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Darkling

Page 26

by R. B. Chesterton


  “Donald isn’t like that.” Why wouldn’t anyone believe me? Cora had blown me off, too, saying some animal had found the doll in the yard and dragged it into the woods and the head had conveniently become buried under leaves in the middle of a trail. “Would you just check it for prints? Just do that. Please.”

  “Sure.” That one word was like pulling teeth.

  “Thank you, Mark.” I gathered his strong hand in mine, surprised at how much I wanted him to touch me in the old, possessive way. “Really, thank you.”

  He shifted so that we faced each other. “I’m doing this for you, Mimi. Not because I expect to find anything. For you. I’m worried about you. If this will set your mind at rest, it will be worth it, but if the sheriff finds out, he isn’t going to be happy with me.”

  The relief was so intense, I closed my eyes and leaned against him. In that moment, I wanted him to kiss me. I needed him to take an action that showed he cared for me, that someone could love me, even if only for an evening.

  I lifted my chin, offering my mouth to him. His lips found mine and he kissed me. I relaxed and kissed him back, a long, slow kiss that promised many of the things I’d withheld. It was a pleasure to let his strong arms surround me and offer shelter from the horrible things that had happened. A truth revealed itself to me at that moment. I needed Mark in my life. I’d trained myself to be strong and independent, to handle whatever crossed my path. Now I couldn’t handle this alone. In the past few weeks, I’d come to rely on him, and he’d been there for me when no one else had shown up. My passion intensified, and he pulled me against him and kissed me harder.

  “Mark and Mimi sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” The sarcastic, superior voice came from behind us.

  I pushed back from Mark and turned to find Annie standing on the porch less than four feet away. She’d moved so stealthily, neither of us had heard her.

  “You two should take it somewhere private,” she said, her smile sly and suggestive. “Another few minutes and I would have had to get the hose to separate you. Do you really think Donald and Erin will benefit from watching a make-out session?”

  Mark rose slowly to his feet, then offered his hand to me and tugged me to my feet. “You’re pretty good at sneaking up on people, Annie.” There was a flintiness to his eyes I’d never seen before.

  “Most people don’t make out on the front porch of their employer’s home,” Annie said. “Just be glad it was me instead of Bob who came out. I don’t think he’d be happy with that kind of … public display. You two were hot and heavy.”

  Mark drew me to his side. “Mimi’s twenty-one and old enough to kiss a man. We weren’t acting inappropriately.”

  Annie arched her eyebrows. “I see.” She noticed the paper sack at our feet. “Oh, the doll’s head. A new case for Deputy Mark. Are you going to nab the doll killer?”

  “What’s wrong with you today, Annie?” Mark spoke softly, but his body was tense.

  “I’m incensed that a teenage girl and a young man are dead, and the sheriff and his deputies can’t find any answers about who killed them. But you’re making out on the front porch of a house and playing with a doll’s head. That’s a little upsetting to me.”

  She turned abruptly and went back in the house.

  “She’s arrogant and sneaky,” Mark said.

  “You don’t know the half of it. She’s worse than sneaky.” I spoke softly. At last, at last, Annie had shown her true self to someone other than me. “Thank you.”

  He picked up the paper sack with the doll’s head. “I’ll get the prints for you. I’ll have to wait until Friday, when Howard is working in the lab. He’ll do it as a favor for me.”

  I kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Mark.” I almost cried with the simply pleasure that his support gave me. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, it isn’t that big of a deal.” He kissed me again. “It’ll take a while for me to get this done, but I’ll be by tomorrow night, okay? Maybe Erin and Donald would want to go to Mobile, maybe go bowling or play some putt-putt.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” The coldness was gone from his beautiful gray eyes, and I smiled as I watched him walk to the patrol car and drive away.

  Those fingerprints would bolster my theories. Annie was on the way to being caught.

  47

  The next evening, Donald and I waited for Mark on the front porch, ready for an evening of bowling. The weather had turned cold, too unpleasant for putt-putt. Indoor recreation was called for.

  Erin, predictably enough, refused to go with me. I felt a gaze on my back, and when I turned, I saw her half-hidden behind the sheers of the front-door sidelights. The cut glass fractured her features, making her grotesque. I walked across the porch and opened the front door. “Please come with us, Erin. We won’t be long and it would be good to do something fun.”

  “I told Dad not to let you take Donald, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I’m not stupid enough to go off with you and that halfwit deputy you’ve got wrapped around your finger.”

  Those were some of the same words Annie had hurled at me the evening before, after Mark left with the doll’s head. She’d poisoned Erin against me. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’d do anything to help you and Donald and Bob and Berta. Anything.”

  “And Annie?” she asked.

  “I don’t trust Annie.” I could be honest with Erin. Not too honest, but I didn’t have to pretend to like Annie the way I did for the grown-ups. “When I get the evidence of what she’s been up to, you’ll feel differently.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” She turned away from me and went to the beautiful staircase. I watched until her feet disappeared, blocked by the second floor.

  “She’s mad all the time,” Donald said.

  “People handle grief differently. Sometimes getting angry is the only way to survive. She can be angry at me, because I’m an outsider. I don’t mind.”

  Donald took my hand as Mark’s headlights came down the driveway. “Forget about Erin and everything that’s happened here. We’re going to have a couple of hours of fun, Donald. It will be good for both of us.”

  “I wish Dad and Mom would come.” I’d asked Bob and Berta, but my invitation had been quickly quashed. They didn’t realize how much Donald missed having time with them.

  “Maybe next time.” I goosed his ribs and then dragged him behind me as I ran to Mark’s car and slipped across the seat to snuggle beside him. Donald took the passenger seat.

  I welcomed Mark with a warm kiss, and then we were off. Camellia Bowling Lanes was a good thirty-minute drive, and I didn’t want to be out too late.

  Mark kept up easy banter with Donald on the drive, and when we arrived at the bowling alley, we found a lightweight ball for him and then let him beat the socks off us. For the first time in weeks, Donald’s laughter rang clear and unhampered by worry or sadness. He ate most of the pizza we ordered, and on the way home he slumped against my shoulder in a blissful rest.

  “Thank you, Mark.” I stroked his face with the knuckles of my left hand. It was all I could manage supporting Donald.

  “It was a good thing, Mimi. And I’m taking the doll head to Mobile tomorrow. My buddy has agreed to run the prints for me as a favor.”

  “Thank you.” I captured one of his hands and brought it to my lips for a kiss and a slight tickle with my tongue.

  “You’re treading on dangerous ground.” He brushed my cheek with his fingers. “I care about you, Mimi. A lot. I don’t want to ruin this by pushing too hard.”

  It had happened without any effort from me. My gratitude and appreciation for Mark’s help, for the way he treated me, had blossomed into stronger feelings. “Maybe tomorrow evening we can go to your place.”

  “It’s a poor showing compared to Belle Fleur.”

  I laughed. “It has one superior ingredient. Privacy.”

  His arm pulled me hard against him and we drove the rest of the way home pressed tightly together, the promise of intimacy b
onding us even closer.

  Belle Fleur was quiet, the house settled for the night, though it was only nine o’clock when Donald and I latched the front door behind us. The hall clock ticked in the emptiness.

  “Good night, Mimi.” Donald reached up for a hug, and I held him tightly for a moment before releasing him to go to bed.

  “Want me to tuck you in?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not scared tonight. I’m just tired. A good tired.”

  His smile almost broke my heart. How long it had been since I’d seen him free of stress and worry. Tonight, he was truly physically depleted from three hours of bowling.

  He trudged up the stairs without even a thought of saying goodnight to his parents. Berta, with medications, and Bob, with work, had effectively shut him out of their lives. He was a little boy alone except for me.

  I stopped in the kitchen for a glass of milk and another small slice of apple pie. I loaded up a tray and went up to the second floor. On an impulse, I checked on Donald. He slept with one arm trailing on the floor, his tousled blond hair looking as if someone had rumpled it deliberately. At the far end of the hall, I opened the door to Erin’s room. She, too, slept soundly. To my extreme discomfort, I saw that she’d put Savannah’s headless body on the shelf with her other dolls. Morbid and creepy.

  I entered my room and opened the windows. I liked to sleep under several quilts without the central heat. I forked a piece of pie into my mouth and reached for the milk when the sirens kicked in.

  Walking out to the balcony, I leaned over the railing and tried to catch a glimpse of Shore Road through the wind-tossed limbs of the beautiful oaks. For a moment I thought I caught a wink of a flashing blue light, but I couldn’t be certain. I was about to go back in when I heard something on the balcony above me. Annie was awake and moving around.

  I started to go up the stairs and confront her. Without an audience, the honeyed-veneer would be gone. Pretending wasn’t necessary with me, for I knew her and she understood that. I was halfway up the exterior staircase to Annie’s balcony when another set of sirens was blocked out by the sound of an explosion.

  A plume of flames leaped thirty feet into the night sky, and it came from a location on Shore Road between Belle Fleur and Coden.

  “Holy shit.” I raced up the stairs. “Annie!” As I neared the top, I looked through the white spindles of the balcony railing and my heart almost stopped. Erin sat on one of the wicker chairs, her legs crossed and one paw twitching mid-air.

  “Annie’s not here anymore, Mimi.” She laughed and before I could move, she jumped over the railing. I reached out for her, but I was too late. She looked so much like Erin, so much like the thirteen-year-old girl I’d left asleep in her bed. But it wasn’t Erin.

  I stumbled to the rail and looked down, expecting to see her broken body in the dirt. Instead, the creature rose slowly from the crouch it had landed in. It looked up at me and took off across the yard in a gallop, a gait like a young girl would use to imitate a horse. She disappeared around the corner of the house.

  48

  When I ducked back into my room, the telephone rang. It was nearly eleven o’clock, and no one called that late. Or no one with good news or good manners. It could only mean trouble.

  Bob had modernized the house with numerous phone jacks. There were phones downstairs in the hallway, the kitchen, and Bob and Berta’s bedroom. Bob had also installed a phone in my room. Margo and Erin’s room had a blue princess phone, and on the third floor in Annie’s room was a pale yellow one. I picked up the receiver and said hello.

  “Oh, Mimi.” Cora’s voice broke and she began to cry.

  “Cora, what’s wrong?” Had she fallen and injured herself? I’d never heard her so defeated.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” My voice was sharper than it should have been, but she was frightening me.

  “It’s Mark.”

  “What about him?” Now she was really scaring me.

  “Honey, he had a wreck. His car exploded. He’s dead. It happened half a mile from my house. I heard the crash and called the sheriff’s office.” She struggled to keep control of her emotions, but her pain washed around me. My body no longer belonged to me. My hand holding the phone refused to put it down. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think or feel. The image of Mark walking to his car kept playing again and again in my brain. He’d opened the door and turned to me. His grin was cocky, and he’d given me a nod that confirmed our romantic plans for the next evening.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” The words came from me, but I didn’t understand how. My throat was paralyzed.

  “The sheriff came by here himself. He’s positive. Mark must have been coming back from seeing you.”

  “Yes, he took Donald and me bowling.” My tone was robotic.

  “The sheriff thinks something ran across the road in front of his car and caused him to swerve. He struck an old culvert hidden in the saw-grass. The gas tank ruptured, and a spark caused the explosion.” She cleared her throat and choked back a sob. “He didn’t suffer, Mimi. He didn’t suffer.”

  “I’m coming to get you. Get dressed.” I hung up the phone and stood in the middle of my room. It didn’t make any sense. Not any. Mark was dead and the doll’s head in the trunk of his car had been burned up. This wasn’t an accident. The spark that led to the explosion wasn’t of unknown origin. I knew very well where it had come from. This was Annie’s work.

  I stormed up the interior steps to her room. She’d had plenty of time to get back to Belle Fleur if she cut through the woods. It wasn’t even a mile. When I pushed the door open, the blowing material gave me a terrible fright. Shadows darted and swirled in the fabric that danced on the wind. The door to her balcony and all of the windows were open, even though the night hovered in the low forties.

  “Annie!” I thought I might strangle her. “Annie!”

  But she wasn’t there. The room was empty.

  49

  I drove white-knuckled from Cora’s house while she sat in the passenger seat bundled in her coat and wiping at her tears with a tissue. When I turned right from her drive and went around the only curve on that stretch of Shore Drive, I saw the accident. The blue lights of the police cars flashed, along with the red lights of the ambulance and fire truck. It was a scene from hell.

  As we got closer, I could see at least a half dozen deputies and six or eight firemen all standing in the road, wandering back and forth, talking in the way that men who can’t show emotion do. These were men of action but there was nothing they could do to help Mark. It was over. A heap of twisted metal that was once Mark’s car steamed in the ditch, smoke and vapor rising, metal hissing and groaning like the charred skeleton of some prehistoric monster. No one could have survived the accident and then the explosion and fire.

  I slowed and pulled off the road. The volunteer firemen began rolling up their hoses. Smoke still spiraled into the night sky. I opened the car door and Cora’s fingers dug into my wrist. When I tried to shake her off, she clung more tightly.

  “Let’s go home,” she said gently. She didn’t want me to witness the removal of Mark’s burned body from the car. Some kind of wild animal sounds came from me, but I couldn’t control them or even register what I was doing.

  I pulled free of Cora, jumped out, and ran toward the wreck. Two deputies waylaid me and held me. I struggled, kicking and trying to bite them. “Easy there, Mimi.” They knew me, though I didn’t recognize them. “Easy there. Nothing you can do to help now. You don’t want to see that.” They delivered me back to Cora.

  “Oh, Mimi.” Cora pressed me into her bosom and held me until I stopped making a sound that ranged between a bark and a groan. “My poor, poor girl.” She stroked my hair.

  When I’d regained my composure, I eased out of her embrace. “This isn’t fair,” I said. “It isn’t fair. Mark was a good person.”

  “He was indeed.” She got me turned and walking back to t
he station wagon I’d borrowed. Bob would be wondering where I’d gone in such a hurry. It wasn’t like me to dash out of the house at midnight and take a car. My life was unraveling in all directions.

  Cora tucked me into the passenger seat and drove back to her house. We went into the kitchen and she reached behind the canisters and brought out a bottle of bourbon. She poured two stiff drinks and handed me one. I drank it without question, welcoming the heat that raced down my throat. A moment later, I rushed outside to vomit.

  The retching turned into sobs, and Cora came to stand beside me until I’d cried myself out. Her phone rang and she started to ignore it, but I motioned her to answer. I could hear her conversation from my position on the porch, and I knew it was Bob calling. She told him what had happened, her voice ragged with emotion.

  “Mimi should stay here with me,” she said. “I’ll look after her.”

  When she came back to the porch, she drew me into the house and led me to my old bedroom. She helped me undress and tucked me under the handmade quilts that had been in our family for generations. I remembered their names, the Wedding Ring, the Rose of Sharon, the Friendship Bow.

  As I fingered the bright cloth, I asked her, “Do you think Belle Fleur is cursed?”

  My question was like a slap. She drew up sharply. “Why would you say that?”

  “The Desmarais family was ultimately destroyed. Now the Hendersons are suffering and even me, because I live there. Chloe supposedly fell to her death. Her baby was tossed in a well and left to die. Margo was murdered. Mark, who was visiting me there, was killed in a freak accident. Is there something about Belle Fleur I don’t know?”

  Cora stood where the light of the bedside lamp didn’t fully reach her face. “It’s only a house, Mimi.”

  If it wasn’t the house, then Annie was involved in these tragedies. In my heart, I believed that Annie had engineered his death. I couldn’t prove my theory, but it went back to the doll head and what it might have told us. She couldn’t afford for Mark to check it for prints. What would he have found? Something to incriminate her—I was willing to stake my life on it.

 

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