Little Threats

by Emily Schultz

  “I’m going to buy this house,” Marly said. Her voice was the same as Kennedy remembered from after-school afternoons at the Kimbersons’, but now there was none of the warmth in it.

  As if unable to process what she’d said, Kennedy tried again, “Mrs. Kimberson—”

  Marly pulled her head back and lifted her chin. She hefted her bag farther up her forearm. “I’m going to buy it so I can burn it to the ground.”

  Chapter 29

  Gerry overheard someone say something about the furnace, and someone else something about closets. He left the dining room before Kennedy could come back. He shot up the stairs quicker than he had in years, intending to get to his office and secure the closet there in some way—whether by stationing himself in front of it or moving a piece of furniture inside, wedging something against that panel so that no one dared open it, either for morbid curiosity or to check out the water heater.

  He couldn’t believe he’d been so naïve about what the open house entailed. The real estate agent had said he and Kennedy needn’t even be there—and he could see now that he’d been right to stay. As awkward as it was, it would have been chaos without them. He supposed he hadn’t moved the copy of Sex or the note because there was no better hiding place. The safe, maybe. But a little part of him worried that he might summon her by touching it.

  At the top of the stairs, he halted. Some movement in the bedroom at the far end caught his eye. A small twist of a shape, a flash of auburn hair. And for a second he stood still, waiting, holding his breath without realizing it. He thought it was her again, in his bedroom. Then the shape appeared, barreling along the corridor, directly at him.

  Gerry pressed himself against the wall, and the shape—which belonged to a girl of about eleven, someone’s daughter—flew past him down the stairs.

  “I found the room I want!” she hollered to her mother. “It has a balcony. Come see!”

  Gerry crossed into the office. There was a young man in there, standing near the file cabinet, the exact item of furniture Gerry might have moved inside the closet had he found the room empty. The guy looked about the twins’ age, a worn LA Lakers ball cap shielding his forehead. He was fiddling with his jacket cuff, and for a second Gerry had a flash he might have taken something, pushed something up inside it. But when he spoke he had a pleasant manner, as if to balance out his leonine face.

  “My father never put whiskey in his either,” the man said, nodding at the glass decanter sitting there. “Does anyone put whiskey in these things?”

  Gerry shrugged to try to seem unconcerned, though his gaze went to the closet door. He was grateful to see it was shut. “Who has time? It’s always gone too fast for that.”

  “Ah!” the man exclaimed, bopping his cap. “That does sound like him too.”

  Now Gerry wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He hated having his purposes undermined by casual conversation. How long until the young man left and he could do what he’d come upstairs to do? There were two more hours left on the open house. But the guy was already sticking out his hand and saying a name, Josh something. And now Gerry was shaking that hand and supplying his own name. There would most definitely be a conversation of some sort about the house and its history, or when the roof had been done. Josh was there from California, he said.

  He put on his best smile, just in case the young man really was a serious buyer. He hoped Kennedy would bring his drink upstairs. He’d thought he’d heard her voice out in the hall.

  Josh pointed out the copy of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest he’d spotted on Gerry’s shelves. “Great book,” he said.

  His wife had given it to him. Gerry had never actually read it but didn’t let the kid know. It had been one of the films they saw together in the early part of their relationship. Obviously it had meant something to her. To him, it had meant leaning into her hair, which smelled as sweet and fruity as Pez candy. It wasn’t a typical date movie. Afterward Laine talked about how the masses would always be sedated and the message was to cast off authority before it was too late. Be good, follow the rules—why?! Her passion attracted him, though half the time he had no idea why she was so fired up. When he thought on it now, it was easy to see where the girls got their rebellious streak.

  “The guesthouse out there”—Gerry pointed—“it’s heated. Could easily be turned into another office. I thought of it myself once upon a time—for more solitude, back when my two daughters still lived at home.” He was getting excited now, thinking he might get an offer.

  Josh peered down at the indicated guesthouse, which was somewhat bigger than a shed but not as large as a coach house. Gerry had had it built in ’88 to accompany a pool that they somehow never got around to putting in. Laine had run a small business out of it for a while, trying her hand at millinery of all things. It had been a restless year, he remembered, a year when the two of them could feel the dissatisfaction settling in like a permanent layer. Gerry stared out at it himself, somewhat wistfully, as if it were a structure representative of more peaceful times. They should have put in the pool, he realized. Laine and the girls would have enjoyed it, and her body at forty was still taut and golden, something he recognized now that he couldn’t see then . . . in his youth. His rapidly aging youth. You always believe yourself older than you are. He smiled sadly.

  “You know, Mr. Wynn,” the young man said, “there’s something I should tell you.”

  He turned to see that the guy had picked up the silver letter opener from the desk. He was peering at it absently, to distract himself, it seemed, uncertain how to say what he wanted to.

  “Go on,” Gerry told him.

  “We’ve spoken before. I told you I came here for work and that’s true. I phoned a couple months ago from the show I work on, Crime After Crime. Then I came and left my card for you. We want to have you on.”

  Gerry tried not to clench his teeth. He couldn’t believe the man who stood before him could occupy his space so easily, not even a shameful expression in his tone or his face. “I’m not interested,” Gerry snapped. Then he thought better of it, softened his manner. “Never wanted anything but a nice life, a private life.”

  “I understand.” The boy rolled the opener between his fingers.

  “Don’t touch that!” Gerry yelled. He hadn’t meant to raise his voice so much. The boy dropped the letter opener on the desk.

  “Sorry,” Josh said. “I don’t mean to invade your privacy. I just thought that you might be more receptive to coming on the show now that we’ve met. Now that you see who I am. I find your side of things interesting. Could give you a chance to talk about what you went through. There are some who feel your daughter was bullied into the plea by the lawyers. I know it must have been hard.”

  Gerry walked around the desk. He grabbed the guy by his jacket to physically remove him, but the boy flinched and held his hands up.

  Gerry stepped back. He knew better than to assault someone in the media. It would only be worse down the line. His hands dropped to his sides. “You know it was hard. Really, what do you know?!”

  “Please, Mr. Wynn. I don’t mean any offense.”

  “Go,” Gerry rasped. “Look around all you like. Just don’t kid yourself that you’re one of the good guys. And don’t contact me again.”

  The boy unpinned himself from between Gerry and the window and placed a hand on the desk, as if he might hurdle over it.

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” he said, patting Gerry’s shoulder with his other hand. Then he dodged around Gerry and out the office door. Gerry heard something fall off the desk in his haste.

  When he was gone, Gerry looked at his hands and saw his fingers shook with anger. The nerve of these people, the disgusting entitlement, thinking they could come in here and somehow immediately understand. Determined to complete his task before some other insane interloper could arrive, he removed the decanter from the file cabinet an
d wrestled the black metal piece of furniture into the closet. It covered the latch to the cubby. He breathed hard. He walked over to the desk and began to rearrange items there. What else had the TV writer touched? He flung open the drawer and surveyed its contents—had he taken something? Then Gerry stashed some personal items inside: a paperweight, a miniature clock, a pottery dish Carter had made as a girl where he kept butterfly clips. Where was the letter opener? It had been right there. Gerry bent to look under the desk. He’d heard something fall when Josh left. He began to inch his hand farther back, but a pain deep in his chest stopped him and he straightened up.

  Gerry sat in the leather chair, breathing furiously.

  In the Japanese garden below he saw movement, a flit of orange. He gazed out and watched with horror as Haley Kimberson’s mother appeared, arms crossed, meandering between the dwarf cedars. Her short, bright hair, a scowl on her tight face. He closed his eyes. Was he seeing ghosts again? The truth was he didn’t think anyone had been in the house that time, and that terrified him more than if someone had. It was the reason he wanted out quickly.

  But it seemed unlikely he could conjure Marly Kimberson, especially when she was still alive. Even if he was delusional, could he imagine her in such detail? he asked himself. His mouth felt dry. He knew he was shaky and thrown off by the encounter with the TV kid. But when he opened his eyes, Marly Kimberson was still there—turning now and trudging back toward the house. He saw Miranda Peters, the real estate agent, speaking to her from the deck.

  “Mr. Wynn! You’d better phone the police.” The boy from the television show was back in the doorway.

  “Good idea,” Gerry said, uncomprehending that anything further could have gone wrong. He reached for the landline phone that sat on the executive desk. “Wait, what in the hell are you talking about?” Gerry asked, realizing there was no way the guy could see Mrs. Kimberson out there, and that he probably didn’t mean to have himself removed from the premises.

  “A man in your daughter’s room. He was . . . getting off.”

  The operator came on and asked Gerry what his emergency was. But there were too many for Gerry to know how to answer.

  * * *

  —

  On the Wynns’ back deck, a place she’d never been before, Marly Kimberson stood with her arms crossed. Miranda the real estate agent was trying to coax her back inside, speaking to her gently and in a high pitch as if she were a puppy. Gerry knew her fangs, stood at a fair distance. Gerry didn’t trust Marly Kimberson—who was to say she hadn’t brought a gun with her even, inside that unbleached canvas tote bag?

  “I’m not leaving. I have every right to be here,” Marly said, her voice forceful.

  “Of course, but you’ve seen most of the house and we’re going to wrap up now,” Miranda tried to reassure her.

  “Over my dead body are you going to buy this house!” Gerry boomed.

  “Dead bodies. You want to talk to me about dead bodies.” Marly marched up to Gerry. She didn’t touch him, just stood in front of him and stared him down.

  “Please,” Miranda was saying. “An open house is not the time for this.”

  She’d managed to move Marly and Gerry into the kitchen when Kennedy came across the sitting room, the front door behind her open. “Dad!” she called. “The police are here.”

  Gerry glanced over at her and noticed Josh was still inside. He had some kind of device strapped to his wrist. He was filming their conversation.

  “Hey!” Gerry yelled, and the guy let his sleeve fall back over his wrist, the tiny camera covered from view.

  Josh bolted past two police officers who asked Kennedy what the problem was.

  “A man—” she said only, not willing to put the act into words. Gerry would have sent them after Josh, but Kennedy pointed up the stairs toward her room. “A man.”

  Chapter 30

  Everett stared at the Game Boy in the back of the drawer before pulling it out. It was one of the few items he had taken from his childhood room besides his clothes to bring with him to the condo. Haley had bought it for him—the year before she’d met the twins. She’d saved her money from babysitting jobs and given it to him for his birthday. His birthday was lodged in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, which meant he’d never gotten a birthday party in his life. At that age he had no real understanding of what the handheld video game cost, but he knew she only made $2 an hour, $3 if she could get a gig for one of the better families over in Blueheart. The math added up to love. Everett remembered how hot the plastic used to get in his sweaty hand. The sound of Tetris bleeping to life. The cord was there, wrapped around itself. There was never any real reason to pull out a Game Boy. Except when you miss your sister. Everett walked over to the wall by the bed and plugged it in. His cell phone rang.

  “Hello, Everett.” Dee Nash had a slow, gentle way of speaking similar to that of a school counselor or the social workers Everett had been sent to after his sister died. “I want to say you did really well at the preinterview.”

  “I don’t know if I said the right stuff.”

  “From what I saw, you’re honest. That’s all that matters.”

  “Are you—did you get the results back from the sample?”

  “It’s sixteen years old. There are only a couple labs that can do it, and there are backlogs. It’s going to take time.” She let him digest that, then said, “I was wondering if you might be able to put together some things for us to shoot. Photographs, objects that belonged to your sister. Anything that might be meaningful or give people an impression of who she was.”

  “Y’all want me to bring them to the hotel?”

  “We have a temp office,” she said, and gave him an address.

  “I really thought you were going to shoot at the house at some point.”

  “We still need your mother’s permission, and—” There was a long pause and at first Everett thought his cell had dropped the call. “You know, for some folks, anger is a way out of grief, a way back into the world. If necessary we’ll use the street shots we took of her place. What you can bring us, we’ll shoot here. Yearbooks, schoolwork, photos, anything that’s not too much trouble.”

  Everett’s mother wasn’t like Gerry Wynn. She hadn’t kept Haley’s room pristine, waiting for her return. There was no returning. She’d cleaned out the room as soon as she was able, chucking things into boxes without even looking, saying, “What does she need this for now, when she’s with God?”

  He knew she cared but that she simply hadn’t known what to do with her feelings. The Kimbersons weren’t wired to express things. Still, Marly hadn’t gotten rid of everything.

  “You’re doing hard work, and when we put the story together, even if nothing new emerges, I think it will be good for you.”

  Everett wasn’t so sure about that, but he thanked her and said goodbye. He’d tried not to think about the possibility the placental tissue could show DNA that matched his father’s.

  When the Game Boy had charged, he sat down on the edge of the bed and played Tetris for an hour or more. He watched the blocks on the screen fall and lock into place, rectangles and wedges, shapes like L’s and T’s. He spun them to get the best position, build a solid wall. The thump of them hitting and clicking wherever he directed them to: it was easy to feel at peace while the digital tune chimed happily.

  “Where do you go?” he said to a falling piece.

  * * *

  —

  Everett was glad to see Marly was already up and dressed when he arrived at the house hoping to talk to her, and maybe sort through some old things.

  “I saw her the other day,” Marly told him before he’d taken off his coat.

  “You go to that cemetery too much,” Everett said, hanging his winter jacket on the hook on the wall. “I don’t want to see you be like those people in the lawn chairs.”

  “I
am one of those people. What are we supposed to do, sit on the ground? But it wasn’t the cemetery. I saw her here. In the backyard.” Marly took a sip of coffee.

  “Ma, what are you doing to yourself?”

  “No, no, I was coming in with the groceries and I saw Haley through that window.” Marly pointed out the kitchen window above the sink. “She didn’t wave or nothing, but I knew she saw me. Then she turned around and walked into the woods.”

  Everett went over to the window. He couldn’t tell her what Ted had admitted in the barn. Not yet. Ted had kept the pregnancy away from Marly because she never had been strong enough. That was true, but maybe his father had other reasons too and that detective at the funeral who called him Deputy Everett had been right about Ted.

  “You believe there are souls in heaven.” Marly looked at him studiously, as if waiting for him to deny it. “How’s that different from ghosts?”

  He knew better than to disagree. “You got me there.”

  “She was just the same as the last day I saw her alive. She had on that blouse I hated. That yellow one, you could see right through it. But she was beautiful, Everett. She was so beautiful. She was my daughter and the woman she never got to be.”

  “Like, older?” He asked it before he remembered he didn’t believe her and shouldn’t encourage her. He had wondered so many times what she would be like now. He gazed at the woods. The leaves were mostly down now, a golden-brown sheet wrapping the roots of the trees. The woods ran the northern length of Longwood and Blueheart—and Haley had been found almost exactly between the two. “You got to take care of yourself, Ma. Are you eating?”

  “I had groceries in my hand. Those were real too.”

  “Suppose it wasn’t a ghost,” he said. “I remember watching that show Destination Paranormal. They had an expert on saying ghosts maybe aren’t souls. That if someone dies in a traumatic way it’s like it’s been recorded. Like sound hitting a tape. That’s why when you see a ghost they only do one thing and repeat it. Maybe it was that. That tape-record thing.”