Unmarked Man

by Darlene Scalera

  “I’ll try.”

  “Are you at the bar now?”

  “No, it was slow so I knocked off early. Manny said he’d close.”

  “Is Eddie at the bar?”

  “He was in earlier for a little while, but like I said, it was slow. He left about the same time I did. Said he was going to go home, have a few cold ones, watch the Mets game.”

  As if he didn’t have a care in the world. Why would he? If Louisa “disappeared,” his problems were solved. He got his freedom, his business, the house, and his mistress. She clenched the steering wheel.

  “Pauline, thank you again for calling me.”

  “Your mama was a good woman.”

  Is a good woman, Cissy silently corrected. “I’ll make sure no one knows where this info came from.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “And if you think of anything else, I’d be grateful if you gave me a call.”

  She said goodbye, disconnected and furtively slid the phone down and into her handbag. She’d suspected Eddie from the start. Finally she had a motive. Now she needed evidence. Solid evidence that wouldn’t be dismissed as circumstantial by the police. And what about her sister? And the murders of the other men?

  Watching Nick in the mirror, she grabbed her phone, speed-dialed Eddie’s number, again tucking the phone against her left ear where it couldn’t be seen. She didn’t even know what she was going to say. The answering machine picked up. A new message played in Eddie’s voice. Her mother’s voice had been erased. Cissy’s hands trembled.

  They were almost at the restaurant. She blinked fast, banishing any tears, and pressed down on the accelerator. She pulled into the outer lane, passing a car. Nick stayed tight on her fender. The light turned red at the intersection, forcing her to stop. A glance showed her Nick’s pissed-off countenance.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” The light still red, she pounced on the gas, swerving the car left into the oncoming traffic. She barely avoided being broadsided by an oncoming taxi and a Volvo in the opposite double lanes. She saw the cab driver’s mouth working, knew whatever imaginative epithets he aimed at her, they didn’t compare to the names Nick was calling her now.

  She heard the siren that would stop the other cars to give Nick the right of way. She had only a few seconds’ head start. Tires squealing, she made another turn and another, slowing down only enough to avoid losing control on the corners. She gritted her teeth. “I hate driving. I hate driving.”

  But when she glanced in the mirror, she didn’t see Nick. So far, she’d lost him. She took another turn toward the arterial when she realized Nick had probably already alerted his patrol buddies. She’d be stopped before she got to the interstate’s on-ramp. She turned toward the longer but less traveled—and hopefully less patrolled—river road. After ten minutes and no sign of Nick, she called him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on dinner. Something came up.” She pulled the phone away from her ear in anticipation of his response. All she heard was a curious silence. That was worse. She put the phone back to her ear. “Nick?”

  “You’re not supposed to talk on a cell phone while driving a vehicle.” He was mining for information.

  “That’s only if the vehicle is moving, right?” Two could play this game. “Listen, I’ll explain everything later when I get home.” Home? “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.” And she was beginning to get used to it. She disconnected and turned the phone off.

  Her mother and stepfather’s house was dark when she pulled up, the surrounding woods equally shadowed and thick. “A nice, quiet spot,” her mother had told her. Another time Cissy would have appreciated the solitude but tonight the isolation held no comfort. The sun had set but the darkness wasn’t deep yet, the world a gray-black. An uneasy time, ripe for images sooner forgotten. The hour when fears gathered their strength, readied to spin out long and hard and wrap around the unwary.

  Despite what Pauline had said, Eddie’s Mercury wasn’t in the drive. Cissy didn’t know if she was glad or disappointed. She’d sped out of the city in the mood to confront, the frustration of inaction and lack of progress spurring her on. The car’s high speeds had helped to release some anxiety and promote the return of rational thought. She now realized she had no idea what she had hoped to accomplish by racing out here. She studied the house. No signs of life. She should go back, but to what? She had an image of Nick waiting with the handcuffs, and not for the purpose of fulfilling her fantasies. She pulled off the private road, concealing the car in a stand of trees on the outer edge of the property. She turned off the engine, studied the house. She shoved her purse out of sight under the seat, got out and locked the car. Hell, she never could say no to a dare.

  She figured the front door would be locked but checked its handle, new and shiny, anyway. She went around to the back. It was unlocked. Country living.

  She knocked as she opened the door on the chance someone was in the house. “Hello? Eddie?”

  It was quiet, too quiet. She squinted hard, making the shadows into shapes. The walls were bare studs, wires hanging, the room, like the rest of the house, in a state of renovation. She pulled out the cupboard drawers, looking for the junk drawer her mother always kept. She found it, second drawer from the bottom in the cupboard next to the refrigerator. She rummaged through it until she found the flashlight her mother always kept there. As a child, Cissy had always kept one under her bed, too. Nights when Eddie had come home unable to get his key in the door’s lock, and the arguing had started and the yelling became too loud, Jo Jo would sneak into Cissy’s bed. They would burrow under the covers, Cissy would turn on the light and pretend they were in a tent camping somewhere far away. She’d tell her little sister stories, sing her soft songs.

  She clicked the flashlight on, swept it across the room, not knowing where to start, looking for something, anything that could link Eddie to her mother and sister’s disappearance. The supposedly stolen gun would be a definite bonus.

  She crossed the room, staying close to the studs and the new Formica countertop. The kitchen led into where a wall had been knocked out to form one large open space with the living room. A wide-screen TV dominated one wall, a sectional with a recliner at either end curved around the adjoining room.

  “Eddie?” Cissy called out now just to crack the quiet. Her voice sounded as small as it had been those nights under the bedcovers.

  The rooms circled back into the kitchen, the stairs to the second floor in-between. She had her foot on the first step when she spied the door to the cellar.

  Too cliché. But since when was Eddie a genius? She pulled open the cellar door. The light switch was near the door but she didn’t click it on. Too risky. She went halfway down the stairs, swept the light into the room. The basement had the stone walls and dirt floor and low ceiling found in eighteenth-century houses. She went down another two steps, moving the light into corners, up walls. She didn’t know what she was looking for. She couldn’t even think the word “body” yet.

  She went all the way down the stairs. The light swept the room, sent the insects skittering. The damp scent and musky air gave the room an unholy feeling.

  She walked the floor, patting the dirt with her toes, looking for recently turned soil. She poked the light into some boxes stacked on a metal shelf, old luggage shoved in a corner. On a wooden counter, cords and hoses were jumbled. Splattered paint cans sat on the floor underneath. A narrow doorway led to a small space for the furnace. Except for the usual basement disarray, nothing looked out of the ordinary. She started toward the stairs and the rest of the house waiting to be searched.

  Scurrying sounds near her feet caused her to stop. She snapped the light to the floor in front of her. Supersleuthing or not, no way was she stepping on the soft, furry middle of a fat rat. The light shone a small circle on the dirt floor. Nothing. She flashed the light across the floor. Nothing but dam
p dirt and a smell like a high school boys’ locker room. She swung the light’s beam like a saber as she continued across the floor and up the stairs. She was almost to the cellar door when she heard a click, another door swing open. She stopped. Her heart slammed into her chest. Someone had come home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She pressed hard on the flashlight’s switch, pushed slowly to prevent a click. Darkness now. Blind, she pressed herself to the wall, the stair rail cutting across her lower back. The house was old, settled. The cellar door had swung closed, except for the latch hitting the frame. She stretched out her arm toward the door handle, grasped it when the kitchen light came on. Her hand shot back as if burnt. She froze, stared desperately at the door, listened to the sounds so near in the kitchen. Afraid the ajar door would be noticed and she discovered, she crept down the stairs, the end of her big toe tapping silently like a divining wand, finding the surface of each step. She winced each time a step protested.

  “Eddie?”

  A woman’s voice called as Cissy had done. Only this voice was playful, promising.

  “Eddie? What’d you do? Go to bed already? I told you I’d only be an hour or so.”

  Pauline had been right. There was another woman. The floor above Cissy creaked. She tiptoed down the last steps toward dark corners. She heard cupboard doors opening, closing. That is my mother’s kitchen, she thought with a strange sense of crazy. Get out, harlot. Harlot? She’d never anticipated having opportunity to use that one. If it wasn’t for her current predicament, she would have laughed. A hysterical laugh.

  The harlot was humming. Sounds above Cissy’s head told her the woman was moving into the large living room. The television came on. Cissy had to get out. She glanced up at the door, outlined by the kitchen light left on. Her big toe tapped against the dirt floor.

  Steps above her head returned to the kitchen. Cissy heard the clatter of dishes being put into the sink. Her mother had talked about the new porcelain sinks in so many different colors but in the end, she’d chosen stainless steel because of the price. Always practical, her mother. Except when it came to men.

  The light around the door dimmed. A fainter light, probably the small bulb in the new stove hood that matched the appliances, had replaced overhead lights. A perfect night-light so someone who might want a snack or to sneak out of the house wouldn’t hurt themselves. Quite considerate, actually.

  Footsteps headed back to the front room. The television stayed on. It was only a short sprint from the cellar door to the back one. She could creep up the steps, tiptoe across the kitchen, out the back door. The television would cover any noises. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the new darkness, started toward the steps, her hands stretched out in front of her, feeling her way.

  She was on the second stair from the top when footsteps came into the kitchen. She stopped, paralyzed. The footsteps crossed the kitchen, came down the hall, past the cellar door. Light swelled along the door’s outline again, then vanished as another door closed. Cissy stood, motionless. A toilet flushed. The water ran in the pipes past her, imitating the blood rushing in her head. A door opened, footsteps heading back to the kitchen. A hand automatically pulling on the ajar cellar door as it passed. The door shut tight.

  Don’t lock it. Don’t lock it. Cissy prayed, shamelessly reverting to childhood beliefs. A hesitation. The woman on the other side of the door surely heard Cissy’s heart banging in her chest. The bolt slid along the door’s top. Cissy could almost hear the gods laughing. The footsteps moved away, not that it mattered anymore. Cissy stood for minutes, staring, the fine muscles that controlled her bladder clenched in spasm. She grasped the door handle, squeezed her face into a hard walnut. Bracing her arm, she pressed down on the door handle to be sure. She held her breath, pushed. No movement. She was locked in Fat Eddie’s cellar.

  No more soft glow around the door now. Only darkness. The smell of damp dirt; the heavy humidity hoping to make stone sweat. Above, the sounds of the television. She clicked the flashlight on boldly now, sliced its beam around her current cell. As she started down the steps, the flashlight’s beam grew dim. She shut the light off, waited until her eyes adjusted before going farther. At the bottom of the steps, she switched the flashlight on long enough to look for the least cobwebbed corner. None of the areas she scanned seemed to be in the running. The light wavered. She turned it off, stepped toward the metal shelves, switched the flashlight on as she poked among the gathered odds and ends, hoping for batteries.

  The light sputtered. She turned it off, could do no more than grope blindly. Her hand touched something unidentifiable except for the term “gross.” She jumped, swallowed the yelp that almost sounded and decided then and there, she was as lousy a detective as she had been a stockbroker. She snapped on the dim light to see the cause of her distress was only a crusted chamois.

  The light flickered, wasn’t going to last much longer. She searched the shelves, hoping to find batteries or another flashlight. The light sputtered, then died. She clicked it off and on in a panic. Nothing.

  She felt her way back to the staircase, brushed off the bottom step with her hand and plopped down. She listened for skittering sounds and was rewarded. She drew her legs to her chest, wrapped her arms around her calves and banged her forehead against her knees. She couldn’t stay locked in this cellar all night. There had to be a way out.

  She waited, hoping the flashlight, if left off, would charge, give light. After several seconds of nothing more than the sounds of television and the night noises old houses make that give rise to ghost stories, she clicked the flashlight. Nothing. Well, she couldn’t just sit there. She stood and, using her hands and what night vision was possible in the complete darkness, she felt her way along the wall, the hard perimeter making her escape impossible until suddenly it yielded. Cissy stretched her arms, waved her hands but felt only air. She walked into the darkness, slammed into what felt like a metal wall. She felt the barrier, realized she was only in the narrow space off the cellar’s main room that stored the furnace. She followed the metal shape, finding nothing but a stone wall on the other side. She used it to circle back to the main room when it ended. Stretching her arms, she felt only air. She stepped forward and yelped as she stubbed her toe on something hard and solid. She clamped her hand over her mouth, listened keenly for sounds upstairs signaling she had been heard. The television droned on but had been joined by the sweetest sound Cissy thought she’d ever heard. The nasal ripple of snores.

  She bent down, her hands reaching to find what had stopped her. She felt a narrow, raised rough surface. A step. Her hands flew across it to find another and another above that. She climbed the first step, the next. On the third step, her head thudded on something hard above. Her hands flew up, found the smooth surface of metal slanting down. Midway along its length her fingers stopped, clutched a latch. She smiled. An outside access door.

  She stiffened her arm, pulled the latch down so not to make a sound. The click came, deafening to her ears. Holding her breath, she pushed on the door with a tight resistance to prevent squeaks. The slightest scrape and she stopped, hoping the sound would be attributed to the house settling.

  Halfway up, the door protested with a whine rivaling that of a fourteen-year-old girl. Cissy didn’t care. She’d seen the sky above. She pushed and climbed the five steps to freedom. At the top, she lowered the door with the same care she’d used to open it and stood triumphant, one foot splayed on the angled door, hands on hips, as if she’d just discovered new territory. She headed toward the lawn’s edge and her car when she stopped short. Something at the property’s perimeter, where the woods began, moved. She stood still and exposed in the backyard and stared into the night. New sweat thickened on her upper lip. Out in the darkness, she stared into the shine of eyes.

  Fear clutched her. Her mother gone. Her sister missing. Three men with bullet holes in their bodies. Was it her turn? She stared into the night, thinking of her mother and her sister and steak
saltimbocca and Nick. Two glassy orbs reflected moonlight and calm. Patience. A killer with his weapon of choice and the solitude of land and night had no reason to hurry. He could wait, savor the moment, enjoy the wondrous swell of excitement like a first erection. While the voices babbled inside his mind, grew louder, stronger, silenced only by a shot, a slice, a strangulation.

  And she, center stage, not knowing if she should run or stay still—either way it seemed her fate would follow the others. Which would displease the monster more? That she would not flee but come toward him as if to embrace, of course. She stepped toward the trees.

  The leaves rustled. A deer stepped into the clearing, stared at her. The deer who came out of the woods, ate out of her mother’s palm. The animal stared at her unblinking, this woman so overrun with relief, her body weaved in the windless night. He took a step.

  She stared into those reflective, questioning eyes. “I know, buddy,” she said too softly for the deer to hear. “I’m looking for her, too.” Cissy’s throat felt like it was closing, the clutch of breath before tears.

  The deer blinked several times, circled toward the woods, looked back once as if to see if Cissy was following him. Those woods, too, held secrets. The deer disappeared between the trees. Too many secrets, unanswered questions. Cissy took a step, but no more. She would come back another time, in the day’s heavy heat and hard light. Now she would go to her car. Her body was weary and wanting to sit, sleep. She thought of Nick’s skin, his scent, his strength. She suddenly had no more strength. She stood, not sure if she could move beyond this day, this night. She took a step.

  A woman’s scream split the darkness. Sanity shattered.

  The wail came and came, crying out as if the night had read Cissy’s thoughts and sounded in sympathy. She whirled to the scream’s direction. The house. A light upstairs. In the window was a woman, her head fallen back as if too heavy to hold up, her mouth open in a spiraling howl so primal, Cissy almost envied her release. She froze, fighting the compulsion to join in as a dog hears the howl of another and responds. Raise her face to the moon and let loose for what was no more and what never could be. She was running to the house now, stumbling up the steps, crashing through the back door, toward that one light, that noise, that noise, not knowing what she would find, what she would do. Only knowing she had to stop the scream.