by Joslyn Chase
“Hurry up,” she added. “We’ve got a fine timeline.”
She waited on the porch while I threw on shirt and pants and rubbed my hands through my hair. I grabbed a pair of shoes, making sure they were a match, and shoved my feet inside.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I let myself out onto the porch and trotted down the three wide steps. “Did Chandler arrest someone?”
Robyn moved past me, taking the lead.
“Not that I’m aware,” she said, hustling me down the path behind Sondra’s cabin. “Marvin found this and David, you’ve got to see it. I hope we’re not too late.”
She put a hand out and shushed me into silence. Pulling back a spray of spindly twigs, she motioned me off the path and we stepped into a sheltered space under the trees. A slender branch arched across the gap and Robyn pointed at a capsule-like formation which hung down like a jeweled pendant. Transparent and faintly pulsing, the chrysalis encased the orange and black of a newly formed butterfly. Robyn watched it with rapt concentration and when her eyes widened I fastened my attention on it also. The glass-like case cracked along the bottom and up one side and black fuzz peeped from within. The pulsating actions grew stronger. Moments passed and then one delicate black antenna slipped free, followed by the other and they quivered in the open air. There was a lull in the action as the butterfly paused to rest and then strained with new vigor and slowly pushed free from the crystal shell.
The wings were scrunched and small, but as I watched they expanded and spread out, like a rubber dinghy filling with air. The butterfly clung to the underside of the broken chrysalis, achingly fragile against the breeze, as the wings flexed and dried. And then it was gone, launched into the morning, full of beauty and purpose.
Neither of us said a word, just stood with heads upraised while sunlight filtered through the overhead lacework, mimicking the monarch’s wings. I glanced at Robyn and she gave me a smile, a conspirator’s grin, like we’d just learned one of life’s greatest secrets. Maybe we had.
We climbed back onto the path and returned to the compound, late for breakfast.
~~~
When we arrived at the lodge, Robyn broke away from me and squeezed herself between Arthur and Gertie. I sat in relative isolation at the end of the table. By design, I suspected, so I could ponder the import of what she’d shown me. I understood the inference, but she was wrong, and part of me resented her for suggesting it. I was no blossoming butterfly.
I remembered a mealtime conversation when Marvin had described, with rather too much detail, how the caterpillar closes himself into a chrysalis shell where he dissolves into a slimy caterpillar soup, floating with imaginal discs for the parts of the butterfly he will become. Those discs feed on the protein-rich glop, growing and developing, changing into a new creature, a thing of unparalleled beauty, with the ability to fly.
I chewed through four slices of bacon while I inwardly scoffed away Robyn’s intended implication, but my mind kept returning to it. I thought of the months I’d spent, closed up in a shell, eating away at myself. No longer the creature I was, feeling disconnected and unable to function in any worthwhile way. Much like a bag of caterpillar soup.
Was it possible that I could be changing, growing into a new sort of individual, with purpose and value? I flinched away from the thought; it was too risky to entertain. If true, it meant I would have to expose my new wings to untold dangers, leap off the branch and fly. I wasn’t ready for that, couldn’t imagine ever being ready for that.
If the idea was false, a vain supposition, then believing it would set me up for a devastating crush upon impact with reality. I’d been flattened under mountains of hope and expectations that never reached fruition, and I just couldn’t do it again. A gun with my name on it was my insurance policy against that happening, and soon I’d be cashing it in.
My throat closed around a mouthful of pancake and I was done with breakfast. I left the dining area and passed into the foyer where someone had left a vacuum cleaner plugged in. I flipped the power switch and began guiding the machine over the carpet in metered intervals, soothed by the steady hum. I watched as bits of lint and leaf fragments got sucked up and the world became a cleaner place.
And I understood.
I knew who’d killed Medora, and the cat. And I knew how to prove it.
The comforting roar stopped and I looked up to see the maid had pulled the plug and was regarding me with confusion. I hadn’t time to explain to her about utilization behavior.
I relinquished her machine and hurried out the door.
~~~
This time, Patrick answered my knock within seconds. He had a phone tucked between neck and shoulder and gestured me inside while he folded slacks and barked instructions into the mouthpiece. He ended the call and tossed the phone onto his desk.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“L.A. That was my agent.”
“I didn’t realize the police had given the all-clear.”
He grunted, waving his hands in an impatient gesture. “They’ll have to let me go. I’ve got a week’s worth of book signings lined up and they’ve had days to figure this thing out. They can talk to my lawyer.”
“Actually, Patrick, Detective Chandler is on her way to see you now.”
“Oh, really?”
He yawned and turned away, but I had seen it. Something roiled and bucked under the calm surface before a layer of nonchalance smoothed over it. Like the coils of a sea serpent sinking beneath the murky waves.
“Yes,” I said. “I told her you killed Medora.”
Patrick sputtered out a laugh and went on packing.
“Oh, right. You and Robyn, playing detective.” He gave a derisive snort. “What a joke.”
“It’s no joke,” I said. “You killed Muse, too. Although I believe that was an accident. I know what you did, Patrick, and I know how to prove it.”
He turned away from the suitcase and regarded me, his lips pinched into a straight line across his face. His Adam’s apple dipped and rose as he swallowed, and his eyes turned crafty. I tried to keep my gaze glued to his, but couldn’t stop a split-second foray to confirm that the tiny vacuum cleaner was still there. He cottoned on quickly.
“I’m not a fool, David. I emptied it.”
I began a slow edge toward the wastebasket. Patrick laughed, enjoying himself now.
“Not there, of course. Into the stream. My bits of vacuum fluff are now part of the vast Pacific ocean. Dissolved, vanished, gone.”
That was unfortunate. But I knew the appliance would yield trace amounts under a crime lab examination. And that would be enough. I saw, by his eyes, that Patrick knew it, too.
I lunged for the device, but he intercepted me with a punch to the gut and I went down flat, my face against the floor. I hadn’t expected him to be so quick. He jumped on top of me and bent my right arm behind my back.
“She was a maggot, David. She ruined us. After Medora, my father never looked me in the eye again. We never had a meaningful conversation. He was wrecked. And my mother…the only thing she looked in the eye was a bottle of booze. I wonder, when she stepped off the nineteenth floor balcony, if she even remembered she had a son.”
His voice was bitter, riven by grief. I was being drenched by the emotional spring which had given life to the angst-driven novels, the source of his pain, and also his success as a writer. A poisonous arrangement. I pitied him, and my pity weakened me.
He wrenched at my arm. “You’re a ruin yourself, David. Brain-damaged and washed up. I’m doing you a favor.”
He knelt on my neck, crushing my windpipe against the wooden floor. The terrific energy inside him that burned away all his snacking calories fueled his rage and fear, and he pinned me easily. I couldn’t breathe. I flailed my arms and legs, trying to knock him off or get a handful of his clothing, but my thrashing was ineffectual. My vision dimmed and flickered, like a bulb going bad, and I had the first thought that I was dying.
&
nbsp; And knew I didn’t want it.
I remembered the butterfly struggling to emerge. I thought of Robyn, remembering the smile she’d given me. I’d felt a part of something in that moment, shared a connection with another living person, and the emotions that followed—resentment, doubt, hope, despair—they were real. Was it possible I could retrain my brain to respond appropriately to stimuli? People have suffered through crippling circumstances and overcome challenges greater than mine and claimed happiness for themselves in spite of it.
An overwhelming desire to embrace the risk of living engulfed me. Specks of color swam in a sea of darkness before my eyes. I could learn. There were so many new skills I could learn. I had a fresh chance at life and I wanted it as much as I wanted my next breath. I mustered the strength and flipped onto my right side, dislodging his knee and pinning my arm under me. I sucked in a lungful before he pushed me onto my back and repeated the crushing exercise, from the front.
“Why fight it, David? You’re a mental gimp. You’re done, as a sculptor. And for you, what else is there?”
Valid points and sound arguments. I’d been making them to myself since I came out of surgery. But now they’d lost salience, sounded empty and foolish. And I would not let them punctuate the end of my life. There was a world of iceberg to conquer.
Patrick centered his weight over my windpipe. He held down my left arm and my right was pinned beneath me, going numb. I sent an urgent message out to various body parts and with an undulating motion, upset Patrick’s center of gravity enough that his knee slid off and he commenced squeezing my throat with his hands. His thumbs pressed into the soft flesh around my voice box, while his fingers scrabbled, pulling at my beard so that tears ran from my eyes. I stepped my right foot outside his left, enclosing it so that when I pivoted on my hip, we both flipped over and I was on top.
And then I employed my left hand in a new skill and hammered him unconscious.
~~~
I went home to Seattle, and sculpted.
I still missed the quality of my old style, but now I found comfort and challenge in forging a new character, developing a fresh technique, redesigning the David Peeler signature. It didn’t all come fast, and none of it came easy, but I made my peace with the hole in my brain.
After the events at Sylvan, and Patrick’s subsequent arrest, a series of news articles ran in the local papers and several national syndicates picked them up. My story, it seemed, generated a lot of human interest.
From the crime solving standpoint, from the artist’s standpoint, from the standpoint of medical curiosity, I have been interviewed and asked to speak for various audiences. It’s daunting, yet it confirms my decision to continue. I am still discovering myself and although it’s often frightening and disconcerting, it is an interesting journey.
In the weeks after Sylvan, I made the three hour drive to Portland nearly every weekend. Robyn lives there in a rustic cottage near Multnomah Falls. I soaked in the atmosphere, went to her concerts, and fed my growing artistic soul.
“When shall I be coming to your gallery showing?” Robyn asked during one of my visits.
I sprawled on a chaise lounge, enjoying the view from the tiny redwood deck that overhung the gorge outside her cottage. The question made me smile.
“I’ve a long way to go before I’ll be ready for an exhibition.”
She regarded me seriously. “Perhaps,” she nodded. “But do you realize that you are now enjoying something that most artists don’t achieve until after they’re dead? It’s a sort of posthumous popularity. Pre-surgery David Peelers have increased dramatically in value and surely that can’t hurt the post-surgical artist’s rise to success.”
“You could be right,” I agreed, “but…”
I was still learning to let ideas and emotions intersect inside my mind, and to express the meanings they convey in a way that others can understand.
“Say it, David. Find the words and tell me.”
Robyn had become adept at helping me excavate my thoughts and feelings, bringing them to the surface and examining them so I can make used of what they tell me. I surprised myself at the depth of trust I placed in her. I got a mental grasp on the topic at hand and tried to match comprehensible words to it.
“The me that I used to be was so focused,” I said, “so intent on one particular pursuit, and I find that I’ve lost that kind of single-minded passion. Or rather, it’s changed into something else. My focus has widened and my need to create seems to be taking a variety of forms.”
She leaned forward in her chair and gave my knee a gentle squeeze.
“Safe to say, then, that you really are spreading your wings?”
“Mmmm,” I answered, closing my eyes and raising my face to the sun. “We’ll see.”
~~~
The date I’d written on my suicide note arrived.
I opened the safe and read the piece of paper I’d placed beside the gun, reflecting that the man who wrote it was already dead. I remembered him as one recalls a childhood friend, with moments of fondness but miles of distance between, and no real desire to go back to what once was.
I waited until the sun went down, then took the gun and threw it off the Ballard Bridge. I watched the moonlight dance in the rippling circles that emanated from its entry point as they reached out and out and kept on going.
I went home and began sculpting the next David Peeler.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joslyn Chase writes suspense fiction, ranging from mysteries to thrillers with an occasional dip into the horror genre. She is a classical pianist, music teacher, and storyteller who loves American History and holds a degree in American Studies.
Joslyn is a regular contributor on The Write Practice blog, and also writes a blog of her own on the power of story, which you can find at joslynchase.com, along with updates and new releases. You can sign up for her reader group to access bonus material and free stories. Her latest thriller is Nocturne In Ashes, a race to stop a serial killer in the aftermath of a Mt. Rainier eruption.
Joslyn loves to travel and has ridden camels through the Nubian desert, fended off greedy monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar, punted on the River Cam, and hiked the Bavarian Alps, but she still believes that sometimes the best adventure is in getting the words on the page or in the thrill of reading a good story.
She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, with her husband, a dog, and at least one child at any given time, but has previously resided in Spain and Germany as well as various locations in the United States.
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Death of a Muse
Copyright © 2018 by Joslyn Chase
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This book is a work of fiction.
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