Acting Dead (Michael Quinn Thriller)

by John Moralee

  “Did he ...?”

  “Rape me?”

  “Yeah. Did he?”

  “No. He wanted to. He would have – but then this guy comes storming out of nowhere. It was Scott. He’d been taking photographs of the creek when he’d heard my screams. He yanked open the door and grabbed Keats by the hair. Keats was twice his size, but there was such fury in his eyes and he really had a strong hold. So he dragged Keats out backwards until he was half out of the door. Then Scott slammed the door six, seven times. There was blood everywhere. Completely knocked Keats’s lights out. Then Scott actually apologised for having to do that. Like it was his fault. He said he’d pay for the dry-cleaning of my dress. He said he would take me home if I liked and call the police. He was so shy and endearing, so totally unlike my usual boyfriends. I fell in love with him right then. It was as if I’d been blind and he had cured me. I didn’t want to go out with any jocks after that experience. Scott made me realise what was important.”

  She sipped her wine, looking distant. “Danny Keats wasn’t good-looking after that. He had a broken nose and a scar down his cheek. I think he left Mistral on some kind of football scholarship. Sometimes I think I should thank him for introducing Scott to me.”

  She smiled for a brief time, then her good mood passed.

  “I don’t want Scott to be dead, Mike. If I find out that Van Morgan killed him, I’ll do what Scott did to Danny Keats. Wham his head into a car door. And then I’d kill him.”

  “Hey, hey. Don’t think like that.”

  She put her hands over her eyes and let out a long breath.

  “Scott’s the only man I loved, Mike.”

  She ordered another drink.

  I asked her some more questions about the kids. It was a subject she liked talking about; she was so proud of them. She cheered up a little telling me tales about them as babies. I enjoyed the meal and her company and did my best to make her relax. It would have been good if Scott could have been there to enjoy it too. I felt as though there was a third place set at the table and he would arrive at any second, laughing and joking. Good old Scott.

  It didn’t happen.

  Fiona kept drinking.

  One minute she seemed sober, but then the alcohol hit her, and she slurred her s’s and t’s and stuttered over her sentences. The waiter came across with more wine, but I shook my head and he walked away. Fiona called him back.

  “Fill my glassss,” she said.

  “Fiona, you don’t want to get drunk.”

  “Who says?”

  The waiter scratched his chin, no doubt waiting to see who would win the argument.

  In LA, my ex-wives had been in the situation I now faced.

  It felt awkward and embarrassing.

  It wasn’t fun being with a drunk.

  I slipped the waiter a ten-spot. “She’s had enough.” He moved off for good this time.

  Fiona pursed her lips. “That’s not fair. I juss want a little drink.”

  “That’s not what you want.”

  “No?” She looked amused.

  “You want to feel nothing. You think drinking solves your problem. It just makes it worse. I know … I’ve been there. You have been taking the full amount of Prozac the doctor prescribed for you?”

  “You’re lecturing,” she said, pulling her hand to her mouth to hide a hiccup. “This is too late for a lecture. I finished school a long, long, long time ago.”

  “It’s time to go home.”

  “What? It’s not even nine, yet.”

  “It’s eleven.”

  “Liar.”

  I showed my watch. It was eleven.

  She swore. “So it is. God, what happened to the time? Someone stole the time. The thief!” She laughed, but in a heartbeat her grin turned into a grimace. “I think I should go home. Did I drive here?”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “Will you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I can drive.”

  “No.”

  “I can.”

  “I’m driving,” I said. “My brother died because he got into a car drunk.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “I forgot. Now I feel like a …” She didn’t finish the sentence. She shook her head and looked around as if seeing the restaurant for the first time.

  “Are you coming?”

  She nodded. “I guess. You should drive. I think I’m a little drunk.”

  It was dark and windy outside. I led Fiona to my car and opened the passenger door. She flopped into the seat, her head lolling. Her eyes were barely open. “I feel bad.”

  Don’t be sick in my car, I thought.

  I slammed her door and hurried to mine. Setting off towards her house, I looked along the coast. Her home was a long way from the restaurant. I could see the misty glow of Cape Mistral scattered in the distance, just visible beyond the hills and trees. The moon was above the trees lining the black top, a big and bright eye. The trees bent and shook; some low branches touched the windshield and raked over the roof like sharp fingernails. My MG was the only vehicle on the road, but I felt as though things were watching me … following. The silhouettes of houses flickered between the trees. I kept checking the rear-view mirror for other vehicles. There was nothing behind, of course.

  Fiona mumbled something about Scott. I asked her to repeat it, but she went quiet. I wasn’t sure if she was awake or sleeping. Occasionally, I heard a sob. It had been a long day for everyone, and as I drove through the dark streets I struggled to stay awake. I was a morning person, like my father. My brother had been the only one who liked to stay up late. Thinking of him made me melancholy. He had been driving on a night like this when …

  I turned a corner. The car bumped over a ridge in the road. Fiona sat up straight, staring ahead, blinking.

  “Stop the car,” she said, urgently.

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  I braked and pulled over. The engine ticked in neutral. Fiona fumbled with the door latch. I reached over and opened it. She stumbled outside, violently buckling at the waist as she stumbled to the trees. She retched for a long time. I started to get out, but she waved me to stay where I was. She vomited again. I could hear it splashing on the ground. She made wet gurgling noises at the back of her throat, coughing. She returned pale and vacant.

  “I’m okay,” she assured.

  “The drink?” I said. I didn’t think she’d had so much it would make her that violently ill.

  “No,” she said. “I only get like this when I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter 11

  My car rolled to a silent stop outside Fiona’s house. A light was on downstairs, but the bedrooms were dark. Fiona was clear-headed now, as though being sick had purged her. She opened her door, but did not get out. She did not have the energy or will power to move. Her face was yellow in the interior light. Her eyes were wet and dark. Far away, I could hear cicadas and the rhythmical calls of bullfrogs and the soft showering of lawn sprinklers.

  Fiona opened and closed her mouth as though wanting to say something.

  “Fiona?”

  “Don’t tell anyone I’m pregnant,” she said. “I don’t want people treating me like a baby. Besides, it’s unlucky to talk about it until after the first trimester.”

  “Okay.”

  She shook her head, sighing.

  I said, “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “I can manage; I’m sober now.”

  “I want to.”

  The lawns were grey in the street lights. We walked slowly, Fiona leaning on me. Nothing moved on the street, and it seemed as though time had frozen in a moment between moments. Fiona stopped. She turned to me and her jaw trembled.

  “Why, Mike? Why? Why does God hurt people so much?”

  To test their faith was the glib answer. But I had never believed in God. I didn’t want to believe in Him, because then I’d have to accept the fact that He did not care about humanity, that He was indifferent at best. That kind of God
wasn’t worth respecting. Fiona was waiting for an answer when no answer could mean anything. I just opened my arms, and she nestled her head over my shoulder and cried.

  Afterwards, she was ready to go in. As we stepped onto the porch, the door opened and I saw Grace for the first time. Fiona’s mother had probably seen her crying, but she said nothing. Grace hugged her daughter, pressing her fingers into her back, squeezing, holding, comforting. There was such sadness and tenderness and love in her actions, I knew I was intruding.

  “Mom,” I heard Fiona sob.

  “There. There. Mommy’s here.”

  I gently closed the door. It was a long walk to my car. I put my hands over my ears and pressed hard to block out her crying.

  It did not work.

  Something was wrong. I knew it because my father was up at midnight. He was dressed in his navy blue robe, five o’clock shadow darkening his face. Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman cried out of the CD player.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re up late.”

  “Insomnia.”

  There was a small sheet of paper or something in his hands. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So why’re you hiding it?”

  “It’s a photograph.”

  “Let me see.”

  “I don’t think you want to.”

  “I do.”

  He tossed it to me.

  As I looked at the picture in horror, he said, “I checked the mail box earlier because I’d left it over a week. That was in an envelope. What kind of sicko sends that?”

  It was a black and white photograph taken with a powerful flash. There was a red stamp on the corner marked EVIDENCE.

  It showed the car crash that had killed my brother and his girlfriend. Billy and Hanna’s bodies were still in the car when the picture was taken. I’d never seen this picture before. I’d seen ones of the wrecked car, but not a rear shot like this. You could see into the car through the broken window. The backseats looked untouched, but then the front was folded in like paper. The bodies were unrecognisable. The blood looked black. It was everywhere. Shattered glass was imbedded in what had been the back of my brother’s head. It spiked upwards in a jagged row.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “What kind of sick monster sends something like that? I thought it had ended, Michael.” Dad closed his eyes and clenched his fists. His breathing became ragged. “You know what? In Vietnam I saw things no human was ever meant to see, son. The only thing that kept me going and going when others gave up and ate their M-16s was I had something to come home for. A family. Hope. Dreams. I believed there would be a day when I’d never see a dead human being again. I had a loving wife and two great kids and … But then Caroline died of the pregnancy thing and then there was the car crash that killed Billy. And now someone sends a picture of it. It never ends, does it? It never ends.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  After the police concluded that my brother had been drinking and was therefore likely to be responsible for the accident, we’d received hate mail. Someone – we never found out who was responsible, but we suspected a member of Hanna Devereaux’s family – sent obscene messages for years and years.

  “Do you think the Devereauxs sent that abomination?” he said.

  I thought about Nate Devereaux at the restaurant. He could have delivered it in person, perhaps. But I didn’t think so.

  “Dad, I don’t think this was meant for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a message,” I said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “For me, Dad. They want me to back down from this Scott thing. They don’t want me to investigate. This is a threat saying this could happen to me if I don’t stop. Did you keep the envelope?”

  “What? No. Why?”

  “Dad, it could have fingerprints on it.”

  “It’s in the damn kitchen trash. Get it out yourself. I can’t touch it.”

  I did. I lifted it by the edges and dropped it into a sandwich bag so I wouldn’t get my prints on it. I called Boone. He said he’d collect it in the morning and send it for testing. The sheriff said it would take a few days to get the results. He asked if I suspected anyone. I lied and told him I didn’t have a clue. If he didn’t believe me, he didn’t say. He hung up.

  My father opened a beer and drank it to steady his nerves. “Be careful, son.”

  “I will be.”

  “You’re all I have left. I want you to grow old and have lots and lots of kids. You’re all I have left.”

  “Dad, I wish you could be happy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you never look like you’re enjoying yourself. Sure, you fill your time with the boat and the bar, but you don’t look happy. I know this’ll sound like I don’t care about Mom, but don’t you think it’s been long enough?”

  “What’re you talking about?” he said, but he knew.

  “Grieving, Dad. First Mom. Then Billy. You have to move on.”

  “How?”

  “Well, you have never had a woman in thirty years, for example.”

  “How can you talk like that? I love your mother. Caroline was the only woman for me.”

  “I know, but I see how lonely you are. Don’t deny it.”

  “Shut up.” He trembled.

  I’d gone too far.

  I swallowed my words.

  He said, “I’m going to bed now. I don’t want to talk about any of this crap in the morning.”

  I watched him leave the room.

  I picked up the photograph again. I couldn’t look at it. I put it in my wallet. Maybe later I could face it, but not now.

  That night, I slept badly. I dreamt about Billy. In my dream we were teenagers throwing a baseball on the field behind our house. I could feel the hot summer sun beating down in waves and smell the sweetness of the grass. The colours of the sky and trees and grass seemed brighter than normal, as if they were in Technicolor. Billy, grinning, hurled a curve ball. I prepared to catch it in my catcher’s mitt. But halfway the ball suddenly transformed, becoming a sphere of blood, and the blood changed direction and flew at my face. It was his blood coming at me. I woke up before it hit, but my face was soaked. It was just sweat, but I could not get back to sleep for hours for fear of slipping into the same nightmare. I was still awake when dawn lightened the room and I heard my father creep downstairs trying not to wake me. The stairs creaked.

  I got up, dressed and went down. I found him removing live earthworms from a jar he kept above the sink. He put the bait in a Tupperware box. I said, “Morning.” He didn’t reply. “Dad?” He started humming. “Come on,” I said. “This is childish. Talk to me.” He sighed and collected his fishing rod from its position behind the door. He opened the door. I had to step forward, blocking his exit, to make him acknowledge my existence. “You’re ignoring me because of what I said last night about your being lonely?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So talk to me.”

  “Maybe some people value marriage vows more than others.”

  That stung. Maybe I deserved it for pushing him. “I wasn’t suggesting you shack up with any old broad, Dad.”

  “No?”

  “No. Just let yourself be open to the friendship of another woman. A female companion.”

  “Humphf.”

  “Look. How about you and me pretend we’re friends. We can just fish?”

  “Excuse me,” he said. He pulled the door open. He slammed it behind him.

  Chapter 12

  Restless, I changed into jogging shorts and a sweatshirt and went out running. I ran as fast as my legs could move, my hot breath steaming in the chilly air. I ran along the water’s edge burning off the chemical rage that had built up within my soul. Pain flared in my calves and thighs, but I didn’t slow down. I ran. After a mile I shuddered to a stop lathered in perspiration, my heart clicking as the blo
od flowed through its chambers. My legs wobbled and throbbed. I lay down on the cold bank and revelled in the feeling of complete bodily exhaustion. Acid sweat dripped into my eyes. Blinking, I shook my wet hair like a dog, showering the short grass in salty droplets.

  After five minutes, I stood up and ran all the way back.

  Boone arrived at eight. He strolled towards the front door until he saw me at the kitchen window, and then he altered direction, adjusting his sunglasses. His belt was low on his hips, a hefty .45 in the holster. One hand never strayed too far from it. I opened the door.

  “Sheriff,” I said. “Here’s the envelope.”

  “Is the picture in it?”

  “My father put a match to it, unfortunately. He was really angry about it. I know how important it was as evidence. I’m sorry.”

  He looked at me strangely. Could he see through the lie? He accepted the sandwich bag and stared at the envelope.

  He stood on the threshold, looking at me.

  “Wait a minute,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Mmm. I can smell coffee. Do you mind if I have some? Save me stopping at the diner on Fourth.”

  “Come in,” I said.

  He removed his hat as he stepped into the kitchen. I poured coffee. He paced back and forth, making me nervous. He adjusted pots and pans hanging on the wall racks. “I recall your father made a complaint about hate mail some years ago. I was just a deputy then, but I do remember it was just after your brother died. You think this is related to that or the disappearance of your friend?”

  “It seems strange that the hate mail would start now, after so long.”