A Long December

by Richard Chizmar

  And that was when it happened. A lot of it was the rain. It came down in such force—it sounded like hail by then—that it hammered the metal of cars and overflowed gutters within minutes. My wipers started straining after just a few blocks. I wasn’t sure where I was going. But I was in a hell of a hurry to get there.

  7

  You certainly can’t call this first degree murder, my lawyer told the press the next day. It was a terrible accident. A terrible, terrible accident. I doubt the D.A.’s even going to bring charges. You wait and see.

  I can honestly say that I wasn’t even aware of where I was after I left the tavern. I just instinctively took the usual way home. I know that might be hard to believe, but it’s true. I forgot entirely that I’d be passing by her condo. I just wanted to be home, in my own bed, slipping into darkness.

  She could have been anybody. I don’t expect you to believe that, but it’s true. Wrong time, wrong place. For all of us.

  They were coming from the yuppie bar across the street from her condo, covering their heads with newspapers they must have dragged along from inside.

  I was driving too fast. The road was wet. I couldn’t see.

  And there was this person stepping into the beam of my headlights—and I was slamming on the brakes—and then there was this other figure reaching for her, jerking her back from the path of my car but in doing so he himself stumbled and fell into the way of my skidding car and—

  Daniel Ahearn, my lawyer, says to me, “You wait right here and I’m going to let her have two minutes with you.”

  “You going to be here, too?”

  “Are you crazy? Of course I’m going to be here. But she’s been calling and coming up here all day long.”

  “I’m afraid to see her.”

  “Chet, listen, what happened was an honest accident, just the way you told me, right?”

  He knew better and I knew better. But I had to keep repeating the story so eventually I’d believe it, too.

  I’d seen her running out into the street and then I was back in that alley where I ran the killer down that time. All the misery she’d caused. Poor Laura and the kids. And ruining Michael’s life after he’d tried so hard to be trustworthy and sober again and—

  But then Michael had suddenly pulled her back and tripped in front of my car and by then I couldn’t stop and the sound he made when the car hit him—I knew he was dead; I knew he was dead.

  “So she’s going to come in here and go all hysterical on you and accuse you of being a murderer and tell you you’re going to the gas chamber. But you’re going to do what?”

  “I’m just going to sit here and calmly tell her that I’m sorry. That it really was an accident. That it was just this terrible coincidence that I happened to be driving by that night.”

  “And that’s when I say, ‘I hate to put it this way, Jane, but his loss is as big as yours, wouldn’t you say? He accidentally killed his own brother.’ So, you ready?”

  I felt like I might get sick. “I’m ready.”

  “Remember, just keep taking a lot of good long breaths to keep yourself cool and steady.”

  I took a good long breath.

  “That’s right,” he said, “just like that.”

  He patted me on the shoulder and then he went through the door to the reception area.

  She was already screaming and sobbing when he brought her in.

  She stood in front of me like an interrogator. She didn’t talk. Between sobs, she shouted. “You think you’re going to get away with this, don’t you? Well, you’re not. Not when the D.A. gets all the witnesses lined up. Even his wife’s going to testify against you, you know that, Chet? Do you know that? As much as she hates me, she’s going to testify against you?”

  And that was when she slapped me. I couldn’t tell if it was skill or luck but I sure felt it.

  She touched her stomach. “Thanks to you, your brother’s baby won’t have a father. Maybe you think about that when you’re in prison, Chet. His poor little kid without a father.” She started crying again. “This was supposed to be so good, so happy for the three of us. We were gonna be a family. But you couldn’t let that happen, could you, Chet? You had to make sure your little brother did just what you wanted him to, didn’t you? So you killed him! Your own brother! You killed him!”

  Abnormal. Unnatural.

  She spat at me. It landed on my nose and immediately dripped down to my upper lip. My lawyer stepped in then and started dragging her to the door. She was still screaming in the outer office. I imagine the wealthy clients sitting in the reception room were wondering what was going on.

  When he came back and closed the door, he said, “That is one nasty bitch.”

  “She said my sister-in-law’s going to testify against me.”

  He waved me off, but I saw hesitation on his face. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Chet. You think Laura wants her kids to hear about what kind of man your brother was?”

  My brother.

  “How about bond?”

  “Just what I predicted. Judge said no bond. You’re on your own recognizance. I brought along all your awards and commendations. Nobody thinks you ran Michael down on purpose. It was raining and dark and he just stepped too far out into the street. His blood alcohol was way over the limit. I’m not arrogant enough to call this a slam dunk. No serious criminal case is. But I can practically guarantee you you’ll never see any prison. You’ll be free.”

  That was the word that was supposed to make me feel better. Free. I kept thinking about it all the way home and all the way through our quiet dinner and even when we were in bed and when I couldn’t respond to Jen as I usually do.

  Free. But I knew better than that now, didn’t I?

  (written with Ed Gorman)

  CEMETERY DANCE

  Elliott Fosse, age thirty-three, small-town accountant. Waiting alone. Dead of winter. After midnight. The deserted gravel parking lot outside of Winchester County Cemetery.

  Elliott stared out the truck window at the frozen darkness. His thoughts raced back to the handwritten note in his pants pocket. He reached down and squeezed the denim. The pants were new—bought for work not a week ago and still stiff to the touch—but Elliott could feel the reassuring crinkle of paper inside the pocket.

  While the woman on the radio droned on about a snow warning for the entire eastern sector of the state, storm winds rumbled outside, buffeting the truck. Elliott’s breath escaped in visible puffs and, despite the lack of heat in the truck, he wiped beads of moisture from his face. With the same hand, he snatched a clear pint bottle from the top of the dash and guzzled, tilting it upward long after it ran dry. He tossed the bottle on the seat next to him—where it clinked against two others—and reached for the door handle.

  The wind grabbed him, lashing at his exposed face, and immediately the sweat on his cheeks frosted over. He quickly pulled the flashlight from his pocket and straightened his jacket collar, shielding his neck. The night sky was starless, enveloping the cemetery like a huge, black circus tent. His bare hands shook uncontrollably, the flashlight beam fluttering over the hard ground. Somewhere, almost muffled by the whine of the wind, he heard a distant clanking—a dull sound echoing across the grounds. He hesitated, tried to recognize the source, but failed.

  Snow coming soon, he thought, gazing upward.

  He touched a hand to the lopsided weight in his coat pocket and slowly climbed the cracked steps leading to the monument gate. During visiting hours, the gate marked the cemetery’s main entrance and was always guarded by a groundskeeper, a short, roundish fellow with a bright red beard. But, at one in the morning, the grounds were long closed and abandoned.

  Elliott’s legs ached with every step. The liquor in his system was no match for the strength of the storm. His eyes and ears stung from the frigid blasts of wind. He longed to rest, but the contents of the note in his pocket pushed him onward. As he reached the last step, he was greeted by a rusty, fist-sized
padlock banging loudly against the twin gates. It sounded like a bell tolling, warning the countryside of some unseen danger.

  He rested for a moment, supporting himself against the gate, grimacing from the sudden shock of cold steel. He rubbed his hands together, then walked toward a narrow opening, partly concealed by a clump of scrubby thorn bushes, where the fence fell just short of connecting with the gate’s left corner. Easing his body through the gap, Elliott felt the familiar tingle of excitement return. He had been here many times before…many times.

  But tonight was different.

  Creeping among the faded white headstones, Elliott noticed for the first time that their placement looked rather peculiar, as if they’d been dropped from the sky in some predetermined pattern. From above, he ruminated, the grounds must look like an overcrowded housing development.

  Glancing at the sky again, thinking: Big snow on the way, and soon. He moved slower now, still confident, but careful not to pass the gravestone.

  He had been there before, so many times, but he remembered the first time most vividly—fifteen years ago, during the day.

  Everyone had been there. A grim Elliott standing far behind Kassie’s parents, hidden among the mourning crowd. Her father, standing proudly, a strong hand on each son’s shoulder. The mother, clad in customary black, standing next to him, choking back the tears.

  Immediately following the service, the crowd had left the cemetery to gather at her parent’s home, but Elliott had stayed. He had waited in the upper oak grove, hidden among the trees. When the workers had finished the burial, he had crept down the hill and sat, talking with his love on the fresh grave. And it had been magical; the first time Kassie had really talked to him, shared herself with him. He’d felt her inside him that day and known that it had been right—her death, his killing, a blessing.

  High above the cemetery, a rotten tree limb snapped, crashed to the ground below. Elliott’s memory of Kassie’s funeral vanished. He stood motionless, watching the bare trees shake and sway in the wind, dead branches scraping and rattling against each other. A hazy vision of dancing skeletons and demons surfaced in his mind. It’s called the cemetery dance, the demons announced, glistening worms squirming from their rotten, toothless mouths. Come dance with us, Elliott, they invited, waving long, bony fingers. Come. And he wanted to go. He wanted to join them. They sounded so inviting. Come dance the cemetery dance…

  He shook the thoughts away—too much liquor; that’s all it was—and walked into a narrow gully, dragging his feet through the thin blanket of fallen leaves. He recognized the familiar row of stone markers ahead and slowed his pace. Finally, he stopped, steadied the bright beam on the largest slab.

  The marker was clean and freshly cared for, the frozen grass around it still neatly trimmed. There were two bundles of cut flowers leaning against it. Elliott recognized the fresh bundle he’d left just yesterday, during his lunch break. He crept closer, bending to his knees. Tossing the flashlight aside, he eased next to the white granite stone, touching the deep grooves of the inscription, slowly caressing each letter, stopping at her name.

  “Kassie,” he whispered, the word swept away with the wind. “I found it, love.” He dug deep in his front pocket, pulled out a crumpled scrap of lined white paper. “I couldn’t believe you came to me again after all these years. But I found the note on my pillow where you left it.”

  Sudden tears streamed down his face. “I always believed you’d forgive me. I truly did. You know I had to do it…it was the only way. You wouldn’t even look at me back then,” he pleaded. “I tried to make you notice me, but you wouldn’t. So I had to.”

  The cemetery came to life around him, breathing for the dead. The wind gained strength, plastering leaves against the tree trunks and taller headstones. Elliott gripped the paper tightly in his palm, protecting it from the night’s constant pull.

  “I’m coming now, love.” He laughed with nervous relief. “We can be together, forever.” He pulled his hand from his coat pocket and looked skyward. Snow coming, now. Anytime. A sudden gust of wind sent another branch crashing to the ground where it shattered into hundreds of jagged splinters.

  Two gravestones away from it, Elliott collapsed hard to the earth, fingers curled around the pistol’s rubber handgrip, locked there now. The single gunshot echoed across the cemetery until the storm swallowed it. Bits of glistening brain tissue sprayed the air, and mixed with the wooden splinters, showering the corpse. His mangled head lolled to the side, spilling shiny gray matter onto the grassy knoll.

  For just one moment, an ivory sliver of moonbeam slipped through the darkness, quickly disappeared. As the crumpled scrap of paper—scrawled in Elliott’s own handwriting—was lifted into the wind’s possession, the towering trees, once again, found their dancing partners. And it began to snow.

  BLUE

  The air-conditioner in the car is broken, and some idiot on the radio reports that the temperature is “98 degrees and the time is 10:47 a.m. Looks like today’s gonna be another scorcher, folks.” Yeah, no shit, sherlock. The tiny red needle on the gas gauge hovers just barely above the EMPTY line. The twins are arguing again in the backseat; someone throws a punch and they start to wrestle. I feel the itch of a headache coming on and have to use the bathroom.

  But I couldn’t care less.

  I keep driving.

  My momma’s name was Clarissa, but most folks just called her C.C. That’s what Grandpa started calling her when she was just a little girl and the name stuck. Come over here, C.C., my sweet little butterfly. Come on over and sit on your pappy’s knee and listen to this here story…

  Momma’s family was big on nicknames; we all had them. Sunshine. Slim. Spider. Big Bear. Little Bear. Gator. So many I can’t even remember them all.

  My name’s Amanda, Amanda Leigh Parker, but for as long as I can remember, folks just called me Blue. Like a summer sky and a mountain stream, Grandpa used to tell me. God, I loved him. Miss him like crazy even after all this time. If Grandpa were still alive, things would’ve turned out different for Momma and me. You can bet the bank on that one.

  I fill the gas tank in a dusty little town I can never remember the name of. I also buy two grocery bags full of snacks—potato chips and cookies and candy bars—and a six-pack of grape soda. The car is pretty quiet now—the twins stopped their squabbling hours ago—just the radio turned low and the lonely howl of the wind outside. At first, Jenny and Brad get excited when they see all the junk-food, but neither ends up eating very much. Neither do I. A couple hundred miles of this heat has worked its magic on all of us.

  I open a candy bar and take a bite and steer the car back out onto the highway. I wiggle my backside to get comfortable, and I can feel the wad of bills in my jeans pocket. I reach down and rub my thumb over the rough denim. Just over three thousand dollars in there—the most I’ve ever seen close up, much less had tucked away in my very own pocket.

  Thinking about the money makes me suddenly nervous. I can feel my face redden and my ears start to get warm. I glance at the rearview mirror and see nothing but empty highway and endless desert.

  I speed up anyway.

  My father’s name was Walter, and no one in the family thought well enough of the man to give him an official nickname. Or maybe they did. I heard them say it often enough: that lousy sonofabitch.

  Of course, when I was real young, I couldn’t understand why they said the things they said. He was my daddy after all—the one who tucked me in at night and read me bedtime stories about famous explorers and great adventures in faraway countries. He was the one who could talk in so many funny voices and walk on his hands. The one who showed me how to hook a catfish down at Hanson Creek and walk across a log without being scared.

  When I was little, I loved Walter the way all little girls love their daddy.

  But then I got older…

  And my vision cleared.

  I started to smell the liquor on his clothes. On his breath.

&n
bsp; Saw the bruises on Momma’s arms and neck.

  Heard the stories around town. About the drinking and the fighting and the women.

  One day, when I was fourteen years old, I came home from school and found Momma crying in the barn. At first, she was embarrassed to look at me; she had a black eye and a cut on her forehead. She tried to tell me that she’d had an accident. That she’d fallen from the loft and darn near killed herself.

  But she saw the way I was looking at her—and she knew I knew the truth.

  For a long time, we didn’t say much of anything. Just sat in the cool shadows of the barn and hugged each other. After awhile, I told her how sorry I was and how I hated Daddy for doing the things he did, and she told me not to hate him, that he was a good man at heart, but that he was under too much pressure with the business failing and all the bills piling up. She promised me things would get better.

  She was wrong.

  It’s dark outside now, and the night air feels good on my face.

  From time to time, I glimpse twin specks of light up ahead in the distance and moments later a car rockets past us heading in the opposite direction. Same thing in the rearview mirror—first it’s pinpricks of headlights, then the sudden whoosh of air, and finally just the darkness again.

  It’s strange out here, driving in the desert at night. Almost like I’m dreaming.

  The kids are sound asleep, Jenny’s head resting on Brad’s shoulder. I can’t tell which one is doing the snoring; they both inherited that little trait from their father.

  I check my watch. Stretch my neck and listen to it pop. I’m getting a little stiff, but not the least bit tired. Quite the opposite. With each passing mile, I feel more alive and excited…and there’s also something else, something that takes a while before I realize exactly what it is.