Blood Music

by Jessie Prichard Hunter

  “What did he say?”

  “He said women are easy to kill.”

  “I don’t know what to—”

  “Well—I did say that if I killed a man I’d use a gun.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Zelly, sometimes I don’t understand you at all.” Mrs. Thuringen sat down and fiddled with her cup. “Actually,” she said ruminatively, “I’d use arsenic.”

  “Mama! How Victorian!” Zelly laughed.

  “Exactly. Nowadays nobody would be looking for it.” Mrs. Thuringen poured more hot chocolate into her daughter’s cup. “Now,” she said, “tell me all about it.”

  “There isn’t really that much to tell. I think he’s just tired out from working so much. You know he’s been away a lot of the time—I know he’s just starting his own business, but for God’s sake, it’s been eight months and he hardly brings home a penny.”

  “He’s got overhead, doesn’t he—tools, gas, I don’t know. But you can’t expect him to be making any money in the first year. I’ve been waiting for you to ask for another loan for some time now.”

  “I was planning on it.”

  “And you shall have it. Now, how often does he get home late? Didn’t you tell me once he’s sometimes gone all night?”

  “Not all night. He just gets in late. Maybe once a week. Two, three o’clock.”

  “I thought you were saying a couple of weeks ago that it was later.”

  “No, not really. He does late calls, and then I think he just drives around or goes to get a beer or something, to calm down. He’s awfully worried about taking care of me and the baby.”

  “Does he smell different when he gets home?”

  “Oh, no, he doesn’t really smell like liquor.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Does he smell like another woman.”

  “Oh. No. No, he doesn’t. It isn’t that, we’re fine.” Slim-hipped, younger. Why not just say it?

  “I know this is hard to talk about, and it’s hard to ask about, too, believe me. But is he treating you badly at all?”

  His hands around her neck, the breath stopped. “No. Oh, no. He’s just—distant, I guess. He’s been kind of inside himself lately.”

  “Then maybe he really is just worried about his business.” Zelly was looking at the floor. “But you don’t really think so, do you?” her mother asked, reaching over and touching her daughter’s hand. “Let me tell you something about your father. This was a long time ago. While he was waiting for the results of his bar exam he used to go play pool three nights a week. It drove me crazy. One night at about midnight I went storming in there expecting to see Arthur with a redhead on each elbow and what was he doing? Setting up a bank shot.”

  Zelly and her mother laughed; Zelly’s laugh had a glass edge. Mrs. Thuringen stopped laughing and looked into her daughter’s face.

  “Zelly,” she said gently, “do you think he’s having an affair?”

  A blonde, a brunette. His eyes above her like the button eyes on a toy. “No.”

  “You said that too fast. Are you sure?”

  Zelly became aware that she was tearing at the skin of her lip with her teeth. “Mama, who knows? You watch TV or the movies you get the idea every man—every man—has an affair. Or is ready to.”

  “We’re not talking about TV.”

  “I am sure. I don’t think he is. He’s just—”

  “Marriages go through phases, honey. I don’t know what girls expect today.”

  “I found a pair of panties in the closet,” Zelly said abruptly.

  “Were they yours?”

  “Mama!”

  Mrs. Thuringen got up from her seat at the table and went over to the stove again. Zelly thought she didn’t want her to see her face.

  “Do you remember Alice McDowell? Well, she moved away when you were little. But Alice and I were close friends. Her husband was a lawyer too. He was away from home a lot. She had two little ones at the time—a boy and a girl. The boy was two; the little one was just eight months. Alice started noticing things about her husband—he smelled different some nights. As though he were wearing perfume, or a new aftershave. And he started dressing a little bit different. He kept coming home with new ties. And he stopped wanting her to have dinner waiting. Little things. Well. Her husband had an extensive stamp collection—”

  “Like Daddy.”

  “Yes. Like Daddy. And one day Alice was looking through his stamp album—I don’t remember what she was doing, cleaning the drawer it was in or something—and she found love letters. It was unmistakable—they had a lilac scent, I remember that. And Alice had to decide what to do. She had two small children and a third one on the way.” Mrs. Thuringen was looking at the window but she wasn’t seeing the window. “She could have confronted him. She could have left him, I guess. But she didn’t do either. She knew in her heart that he loved her. She knew he would come back to her. So she waited.”

  “I don’t know if I could do that.”

  “We were brought up differently in my generation. We thought of men differently. Sometimes I think our way is better—we hurt less because we didn’t expect as much of them. So. Alice waited. And after a while her husband started coming home early more often, and he put away the new ties and then one day a year later she screwed up her courage and looked in his stamp album and the letters were gone.”

  “But what if he hadn’t stopped? What if it just went on?”

  “Then she would have had to make a decision.” Zelly thought of her father’s stamp album up in the master bedroom, still in the top drawer of his dresser where he’d always kept it. Her father had died when Zelly was seventeen. Her mother gave away his suits and his shoes and his razor but she kept the thick, untidy stamp book just as he had left it.

  Her mother was smiling at her. “Have you talked to Pat about any of this?” she asked gently.

  “Mama, you know Pat. We don’t talk. Our marriage isn’t based on what we say, it’s based on what we don’t say. You know?”

  “I know. Your father and I were the same way. I don’t understand the mania these days for telling all. A marriage needs its secret places.”

  Zelly thought she was going to cry again but she laughed instead. “But sometimes those places get too secret, you know what I mean?”

  “Well, of course, if it’s gotten to the point that Pat may be having an affair—”

  Zelly took a breath and looked away, into her cup. This was hard. “The other day—this was actually almost two weeks ago—Pat came home early, in the middle of the afternoon, and he never does that. And he—wanted to make love and the baby was crying and he—” But the truth would not come: my husband tried to strangle me. “There are people who think—who think that if you do certain things it heightens sexual pleasure. And Pat—Pat wanted to—he asked me—he wanted to put his hands around my neck.” There was a long silence and Zelly didn’t look up from her cup and when she did, to find her mother looking at her, her mother’s face made her want to cry again: what if I had told her the truth?

  “Zelly, honey, I’m sorry—I just never heard of such—that is truly disgusting. It really is beyond the beyond. You must have been scared out of your mind.”

  “Oh, no. He didn’t do anything. He just talked about it.” She realized she was biting her lip again and stopped.

  “But even to talk! It’s just so appalling—”

  “It’s something some people do, I’ve heard about it. They think it heightens sexual pleasure.”

  “Whose?” Zelly couldn’t help smiling. “I swear I do not understand anything anymore,” her mother said.

  “But Mama, the thing is—” This was the hardest part (slim-hipped, and there would be an orange neon sign blinking outside the window). She wasn’t sure what she was going to say until she said it. “I think that was the day after that woman got away from the Slasher.”

  Mrs. Thuringen looked at her daughter. There was something—for an instant of an instant, compassion, comprehen
sion, an inner calculation—and she nodded her head very slightly. Then she laughed sadly. “Oh, Zelly. Oh, darling. Tell me.”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I have never thought any one of my children was crazy. Even when Denise joined the Army I didn’t—”

  “Oh, Mama!” she burst out, “you don’t know what I’ve been thinking! It was much worse than an affair. You’re going to think I’m crazy.

  “Mama, I was beginning to think Pat was—was—mixed up in something terrible.”

  “Darling, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about how much time you’ve been spending by yourself. Linda says you haven’t called her first since the baby was born.”

  “Mama, you know how much work a first baby is.”

  “Indeed I do. But you haven’t been talking to any of your brothers or sisters, and I never hear you mention any other friends.”

  “I do, sometimes. Sometimes—”

  “Honey, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me everything—and slowly. You never did know how to tell a story.”

  “I told you Pat’s been gone an awful lot lately. But it’s really been since—” she took a deep breath—“since just before the Slasher killings started, in January.” Her mother said nothing, watching, nonjudgmental, over her cup of chocolate. Suddenly Zelly didn’t know what else to say; she couldn’t find anything in her mind: no single coherent thought, no rock of fact. There was a woman waiting in a motel room, that was all. “And, well, serial killers drive around an awful lot. They cruise their territory. And they drive around aimlessly, living their fantasies and reliving their crimes.” No word or look betrayed any feeling on her mother’s face. Zelly swallowed hard and continued. She was aware that she was talking too fast. “Serial killers are never able to support a family because their fantasy lives take up most of their energy. And that night at dinner I was talking about, Pat knew something he couldn’t have—shouldn’t have known. He knew that the killer strangled his victims before he knifed them. Or he said something like that. I figured it out later. He said he would kill a woman by strangling and then knifing her.” Mrs. Thuringen’s eyes were wide. Zelly began to talk faster. “This was before that one woman got away and it was in all the papers. And he said some terrible things about women.”

  Mrs. Thuringen picked up her scissors and began snipping at stray threads along the purple hem. “If every man who said terrible things about women were a serial killer,” she said gently, “there wouldn’t be a single one of us left.” She scrutinized the hem, her head tilted to one side; she looked like a bird and Zelly started to cry again.

  “And darling,” her mother went on, “you know you could probably come up with ten different ways to kill somebody without even thinking about it, what with all of your reading. Pat’s just been listening to you too long.”

  “That’s what a friend said at the time. But there’s more. You know that I think that murder up on Stevens’ campus was done by the Slasher. That’s something. The killer’s got to be from Hoboken or familiar with Hoboken—”

  “I don’t really see—”

  “But I haven’t told you everything. Pat has a terrible pornography collection.”

  Her mother was quiet for a moment. “Zelly,” she said at last, sadly, “a lot of men have pornography in the house.”

  “I know. But it’s all rape and knives.” It didn’t sound like anything. Pat has a terrible pornography collection. When so many men have Playboy, Penthouse. There must be a woman who wore lavender silk, size five. There must. Zelly was miserable with shame. “And then there were the panties.”

  Her mother said nothing, lips pursed, snipping. “But my explanation is a little more believable than that Pat is a serial killer.”

  “First I thought maybe he must have sent away to one of those places where you get used underwear through the mail.”

  “One of those—don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. That sounds much more farfetched than what I said.”

  “There are places like that.”

  “I said don’t tell me.” Zelly and her mother laughed again.

  “This already sounds stupid,” Zelly said, “but he talked in his sleep the other night.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “He said he was sorry. I couldn’t sleep—I was just lying there. And all of a sudden he said, ‘I’m sorry.’ And then something I couldn’t understand, ‘I will,’ or something—I thought later it could have been ‘I kill.’ And then he said, ‘You killed me too.’ He said that twice. And he hit the wall.”

  “You were frightened.”

  “I was scared out of my wits. He didn’t even wake up. It sounded like he was talking about killing people.”

  “You know what people say in their sleep doesn’t mean anything, Zelly.” Her mother was looking carefully at every stitch along the hem. “If he hit the wall I’d say he’s got a lot of unresolved anger, but the part about killing—”

  “I know. It’s just that it was all beginning to look like something, when I put it together.”

  “Darling,” said her mother, “you do have something strange going on here. If your father ever thought I might like being throttled—well. You have enough to warrant going to a marriage counselor, that’s for sure, especially if what you thought about the lingerie is true—that he sent away for it. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, you know. Do you need saving stamps for something like that?”

  Zelly smiled again into her mug.

  “But, you know, I think it’s all something much more easily explained,” her mother was saying. She had put her sewing down. “I can imagine how you might actually convince yourself of such terrible things about Pat—because the very ordinary truth is, in a way, so much more terrible. Pat’s not a monster, Zelly, he’s a man. He’s not a serial killer—but he may very well be an adulterer. And that’s a hard, hard fact to swallow.

  “Now, I want you and the baby to stay here with me tonight, and in the morning you can think about what you want to do. What you really want. You have to sit down and do some serious thinking about what’s going on in your marriage. If things are bad enough so that you start having these fantasies—you’re alone with the baby and you don’t see enough people and your mind starts running away with your brain, if you know what I mean.” Again she reached to pat Zelly’s hand. “I think Pat is having an affair, darling. That’s what all the signs point to. The question is, are you sure? And even if you are sure, are you certain you want to leave your husband?”

  “I don’t know what I want. I was sure of something this afternoon. It all seemed to make such sense. Now I—I don’t know. You must think I’m a real idiot.”

  “No, I never think you’re an idiot. I know how hard this is for you, believe me. You’re going to have to make some very hard decisions. Why don’t we see how you feel about it tomorrow?”

  “I guess I was being a little melodramatic.”

  “With the serial killer thing, yes. It’s those books you read, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about—” The phone rang. Zelly took the last sip of her hot chocolate. The phone rang again and they both knew it was Pat. They looked at each other for a moment and then they both started to laugh. “It’s the Slasher, Mama. You want me to get it?”

  “I thought it was the Hillside Strangler,” her mother said, getting up.

  “Maybe it’s the Green River Killer.”

  “Or the Boston Strangler.”

  “Or the Nightstalker.”

  “Or Ted Bundy.”

  “He’s dead,” Zelly said, and they dissolved in laughter and her mother went to answer the phone.

  28

  The message on the answering machine said, “We’re at my mother’s house. I don’t know when we’re coming home. I think we have to stay here for a couple of days. Please don’t worry. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” There were tears in his wife’s voice.

  He listened to the dead air and the click of the machine
and his wife’s voice echoed in his head. He would kill her before he would let her go. A wave of anger rose up over his consciousness, a sunrise of adrenaline and rage. He stood immobile in front of the telephone. His fingers stiffened and clenched. He reached for the receiver. He heard the noises of traffic outside the window like the roar of a seashell; when a voice answered he was surprised. He heard himself ask the old woman to speak to his wife and then he heard nothing but the seashell roaring and the rage welling up from somewhere unfathomable.

  “Pat?” Zelly’s voice was entirely unfamiliar. I can let her go and be free. I can forget her. She repeated his name. “Pat?”

  “Zelly, what’s going on?”

  “Pat. I didn’t expect you to get in in time to call tonight.”

  “Zelly, I want to know what’s going on.”

  “I—I just thought I should get away for a couple of days. Things have been—Pat, I think we have to talk.”

  “What do we have to talk about?”

  “I’ve got some things I’ve got to get sorted out in my mind.”

  “What things?” There was a long pause, and he filled it with remembered screams. What did she want? Was she leaving him? His face was hot, it burned. “Are you leaving me?”

  “Oh, Pat. No. I just—I’ve got to have some time to think. I didn’t expect you to call until tomorrow morning. I guess I just don’t know what to say. Things haven’t been—we haven’t been communicating, Pat.” You have no idea how well I communicate, with what music I play my sweet message, on what instruments.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Zel. I know I’ve been preoccupied with business—you know, being the sole provider for two lives is not an easy thing.” His voice sounded stilted in his own ears.

  “I know, I know.” You do not know what they know, now.

  “It’s just that—you’ve been gone an awful lot, and we’re still where we were six months ago. I have to borrow more money from my mother, but that’s not it, that’s not the problem, you’re just gone so much—” The lights against the eyes, bright and dark, bright and dark. Driving, the thousand uncounted hours outside of even thought.