Before the Devil Fell

by Neil Olson

  “What did you think I meant?” she laughed.

  “I had no idea, to tell you the truth.”

  He laughed too, late and feebly. It pulls you. Such a Sam thing to say, and so uncharacteristic that it should refer to something as mundane as steering.

  “You weren’t even listening,” she said without rancor.

  “No, I was...”

  “Thinking about your mom. Why wouldn’t you be? That’s a tough thing to have happen.”

  With anyone else Will knew, this would be an opening to discuss her own troubles. God knew Samantha had them. Her father died when she was very young and her mother ran off to Florida with some guy. Leaving her to be raised by her bookish, absentminded grandfather. Strange as her upbringing was, Sam never complained about it. And would not now.

  “Her vital signs are good,” he said.

  “She’s strong. I could feel her strength while we were talking.”

  He let the we go without comment.

  “But she’s been unconscious too long.”

  “She’s going to be all right,” replied Sam. “The body knows what it needs.”

  He was both comforted and irritated by the words. Was she a doctor now?

  “Do you work at the hospital?”

  “No, up at Cedar Hill,” she said. The nursing home. Or whatever the correct name was for such places. “But a lot of our patients end up there.”

  “Yeah, I guess they would.”

  “So I visit them. It’s not part of the job, just something I do. Watch the road.”

  “What?” he asked. “I’m watching.”

  “You’re drifting a little.” She was looking in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m not,” he protested. And how could she even tell, with all these curves? He tried to see what she was looking at. Another car slowly gaining on them. Big deal, he wasn’t going to speed up on this road.

  “Don’t speed up,” she said.

  “Do you want to drive?”

  “Nope, you’re doing fine.”

  “What do you do at Cedar Hill?”

  “Physical therapy.”

  “Really? That’s cool. I didn’t know you were doing that.”

  “Strictly speaking,” she said after a pause, “I assist the therapists. You need a degree to be official. I only have a certificate from this course.”

  “Have you thought of getting the degree?”

  “I was in school for a while. In Boston.” Her voice took on a halting, distant quality that was unfamiliar to Will. “My husband didn’t like it.”

  “He didn’t...so you stopped going?” Will failed to keep the dismay from his voice. He needed to be careful. Other men and women had relationships like that—it wasn’t for him to judge. But Sam was the last woman in the world he would expect to be held down by her husband.

  “I wasn’t very good at the work,” she went on.

  “I remember you doing well in school.”

  “When my grandfather was helping.”

  “You’re as smart as anybody I know,” he insisted.

  “Thanks,” she said quietly. “But I think I’m not good at focusing my mind that way. You know?”

  “Conforming it to textbook knowledge?” he asked. “Or do you really mean you’re not good at sucking up to egotistical professors?”

  Sam didn’t respond, so he glanced at her. She was smiling big at him.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s just what I mean.”

  “I bet you argued with them all the time.”

  “I did,” she agreed with merriment. “Don’t miss the turn.”

  He almost had. He really didn’t know these roads in the dark anymore. The car behind turned with them, right on their tail now.

  “Shit,” groaned Sam.

  Before he could ask what was wrong he heard a single sharp wail and saw blue lights flash in his mirrors. Will jolted upright in his seat, swerving a little and then correcting.

  “What is this?” he protested, pulling slowly onto the grassy shoulder.

  “My ex-husband,” said Samantha flatly.

  The police car stopped twenty yards behind, lights still flashing.

  “Your ex-husband?”

  “He’s been following us since the hospital. I wasn’t sure it was him until now.”

  The cop didn’t dawdle like they usually did. Checking the plates for warrants, exerting authority via delay. Instead he launched himself from the cruiser, leaving the door open, and strutted quickly toward them. Compact, muscular, with dark hair and skin that looked deathly pale in the pulsing blue light. Will rolled down the window.

  “License and registration,” the cop snapped.

  Will’s age, or around there. Familiar. One of the Duffys. Not Brendan, who went to school with Will, but a brother. Round face, dark eyes. A small mustache and an angry clench to the chin. Will pulled out his wallet and dug for the seldom-used license. Sam opened the glove compartment and an avalanche of paper landed in her lap.

  “You know your left taillight is out?” the cop continued. His tone made it sound like a moral failure.

  “I didn’t. It’s my mother’s car.”

  “Will, you remember Jimmy,” Sam said calmly, sorting through the mass of envelopes, maps, postcards. “Jimmy, this is Will Conner, who—”

  “I know who he is,” Jimmy snarled, bending down so his face was even with Will’s, but looking past him to Samantha. Rage in his black eyes. Will could feel the fury coming off him like heat waves. “What are you doing with him?”

  “You know,” Sam said, “I don’t even know what a registration looks like.” Jimmy kept staring, and she finally turned her gaze to him. Her mouth a hard line, her voice the same. “I don’t have to explain anything I do to you.”

  “License,” Will said, handing it out the window, his muscles flexing oddly. “I was just giving her a ride home. She drove my—”

  “This is expired.”

  “Is it?”

  “What did I just say? Look.” Jimmy shoved it back at him and Will examined the awful picture. Shaggy brown hair, needing a shave, eyes half-closed. He looked homeless and stoned. Then he found the black letters: EXP 6/30/2003. Three months ago.

  “I didn’t realize. I never use it.”

  “Step out of the car.”

  Will felt a sudden adrenaline surge. He did nothing for a moment, then reached quickly for the door handle.

  “Jimmy Duffy,” Samantha shouted, freezing him. “This man has just come from the hospital where his mother is in a coma. What are you trying to prove?”

  The cop stood upright, mouth moving without producing sound. He turned his back to them and wandered several yards away, into the middle of the road. Will ground his back teeth and squeezed the useless license until the plastic edges dug into his hand. He glanced at the sharp turn ahead, imagining a vehicle whipping around it too fast. Flattening the stocky little man like so much roadkill. Jimmy strolled back over to the window.

  “I heard about your mother,” he said, voice more subdued. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks,” Will replied.

  “It sucks. I hope she’ll be okay.”

  “Well. We’ll see.”

  “I could cite you for about four violations,” Jimmy said more sternly. “But I’m going to let it go this time. Get that license renewed. And fix your mother’s taillight.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Jimmy stared a few more moments at Sam.

  “You headed home?” he asked. When Will nodded he said, “I’ll follow you. Make sure you get there safely.”

  He strode back to the police cruiser and flung himself in, killing the flashing blues. Will waited half a minute, then turned the ignition too hard and the car ground to life. He pulled slowly back onto the road and drove tow
ard home at twenty miles an hour. He sincerely hoped it pissed off Jimmy.

  “You all right?” Sam asked after a while, her voice light and easy again.

  “Fine.”

  “I’m sorry. He hasn’t done anything like this in a long time.”

  “I didn’t remember you married Jimmy Duffy.”

  “Five and a half years,” she said. “Almost two now since the divorce. He was real sweet at first.”

  “That didn’t last, I guess,” he said, checking the rearview for his escort. Jimmy was hanging well back, almost lost in the turns.

  “Bad stuff happened,” Sam replied. “We got impatient with each other. Got mean.”

  “I never heard you shout like that,” said Will, almost smiling.

  “Well, I had to do something. One of you was about to get hurt.”

  “You think?” He was genuinely surprised by her words. “He was ticked off, but I don’t believe he was going to hurt me.”

  “He wasn’t the one I was worried about,” Sam said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were very angry.”

  “No,” he scoffed, “I was a little shaken, that’s all.”

  “You were furious, Will. You still are. It’s in your voice,” she maintained. “In the way you’re sitting. I can smell it. Are you really not aware?”

  This was more like the old Sam. Laying him open to inspection. He was aware of tension in his body. Anxiety, stress, fear. He had not registered anger, but knew those ingredients could alchemize anger in an instant. There had been some unidentified but bad intent within him when he reached for that door handle. And she had read it.

  “You’ve always had a terrible temper,” she added matter-of-factly.

  “My friends in New York would laugh at that idea,” Will replied. “Anyone I work with. They would find that so funny.” Yet he did not deny it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I wasn’t offended.”

  “I mean I’m sorry you don’t have friends who know you better.”

  At least I have friends, he wanted to reply. Poor Sam. What did she have? An angry ex-husband. A missing mother, a dead father. Was there any family left at all?

  “I should know this,” he said hesitantly. “Is your grandfather still around?”

  “He’s alive, if that’s what you mean. Not in the best of shape.”

  “He’s not living at the house with you.”

  “No,” she said sadly. “Grandpa is...retired from the world.”

  Will didn’t press her. The old guy must be in his eighties, and it sounded like he was up at Cedar Hill or one of its equivalents.

  “So you’re alone.”

  “I don’t know. I never feel alone in that house.”

  They crested the low rise, which had seemed like a hill in his childhood. Though Will could make out little in the darkness, he knew that beyond these oaks was the tall, gray, many-dormered house of Thomas Hall. Samantha’s grandfather. Built by his grandfather more than a century ago. Which barely classified it as old in this colonial town of sea captains’ mansions and ancient taverns, set at odd angles to the road. Through a stand of pine and across a field that once held corn was the aluminum-sided rattrap owned by his mother. Will pulled over where the slate path to the Hall house began, leaving the engine idling. Jimmy did the same about fifty yards back.

  “Thanks for the ride,” said Sam.

  “Please. Thanks for everything you’ve done today.”

  “You want to come in?” she asked. “See the old place?” Will scanned the rearview, not sure how to answer. “Don’t mind Jimmy,” she added.

  “I’m not worried about him,” he answered. “But it’s late, and I haven’t even been to the house yet.”

  “Okay.” She touched his leg, then opened the door. The dome light failed to come on. That would be violation number five, thought Will.

  Samantha shifted in the seat and looked at him in her steady way. Even in the dim light, those eyes were unnerving.

  “Remember that I’m right next door,” she said. “I don’t know how many friends you have other places. But you have one here who knows you. Understand?”

  “Sure,” he agreed.

  “I’m your friend, whatever happens. Good night, Will.”

  Then she was out of the car and heading up the walk. The porch light was on to greet her, though Will remembered the house being dark when they drove up. Maybe it was on a timer. She skipped up the steps and went inside without looking back, but Will kept idling awhile. Whatever happens. And just what do you imagine happening, you strange girl? Jimmy must have gotten bored sitting there. The patrol car started forward again, rolled past Will at a crawl, then accelerated into the night.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  He woke in darkness. His eyes tried to conform the ceiling and walls to his New York apartment, finally accepting them as his childhood bedroom. There had been a sound and he awaited its repeat. Only silence. He could not even say what the sound had been. A voice? But he was alone in the house.

  Will had not remembered the place having a smell, but it hit him coming in that night. Jasmine and vanilla. Burned cooking oil, cigarettes, must. Some of it belonged to the house. Much of it was the smell of his mother, though there had been no trace at the hospital. She had left her scent at home. Home. Was it still that without her here? Without friends and strangers trailing in and out? There must have been times when Will was alone in the house, but he could not recall a single one.

  Wandering through rooms, he had been struck by their compactness. He knew the place was small, but he felt like a giant in a dollhouse. Somewhere there was a memory house big enough to contain all the scenes and images in his mind. The flushed faces of adults, stumbling about the bright kitchen. Slanting autumn light picking out dust motes above the dining room table. Arthur the cat racing down the stairs while Abigail laughed. Snow sticking to his bedroom window. Watching The Fog or Alien on the sofa with his mom. Kissing Christine Jordan by the front door. Too many moments to process, like an old box of photos upended suddenly in his head. Still alive somewhere, still happening. He would never return to that house.

  The green digits on the clock said it was 2:00 a.m. Not long since he’d gone to bed. Will heaved himself up, meaning to head for the bathroom, but some old instinct guided him to the window. His skin prickled against the cold seeping through. A quarter moon hung high in the starry heavens. You didn’t see skies like this in New York. It was one of the things he missed. The tops of the lilac bushes bent, shook and stood up again as a breeze passed across them. A figure stood among the bushes.

  Will leaned until his head knocked the glass. Was it a figure? A darkness like negative space, roughly in the shape of a person. Sam? Isn’t that where she used to stand when she watched him? No blond hair, though, and so still. Could anything living be that still? He stared hard, determined to catch the smallest movement.

  Images invaded his mind. A narrow sidewalk, a looming presence. That hideous face. A single word.

  Murder.

  He stepped back quickly. As if the face had been right there before him. But the glass held nothing but night, and the faintest reflection of his own face. Eyes wide, their wetness catching ambient light. The line of his nose, his forehead. He went back to the window, knowing before he looked that the figure was gone. Not gone, but had never been there, any more than the face in the shadows behind the deli had been. Will went around the house checking doors and windows, then answered the call of his aching bladder.

  In the morning he could not be certain anything had happened. The house was more familiar in daylight. Less threatening. Except for those steep, narrow stairs, which he hated. He made instant coffee—all he could find—and drank it on the front steps. It was late—he should be at the hospital. But he needed caffeine, a
nd a few minutes to himself. He closed his eyes and let the sun bathe his face. Wind rustled the rhododendrons. He glanced at the stump of the lightning-struck pine. His mother had resisted cutting it down, even after the incident. Then his gaze shifted to the thick clump of lilac, swaying innocently. No one hiding there. He could not see Samantha’s driveway, but assumed she was at work. Across the street, where once there had been fields, there were houses. Big ones. They had been going in one or two at a time over the last decade, and he was only truly noticing them now. The farm still existed, though shrunken. Selling produce from early summer to late fall. He would go over there at some point.

  On the arc of road beyond the lawn, a car slowed to a stop, then backed up cautiously to the house. Maroon Volvo. Older model, with rust on the chassis. A woman with short gray hair rolled down the window and called to him.

  “Is that Will?”

  “It is.” He knew the woman, but couldn’t come up with her name. One of those fixtures of the community who made it a point to know everyone’s business.

  “How’s your mom?”

  “Stable.” He stood and wandered down the lawn toward the car. “I’m going to see her in a few minutes.”

  “Please give her my best.” A lined face and lively blue eyes. Sixtyish. Yet Will had the uneasy feeling that she had been sixtyish for the last thirty years. Margaret something-or-other. “We’re all very worried.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  He felt no need to go into the details of her condition. Assuming the old crow didn’t know them already, which would be a naive assumption.

  “So many awful accidents these last years,” the woman said. “You heard about Marty Branford?”

  “Yeah, I think I might have been here when that happened.”

  “Were you?” she asked, oddly intrigued.

  “Sure, it was last Christmas, right?”

  Marty was a paranoid crank, worried about everything. It almost figured a guy like that would die of a gas leak in his home.

  “Of course. Are you here alone?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Just me.”

  “I thought Muriel was taking care of you or something.”