by SM Reine
I flashed to the image of that tricked-out voodoo doll found at the crime scene.
I’ve been cursed.
The old lady said I was responsible for Amanda’s death. But I had not gone near Amanda for over ten months. Still, she couldn’t have known that, and she wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told her. Nobody believed me much about anything.
The old lady thinks I killed Amanda.
That simple. A curse.
And a curse could be taken back, right?
All I had to do was convince her that I had not killed Amanda, that I would never do anything to harm a woman I had so dearly loved. And, if she was the mother of our child, I would love her even more for it, even if I never laid eyes on them.
“Just hold on a second, Albert.” My voice was shaky and ghostly, as if my throat was as dry as an ancient fire pit. “This is nuts. You’re so scared shitless that you’re talking about curses and crap. Since when did you start believing in curses?”
In the darkness of the garage, with just the light from the laundry room behind me and the flickering flame from the lighter, it was very easy to believe in black magic, especially given Gerda’s damaged past. I thought of the bourbon in the kitchen cabinet, the ice cubes in the freezer, the twelve-pack of Molson’s in the fridge. I fought the urge to run for the door, throw myself against it, and break in where I could drown all these thoughts in the sweet, reliable poison that had become my friend and savior.
The scrabbling above me killed that idea. Claws feeling their way over the ancient and dusty beams that ran above my garage, beams that were so perfect for holding ladders and fishing poles and old surfboards.
They’re above me. God help me.
Now the commotion seemed to pick up from the boxes near the wall to my left. It sounded like more than two. Noise seemed to fill the garage, coming from behind me near the boxes, little claws clicking on the cement floor of the garage, a rodent army gnashing its pointy little teeth.
Something scuttled over my boot. I gave it a vicious kick. The thing went flying into the far wall with a thunk.
That’s for Jimmy, you furry little bastard.
So what do you do when you’re cursed? I wondered. I wasn’t sure, but “get the hell out of there” sounded like a damn good idea. Get out, and find that old lady.
At the motorcycle, I grabbed my keys and turned the ignition. I leapt on my Harley Sportster, not surprised at the crunch under my rump. Probably a mouse. I scraped the thing away, sickened at the thought that I had touched a damned mouse but so very glad for my gloved hand, and I gunned the bike to life.
I turned the heavy Harley, stumbling once from sheer haste, facing the bike toward the closed garage door. The thundering sound of the powerful engine consumed all of the horrible scraping noises the mice made.
Yessss. I’m a MAN, not a mouse.
I walked the bike forward.
Something dropped onto my helmet, making a knocking sound, and I squealed like a Girl Scout at a weenie roast. I swept the creature away and hit the switch that would open the garage door.
Quicker than I could believe, a mouse ran right up my leg. It was nearly to my precious parts—the parts that had damned me and cursed and pleased me and squirted a kid into the world—when I knocked it off with a swipe of my arm.
“This isn’t happening,” I said with sudden, unconvincing clarity. “I’m drunk. Crazy. Nervous breakdown. I’ll take all three.”
And as the garage door lifted slowly before me, revealing the pale glow of moonlight beyond, plain old insanity ratcheted up to a whole new level of schizoid surprise.
The driveway was moving.
It’s just the jacaranda tree in front of the house. It must be windy outside, and I’m seeing the moonlit shadows of trees playing across the driveway. Yeah. I like that explanation.
The door continued its slow journey up, pulled by the chains of the Genie automatic-garage-door opener above.
In a blink, a shadow in the driveway broke off and darted toward me. The shadow was black with a white stripe down the middle. All the shadows were black with white stripes.
A sea of them, all clones of the creature that had killed Jimmy. Maybe zombie mice, back from the dead, eager for another taste of human flesh.
I revved the motorcycle. The machine roared deafeningly and vibrated between my knees. It had all the power I lacked.
They leaped and twitched, erupting into a seething, zebra-striped mass. I swatted at a mouse crawling up my back and missed. It clambered across my leather jacket, the claws sticking to the leather. When it reached my neckline, I reached back and grabbed the little son-of-bitch and threw it as hard as I could.
Another mouse caught hold of my ankle and was making its merry way up my shin. Oh, my hell. I gunned the motorcycle.
Three or four mice had found my back and were crawling upward. Half a dozen mice scurried up each leg, their tails hanging like wires. One was crawling into the warm nook of my crotch and that jolted me into action.
The rear wheel squealed loudly and I shot forward. Fluid squirted out from under my tires, though fortunately the squishing sound was buried by engine noise.
I maneuvered over the driveway, the rear wheel skidding on mice gunk.
I rocketed out of my driveway and into the street. I drove off into the night, one hand throttling while holding the bike on a steady course and the other swatting away at the hitchhiking mice.
One thing about that crazy old bitch of a witch: When she put a curse on a guy, she didn’t go halfway.
7
I accelerated down Orangethorpe Avenue, determined to find that witchwoman. If she knew so much about my fears, maybe she knew who really killed Amanda and who had taken my child. If Gerda had done it as a warped act of revenge, I’d have to find her, too, but if the cops couldn’t with all their computers, informants, and thousands of foot soldiers, what chance did I have? Besides, when it came to my fears, Gerda maybe sat right on the top in a throne all her own.
But something the old woman said, about remembering her, had triggered something in my head, now that I was out in the crisp, rushing air and away from that swarm of mice. In there in the dusty liquor cabinets of memory, my personal computer was flipping through mug shots of all the people I’d known. Something about those glittering, gray-blue eyes was wired deep in my bank of usual suspects. And they settled on one face.
Actually, two, both so obvious I should have made the connection right away, and I would have, if the witch hadn’t intruded so rudely on my everlasting drunken bliss.
And the mice. Jeez. They were enough to make a guy want a cat, and I hated cats almost as much, with their slinky, sneaky ways and their arrogant sense of entitlement.
I still felt as if those little rodent feet were crawling over my leather jacket even as I pulled up to Amanda’s old house twenty minutes later. She’d moved to a place across town, according to the cops, but I knew it would be marked off with yellow tape and might still have some techs gathering evidence.
The answers I needed weren’t there. I’d do better here at the Mead house, where she’d been raised and where we’d spent more than a few pleasant hours. The creepiest, most unsettling feeling had come over me, like the French fry grease that still seemed to coat my stomach hours after my belated lunch. Even the two shots of Jim Beam after the detectives left hadn’t dissolved that oily sheen. But maybe the uneasiness wasn’t just because of the mice, or the curse, or the way the world had crumbled and shifted under my feet in the last eight hours.
Because here I was on the doorstep that used to be the stairway to heaven and all the pleasures of Earth, and now it looked like a depressing crypt.
After I parked my bike on the street before the darkened house, I had to will myself forward along the concrete pathway that curved and meandered to the front door. On both sides of the path were flowers of all shapes and sizes. Most notable to me in the darkness were the roses and carnations, the kinds of flowers that got
stacked around caskets at funerals to cheer the dead. I could not tell their colors, nor did I care.
Could the mice have followed me here? Impossible. I had averaged forty-five miles an hour, and had been hindered by few red lights.
Yet the mice had found my home. Though immensely odd, that could only be attributable to the old lady. She was able to find me on my lunch hour and seemed to know all about me, though I’d never even met her. She’d somehow sent the mice my way, and if not for the family resemblance of her eyes, I never would have made the connection.
But were the mice waiting for me here? I doubted it. Followed me? If they had, they’d still be streaming down Orangethorpe. I personally felt that they had been waiting for me, hoping to strike enough fear in me to scare me into a heart attack, or just overwhelm me from pure numbers and have me for a late-night snack.
All of which might have happened had I not scooted along on my bike.
So was I safe here? Was I safe anywhere?
I headed quickly along the path, smelling all the aromas the flowers created. The scents were very real, and so was the cool breeze blowing along the quiet street. Yet the events that led me back here after being gone for ten months were so unreal: a dead Amanda, a bewitched old lady and killer mice. God, now I can see how some of these poor devils go insane—if you overload the mind, things fall apart in your head until you’re just a gibbering idiot. All of this was almost too much to bear.
I reached the front door, and without hesitation I knocked. Already, I could see the mice coming, zeroing in on me, if you will.
I waited impatiently.
Heels clicked on the wooden floor on the other side of the door. The door opened.
8
Standing in the doorway, face silhouetted by the yellow foyer light behind her, she almost made me believe in ghosts.
Hell, I’d come around on curses, so why not? What was one more leap of faith into madness?
But a hope nearly as mad sprang from my throbbing heart. I could easily have believed I was looking at Amanda, that all the reports of her murder had been wrong, and that ten months had not passed and we were still deeply in love.
“Can I help you?” The voice was different, slightly deeper, the words spoken about half again as fast as Amanda would have said them. Amanda had told me about Tabitha, of course, but because I’d kept it all a secret I’d never met her sister. On second look, as my eyes adjusted to the light, the woman was slightly taller and built perhaps a little more athletically. Her facial features were just a touch harder, too, but that might have been her preparation for hating me.
“My name is Albert Shipway. I spoke to you earlier on the phone today...about Amanda.”
She paused. And I knew her mind must have been racing, thinking thoughts such as: So this is the adulterous creep, the father of Amanda’s illegitimate child, the man who destroyed our family–what could he possibly want from me? Hasn’t he caused enough trouble?
Of course, that’s what I assumed she had been thinking. This is what she said. “Of course, Mr. Shipway. What can I do for you?”
I realized that her voice wasn’t just deeper, it was thick with emotion or sadness. But there was also aloofness to it, as if she’s been trained to control her emotions. Or maybe she’d been rehearsing all afternoon.
I was glad I’d decided to do this in person instead of over the phone. I’d taken the weasel’s way out long enough, and now there was something else at stake bigger than my pride. “I really, uh, need to talk to you about...Amanda, for starters.”
Her face masked in shadows, I still managed to see her blink, the whites of her eyes momentarily disappearing behind her closed lids. She hesitated for only a moment and said with forced politeness, “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes, thank you very much.”
She stepped aside and I passed across the threshold, catching hold of her perfume, a wonderful, pleasing scent. Even better than the flowers outside. Inside, I was instantly assaulted by the memories of Amanda. The house was so very familiar to me: the small, quaint kitchen just behind the family room, a kitchen that allowed for some very interesting moments when two chefs were diving for dessert instead of prepping the main course; the living room just beyond the foyer, decorated with oaken furniture and plants in every corner; European landscapes painted in the Impressionistic styles of the early twentieth century covering the walls. Along the hall, where the house’s three bedrooms could be found, though I couldn’t see it from where I was standing in the foyer, were pictures of the Mead family.
I would never see Amanda again. A little mist gathered in my eyes, but I blamed it on the drive over, even though I had a face shield. Wind. Yeah, always the wind’s fault.
I turned around when the door clicked shut. I had seen Amanda’s sister in pictures along that hallway. She was, of course, even more beautiful in person, she and Amanda looking so very similar. Amanda had a more dignified look, perhaps a look she had purposefully acquired to meet the expectations of a college professor. Amanda had been fond of small wire-framed glasses that she wore at the end of her nose while reading. Her dress was very conservative and her speech was impeccable.
Tabitha clearly had a shared genetic code. But similar facial and body structures were where it all stopped. Her sister was wearing sweat pants and a tank top, both abundantly filled by nature or a generous God above, and I didn’t care either way. Amanda would not have been caught dead in a tank top. She had admittedly been a little too stuffy, though I hadn’t minded, and even found it quite charming. The more tidy and together Amanda had been, the more I edged toward scruffiness, so we could always take vicarious pleasure in playing “opposites attract.”
Her sister’s hair was tied up in a haphazard way that allowed some of the black locks to fall forward over her forehead and right eye. She was breathtaking. She’d never be Amanda, but who would?
I reminded myself why I was there. I’d have time for heartache later, if I could find any heart left. The little glowing coal that had been there after Amanda dumped me had been successfully doused by the booze. That made all of this much easier. I was so dead that I might as well have been a ghost myself.
But, damn it, you’ve got a kid. Save the pity party for a private room.
Tabitha was looking at me with concern, bright eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath. “Quite frankly, no. Do you mind if I sit? I promise not to take long.”
“I wasn’t going to give you long.”
“Thanks for letting me in. I know this—”
“You don’t know anything. You’re here because I need you, not because I want to help, or let you cry a little, or explain how it all could have been different.” She pointed to the living room and she followed me in.
I sat on the edge of the couch, the plaid one with the little pillows that Amanda and I had used in creative ways. She sat across from me, rigid, clearly all business.
“I’m sorry,” I said, in the quiet of a house that would never hold Amanda’s laughter again. The words died as if they were the last words whispered in a mausoleum.
I sensed waters of rage dammed up inside her. I braced for the expected explosion, wondering how her grief would play itself out. Maybe I hadn’t murdered her sister, but in my experience, you take your feelings out on whatever happens to be close at hand. Yell at the receptionist, slap your lover, stomp the living hell out of an innocent mouse.
But she exhaled as if she had fought the rage and conquered it, determined to be emotionless while I was there. With a sadness in her voice that made me want to break down right there and cry like a baby, she said: “You two were pretty close.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. Sisters talk to each other, and I’m sure she knew the whole story. As awful as I’d been, I couldn’t imagine Amanda painting me as the ogre in her fairy tale.
“We were. It was special. It was also very, very hard on me when it ended. And even hard
er on me to hear....”
She nodded slowly, looked as though she wanted to say something, then moved off quickly to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door yank open, a can fizz, the glug of beer being poured into a glass. And then the sounds were repeated as she poured herself one. I figured the rote hospitality was a cover for her to squeeze off a tear or two and get her Miss Cool act in place.
She came back with two very large glasses of frothing beer. My mouth watered and I hoped she didn’t notice my trembling hand as I reached for reprieve.
I shoved the glass against my lips, careful not to look too eager, and then drained half of it in a blink. I sat the glass down and wiped my mouth.
“Foster’s,” I said.
“She told me it was your favorite. It was her favorite, too, of course.”
“She told you pretty much everything, huh?”
“It’s the only reason I haven’t killed you yet, Albert.”
I couldn’t quite tell if she was kidding. If she was going to play hard, I figured there was no more need to pussyfoot.
But the thought of the mice coming for me filled me with dread once again, right when I’d been trying to man up. Amazing how meeting Amanda’s sister had made me forget for a few minutes that I was doomed to meet all my greatest fears.
Maybe Tabitha was one of them.
“Look,” I said. “The police think my ex-wife killed Amanda and took our baby. So I need to know everything you know.”
“I’ve talked to the police, too.” She said it with a smirk. The kind of smirk only a cop could give, as if she’d watched all the Dirty Harry movies as part of law enforcement training.
“I get it,” I said. “You’re a cop, too. If Amanda hadn’t told me, I could tell it a mile away.”
“So you think I’ve got some inside info, huh? And I’m going to give it to you so you can play cowboy and go get the bad guy? Or, in this case, the woman you screwed around on and probably drove the rest of the way over the edge. You ask me, I think they ought to build an electric chair built for two in this case.”