Idyll Threats

by Stephanie Gayle

  He lifted another finger. “You read Men’s Health, presumably ‘for the articles.’”

  He’d been checking me out. Like I was a perp. He raised his hand. “I have more conclusive evidence, but I don’t think we need to get into that.”

  “You have copies of this evidence?” I set the book down.

  He held up his hand. “Chief, you have it all wrong. We’re on the same side. I’ll make you a copy of the list, for your investigation.” He paused. “But I want something in return.”

  “Why should I believe this list is anything more than your imagination run amok?”

  “Because you do believe it, don’t you?”

  I did. Gut feeling. And seeing my name. “What do you want?”

  “Tell me about what’s stored in the basement of the police station.”

  Oh, God, the alien remains. “I’ve only been down there twice.” I helped myself to more iced tea. The taste had grown on me. “I was fetching buckets to put throughout the station. The roof leaks.”

  “I know.” Of course he did. He probably had the station’s floor plans tacked to his bedroom wall. Where he could study them before he fell asleep each night.

  “There was a large collection of rusting bicycles, some tools, and a few dog cages. I didn’t see much else down there.”

  “Any signs?” he said. “Road-works signs?”

  “Yes. The kind they put up for emergency detours.”

  “Aha!” He wrote a note on his pad of paper. “As I suspected.” He reached for the leather album. “I’ll need a tour, of course.”

  “A tour?”

  “Of the station.”

  Mrs. Dunsmore would have a conniption. She thought Elmore was a public nuisance. “But—” I said.

  He closed the album. “You want something and I want something.” He reminded me of a boy from grade school who’d made me trade my Ernie Banks baseball card just for the chance to use his Satellite Shoes.

  “Okay, but it’ll have to be late.” After Mrs. Dunsmore was gone.

  He stuck his hand out. The newsprint stains were gone. He must’ve washed up earlier. I squeezed harder than necessary. He smiled and stood. “I’ll bring your copy to the station,” he said. “When shall we meet?”

  Crafty fucker. Didn’t trust me to do my part. “Ten p.m. Come to the rear of the building.”

  He saluted me. “I look forward to it.” He stood. “Might I say you’re a vast improvement on the last police chief?”

  “Really?” I smoothed my shirt as I rose from my chair.

  He snorted. “That one chased every skirt his stubby arms could reach. He’d have been no use at all during an invasion.”

  2345 HOURS

  I opened my kitchen door and stepped inside. My shoe struck an ant trap. It skittered across the floor and smacked the trashcan. Lately, objects kept appearing where I didn’t recall placing them. My badge on the counter, not beside my recliner. Rick’s key ring outside my gun safe. This stupid ant trap. Maybe I’d moved it. I didn’t know.

  I’d never been the smart one, not in my family. But I’d always trusted my gut. Cops respect that. Intuition. Mine was flawed now, suspect to second guesses. It reminded me of those last months with Rick, my eyes on him at crime scenes, checking him for twitches, grabby hands, or speedy talk. My mind divided in half by worry. I couldn’t survive that again.

  I opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. After my tour of the station’s basement with Elmore, my well of patience had run dry. He’d insisted I open every cobwebbed door so he could peer inside. He took pages of notes. And we’d seen nothing more exciting than a mouse. But he’d seemed pleased. That made one of us.

  For my troubles, I had his list. I sucked down a mouthful of beer. I wouldn’t look at it. Not tonight. It made me anxious. But I planned to use it. To see if any of the listed men could’ve been on the Nipmuc Golf Course the night of August 9th. Figure out if they owned or had access to a Smith & Wesson .45. Put that way, it didn’t sound bad. It sounded like police work. So why did I feel like drinking the remaining seven beers now?

  I’d locked the list up, once I’d traded my uniform for sweats and a fresh tee. Mine smelled like I’d been running, for days.

  My answering machine blinked. I debated hitting the delete button. Curiosity overcame caution.

  “Chief Lynch? It’s Renee North. I, um, didn’t catch you at the station. I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home. I, um, I found something. Cecilia wrote the name Gary in her diary. Seems like she’d been seeing him since June. So I was right. She was dating somebody.”

  I grabbed a pen and wrote her number as soon as she got to it. It was late, but her call had come only twenty minutes ago. I dialed the number.

  “Renee?” I said. “Chief Lynch. You still have the diary?”

  She didn’t want to give it up. She felt guilt-wracked having read it. She cried. I waited her out, and then I told her how helpful the diary would be, how it would help us put her sister’s killer behind bars. I didn’t point out that her sister was past feeling embarrassment, or any other emotion. Dehumanizing her sister was no way to win Renee’s cooperation.

  She agreed to meet me at my house, despite the hour. When she showed up, her face was puffy. She held the diary to her chest, her feet planted on the threshold. “Come in,” I said, waving her toward my living room. She walked slowly, looking around. When she spotted my recliner, she said, “So you are a bachelor.” As if she’d had a bet with someone about my romantic status.

  “How’d you guess?” I pointed to the recliner. “My sister-in-law keeps threatening to burn it someday.”

  She glanced at the flower-print loveseat. “You picked this out?” She sat on its very edge, not making herself at home.

  “It came with the place.” I ran my hand down its armrest. “I’m thinking it might come back in fashion.”

  Her eyes widened, and then she laughed. “Oh, God, I thought you were serious for a second.” Her grip on the diary relaxed.

  “I grew up in New York, so I’ve always lived in an apartment. I wasn’t ready to furnish a whole house.”

  “Huh,” she said. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Seven months.” Seven months. Seemed incredible. Felt like I’d arrived two weeks ago.

  “Seven months?” She tapped the arm of the loveseat, holding the diary in one crooked arm. “Maybe you ought to upgrade.” She scuffed her sneakers against the mostly clean beige carpet.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Décor isn’t my strong suit.”

  She let the diary fall to her lap. “Well, beige carpeting went out last decade, and your recliner was never in fashion.”

  I pretended to take notes. “Thanks for those helpful hints. Now, may I?” I extended my hand.

  She covered the diary with both hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just…I feel like I’m betraying her. I know it’s stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” I said. “Come into the kitchen. Want a drink?”

  “Sure,” she said. “What do you have?”

  I opened the fridge. “Water, milk, orange juice, and beer.”

  “That’s two more beverages than I would’ve bet you had.” She peered over my shoulder. “Is that a vegetable I see?”

  “My desk sergeant keeps pushing farm goods on me. And I keep putting them in the fridge. Waiting them out.”

  She sat at the kitchen table. Moved aside a stack of junk mail and set the diary down. “You can eat them, vegetables. They make you big and strong.” She blushed.

  “So I hear. Water?”

  “Make it a beer.”

  I grabbed two bottles and opened them using a Yankees gadget John gave me for my birthday. She pointed to it. “Be careful. That could get you beaten up ’round here.”

  I cocked a brow. “You think I’ll get beat up?” I flexed a bicep.

  She blushed redder. “There are some rabid Red Sox fans who aren’t very bright. They might try to start something.�
�� Her eyes returned to my bare arms.

  I handed her the beer. She took a ladylike sip. I sat down, and slid the diary to me. “Where am I looking?” I asked.

  She exhaled so hard her hair fluttered. “Late June. The twenty-sixth,” she said.

  As I flipped pages, I asked, “So where did you find this?”

  “There’s a loose panel in her closet. We used to store stuff there as kids. Treasure. Candy, mostly, and some cheap jewelry. Stuff from our Easter baskets.” She smiled at a memory. I paged through April and May. Cecilia didn’t keep a daily account of her activities. “Anyway, Mom was talking about cleaning out some of Cecilia’s things, and I thought I’d check the panel, just in case there was something there she wouldn’t want found.”

  “She has a vibrator hidden beneath her mattress.” I didn’t look up.

  “How did you know that?”

  “I checked her room, looking for clues. It’s a common hiding spot.”

  “Thanks,” she said. I imagined she’d clear it out soon, before her parents stripped the bed and washed the sheets. It could take them months, years. But better safe than sorry.

  And the idea of it brought me back to Rick, lacing up his shoes. Double-knotting them. We were talking of our deaths. Our last wishes. Normal stuff. And I said, “Hey, if I bite it, go to my apartment and empty the blue waste bin.”

  “Why?”

  “My porn is there.”

  He tapped my forehead. “Bright boy. Will do.” And he’d meant it. If I’d taken a bullet, he would’ve rushed to my place and found that waste bin, tucked beneath a rolling cart. He would’ve disposed of the magazines, the videos, and the incriminating, large dildo.

  My stash was now tucked in that same bin at the back of the guest-bedroom closet. But there was no one to empty it for me now. My family, perhaps. But no friend.

  “June twenty-sixth,” Renee said, interrupting my vision of my brother looking at the dildo, surprise all over his face.

  “Right.”

  I found the page.

  JUNE 26, 1997

  Processed five new employees today. One of them was handsome, but a jerk. He complained about his parking spot. As if I control the assignments. Ms. O’Donnell made a comment about the length of my skirt today. I think she’s a deeply unhappy woman.

  Renee was right. Cecilia was generous in her assessments of others. I’d have classified Ms. O’Donnell as a jealous bitch.

  JULY 1, 1997

  Good day! Got a free bagel this morning. Think the coffee-counter guy likes me. And someone else, maybe. Gary, the hot new guy, apologized for his behavior last week. Says he’s going through a rough patch but that he shouldn’t have taken it out on me. Promised to make it up to me sometime. Ate lunch with Jenna today. She’s so funny. I asked her what actor she’d pick to marry and she had no idea! Mine’s Brad Pitt. I kept listing actors, but she kept saying she didn’t know them and they wouldn’t marry her anyway. She takes things too seriously.

  JULY 4, 1997

  Watched the fireworks with Mom, Dad, and Renee. Felt like we were kids, especially when Mom warned me and Renee to watch out for traffic. I swear, she still thinks we’re in grade school. Saw Will Thompson in uniform. Renee teased me. Kept saying, “Look, your boyfriend!” I smacked her arm to get her to stop pointing. Will’s handsome, but he seems young. I think I’m into older men now.

  “Your sister liked Will Thompson?” Billy. Our Billy.

  Renee said, “She used to follow him like a puppy when she was young. Watched him practice his skateboard tricks for hours. Poor Will. He was always so nice, but she was just his kid sister’s friend, you know?”

  So Cecilia had a crush on Billy. And he knew. No wonder he wanted on the case.

  JULY 7, 1997

  Gary asked me out for a drink after work! I said yes. What will I wear? I don’t want another lecture from Ms. O’Donnell on the length of my skirt.

  JULY 9, 1997

  Work boring. Mr. Smythe cannot remember any of his passwords. Seemed like forever til the day ended. I waited a bit for Gary to be done. We drove in our own cars to a place in Vernon. I had a glass of red wine. He paid. Said it was the least he could do. He told me he’s married. I knew that from his file. (Yes. I snooped.) His wife was his college sweetheart. But now they can’t have kids and she blames him. He says they barely speak to each other at all anymore. He’s lonely. Now that he’s got a new job, he hardly knows anyone. I said I could show him around, and he said I was the nicest person he’s met in ages. He stared at me the whole time. His eyes are like the ocean.

  I skimmed, turning pages. Three days later, she slept with him. Instead of an ecstatic description, she wrote: “Not what I expected. He was fast in bed.”

  I chuckled.

  “You get to her sexual critique?” Renee asked.

  “Sorry.”

  She waved her hand. “Don’t be. It made me laugh, too. Cecilia could always make me laugh. She did great impressions. That’s probably another reason the teachers didn’t love her. Got caught imitating them once too often.”

  “I had disciplinary problems in school,” I said. I took a long pull from my bottle.

  “Bully?” she asked.

  “Anti-bully. I beat them up so they’d stop picking on the little ones.”

  “Ah, so you were born to be a cop, to do good.”

  “I don’t think my teachers saw it that way. They thought I had self-control issues.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” I tilted forward on my chair. “I’m a self-controlled, functional member of society.”

  “Who really needs to rehab his house. I didn’t even know they still made fridges that color,” she said.

  “I don’t think they do. It’s the last of its kind.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Hey, now,” I said, all indignation.

  “Sorry. I’ll stop picking on your abominable taste in furnishing as soon as I ask what is up with your coat rack?”

  “I think a child made it.”

  “A dim-witted one with poor motor skills?” She slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her laughs. “I’m sorry.” Her laughter turned to hiccups.

  “Probably.”

  Her hiccups evolved into tears. Some hard-asses at the old precinct melted under a woman’s tears. Me? I just fetched toilet paper from the bathroom and offered it to her.

  “Thanks,” she said. She blew her nose.

  I sat and waited. She settled in two minutes. Took another sip of beer. “God, I’m sick of crying. My nose is going to fall off soon. Just secede from the rest of me if I keep it up.” She patted it. It was a good nose. And she knew it.

  “I doubt that will happen.” I glanced at the clock. “It’s late.” It was. Half past two in the morning. I’d convinced her to drive over right away. Not very chivalrous of me.

  She yawned. Nodded. “Yup. So it is. Hope I’m okay to drive.”

  She’d only drunk a third of her beer.

  “I’ll vouch for you,” I said, taking her elbow and tugging upward.

  “Don’t suppose you have a guest room?” She was half slurring her words now. Over reaching. She was confusing our intimacy for the sexual kind.

  “I do. It’s filled with boxes.”

  She subtly resisted my forward push, but I was stronger. “Thank you,” I said. “You did the right thing, bringing the diary to me.”

  Her face collapsed, as if it had sprung a leak of air. “Every day I feel like I’m losing more of her. It’s stupid because she’s dead and I can’t lose her more. But I guess I mean that soon I’ll wake up and I won’t even forget to remember she’s not alive.” She leaned into me. I let her. I rubbed circles onto her jean-jacket-clad back.

  “I know,” I said. And I did. Because I could still remember the morning I woke up and thought, “Rick’s dead,” and there was no hesitation or doubt. I’d thrown the nearest thing to hand against a wall. It had been an alarm clock. The breaking plastic did little
to console me.

  “Is it stupid to want the hurt to last?” she asked. Her eyes were pink-rimmed.

  I opened the door. The night air was cool. The moon, a half circle in the sky. It always looked sadder when half full. I walked Renee to her car. Closed her door. Watched her drive away.

  I stood, my arms prickled with cold, and whispered, “If it’s stupid to want the hurt to last, I’m the world’s biggest idiot.”

  Mrs. Dunsmore had rearranged my desk. Folders were stacked in piles. Atop one was a sticky note that read URGENT. I glanced inside. Idyll Days stuff. Should I draft a memo to her defining urgency? I could list examples including fire, plague, and masked gunmen.

  “Chief Lynch?” A male voice interrupted my daydream. The man with his hand raised to knock on my open door was Mr. North. He wore a flannel shirt that made his hazel eyes browner. Cecilia’s eyes. It’s a little disorienting, seeing the features of the dead repeated in the living.

  “How may I help you, Mr. North?” I gestured to a chair, but he didn’t sit. Had Renee told him about the diary?

  “I wanted to know how the case is coming. My daughter’s murder investigation.” His hands moved convulsively. He glanced at my desk. I was grateful for Mrs. Dunsmore’s tidying. There were no autopsy or crime-scene photos on display.

  “Mr. North, we’re continuing our investigation. Pursuing leads. I can’t share the details with you.” I used my patient tone. He was grieving. He wanted answers. And not the kind I had. But I wasn’t the only one withholding information. Apparently Renee hadn’t mentioned our conversation to her father.

  “I’m her father.”

  “I can’t share details of an investigation with family members. I’m sorry.”

  “Can you at least tell me if you have a suspect?”

  “No.”

  His mouth twitched. “No, you can’t tell me, or no, you don’t have a suspect?”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” He moved closer. “Everyone says nothing has happened, that you haven’t questioned one person in connection with her murder. Instead, you’ve run around town chasing men who steal video games.”

  “Sir, I understand that you’re upset.” I kept my tone low, even. He’d run out of steam, soon enough. They all did, eventually.