by Chris Seaton
Bernice had glanced at him only once since they left the house. It was downright irritating the way his profile made her all fluttery inside. When had she turned into such a weak willed woman? “It never hurts to have another pair of eyes,” was her feeble explanation. “Besides, tracking down a freezer with you beats getting bawled out by Darlene for being a crappy dinner companion.”
“Can't say I can argue with her.” He twisted in her direction and examined her for a moment before he slowed for the stop sign and turned north. “You know for someone who doesn't believe in love, you sure are acting owly about this…What did you call it? This 'thing' we apparently shouldn't have started?”
“Considering you don't seem at all concerned about it, I'm guessing you don't give a shit either way.”
“No,” Agent Wyatt corrected her evenly, “I just don't see any problems. You're the one putting up obstacles, not me.”
Bernice turned to him, defensive. “I'm not putting up obstacles. They're already there. I'm just pointing them out.” She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. “The fact that you don't see them just means you're not facing reality.”
He turned into a gravel driveway that disappeared into the woods. A very nondescript, hand painted sign stood beside the fire number. “Tim's Appliance Repair” was all it said. If one blinked, one would have missed it.
The bright sun was immediately dowsed out by the trees, so Agent Wyatt took off his glasses and readjusted the visor. He chose to refrain from further comment as they rode through the shaded tunnel. It vaguely reminded him of that movie with the Hobbits.
As they neared the house, they passed various old structures, each overflowing with piles of old appliances. They seemed to spew forth from their openings like the buildings had regurgitated them. Smaller piles of bags, desiccated cardboard, and other odds and ends littered either side of the driveway. They mixed in and were slowly disappearing with the rapidly growing weeds.
“Looks like Mr. Paulsen might have a penchant for collecting,” Bernice observed.
“Humph,” was Agent Wyatt's less than articulate comment. Bernice wasn't sure if it was directed at her or the glaringly obvious hoarding problem that they were witnessing.
“I'm guessing a guy like this probably still has receipts from five years ago,” she continued. “Only problem might be finding them.”
The sun broke back through with the trees, giving way to the main house. It was a typical farm house. It was not unlike Bernice's own home… If she had stopped mowing the yard or ceased throwing away anything ever again. It was surrounded by several additional garages and pole-sheds. What was left of an old barn stood further back. It was slowly collapsing into itself and becoming one with the twisted environment of brush and neglect.
Agent Wyatt turned off the engine. Bernice unhooked her seat belt and grabbed for the door handle. She was stopped with a hand on her shoulder.
“The obstacles are only a reality if you let them be.” He leaned in and placed a kiss on her temple.
She knew the gesture was meant to be reassuring, but she couldn't help herself. Bernice smirked at him, amused. “I'll keep that in mind, Yoda.”
Agent Wyatt's face displayed disapproval and he got out, grumbling, “always the Smart-Ass.”
The comment only spurned Bernice on. “So wise about the Force, you are,” she continued, channeling the fictitious Jedi Master.
Her mocking quickly dissipated when she shut her door.
Both of them stood motionless, not leaving the vicinity of the car. The air around them felt wrong somehow. Despite the copious piles of clutter, any living inhabitants seemed conspicuously absent. The heavy feeling of isolation drifted around them like an invisible fog. It was very disconcerting.
They looked across the roof of the car at each other and waited. No one seemed to be in any hurry to come out and greet them Bernice's look of worry only confirmed Agent Wyatt's own feelings of foreboding.
He took a hard swallow. “I think you should stay put, Bernice.” She simply nodded and lifted her eyes past him to the house, her face drooping with the building dread. Agent Wyatt turned and slowly walked to the door.
Weeds and untended day lilies crowded around a strip of Astroturf that served as a makeshift sidewalk. The handle on the silver screen door was missing. He had to put his finger through the remaining hole to pull the door open.
The fact that the actual entrance door was shut was unusual in the nice spring weather. He hoped against hope that it was just an indicator that no one was home. The knob turned in his hand. The door wasn't locked. His mind tried to reassure him with futile speculation that the occupant inside had air conditioning on and didn't hear them drive up.
But when he opened the door, Bernice could hear the flies from there. Agent Wyatt shut it quickly again. He bent over and covered his mouth, coughing.
“Man, poor Tim.”
The deputies had gathered together next the opening to the back of the ME's station wagon. They were smoking and chatting like they were at a cookout instead of a crime scene.
If they noticed Bernice huddled in the passenger seat of Agent Wyatt's car in the dark, they made no indication as such. That was fine with her.
The tall weeds and piles of refuse surrounding them took on bizarre, animated shadows with the cherries of the law enforcement vehicles rotating incessantly. Bernice chose to sit quietly and close her eyes to the light show. She eavesdropped on the conversation instead.
“Yah, it's really too bad,” she heard an older voice comment. “You know, he was having a hard enough time after his old lady went. Then those sons-o-bitches over at the Home Store started carrying fridges and shit. You ask me, that was the beginning of the end.”
Bernice felt her phone vibrate in her lap again. It was the second time in the last hour and the fourth time since she left home.
The screen door creaked open, capturing everyone's attention and disrupting the conversation.
The gurney was being moved awkwardly and cautiously through the narrow doorway. There was a lumpy blue bag occupying the top of it fastened down with a couple of bungee cords. Bernice recognized the ME from Jarvis' place. Behind her a couple of other people in county-issued windbreakers emerged, and Agent Wyatt brought up the rear. Some were carrying bank boxes and moving toward one of the SUV's.
The deputies quickly snuffed out their smokes and moved toward the house. Bernice couldn't make out the conversation but saw Agent Wyatt pointing and talking. The deputies walked slowly in.
Bernice's phone went off again as Agent Wyatt got into the car. She turned to him. “I need to check in soon, or Darlene's antsy-ness is going to get the best of her. She'll end up dragging Cameron out here.”
He was very curt in his reply as he strapped himself in. “Call her back, tell her you're all right and that you're spending the night with me.” He started the engine.
The compulsion to argue with him entered her brain, but when she noticed the tension drooping his shoulders, she squelched it. He had enough to deal with.
Revealing to Darlene that she was spending the night with Agent Wyatt pretty much deflected any urge Darlene had to be nosy. Hanging up the phone, Bernice looked out onto the dark road and asked the obvious question. “Did he die of natural causes?”
“Unfortunately, it doesn't look that way.” Agent Wyatt leaned back in his seat, carefully watching the ditches for deer. “ME said there was petechial hemorrhaging in his eyes and bruises on his torso indicating a struggle.”
For the first time in her life Bernice regretted watching too many crime shows on TV. “She smothered him?” She instinctively hugged herself against a nonexistent chill.
“Probably with a pillow,” Agent Wyatt confirmed and slowed the car as they approached the highway. “Whether or not she left the pillow would be very hard to tell. The house is basically nothing but a series of garbage walls with paths.” He took the exit toward the motel.
“And the boxes you guys
pulled out?”
“Well, as best as we can determine,” he continued, “all of the business paperwork was stored in what used to be a den.” He pulled onto the frontage road. “But there's got to be at least two dozen boxes to run through, so were not gonna get an answer overnight.”
The conversation had worn itself out for the remainder of the trip. Agent Wyatt parked in front of his room and turned off the engine. Bernice dumbly followed him up to the door, lost in her own malaise.
“So she beat us there then,” she concluded.
Agent Wyatt chose not to answer.
He fished out his key and let them in, switching on the overhead light. The king size bed occupied almost all of the room. It left about two feet of space to navigate from the door to the tiny washroom and back. The TV in the corner looked too heavy for the mount it was on. The fake oak veneer on the paneling dated the last remodel to sometime in the mid 1980's.
Bernice took notice that Agent Wyatt's clothes were haphazardly draped over a small wooden chair that was placed under the hanging TV. Agent Wyatt yanked his tie apart and tossed it and his coat over the chair's back before walking into the bathroom.
He shut the door. Bernice made her way in and carefully sat on the far edge of the bed. She looked around, feeling as if she were an intruder.
He walked back out in his wife-beater, tossing the discarded shirt with the rest of the pile on the chair. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “I had to wash the stink of that house off of me.” He sat with his back to her on the other side of the bed and pried off his shoes. Glancing at her over his shoulder, he inquired, “You all right?”
Bernice jerkily pulled off her tennies and sat Indian style in front of her pillow. “Yah, I'm okay.”
He hastily closed up his suitcase and set it in the corner, continuing to watch her. “You don't look okay. You look like a beaten dog.” He undid his belt, stepping out of his trousers. “What's the matter?”
When Bernice raised her eyes, they were glassy. “Did I get him killed?”
Agent Wyatt simply he stood there in his underwear and stared at her. “What?”
“It's my fault!” her voice broke. “You told me to stay out of it. You told me to let you do your job. I go snooping around, find the stupid freezer, and this poor man dies.” She viciously wiped away the tears. “Jessica probably had a pillow over his face before you got me out of that storage unit.”
His swift approach caused her eyes to widen in fear and she instinctively turned her head and closed her eyes. She heard the familiar growl of frustration and felt his weight settle in next to her on the bed.
Agent Wyatt grabbed her by the upper arms, demanding softly, “Bernice, look at me.” She obeyed. Her swollen eyes and worried expression gave her a ghostly pallor. “Mr. Paulsen's death had absolutely nothing to do with you or anything you did.”
“How can you say that?” Her thready voice was barely audible above a squeak.
“Because he's been dead for almost a week.”
Bernice put a halt on the pity party. “Really?”
Agent Wyatt used his grip to pull her into his arms. “If I were to wager a guess, I would say it happened sometime after the news of Herb's remains had been broadcast to the tri-state area.”
Bernice exhaled some of her guilt into the crook of his neck. “Nobody should have to die that way.”
Agent Wyatt tugged her closer and cherished the warmth of her body against his. “Nobody should live that way either.”
Bernice lifted her head and traced the line of his eyebrow with her finger, questioning just above a whisper, “Do you ever feel lonely?”
It never ceased to amaze her how such a seemingly stoic man could so quickly soften his features to such a tender expression.
“Not when I'm with you.”
Chapter 23
Sometimes, one of the most effective ways to deal with death is to celebrate being alive.
She studied his face, memorizing every line, every eyelash, reveling in the presence of him.
He returned the favor, undressing her pliant form almost as a ritual act.
When they lay naked under the starched motel sheets, only then did they really touch skin to skin. Only then did their hands and mouths express the need that words failed to properly articulate. The handling was gentle. The union was slow and emotional with eyes open, mouths greedy, arms and legs clinging, pulling closer, keeping out the isolation that accompanied the cold reminder of one's mortality.
His deep dark eyes seemed to absorb her, to see through her fragile defenses leaving her raw and exposed. But she wasn't afraid. She was alive. Those eyes conveyed to her what she needed to know. “You are not alone.” Their mutual climax sealed the partnership against death, against the killer that stalked them from the dark corners of their psyches and robbed them of their sleep and security.
She held him inside of her, held his body to her, gluing them together with sweat and bodily fluids. She planted small kisses all over his face and ground his stubble-covered cheek against her own, registering the sensation in her brain, memorizing the moment for later.
Because a moment was all they ever seemed to be able to count on when it came to each other. She could already feel it escaping her grasp. She moaned softly and buried her face in his neck. Agent Wyatt held Bernice, clasping her head to him and mouthing soundlessly into her hair.
They fought together to keep death at bay.
Agent Wyatt's cell phone going off was in almost exact sync with Bernice's cell phone. It was 7:30am. His was a programmed alarm. Hers was Darlene reminding her she still had chores to do.
“You don't see my love life getting in the way of stuff getting done, do you?”
Bernice could hear Cameron's voice a little too close to the phone for her comfort, but she chose not to comment. “Spose not.”
There was a pause then a much happier question, “Is Agent Wyatt going to be staying for breakfast?”
Bernice glanced over at him. His back was to her as he urgently spoke to someone on the motel phone. It was a terse conversation. “Kind of doubt it. I'll be there as soon as I can though.”
“Oh, and Margie called again.” Darlene didn't elaborate. The silence made its own guilt.
“Yah okay, see ya in a bit.” Bernice hung up the phone and closed her eyes in shame.
She popped them open again when she suddenly felt the mattress compress next to her. Agent Wyatt was already buried in her hair and nibbling on her neck. “What's wrong?” He huskily mumbled against her earlobe.
“Oh, the usual.”
He raised his head and studied her with a frown. “I thought we got all that stuff cleared up between us last night.”
She returned his frown and stood away from his grasp, exhaling exasperation. “Why do you men always assume that sex fixes everything.”
He smiled rakishly. “You mean it doesn't?”
She shook her head and couldn't help but return the smile. “You think we can table our own problems until after we get Jessica put away?”
Agent Wyatt had already begun a systematic sorting of the few remaining clean articles of clothing from his suitcase. He laid everything out carefully on the bed, each piece about one inch away from the next until his whole outfit was on display. Bernice found the ritual endearing . She wondered how he felt watching her pull on her clothes from the unsorted pile left on the floor next to the bed.
“First of all,” Agent Wyatt began as he started with the boxer briefs, “there is no 'we' with catching Herb's murderer. We both have jobs. I catch bad guys. You grow food. Let's keep it that way.”
Bernice bit her tongue but gave him a meaningful smirk.
He continued, tugging up his trousers. “Second of all, there's nothing to table because there's no problem with us.”
Bernice pulled her huge t-shirt over her head and yanked on her beat-up jeans. She watched him button up his starched shirt. The sharp contrast to her dishevelment and his refinement was not lost
on her. She really did prefer when they were both naked. It seemed to equalize them somehow.
His tie resided undone around his shoulders. “If there is a problem, Bernice, it's in your head. You have to sort out what you want. And much as you would like me to participate in your little game of self destruction, I'm not, so figure it out.”
“You honestly don't see the glaring disparity between us?”
Agent Wyatt grabbed up his coat and held the door for her, holding his keys. “What, you mean our clothes?”
Bernice ranted as she walked to the car. “I mean everything. You live half a state away. You have meetings with judges and the freakin' state attorney general. I collect chicken eggs and have meetings with donkeys and dairy goats.”
She looked over at him for a reaction and got a man who was grumbling and glaring at the ground. “Jesus, with Lexi nothing was good enough, and with you-”
“Don't you dare compare me to that woman!” Bernice proclaimed indignantly. “I am not Lexi!”
“But you want me to be Brock!” Agent Wyatt shot back, yanking his car door open. “Bernice, are you ashamed of what you do?”
“Of course not!” Bernice's face pinched in offense. “I love what I do.”
“But you want me to be ashamed. Is that it?” He splayed his hands over the car roof. “You want me to reject you and say I don't think you're good enough. Then you'll be justified? Is that what you want?”
Her argument was losing credence. “I...” was all she could stammer out. She knew he had her. Instead she pitifully concluded, “You just don't understand.”
They both got into the car. Agent Wyatt started the engine. “I think I understand quite a bit, thank you.” He put the car into gear and began to back out. “And when you stop being stubborn and admit that I'm right, then maybe we can actually work this out.”
He could see by her stiff demeanor that it wasn't going to happen any time soon. “Fortunately for you, I have too much work to do to sit around and pine over you.”