do they have any idea why this man attacked you?"

"He killed Richie
Harraday
," I said.

It was reason enough for Doug; he wasn't concerned with making sense of anything. He only had need of rationalization. "The kid?" he said. "The one they found in the garbage?" Twenty different half-formed expressions slithered over his face, and for the first time he showed some life. "So you got the guy who—"

"Murdered Karen," Lisa finished.

The taste in my mouth was bad enough to gag on. Doug's capped teeth flashed brightly. "I should wake Willie," he said. "He's beat to hell, but I think he should be told as soon as possible."

"Yes," Lisa said. "Do that, honey."

He didn't move until she took him by the shoulders and led him to the stairway and gave him a small shove. "We'll be down in a couple of minutes, I guess," he said, and lurched up the steps. I had the feeling he'd pass out at the top.

The entire house still smelled disgustingly clean. Lisa got her coat from the closet and said, "Let's go out-side."

"All right."

She slammed the door and the bushes erupted like a stirred hornets' nest, cats bounding over our feet. Moon-glow reflected everywhere at once: off the ice, in the cats' eyes, against the hood of her shining yellow car.

"You know," she said.

I couldn't say anything.

She looked over and saw that the dome light of her Caddy was on and the passenger door had been taken apart. "I suppose that means I forgot something and you've found evidence, too." She tittered remotely. "I'm sorry."

I tried once more to speak and still couldn't. Words swam in my head but none managed to make it to my mouth.
Why?
kept darting forward like a moth attacking a candle. I could guess the answer but it seemed weak to me, proving how different we all were. I cursed Lowell and
Broghin
for making—for
allowing
—me to do this.

"I knew I shouldn't have dragged you into it," Lisa said. "But at the time it seemed like the smart thing to do. To put the blame on somebody else." She sat on the stoop and raised her head and gazed at me. Her tears flowed more freely than Deena's squirts of rage, streaming in thick tracks down her cheeks. "I should've known you'd catch whoever killed that boy, and that you'd realize Karen's death didn't make any sense." She hugged her belly like a chronically painful wound. "Well, aren't you going to say anything?"

I couldn't even say no.

"Damn it, Johnny."

She reached and took my hand and pulled me down to sit beside her. Like all of us, we'd known each other since grade school, through finger-painting and puberty, first loves and last. I hoped that winning football games wouldn't be the best times I'd ever have in my life. I prayed killing Phillip
Dendren
wouldn't be my
limelit
greatest memory. Lisa could've been a cheerleader but she'd been too shy for all the yelling and dancing and crowds. It struck me how sorry I was I'd missed her wedding day.

"Damn it," she repeated.

I told her about Deena and Carl and Margaret Gallagher and the unnamed stalker. It grew difficult keeping my voice cool and even, but I did a fair job. "She claimed she and her brother had nothing to do with Karen's murder, and the police searched but never found the .22. That was one loose end. I talked to Jim
Witherton
and he told me Karen had been visiting
Syntech
a lot, bringing cookies to the guys, even when Willie wasn't around. That in itself wasn't anything much, but when I came by the other day in the middle of your cleaning jag, it seemed a little odd that you would have cleaned the car with something that smelled like industrial strength. I thought about her and Doug. And how you'd had three miscarriages." She showed no change of expression. "And Wallace discovering that Karen was pregnant." That was what had hit Doug the hardest, knowing there was at least a chance the child had been his. "Not much to go on really, but Lowell would have tripped to it eventually."

"Yes, he probably would have," she whispered, the sobs making her breaths come in awful, tiny gasps. We still held hands, and when Lisa got up she tugged me to my feet and we walked across the snowy lawn, followed by the cats. "You make it sound so nice and easy."

"No."

"They were sleeping together," she said. "Her and Doug. It's something that always happens in movies and novels, you know? The husband getting it on with the wife's best friend. It never hurts anybody in books because the two couples are so close. Everybody hops out of bed and forgives one another. Like it's a sign of maturity." She didn't say,
They were having an affair
. That would have made it sound too romantic, love on the French Riviera. "Maybe it didn't mean a great deal to you, Johnny, having the flake you had for a wife, but me. . . oh God, when I found out ..."

She was right; it hadn't meant much to me when I learned Michelle was seeing other men, but jealousy is relative. I recalled the first moment I saw Katie, and how men passing by in the street had stopped and looked at her through the flower shop's window, and what that had done to me.

"Don't you see?" she said, bottom lip catching tears. "Don't you understand? Karen carried a child.
His
child." She dropped my hand and spun in a half circle, and the cats, as if they were her kids, went spinning along with her. "And you know what the funny part is? He couldn't stand her most of the time. He thought she was loud and stupid and obnoxious." She flung herself against my chest and cried as I tightened my arms around her. "But the baby, he needed that, and I couldn't give it to him." Before I knew it I was weeping with her, and we held each other until Doug walked out onto the porch and said furtively, "Lisa, honey? Are you all right?" Willie was behind him. The two of them with the same lost look on their faces—both lovers of a dead woman with a lovely, golden smile. Both tormented over the death of their twelve-week-old child.

I’d been moved out of my usual dining room seat by Katie and the sun was in my eyes. I thought about closing the curtains, but being blind gave me the advantage of not knowing whether the goop in the bowl was crawling across the table to get me. Anna put more of the gray glop on our plates and Katie said, "I'm going to explode if you feed me
any more
, Mrs. Kendrick."

"Please call me Anna," my grandmother said. She liked Katie a great deal, she'd told me earlier, though feeding her gray glop was not how I would have expected Anna to show affection.

"You make better goulash than my mother, and considering she's had a Czech recipe in the family for something like six generations, that's impressive."

I swirled my spoon around in the stuff and said, "Is that what this is?"

"I shall attempt to take that as a compliment, Jonathan," Anna said. "I know how food not immediately associated with hamburger tends to confuse you."

"I have bourgeois tastes," I said.

"You can't get any more bourgeois than goulash, dear."

"Okay." Maybe that was true, but this was the first time in memory when Anubis did not sit and stare steadfastly at my food while I ate. I didn't blame him.

Anna hadn't lectured or questioned me or tried to salve my conscience when I came in last night; I woke her and we sat together, and I told her everything from beginning to end. She'd listened without comment until my voice cracked. I thought I'd cried all that I could, but in the middle of it I discovered I wasn't quite finished. Afterwards, my grandmother kissed me on the forehead before I went to sleep, the way she had when I was a boy. The circle I thought I had closed when I left Felicity Grove seemed to open wider once more. This morning I'd heard her on the phone giving hell to the sheriff, and I knew there'd be more repercussions to follow. It would never be the same again, but that was fine, we'd recover from this one as we'd done in the past.

"I am going to the cemetery later this afternoon," Anna said, "if you would care to join me."

"No, I don't think so."

She nodded. "I understand. You've spent a great deal of time there lately."

"Would you mind if I came along with you?" Katie asked. "It's been a while since I've visited Margaret's grave and I really should take some flowers."

"I would love your company."

I excused myself and went to the bathroom and when I got back they were whispering like pals in a movie theater.

"Let's go for a walk," Katie said. "It'll help digest all this good cooking."

"Cripes, you're laying it on thick."

She leaned over. "You'd better learn how
its
done if you ever intend to meet my father."

"Oh boy," I said.

I didn't know if she was simply giving me the old fall-off-your-horse-get-right-back-on routine or if she really did want to go for a walk in the park. Katie called the dog and he came with a black-lipped grin on his face. We went outside and crossed the street and wound through a side path through the thicket where Carl had led Richie
Harraday
. Anubis sprinted off ahead of us.

"You don't seem proud of yourself," she said.

"I'm not really."

"You ought to be."

"I'm not so sure."

"I am," she said. "You did what you had to do.”

“Yes, but that doesn't mean it's something to be glad about."

She stopped. "No," she said firmly. "Don't walk a line on this, Jon." I looked away and she reached and touched my chin and turned my face to her. It reinforced how much I enjoyed lovely women touching my face. "I've been watching the news. Channel thirty-five devoted an hour to your and Anna's exploits."

"Exploits," I said. That was worse than "cases."