by E H Davis
What was behind her madness? he’d wondered then, flattered to be a part of her quest, all the while knowing that he couldn’t help her, only witness, mutely, whatever was driving her. He knew it was connected with her father’s death, but how he couldn’t say. Only later did he find out the truth.
He stared blankly at the gallery consultant, watching her lips move but not registering what she was saying.
“So, how would you like to pay for this, cash or credit card?” she repeated, presumptuously extending the watercolor toward him, urging him to take it. Her insistence brought him back to the present, to the gallery in Prescott Park, to his imposture. To his yearning to be back with the one person who mattered.
Instinctively, he reached for the wad of cash in his pants pocket to make sure she hadn’t somehow dazzled him into paying with her polished sales pitch. Her smile, pretentious and insincere, was all the wakeup call he needed.
He scowled at her.
“Sir, are you all right?”
He backed up, waving his clumsy hands, feeling his face flush with embarrassment, mouthing no, no, no, as he stumbled from the gallery amid the stares of the patrons, their polite hum of conversation arrested by his muffled curses.
She’d tried to shame him.
“Screw you, lady!”
He went on cursing, not caring who heard; past the wharf, across State St. to Market, down Bow. Undaunted, he passed through the crowds. He hated every one of them, these ciphers, with their careful, privileged lives, as they clung to the illusion of safety and goodness in the universe.
“Screw you all!”
That’s when he decided — stealing Vivan back was not enough. He had to kill Jens for usurping his place, for stealing his life. The boy would have to die, too. There would be no place for Corbin’s son in his and Vivian’s new life together.
Resolved, he kept on, his feet swallowing up pavement, past Portsmouth’s iconic tugboats and salt piles; over the bridge; through Kittery and the Point. Not stopping until he got to his motel room, where he began to plot his resurrection.
Chapter Ten
Back at the farmhouse in Lee, Vivian, arms wrapped around Teddy’s mountain of dirty clothes — stuffed in the hamper sweaty from gym if he bothered with it at all — picked her way carefully down from his bedroom to the laundry room off the kitchen and piled his load into the washing machine. She poured in extra detergent and dialed to the hottest wash possible, colors or not.
After a long day at her easel, during which she rejected her numerous attempts at getting the marsh scene right, she finally came up with a technique to preserve the highlights — adhering strips of masking tape. Success at last! The painting, in all its shimmering glory of shadow and light, was ready in her opinion to join her series on the four seasons on display at the New Hampshire Art League exhibition on the wharf.
Without her art, she would be destroyed. She tried that for a time after Teddy’s birth, only to descend into a low so abysmal that it took meds and the threat of electroshock to snap her out of it. She never wanted to go there again, not ever. Though she fought depression constantly, she managed to stay afloat. Her marriage, though unsatisfying emotionally and spiritually, served a purpose — it allowed her to paint and be around her son.
Standing in the laundry room, she listened to the sound of the washing machine filling with water. A movement outside the window, the backyard shrouded in darkness, drew her attention, but she paid it no mind, assuming it was Bruzza making his rounds.
Sure, she loved Jens on some level, distantly. But wasn’t he distant too, involved more with his stories than her? Granted, it was his single-mindedness that made his novels successful and paid the bills. If she were honest, she would have to admit that she resented his success.
Self-doubt dogged her constantly. She wasn’t a good enough artist, a good enough mother, a good enough human being — she wasn’t, was she? So, she compensated with these acts of kindness on Teddy’s behalf. The laundry, a case in point.
Hey, he’s old enough to take care of his own laundry.
At his age she’d been forced to wash her own clothes, her mom’s, too, and Uncle ... she stopped herself.
Isn’t it time for a drink?
After rewarding herself with a glass of wine for doing the laundry, good mother that she was, she’d had a few more glasses, just to mollify her ubiquitous annoyance with Jens. And a few more after that — to celebrate her solitude. And a few more to ... well ... just because Jens was not around to slow down her drinking with disapproving looks.
Asshole!
By the time she trudged upstairs to Teddy’s room with the stack of folded laundry, she was pleasantly muzzy. She dumped it all onto a chair — the bed was unmade of course — and opened Teddy’s closet to put it away. As usual, dress pants and shirts Teddy had worn only once — serviceable if hung up properly — were stuffed onto a shelf.
She shook her head, stopping herself from cursing.
He’s just a boy, after all. And a great kid at that!
She shoved his dirty laundry onto the floor. That’s when she noticed the gray metal box at the back of the shelf.
Curious, she sat on the bed with the box in her lap, debating whether or not to invade her son’s privacy; telling herself she had to. It might be drugs, which wouldn’t surprise her. She’d been warned at school meetings about the dangers of teens abusing drugs and alcohol, and drunk driving. Or worse, mixing “cocktails” of prescription drugs from their parents’ medicine cabinets, resulting in sudden death.
What to do?
The latch was unlocked. She opened it.
A stack of letters, the envelopes torn open.
Rifling through the lot with mounting dread, she recognized his handwriting. His flowing script, the familiar “V” of his “Vivian” tilted forward, chasing the letters that followed.
Could there be any doubt?
There, addressed to her, was her name, not “Corbin” but her maiden name, “D’Arcy,” which she hadn’t thought about in years, for all the anguish it summoned. She viewed the return address, stamped in red ink: New Hampshire State Prison for Men.” With trembling fingers, she reached for the topmost envelope, dated less than a month ago.
My dearest, darling, Vivian, I’m coming for you — soon. I forgive you for not writing back, not even once, even though I asked you not to. Really, darling, I know how hard it must have been, all these years, to keep up the facade of marriage with Corbin, a man you tolerate at best. Soon we’ll be together — we’ll figure out how. I know you have a son; we’ll work that out. It will all take some getting used to, I’m sure. I’ve changed over the years — but I’ve never let jail poison my love for you. I’ve kept that love pure, along with the picture of you imprinted in my heart, from the last time you visited me here, in this place. I will come for you when I know it’s safe.
On an impulse, she went to the window and drew the curtain aside, scanning the darkened landscape that surrounded the farmhouse. Looking for what?
Was that someone?
There — at the edge of the trees!
Or was it just her imagination?
Shivering, she dropped the curtain and backed away.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The strange phone calls lately, met by silence when she answered, abruptly disconnected. The sense, suppressed as paranoia, that someone was watching her and that her home, even the bedroom, had been violated.
In a panic, she booted up Teddy’s desktop computer and looked Laurent up on the webpage for the New Hampshire Inmate Locator — Armand Laurent, Released August 5.
“Armand,” she whispered. “You’re back.”
She didn’t know whether to be excited or repulsed.
Or terrified.
Chapter Eleven
He stood at the edge of the vast manicured lawn that fronts the administration building of Phillips-Exeter Academy, that venerable institution.
Laurent shielded his eyes against the slante
d late summer sun flashing off the white-spired cupola atop the landmark Academy Building, the center of this august universe of higher education.
It was Sunday morning and the sprawling, ivied campus was deserted but for a gaggle of students who’d remained on campus over the long weekend.
With a pang of regret, he reminded himself that this is where the children of America’s aristocracy traditionally attended as a stepping stone to an Ivy-League education and a place at the trough of wealth and power.
He, too, would have attended here if he hadn’t fallen in love with Vivi and his life hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. He laughed bitterly at this understatement, sneering at the hand fate had dealt him.
This is where Corbin and Vivi’s son attended. This is where he could fetch him, should he need him as a pawn in his plot to reclaim what was rightfully his.
As he strolled about the campus, he couldn’t help feeling jealous and resentful of Teddy.
Once in Teddy’s dormitory — which he’d had no difficulty tracking down — he resolved to deal Teddy the kind of blow fate had bestowed on him.
What form would the fatal stroke take?
Well, that depended entirely on Corbin. His generosity, his cooperativeness.
And Vivi, of course. How well she received him.
He had done his homework. He had learned valuable computer skills in prison — most legal, some not. Add to that a few simple phone calls, using the account number and address from the Comcast bill he had stolen from Corbin’s mailbox, and the profile grew and took shape. Identity theft was easy as pie if you knew what you were doing.
Tonight, knowing what he now knew from his research, about her husband’s properties, their art, his literary assets, he would call her.
He tried the knob to the dorm room he’d identified as Teddy’s, to see exactly how the little prince lived.
It was locked.
“Can I help you, sir? Are you lost?”
The young man in sweats, unconsciously bouncing a field hockey stick off his shoulder, smiled at him helpfully.
Laurent returned his smile.
“My son will be attending in the fall. Just wanted to see what the rooms actually look like before signing on the dotted line.”
“No problem,” the boy said, turning to go on his way. “There’s a model room on display at the end of the hall. Good luck, sir.”
“The same to you ... son.”
The word stuck in his throat. It called to mind everything that he’d forfeited. Why should Corbin have the life he, Laurent, was meant to have?
Perhaps it was time that someone else suffered a loss as great as his own.
And know what it’s like to curse God for abandoning you.
He left campus, walking briskly along the wooded paths to Main Street, to his bus stop back to Portsmouth.
Along the way, he memorized the cul-de-sacs where he could hide when it came time to snatch Teddy, and the escape routes affording an easy getaway to the car he’d steal for the occasion.
And, if Vivi wouldn’t have him?
First the father, then the son.
Chapter Twelve
Afterwards, the old man, the doctor, tore up The Kancamagus Highway in his black Escalade SUV, cursing himself for getting manipulated into rescuing that poor woman, the cashier at the convenience store back in Conway. That obnoxious man and his son, somehow they knew he was a doctor, and had shamed him into feeding her aspirin to arrest her heart attack.
He’d only stopped to pick up more Red Bull to stay awake. Driving for over twenty-four hours, straight from Florida, he had less than an hour to go.
He’d even forgotten his Red Bull, which he didn’t need any more, charged as he was on adrenalin and self-loathing. He’d sworn never to lift another finger to uphold his Hippocratic Oath, not after what had happened back in Ft. Lauderdale.
The Escalade seemed to know where it was going — back to that lookout facing Black Mountain Ridge, back to where it all began so many years ago, back to where it would all end, in a few hours.
He stomped on the gas, anxious to join his wife’s ghost.
________
He maneuvered the Escalade over the last few bumps in the switchback. The paved road leading to Black Mountain Lookout was swollen in places from previous winter thaws, forcing him to drive around the moguls.
He turned into the lot at the foot of the trail, finding it much the same as he remembered it years ago. A corral of seasoned post-and-rail fence encircled the dirt lot. At the far end, the official trail forked to the right. Beyond, at the foot of the mountain, a cottage sat surrounded by shade trees and rose trellises.
Everywhere he looked, summer’s end was in abundance. Conifers and firs towered over thickets of wintergreen and partridge berry. Amid the bracken and fern, a plum-colored Canadian wildflower bobbed in the mid-afternoon breeze.
He stopped the SUV, opened the driver’s window, turned off the motor. In rushed the sounds of nature, dominated by trees rustling in the breeze. Warm air wafted down, riffling fields of hay toasted by the sun. How his heart ached. He was home. Back to where it had all begun. He jerked open his door and tumbled out, swept away in feeling.
If he was going to do this right, he needed to make a clean sweep — leave no trace of himself. He lurched back to the car and tore open the passenger’s door. From the glove compartment, he took out the registration and insurance. Then he ransacked the car, removing anything else that might identify him, obsessed with the idea of effacing all traces of his earthly existence. Why, he couldn’t say, only that it felt right: neat and final, like a doctor caring for his patients.
A nearby trash barrel loaded with tinder-dry refuse caught fire almost instantly when he dropped a match into it. He fed the remnants of his life into the flames, watching it all go up.
The ritual over, he was ready. He ducked back into the car and emerged holding his semi-automatic.
Discarding the canvas holster as he ran, he charged past the quaint cottage and mounted the trail that canted uphill.
________
The bear — a black sow of the family Ursus americanus, with a summer-thick pelt thinning where she’d purposely rubbed against low-lying tree limbs — caught scent of the fire burning in the trash barrel at the foot of the trail. Having pupped in the spring, she was still nursing her litter, and her dugs were full and cumbersome. They swayed heavily as she dropped nimbly from her perch in the tree, where she’d been scavenging ants, eating to store up food for the long winter.
Her primal fear of fire made her anxious for her five-month-old cubs, playing outside a den she’d fashioned of boughs dragged against a leeward outcropping of rock, on a high ridge, downwind from the trail. Standing on her hind legs and sniffing furtively, she rose to her full height, revealing herself to be, at nearly five-and-half feet, as tall as the male of her species. She easily weighed two hundred and fifty pounds.
She began running, the muscles beneath her pelt scissoring her haunches and paws in a powerful loping motion, as she picked up speed in a blur of black maternal fury.
________
A few miles east on the trail to Black Mountain Ledge, father and son trudged through the long grass edging the woods, in pleasant conversation, warmed by the slanting sun. Seen from afar, they configured silhouettes in a time-honored rite of passage.
What would the future bring for Teddy? Jens silently mused, as they passed under a canopy of pine and spruce. What promise lay in the boy’s soul? What seeds of greatness might emerge? How could he, Jens, water the seeds? Wasn’t that a father’s job?
Lost in thought, he was startled when Teddy called out to him from a bend in the trail, which led to the dirt parking lot at the foot of the mountain.
“You won’t believe it — it’s the Escalade.” Teddy shuffled backwards, arms swinging.
The enigmatic man at the convenience store, the presumed doctor they’d dubbed “Red Bull,” had continued to occupy Jens and Teddy’s con
versation all the way to Jackson and farther, to their cabin atop Mt. Ledge Road, where they left the car and set off on foot to hike the nearby Ridge. What had bothered them most was that Red Bull had bolted from the convenience store immediately after saving the clerk.
Waiting for the ambulance, Teddy had wondered what sort of man would act so callously, doctor or not. Jens didn't have a ready answer. He’d held the stricken woman’s hand and reassured her that she’d be all right.
And here was his dust-covered vehicle, parked at the turnout to the very same ridge they’d come to climb. Coincidences like this were unacceptable in fiction and suspicious in real life. Jens’ hackles were up. Was Red Bull stalking them?
Teddy waited around the bend at the SUV while Jens caught up. While he may not be as spry as his son, who was thirty years younger, Jens was in good shape — working out daily in his home gym as part of his fitness program as a writer. He prided himself on being able to go the distance. Diligence and hard work had earned him his accomplishments in life and promised more — so long as he went the distance.
Suddenly the air was acrid with smoke. At the same time, Jens noticed the SUV’s rear plate, from Florida, as he’d predicted.
Teddy inched closer to get a look inside. “The keys are in the ignition.”
“Don’t touch anything, something’s not right.”
Jens glanced around nervously, noticing the trash can off to the side emitting a thread of smoke. He went to the can and peered inside.
Teddy joined him at the barrel. “Look, a wallet.”
Jens picked up a stick and poked inside the barrel, stirring up the ashes; he scooped up the still-smoking wallet, dropped it onto the ground to let it cool.
“What do you think happened?”
Jens shook his head. He poked the wallet with his finger, peeled it open, and removed the driver’s license. The plastic coating had melted, blurring the name and address.