The Poison Garden

by A. J. Banner

  “I . . . didn’t know he was working for her,” I said, as the coffee began to percolate. “He did work for my mother—it’s not surprising that she would have referred him to—”

  “I thought he built mansions for tech CEOs.”

  “He does, but his guys do the work. He has employees, foremen. He likes side projects. He likes helping people.”

  “Helping people. Is that what he’s doing? More like, he makes up excuses to be on the island all the fucking time.”

  I frowned, a pain in my head. “How did this conversation get turned around?”

  “It’s not normal, Elise. He should stay in Seattle.”

  “It’s normal for him to be here because he has built a reputation—”

  “So you didn’t know he was working right next door?”

  “I really didn’t know. And I don’t even see him when he’s here. Not intentionally. I mean, I run into him now and then.” I looked toward Chantal’s house, wondering how long Brandon had been working for her, why she hadn’t mentioned it.

  “Face it. The guy’s still in love with you.”

  “We’ve been divorced three years.”

  “He doesn’t care! Do you really think he comes here to build houses? He comes here to try to get you back.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you would come in here again and lay this on me, try to make me feel like I’m responsible—”

  “Fine. I’ll go for now, but I’ll be back. I need my keys.”

  “I haven’t seen them,” I lied, staring out in the direction of Chantal’s house, dense forest obscuring the view.

  He turned and strode into the front hall, and I followed, biting my tongue, withholding any mention of the keys hiding in my handbag. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell him I had them.

  He gestured toward the suitcase and bags, turned to glare at me. “We need to talk about this. I live here.”

  “You have the farmhouse,” I said. “I’m sure Diane would be happy to stay there with you. Is she really a home stager? Or was that part of the lie?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t she be? She moved to the island a few months ago to take care of her dad. He was recovering from heart—”

  “I don’t need her life story. I would like to know how you met her, though. Did she come into your clinic?”

  “Yes,” he said reluctantly.

  “How many other patients?”

  “What? None! Elise, come on.” He moved toward me, but I backed away, nearly tripping over a garbage bag full of clothes. He shook his head and sighed, then searched the table and the floor for his keys. He went upstairs, stomped around, came back down. “Let me know if you find them.” He grabbed the handle of his suitcase and rolled it out to his car, returned for the garbage bags.

  “Since you don’t want to go on our trip today,” he went on, “I’ve got patients who want to see me. We can still leave tomorrow. Or Sunday. I could take Monday and Tuesday off.”

  “Why, when your schedule is so crazy?” I said. “Oh, wait, you could cancel your appointments and fuck all afternoon. Or for the rest of your lives.”

  “Don’t do this, Elise.”

  “Goodbye, Kieran.” I slammed the door in his face, locked it, remembering only after he’d driven away that he still had his extra house key.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Chantal jogged down Lost Bluff Lane toward home. She wasn’t winded—she was in better shape now than she had ever been. Every muscle well worked, accounted for, pumped to the limit. She passed Kieran’s Jaguar traveling in the opposite direction, and her heart flipped. That fluttering pulse again. It happened whenever she saw him. Her reaction was like a reflex, uncontrollable, instant.

  He’d obviously tried to go home, and Elise had kicked him out again. As was her way. Who knew what had gone on in that house? She had reason to be upset. Kieran had treated her like crap. Diane Jasper, seriously? The woman wasn’t a woman. She was a girl.

  Out of habit, Chantal raised her hand to wave at him, smiling briefly, as if she didn’t know what was up. He waved back, and from this distance, she imagined his sad expression. He certainly did not flash his usual friendly grin.

  She turned to watch the back of his car recede as he drove toward the stop sign at the corner, and she felt the familiar restlessness gnawing at her. He lingered there with the engine running, a plume of exhaust puffing from the tailpipe. She considered jogging over to talk to him, to offer a few neighborly words. She thought, in that moment, that he would turn left onto the main road and disappear, but instead he backed up, the white reverse lights on. She jogged forward, hearing her breathing, the swish of her jogging pants—her heart rate crazy fast the closer she got to him. She stopped in front of a dense thicket of trees, invisible from the blue Victorian. He backed up until she stood in line with the driver’s-side door. Kieran rolled down the window. “Hey, how’re you doing?”

  “Morning.” She gave him her most dazzling smile, aware that, after the treatments, her teeth looked whiter than ever. The sun was rising. She’d been out early, since before dawn, following the labyrinth of pathways through the woods, using a small flashlight to illuminate the trail. “How are things?”

  He nodded back toward the house. “You saw what happened yesterday—”

  “Oh, yesterday.” She waved her arm dismissively, pretending she didn’t care that she’d seen him outside in only his coat, getting into Diane’s Prius, that she had not found Elise passed out on the floor, next to a gleaming knife. “I meant today.”

  “Things are better,” he said. “You know how she gets.”

  “How she gets?”

  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Elise has been depressed. I worry about her.” But Chantal could feel his attention shifting to her body. She could always tell.

  “So do I.”

  “I need to get her into therapy before she does something stupid.”

  “Like what?” Chantal asked sharply. “She doesn’t seem stupid to me.”

  “It’s the way she’s been feeling—her emotions are so extreme. Have you noticed?”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.” Prickling, she glanced at her phone. “I should go. I’m expecting the contractor—”

  “Brandon McLeod?” Kieran asked, staring at her.

  “He’s—you know he’s working for me.” She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks.

  “Are you two, you know . . .”

  “Dating?” she said. “Why do you want to know?”

  Kieran shrugged. “No reason. You have a nice day.”

  As she watched him drive off, she wondered if she had detected a note of jealousy in his voice. If only he knew. The previous evening, Brandon had still been working on the deck at dusk when Elise had called Chantal’s cell phone. A few minutes afterward, when Chantal had gone outside to check on him, she’d mentioned the call, told him that Elise and Kieran were having a little trouble. Brandon was good at masking his reactions, but the telltale scratching of his beard had indicated that he was irked. “Well, the guy was never right for her,” he’d said, gathering up his tools. “See you tomorrow.”

  He would arrive soon, so she picked up her pace toward home. The faster she ran, the more she almost believed she could turn back time, like Superman when he’d soared around the earth, faster and faster, eventually spinning the planet backward, bringing Lois Lane back to life.

  But Jenny would never come back. Her body was buried up at the cemetery, though her spirit still floated in the sea. When Chantal ran near the water, early in the mornings, she felt closer to her daughter.

  She raced up the porch steps, two at a time, went straight into the kitchen to chug a tall glass of water. Her short conversation with Kieran had thrown her off, as talking to him always did. She wasn’t herself around him. He had seemed interested. But then there was Elise, Diane. Did she want to go there?

  Next to the sink, Jenny’s ceramic bird was on display
, the one she’d made in first-grade art class. The little bird had two bug eyes facing forward, a predator with binocular vision. Every minute of Jenny’s life was now hardened into a similar ceramic glaze, unchangeable, all potential thwarted. She would never fulfill her dream of becoming a sculptor. She would never travel the world, never get married, never have children of her own. Never grow old.

  Chantal found herself wiping away tears as she popped bread into the toaster, went through the motions of making breakfast. Even after all these years—four years that felt like forever and like no time at all—she cried almost daily.

  She should have understood the signs. I should have done more, she thought, although everyone had assured her that there was nothing she could have done. I should have made sure she didn’t miss her psychotherapy appointments. I should have asked her more questions. I should have paid better attention to where she went and with whom.

  Maybe she should do something more now, for Elise, but what? She considered going back to check on her neighbor, but what would she say? That she’d been out before dawn, spying? That she had seen a light on in the Clary Sage, had jogged up the side spur on the trail for a better look inside? That front room was like a fishbowl, the light blazing out. She’d seen Elise in the prep room, barefoot, in pajamas. Weighing powder on the scale, her eyes half-closed.

  It had been startling. Unsure what to do, Chantal had crouched out of view, watching. Jenny had been a sleepwalker as a child. When Chantal and Bill had tried to wake her, she had screamed and pummeled them with her fists. Nick, their eldest, had slept through it all, out like a light every night. Now he would probably never return home from Seoul. He loved Korea, loved teaching. He didn’t like to speak of Jenny, didn’t like to be reminded of her.

  Bill and Chantal had taken her to a psychologist for the sleepwalking—and they were advised not to try to wake her again. Sleepwalkers did not know the people they loved and could not recognize faces.

  But they also couldn’t perform complicated tasks that required higher cognitive functions. Which was why sleepwalkers rarely got dressed, and if they did, they put on strange clothes—whatever was handy—or walked outside in their pajamas or naked. They spoke gibberish, and since they were usually unaware of their environment, they were prone to tripping and falling or hurting themselves.

  But people got up and walked in the night for other reasons, too. They weren’t always asleep. They could be on drugs, or drunk, or performing higher functions on automatic, almost as if hypnotized. And they wouldn’t remember anything afterward.

  Chantal thought Elise must’ve fallen into that category, in an altered state, either drunk or on drugs or simply experiencing a weird mental glitch. Her eyes were still half-closed as she’d made a powdered mess. Chantal had decided not to try to wake her.

  Jenny had outgrown her somnambulism, but obviously Elise had not. She had wiped the table, walked to the door, turned off the light, and stepped outside. She had wandered into the garden, had not seen Chantal in the shadows. Then she had gone back into the house and had closed the door.

  Chantal had lingered a minute, trying to decide what to do. She’d opted to let things be. She’d gone on her way, jogging back down the spur trail to the beach, then looping up onto the main road toward Lost Bluff Lane. As she’d picked up her pace, a plan had begun to form in her mind. Now, as she spread peanut butter on toast, the details of her plan coalesced.

  Since Bill had moved out, she hadn’t felt desirable, if she were honest. His departure had been a blow to her self-esteem. But he’d been an idiot to abandon the marriage—his loss. She was fun and smart. She was good company. She had assets. And men still looked at her, rubbernecking as they passed in cars, when she was out for her run. Kieran was no exception. She would invest in a new, sexy wardrobe, maybe a lacy G-string from the lingerie boutique in town. Have her hair styled, buy shiny lipstick. She knew she was attractive, but she needed to make herself absolutely irresistible.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  After Kieran left, I dumped out the coffee and made a pot of herbal tea to calm my nerves. I was jumpy, and my stomach had not been behaving lately. As I sipped from my mug, I considered my options. I thought about how I’d woken to see him looking at me from the bedroom doorway, and I shivered again. Strange, the way it had seemed so normal, wonderful, in fact, to imagine him in this house with me, only a day earlier.

  Now my rage festered. I’d dreamed he’d drowned me, for my money—and then there he had been, so placid, trying to pin the blame for our situation on me and my ex-husband. How long had he been nursing this paranoia about Brandon? I’d had no idea.

  Brandon was working right next door. I needed to change the locks on the house, but there was no locksmith on Chinook Island. The locksmiths came over from the nearby islands. Brandon was a builder—and he knew how to change locks. He’d changed the locks on our house in Seattle.

  Down the driveway again, I pulled up his contact information in my phone. The address where I had once lived in Seattle, the home telephone number that had once also been mine. But he wasn’t there now. I supposed I’d been rude, not responding to his text when I’d first arrived home from the city, but we shared a troubled history. I still had his cell phone number on speed dial.

  “Elise,” he answered almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting for my call. His voice had a different tone from Kieran’s—tenor instead of bass, but with a greater resonance, and he retained a slight twang from his upbringing in Houston.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,” I said. “I got your text—congratulations on your job on the island.”

  “Estate for a big tech CEO, the usual,” he said. “So meet me for coffee?”

  He always asked the same question, and I never replied directly. I thought of asking him if he was at Chantal’s house, but it was really none of my business. “Um, could I ask you something? I’m going out on a limb here.”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice cautious. “Fire away.”

  “Could you come to the house and change the locks?”

  “You had a break-in?”

  “Not exactly, but I might have one.”

  “Well, I might be able to—tomorrow?”

  “No, I’m thinking right now. It’s urgent.”

  “Right now. Is this a matter for the police, Elise? Because—”

  “Can you do it? And not ask questions?”

  “Nice to talk to you, too,” he said, his voice rising in surprise.

  “I’m sorry. I know I seem crazy.”

  “You’re never crazy, Elise. But you sound scared. I need to stop at the hardware store, but okay. I can do it. Which doors? Front and back?”

  “Yes, you know the house.” He’d worked on it for my mother after our divorce, and he and I had spent nearly every holiday here with her. We’d decorated the living spruce tree in the front yard, and Brandon had been the one to string the Christmas lights along the eaves. “Could you do me a favor and not tell anyone you’re doing this? Like, not my husband?”

  “Why would I tell your husband?” Brandon sounded incredulous.

  “Just, Brandon . . . please.”

  “Yeah, sure. I won’t. I got it. I could be there in a few.”

  He arrived within the hour. When he got out of his truck, carrying a toolbox, at first I didn’t recognize him. But when he got close, I knew him. Dark eyes, brooding and smoky. Thick brows, coal-colored beard and mustache. Clad in a flannel shirt and jeans, he’d filled out since I’d last seen him a few months earlier, had added a layer of muscle to his shoulders. He’d changed in other ways as well. He looked somehow focused. Substantial, where before he had seemed ephemeral. It seemed he had been spending time outdoors—his skin was tanned. He came over to me, hugged me with his free arm.

  “Good to see you,” he said. “You look tired. What’s going on? Why the need for new locks?”

  “Some kids might’ve been lurking around,” I lied. “I had a customer with ad
diction problems. He worked a night shift and needed to stay awake. He wanted an herbal replacement for meth, and I think he might’ve been around here.”

  “All right,” he said, his right eyebrow rising. “If you say so.”

  I should’ve known. He could always tell if I was lying. “How is your project going, by the way?” I said, changing the subject as we walked in through the back door.

  He placed his toolbox on the kitchen table. “The client loves the house. I drew the designs myself.”

  “That’s impressive.” He was a self-taught renaissance man, a builder, and now an architect as well, it seemed.

  He stared at me intently. “How’s the husband?”

  “Fine,” I said quickly.

  “I thought I saw him in the Starfish a couple of nights ago, sharing a cocktail with a redhead.”

  “Is that so? Did you say hello?” I could feel the heat in my face.

  “I waved at him, but he didn’t recognize me. We only met the one time.”

  At my mother’s memorial service, when I’d cast her cremated remains into the sea. I couldn’t remember Brandon and Kieran meeting, but Kieran had mentioned it later. I’d been too distraught to pay much attention.

  “She’s a friend,” I said. “The redhead, I mean.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said with a look of disbelief. “Okay, then. I’ll start with the back door.” He pulled out tools to remove the existing locks. I watched him work, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Can I get you a drink? A beer?”

  “I’m good,” he said. “How have you been doing? It’s weird coming over here without your mom around.”

  “I know,” I said with a twinge of sadness. “Did you see her much in her last days?”

  “She was getting frail. I fixed stuff for her.”

  “She told me she was doing better—she told me not to worry about coming back again. I’d been back and forth so much. Now I wish I’d been here—”

  “Don’t do that to yourself. She understood,” he said.

  “She died so suddenly. I thought I would have time to come back here.”