Wreck the Halls

by Sarah Graves

  No holiday decorations anywhere. Too messy, I guessed. And Willetta's room was a surprise. I’d expected chaos, but in this regard she apparently took after her sister: bed neatly made, a wicker hamper, louver-door closet. Nothing unusual, except…

  Ellie stared past me at walls covered with framed displays of paper matchbooks. Bowling alleys, steak houses, beer bars, and sandwich shops: hundreds of matchbooks, many quite old.

  “I started collecting them when I was a kid,” Willetta said with the first indication of cheerfulness that I’d seen in her. “When I get interested in a thing, I just stick with it. And for me, this was it.”

  “I guess so,” I replied bemusedly. So many of them. Then a particular one caught my eye: white, with red lettering. DUDDY’S BAR, ROUTE214, MEDDYBEMPS.“Kind of a rough joint, isn't it?”

  “My friend,” Joy had said, “was out there…”

  I guessed I knew which friend she'd been talking about, now: Willetta. Or both of them.

  Willetta shrugged. “I’d go with my boyfriend, and afterwards I’d go alone. After our big breakup. I was a wreck, for a while.”

  It didn't seem to me that any very extensive repair work had been done: a who-cares? attitude toward personal grooming, a sour mood, and a seemingly universal sense of suspicion for any man who came within ten miles were definitely Willetta's main traits. But then she surprised me again.

  “It wasn't fair, what I said back in the kitchen,” she said. “When we were younger, Joy always took care of me and never once complained about it. I shouldn't have… hey.”

  Her pale-lashed eyes flickered suspiciously as something outside her window caught her attention. Her shoulders tensed sharply and I heard her sudden intake of breath, as if she were about to cry out. I peered past her.

  But it was only a cat. Another light went on, this one on a neighboring porch; the animal streaked toward it. The light went out again.

  Willetta's shoulders relaxed. “Pretty elaborate illumination you've got,” I remarked casually.

  “Yeah,” she snapped. She hadn't liked my seeing her anxiety.

  “Come on,” she added curtly, waving me out of the small, neat room where she slept.

  If she slept. Pinched face, bony shoulder blades jutting beneath her sweater, sharp eyes… I had the sudden feeling that maybe she hung from the rail in her tiny closet like a little white bat.

  “… I’ve had times when I needed help and didn't get it,” Ellie was saying to Joy, out in the little kitchen. Explaining, I gathered, why she was interested in helping Faye Anne. “And other times, I did. Someone helped me for no reason.

  And I know which times I’m in favor of, is all,” she finished determinedly.

  Just then the phone rang. Joy jumped a foot, and I felt Willetta's reflexive, startled movement behind me. The two of them were as nervous as caged animals.

  “I don't go to Duddy's anymore, though,” Willetta said, trying to pick up our conversation where we'd left off, to sound halfway normal. But she was watching intently as Joy answered the phone, pulled a book from the shelf beneath it, and began writing down what I gathered was a beauty-shop appointment.

  Suddenly I put it together with the notion I’d had when Victor mentioned Willetta breaking up with some local guy: the yard lit up like an airport, their jumpiness. “Willetta. The guy you broke up with. That you went to the bar with. It didn't happen to be Peter Christie?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “He liked Duddy's. Liked feeling that he was slumming it, being around those tougher guys. You know,” she added, “the kind I mean.”

  Sure I did. Never mind that despite the rough atmosphere in the place, most of Duddy's regulars were just plain fellows having a beer. Or that most of them worked harder in a day than Peter ever would in his life. His little heart would be thrilled, I felt sure, at the sight of the few with the too-bright eyes and the vials of illegal prescription painkillers in their pockets.

  Her next remark seemed to confirm this. “Peter's the kind of guy who likes to drive through a poor neighborhood,” she said.

  A whiff of permanent-wave lotion wafted through the half-open door that I guessed led out to Joy's shop. Glancing through it, I caught my breath at the sight of a bald, white head silhouetted in the backlit window. But when I looked again it was only a hairdresser's wig stand, for propping a hairpiece while it was combed and styled.

  “Gives him a charge, thinking about how much better off he is,” Willetta was saying.

  A wig stand. I didn't imagine Joy got much of that sort of work. But I supposed she had to be prepared for anything; over the years Wade had collected old tools for working on guns he never expected to see, either, not wanting to have to turn down paying jobs for lack of equipment.

  Joy, I guessed, would be the same. “Even though,” Willetta added, “when you come right down to it, Peter's not that much better off, is he?”

  The old car he drove, the tiny house on Prince Street: Peter wasn't going to be showing up in Forbes anytime soon, that was for sure. And his own relative poverty was yet another reason for him to relish any measly power he could have over other people: women, for instance.

  “But I didn't tell anybody I’d been seeing him,” Willetta said abruptly. “Joy didn't, either.” Her eyes narrowed. “So how did you know?”

  “Call it intuition.” A rush of anger against Peter Christie moved me down the mobile home's narrow hallway, toward Ellie and Joy.

  “That little rat is doing it to her, too,” I told Ellie, angling my head back at Willetta. “She broke up with him, now he's stalking her.”

  Ellie looked thoughtful, putting it together: their nervousness, all the lights. But neither sister wanted to talk about it. As we prepared to go I told them that if Peter gave either of them any more trouble they should call the cops. The women in California had quit complaining too soon, I thought; if faced with official opposition I felt sure Peter would back off.

  Still, there was another possibility and I had to mention it. “Two people have died and one's been attacked,” I told them. “There is no real evidence against Peter.”

  “But?” Joy asked, while Willetta's face went still.

  “But under the circumstances I think you're wise. It's worth being extra careful,” I said smoothly, and they seemed to accept this. Finally, I tried raising the topic of Victor again.

  At the mention of his name Willetta went back to her room and shut the door. Slammed it, actually, and cranked up the kind of loud music that would have sounded right at home in Duddy's.

  “I’m sorry,” Joy replied when I asked what I should tell Victor. “Maybe when she calms down. Right now, though, she's just really upset. I don't like leaving her alone, and having Victor here isn't very…”

  “Conducive,” I finished for her. “To romance, or anything else.”

  The glare of the yard lights turned her apricot-colored hair purplish. “Right.” She closed the door.

  Music blaring from inside followed us all the way out to the car. “That was useless,” I told Ellie, pulling back onto Route 190. “And,” it hit me suddenly, “we forgot to call about Bob Arnold.”

  “I didn't forget.” Ellie's voice was thoughtful.

  “What, then?”

  “Willetta looks awful,” she said, seeming to change the subject.

  Icy fog thickened the twilight, making the road surface slick and treacherous. “Can you blame her? First she gets her heart broken, then she's terrorized by that son of a bitch. Not to say she isn't a fairly sizable pain in the neck herself, but—”

  “She's a pharmacy technician, isn't she? At the hospital.”

  “Yes.” We came into town. “Although the job doesn't entail anything really technical, I gather. She delivers medications to the nursing stations. But what does that… Oh.”

  “A pharmacy technician who hangs out at Duddy's where pharmacy is a sideline.” Her voice remained even. “An unofficial, unsanctioned, but still well-known—”

  “
Ellie, a hospital pharmacy has better security than Fort Knox.” I turned onto Key Street. Peter Christie had looked laden with at least an evening's worth of fancy foodstuffs and I wanted to charge that cell phone before I forgot it, again. “So if you're thinking maybe she pilfered medications to sell out there, or something…”

  “I’m not. It's just an interesting coincidence, that's all.”

  She didn't sound as if she thought it was a coincidence. But I knew better than to press her into rushing her thought process. Ellie's mind is like one of those machines they use to polish gemstones. You put in raw material, it rattles around in there, and later out comes something perfect, smooth, and correct.

  The difference is that when Ellie does it she doesn't make noise. Or want you to, either, so I didn't as the two of us went into my old house.

  Then I made noise.

  Victor was in my kitchen, engaged in three activities so uncharacteristic of him, I knew something was up. First, he was making coffee; ordinarily, he feels it should appear before him as if by magic. Also, he was smiling.

  And humming a tune. All bad signs. “Victor, what is this—”

  “I straightened out the problem with Sam's package.” He pushed the button on the coffee machine; it began burbling, a musical sound that didn't quite cover the other sound, emanating from near my ankle.

  “What we still need to know,” Ellie said, “is why Faye Anne—”

  “Doesn't remember,” I finished, not wanting to look down. But I did when it started nuzzling, its purring as loud as the engine on one of those fishing boats in the harbor. “Victor…”

  Because junk was one thing, but this was beyond junk.

  Way beyond. “If we explain that—” Ellie said.

  It was a cross-eyed, apple-headed Siamese cat with a kink in its tail, extra toes on its paws, and a smile on its face. A settled smile, like it was planning to stay.

  “—we've got a shot,” Ellie finished. “Because whoever arranged that has to be the one who—”

  “It's for the mouse,” Victor said innocently, gesturing at the animal. “Sam says you have one.”

  Victor had been trying to get rid of this feline since the moment it had showed up at his house uninvited three months earlier. He claimed it followed him around with a look in its eye.

  Which I understood; you live with Victor long enough, you'll have a look in your eye, too: a look that says you're about to run screaming into the night.

  “Victor, just because you don't want a cat doesn't mean/want a…”

  Monday put her head into the room. Cat? her look said. And then: Cat!!!

  What followed put all thoughts of homicide out of my mind, except of course for thoughts of murdering my ex-husband. “So did you talk to her yet?” he demanded as Monday circled the dining-room table for the hundredth time.

  The cat had already timed to the millisecond how long it took the dog to complete a trip, so as to stay out of reach while maintaining the highest possible levels of canine frenzy.

  “Yes.” I reported the result.

  Victor looked crestfallen for a moment. But then: “Well, will you try again?”

  I ignored this. “Victor, I don't want…”

  Cat food or dishes, I listed mentally; cat toys or cat litter. Or—at a particularly loud thump-and-tumble from the front hall—animal tranquilizers. Then came sudden silence, even more unnerving than the sounds of mayhem. I looked at Ellie, returning from the phone alcove.

  “Bob's the same,” she reported, peering around. “No change in his condition.” Which wasn't good. “What made them stop?”

  We tiptoed into the parlor where due to the completeness of the silence that had fallen, I expected animal corpses. Instead, Monday and the cat sat shoulder to shoulder. The two of them were staring at the parlor chair like cops staking out a hideout.

  Slowly the dog lay down on the carpet in front of the chair, crossing her paws and gazing fixedly at the target premises. After a moment the cat followed suit, gazing likewise. “Oh,” Ellie said. “That's kind of cute.”

  “Sure,” I replied sourly. “And pretty soon, the mouse'll be curled up with them. We can start a cartoon show.” I paused.

  But it had to be said. “Ellie, has it occurred to you that we might not be able to do it? Help Faye Anne?”

  Wade came in and headed upstairs; the shower went on. From the music coming out of his room I knew Sam was at home, too. Pretty soon it would be time to start dinner.

  “Yes,” Ellie said with a heavy sigh, “it has.”

  It had been in the air all afternoon: the growing sense that whatever was eluding us might stay elusive.

  “Why'd you come here?” she asked suddenly. “To Eastport, I mean. Pick up and move here, start a new life… why'd you do it?”

  But she didn't wait for a reply. “For a geographic cure, that's why. To start all over, to be a new person in a new place. And so Sam could. But I can't. Oh, I could have a life somewhere else, I suppose. But it wouldn't be my life.”

  I understood: The respect of the women whose husbands had been on that boat was no accident; Ellie had earned it. By, among other things, not quitting when the going got tough.

  But if she did quit, she'd have to live with that, too. For Ellie there would be no geographic cure; she was an Eastport girl born and bred, and what she did here counted.

  “Nothing we've learned proves much,” I said slowly. “Seems like just about everyone hated Merle and in the suggesting-an-alternative-suspect department it's as bad as if no one did.”

  Which, I didn't have to tell her, was the department we'd gotten to. Because actually proving someone other than Faye Anne had killed Merle was starting to look hopeless. Still:

  “Jake, what you told Joy and Willetta was absolutely true,” Ellie replied. “It's not just Merle, it's Kenty and Bob, too. We know they're part of this. And who knows who else will be, before it's over?”

  She looked down at the dog and cat. “At least when those two go on a rampage, everyone knows it's happening.”

  A burst of sleet rattled the parlor windows, subsided. “And now,” my friend finished discouragedly, “the weather's getting lousy, besides. But listen, you've done enough, you don't have to…”

  The day after I moved into the house on Key Street, the van not yet arrived and the old place feeling so empty I thought Sam and I might drown in it, Ellie showed up with a plate of cookies. Ribbon in her hair, pale green eyes like a pair of searchlights, their gaze from behind her glasses so penetrating I’d felt as if my X ray was being taken.

  And as the enormity of what I’d done—an antique house! on an island!’ in Maine!—began sinking in, I’d felt also that I was being thrown a life ring by someone who knew how.

  “Look,” I suggested, “there's still time to get out to Melinda's before it starts really blowing.”

  The heavy weather, forecast to veer out over Nova Scotia, wouldn't be much. But it would be enough to make us want to stay indoors, later.

  She brightened. “Just talk to her? Once more? Because…”

  I nodded. This was the other thing that had been in the air: our shared sense that the attack on Bob Arnold had been a kind of climax, like a burst of energy in an electrical storm.

  But the relative calm that came after didn't mean the storm was over. Only that it was gathering its forces for another, more violent onslaught. A second sleet shower clattered like pebbles against the window.

  “Let's get it over with,” I said, not expecting any result.

  Oh, would it were so.

  “Can't you see she knows nothing about this?” Peter demanded, a glass of red wine in one hand and a lobster puff in the other.

  It struck me that his little house on Prince Street offered none of the luxuries of Melinda's well-furnished abode. Here, the blazing gas fireplace, thick rugs, plushly cushioned sofas, and plenty of food and drink made the winter outside seem far away.

  I ignored his bullying tone. “Listen, Melinda
, this is serious.” I stood over her, not caring if I seemed bullying, too. “Three different women from California have as good as told us they're scared to death of Peter. Before he left to come here, they'd all complained to the cops about him.”

  Melinda said nothing while Peter backpedaled a moment, long enough for me to see his surprise that I knew this. But he recovered swiftly:

  “Did they tell you they all knew each other? That I’d dated one of them and after I broke up with her, in retaliation she got two more of her friends to complain, too?”

  “Oh, really?” I turned to him, letting him see that I didn't believe him for an instant. “Any particular reason she decided to make it a stalking complaint? Or was that just out of the blue?”

  He flushed, swallowed some wine.

  “Pretty serious charge,” I went on, deciding that since this was probably our last run at him, it was going to be a good one. “But three different young women got it into their heads to make it against you, even though they could be in serious trouble if it turned out to be false.”

  Melinda's new computer stood on the desk in a corner. “And now,” I went on, “all three are denying anything happened at all. I don't suppose you've got anything to do with that, either? You're such a computer buff, I imagine you could do a lot with, say, a barrage of e-mail to one or all of them?”

  His brief startled look said I was on the money again. Peter was good-looking, personable, and skilled enough with computers to make at least a modest living—and a welcome for himself at least at first—wherever he went. But he had a screw loose and the more he lied to me, the more I seemed to hear it rattling around up there, in his handsome head.

  “Come on, Melinda, talk to us,” I urged. “We don't think you chopped Merle in pieces, or attacked Bob Arnold. Bob caught someone who wasn't supposed to be here. Whoever it was, panicked. We're sure you had nothing to do with it.”