by Jan Burke
I had awakened from my fitful sleep that night because the room felt cold; I opened my eyes to see a man standing at the foot of the bed. Until I was fully awake, I almost thought it was David. Like David, he was about six feet tall, with dark brown hair and big, brown eyes. He was handsome, but I discovered that even handsome men who suddenly show up uninvited at the foot of my bed can scare me. This one did. I opened my mouth to scream, and he vanished.
I was more than a little upset, but I convinced myself that I had dreamed the whole thing, and fell back into a restless slumber, full of dreams of David dying. The next morning I felt grumpy and ill-at-ease. It was the day of David’s funeral, and there wasn’t anything on earth that was going to make me feel good about that day. As I looked in the mirror, I became even more certain of that. I looked like a blouse someone had left to wrinkle in the dryer. My blond hair framed a colorless face and I had dark shadows under my blue eyes.
“You’ll be just fine, Anna,” I said to myself. At forty-two, I wasn’t in bad shape. The lines that had appeared on my face weren’t etched too deeply. Gave it character, my father said. I was getting more character every year, but I’m not the type to fret over it. At least, I hadn’t been until she came along.
I wondered if she would have the nerve to show up at the funeral. I wouldn’t know her if she did. When he made his confession, David never told me her name, and I never asked for it. As far as I was concerned, it was important not to know the name of the woman David had met at the St. George Hotel every Wednesday for fifteen weeks. For fifteen weeks, on the night I taught a class in-of all things-ethics, Ms. X had taught David that he could still lure a woman to bed. I wondered if they had laughed about that. He wasn’t laughing when it ended. “A temporary madness,” he had told me, weeping as he did. “Forgive me,” he pleaded.
To this day, I’m not able to be very precise about why I did forgive him. At the time I was outraged, hurt, angry, humiliated. The pain of betrayal remained; whatever trust was between us had taken a torpedo broadside. But the ship didn’t sink, it just listed.
Maybe the reason I stayed with him wasn’t really so complex. David and I had been together for twenty years; and in that twenty years I had come to love him more than anyone else on earth. He was a habit I couldn’t break. Fate broke it for me.
David had made his confession six months ago, and strove to be the ideal husband in the time since. Together we tried to renew our marriage, and somehow, we were making it. On the morning of the day he died, he told me that he was working on something that would really make me proud of him. I had no idea what it was. “I’m proud of you all the same, David,” I said to the haggard reflection in the mirror. Ten minutes later I was still sitting on the bathroom floor, sobbing.
I pulled myself together, hoping I wouldn’t shame myself at his funeral. As I put on a plain black dress that David had always liked, I held on to the anger I felt toward his killer. David had come to the college to pick me up that night. I was on my way to the car when I heard the shots. The college is in a part of town that has become rougher over the years, and I didn’t think much about hearing gunfire. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but it wasn’t that rare. When I saw the crumpled form on the steps that lead up from the parking lot, I didn’t know it was David until I was only a few feet from him. He was unconscious, and bleeding to death. Nothing, not even a ghost in my bedroom, will ever terrify me the way those moments did, when I held David as he died.
No one saw the actual shooting, but several witnesses saw a blue Chevy speeding away from the scene. No one knew anything else. No model, no license plate, no description of the driver, no mention of how many people were in the car. No motive, just someone who got their kicks by driving around firing guns at people. There was some speculation that David had been hit by gunfire aimed at someone else, since other bullets were found lodged in a nearby tree, a wall, another car. “Random violence” seemed to be theory of the newspapers.
I was one of the believers in the theory. No one would want to kill David Blackburn. The man had cheated on me, and I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t know anyone with a stronger motive.
The funeral was well-attended, with or without David’s former lover. The priest didn’t know David, but did the best he could to say generically comforting words. My family tried to brace me up, and succeeded in large degree. David’s parents were long dead, but his sister sent a wreath; she had wanted to come to the funeral but couldn’t manage the airfare from Maine to California, and refused my offer to buy the ticket.
There were neighbors and old friends, and a large contingent from Emery amp; Walden. David was the Vice President of Human Resources for Emery amp; Walden, a local manufacturing firm that employed about twenty-five hundred people. Many of the employees had contact with him, and trusted him as someone who would treat them fairly, as someone who had concern for their well-being. He often acted as a buffer between them and Mr. Winslow Emery III, the self-involved young man who was now at the helm of the company.
Today Winslow Emery looked tired and worn. It was understandable-he had attended a lot of funerals lately. Five days earlier, an acid tank at Emery amp; Walden had ruptured, causing the deaths of three workers. OSHA was investigating. David had been troubled by the deaths, as he was by the suicide of the plant manager, who apparently blamed himself for not responding to worker complaints about the tank.
I thought about David championing that troubled soul. His name, if I recalled, was Devereaux. I watched Emery walk away from David’s grave with the gait of a man twice his age. A good-looking blonde walked next to him. She had introduced herself to me as Mr. Emery’s secretary, Louise. Emery didn’t seem to notice her.
I noticed her, as I did two other women, Lucy Osborne and Annette Mayes, who lingered longer than most of the others. Both were at least fifteen years younger than I, and gorgeous. Lucy was a brunette, Annette a redhead. I wondered if David had stayed with my type or looked for something different when he chose a lover. Something in the way Annette looked at me made me decide he had tried something different. Oddly, I didn’t feel the animosity I thought I would feel towards her. I really didn’t care. David had come back to me. Fifteen weeks was not twenty-one years.
I sat next to the open grave longer than my sister, Lisa, thought I should, but I refused to be steered away. My father told her to let me be and then gave me a hug and said they’d be waiting for me at the car, to take my time.
“I guess this is goodbye, David,” I said aloud, and was startled to feel a warm hand on my shoulder. I looked up into the eyes of the ghost.
This time, I was angry. This was my private moment with David, and I didn’t want living or dead intruding on it. At the time, the man seemed to be among the living. I couldn’t see through him and his hand was warm. “Can’t a person have a moment’s peace?” I said, trying to remove his hand, but only touching my own shoulder. That frightened me.
He shook his head sadly and removed his hand.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Are you David?” I asked, thinking maybe I was seeing him transformed somehow.
But the ghost shook his head.
“Could I please have a little time to say goodbye to my husband? Would that be too much to ask?”
He gave a little bow and vanished.
I was shaking. “David,” I said, when I had calmed down, “Why isn’t it you? If I’m going to go crazy and see ghosts, why isn’t it your ghost? Show up, David. Materialize, or whatever it is you do. I want you back.”
I waited. Nothing.
“Goodbye, David,” I said, giving up. “I’ll miss you. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. Be very sad for a very long time, I suppose.”
I looked up and saw a man walking toward me. I knew this one was among the living. There was nothing extraordinary about Detective Russo’s appearance. He was a plain-faced man, neither handsome nor ugly. He was of me
dium height, had mouse-brown hair that was cut short. His eyes, his voice, and his face usually reflected very little of what he was thinking or feeling. If you talked to him for a while, there was no mistaking his intelligence, but he didn’t walk around with his IQ embroidered on his sleeve. An ocean of calm, he seemed to me. I could use it.
“Hello, Detective Russo,” I said as he approached.
“Hello, Dr. Blackburn,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry if I interrupted you. Just wanted to make sure you were all right. I’ll leave-”
“No,” I said, standing up. “Don’t worry about it. I need to walk to the car; I’m keeping everyone waiting.”
He surprised me by offering me his arm, but I took it and we walked in silence toward the limo. When we reached it, I invited him to join us at the house, but he politely declined.
“Were you watching me the whole time I sat there?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I was,” he said, not seeming in the least embarrassed about it.
“Did you see anyone else?”
“While you sat there?”
“Yes.”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t. Why?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing at all. I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything more about what happened?”
“No, I’m sorry, Dr. Blackburn. But we’re still working on it.”
“It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I got into the car and let Lisa’s chatter roll over me as my father held my hand.
Back at the house, the ghost became rather nervy. I would see him standing among groups of people, watching me. Everyone excused my vacant stares as widow’s grief, which was fine with me. I wasn’t in the mood to be entertaining.
The gathering thinned out quickly. Lisa left only after I reassured her for the fifty-third time that I wanted to be by myself. Only I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be by myself. The ghost was growing as eager as I was to have her leave.
“Okay,” I said, after I saw her drive off. “Let’s talk.”
He looked even sadder than before.
“What? Did I say something?”
He didn’t reply.
I decided that even if he was a figment of my imagination, I needed to play this out. Avoiding him obviously wouldn’t work. “Let’s sit down,” I said.
He followed me into the living room, and we sat on opposite ends of the couch.
“Who are you?” I asked.
No answer, just gestures that I couldn’t make anything out of.
“Can’t you talk?”
He shook his head, pointing at his mouth.
“If I gave you a pen and paper could you write a note?”
He shook his head again.
“I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold. When you touched me today you were warm.”
He shrugged.
“Perhaps you haven’t been dead long?”
He nodded, and held up four fingers.
“Four days?”
He nodded again.
“Most people would be cold.”
He waited.
“Why me?” I asked.
He walked over to the mantel over the fireplace and pointed to a photograph.
“Because of David?”
He nodded.
“Is something wrong with him?” It immediately seemed like a stupid question. The man was dead. Things don’t go too much more wrong, unless-“He’s not in some sort of eternal torment is he? I don’t believe it. That can’t be true.”
The ghost made a frantic gesture to get me to stop talking, then looked up.
“Are you looking in the direction David traveled?”
He nodded.
“Thank you,” I said. I found myself crying. I had felt in my heart that David, for all his weaknesses, was a good man, but it was nice to have confirmation. I suddenly felt a sense of relief. I decided I owed the ghost a favor.
“What can I do for you?”
He got up and paced, tried to gesture, couldn’t get through to “Wait, settle down.”
He sat down again.
“You know David, right?”
He nodded.
“You are a ghost?”
Yes again.
I thought about everything I had heard about ghosts. “Are you trying to haunt me? Did I do something wrong to David?”
No.
“Are you trying to right some wrong done to you?”
Yes.
I figured he probably couldn’t explain the details just yet, so I tried to question my way to it. “Did you know David before you became a ghost?”
Another yes.
“But I never met you?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know him a long time ago?”
No.
“You knew him recently?”
Yes.
There weren’t many possibilities. “You knew him from work?”
Yes again. He seemed anxious, as if this would give me the answer.
“You’re one of the workers who died when the tank ruptured!”
He looked stricken, but shook his head. He held up the four fingers again.
“Oh, that’s right. That was five days ago. You said you died four days ago. But the only person who died four days ago was the…”
He could see the understanding dawning on me.
“You’re the plant manager.”
He nodded sadly.
“Mr. Devereaux?”
Yes, he nodded.
“You killed yourself.”
He stood up, shaking his head side to side, mouthing the word ‘No!’
“You didn’t kill yourself?”
Again, just as firmly, no.
“Someone killed you?”
Yes.
“Who?”
He pointed to his ring finger on his left hand. There was no wedding band, but I could guess.
“Your wife?”
Yes.
“Your wife killed you?”
I tried to remember the stories. I couldn’t. Everything had been blurred by the events of three days ago. I went over to a stack of newspapers that I had been meaning to take out to the recycling bin. I put the two unopened ones-which I knew had stories of David’s murder in them-aside, and reached for the one from the day David was killed. That was the day after Devereaux suicide. The suicide was front page news.
“Will it bother you if I read this to you?”
No.
“‘Mr. Chance Devereaux…’ Chance? Your first name is Chance?”
He nodded.
“‘Mr. Chance Devereaux, plant manager of Emery amp; Walden, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound yesterday evening. His wife, Louise, who is also employed at Emery amp; Walden, discovered her husband’s body when she returned home late from work. She said her husband had grown despondent following the deaths of three workers Tuesday in an industrial accident caused by a ruptured acid tank. Mr. Devereaux had received complaints from the workers about the tank, but failed to repair it…’”
I looked up to see him angrily indicating his disagreement.
“We’ll get to your side of the story in a moment,” I said. “Where was I? Oh yes, ‘…failed to repair it in time to prevent the deaths.’” I read on in silence. The rest of the article was simply a rehash of the previous reports on the accident.
“My name is Anna. May I call you Chance?”
Yes.
“Is your wife Emery’s secretary?”
Yes.
“And you didn’t kill yourself?”
No. He pointed to the ring finger again.
“Your wife killed you.”
Yes.
“How?”
He pointed to his mouth again, only this time I saw what I had missed before: he wasn’t pointing, he was imitating the firing of a gun into his mouth.
“She shot you in the mouth?”
He nodded.
I shuddered. “How
did she manage that? I’ve seen your wife. She’s not a very large woman.”
He pantomimed holding a glass, pouring something into the glass, then adding something to it. Then he pantomimed sleep.
“She drugged your drink?”
He nodded.
“That should come out in the autopsy.”
He made a helpless gesture.
“It didn’t?”
He shrugged.
“You don’t know if it did or it didn’t, but they declared it a suicide?”
He nodded again.
“Have you…” I tried, but couldn’t think of a more polite way to phrase it. “Have you been buried?”
He nodded, looking very unhappy.
“You don’t like where you’re buried?”
He looked into my face and made the Sign of the Cross.
“You’re Catholic.”
Yes.
“And you aren’t buried in consecrated ground?”
No.
“Is that why you’re haunting me?”
He gave me a look that said he was disgusted with me and disappeared.
The moment he was gone, the house felt very empty. “Come back,” I said.
Nothing.
“Chance, please come back. I apologize. This is a very difficult time for me. I didn’t mean to offend you by calling it ‘haunting.’ If you come back, I’ll try to help you.”
He reappeared.
“How do you do that?”
He shrugged.
“Let me know if you figure out more about this ghost business.”
He nodded.
“What does this have to do with David?”
He studied me for a moment, then pointed to David’s picture and then his head.
“David shot you, too?” I said in disbelief.
No! He might as well have been able to shout it.
“Wait, wait. I’m beginning to understand. David told me he didn’t believe the things that were said about you. Is that what you mean?”
Yes. He kept gesturing to his head.
“David didn’t just believe, he knew they weren’t true.”
Emphatic nod.
“He had proof?”
Yes.
We continued to piece a conversation together with questions, nods and pantomime. From what I could make out from Chance’s gestures, David had proof that Chance had tried to act on replacing the acid tank long ago, but Emery refused, citing costs. David had told him where he hid the papers that would show Chance was not to blame.