Richard was there, kneeling in front of me, enclosing me in his arms. “Lindsey, calm down. Lindsey, I’m here. It’s going to be all right. It’s all going to be all right.” He gently took the sweaters from me—somehow they had returned to their original wholeness—and placed them back in the drawer. “You won’t need these. It’s spring. You can come back and get them some other time.”
I stared dumbly at the sweaters—so normal, so innocent, so undamaged—as they lay in the drawer. I reached out and touched the lavender one. “She’s just trying to scare me. Making me see things that aren’t really there.” I pushed the drawer closed and looked up at Richard; his eyes were full of tears. The poor guy. He thought he had another crazy lady on his hands. He had no idea how much more dangerous this actually was.
Richard gently lifted me from my knees. “Lindsey,” he said, his voice hoarse, “forget the rest. We’ve got enough. Let’s go.”
“But, but I need, I need—”
“You need to get out of here. You left some things at my place. We’ll go back there. You can make a list of what’s missing. Then I’ll come and get whatever you want.”
He touched my cheek, but his finger felt knotty and dry and strange. I grabbed his hand and saw it had turned to wood; his whole body was turning to wood! First his hands and his feet, and then the mahogany spread up his arms and his legs to his torso and on to his head. The knife sparkled in the doorway behind him.
“No!” I screamed. “No! You can’t come back here by yourself. Isabel will hurt you! She might even kill you!”
“Don’t worry, honey,” he said in a choppy wooden drawl. “I’m a big boy. I’ll be able to take care of myself.” His arms dropped from my shoulders with a slow, Tin Woodsman jerkiness.
I grabbed the lapels of his wooden jacket and felt a sliver puncture my finger. “No!” I cried. “No!”
Suddenly a row of balustrades began to grow between us. They were my balustrades, the balustrades of the stairs outside my door! They rose from the floor, forcing me to release my hold on Richard’s jacket; they hit the ceiling with a series of clunks. We were separated by mahogany bars, as if one of us were in prison—but I couldn’t tell who was on which side.
“Promise me you won’t come back here!” I screamed through the bars. “Promise me! Promise me!”
Richard looked scared between the balustrades. “All right,” he said. “All right, I promise.”
I blinked and all the wood disappeared.
A warm-blooded Richard wrapped me inside his arms. “All the boxes are on the landing.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll take the suitcase. You get your jacket.”
“I’m staying with you.” I squeezed myself closer to him.
“That’s fine with me. You stay right next to me while I zip this up. Then we’ll go together to get your jacket from the front hall.” He kept his arm around me while he closed the suitcase with one hand. Still keeping me tucked under his wing, he picked up the suitcase and we walked, side pressed into side, toward the door.
As soon as we were on the landing, I felt better. The constriction in my chest relaxed a little and I was able to take a deep breath. The air was cleaner, fresher; my sense of Isabel somewhat diminished.
“Good,” Richard said. “You’re starting to look better already. You wait here and I’ll make a couple of runs down the stairs. Babs will be around with the car in a few minutes.”
“I’m coming with you.” I was afraid to lose physical contact. Richard was my magic talisman; he would keep Isabel at bay. We walked down the stairs together, directly connected by the box or bundle of clothes that we carried. Richard was very patient.
On our third trip, Edgar stepped tentatively into the foyer. He said nothing, just watched as Richard and I dropped a pile of clothes on top of a carton. “I’m moving on Wednesday,” he said, his pale eyes jumping nervously from me to Richard to the mess on the marble floor.
“Lindsey and I have decided to try living together,” Richard said, smiling politely.
Edgar took in my wet clothes and disheveled, damp hair; he peered closely into my eyes. I stared back in silence. Whatever he saw made his face go even paler. “Might I, might I be of assistance?”
“No, thank you, Edgar,” Richard said. “We’re just about finished for now. Babs is due any moment.”
“I’ll watch for her through the front window, if you like.”
Richard told him it wasn’t necessary, that there was only one more box, but Edgar remained in the foyer. We climbed the stairs for the final time. The last carton was heavy, but as we lifted it together, I felt somehow lighter—unweighted—as if I soon would be free. I tried to smile.
Richard blew me a kiss and mouthed the words, “I love you.”
As we moved toward the edge of the landing, I glanced in the box. There, resting on top of the jumble of things I’d grabbed from the study—a Farnham JX-110-10 manual, a dictionary, some printouts, and an old photograph of my parents—was Isabel’s dark journal. I had purposely left the journal on the coffee table; I’d seen it there when we walked out the door. I stopped dead.
Richard, his back to the top step, was forced to stop too. He looked at me, his eyebrows raised over his glasses. “What?”
I stared at the familiar dark cover, at the sturdy lock I’d had to break open myself. The spot on my head pulsed with longing and love and neediness. Within the crosshatches of cracked leather, I saw her—pretty and delicate, seated at her little desk. She looked so small and sad and lonely, her tiny hand sticking out of her wide, lacy cuff. A slight breeze stirred the thin curtains before her; I thought it might pick her up and blow her away. “I can’t go, Richard,” I said softly.
“What?!”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t leave. I have to stay.”
Isabel turned and looked at me, her deep-set, brown eyes moist. She smiled a sweet, sad smile, a smile that barely showed her tiny white teeth. Then she nodded.
“Just carry the box, Lindsey.” Richard’s voice was stern. “We’ll be home soon.”
“I am home.”
“Lindsey, don’t do this. We’re almost there.”
“Richard, I can’t go. If I go, she’ll be all alone.” I looked back at the journal, but she was gone.
“Stop this right now! You’re coming with me, and you’re not to mention that woman ever again!”
I stared at him over the box’s rim. “Don’t tell me what to do! I’ll go where I choose, and I’ll stay where I choose.” I tried to grab the box from his hands.
Richard stared back and held tight. “You will not stay where you choose. You’re sick and you’re coming with me!”
I tried to yank the box from his grasp, but it wouldn’t budge. “No! I’m not sick! Leave me alone. Get out of here!” I screamed. “I want you to get out of my life! Let go of this box and let go of me!”
He pulled the carton toward him. “I won’t let go—you and the box are coming right now!”
“Fine!” I yelled. “Fine, the damn box is all yours—but I’m staying right here!” Abruptly I dropped my arms and let go of the carton.
As my hands came away empty, the spot on my head pulsed briefly with triumph and I heard a soft, faraway laugh. Then there was complete silence—an underwater silence of stillness and peace. The walls of the stairwell bowed inward. The air thickened.
Richard’s eyes turned huge with surprise and alarm; his mouth opened in a soundless scream. He teetered on the edge of the step, struggling to recapture his balance. I leaned forward to grab him. The walls bowed back out and then inward again. The air was dense and humid and full of lavender. The soft laughter grew louder and louder until it became an evil cackle inside my head.
“No!” I screamed. “Don’t!” I stretched out my arms as far as I could, but my reach wasn’t near long enough. One of his feet kicked upward, and the other came straight out at me. I grabbed for his shoe, but my fingers closed over nothing. He tumbled backwards, the carton falli
ng from his grasp. The cackle rang inside my head once again, more exhilarated and even more hateful.
“No-o-o-o-o-o!” I heard my own scream going on and on forever as Richard’s long, lanky body—the body that had held me and caressed me and folded around me—crashed to the midfloor landing. Manuals and pictures and computer printouts bounced harmlessly down the stairs. Richard’s neck snapped back and there was a dull cracking noise; his head twisted at a strange and frightening angle. His glasses flew from his face, bounced off the wall, and came to rest, broken, on top of the dark journal.
“No-o-o-o-o-o!” My scream never stopped, its shrill panic and dread only intensifying as he slid, thumping in underwater slow motion, past each of the mahogany balustrades. Finally, after an eternity of horror and shrieking and powerlessness, Richard came to a stop in a heap at the wide base of the stairs. He lay crumpled and still at Edgar’s feet.
Edgar reached out a trembling hand, then he turned and looked up at me. His face was white with horror, his eyes colorless with revulsion and fear. A harsh, thick whisper escaped his lips. “Lindsey, how could you?”
26
“Richard! Richard!” I flew down the stairs to his motionless body. Edgar stepped out of my way as I knelt and gently lifted Richard’s head; I cradled it in my lap and rocked back and forth. “I love you, I love you. Just hold on. Please, please hold on. You’re going to be fine.”
But I knew he was gone.
I raised my head and shrieked out my anger. “Isabel!” I bellowed up the stairs. “Is-a-bel!”
Edgar scurried into his apartment to call an ambulance.
Through my screams and my pleas, I heard the sirens gathering; distant, vague wails that grew and merged with flashing red and blue lights and pounding feet and harsh voices. Edgar was huddled in the corner behind the stairs, crying. Babs came through the front door on the heels of the first policeman; she stopped short, her face ashen as she took in the scene. She reached down and tried to lift me, but I wouldn’t move. I sat ranting at Isabel and rocking Richard’s lifeless body. It was a nightmare. The worst I had ever had. It took two burly medics to pry Richard from my arms.
I watched from a place high above the midfloor landing. I floated cross-legged over the chaotic scene, over the men and women, the cops and medics and reporters, the flashbulbs and megaphones, the stretchers and neck braces and sheets. They put Richard on a stretcher and covered him—covered his body—with a long white sheet. I watched myself watch, sitting stunned on the bottom stair. They tried to roll him, but then had to carry him, out the door. I sat on the bottom stair. I floated above the midfloor landing.
The police took Edgar’s statement. They took Babs’s statement. They even took Phyllis’s statement, and Phyllis didn’t even come home until well after Richard had been carried away. They kept trying to take my statement, but I couldn’t talk. I sat on the bottom stair, dumb and mute and horror-stricken. “Richard! Richard!” I silently cried. What was I going to do without my sweet Richard? How was I ever going to live with the pain?
“Ms. Kern, I know that this is a bad time, but I need you to come upstairs with us for a moment.” The detective—he said his name was Mal—looked like my grandfather.
I watched myself stand and go up the stairs with him. A young, serious-faced policewoman followed. When she walked underneath me, I read her badge: Officer Ellis, it said.
“Do you think you could do me a favor, Ms. Kern?” Mal’s smile was kind, like Poppa Norman’s.
I knew I would do whatever he wanted. “Lindsey—please call me Lindsey.” I was surprised to hear my own voice. It was so normal. As if all were as it had been. I slowly floated downward until I met my body in front of my door.
“Lindsey, I know you’ve been through a terrible shock, and I know that this is a very difficult time for you, but I really need your help.” He smiled his sympathetic smile again and patted my arm. “Do you think you’re up to helping me?”
I nodded, not at all sure but wanting to help the only person who seemed to understand what I was going through.
“Do you think you could tell me exactly what happened?”
“I, I, we, we were just, just going, just go—” I stopped, unable to think straight. “I can’t believe, I just can’t believe—”
“I know, Lindsey,” Mal said. “It’s very hard—but it’s also very important. Would you rather go inside your apartment and sit down? Have a drink of water?”
“No!”
“That’s all right. It’s all right, Lindsey. You don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to. Take a deep breath. Take it slowly. But please, Lindsey, please tell me exactly what happened here today.”
So I told him what happened. I showed him what happened. Then I told him and showed him again. By the time the lieutenant came up the stairs, I was numb and on automatic pilot, and I told him what happened too. Then there was another detective, I think, and a couple of others. I don’t know how many I told, but Mal stayed with me through all the recounting. Even through my numbness I felt a sense of amazement that I was managing to hold it together.
“Ms. Kern,” Officer Ellis said as I sat on the stair, my head in my hands. “You’ll be interested to know that your story doesn’t exactly jibe with Mr. Price’s.”
I looked up. “Mr. Price?”
“Edgar Price.” Ellis squeezed her lips into a thin line. “You know, Ms. Kern; your neighbor? The man who’s lived in the apartment below you for almost a year?”
“Edgar,” I said.
“Yes, Edgar. Edgar, the eyewitness.”
“Eyewitness?” I repeated.
“The eyewitness who says that you pushed Mr. Stoddard.”
“That’s ridiculous! I did no such thing! I love Richard.” I began to choke. “I, I loved Richard.”
“Oh? Then why were you yelling …” She paused as she searched through a small spiral notebook, turning the pages with the eraser end of a pencil. “Why were you yelling:’Leave me alone. Get out of here. Get out of my life’?”
I burst into tears. “We, we were having a fight! It, it was just a little fight over, over nothing,” I wailed. “Oh, Richard, I’m sorry, so sorry …” I grabbed hold of Mal, who let me sob into his jacket.
“That’s enough, Kris,” Mal said. “She’s had a rough day; give the kid a break.” He handed me a wad of tissues. “Try and get a hold of yourself, Lindsey,” he said. “We’re almost done here.”
But they weren’t—there were more questions and more accusations and then “just a few more” questions. But I couldn’t answer any more questions. I was too hysterical and too confused to talk.
Finally they gave up and began to leave. “Lindsey,” Mal said, “I’ve arranged it so you don’t have to come down to the station tonight, but we’re going to need you to come down first thing in the morning.”
I nodded, still crying, but more softly now.
“And I need you to promise me that you’ll stay right here in your apartment, that you won’t go anywhere.”
“No! No, I’m, I’m not staying here, I can’t stay here! I won’t! I won’t!” I could hear the hysteria in my voice.
“Well, Lindsey, that poses a problem,” he said calmly. “There’s still a lot of questions that need to be answered, and we need to know where you are at all times.”
“I’ll go to a hotel. You can lock me in a room. Post a guard all night. I don’t care. Just please don’t make me stay here by myself!”
Mal scratched his head. “I suppose that would be okay. I’ll get someone to take you over there. Do you need anything? Do you want to go inside and get a couple of things?”
“No! No, I’m just fine.” I hiccuped. “Let’s go.” I was exhausted, and all of my muscles ached. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I noticed the suitcase I’d packed earlier. “Can, can I take this? It’s just my clothes and stuff.”
Mal hesitated. “We really should leave everything as it is …” He unzipped the suitcase. The suitca
se Richard had zipped just a few hours ago. He checked the contents. “Don’t think there’s any real evidence—hey, Mickey!” he called to a policeman measuring the hallway. “Come check this out—make sure there’s nothing we need in here, and bring it out to Ms. Kern.” He steered me out the door.
When we got outside, he called over two grumpy-looking policemen who were standing on the sidewalk. He told them to take me to the Hilton, then asked if I would excuse them for a moment. Mickey joined them; the four men whispered together and then walked toward me.
“Hank and Joe’ll take good care of you, Lindsey,” Mal said as Mickey handed Hank the suitcase. “Someone will be around for you first thing in the morning.” Mal waved and got into a squad car.
Hank and Joe, looking even grumpier than before, stepped to either side of me and led me down Beacon Street. When we got to the hotel, they took me to my room and inspected it; they kept muttering and walking around in circles, obviously convinced I would find a way to escape—even though there was only one door and a window that was sealed shut. I promised them I would go nowhere. They stared at me in silence, and each checked the window one more time. Then they grudgingly left me alone.
I sat down in an uncomfortable chair and stared around at the bad art and green-and-purple-swirled bedspreads. The tiny violet flowers on the wallpaper assumed three dimensions and seemed to pulse toward me. I flattened myself in the chair and stifled a scream. The flowers retreated.
Richard was dead. No, no, it couldn’t be true. It hurt too much to be true. I threw my head back and closed my eyes. This was all a bad dream. When I woke up, Richard would be here. He’d hold me and soothe me and tell me I was safe. Not to worry. He was here. It was only a nightmare.
I pressed my eyes tighter. I was asleep in Richard’s bed, his warm body next to mine. If I just reached my toe to the left, I’d feel his smooth foot. If I just pressed my back toward him, he’d wrap me within his warm arms. He’d murmur my name. I could smell his sleepy, male smell. I could feel the sheet and the weight of the blanket on my arms.
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