by Janice Weber
Had he not gently mocked her, Emily might have told him about Charles Moody. But that would have involved an explanation of Slavomir, postboxes, and her Mad Stalker theory. Ross would have laughed some more. So she changed the subject. “What happened last night? I can’t believe Philippa called you from the cabin.”
Ross refilled his glass; he was about to enjoy himself. It was really quite a hilarious story if one knew all the facts. Poor Emily didn’t, of course. That made it doubly hilarious. “I got a call at the office around nine-thirty,” he began. “Philippa was nearly incoherent. But we have to remember she’d been drinking our booze for days. ’Ross! Help! Someone’s outside trying to kill me!’ she was blubbering.”
“Poor thing. What did you do?”
Actually, he had laughed. Ward was probably outside the cabin throwing rocks at the roof, waiting in ambush for Guy Witten, scaring Philippa out of her mind. “I tried to calm her down,” Ross said. “Told her she was imagining things. She didn’t like that, of course. Became quite abusive.”
“Oh stop. What did she say?”
“Really want to know? She said, ’Listen, you motherfucker, if I’m lying here in a pool of blood tomorrow morning, it’s all your fault.’ I heard some thunder in the background and she screamed like a crow. A wild sound. So I told her I’d be right there. I came home, got the car, and drove up. The cabin was completely dark. I pounded on the door but she wouldn’t answer.”
“I would have been scared stiff!”
“Emily, there was nothing to be afraid of. She probably heard a moose outside and let her imagination run away with her. Anyway, I unlocked the door and turned the lights on. Your sister was lying under the bed whimpering like a puppy. Quite a mess.”
“I don’t believe it! What could possibly have happened?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” Ross smiled to himself. Guy Witten had probably shown up for a romantic little tryst and gotten tackled by Ward on the front porch. After exchanging a few black eyes, they had both staggered home. End of story. “Once she recognized my shoes and came out from under the bed, Philippa began packing her suitcases, demanding that I take her to the airport. I wasn’t about to argue with her in that condition.”
“What did she say on the way back to Boston?”
“What could she say, Emily? That she was having an attack of DTs? She turned the radio on very loud and kept changing stations every twenty seconds. Didn’t say two words to me the entire trip. It was a miserable ride, pouring rain, accidents everywhere. At the airport, she said she’d call you. Then she ran into the terminal. Wearing all your clothes, by the way.”
“What about her face?”
“What about it? It matched her outfit.”
Emily frowned. “You seem to think this is funny.”
God yes! “Of course I don’t, darling. It was just so ... theatrical, that’s all. I’m sure Philippa will call in the morning full of apologies. She’s got to be curious about your trip, at any rate.” Putting down his drink, Ross loosened his tie. “Is that dinner I smell, sweetheart?”
The next morning Ross crept out of bed, careful not to wake Emily, who was curled in a ball, snoring femininely. Now that nights were becoming cool, she was wearing pajamas again; rutting season had ended, snuggling season had begun. Another winter already? Seemed like only yesterday she had tucked her flannels in the bottom drawer. Ross prayed that the weather would remain mild for another month or two, in which case she’d wear cotton nightgowns with nothing underneath. Easy to push up. Nothing to pull down, unbutton, wriggle out of ... weren’t women supposed to be the ones with an extra layer of insulation? Yet they insisted on wearing pajamas to bed whenever possible, claiming to be cold. Ross remembered a discussion with Dana upon this topic last autumn, when Emily had returned to her fleecy armor. Not to worry, Dana had said, pajamas were mere props in a seductive obstacle course. Ladies loved to be stripped slowly naked. Until they became wives, of course. Then their metabolism plummeted, modesty skyrocketed; achieving nudity required an entirely different approach. Dana hadn’t quite figured out a reliable strategy here, but he was married to Ardith, Queen of Glaciers. Left to his own devices, Ross was forced to rely on his two old mainstays of cold-weather seduction, down comforters and patience on Sunday mornings.
He tiptoed into the shower, dressed, and went to the kitchen. Ross missed his wife at breakfast; he had become accustomed to reading the newspaper to the sound of her crunching toast across the table. Perhaps she’d come downstairs when she smelled the coffee. He ground a double dose of beans, put the kettle on, and went to get the paper from the front stoop. It was a cool, foggy morning, thick with the ocean and incipient winter; one was tempted to hibernate with the bears. Ross waved to his neighbor, a surgeon at Mass General who did all the society bypasses. Returning to the kitchen, he toasted the last two slices of bread in the house and opened the paper.
The international news, an ongoing opera buffa composed by an amateur, hadn’t evolved much since yesterday; Ross read a few headlines and kept turning the page. He decelerated somewhat at the business section and obituaries, then read in micro-scopic detail about the Red Sox, who were tormenting their fans with another peek-a-boo pennant race. The team had a genius for floundering like a gasping fish on the brink of elimination, sending the local sportswriters into a frenzy of hopeful speculation. Eleven more wins—eleven—and the Sox were in the playoffs. Once again, as he had for the last forty-odd years, Ross allowed himself to believe that a fundamental dearth of cunning, speed, and power could be miraculously overcome by the wishful thinking of five million baseball fans.
Ross was still plotting the ultimate pitching rotation as he skimmed over the New England news briefs, a last-minute assortment of stabbings, fires, and moose sightings tucked in the rear of the paper. He was an inch into the article titled ACCIDENT CLAIMS RESTAURATEUR before he realized that Guy Witten was dead. Suddenly out of breath, ill almost, Ross put down his coffee and stared at the words in front of him. Guy? With full attention this time, he reread the small paragraph: The other night, in the rain, a few miles north of Boston, Guy had hit the median on Route 93 and spun into a ditch. Police were investigating whether he had died of injuries sustained in the accident or of abdominal wounds he had apparently received prior to the crash.
“Hi, bubbala,” Emily said sleepily, padding into the kitchen, kissing the top of his head. “I smell coffee.”
He only stared, torn between telling her the bad news himself or scuttling away to the office and letting her trip upon the article the same way he had. Ross wasn’t really afraid to tell Emily that Guy was dead; he was only afraid of her reaction. Was he better off abandoning her to her grief and guilt, letting her privately swing in the wind? Or was it better to play Mr. Rock of Ages and be there to catch her? Oh Christ! He wished she had never met Guy Witten! With him alive, now even with him dead, things would never be the same. Ross watched his wife pour a cup of coffee and slosh into the chair opposite him. Her glasses tilted across her nose, her hair skittered against the laws of gravity. She looked like a girl, a daughter—his: no way could he leave her alone with news like that and still call himself a man. Ross waited until she had taken a few sips of coffee, then said, “I’m afraid there’s some bad news in the paper today, darling.”
She knew that tone of voice, and braced herself. “What’s that?”
“Guy Witten was in a car accident. He’s dead.” As he said it, Ross recalled Emily breaking the same news to him about Dana just a while ago. Had they come full circle, then? Back to the starting line, minus a few competitors? How odd that they continued to live while others died in midstream, without goodbyes forever. It wasn’t as if the ones left behind had escaped, either. Each disappearance ripped and nicked, degrading the survivors’ ability to float in that giant, storm-tossed lake called Time. Perhaps their one small hope was to cling together, risk their fates on the other’s buoyancy, and pray that the monsters beneath the waves would gorge the
mselves elsewhere.
Emily didn’t move as two tears dribbled under her glasses and trailed slowly over her cheeks. “Oh dear,” she said softly.
“It says he drove off the road in the rain. The article doesn’t have much detail.” Ross watched her shuffle to the window and stare at the downtown skyline. He gave her a half minute to launch a volley of arrows to the other side, wherever Guy might presently be, before joining her. “I’m sorry, baby,” Ross said, folding her in his arms. “What can I do for you?”
Aside from raising Guy from the dead, nothing. Sniffling, Emily returned to her chair. She couldn’t let herself fall apart in front of Ross. “He was a good man,” she said finally. That seemed the appropriate thing for a former employee to say about her late boss.
“Did he have a family? Wife? Children?”
No, just hen Lot of good that did him. “A sister in Winchester,” she said. “Did the article say anything about the funeral?”
“No. Maybe there’ll be an obit tomorrow.”
Emily wiped away a fresh tear. “I wonder why no one from Cafe Presto called me.”
“They’re probably in shock. People don’t generally like to call with such bad news.”
“Bert would.” She sighed. “I just don’t believe it.”
Ross hung around solicitously for a while, then left for work. At the first pay phone, he called Diavolina. “I’m looking for Ward. Is she in?”
“Sure she’s in,” answered Klepp. “Who are you, the steroid salesman?”
“Just put her on.” Ross waited a long time before she picked up. “I’ve got to see you right away.”
“Sure.” Ward yawned. “Come on over.”
“Not there. Anywhere else.”
She suggested a Hispanic grocerette a few blocks from the restaurant. Ross cabbed over. Despite the early hour, a half dozen customers queued at the lottery machine. The store smelled of dried meat and room freshener. He found Ward sniff-ing some hirsute roots in the vegetable section. She was wearing sweatpants and a mottled blue-black T-shirt that matched her tattoos. Seeing him, she put the roots down and calmly blew the dirt off her fingers. Something about her had changed. Not outwardly: Ward still hadn’t bathed. She just seemed ... happy?
Ross noticed the people in line staring at them: His suit and Ward’s body didn’t exactly blend into the Wonder bread. No background music, no wayside conversations: This was no place to hear about a murderess’s trip to New Hampshire. “I saw the article in the paper,” he said softly.
Now Ward was fingering some tiny purple peppers. “What’d it say?”
She didn’t know or she didn’t care; both possibilities worried him. Ross bought a paper and motioned Ward outside. They walked in silence down a side street with undulating brown-stones and a little park in the middle for drug dealers. He sat on an empty bench and opened the newspaper, “Read this,” he said.
She did, slowly. Chuckling, she put the paper aside. “I should know by now that nothing ever goes according to plan.”
“What the hell did you plan?” Ross snapped.
“I was going to throw him off the Tobin Bridge.”
After a moment, Ross realized she wasn’t joking. “Tell me what happened the other night.”
“I drove up to your cabin and waited in the rain for Lover Boy.”
“Where’d you park the car?”
“Way out of sight, up the road. What do you think I am, an idiot?”
“I have no idea,” Ross replied, watching the veins in her neck swell into relief. Maybe she was a cyborg. “Keep talking.”
“He showed up around nine o’clock with a bottle of booze. Walked right up to the door and pounded on it. Must have been drunk or high on something because he shouts ‘I’m here, Em! Open up, baby!’ Moron couldn’t even get her name straight.”
“Did she open the door? Philippa?”
“Sure, after a while.” Ward looked kindly, trustfully at him, the way Emily had this morning. “I shot him before he went inside.”
“Christ! Are you out of your mind? Everyone within five miles must have heard the gun!”
“No one heard anything. I shot him with a crossbow. He went down like a ton of bricks.”
Crossbow? Wasn’t that something they used in the Middle Ages, like catapults and racks? For a tiny second, Ross thought he felt the park bench levitate, the way objects sometimes did in dreams. “What did Philippa do? Scream?”
“Please. That worthless tart slammed the door shut so hard I thought a gun had gone off. She just left him lying there.”
“Wasn’t the first time. She left him in a pile of glass when you drove through the window of Cafe Presto.”
“And he still wanted to see her? Gad, she must fuck like a dog!”
Again Ross felt the bench levitate. “What did you do then?” he whispered.
“I waited. Witten didn’t move, the door didn’t open. Finally I went to the porch and pulled my arrow out of the door frame.”
“You shot a second arrow?”
“No, the first one went right through him. It’s bad form to leave them lying around.” Ward fell into a short silence. “Anyway, he came to as I was walking away. Dragged over to the door and started whimpering for Emily. It was pathetic. After half an hour he finally pulled himself together. Staggered to his car and drove off.”
“And you waited around all that time? Why?”
Ward shrugged. “Guess I was admiring my handiwork.”
“Weren’t you afraid that the police might show up? What would you have done then?”
“Split, I suppose. But they never showed up. I had a feeling that bitch hadn’t called them. And I was right.” Ward watched a dog struggle to defecate as the man attached to its leash studied the shrubbery across the street. “After Witten left, I left. It was pouring rain and I was soaked. I had no idea he killed himself driving home.”
Ross looked harshly at her. “With a little help from you, of course.”
“Don’t be so modest, chum.” Ward patted Ross’s thigh. “Don’t worry. No one will ever find out unless you tell them. Or your sister-in-law does.” She guffawed. “I would not want to be stuck on a desert island with that dame.”
“What about the arrow wound?”
“What about it? No one knows where or how he got it. I used a broadhead with two carbon steel blades. Witten’s got an inch-wide slit in his back and his stomach. It will look like he was stabbed with a long sword. I must have nicked his liver or something. He probably died of internal bleeding.” Ward peered at Ross. “Does Emily know anything about this?”
“She knows he’s dead. She’s crushed.” Ross kicked at an optimistic pigeon. “May I ask a stupid question? What did Guy Witten do to deserve this? Steal your lasagna recipe?”
Ward became very still. Nothing moved but the veins in her neck and, once, her eyelids. “He killed my sister.”
“How?” Ross demanded ruthlessly, angry at all she had done. “Gun? Poison? Bare hands?”
“He broke her heart, dear. She jumped off a building.”
Jump, jump. Emily had recently asked him about someone jumping off a building. She had seen an old clipping on Ward’s desk. Yes, that was it, that silly little girl who had jumped off the Darnell Building years ago must have been Ward’s sister. “I’m listening,” Ross said. “Go on.”
“Her name was Rita. She was five years younger than I, smart, bubbly.... I adored her. So did everyone else. Rita followed me to Boston and worked as a waitress in Leo’s restaurant while she went to art school.” Ward’s face condensed into wrinkles and hatred. “After a few months I noticed that she began sneaking around at odd hours, coming home late, lying about where she had been, starting to drink.... It got worse and worse. One night I followed her to school. She came out holding Guy Wit-ten’s hand. They sat in a sleazy little diner for two hours and my sister cried the whole time. Witten was married then, of course. He just put her in a cab and went home. Two weeks later, she jumped off a
building. All she left on the balcony, tucked in a plant, was a note saying that she couldn’t go on like that any-more. She wore one red shoe. They never found the other one.”
Ross stared at Ward’s elaborate, writhing tattoos. “You’ve been planning your revenge all this time?”
“That’s right.” Ward chuckled again. “And I almost got it.”
“Almost? You got it, ma’am! You nailed him!” Ross shook his head. “And I helped you.”
“Now you’re sorry? Don’t make me laugh. If you need sympathy, go cry on your sister-in-law’s shoulder.”
Ross stood up. “I don’t think we’ll be meeting again.”
“Maybe not.” Ward suddenly grabbed his hand and kissed it. “Don’t look back, Major. You’re safe. Thank you for rescuing me. I mean that.”
He walked quickly away.
12
Guy’s dead. I dont believe it yet. But I will. Serves him right, really. No one poaches my wife and gets away with it. But a broadhead through the liver? Jesus, that must have hurt. Ward must have been only fifty feet away when she fired that crossbow. Brilliant choice of weapon: powerful and accurate as a rifle, only no report. And she’s got the muscles to load the evil little contraption. Where’d she learn to use one, though? She’s damn lucky the bolt didn’t go through Guy into Philippa. Fine bloody mess that would have made on my front porch! Almost worth it, though, to have them both down for the count ... but I mustn’t be greedy. One is enough. In this case, one is actually better. Cleaner. Ward was right: No one knows Guy went to New Hampshire. No one has any idea where or why he got hit. And the only witness isn’t going to be spilling the beans; she’s too afraid of Emily. What kind of fool story is Philippa going to feed her sister this time?
I wonder if Philippa saw the arrow in the door frame. Maybe not. Broadheads are small as pencils. It was dark and rainy. Thewhole thing must have happened very fast. Philippa must have been half plotzed. She probably had the lights down low and her face wrapped with scarves the way she did for her little tryst with Guy at Cafe Presto. But why slam the door shut? She must have heard him whimpering out there in the rain. Why not call the police or an ambulance? Why call me instead?