by Jan Burke
“How do you know?”
“First, who else has any reason to search this cabin? Secondly, I’ll bet those footprints are those of a man and a woman. I can’t tell you the other reason.”
“Your husband’s ghost tipped you off?”
“Something like that.” I thought of David, having an affair with someone who was vicious enough to place a gun in her husband’s mouth and pull the trigger. It dawned on me then that she might have killed David as well. I shuddered. “Poor David.”
“Maybe you’d trust me more if I told you something.” He paused. “I don’t tell many people about this.” Even Chance seemed curious.
“It’s about my wife, Susan,” Russo said. “I told you she died. I didn’t tell you how.”
I waited. He walked over to the empty fireplace and stared down into its charred hearth. “She was killed. Shot to death, like your husband. Only she was in another man’s arms when it happened. His wife caught on to what was happening before I did. She was waiting for them, I guess. Killed them both, then turned the gun on herself.”
“John-”
“Let me finish. I hated Susan for it at first. But I missed her, too. And I hated missing her. Then I started blaming myself. Homicide detective gets called out in the middle of the night all the time, doesn’t make for much of a home life.
“Anyway, one night, she came back. Her ghost, I suppose. You think I’m crazy?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“Well, I don’t scare easy, but that scared the living hell out me. She asked me to forgive her.”
“She could talk?”
“Yes, can’t your husband talk?”
“It’s not my husband, John.” I turned to Chance. “Can I tell him?”
Chance nodded.
“He’s here, now?” Russo asked, startled.
“Yes, he’s here. It’s Chance Devereaux. He started visiting me the night before the funeral. He wants to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, but as a suicide, they wouldn’t allow it.”
“He told you it wasn’t suicide?”
“Yes. He can’t talk; I think it has something to do with the way he died. But he isn’t so hard to understand once you get used to it. He made it clear that Louise drugged his drink, then shot him while he slept.”
“We’ve suspected something like that,” John said. “He had enough barbiturates in his system to make it seem unlikely that he would have shot himself; but it was right on the borderline, nothing solid enough to convict. Still, I wondered why he would take sleeping pills if he planned on shooting himself that same night. What would the point be? Between that and the insurance, she wasn’t completely in the clear.”
I watched Chance walk over to the fireplace. John followed my gaze.
“He walked over here?” he asked, taking a step back.
“Yes. He wants us to look inside it, under the metal plate in the hearth. The one over the hole where you clean out the ashes.”
Russo got down on all fours and lifted the plate. I wasn’t too surprised when he pulled out a sheaf of papers. Chance touched me on the shoulder, then disappeared.
The papers proved that Chance had warned Emery about the tank eight months before the disaster. One of Emery’s fingerprints had been left at the cabin, on the door to a storage shed. Facing prosecution in the deaths of the workers as well, Emery later broke down and confessed to helping Louise kill David, and told police that Louise had killed Chance. He had been having an affair with Louise Devereaux for the past six months. They met on Wednesdays. They were both convicted of murder.
I saw Chance one other time; when I signed the forms saying I would pay to have his body moved to the Catholic cemetery. He met me near his old grave, and hugged me. He was still warm.
John Russo and I married a year later. When the going gets rough, we tell one another ghost stories.
Unharmed
Pacing my small cell, trying not to listen to the racket around me.
They’ve just brought a meal to me, and I’m going to settle down to enjoy it. In the two days since Cindy’s death, I haven’t been able to get enough to eat. The authorities don’t know what to make of my appetite.
They’ve been by to see me a couple of times now; can’t make up their minds. I’ve watched them eyeing me, trying to figure out what went wrong, why I didn’t save her. Wondering if I killed her, or if it was an accident. They aren’t convinced of my innocence, but they’re equally unsure of my guilt.
I’ll tell you what I couldn’t begin to try to explain to them. Decide for yourself.
The last time I lost my appetite, I was with Cindy. We were together that evening, as we were every evening…
She set the meal before me with a small flourish. I stared at it, only half-listening to her prattle mindlessly as she fumbled around in the kitchen, dishing up her own dinner. She insisted on this, this “eating in” every evening. And believe me, she was no gourmet cook. I could barely force myself to eat the unappetizing lumps in gravy that were supposed to resemble beef stew. Not that I know the first thing about cooking, but I wouldn’t have minded going out once in awhile, nabbing a bite on my own. Fat chance. Cindy wouldn’t let me out of her sight.
Out of her sight. Poor choice of words, Alex.
Cindy was blind. That sense of duty I felt toward her, that protectiveness that is a part of my nature, welled up in me and made me feel ashamed. As penance, I finished off the last of the tasteless gruel.
Don’t let me mislead you. I didn’t stay with Cindy out of guilt or pity. I knew she was blind when I met her. I thought, at the time, that I was fully prepared to live with that fact. Being with her gave me a sense of purpose unlike any I had known before. I thought I loved her. I had even thought she loved me.
From the moment we met, though, Cindy had taken over my life. I admit that I allowed her to do so. In the beginning, I had an illusion of power. I was piloting her through the obstacles of life. What I failed to understand at the time was that I was also becoming completely dependent on her, not just for material things, but for companionship and a sense of being needed.
I was shuffled around a lot as a kid; I confess that I wouldn’t know my own mother if I met her on the street. Cindy offered stability, a chance to stay in one place. You don’t know how much I longed for that as a kid. But even the chance to have a place called home doesn’t explain how much I needed her. The praise and affection she lavished on me in the beginning became all-important to me; I would have done anything for her. But these days, she doled out her praise and affection in a miserly fashion.
Some might say I was ungrateful. After all, I was better off than a great many others. I wasn’t homeless, begging for a hand-out. Many in my position, with my background and limited education, would never live so well.
To our friends, we still appeared to be devoted to one another. Few of them realized that my devotion was a chore or knew how hard I had to work at it. Even the ones who knew how demanding Cindy could be still idealized our relationship.
I wondered at that, scratching my head in puzzlement. She heard the sound, of course. “Alex! Will you quit that scratching!” she snapped. I silently sulked off to my favorite chair. I didn’t like admitting she was right. Lately I had gotten into the nervous habit of scratching my head, and it annoyed the heck out of her. I’m sure it bothered her as much as her whistling between her teeth bothered me. Our nervous habits had started grating on each other.
Face it, Alex, I thought with a sigh, everything about her is grating on you.
Perhaps you think I was unnecessarily harsh in my evaluation, especially considering her physical challenges. Not so. Through my association with her, I met other blind people, and have found that they are as varied in personality as the sighted. I can honestly say that I would have been happy to be a friend or even more than a friend to a great many of them. Cindy would have driven me crazy even if she’d had 20/20 vision.
But I was stuck with her. My dependency
on her for my livelihood was never far from her mind. Or mine. At night, I often dreamed of running away, living on my own. So vivid were these dreams that I would often startle myself awake. “What were you dreaming, Alex?” Cindy would ask sleepily. “You’ve been running in your sleep.”
I’ve been running away from you, I wanted to say, but it was no use. She always fell right back to sleep after asking the question. What did she really care about my dreams?
I heard her whistling to herself as she finished cleaning up the dishes. That damned whistling was the worst of it. I tried in every way I could think of to let her know it annoyed me, but to no avail. She didn’t understand me at all.
Sure, the age-old complaint.
By the time she suggested an evening walk, I was more than willing to get some fresh air. I anticipated a stroll through the nearby park; maybe a chance to run into a friendly neighbor. But as I made the turn outside the door of our building, Cindy tugged at me so hard I nearly lost my balance.
“Oh no you don’t, Alex. I know what you’re up to. Well, we’re not going to the park. Not this evening.”
Well, okay, I admit it-there was a good-looking gal who often took a run through the park about that time of day, and she and I had exchanged some tender looks of longing. But it never went any further-how could it, with Cindy never more than two feet away from me?
I guess Cindy picked up on even my most momentary lack of attention to her and her needs.
I was soon distracted from all thought of the park. Cindy was, as usual, directing me in rude and abrupt tones. “Left, Alex.” “Right, Alex.” It was humiliating, being treated more as an errant child than as her partner.
I suddenly realized that this was what she envisioned every day of our life to be like. She would never trust me completely. She would depend on me, but not as a trustworthy companion. Not someone to really love. Knowing that I wasn’t trained for anything that would allow me to live as well as I did with her, she meant to use me shamelessly. She would rely on me to guide her from corner to corner, to keep her from bumping into things, to listen to her, to sleep beside her. But my own needs-to be treated with dignity, to be loved-those were of no consequence to her. She was in control.
“Slow down, Alex!”
All of these commands! I thought angrily. Couldn’t you think of some gentler way to let me know what you want?
She started whistling again. If it had been real whistling, real honest-to-God whistling, I think I could have lived with it. But there we were, walking toward the intersection, and she was doing it, whistling through her teeth. A tuneless, maddening sucking in and out of breath. I wanted to howl from the irritation of it.
It was just at that moment that she insisted on crossing the street. There was a van coming. I saw it, knew she was unaware of it. Knew without a doubt that the young driver was too intent on beating the light to pay attention to anything but the color of the signal.
Cindy tugged at me.
I stopped to scratch.
She lost her balance, losing her grip on me as she stumbled off the curb.
I let her go.
It’s going to be hard to find work again. Maybe you can explain to them that I won’t fail next time. Tell them, if you would be so kind, one other thing: please don’t give me a whistler.
News Item:
BLIND WOMAN KILLED
A young blind woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver yesterday evening at the corner of Madison and Oak. Police report that Cynthia Farnsworth, 24, was struck by a blue van driven by a white male youth.
Farnsworth, who had a guide dog with her, stepped off the curb just as the light was changing. James and Lois Church, who witnessed the accident, said the dog refused to cross the street, but did not attempt to prevent Farnsworth from doing so. One other witness, who asked that her name be withheld, claimed Farnsworth was thrown off balance and into the path of the van when the dog stopped to scratch his ear.
Guide dog trainers refused to speculate about the dog’s behavior, saying only that the dog’s training and fitness will be evaluated.
The dog was unharmed.
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award Winner,
Best Short Story of 1994
Macavity Award Winner for Best Short Story of 1994
The Muse
The jet black pantyhose were calling to him. The feet of the pantyhose, to be precise. He knew he shouldn’t look. Knew it would only encourage her. But he folded the edge of the newspaper down, giving in that much.
“Bee-yoll.” Her voice was childlike, crooning. Her puppeteer voice.
“I’m not in the mood for this, Ellie,” Bill said.
“Oh, Beeeeee-yoll.”
Her hands were all he could see of her, and not really much of her hands. The makeshift pantyhose puppets were “looking” at each other.
“He’s very angry with you,” the right hand admonished the left.
“No, he’s not,” the left answered, then they both looked at Bill.
“I’m not angry,” Bill said to the hands, giving in a little more. Addressing the puppets now. “Not really angry. Just tired.”
“Quit distracting him. He’s on an important deadline, and he has writer’s block,” the right said.
“He never has writer’s block,” the left replied. “He’s upset about Mir.”
“The prospect of a visit from Miriam is an unpleasant one,” he agreed.
Ellie’s head emerged above the edge of the breakfast table. He saw that she had cut the crotch out of the pantyhose, and was wearing them over her head.
“You are the strangest woman I know,” he said, causing her to smile. Ellie considered this a grand endearment. Bill knew that.
Her head tilted a little to one side, as if studying him for a portrait. “It’s fine now. Not even my evil twin can stop you.”
“She is your younger sister, not your twin,” he said, but she was leaving the table, pulling the pantyhose off.
Ellie was right, as always. Not about the twin business, of course, but about the novel he was working on. He got up from the table feeling invigorated, and went straight to the computer. He had a new slant on a passage he had considered unworkable until a moment ago. This was the effect she had on him. Ellie was his Muse.
He had known she would be from the moment he first saw her. Seven years ago, well past three o’clock in the morning on a hot summer’s night, at a gas station on Westwood Boulevard. Bill supposed he would forget his own name before he forgot that night.
He had been uneasy, at loose ends. It wasn’t insomnia: it’s only insomnia when you’re trying to sleep. He had been trying to write. It was his best kept secret then, his writing. None of his professors at UCLA, who knew him as a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, would have ever guessed it. Well-written papers and a flair for creative problem-solving didn’t make him stand out as more than a good student. His friends, although from varied backgrounds and majors, held the same prejudices as the few women he had dated: they assumed that engineers were unlikely to read novels, let alone write them. His father, who expected him to come to work for the family company in September, was also unaware of Bill’s literary aspirations.
In those days, Bill thought that was for the best. If he was going to fail, he preferred not to advertise it. And while he had faith in the basic idea for his novel, he had to admit it wasn’t working out. Frustrated when he stalled in that place in the manuscript where he had stalled no fewer than ten times before-where the boy ought to get the girl back again-he stood up and stretched. He needed some fresh air, he decided. At least, the freshest he could find in L.A..
And so he had restlessly made his way down to Westwood Boulevard, head down, his hands shoved down into his pockets, his long-legged gait taking him quickly past record stores and restaurants. He glanced up just to keep from running into parking meters and lampposts, glancing at but not really seeing the boutiques and movie theaters closed for night. The gas station
was closed, too, but the sight that greeted him there made him slow his stride.
A lithe young woman was tugging on one of the water hoses most people would use for filling radiators. She was using it to wash a gold Rolls-Royce.
He came to a halt on the wide sidewalk, fascinated. She looked up over the hood, used the back of her hand to move her bowl-cut, thick, dark hair away from her eyes. Big brown eyes.
“Want to go for a ride?” she asked him.
He nodded, but didn’t move forward.
“You’ll have to give up hesitating if you’re going to ride with me,” she said, opening the driver’s door. But Bill was distracted from this edict when he saw an elderly man sleeping on the front seat.
“Wake up, Harry,” she said, gently nudging the old man, who came awake with a start. “We’re taking…” She looked over her shoulder. “I’m Ellie. What’s your name?”
“William. William Gray.”
She turned back to the old man. “We’re taking Bill here for a ride on Mulholland Drive. You can sleep in the back.”
The old man reach for a cap, rubbed a gnarled hand over his face and quickly transformed himself into a dignified chauffeur, moving to hold the passenger door open for Bill, waiting patiently as Bill finally moved toward the car. Harry gave a questioning look to Ellie, now behind the wheel.
“No, you need your rest.”
Harry nodded and climbed into the back, asleep again before Ellie had started the car.
They had traveled Mulholland and beyond that night, climbing canyon roads that twisted and turned.
She was a good driver; calm and assured, not crazy on the winding roads. At first, he was afraid, wondering if he had made the biggest-and perhaps the final-mistake of his life. He started envisioning bold headlines: “Missing UCLA Student Found Dead,” or “Still No Suspects in Topanga Canyon Torture-Murder Case.” Perhaps he wouldn’t be missed much. Maybe he would only rate a small article on a back page, near a department store ad: “Boy Scout Troop Makes Grisly Discovery in Canyon.”