If You Could See Me Now

by Peter Straub

  —

  And fell back to earth and unliving stone. In that giant embarrassment, the music ceased and I was conscious of my lungs pulling in air, the rock inert beneath me, the water black and cold, and I pushed myself backward to rest my back against the wall of the quarry. The wet legs of my trousers hung on my legs. I’d had the time wrong. It must have happened later; but I caught the edge of desperation in the thought, and I leaned back and looked through the bleach of moonlight to the greatest loss in my life.

  It was two minutes past twelve. She had not come. The twenty-first of July had slipped into the past and she was not coming. She would never come. She was dead. I was stranded alone in only the human world. My guilt, moving under some impetus of its own, shifted hugely within me and came to a new relationship with my body.

  I could not move. I had invented it all. I had seen nothing at the edge of the fields—nothing but my hysteria. I pulled the jacket tightly around me, obeying a reflex left over from childhood.

  The shock endured for hours. By the time my trousers had begun to dry, I realized that my legs and feet had gone to sleep, and I leaned forward and bent my knees with my hands. Intense pain arrowed out from my knees. I was grateful enough for it to try to stand. For a time I drowned my awareness in pain, moving awkwardly on someone else’s legs. Then I sat on one of the stone steps and looked again into loss. I could not cry: too much of the loss was of myself. Whatever I was going to be, whenever I could think about becoming something I could call myself, I was going to be different. I had made up a self which relied on the possibility of Alison Greening for its shadings, and now I felt like a Siamese twin whose other half had been surgically severed, cast away. The guilt which I had carried for twenty years had drastically altered its dimensions, but I could not tell if it had grown larger or smaller.

  I was going to have to live.

  I spent the entire night by the quarry’s side, though I knew from the moment I had seemed to fall back to earth—even before I had looked at my watch—that Alison Greening was gone from my life for eternity.

  During the last hour I spent mourning Alison’s second and final departure from my life, I was able to think about Arden and what had been happening there. Duane, Polar Bears, Paul Kant, myself. How after twenty years we had come together again in a tragic landscape. How we had all been marked by women. I saw the patterns tying us together, like Zack’s “lines of force.”

  And I saw something else.

  At last I understood that the murderer of the girls had been my cousin Duane. Who hated women more than any other man I had ever met, who had probably planned the murders of the girls who resembled Alison Greening from the day I had written him that I was coming to Arden. Duane’s were the old Coke bottles, the axes, the doorknobs: Zack must have stolen the one I had seen from wherever Duane had hidden them.

  Sitting by the quarry’s side, still numb with the shock of loss, I saw it with a brisk, heartless clarity. Alison gone, it could only be Duane. And his daughter had feared this, I saw—she had run from any discussion of the girls’ deaths. What I had taken for a desire to appear more callous (therefore, she imagined, more adult) than she was made even more sense, given the fear that her father was a killer. She had really rebuffed any conversation about the dead girls.

  I stood up: I could walk. A kind of strength blessed me. An entire era of my life, like a geologic period, was coming to an end—it would end with what I was going to have to do. I did not have the whisper of an idea of what I would do after that.

  —

  I walked down the side of the hill and found my shoes. In one night they had gone dead and curling, and when I forced my feet into them, the inner soles felt like the hides of dead lizards. They seemed not to fit, to have been shaped by another man.

  When I stepped onto the highway I saw a high rattling truck coming toward me from the direction of Arden. It was a blood relative of the truck from which I had fled the previous night; I stuck out my hand, thumb up, and the man beside the wheel pulled up beside me. From the truck floated the earthy smell of pigs.

  “Mister?” said the old man behind the wheel.

  “My car broke down,” I said. “I wonder if you’re going anywhere near Norway Valley?”

  “Hop yourself right in, young feller,” he said, and leaned across to open the door for me.

  I climbed in beside him. He was a wiry man in his mid-seventies, with white hair that stuck up like a scrubbing brush. On the steering wheel his hands were the size of steaks. “Up early,” he said, not quite making it a question.

  “I’ve been traveling a long time.”

  He started the truck rolling again, and its whole rear section began jouncing and squeaking.

  “Are you actually going into the valley?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I just been taking a load of porkers into town, and now I’m going home. My boy and me farm a piece of land about eight-ten miles down the valley. You ever been that way?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s nice. It’s real nice down there. Don’t know what a healthy young feller like you is doing bumming around the country when you could settle down on the best farmland in the whole state. Man wasn’t born to live in cities, way I see it.”

  I nodded. His words unlocked in me the knowledge that I was not going to return to New York.

  “I reckon you’re a salesman,” he said.

  “Right now I’m between jobs,” I said, and earned a bright look of curiosity.

  “Shame. But you vote Democrat, we’ll get this country back on its feet and young men like you will have jobs again.” He squinted into the road and the rising sun, and the bouncing truck sent wave after wave of pig over us. “You remember that, now.”

  When he turned the truck into the valley road, he asked just where I wanted to go, exactly. “You might think about coming all the way with me, and we could set you up with a good cup of coffee. What say?”

  “Thanks, but no. I’d like you to drop me off at Andy’s.”

  “You’re the boss,” he said, perfectly equable.

  Then we were slowing down before Andy’s gas pumps. The seven o’clock sunlight fell on the dust and gravel. As I pulled down the door handle, he turned his brush-topped head slyly toward me and said, “I know you were fibbing me, young man.”

  I just looked at him in surprise, wondering what he could have read in my face.

  “About your auto. You don’t have any auto, do you? You’ve been thumbing your way right along.”

  I met his smile. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, and stepped down from the cab and the thick odor of pigs into warm light. He rattled away, going deeper into the valley, and I turned to walk across the gravel and climb the steps.

  The door was locked. I peered in through the glass and saw no lights. Andy had no CLOSED sign on the door, but I looked at the bottom panel of glass behind the screen and saw a dusty card which said Mon–Fri 7:30–6:30, Sat 7:30–9:00. I pounded on the screen door, rattling it. After forty seconds of steady pounding, I saw Andy waddling toward me through the crowded tables, peering at me to figure out who I was.

  When he got close enough to identify me, he stopped. “We’re closed.” I motioned him forward. He shook his head. “Please,” I shouted. “I just want to use your phone.”

  He hesitated, and then came slowly up toward the door. He looked worried and confused. “You got a phone down at Duane’s place,” he said, his voice muffled by the glass.

  “I have to make a call before I get there,” I pleaded.

  “Who you going to call, Miles?”

  “The police. Polar Bears Hovre.”

  “What’re you gonna say to the Chief?”

  “Listen in and you’ll know.”

  He came the necessary two steps and put his hand on the lock. His face jerked, and then he slid the bolt and opened the door. “Screen door’s still locked, Miles. I suppose if you’re gonna call the police it’s okay…but how do I know that’s wha
t you’re gonna do?”

  “You can stand right behind me. You can dial it for me.”

  He revolved the pinwheel catch. “Quiet. Margaret’s back in the kitchen. She won’t like this.” I followed him inside. He turned his face toward me; he looked worried. He was used to making the wrong decisions. “Phone’s on the counter,” he whispered.

  As he went toward it his wife called from the back of the store. “Who was it?”

  “Drummer,” Andy called back.

  “For goodness’ sake, send him off. It’s too early.”

  “Just a minute.” He pointed to the telephone; then whispered, “No. I’ll dial it.”

  When he had the number he gave me the receiver and crossed his arms over his chest.

  The telephone rang twice, and then I heard Lokken’s voice. “Police?”

  I asked to speak to Polar Bears. If you want your killer, I was going to say, just do what I tell you. He’ll be on his farm, driving his tractor or banging on some machinery.

  “Teagarden?” came the deputy’s high-pitched astonished whine. “Is that you? Where the hell did you get yourself to anyways? You’re supposed to be here, this morning. What the hell?”

  “What do you mean, I’m supposed to be there?”

  “Well, see—the Chief sent me out on this damn fool errand yesterday afternoon. I didn’t get what I was supposed to get because it wasn’t there in the first place, it never even was there, he just wanted me outa the way I guess. Anyhow by the time I got back it was near to midnight and he was hoppin’ mad. Duane called him up and said you run off somewheres. So the Chief says, hold your horses, I’ll know where he is. I think he went and got Du-ane to help him bring you in. So where are you now? And where’s the Chief?”

  “I’m at Andy’s store,” I said. I glanced over at him. His worried face was turned toward the rear of the shop; he was afraid his wife would appear and find me. “Lokken, listen to me. I know who should be arrested, and I think I know where the Chief would have gone. Pick me up at Andy’s.”

  “You bet your ass I’m pickin’ you up,” said Lokken.

  “You’ll get your killer,” I said, and handed the receiver back to Andy.

  “Should I hang it up?” he asked, perplexed.

  “Hang it up.”

  He clicked it down and then stared at me, becoming more conscious every moment of my beard stubble and wrinkled clothes. “Thanks,” I said, and turned away and threaded past the tables and went out, leaving him with his hand on the telephone. I went down the steps and out into the early light to wait for Lokken.

  —

  In eight minutes, which must have been a record, the deputy’s squad car came speeding down the valley road. I waved, and Lokken braked to a halt, raising a great white plume of dust. He jumped out of the car as I walked across the road toward him. “All right, what is this?” he demanded. “This just plain don’t make sense. Where’s Chief Hovre?”

  “I think he imagined that I’d go back up to that clearing where you found the Michalski girl. Maybe Duane went with him.”

  “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” said Lokken. His hand was on the butt of his gun. “Maybe we’ll go there, maybe we won’t. Why in hell did you call the station?”

  “I told you.” His hand curled around the gun butt. “I know who killed those girls. Let’s get in the car and talk about it on the way.”

  Very suspiciously, he stepped away from the side of the car and permitted me to walk around its nose. We got in at the same time. I leaned back against the hot plastic of the seat. “All right,” Lokken said. “You better start talking. If it’s real good I might listen.”

  “Duane Updahl did it,” I said. His hand, holding the ignition key, froze on the way to the slot and he swiveled his head to gape at me.

  “I wasn’t even in town when Gwen Olson died,” I said.

  “That’s why I’m listening to you,” said Lokken. I returned his glance. “We just heard this morning from the Ohio state police. The Chief had them checking into your story about staying in a motel ever since you told him about it. They finally found a guy named Rolfshus says he recognized your picture. He runs a little place off the freeway. Well, this here Rolfshus says you might be someone checked in there that night.”

  “You mean Polar Bears was looking for that motel since the night I told him about it?”

  “He’s tooken statements too,” said Lokken. “Lots of folks up here don’t like you.” He started the car. “I don’t know what the Chief would say, but it sure as hell looks to me like you’re okay on that Olson killing. So why the hell do you say it’s Duane?”

  I gave him my reasons as we spun down the road. His hatred of women, his hatred of me. The physical evidence. “I think he set up the whole thing to get me a life sentence in the booby hatch,” I said. “And Polar Bears was hoping he’d shoot me, so that I couldn’t say anything about how Alison Greening really died. He sent you off so you’d be far away when it happened.”

  “Christ, I don’t know,” said Lokken. “It’s crazy. What’s this about Alison Greening?”

  So I told him that too. “And I think Duane has been half-crazy ever since,” I ended. “When I wrote him that I was coming back, I think he just snapped.”

  “Holy man.”

  “I sort of snapped too. Otherwise I think I would have seen it earlier. I had a crazy theory, but last night it turned out to be wrong.”

  “Everything about this is crazy,” Lokken said in despair. He pulled the car up on the shoulder of the road beside the rows of corn. Polar Bears’ car sat, facing the way we had come, on the other side of the road. “Looks like you were right about the Chief, anyhow. You think they’re both up there?”

  “I think Duane would go with Polar Bears,” I said. “It’d be too risky for him not to.”

  “Let’s have a look. Hell, let’s have a look.” We got out of the car and jumped the ditch.

  He said nothing, the run up toward the woods took much of his breath, but after we had forded the creek Lokken spoke again. “If what you say is right, Duane might of tried something on the Chief.”

  “I don’t think he would,” I said.

  “Yeah, but he might of,” he said, and drew his gun. “I don’t exactly remember where the damn clearing was.”

  I said, “Follow me,” and began to work up over the rise and toward the beginning of the woods. Lokken crashed along behind me.

  When I reached the first of the trees I began to trot uphill, going in the direction of Rinn’s old cabin. I had no idea of how the scene would be played. For once, I was grateful for Lokken’s presence. It did not make sense that Polar Bears would have spent the entire night in the clearing. Gradually the big gnarled trees drew closer. I slowed to a walk. In places I had to part branches and tall weeds with my hands.

  “Do you notice anything funny?” I said after a time.

  “Huh?” Lokken’s voice came from a good distance behind me.

  “There isn’t any noise. No birds, no squirrels. No animal noises.”

  “Huh,” said Lokken.

  It was true. Other times when I had come up into the woods, I had been aware of a constant natural chatter about me. Now it was as though all the birds and animals had died. In that dark place, surrounded by the looming trees, the silence was decidedly spooky.

  “Gunshot scares ’em off,” Lokken said. “Maybe there was some trouble.” He sounded as apprehensive as I felt, and I knew that he still had the gun in his hand.

  “We’re pretty close to the clearing now,” I said. “We’ll know soon.”

  A few minutes later I saw the ring of trees around the clearing. “Right through there,” I said, and looked around at Lokken. His face was red with effort.

  “Yeah. I remember now.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Chief? You there?” He got not even an echo; he shouted again. “Chief! Chief Hovre!” He looked at me hard, angry and frustrated, sweat running down his face. “Dammit, Teagarden, shake your b
utt.”

  Though I felt cold, I too had begun to sweat. I could not tell Lokken that I was afraid to go into the clearing. Just then the woods seemed very potent.

  “Come on, we saw the car, we know he’s here,” said Lokken.

  “Something’s funny,” I said. I almost thought I could smell cold water. But that was not possible.

  “Come on. Let’s go. Move it.” I heard the revolver click against a tree as he shook it at me.

  I went toward the circle of trees; light hovered in the clearing beyond them.

  Then I went through the sentinel trees and stepped into the clearing. The sudden dazzle of light at first made it difficult to see. Smoke came from the banked fire at the clearing’s center. I took another step toward it. I wiped my eyes. There was no humming, vibrant noise of insects.

  Then I saw them. I stopped walking. I could not speak.

  Lokken noisily broke into the clearing behind me. “Hey, what’s goin’ on? Hey, Teagarden, they in here? You—” His voice ended as if chopped off with an ax.

  I knew why Lokken had vomited when he had seen the body of Jenny Strand.

  Polar Bears was in front, Duane behind him fixed to a shorter tree. They were pinned to their trees, both naked, their bodies blackened and hanging like crushed fruit.

  —

  Lokken came up beside me, making a noise in his throat. I could not take my eyes from them. It was the most savage thing I had ever seen. I heard the handgun thump onto the earth. “What the—” Lokken began. “What—”

  “I was wrong,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ, I was wrong. She’s back after all.”

  “What—” Lokken’s face had turned a glistening, cloudy white.

  “It wasn’t Duane after all,” I said. “It was Alison Greening. They came up here last night and she killed them.”

  “Jesus, look at their skin,” moaned Lokken.

  “She was saving me. She knew she could get me any time.”

  “Their skin…”

  “She punished them for raping and killing her,” I said. “Oh my God.”

  Lokken half-sat, half-fell into the tall grass.

  “Now she’ll be after Duane’s daughter,” I said, suddenly realizing that another life was probably lost. “We have to get down to the farm right now.” Lokken was retching into the grass.