by Avery Bell
If everything went horribly wrong, Buster would take care of it.
Callie patted the bulge at her hip, and I gulped audibly.
“Remember, keep your purse on your arm,” she said. “At least waist high. If you set it on the ground, I won't be able to hear.”
“Okay. What if I'm forced to put it down? You know... if the social situation requires it?”
“Crap.”
The elevator door opened and we stood in the hallway for a few moments as Callie muttered to herself. Finally she grabbed my arm and whispered, “If everything's okay, pretend to look in your purse for a mirror or a stick of gum or something and whisper a code word to me.”
“Like...”
“I don't know. Banana.”
“And if everything's not?”
Callie's face was grim. “Scream,” she said.
I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right.”
Callie found a table in the hallway on which to set her big black spy box, and promptly plugged in her earpiece. It would not only let her listen in, but would also record anything that my microphone picked up.
I went up to number 601 and knocked. Waited for what seemed like forever as Callie pressed herself flat against the wall, hand at her ear.
Arbor opened the door. “Hello, Evangeline.”
“How did you know it was me?”
Arbor shrugged. “I answer every buzz that way.”
“Liar.”
He stepped aside and let me in. The purse was over my right shoulder, heavy, pendulous, and uncomfortable. I gripped the straps with my left hand, holding it in place. My palms were slippery with sweat on the faux leather.
“Actually,” he said, “I was hoping it was you.”
He led me across the black and white room to a couch, and we sat down. I looked around at the modern art and the clean, white walls. The condo barely seemed lived in.
“No family pictures,” I said, gesturing to the coffee table, the mantle. “We... Ellen and I... thought maybe you'd hidden them for the party. But there aren't any at all, are there? No parents.”
Arbor was silent.
“And you can't tell me why.”
“You are correct,” Arbor said, carefully.
“I suppose that means I could figure it out for myself. Great.” I sighed, and gritted my teeth. My chest was bound up in anxiety. “I think I know who you are,” I said. “But I have no idea what your role in this is. Why you took that book. Those shoes.”
“That is generally the point of secret keeping.”
We stared each other down for a few moments. His face was emotionless as always, his eyes focused over my right shoulder. It was like there was a wall between us. I wanted desperately to break through and find the real Arbor on the other side of it. The one I'd glimpsed sometimes, as if I were just tall enough to peek over...
“Look,” I said, clutching the purse to my stomach so that my words would be clear on the other end of the microphone. “I came here to seduce you into spilling information.” I could almost feel Callie groaning out in the hall.
“I did notice that you've chosen to highlight your physical loveliness today,” said Arbor. Flat. Emotionless. But what was happening behind that blank exterior?
“Callie and I need to catch the real killer,” I continued. “I could play games and stuff, try to confuse you with feminine wiles, but the truth is I don't really know how to do that. And I doubt you'd fall for it.” All the nervousness that I'd felt over this “seduction” situation was washing away, like silt down a mountain stream. It felt good to be honest with him, even if he couldn't return the favor.
“The killer's not going to stop. The message for the police, which I'm sure you know about in that mysterious way you have of just knowing things – the poem he left on Quentin's thumb – made that clear. So I'm just asking straight out. Can you tell us anything?”
Arbor stared at me. I don't know what I was hoping for with my speech, but I guess a reaction would have been nice. Instead he inched closer to me on the couch. A burgundy sweater was rolled up over his lean, muscular forearms, skin almost glowing in the soft light of the sunset. His knee brushed mine, and I felt faint.
He ran one of his hands up my bare arm and over my collar bone. White hot touch. Softly, his other hand went to my purse. He moved it out of the way, down to the floor, and closed the gap between our bodies. My heart raced as he dipped his head and nuzzled my neck. He breathed in deeply, as though he were trying to consume me with his senses.
He was still lavender in the rain.
I pulled him closer, fingernails skating over his back through the thin sweater. His hand brushed on of my breasts and he kissed me on the chin, the cheek, until his lips were at my ear.
Softly, so that there was no chance of the microphone picking it up, he whispered, “Who says that the killer's leaving messages for the police?”
I froze. He pulled away.
“Who else would they be for?” My voice cracked.
He got up off the couch and stalked to the other side of the room, clearly frustrated with himself. There was no answer, no indication that he'd heard me. He stared at one of the paintings. Black and white rectangles, almost touching across a span of blank canvas.
I clutched the purse back up to my chest, and whispered “banana” shakily into the mic.
Arbor ruffled his obsidian hair, mussing it over his forehead and back again. His jeans slouched, his leg was jiggling nervously, as though he were about to make an important decision. As though he were a gambler, about to push all of his chips into the pot.
“So many deaths,” he said. When he turned around, his eyes were even darker than usual. Pits of black. They contained eons of heartbreak. The wailing of innocent children.
“It must be hard.”
“I am a gentle guide,” he said. “They need me...” He clutched his chest, then. As though speaking the words was knifing him. His face contorted with pain.
“Evangeline,” he said. “I'm not supposed to interfere.” His breaths were shallow now. He staggered back toward me.
“But I've never been so tempted...”
I stood and met him in the middle of the room. He stumbled and almost fell; I put my arms around him, supporting his weight. It was as though he were being strangled. He gurgled, spat bits and pieces out of his constricted throat.
“Book... shoes... Already gone. Used them. If I tell you who... Evangeline Wild... You are surely the next to die.” His eyes rolled back in his head. “I don't want... responsible...”
His breath was now coming in short, painful gasps. Saying these words was clearly hurting him in a way that I couldn't understand. Blood bloomed in the corner of his mouth. I was horrified, sank with him to the floor, held his head in my lap.
“I will do this for you,” he whispered. “With no regrets. Evangeline, the killer is...”
I screamed.
Loud.
I threw my head back and screamed at the top of my lungs, over and over, and he didn't get to tell me. Didn't get to say a name. He didn't want to be responsible for my death? Well, I didn't want to be responsible for his, either.
The next second Callie kicked in the door and barreled into the room, gun first. She ran over to us, Buster pointed squarely at Arbor's head.
“What happened?” she hissed.
I didn't know how much she'd heard, or how much of our conversation she'd understood. Probably not much. “I'm fine,” I said. “Arbor's having some trouble.”
He seemed to be breathing easier. The invisible garotte around his neck had apparently slackened; the pain in his chest abated for now. But he was still coughing blood. I helped him sit up, and leaned him forward, scrambling for tissues in my purse. The microphone fell out. Not that it mattered any more.
“Jesus,” murmured Callie, putting Buster down and helping me. We got most of the blood off his face. I was holding his hand. I could feel his pulse leap beneath his skin, beating w
ildly.
“Just a minor medical condition,” he said. Always the liar. “It seems alarming, I know, but don't worry.”
I moved to stand up and he clutched my arm. “Stay,” he whispered to me. “I can protect you.”
“I can't. I'm sorry.”
I turned to Callie. “The poem and the keys weren't messages for the police. They were for someone else.”
Who? Arbor? Or had he just intercepted them?
Callie's face brightened. “No wonder! Shoes locked away for months. A book. A poem... It didn't make any sense.”
“To the police, anyway,” I said. “To someone out there, it makes perfect sense.”
“Come on,” said Callie. She grabbed my wrist and hauled me off the carpet, stained with Arbor's blood. “Mr. da Rosa, do you need medical attention?”
Arbor got to his feet with difficulty. He straightened himself up, but I could tell he was still in pain. I wondered whether he'd done himself permanent damage telling me as much as he had. But through it all, he simply smiled. “This is quite a mess you've walked in on, Officer Wild,” he said. “Don't worry about me. I just need to take my pills. My parents will be home soon...”
That liar.
He turned and walked down the hall to the bathroom, limping a little.
“Please,” he called over his shoulder. “Show yourselves out.”
There was something cold in his voice. He was angry. Callie pulled me to the door before I could run after him.
“Let's get going,” she muttered, grabbing her equipment from the hallway and bullying me into the elevator.
“I think he might need a doctor, Callie.”
“He said he was fine.” She didn't look as though she believed him. But she also didn't look as though she cared. “We have to figure out who the killer is trying to communicate with, and what the messages mean.”
She turned around suddenly and punched the stainless steel wall of the elevator in frustration. Then she grimaced with the sudden pain, rubbed her sore knuckles and sulked. “Obviously he knows more than he's letting on. It's just so infuriating. Doesn't he want to help us? Save a few lives?”
I didn't know how to answer.
By the time we reached the ground floor, Callie's tactical policeman's brain was already spinning out a new plan of attack.
“I'm going to go back to the station,” she said. “Talk to Toby. Let him know our new theory, see if he has any insight. Do you think you could do some more research on that poem?”
“Sure,” I nodded. I was still concerned about Arbor, but we had work to do. “Drop me off at the library. It's open for another hour and a half.”
“Good.”
She peeled out in the Lincoln, driving a little dangerously, I thought. The tires left rubber in the parking lot.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Of course,” she grumbled. But she wasn't. The stress of this case was finally getting to her. I could tell she felt overwhelmed and lost. Willing to grasp at the thinnest of straws. She was doing, doing, doing... Constantly in motion, trying to keep the paralyzing fear at bay. The killer could be striking again, right now.
“If we don't catch him, Callie, it's not your fault.”
“What?” she snapped. “I know that. But hell, I'm going to do my best, aren't?”
“Of course.”
She floored the accelerator down Division, whipping past cars in the oncoming lane. “I mean, what the hell else am I going to do?”
I popped my knuckles and flipped the visor mirror down. A stray drop of Arbor's blood had landed on my cheek. Quietly, I moistened a tissue with my tongue and dabbed it away. What does Death need blood for, anyway?
… What happens when Death dies?
Callie let me out under the brick and iron facade of the library. Clouds were building overhead. More weather was coming; it was that time of year. With the leaves whipping by on the wind and the other storefronts darkened, it looked like the lonely train station it once had been. I pushed through the glass doors and heard my shoes echo on the marble.
Not much action here on a Sunday night. A couple of elderly women were checking out, backs hunched over, gossiping softly through shriveled orange lips as a junior librarian scanned their books. The computers were free, except for a pudgy little boy playing video games on the Internet. He looked bored.
I wandered over to the poetry section, but I didn't really know where to start. There were about a million books on Keats. Anthologies, biographies...
“Hi, Evi!”
Mrs. Beasley came up behind me, a pile of books threatening to topple over. She started to reshelve them further down the aisle.
“What are you doing back here?” she asked. “More investigating?”
“Kind of...” I slumped against the bookshelf as she finished shelving the books. “Do you know anything about John Keats? The poet?”
She frowned, and led me back to the dispiritingly vast section on him. “Sure, a bit,” she said. “He wrote Endymion. 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.' Why? Getting a late start on an English paper or something?”
“That phrase that I asked you about last night,” I said. “'This living hand?' Turns out it's the first line of a poem by him and I just want to find out more about it.”
Mrs. Beasley nodded. “Okay. Let's see...” She ran her finger over the spines, plucking out three or four titles. “You know,” she said, slowly, “I think I actually have a book at home that could really help you. It's a great little commentary that would probably illuminate his words for you a bit. If the poem's in there...” She bunched up her lips in thought. “I'm not sure. I bought it for a quarter at a garage sale a couple months ago; I haven't read it all the way through yet.”
“That sounds awesome,” I said.
She placed the other books in my arms and led me to the front desk. As we were walking, she said, “Actually, I was just about to leave for the day. I've been working way too many late nights. I could give you a ride to my house and we could take a look together.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, Mrs. B.”
She checked me out and then brought me along to her office so that she could clean up her desk, turn out the light and lock the door. She waved goodbye to a couple of her colleagues and led me out of the library, across the street to her car. The books were weighing down my purse. John Keats: His Life and Poetry didn't quite fit. I slid into the backseat and pulled it out, trying to read the introduction as the car jostled and bounced down the road. Sounded like Mrs. Beasley needed a new muffler.
“While the anatomical and technical facts of Keats's life as a medical student may have contributed somewhat to his concept of the human body and the mode of analysis employed by the mind, the processing and storage of one's senses through the cranial nerves, etc., we find that his use of synaesthesia serves to deliberately undercut the notion of separateness. The world is One and Whole as the overwhelmed senses of the reader work in concert, falling over each other as they fail to comprehend its grandeur...”
What had Ellen and Shelby recited last week in the cafeteria? Oh, oh, oh! To touch and feel very green vegetables. I rolled my eyes and closed the book. Cranial nerves, shit. This wasn't telling me anything I needed to know.
Mrs. Beasley nattered on about the weather and local politicians, steering clear of any topic that might even slightly resemble murder. I wondered whether she was still freaked out about having been alone in the library with the killer. I'd probably be having a constant spaz attack if it were me. But I'd try to hide it, I guess.
And I wondered if she was still stuck on Toby. I guess it must be pretty embarrassing, being officially dumped at the scene of a crime. Not that I was going to bring it up.
We arrived at her house. It was up the mountain a few miles, tucked in behind a copse of quaking aspen and tall prairie grasses, bent nearly double in the wind. Cute little green one-story with a gambrel roof. I remember she'd told me once that it h
ad been built in 1905, passed down to her and Mr. Beasley by her grandmother.
The clouds blocked the moon, making the night even darker than it would have been.
“Brrr,” she said, fumbling with her keys as she let me into the kitchen. “Time to get out my winter coat.” It was pitch black inside. I heard her flick a switch, and a fluorescent light popped on, flooding the room. The walls were rough wood. Cast iron pots were hung from hooks, along with a decorative rope attached to a bucket. Very pioneer chic.
Mrs. Beasley rubbed her hands together, absentmindedly turning up the thermostat a couple of degrees as she wandered into the parlor. “Where's that book...”
I set down my purse on the crumb-covered kitchen table.
“Make yourself at home, Evi,” she called. “Tea's in the cupboard and kettle's on the stove.”
I decided I could use a hot drink. The tea was easy to find, and she had quite a collection. I sniffed them one by one and selected a packet of something called Lady Grey. It was lavender, reminded me of Arbor. I went to the sink to fill the kettle and had to shift aside some dirty dishes to get at the faucet – Mrs. Beasley wasn't much for cleaning, apparently.
Oh well. When you live alone, I guess you can do what you want.
By the time she came back, clutching a thick, leather-bound volume, the water was almost at a boil. She set the book down and slid it over to me as she rummaged around for a clean mug.
“With no one else here, I get a little behind on housework,” she said, apologetically. “And I've been staying late at the library all this week...”
I waved my hand. “Oh, don't worry about it.”
I cracked the book and started flipping through the pages. The kettle started to sing. Mrs. Beasley got up and turned the gas off. She ripped open the bag of Lady Grey and dunked it in the mug, setting it down by my elbow. I watched the light brown tea diffuse into the hot water. Tendrils of steam writhed upward.
Too hot to sip just yet.
“Aha,” I said, pointing to the bottom of a page. “Found it.” There was a small asterisk by the poem, done in red pen.