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by J. A. Henderson

  “I don’t care if Norman Bates owns the damned place.” The woman wearily reached for her purse. “So long as it’s got the shower as well.”

  “I feel kind of dirty myself.” R.D. parked and stretched his arms behind his head. “And not in a good way.”

  “Thanks for driving.” Maggie patted her drowsy companion on the leg. “I couldn’t. My hands are still shaking.”

  R.D. leaned over and kissed her forehead, his fingers massaging the back of her neck.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go and get room 13.”

  They were given a double at the back of the motel, which boasted a sterling view of a partly constructed truck stop. Off to the left the tarmac and lights ended abruptly in one monster sized bite, a cavity littered with workmen’s tools, looking like they’d been dropped in flight. To the right, construction had been finished and several low rigs huddled round the safety of illuminated gas pumps.

  Now that he could sleep, R.D. didn’t mind delaying the moment. Leaving Maggie to freshen up he floundered across the masticated earth to the service station, bought a 12-pack, soldiered back and settled into a plastic deck chair. Planting his feet on the porch rail he opened an Old Milwaukee, lit a cigarette and puffed out an orbit of smoke to keep the multiformed bugs away.

  The door behind him opened and Maggie stepped out to cool down after her shower. For a while neither of them spoke. R.D. chugged the beer and his escort let the night breezes dry her dark hair. The scent of cheap motel soap blended with cigarette smoke, then fainter diesel fumes on the other side of the highway.

  Over there trucks croaked like bullfrogs in their floodlit pond, a husky lullaby of throttles opening and closing. Chrome mammoths woke and slumbered, pulling themselves on and off the freeway. Every so often a truck door slammed and a snatch of Country and Western music wafted up to the porch.

  R.D. twisted to look at his companion. Her face was mostly shadow but the oil-black narrow eyes were glistening.

  “Nice place you got here,” she whispered.

  Had she been crying? R.D. couldn’t tell. Maggie’s hands were laced behind her body and she leant casually against the door frame, staring over the gas station to a sky damp with stars. Though her hair had begun to dry, lightening and curling round her face, the water from washing still darkened the front of her dress. Shapely smooth legs curved over each other, glistening with moonlight mottled moisture.

  Standing there she looked more like a femme fatale than a tired, frightened girl - a powerful monochrome marriage of practicality and dread. This was probably the most beautiful Maggie Wood was ever going to get. And R.D. had to admit, it was close to perfect.

  “Something went badly wrong tonight.” His companion spoke without looking down.

  “You don’t say?”

  “I don’t mean the experiment itself.” She sniffed loudly. “No. Something happened to me.”

  A burst of coarse laughter zig-zagged between the trucks and danced a witless jig over the ploughed ground.

  “I feel different, R.D.”

  “Come a bit closer and I’ll test it out.”

  “Y’know... there comes a time when constant wisecracks don’t work.” Her voice was dry and low, broken by exhaustion or, more likely, contempt. “Being part of this circus is turning out bad enough without getting stuck with the clown.”

  R.D. turned back to his beer, his face burning. He didn’t want Maggie to call him that.

  “I’m sorry.” He another Winston, trying to mask his shame. “What do you mean, you feel different?”

  “Like I’m another person.” Maggie pulled a sliver of hair from her mouth. “All my confidence is gone.”

  “You need rest. We both do.”

  “There were so many questions we should have asked Justin Moore,” she muttered. “Details we needed to follow up. But we just got into the car and left.”

  “Right now we want to spend as little time as possible in that man’s company,” R.D. broke in. “Anyway, we’d forget anything too detailed that Justin told us.”

  “We didn’t check on his wife,” Maggie continued. “Why didn’t we check on his wife?”

  “I don’t know.” R.D.’s beer gave an evil fizz as he prized off the top. To be honest, he didn’t want to think about it.

  “Justin did something to my mind.” The redhead flicked away the wayward strand. Set free, it floated downwind like a phantom mayfly, slipping over the porch rail and into dark oblivion. “Using the AID. I’m not joking.”

  “It’s funny.” She stepped forward and placed both cold, white hands round the railing. “A week ago I was living a normal life. Work, sleep, play. Boring, I know, but not deadly.”

  She leaned into the dark, dislodging dirty eggshells of paint, her dried tresses lapping and forming a soft curtain round her face. Mud puddles under the porch offered no reflection on their flat silver faces and the locks swung vainly in search of their lost sister.

  “Now I’m stuck at a crappy little motel in the middle of nowhere, gettin eaten by damned mosquitoes. And suddenly I’m looking over my shoulder cause I’m all freaked out... dammit!”

  A single tear fell through the funnel of her hair, vanishing through the murk.

  “I’m scared R.D. Never really been scared before.”

  The psychologist got to his feet and stood awkwardly beside her, one listless hand resting on her bare shoulder. He felt they both stood on a precipice of something momentous, the way explorers of old must have felt at the prow of their ships, unsure if fame or disaster awaited. Something huge was happening and perhaps greatness was being thrust on them for being part of it. But he didn’t know how to communicate this idea properly, so he said nothing.

  The moment was swallowed by night, carried away on the big rigs. Floated away alongside spicy auburn hairs. Dried out in salty tears.

  “Look girl, we’re all disorientated...” he began.

  “Disoriented.”

  “Disoriented,” R.D. smiled, despite himself. “I mean... no wonder we feel this way. Justin nearly turned our minds into tomato puree. All right, so it wasn’t his fault...”

  “Wasn’t it?” Maggie interrupted.

  “Aw! Less of that, toots.” R.D. jabbed his Winston angrily at a persistent moth. “Justin’s a good guy. He wouldn’t deliberately put us in danger.”

  “He built that giant fuck off machine in his study but claimed not to know the right frequency it operated at. Now that I’ve had time to think, it doesn’t ring true.”

  She laughed suddenly.

  “What if he wanted to increase his Inductance? So he could really let it loose on us?”

  “Why would he? That screw up today almost put us off helping him.”

  “There’s no almost about it.” Maggie took a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t want to build another damned AID.”

  “Then why did you agree?” R.D. sat down again and stroked her back.

  “Because a few hours ago I was bossing Justin Moore around.” She shivered and leaned closer to him. “Now I’m inexplicably terrified of crossing him. I tell you, he did something to my mind.”

  “Justin wouldn’t hurt anyone,” her companion insisted. “He’s a genuinely decent man. A much better one than me.”

  “No offence, R.D. but that’s not particularly comforting. You’ve set the bar pretty low.”

  “What do you want me to say?” the psychologist snapped, stung by the comment. “The man was practically a saint. He’s my mate and I trust him.”

  His companion waved the comment away.

  “I admire your loyalty, even if it is misplaced. I didn’t think you had any. But remember this. Inductance is a defence mechanism.”

  Maggie got up and pushed open the flaky motel door.

  “And the best form of defence is attack.”

  Having fired her parting shot, she vanished inside.

  -52-

  For a while R.D. could hear Maggie moving behind the thin motel wall. He wishe
d she’d come back out but, eventually, the noises stopped and the light was extinguished.

  Another chance at closeness missed. He lit his next cigarette, inhaled deeply and drained his beer to wash the smoke down. The bottom of the tin tasted of oil. He rummaged around the cardboard by his feet and pulled out another.

  Here he sat, in the middle of the night, on a rickety motel porch watching the trucks pass. He was with a smart, beautiful girl half his age. They were embroiled in adventure and intrigue, the things he craved. He’d been given the chance to make history.

  Yet, here he sat, surrounded by empty beer cans and cigarette debris, growing colder and more insect bitten - body turning slowly to ash. His beautiful girl had looked to him and... what? Seen right through? Seen nothing at all?

  When Maggie’s first tear fell R.D. should have held her and kissed her. Assured her that he would protect her. Told her that he loved her.

  Instead he sat on this scabby porch, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and turning to ash.

  “Jesus. I can do melodrama like no man,” he said with a modicum of pride. He let out a long shuddering whistle and an acrid cloud enveloped the mosquitoes.

  A Klaxon lowed over the gas station as a solitary truck pulled out and headed west. Behind the motel R.D. heard the desolate yip of a scavenging coyote.

  “Looks like a night for crying,” he called after the retreating rig. “Seems the whole world is crying tonight.”

  And before he knew it he was sobbing too, hot helpless gulps of misery convulsing his torso and fat salty tears slithering down his face and clogging his nose and mouth. He got up and tried to walk some sense into himself, but every time the volcanic emotions seemed under control another spasm would hit. It was like being sick all over again. R.D. gave up and wept some more.

  He couldn’t understand it. He never cried. Could Maggie be right? Had Justin done something to him?

  No. He couldn’t accept that. He was just feeling sorry for himself, as usual.

  At last his chest unknotted and shuddering gasps were all that escaped his lips. Returning to the chair he rested an arm on the worn porch rail and sank his head onto it.

  A soft, warm hand crept over his own. Maggie crouched by his side.

  “Hey there, old man. You OK?”

  “Just a tear in my beer, Mags.”

  “I’m sorry R.D.” She reached out and stroked his hair. “This must be screwing you up pretty bad too.”

  The psychologist reached out and gratefully squeezed her hand.

  “Listen.” Her voice was gentle and protective. “I couldn’t sleep... and I suddenly recalled what you were saying about that bull. Figured I’d come out and be nosey in case it drifted out of my mind.”

  Maggie had heard him crying.

  “Justin’s face. It turned into something that looked like a Longhorn.” R.D.’s lip trembled. “That’s what stopped me switching off the AID.”

  “Sounds like bullshit, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “You didn’t see it?”

  “I was face down on the floor, far as I can recall.” Maggie snorted. “That why you ran away?”

  “I’m terrified of Longhorns.”

  “That’s a strange phobia.” Maggie couldn’t keep naked curiosity from her voice. “Was it a childhood trauma? You get chased by one or something?”

  “Nah. They don’t have them in Scotland.” R.D. lifted his head from his arm but kept looking over rail. “It only started a few years ago.”

  He gave a bitter laugh.

  “I’m a bit embarrassed about it. You’re the first person I’ve ever told.”

  Maggie looked up at him, suspicion clouding the moonlight in her eyes.

  “Didn’t Justin say he was getting the AID under control? Maybe he did it on purpose to make you back off.”

  “A kick in the balls would have done the trick just as well.”

  Maggie frowned.

  “R.D.,” she whispered. “If you never told anyone, how could he possibly know you were scared of bulls?

  “I haven’t a clue.” The psychologist squeezed his can of beer until it crumpled.

  “But it’s certainly creeping me out.”

  Before making love, R.D. pulled the bulky motel bed away from the wall to stop it banging. There was no need. The lovers pressed against each other so forcefully the bedsprings hardly emitted a squeak. R.D. experienced a tender passion he’d never felt before and Maggie gripped him with legs and arms tight as manacles, burying her soul-baring eyes in the hollow of his shoulder.

  That night they slept wrapped together rather than on separate sides of the mattress as they had done in the past.

  R.D. woke in the early hours and felt silky hair fanned out across his chest. He hadn’t dreamed once. Through the motel window stars mingled with work lights over the depot and the bedspread glowed with bars of neon. He pulled the valance over Maggie’s exposed shoulder and kissed her silent head.

  His girlfriend sighed in her sleep and pressed closer against him. R.D. smiled and drifted off in her arms.

  It was the last time he ever held her.

  -53-

  New Braunfells State Facility, Texas 2003

  “R.D.” Ettrick held up his hand. “I have to go.”

  The brusqueness in the detective’s voice jerked R.D. back into the present, the pain of recollection lingering in his eyes.

  “But I’m not finished,” he blinked. “I thought you wanted to hear the whole story.”

  “I wanted to hear a story that made sense.”

  “I’m not spinning some yarn for its fucking entertainment value,” R.D. retorted. “It’s vital you believe me.”

  “I said I’d hear you out and I will.” Ettrick went to the door and buzzed for the attendants. “But I got other cases to work on and I need time to process what you’ve already said.”

  “You’re gonna start checking my story out, aren’t you?” R.D. cocked his head slyly. “You’re too good a detective not to.”

  “Eh… Yeah, that’s right.” Ettrick pressed the buzzer again, more urgently this time. “There is something I want to check out.”

  He didn’t arrive at his house until long after Madison and Meike had gone to sleep. Nothing unusual in that. His case load was bigger and bigger these days and, recently, he had taken to sleeping in the spare room not to disturb her. Ettrick let himself in quietly and fetched a bottle of Miller Lite from the icebox in his study. He drank it in three gulps. He lit a cigarette. After that he couldn’t delay any more.

  He walked softly down the stairs to the kitchen. The clock said 3AM.

  In the alien glow of the open fridge he poured himself a glass of milk to soothe his churning stomach. Through the window a matching luminosity appeared at the top of the stairs that led to Meike’s adjoining apartment.

  He glanced up. A shape had emerged from the nanny’s door and was slipping down the steps, vanishing into the shadows. Hidden from the main house by the garden fence, the stranger’s footsteps grew less cautious as they crunched off down the alleyway.

  Meike was seeing someone. Hadn’t told him or Madison.

  Christ. Everyone in the world had something to hide. He hated the fact but knew it to be true. He was a practical man and he was a cop. His job was being suspicious. He found things out, even when he didn’t want to. That was his job.

  Finding things out when he didn’t want to.

  Taking the milk, the detective let himself into his wife’s work room. Piles of unsold paintings were pressed into shadows at the corners of the room. He put down his glass, switched on a desk light and foraged through one of the larger stacks.

  He remembered these paintings as part of a series Madison had been working on when Ettrick first met R.D. American Realism she called it. Replicas of dirty gas stations, oil derricks and cheap motels. She copied them from photographs she had taken on day trips round the state.

  And there it was, near the end of the row. One of the last canvasses
his wife had completed before she took up some other style. It showed a flat ugly motel struggling with the dusk, one yellow window winking in an ugly leer. No gas station across the way of course - it hadn’t been built when Madison painted the scene. But the sign on top was exactly as R.D. described it.

  ‘Southern Star Motel. The Schneider’s welcome you.’

  The detective opened the drawer where her original photographs were kept and rifled through them. He had never paid too much attention to them before, for Madison had wanted to surprise him with each finished work. Then he found it.

  It was quite a likeness to the painting, with one important difference.

  R.D.’s car was parked outside. And he was plainly visible through the motel window, signing in at reception.

  They had gone to the motel together.

  Ettrick remembered trips his wife used to make to East Texas, supposedly to visit a friend in Nacogdoches. He remembered how, once Meike was installed in the house, Madison had been able to spend even more time away from home.

  He recalled all the occasions he had rushed off after a lead, leaving R.D. and his wife alone together.

  For a detective he had been pretty stupid.

  Ettrick lifted his fist above the picture, then let it drop. Instead he switched off the desk lamp. He stood for a long time, letting the darkness fill him to bursting point. It seemed like he was sucking in so much night that there wasn’t enough left to fill the sky, and, as a result, the sky faded quickly to grey.

  The detective was so stuffed with bitterness that he radiated his own darkness. As the sun rose, his shadow lengthened across the painting of the motel until the single yellow light shone through where his heart had been.

  -54-

  New Braunfells State Facility, Texas 2003

  When Ettrick returned the next day, R.D. Slaither was seated at the same table in the same room wearing the same outfit. It gave the disturbing impression that he had been waiting since the detective left. This time the attendants didn’t wait to be ordered out and left without even acknowledging Ettrick.

  “You came back.”