Spackled and Spooked

by Jennie Bentley

  “I’ll drink to that,” Derek said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tink.” He hung up.

  ***

  You’d think that with everything that had happened that day, I’d be so exhausted that I’d drop off to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Not so. Crawling into the warm softness of pillows and comforter was wonderful, but after my tense muscles had relaxed, my mind was still buzzing. Footsteps and disembodied screams, bones and buttons danced in my head. Also making appearances were the people I’d talked to that day: the Becklea neighbors, Denise and little Trevor, Irina and Linda, Arthur Mattson and Stella the shih tzu. Lionel Kenefick and Venetia Rudolph. Shannon and Josh, Paige and Brandon Thomas. Mr. Nickerson and his teak dresser. Melissa, playing on my insecurities and my history of picking all the wrong guys to sow doubts in my mind about Derek.

  Eventually I drifted off, into weird dreams and night-mares. I was at the prom, looking for my date. But when I found him-Derek, dressed in a powder blue tux with a ruffled shirt-he had Melissa on his arm looking stunning in a slinky, white gown dripping with crystals or rhinestones or something. Other vaguely familiar faces danced by: John Nickerson and Peggy Murphy, the latter looking insubstantial and wraithlike, ghostly. Venetia Rudolph, hideous in a plus-sized copy of Scarlett O’Hara’s green dress, stomping on Lionel Kenefick’s toes. Denise, with Trevor still on her arm. Arthur Mattson squiring the regal Irina; the top of his head barely reaching the tip of her nose. Paige Thompson fragile in Brandon Thomas’s brawny arms. Ricky Swanson looking pale and clammy over in a corner, surrounded by the ghosts of dead Murphys.

  In addition to the ghosts, there was also a skeleton at the feast. At first I thought it was Melissa, held tenderly in Derek’s arms, but when the rhythm of the music spun them around, I saw the grinning skull under the flowing hair, and the brittle bones rising out of the neckline of the low-cut, green dress.

  Ask any dream interpreter, and they’ll tell you that dreams have meaning. Dreams are your subconscious’s way of telling you things you may not be aware of or that you choose to ignore. In the current case, I wasn’t entirely sure what my subconscious was trying to tell me, other than that I disliked Melissa James and wanted her dead. Figuratively speaking, of course. Although I probably wouldn’t mourn too long or hard if I left the house tomorrow and found out that Melissa had had a fatal accident overnight-driven her sleek, cream-colored Mercedes off the coast road and into the frigid waters of the Atlantic, for instance. Naturally I didn’t wish for it to happen-that would be unkind-but if it did, it wouldn’t break my heart, any more than my own untimely demise would break Melissa’s.

  ***

  Between one thing and the other I didn’t sleep well until I finally found some peace in the wee hours of the morning. The result was that I overslept; by the time I woke up, the sun was slanting through the curtains and the birds weren’t just singing, they were carrying on an unholy racket in the trees and bushes outside my window. I dragged myself into the bathroom and stood under the needle-sharp spray of the shower until I felt prepared to face the day. Thank God for Derek; when I first moved in, there had been no shower in Aunt Inga’s house, just an old, footed bathtub, and for most of the summer, I’d had to be content with soaking my troubles away. It just wasn’t the same.

  Feeling better, I dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt of my own design, with a pattern of stylized black and white poodles against a pink background-my take on the traditional 1950s poodle skirts. Derek had said the truck would still be where I parked it yesterday, in the lot behind his apartment, so after eating a bowl of cereal and a banana, I headed down the hill again.

  The truck was right where Derek had said it would be, and when I fished under the mat, there was the key, as well. The engine turned right over, and a minute later I was navigating my way down Main Street toward the inland road.

  Waterfield sits right on the water, although not right on the ocean. Unlike the coast from New Jersey down to Florida, with its miles upon miles of sandy beaches, the New England coast is rocky and craggy, full of small islands, coves, and inlets. Waterfield is situated at the end of one of the latter, a sort of natural harbor surrounded by rocks and sheer drops. There are three main roads heading out of town. The Atlantic Highway runs northeast, up along the coast toward Wiscasset, Thomaston, and, ultimately, Rockland and Belfast. To the west, that same road eventually merges with I-295 toward Portland. That was the way to Barnham College and the house on Becklea. In addition, there’s also another, smaller road heading pretty much due north from downtown, past Augusta, until it peters out somewhere in the wilds of Canada. I’d never been up that way, and had no plans to go now. Instead I turned the nose of the truck due west, and stepped on the gas.

  Living in Manhattan doesn’t give a person a whole lot of opportunity to practice one’s driving skills, what with the ready availability of subways, buses, and cabs. The cabbies are disinclined to share the wheel with their passengers, and my ex-boyfriend Philippe had been almost equally disinclined to lend me his beloved Porsche for practicing purposes. I knew how to drive, but I wouldn’t call myself a seasoned, or even particularly comfortable, driver. For the first few minutes of the drive, both yesterday and today, I kept a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and my eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. Once I left the more congested downtown area and turned west, away from the sun and ocean, I felt a little more comfortable: enough to relax until my back actually connected with the seat behind me.

  It’s not a long drive out to Becklea. Derek had made it in ten minutes flat the other night, when we realized we’d forgotten the cats, and Brandon had probably matched that record yesterday morning, after he heard about the bones. Mostly, the road is a wide two-lane highway, the speed limit around forty once the major construction of the downtown area is left behind. I was moving along at a good clip, feeling more and more comfortable with every mile that passed. The radio was tuned to a local station, and I was singing along with Bruce Springsteen as I crested the hill above Devon Highlands.

  The road dips right there; not much-no more than a three or four percent incline, maybe-but enough that I got uncomfortable with the way the heavy truck was picking up speed and felt a need to slow down. There was a big ditch off to my right, between the road and the construction zone, and down at the bottom of the hill, the road turned, just beyond the entrance to the new subdivision. Directly in front of me were the impressive brick gates I had noted the other day, beside the so-much-more-than-life-sized billboard of Melissa’s smiling face. Coming up the hill in the other lane was a yellow school bus. And when I stepped on the brakes, they didn’t respond.

  11

  It was a terrifying moment, pushing the brake pedal all the way to the floor of the truck and getting no response. If anything, the car went faster; picking up speed as it accelerated down the hill.

  I had maybe a second to decide what to do, and that’s not much time. If I continued straight ahead, I wasn’t certain I’d be able to make the turn at the gates. The truck was a monster, and if something was wrong with the brakes, the power steering might be kaput, too. There was a chance, a good chance, that I’d get to the bottom of the hill and smash straight into those impressively laid bricks. If I did, I might survive, but it was by no means a sure thing. The truck had airbags, yes, but I doubted they were tested for a frontal collision with approximately a ton of bricks and mortar at high speed. There was also the chance that I’d lose control of the car before I reached the bottom of the hill, and careen over into the other lane and hit the school bus. That would be even worse. The third option was to get off the road now, before anything bad could happen. Or anything too bad. (Option four, which was to open the door and jump out into the middle of the road, I discarded. If the fall didn’t kill me, the school bus would.) So I did the only thing I could think of and started looking for a likely spot to turn the car off the road. Somewhere where the ditch wasn’t as deep as it was in other places. Somewhere where I might actual
ly survive the accident I caused.

  Fleetingly, Derek crossed my mind. Not because my life was flashing in front of my eyes-I was too busy keeping my eyes peeled to see anything but the ditch to my right-but because we’d discussed my driving the truck only yesterday. I could hear his voice saying, “It’s just a truck.” And then I could hear him say, “If you drive it off the road, you’ll have to walk here from Waterfield every morning.”

  Dammit, I thought as I wrenched the wheel to the right with all the strength I could muster, here we go; if I survive this, I’ll have to hitchhike from now on!

  The tires bumped over the gravel shoulder, then the truck dipped, nose first, into the ditch. The impact was horrific: from sixty to a dead stop in a matter of a second. The front end of the truck buried itself in loose dirt and mud. I fell forward with a shriek, held up by the seat belt stretched across my chest.

  Blessed silence fell, mingled with my own painful breaths. After a few seconds, I fumbled the key around in the ignition and shut the engine off.

  Behind me on the road, I heard the sound of squealing brakes and then rapid footsteps thudding across the blacktop. A round face, eyes enormous and mouth open in a horrified circle, appeared in my window.

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Are you OK? Oh, my God!”

  It was the school bus driver, a middle-aged woman in jeans and a red sweatshirt, her brown hair standing out around her pale face. She wrenched at my door, yanking it open. I cleared my throat, painfully.

  “I think so. Thanks.”

  “And your airbag didn’t even go off!” She reached for the latch to unhook the seat belt that held me suspended but seemed to rethink. “Looks like there are some people coming from the construction site. If you can wait a minute until they get here, we’ll get you out. That way you won’t fall forward when I release the belt. You sure you’re OK? Nothing broken?”

  I shook my head. My neck protested. Loudly. Whip-lash, probably. “I don’t think so. I can move my legs and my arms, and nothing hurts too badly. Everything seems to work.”

  While I was talking, my mind was skittering around what she’d just said. No, the airbag hadn’t deployed. It should have. So not only had the brakes malfunctioned, but the airbag, too.

  After a minute, one that felt a whole lot longer than sixty seconds, a handful of workers from the construction site hoofed it up to us, out of breath and wide-eyed. With their help, my Good Samaritan was able to get me out of the car and onto the shoulder of the road, where I sat breathing in great gulps of air and shivering from delayed reaction. My neck and head hurt like hell, and I’d probably have severe bruising across my shoulder and chest, all the way down to my hip, where the seat belt had practically cut me in half. Thank God for it, though; if I’d hit the windshield at sixty miles per hour, I’d be dead at worst, and at best, I’d have a broken nose and possibly a lot of scarring, if the window had broken and cut me.

  A truck pulled up on the shoulder behind me, one of the black Stenham Construction vehicles, and someone got out and ran toward me, high-heeled shoes clicking. I squinted into the sun. Blonde, elegant, lovely…

  “Avery!” She squatted in front of me.

  “Hi, Melissa,” I managed between chattering teeth. Beyond her, I could see one of my cousins-probably Ray-getting out of the driver’s side of the truck, more slowly. Raymond and Randall are identical twins, and I don’t know them well enough to tell them apart, but since this guy was with Melissa, he was most likely her boyfriend-Ray.

  “Were you alone?” Melissa asked, redirecting my attention to herself again. “Was Derek in the car with you?”

  “It was just me. He’s at the house already.” And boy was he going to be pissed when he heard what had happened to his truck! I should call him-he needed to know what had happened-he had a right to know what had happened, to me and his truck-but I could just imagine his reaction…

  “Do you need to go to the emergency room? See Ben?”

  Her use of Derek’s father’s first name was a little jarring, but of course he’d been her father-in-law for five years; I guess I couldn’t really blame her. Calling him Doctor Ellis after being his daughter-in-law would have been even weirder. It didn’t keep me from feeling just a little put out, though.

  “I just want to see Derek,” I said. “He’ll be able to tell me if I need x-rays or bandaging.”

  Melissa nodded, her shining cap of pale hair swinging. “I’ll drive you. One of the guys will get a chain and pull the truck out. Everyone’s cars are getting stuck in the dirt around here; they’re used to it. Ray…” She turned to her boyfriend, who nodded.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It can’t be driven, though. The brakes don’t work.”

  A couple of the other men arched their brows at this and came a little closer, listening. I noticed Lionel Kenefick’s freckled face among them. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the car, so I didn’t go out of my way to say hello to him.

  “What happened?” Ray asked. I shrugged, grimacing at the resultant pain.

  “No idea.” I’d used the brakes earlier, on my way through town, stopping at red lights and slowing down to let pedestrians cross in front of me. They’d been fine then. A little slow to respond, maybe, but not so much that I’d worried that something was wrong. It wasn’t until I’d gotten out of town and had put on some speed that they’d malfunctioned. If I were the suspicious sort, I’d worry about that.

  “We can have it towed somewhere,” Melissa suggested. I nodded.

  “That might be best. Although I’m not sure…”

  “Derek uses the auto shop on Broad Street,” Melissa said helpfully. “The owner is an old friend from high school.”

  Ray and I shared an unwanted moment of kinship as our eyes met, both of us equally unhappy with Melissa’s ready knowledge of the details of Derek’s life.

  “I guess you’d know,” I said after a second. Melissa looked stricken.

  “Oh, Avery, I didn’t mean…!”

  “Of course not.” My voice was as lacking in sincerity as hers had been. I got to my feet, slowly. “If it’s not out of your way, I’d appreciate a ride out to Becklea. It’s just down the road apiece, and then right.”

  Nothing more was said as I made my way over to the Stenham Construction truck parked on the shoulder of the road and climbed in. Melissa and Ray conferred for a minute, their conversation too low for me to hear, before Melissa put her hand on Ray’s muscular arm for a moment and then came toward me. He pulled out his phone.

  “Ray will take care of having the car towed to Cortino’s on Broad,” she said, when she had cranked the engine over and the truck was rolling down the hill-at a much more sedate clip than I’d been going just a few minutes ago.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. He’s calling Derek, too. I’m sure you’re not looking forward to that.”

  I grimaced. Couldn’t deny that, unfortunately. And damn her for realizing it.

  “You know, Avery,” she glanced over at me, her eyes a vivid violet under mascaraed lashes, “I’m happy that you and Derek have found each other.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, not bothering to sound like I meant it.

  She smiled. “I don’t blame you for disliking me. After all, Derek and I were married for a long time. And he was quite depressed after we broke up, poor baby. Didn’t go on another date for years.”

  I opened my mouth to say that Derek and Kate had dated for a while not too long after Melissa had dumped him, and she added, “Oh, I know he and Kate went out a few times, but really… Derek and Kate?”

  She rolled those expressive eyes.

  “I think they’re kind of cute,” I said, a little defensively. They were usually squabbling like children, so the word seemed appropriate.

  “Yes,” Melissa said, “well… exactly.”

  I shrugged and grimaced.

  “My point,” Melissa said with rather strained patience, obviously determined to make it, whether I wanted to hear
it or not, “is that I’m happy for you. He’s a sweet guy. You’re lucky.”

  It sounded more like she was saying that I was lucky he’d chosen me. Which I was, although I rather resented the implication that he’d had to stoop to find me.

  “Thank you,” was all I said, however.

  “How are things going?” Melissa glanced over at me as she turned the truck off the highway and onto Primrose.

  “With Derek? Fine, thank you.”

  “Does he still spend all night tinkering with his toys instead of coming to bed?” She smiled reminiscently but not without another quick look at me from under her lashes to gauge my reaction. I kept my face immobile, or as immobile as I could manage.

  “No idea. We don’t live together.”

  “Ah.” It was all she said, but it spoke volumes. I felt myself flush, and forced it back, biting my lip hard. Dammit, I was not going to let this conniving witch get to me.

  We pulled onto Becklea after another minute, and I peered out the windshield at all the excitement as we neared the end of the cul-de-sac. The crowd was even bigger today than yesterday, and I saw several of the same faces, including those belonging to my neighbors. Minus Lionel Kenefick, of course, who was at work down at Devon Highlands. And minus Venetia Rudolph, who was probably keeping an eye on things through her curtains, just like yesterday.

  The same two police cruisers were back again today, along with a paler blue state police vehicle. K-9 was written on the back in white letters, and in the distance, back at the tree line on the far left side of the house, I could see a blue-clad trooper and his canine companion sniffing along the property line. From this distance, the dog looked like a beautiful specimen of German shepherd, and Stella the shih tzu was straining at her leash to be allowed to go back there and make friends. Arthur Mattson, yet again deep in conversation with Irina and Denise, kept swaying sideways with her frantic pulls.