Only they’d succeeded.
Shaken, I lifted the glasses to my eyes and searched for Stokes, but he wasn’t under the eave anymore. Instead I found Mac and Al bowed against the driving rain, pushing a stretcher loaded down with a bulky gray body bag on the path toward the ambulance. Was Hugh’s body in there? I couldn’t bear to think of him suffocating in that airless bag. I whispered a plea: “You’re smothering him. Unzip it.”
Unable to watch anymore, I closed my eyes and took myself back again. To the roof of our loft building this time. Late at night. The streets below empty except for a grinding garbage truck and an occasional shift-changing cab. The skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan sparkling around us like Oz. An older, white brick office building sitting directly across the street has its lights out and its blinds drawn. The office cleaners have finished vacuuming, mopping and taking out trash. Hugh has a 16-mm projector on a stand. He’s threading a reel of film, turning on the bulb. He picks the machine up and aims it at the building.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appear. They’re at least thirty feet tall. Ginger, dazzling in a backless satin-and-ostrich-feather gown; Fred in white tie and tails. He’s singing, silky-voiced, as he floats her across a dance floor. Their cheeks touch. He’s in heaven, he croons.
The garbage men stare up from the back of the truck. They are mystified. We laugh in delight. We sing along. Hugh puts the projector down and grabs me for a dip and spin as the orchestra plays on.
I smell his musky scent. He is solid and strong. Playful. Alive.
Snap.
I opened my eyes. What was that?
Snap.
A breaking branch?
Crunch. Crunch.
Rustling leaves?
Someone was behind the blind. A hunter? The police? How bad would it look if they found me spying at the murder scene? Another snap—this one closer. What if it was the killer? What if a gun-toting, knife-wielding maniac was still out there?
Heart pounding, I threw on my trench coat, shoved the glasses into the pocket and climbed through the front of the blind. Crouching low, I made my way deep into the tall grasses by the shore, the muddy ground sucking at my Wellingtons, the long, wet blades lashing my face and soaking my pajamas, my hair. But the grass was good cover, thick and high. A wall of wheat-colored straw. Breathless, I stopped to wait for whomever was out there to leave. If it was a police officer, what story would I tell? Would he believe me if I said I was trying to cover the murders for the Courier? From here?
What if he discovered I was Hugh’s ex?
I tried to listen beyond my chattering teeth. Maybe it was only rain I’d heard before? Or a deer foraging near the blind?
I longed to stand—my knees and thighs ached from squatting. I parted a section of grass and scanned. No one there. It seemed safe to make a move back to the trail. I started to rise. Suddenly I sensed the reeds shake behind me. My muscles tensed. Something rustled very close by. I stopped breathing and heard a voice inside me say, Run!
Taking off like a rabbit, I thrashed through the seagrass and reeds, adrenaline pumping. I steered inland, kept running and finally emerged from the grass, panting and sweating, into a small clearing only partially obscured by some bayberry bushes. It was about thirty yards from the house.
“Hey!” a male voice whispered hoarsely.
I whirled to my right. Standing a few yards ahead, soaked to the bone just like I was, was Stokes.
Chapter Four
“What the hell?” Stokes rasped. “You can’t be here.”
Stunned to encounter Stokes, I’d almost forgotten about the police. I dropped to a crouch and crept back behind the bayberry bushes. I waved at him to follow.
“C’mere. Over here.”
Stokes looked at me dubiously. “Are you nuts?”
He might well think so. I’m sure I looked like I’d escaped an asylum. And we hardly knew each other. I’d done that interview with him and Kelly, chatted casually at the Thunder Bar and exchanged “hellos” if he showed up at the alley during our Pilates class. That was it.
“Please,” I whispered.
Stokes frowned and joined me in the bushes. Once we were safely out of view, he admonished me some more.
“This is a crime scene. No reporters. You’ll get yourself in big trouble nosing around.”
So he thought I was here to get a scoop for the paper. Good.
“It’s okay. No one saw me.”
I’d been lucky. The patrol must’ve been checking around the other side.
“How did you get past the roadblock?”
I waved vaguely behind me. “I came on the hunting trail from the Dune Club.”
He maneuvered around me, pushed aside some shrub branches and squinted in the direction of the camouflaged blind.
“There’s a hunting trail back here?” He turned back to me. “You’ve got half the trail in your hair.”
I reached up and brushed out debris. More leaves and twigs. I paused . . . the same sort of fragments I’d found this morning. I went on the offensive.
“What are you doing here, Stokes?”
“What do you mean? I’m on the ambulance team.”
“Then why aren’t you doing your job? Why are you sneaking around in the bushes out here?”
His boyish face suddenly looked tired and old. He ran his fingers through his dripping-wet black hair and lowered his eyes. For the first time, I noticed what incredibly long lashes Stokes had.
“I wasn’t sneaking. It’s only my second time out with these guys. My stomach didn’t feel so good. I thought I was going to hurl, and I didn’t want to do it in front of the crew and the cops and everyone.”
He pulled out his cigarette pack and quickly stuffed it back in his pocket again, probably thinking the better of sending the police smoke signals. He grimaced and looked up, shaking his head.
“When they called me this morning, I had no idea where we were going. Then Mac told me who.” He looked like he was about to cry. “And what.” Taking a deep breath, he let out a groan before speaking again. “It’s so fucked.”
My stomach dropped to my groin. I was feeling queasy myself. I wavered for a second.
“What did Mac say?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Tell me what he said.”
“Hey, take it easy. What’s going on?”
Stokes, along with everyone else, was going to find out soon enough.
“He was my ex-husband.”
“Who?”
“Hugh Walker.”
“No.” He took a step back. “You and Walker were married?”
“We divorced three years ago. He got Helene pregnant while we were together.”
His eyes widened. “Fuck, no. Jesus. She . . . no. Mother of God.” He stared at me with his mouth open for a few seconds before he blinked and closed it. “She got herself knocked up by him while he was married to you?”
I nodded. He seemed to lose focus and mumble something I couldn’t understand.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Nothing. That is seriously fucked up.”
“Tell me about it.”
He mumbled again.
“What did you say?”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry for your loss. I guess.”
“So what exactly happened to them?” I prodded.
He looked at me blankly for a moment. Then he seemed to come back to himself. His tone turned official, and he puffed out his chest.
“You should go home, Nora. I can’t tell you anything. I’d get kicked off the crew if anyone found out I leaked information. We’re not allowed to discuss the jobs we do for the coroner. Mac said so.”
“I’m a reporter. I never reveal my sources. Come on,” I begged.
Stokes just looked at me with a stony expression.
“Didn’t Mac give you any specifics? Were they shot in their bed?” I blurted. I was obsessed with knowing how Hugh and Helene were killed. Could he verify the unconfirmed report?
“Whoa.” Stoke
s frowned. “You’re his ex, and you’re skulking around back here, sniffing out the gory details on his murder? I don’t care if you are a reporter. That’s just wrong.”
“But I—”
“You’d better get going.” He pointed in the direction of the blind. “Now.”
I felt ashamed. Stokes was right. I was acting like a creep, asking these questions. A ghoul. I didn’t belong there. But I’d become irrational. The slashed painting had finally put me over the edge. I’d started adding it all up. My fantasy of shooting Helene and Hugh in bed. The scratch. The leaves and twig in my hair. I was tormenting myself with an absurd idea. “Ne eshee byidi beda sama tibya nadyet. Don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you,” Aunt Lada would say. She’d be right.
I glanced up at the sky. The clouds above us had swelled up and darkened again. Whatever Stokes knew about the crime scene, he wasn’t going to tell, anyway. Rather than offering any closure, coming to Pequod Point had messed with my head. I had to get out of here. If I hurried, I might be able to beat the next downpour. And if I didn’t change these freezing, wet clothes, I’d catch pneumonia on top of losing my sanity.
“All right, I’m leaving. But please don’t tell anyone I was here.”
He raised his huge right hand and pledged. “Scout’s honor.”
I stayed low and set my nose for the blind, loping back through the seagrass. Before I’d gone very far, Stokes called out to me in a loud whisper.
“Nora, wait.”
I turned around. He looked young again, huddled in the bushes, a wet, Elvis-like curl spiraling down his forehead. Young and innocent and scared. Like a little boy who’d gotten lost playing hide-and-seek.
“You think maybe I could get a ride with you to the alley? Mac and Al don’t really need me. It’s almost nine forty-five. I usually open the lanes by ten.”
Strange. Was he just going to walk off the job? Leave them wondering where he went? I nodded and waited for him to catch up. But the rain didn’t wait. It came down in sheets as we ran.
Breathless, we reached the car and jumped inside. I opened my coat and began wringing out my baggy pajama bottoms. Luckily, the police didn’t see a woman in soaking wet pajamas sneaking around the scene of her ex-husband’s murder. What was I thinking? The dark pajama water pooled under the gas pedal. The ride back would be tricky, not just for a car with funky wipers, but also for anyone traveling outside of an ark. I turned the key, cranked the heat and pulled out of the Dune Club lot. It was like driving through a car wash.
Stokes didn’t seem to notice the monsoon. He was making a call on his cell.
“Mac? No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t want to walk into the middle of . . . of . . . a crime scene and be sick. I hitched a ride from one of the neighbors who was on his way to church. I would’ve called sooner, but I just got cell service.”
A convincing liar, Stokes was, innocent face and all.
“Sure thing,” he said.
He hung up and stared out his window. His jaw was clenched. He’d turned distant and morose. We rode without speaking as the rain pounded the hood. I kept thinking about the gray body bags. The mauled painting. The sickening violence. The dreadful suspicion I’d tried to suppress kept surfacing. I needed to focus on the slippery, winding road, or I’d spin out. The wipers were functioning slightly better at the moment, only missing one beat out of four. Still, the driving was treacherous. Suddenly there was a lightning flash, and a blinding torrent of water cascaded down the glass. I flinched at a thunderclap.
“Shit,” I said, hunching over the steering wheel and trying in vain to see the road ahead clearly.
“Make a U-turn,” Lady GPS ordered. “Make a U-turn.”
That snapped Stokes out of his fog. He scowled.
“What’s up with your car?”
“It has Tourette’s.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I groaned. “Who ever heard of a lightning storm in late November?”
“You know, they had a tornado in Catskill last month. The oil companies want us to think it’s a ‘natural cycle.’ Bullshit. The earth is a living thing, like an animal or a person. When it’s threatened, or attacked, it fights back.” He folded his powerful arms across his chest and glared straight ahead. “To the death, if it has to.”
Anger was swirling in the air around him, as if a tornado were right there in the car with us. What was he so ticked off about?
I struggled to concentrate on driving. We sat in silence again except for the drumming rain and the intermittent click and squeak of the blades. I was exhausted, emotionally drained. I just wanted to drop Mr. Moody off, go soak my frozen bones in a tub and clear my mind of disturbing thoughts. Then, as we passed the Tea Cozy, the rain miraculously let up. Within seconds, it stopped completely. I leaned back into the seat and shut off the wipers. Stokes turned to face me.
“Have you ever seen a dead body?”
“What?” I glanced over at him. His long, girlish lashes framed intense, dark eyes that glared into mine.
“Have you ever seen a dead body?”
Spooked, I looked back at the road. “No. Fortunately, I have not.”
“I have. I found my in-laws in their bed. Curled up next to each other like honeymooners. They looked so healthy, I didn’t realize they were dead at first. Their cheeks were all flushed pink like they’d just come back from a run. That’s what the CO does.”
He cracked a few knuckles. I winced.
“I ran around opening windows and doors, but they’d died hours before. That’s what the coroner said.”
“It must’ve been awful for you.”
“Yeah, it was bad. But I didn’t like them much.” Another knuckle sounded. “You know what was totally weird? Finding them together like that—snuggled up. They hated each other.”
I peeked over at him again. He was clenching and unclenching his fists.
“They made everyone around them miserable, too. My father-in-law was a cheap son of a bitch. Sitting on a pile of money he’d made selling some of his farmland to a fracking outfit. I think death by gas was . . . what do you call it? Poetic justice. He never gave any money to Kelly and me. Never helped us out. The bastard even made us pay our share whenever we ate dinner there. He’d show us the grocery bill. And Kelly’s mother had battery acid for blood. Nothing good to say about him, or us, or anyone. But there they were, spooning.”
I was amazed Kelly had turned out as well as she had, given Stokes’s report on the people who raised her. But even if the murder scene had triggered his memory of finding his in-laws’ corpses, why air all this family laundry with me?
“I guess you never know what goes on between couples in bed,” I said.
Relieved to see the bowling alley coming up on my right, I flicked my turn signal on.
“Here we are.”
I steered into the parking lot and stopped next to the hulking, unlit VAN WINKLE LANES sign. Stokes unbuckled his seat belt and hesitated. He turned and studied me for a few seconds.
“What?” I asked, uncomfortable.
“Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
I worried he was going to ask details about the Hugh and Helene affair in some inappropriate fashion.
“Um, how would I know until you ask it?”
“Did you still love him?”
“Ah,” I sighed.
I wasn’t expecting that one. But I’d asked myself the same question after Hugh moved to Pequod. How could I not still love him a little? We shared so much history—I’d spent almost a third of my life with him. There were so many bittersweet memories. And yet, whenever I thought about the way we ended, I felt a cold, black stone in my heart.
“I’m not sure.”
“Because if it were me, I think I’d be grateful someone offed him,” he hissed. “Her, too.” He was practically spitting the words. “I’d want anyone who screwed me over like that to be fucking dead.”
“Good to know,” I said
, startled by his vehemence.
Stokes stepped out of the car.
“Thanks for the ride.”
He slammed the door so hard that I jumped. I felt like I could finally breathe again as I watched him stride off and disappear into the alley.
I was about to drive off when a giant yawn overtook me. I sat there, bleary-eyed and groggy, as the Van Winkle sign woke up. Blood red letters flickered against the pale gray sky. I stared at them and thought back to those worrying days of my childhood when I’d first known this level of exhaustion. Troubled, frightening days that began as I understood the darker side of my father’s world—a place of angry, violent men.
How many times had I held my father’s hand as we strolled past neon bowling alley signs in the early morning hours? He’d be nattily dressed in a suit and tie, Clark Gable-handsome with slick black hair. So many Saturday mornings, while my mother primped at a beauty salon or took tennis lessons at her club, I would go with Nathan Glasser to visit a bowling alley in our suburban township or a neighboring one. Bellport Lanes. Bayshore Lanes. Pro-Bowl at Hempstead. Nathan with his black book of numbers. His 1984 Mercury Grand Marquis wagon full of cigarette cartons and racing forms.
All the alleys seemed the same to me: cavernous concrete buildings, dark inside except for a dimly lit concession stand or small bar. Quiet except for the hum and buzz of soda machines, refrigerators and a whirring floor buffer if the night janitor was still there. On occasion, Nathan would get a lane switched on and hand me a sparkly blue or pink child-size bowling ball, so I could roll it at the pins while he and the owner spoke in hushed tones.
“I have dozens of men working for me all over New York,” he liked to brag. He told everyone he was president of Nat-o-Matic, a statewide vending machine distributor. In truth, he worked for the Mob, stocking their alley and bar machines with contraband cigarettes. He also booked sports bets for them on his route and skimmed some of the profit off the top for himself. It was a cash business. He didn’t think his bosses would find out. If they did, he’d pay them back with interest from his winnings at the racetrack. The problem was, his horses lost. He hid this from my mother and me. By the time his lies came to light, they’d ruined us all.
Tips for Living Page 6