by Ronald Malfi
“Are you certain?”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, dejected.
“I said it?”
“You said it in your sleep. Mendes heard you. He said he spoke to you about it.”
“Hmmm. What does it mean?” she asked him.
He just shook his head and rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know, Nellie.” He sighed. “Just wanted to pay you a visit, you know? See how my favorite lady is doing.”
“Favorite lady,” the old woman mused, beginning to grin. Then the grin faded, and her eyes again locked with the window across the room. The rain was coming down heavy now and Josh was quite sure that Nellie was right, that it would turn to snow before the day was through. “Kelly…” she said, hardly audible.
“Kelly? Is that what you’d been saying? Were you dreaming about Kelly?”
A veil of confusion fell across the old woman’s face. Her wrinkled, pale brow creased together while her eyes became even more distant. She worked at her crooked lower lip with her yellowed upper teeth, as if deep in concentration.
She said, “I remember Kelly telling me something…something about a hurt animal, a boy and a hurt animal…some story, Josh. I don’t…I can’t even remember it all now. I’m sorry. My head hurts.”
“When did she tell you this story?”
“I can’t remember. Maybe back at the apartment. Could I have some water? There’s a pitcher and a glass there behind you.”
“Sure.” He poured her some water and handed it over to her. She took it with her one good hand and, shakily, brought it to her quivering lips. She sipped it like a perfect lady.
“Better,” she sighed when she’d drank all she could.
“Have you told the doctor about those?”
“The headaches?”
“You’ve been having them for a while now, right?”
She turned away from him as much as her uncooperative body would allow. “Off and on, on and off. Nothing unusual in that. I’m an old lady, Joshua, dear.”
He leaned over the bed and adjusted the bedclothes over her shoulders. “Just get some rest, all right? I’ll hop in to check on you before they let you out of this prison, okay?”
“Don’t trouble yourself, dear. It was nice this once.”
“No trouble,” he said truthfully. “I’d like to.”
“Well,” she said, trying to smile again, “in that case, see if you can sneak me in some coffee, will you? What a lousy damned hospital this is, doesn’t even serve coffee.”
Grinning, Josh stood and slid the folding chair back into the corner of the room. “I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.
Chapter Eight
She awoke very late, and still exhausted. Upon opening her eyes, she found herself staring at the underside of the sheer pink canopy and all in one great tidal wave, she remembered where she was: home.
She showered quickly, dressed, and slipped into the upstairs hallway as silent as a sigh. Passing Becky’s closed bedroom door, she reached out and jiggled the doorknob. Locked.
What the hell is that all about, anyway?
Downstairs, Glenda had prepared her a full course meal: eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, English muffins, cornbread, a variety of peeled fruits, a pitcher of crisp milk beside a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice. Centered on the table in a beautiful ornate vase was a bouquet of cream-colored peonies. She sat down readily and ate by herself, the house silent and brooding all around her. How much of this place did she remember, exactly? Sure, there were bits and pieces of childhood memories—Halloweens and Christmases, Thanksgivings and even birthdays—but none of those memories seemed to be connected to anything, just free-floating and incorporeal, ghosts at the window. And then there were what could only be called “snippets”—those bodiless images surfacing in her head, of faces hardly remembered, of a certain pair of patent leather shoes with brass buckles, of chasing squirrels and rabbits through the wooded hills behind the house.
And the almost forgotten words to a child’s song:
Little Baby Roundabout,
Someone let the Baby out,
And now, sweet Babe, it’s time for bed,
So close your eyes and rest your head.
“Shit,” she muttered, grinning softly to herself.
“Well,” said a woman’s voice behind her.
Startled, Kelly swung her head around and saw her mother standing in the kitchen doorway. A tall, thin, pointed woman, Marlene Kellow stood with her bony arms at her hips and her face occupied with an unreadable expression. Her nearly lipless mouth was pressed tightly together and her eyes were sharp yet somehow vacant, the way space is vacant. The woman’s barrage of thoughts were practically surface level, nearly there and ripe for Kelly to pluck them out of the air. Mother and daughter—and the lumbering passage of so many years.
“Mom,” she said, and her voice hitched. She quickly pushed herself away from the table and stood.
“Kelly,” her mother said and made a move as if to step closer to her, then perhaps changed her mind at the last second. Instead, Marlene Kellow moved around the kitchen table, a strained smile quickly adopted. “You’re looking well, dear. Are you well?”
“I’m fine, mom.”
“I apologize for not being here when you came in last night.” She sighed, fidgeting with her fingers, twisting her hands. “Your father and I…you know, with Becky and everything…”
“No, it’s all right. It’s good to see you.”
Her mother nodded. “Yes.” And in the silence that followed, they both examined each other. Not like mathematicians to a textbook of equations; rather, like two children meeting for the first time in the sandbox.
Little Baby Roundabout, Kelly thought, head spinning. Someone let the Baby out.
“How’s Dad?”
“Occupied,” her mother said. “Gets up early, has his eggs, goes for walks around the compound. He’s crushed, this whole thing with your sister…”
“How is she? Becky?”
“Oh,” said her mother. Kelly had to hand it to her—the woman was doing one hell of a job sporting that smile. “Well, the doctors have been in and out, in and out. A madhouse, really. And the police too. This whole thing has been so trying. On everyone.”
“But she’ll be all right?”
“We’re just waiting for her to wake up now.”
“How come she isn’t at a hospital?” And she almost asked why the girl’s bedroom door was locked half the time, but decided she’d save some tinder for future fires.
“She was,” said her mother, “but we insisted she come home.”
“Why?”
“Why not? There isn’t anything a hospital can do that we can’t pay good doctors good money to do it here, am I right?” She dropped her voice. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want that poor girl waking up in some institutional white room, stinking of antiseptic.”
You didn’t have a problem with that when it was me, Kelly thought.
Her mother quickly waved her hand. “But no—don’t worry about your sister, she’ll be fine.”
“Then why did you call me? Or, should I say, request that Mr. Kildare call me? Who is he, anyway?”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. Apparently, she was being frugal with her tinder as well. “Are you making some sort of statement by that?”
“By what?” But she knew.
“Why we didn’t call you ourselves. Or perhaps call you sooner. Or whatever it is you meant.”
“Yes and no,” she said coldly. “But it was an honest question. Why did you and Dad ask for me to come home?”
“Because of the police, dear,” her mother said and, as if rehearsed, three sharp knocks echoed down the corridor from the foyer.
The police had arrived.
Two officers stood in the living room, DeVonn Rotley beneath the doorway, his face expressionless. The officers themselves looked like a comic relief from some Sherlock Holmes pape
rback—one short, one tall; one mustachioed, one clean-shaven; one stout with an ample gut and short arms, the other slender with arms that practically allowed his fingertips to reach his knees when fully relaxed.
Kelly entered the room, her mother leading the way. Marlene Kellow greeted the officers in a way that made Kelly assume this was not the first visit these two had made to the Kellow compound.
“Thank you, Rotley,” Marlene Kellow said. Rotley nodded once and disappeared back into the hallway, closing the double-doors as he went.
“Kelly,” said the tall, clean-shaven officer. He removed his crumpled fedora and set it on a mahogany end table. “I’m Detective Raintree. This is my partner, Detective Sturgess.”
Sturgess, the pudgy, mustachioed cop nodded. “Ma’am.”
“Please have a seat,” Raintree said. He spoke with a velvet voice. “We just have a few questions to ask you.”
Kelly sat on the sofa. Raintree remained standing, but both Sturgess and Kelly’s mother sat down on either side of her.
“I’m a little confused,” Kelly said. “This has to do with Becky? With what happened to her?”
“Her diary,” Raintree said. “Were you aware Becky kept a diary? A journal?”
Kelly shrugged. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me. She’s a little girl.”
“Most young girls keep journals,” Raintree agreed. “Nothing unusual about that.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You kept one? As a little girl?”
“I might have. I don’t remember.”
“My daughter keeps one,” Sturgess added from nowhere.
“When was the last time you spoke with your sister, Miss Kellow?”
“It’s Rich,” she said and saw her mother glance at her, perplexed.
“Beg pardon?” Raintree too looked a bit confused.
“Kelly Rich. I was married.”
“Oh,” Raintree said, eyebrows arching.
Her mother’s features, on the other hand, did not change at all—she merely continued to stare at her daughter, almost to the point where Kelly was certain her eyeballs were going to roll right out of their sockets. “Married,” she said with cold absence. “Well, now…”
“Mrs. Rich,” Raintree continued. “Can you recall the last time you spoke with Becky?”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What makes you think I spoke with Becky?” She coughed up a dry laugh. “I regret it—really, I do—but I haven’t spoken with my sister since I moved away from home. Years ago. And she was really just a baby.”
The two detectives exchanged a look. Her mother was still looking at her; Kelly could see her stare from the corner of her eye, hard and pressing. It wasn’t a particularly angry stare, she noted; rather, it was the sort of look a circus clown might elicit from a small, mentally underdeveloped child: quizzical uncertainty. Almost a dumb look, a stupid look, a look that showed not even a single trace of comprehension.
“Years ago?” Raintree said.
“That’s correct.”
“We were under the impression…” Sturgess began.
“Yes,” Raintree interjected, “the impression…”
“Don’t lie to these men, Kelly,” her mother snapped. “Mrs. Rich.”
“Why would I lie?” Then to Raintree: “I’m a bit confused here…”
Raintree chuckled nervously, like someone under intense interrogation. “Well, now, I guess we’re all a bit confused at this point. Understand that we’re in no way insinuating that you had anything to do with what happened to your sister, so there is really no need to hide any information—”
“Hide information?” She stood up. “Why would I hide anything? And why would I assume you’re here to interrogate me, anyway?”
“It’s not that,” Sturgess said. He put a hand out to Kelly, touched her right wrist, beckoning her to sit back down.
“Cooperate, Kelly,” her mother said.
“Kelly,” continued Raintree, “your sister mentions speaking with you on practically a regular basis in her diary. For the past several months, really. Now, according to Mr. Kildare, Becky never made any phone calls from the house to your apartment. The phone records would show if she had, and they don’t. So she’d either been receiving calls from you to her direct phone line or, perhaps, through the mail. Through letters?”
“Are you serious? Her diary says this?”
Raintree shook his head. It was a perfunctory gesture, executed without thinking: a turn to the left, a turn to the right, return to center. “Not really, no.”
“She doesn’t come right out and say who called whom,” Sturgess clarified. He had folded his small hands in his lap, pressed against his large gut.
“But she makes mention of you several times. Mentions speaking with you, mentions discussing things with you.”
“It’s just my name? Couldn’t it be someone else named Kelly?”
“Stop it,” her mother nearly scolded. “You’re ashamed of this place, of your father and I, but don’t you start lying to the detriment of your sister.”
She shot her mother a poison stare. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“You know it’s true. And don’t think I don’t see it. You have your hang-ups, I don’t care. But don’t think for one second that I will allow your lies in—”
“I’m not lying,” she insisted. “Why the hell would I lie about that? If I’d been talking with Becky—and I wish I had kept in touch—then I’d say so. There’s nothing for me to lie about. That’s ridiculous.”
“There are several passages where your sister has not just mentioned your name, Kelly,” said Raintree, “but where she has mentioned you as her sister, too.”
Quietly, almost to herself, Marlene muttered, “Becky has no friends. Not here, not at school.”
“That can’t be. I haven’t spoken to her since I left Spires. She was just a little kid.”
“So you have no knowledge of any boys she might have been interested in?” Sturgess said. “You wouldn’t know if, say, she had a crush on some young fellow from town?”
“There are no young fellows from town,” Marlene said. “This was some stranger.”
“No,” Kelly said.
“Or no boy that might have had some interest in her?” Raintree added.
“No,” she repeated. “I’m not lying to you.”
“Of course not,” Raintree said. He pulled his hands from his pockets, rubbed them together quickly. “I suppose we’ll all have to wait for young Becky to come back around to us before we can clear up this little mystery then, yes?”
“Do you have any leads?” her mother said.
Raintree just shook his head. “Not of yet,” he said, “but we’ve got several men on it, Mrs. Kellow.”
“Confidentially speaking,” Sturgess began, “three hunters disappeared up in these woods about a month ago. Now, we don’t have any reason to believe these disappearances are in any way connected to your daughter’s attack, but it doesn’t hurt to make certain. We’re looking into it.”
“Doesn’t hurt,” Raintree agreed. “But we don’t really think…”
“No, we don’t,” Sturgess said.
“Three hunters,” Marlene Kellow said to herself.
Sturgess stood, clapped his hands together. “And she’s doing all right?” he asked Kelly’s mother. “The poor thing…”
“Doctors have been keeping abreast of her condition,” Marlene said. “They suspect she should come around soon enough.”
“Well that’s good news,” Sturgess said.
“It is,” Raintree said, scooping up his fedora from the end table. He looked at Kelly. “I was hoping our conversation would have proved useful.” He pulled out a card and handed it to her. “Perhaps you’ll give me a call if…well, if you remember anything. I keep my cellular on twenty-four-seven. So…well, whatever.”
“Or if you just want to talk,” Sturgess interrupted.
“Yes,”
Raintree said, “or just talk.”
Without word, Kelly took the card. Beside her, her mother stood stiffly from the couch, smoothing out her blouse, and clasped both hands together between her breasts. She was still staring at her—Kelly could feel her eyes pushing against the back of her head, the side of her face when she turned. Was it possible for her mother to be as bitter as she herself was about sending her to an institution when she was only fifteen years old? Maybe bitter about the years since, years that had surrendered to silence, to no communication? And, if she was bitter, did she have any real right to be?
I don’t care, Kelly thought. Bitter or not, it doesn’t change the past, doesn’t change anything at all.
“Thank you for coming out,” her mother said to the detectives. “I’m just sorry for…”
“No,” Raintree said with a wave of his hand. Then he smiled at Kelly. “Really, it’s all okay.”
“Never hurts to try,” Sturgess said.
His partner smiled even wider. “No,” he said, “it doesn’t.”
“Excuse me,” Kelly said as they turned to leave. “Could I see Becky’s diary?”
“That’s up to your mother, dear,” Sturgess said.
“You still have the diary, Mrs. Kellow?” Raintree asked.
“I do,” Marlene said, and shot her daughter a sideways glance. “I’m not sure I like the idea of strange people continuing to flip through it, however.”
Strange people, Kelly thought. As much as it hurts to admit it, I really can’t argue with her there. After all these years, I really am a stranger—to Becky, to my parents, to this house, to all of Spires. An unwelcome stranger.
“Well, now,” Raintree said, “that’s up to you.” He smiled at both Kelly and her mother. “Ladies,” he said.
“Ladies,” Sturgess said.
Five minutes later, Becky’s bedroom door was unlocked and Kelly stepped inside. It was gloomy and stank of unwashed sheets. Yet someone had been in here since last night to straighten up: the bed sheets looked pressed, and that peculiar collection of broken plastic forks was on longer strewn about the floor. Also, someone had opened the window beside Becky’s bed again, allowing the curtains to blow across the foot of the bed. If it was Glenda opening the window, Kelly made a mental note to mention to the woman that it probably wasn’t a good idea and that Becky could catch a cold.