Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  After finishing the essay, Natalie had requested permission to go to the bathroom, walked quickly down the familiar-strange halls, and had quietly and repeatedly thrown up in the third stall of the girls’ rest room.

  Ste reo types. Natalie turned off Broad Street toward Melanie Fuller’s home. She drove by it every day, feeling the familiar pain and anger, knowing that it was the same instinct that sent one’s tongue searching out the painful tooth, but driving by all the same. Each day she looked at the house— as dark as its neighbor now that the woman next door, Mrs. Hodges, had moved away— and thought of last Tuesday when she had followed the man with the beard into that house.

  Saul Laski. He should be easy to ste reo type, but he was not. Natalie thought of his sad eyes and soft voice and wondered where Saul was. What was going on? He had agreed to call every other day, but neither she nor Gentry had heard from Saul since they had seen him off at the Charleston airport on Friday. Yesterday, Tuesday, Gentry had called Saul’s home and university numbers. No one answered at home and a secretary in Columbia’s psychology department said that Dr. Laski was on vacation until January 6. No, Dr. Laski had not been in touch with his office since he left for Charleston on December 16, but he would definitely be back by January 6. His classes resumed at that time.

  On Sunday, as she and Gentry had sat in his study talking, Natalie had shown the sheriff a news story from Washington, D.C., about an explosion in a senator’s office the night before. Four people had been killed. Could it have anything to do with Saul’s mysterious meeting on the same day?

  Gentry had smiled and reminded her that an Executive Office Building guard had been killed in the same incident, that both Washington police and the FBI were sure that it had been an isolated terrorist incident, that none of the four confirmed dead had been identified as Saul Laski, and that some of the world’s mindless violence was separate from the nightmare Saul had described.

  Natalie had smiled in agreement and sipped her Scotch. Three days later there was still no word from Saul.

  On Monday morning, Gentry had called her from work. “Would you like to help us out in the official investigation into the Mansard House murders?” he had asked.

  “Of course,” said Natalie. “How can I do that?”

  “Well, it’s a matter of trying to find a photograph of Miz Melanie Fuller,” said Gentry. “According to the city hom i cide fellas and the local branch of the FBI, no pictures of the lady exist. They couldn’t find any relatives, the neighbors said they didn’t have any pictures of her, and a search of her house didn’t turn up any. The bulletin they sent out just carried a description of her. But I think it might be sort of useful to have a picture, don’t you think?”

  “How can I help?” asked Natalie. “Meet me in front of the Fuller house in fifteen minutes,” said Gentry. “You’ll know me ’cause I’ll be the one wearin’ a rose in my lapel.”

  Gentry arrived wearing a rose tucked into the buttonhole of his uniform shirt. He offered it to her with a flourish as they approached the locked courtyard gate in front of the Fuller house.

  “How do I deserve this?” asked Natalie, sniffing the pale pink flower. “It may be the only payment you’ll receive for a long, frustrating, and probably fruitless search,” said Gentry. He pulled out a huge ring of keys, found a heavy old-fashioned one, and unlocked the gate.

  “Are we going to search the Fuller house again?” asked Natalie. She felt a strong reluctance to enter that place another time. She remembered following Saul into the house five days earlier. Natalie shivered in spite of the day’s warmth.

  “Nope,” said Gentry, and led her across the small space to the other old brick home that shared the courtyard. He looked on the ring for another key and unlocked the carved wooden door. “After her husband and granddaughter were killed, Ruth Hodges went to stay with her daughter out in the Sherwood Forest development on the west end of town. Got her permission to pick up this stuff.”

  The interior was dark— oiled wood and old furniture— but it did not have the musty, unlived-in feel to it that Natalie had sensed in the Fuller house. On the second floor, Gentry turned on a table lamp in a small room with a worktable, couch, and large, framed prints of race horses on the wall. “This was George Hodges’s den,” said Gentry. The sheriff touched a book holding a stamp collection, gently turned the stiff pages, and lifted a magnifying glass. “Poor old guy never hurt anybody. Thirty years clerking in the post office and the last nine years as a night watchman down at the marina. Then this stuff comes along . . .” Gentry shook his head. “Anyway, Mrs. Hodges says that until about three years ago, George had a camera and used to use it on a regular basis. She was sure that Miz Fuller never let him take her picture . . . said the old lady absolutely refused to be in photographs . . . but George took a lot of slides and Mrs. Hodges couldn’t swear that there might not be a snap of Melanie Fuller somewhere . . .”

  “So you want me to look through the slides and see if she’s there,” said Natalie. “Sure. But I’ve never seen Melanie Fuller.”

  “Yeah,” said Gentry, “but I’ll give you a copy of the description we sent out. Basically, pull any photos of ladies in their seventies or thereabouts.” He paused. “Did you or your daddy have a light board or some sort of slide sorter?”

  “Down at the studio,” said Natalie. “A big light table, about five feet long. But couldn’t I just use a projector?”

  “Might be faster with the light table,” said Gentry, and opened the closet door.

  “Good heavens,” said Natalie.

  The closet was large and layered with handmade shelves. The shelves on the left side held books and boxes labeled stamps, but the rear and right side from floor to ceiling were lined with long, open boxes filled with yellow Kodak slide containers. Natalie did a slow double take and looked at Gentry. “There are thousands here,” she said. “Maybe tens of thousands.”

  Gentry raised his hands, palms upward, and gave her his widest, most boyish grin. “I said it was a job for volunteers,” he said. “I’d put a deputy on it, but the only deputy I got with free time is Lester and he’s sort of a nitwit . . . real nice fella, but about as sharp as the blunt end of a hog . . . and I’m afraid he wouldn’t hold his concentration.”

  “Hmm,” said Natalie. “Strong recommendation of Charleston’s Finest.” Gentry continued to grin at her. “What the hell,” said Natalie. “I’m not doing anything else, and the studio’s free until Lorne Jessup . . . my father’s lawyer . . . either finalizes the sale of the whole thing to the Shutterbug Shops franchise people or sells the building. OK, let’s get started.”

  “I’ll help you carry these boxes out to your car,” said Gentry. “Thanks heaps,” said Natalie. She sniffed at the rose and sighed.

  There were thousands of slides and every single one of them was on the level of amateur snapshot or below. Natalie knew how hard it was to take a really good photograph— she had spent years trying to please her father after he had given her her first camera, an inexpensive, manual Yashica, on her ninth birthday— but, good heavens, anyone who shot thousands of photographs over what looked to be two or three decades, must have produced one or two interesting slides.

  George Hodges had not. There were family pictures, vacation pictures, vacationing family pictures, pictures of houses and boats, pictures of house boats, special event pictures, holiday pictures— Natalie eventually saw every Hodges’ Christmas tree from 1948 to 1977— and everyday pictures, but every single one of them was of snapshot quality or less. In eighteen years of picture-taking, George Hodges had never learned not to shoot into the sun, not to have his subjects squint into the sun, not to place his subjects in front of trees, poles, and other objects that seemed to grow out of ears and obsolete haircuts and perms, not to let the horizon tilt, not to stiffly pose his human subjects nor to photograph his inanimate objects from what seemed like miles away, not to depend on his flash for objects or people very close or very far from the lens, and not to
include all of the person in his portraits.

  It was this final amateur habit that led to Natalie’s discovery of Melanie Fuller.

  It was past seven P.M., Gentry had come by the studio with Chinese carry-out the two had eaten while standing by the light table, and Natalie showed him her small stack of possibles. “I don’t think she’s any of those elderly ladies,” she said. “They’re all posing voluntarily and most seem too young or too old. At least Mr. Hodges marked the boxes by year.”

  “Yeah,” said Gentry, holding the slides over the table for a quick scan. “None of these quite fit the description. Hair’s not right. Mrs. Hodges said Miz Fuller’s had that same hairstyle since the late sixties, at least. Sort of short and curled up and blue. Kind of the way you look like you feel right now.”

  “Thanks,” said Natalie but smiled as she set down the white carton of sweet and sour pork and took the rubber band off yet another yellow box. She began setting the slides out in order. “The hard part is not just sweeping each batch onto the floor when you’re through looking,” she said. “Do you think Mrs. Hodges will go through these someday?”

  “Probably not,” said Gentry. “She said one of the reasons George finally gave up photography was that she was never interested in looking at his slides.”

  “I don’t know why not,” said Natalie and set out the three-hundredth set of photographs of son Lawrence and daughter-in-law Nadine— most of the slides were labeled— standing in the courtyard, squinting into bright sunlight, holding up a squinting baby Laurel while three-year-old Kathleen tugged at her mother’s too-short skirt and also squinted. Lawrence was wearing white socks with his black shoes. “Wait just a minute,” said Natalie.

  Reacting to the sudden excitement in her voice, Gentry set down the other slides and leaned forward. “What?”

  Natalie stabbed a finger at the tenth slide in the series. “There. See that? Two of them. The tall man with no hair, wouldn’t that be . . . what was his name?”

  “Mr. Thorne,” said Gentry, “a.k.a. Oscar Felix Haupt. Yes, yes, yes. And this lady with the dumpy dress and short blue curls . . . Well, hello, Miz Fuller.” They both leaned closer and used a large magnifying lens to study the image.

  “She didn’t notice the group was being photographed,” Natalie said softly.

  “Uh-uh,” agreed Gentry. “I wonder why not.”

  “Based on the number of slides of this particular family tableau,” said Natalie, “I would estimate that Mr. Hodges had them standing out there about two hundred days of each year. Miss Fuller probably thought they were statuary for the courtyard.”

  “Yeah,” said Gentry with a huge grin. “Hey, will these print up OK? Just her, I mean.”

  “It should,” said Natalie in a much different tone. “It looks like he was using Kodachrome sixty-four daylight and it can take a lot of enlargement before the grain gets too bad. Get an internegative cut for the best quality print. Crop right here and here and here and you’ve got a good three-quarters profile.”

  “Great!” said Gentry. “You did a wonderful job. “We’re going to . . . hey, what’s wrong?”

  Natalie looked up at him and gripped her upper arms more tightly to stop the shivering. It would not stop. “She doesn’t look old enough to be seventy or eighty,” she said.

  Gentry looked back at the slide. “It was taken . . . let’s see . . . about five years ago, but no, you’re right. She looks . . . maybe sixty or so. But the court house has records of her ownin’ the house back in the late twenties. But that’s not what’s botherin’ you, is it?”

  “No,” said Natalie. “I’ve seen so many pictures of little Kathleen. I keep forgetting that the child is dead. And her grandfather . . . who took the photos . . . he’s dead.”

  Gentry nodded. He looked at Natalie as she stared down at the slide. His left hand rose, moved toward her shoulder, and then dropped. Natalie did not notice. She leaned even closer to the slide.

  “And this is the monster that probably killed them,” she said. “This harmless little old lady. Harmless like a big, black widow spider that kills anything that enters its lair. And when it comes out, other people die. Including my father.” Natalie turned off the light table, handed the slide to Gentry, and said, “Here, I’ll go through the remaining slides in the morning to see if there’s another one. In the meantime, get that printed and put it out on your warrants or memos or all-points-bulletins or what ever the hell you call them.”

  Gentry had nodded and held the slide gingerly, at arm’s length, as if it were a spider, and still alive, and still very, very deadly.

  Natalie parked the car across from the Fuller house, glanced at the old building as part of her ritual, shifted into gear to drive somewhere to call Gentry about dinner that night, and then suddenly froze. She put the car in park and turned off the engine. With shaking hands she lifted the Nikon and looked through the viewfinder, propping the 135mm lens against the partially opened window on the driver’s side to steady it.

  There was a light on in the Fuller house. On the second floor. Not in one of the rooms facing the street, but close enough to let light leak into the second-floor hall and through the shutters there. Natalie had driven by on each of the past three evenings after dark. There had been no light.

  She lowered the camera and took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding at a ridiculous rate. There had to be a rational explanation. The old woman could not just have come home and set up house keeping again in her old house when the police in a dozen states and the FBI were searching everywhere for her.

  Why not?

  No, thought Natalie, there’s an explanation. Perhaps Gentry or some of the other investigators were there today. It could have been the city people; Gentry had told her that they were considering storing the old lady’s goods until the hearings and inquiries were completed. It could have a hundred rational explanations.

  The light went out.

  Natalie jumped as if someone had touched her on the back of the neck. She fumbled for the camera, raised it. The second-story window filled the viewfinder. The light was gone from between the pale shutters.

  Natalie set the camera carefully on the passenger seat and sat back, took a few calming breaths, and pulled her purse from the center console and set it on her lap. Without taking her eyes off the dark front of the house, she felt in the purse, removed the .32 Llama automatic, and set the purse back. She sat there with the barrel of the small gun resting on the lower curve of the steering wheel. The pressure of her hand automatically released the grip safety. There was still the second safety, but it would take less than a second to slide it off. On Tuesday evening, Gentry had taken her to a private firing range and shown her how to load, handle, and fire the weapon. It was loaded now with all seven shells tight as metal eggs in their spring-loaded nest. The loaded indicator showed red as blood.

  Natalie’s thoughts scurried like laboratory mice searching for the maze entrance. What the hell to do? Why do anything? There had been prowlers before . . . Saul had been a prowler . . . Where the hell was Saul? Could it be him again? Natalie rejected that as absurd even before the thought was fully formed. Who then? Natalie had an image of Melanie Fuller and her Mr. Thorne from the slide. No, Thorne is dead. Melanie Fuller might well be dead also. Who then?

  Natalie clenched the grip of the gun, careful to keep her finger away from the trigger, and looked at the dark house. Her breathing was rapid but controlled.

  Get away. Call Gentry.

  Where? At his office or home? Either. Talk to a deputy if you have to. Seven o’clock on a Christmas Eve. How fast would the sheriff’s office or the city police respond? And where was the nearest phone? Natalie tried to visualize one and came up only with the darkened shops and restaurants which she had been driving past.

  So drive to the City-County Building or Gentry’s home. It’s only ten minutes away. Whoever is in the house will be gone in ten minutes. Good.

  One thing that Natalie knew she would not do
is go into the house herself. The first time had been stupid, but she had been driven by anger, grief, and a bravado born of ignorance. Going in there to night would be criminally stupid. Gun or no gun.

  When Natalie was a little girl, she had loved to stay up late on Friday or Saturday nights to watch the Creature Feature. Her father would let her roll out the hide-a-bed so she could go to sleep right after the show was over . . . or, more often, while the image was still flickering. Sometimes he would join her— he in his blue and white striped pajamas, she in her flannel Pjs— and they would recline and eat popcorn and comment on the improbable gore and action. One thing they agreed upon wholeheartedly: Never pity the heroine who acted stupidly. The young woman in the lacy nightgown would be warned repeatedly DO NOT OPEN THE LOCKED DOOR AT THE END OF THE DARK HALLWAY. And what would she do as soon as everyone was out of sight? As soon as their Friday night heroine unlocked the locked door, Natalie and her father would begin rooting for what ever monster lay in wait. Natalie’s father had a saying for that behavior— Stupidity has a price and it always gets paid.

  Natalie opened the car door and stepped out into the street. The automatic pistol was a strange weight in her right hand. She stood there a second, gazing at the two dark houses and adjoining courtyard. A streetlight thirty feet away illuminated brick and tree shadow. Just to the gate, thought Natalie. If someone came out, she could always run. The gate would be locked anyway.

  She crossed the quiet street and approached the gate. It was unlocked, slightly open. She touched the cool metal with her left hand and stared at the dark windows of the house. Adrenaline had her heart pounding at her ribs but also made her feel strong, light, quick. It was a real pistol in her hand. She clicked off the safety the way Gentry had shown her. She would shoot only if attacked . . . attacked in any way . . . but shoot she would.