Move to Strike

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “Only two houses with any kind of visual access,” Wish said, returning after a few minutes of wandering around. “One of ’em was empty that night. The other belongs to Louise Garibaldi.” In deference to the early summer day he was wearing baggy shorts with his hiking boots. Sandy’s son was a gangly young man, even taller than Paul. Wish was taking courses in criminology at the community college and wanted to get involved in law enforcement.

  Paul got out of the van. By pushing through an unlocked gate and maneuvering just a short way down a path to the left of the house, he could get a decent view of the backyard and into the study where Sykes’s dead body was found.

  The study was the lowest point of the house. A large desk faced double doors that opened to a short stairway, and then a deck and pool. On the wall to the right of the desk there were two large bookshelves. Several feet behind the desk, an easy chair and lamp stood in a corner.

  “The hardest thing for me to believe,” Wish said thoughtfully, “is that she’d kill him with a sword.”

  “You mean, assuming Nikki did it.”

  “And assuming she was probably fighting him.”

  “The sword was a weapon, right in plain view, easy to reach,” Paul said.

  “It just seems like there must have been something easier to use to fend him off, if he was coming after her. A heavy bookend. A vase. A lamp, even.”

  “The report doesn’t mention anything else broken or turned over in the room,” said Paul. “Looks like whoever killed him caught him off guard.”

  They studied the room from the outside, as Nikki Zack presumably had.

  They got a better overall view from beyond the pool. The upstairs curtains were drawn and in the stillness of the day the house had a hush around it, as if waiting for something.

  Back to the front. While Wish unlocked the door, Paul admired the intricate workmanship of the carved oak door and porch supports. Money bought those details, and taste kept them subtle. The living room had the look of early Ralph Lauren, with plaid throws, plush couches, and real oils on the wall.

  In the biggest painting, above the rounded river rock of the fireplace, men dappled by a pale sun stood face to face dueling violently, fencing swords tangled and glinting. The artist captured the mood so realistically, the cold morning light, the fierce faces of the duelists, Paul could almost hear the clanging of the swords. Over to the sides of the picture, shadowed by trees, their seconds waited. One raised a hand to his cheek and watched, riveted. The other bowed his head. A woman with long red hair cried behind a bush.

  The painting belonged in a museum, not someone’s home, Paul decided. It was lurid and savage. He wondered about a man who retired to his living room with a drink to study a picture like that. One of those men up there hanging above the good doc’s fireplace would be dead soon after a bloody fight. That pretty dawn was doomed to be shattered. The woman would cry harder . . .

  The doc’s hobby had gone beyond collecting artifacts. He had collected precision cutting tools and their images, the blood and sharp silver tips of the weapons an integral part of the effect. Surgery in its most primitive form permeated his psyche. What kind of a husband had he been? What kind of a father?

  While Paul pondered, Wish used Paul’s camera to take photos for Nina, asking for advice on exposure settings here and there, but on the whole taking charge of that chore.

  They saved the study for last. Somebody had cleaned up the blood and the place looked normal. “There are some decorative things in the shelves between all the medical books. A metal statue, looks heavy. A couple of Oriental vases, probably some dynasty,” said Paul. “Get that shot.”

  “Yeah, why not pick up ‘The Thinker,’ and smash him with that when he came after her? That looks easy to grab. Or even one of those heavy books,” Wish suggested, bent at the waist, focusing on the statue.

  “If she was on the other side of the room, over by the chair, maybe she just couldn’t reach the shelves.” Paul closed his eyes, imagining the crime, the man angry, the girl frightened out of her wits at being discovered. She came in through the double doors, surprised him in . . . the chair reading, maybe? Maybe, slumped down, he couldn’t be seen behind the big desk. It was possible, Paul thought.

  “Has Nina got a lead on what Nicole wanted from him?” Wish said.

  “No. The girl’s not talking,” said Paul. A faded spot on the wall marked where the murder weapon had been, and Wish shot the empty place. “If he’d put the sword in a locked case . . .”

  “But it was so old,” Wish interrupted. “Four hundred years old, Nina said.”

  “You don’t see that kind of workmanship anymore. Speaking of which, you still want the van?”

  Wish turned around. “Well, sure.”

  “It’s not working too well. I think it may need a ring job.”

  “I have a cousin in Markleeville who’s a mechanic. No problem.”

  “I’ll sell it to you for five hundred.”

  Wish’s face expressed a struggle. “I could give you payments,” he said. “Can’t write you a check.”

  “How about twenty-five dollars a month?”

  “I can do that!”

  “She’s yours. As soon as I find some new wheels.”

  They shook hands and went back to the van so Wish could check it out.

  After a half hour of looking under the hood and turning the motor over and talking about rods and rings and pistons, they went back to work. Paul sent Wish off to canvass the street and see if anyone else had been out walking a dog or stargazing that night. He took his time negotiating the path over to Louise Garibaldi’s cottage.

  The prosecution’s star witness lived in the house opposite the Sykes house on the cheap side of the street. The lakefront probably commanded an additional five hundred thousand, Paul figured, and even a place this close to the lake didn’t necessarily have easy access to a beach. Must be frustrating. Still, the house was on a forested rise opposite the Sykes property and slightly offset, so that the front porch overlooked portions of the Sykes side and backyards. It hadn’t been painted in a millennium, but the garden which took up the whole front yard with its deer-proof fencing all around had been loved to the point of tumultuous excess. Plants and vines on trellises ran amok competing for light and space.

  Louise opened the door herself. She held a stout stick almost six feet long, a staff really. “Hi there, Mr. van Wagoner,” she said. “The lawyer’s office called to say you were coming just a short while ago.” She had short white hair, a leathery, handsome face, intelligent eyes, and a sparkling smile. A pair of plaid shorts hung around her knees above the dirt-encrusted Van’s tennis shoes, and she wore a T-shirt sporting the New Hampshire state motto, “Live free or die.” Beside her, a German shepherd stood erect and as intelligent-looking, ears pricked and tail at attention. “This is Arthur. Arthur, say hello to the man.”

  Arthur held up his right paw and Paul bent down with some difficulty and shook it.

  Paul showed his identification. “You saw us having a look at the Sykes house?”

  Louise chuckled. “Big guy on crutches with a tall skinny Indian boy and a Dodge Ram van drive slowly around the block. Gotta be a simpleton not to take note.”

  “You spend a lot of time out here on your front porch?” One lonely Adirondack-style chair faced the driveway of the Sykes house.

  “Used to. His house kinda sorta blocks my view, if you want to know the truth,” said Louise. “They tore down a hundred-year-old shack to build that. But it was a shack. Nobody wanted to buy it.”

  “Made you mad?”

  “Who doesn’t want a view of the lake?” said Louise.

  Without being too overt, Paul studied her.

  “I usually go for my hike this time of day,” she said, brandishing the walking stick. “I’d ask you to join me, but looks like you better not.” Stringy, muscular legs attested to her excellent physical condition. Between the walking stick and Arthur, Louise had her security system w
orked out. Paul wondered if she really had been going for a hike, or if she had brought the stick to the door to let him know that.

  “I’ll take a rain check on the hike,” Paul said. “This won’t take long. I just want to ask you a few more questions about the night Dr. Sykes died.”

  “Come in, then,” said Louise. She opened the door wide to allow Paul to pass, pulling it firmly shut behind him. They stood in a small foyer with dried plants hanging upside down from the ceiling, Paul leaning on his crutches, Louise, leaning on her stick.

  “You a florist?”

  “An herbalist. Naturopath. From way back.” She fingered some drying flowers, lavender colored. “I’ve written several books on the subject.”

  “Ah,” said Paul. “Got anything to mend a broken leg?”

  Louise looked thoughtful.

  “How about a broken heart?” Paul asked.

  “You’re a charmer, aren’t you? Not the broken-heart type.”

  “Even charmers get charmed sometimes.”

  “But the leg—hurts bad, eh? Follow me.” She set her stick against the wall, opened a door and started down a short flight of stairs, the dog at her heels. “Hold onto the railing,” she said. “It’s pretty steep but the steps are wide. You should be able to make it.”

  “Wait,” Paul said. “No . . .” but Louise had disappeared, and Paul had no choice but to follow.

  Fifteen minutes later, or what felt like fifteen minutes later, Paul, who eventually resorted to scooting downstairs on his bottom, found himself in a basement room with high windows and hundreds of gleaming colored bottles stopped with corks. Some sat on windowsills, reflecting sunlight, some hid in dark nooks of shelving below. He could see a large spiderweb in the corner.

  All she needed was a cauldron and a pointy hat.

  “My lab,” Louise said. She took out a bottle, examined it, shook it, and returned it to the shelf. “I’ve got a number of things I could suggest to you that will aid in the healing process.”

  What in hell did that mean, Paul wondered, feeling a pain shoot up from his injured knee. “Great,” he said, sitting down on the bottom step and letting out a tiny groan.

  “Hmm. Here’s something for you. Ulmus rubra, otherwise known as slippery elm, an excellent dietary supplement for someone who’s convalescing. It’s a powder. Add it to your hot oatmeal in the morning.” She handed Paul a small blue bottle. “You keep that. And here’s purple sage. I’m sure you’ve heard of that, but maybe you don’t know it’s an all-purpose antioxidant that will keep the body pumping out those poisons. Also is associated with longevity. An old poem says, ‘He who drinks sage in May, shall live for aye.’ We all want that, don’t we? I’ve dried and condensed it and put it into tea bags for easy ingestion.” She set down an orange bottle with squiggly green things suspended in an oily liquid. “And this,” she said, “is what you need the most.” He took the bottle of red liquid. “If you do nothing else, take this one daily.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t ask. Just take a big spoon of it morning, noon, and night. It’ll help you with your temper. You’ve got a bad one, don’t you?”

  Surprised, Paul said, “No worse than many.”

  “Oh, I can tell from your eyes. All that white eyeball showing under the iris. A yang imbalance.” And she turned her own green eyes on him with a look that seemed to penetrate his skin and move on inside. “You know, we’re not far removed from the animals and plants. We have lots of trained behaviors that help us get along, but the mind is really an assemblage of agents that have evolved with specific functions, such as, to feel alarmed by the sight of a predator, or to be able to recognize faces, for example. There are things that motivate us that you wouldn’t believe, things we pretend don’t exist. You’re aggressive, yeah, but the bummer is that you mistrust your own instincts.” At that, she gave a hearty laugh. “My advice is to eat more vegetables and less meat. Get back in balance. You’ll calm down in due course.”

  “Can we talk about Dr. Sykes?” Paul said, wishing he could take a hit of the red stuff right away, although he should debate her analysis of him.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Have a big drink right out of the bottle. It’s clean.”

  He smiled. “You’ve tried it?”

  “My, my. You’re a suspicious one,” she said, laughing. She poured a big serving into a glass and swallowed it down. “Oh, I feel like I’m walking through a field of golden flowers on a lovely spring afternoon,” she joked. “Go ahead. Take a hit.”

  “Thanks,” Paul said, taking the rest from her. “Thanks very much.” He drank. “Ah.” The syrupy liquid tasted like cherries and sugar, with richer depths hinting at chocolate. Warmth rolled over his tongue, spread down his throat, and dribbled into his chest.

  “All right,” Louise said, still smiling. “Let’s talk.”

  Her consistently beatific mood communicated itself to him, making him feel more cheerful than he had in days. “Did you know Sykes well?” he said.

  “Well enough to know that there was more than meets the eye.” She leaned forward, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “He got younger every year.”

  “You knew he’d had cosmetic surgery?”

  “He liked Tony Bennett and Andy what’s his name. You know, Mr. ‘Moon River.’ He played Elvis records until I felt like marching over there and giving him what-for. Guess he emotionally arrested in the fifties. Your age has nothing to do with how you look. That’s where plastic surgery fails. It only changes the outside. He wasn’t really a good person, you know. He clung to that wife of his, but it was a sick kind of clinging. The changeable kind that’s love one minute and hate the next. I think she had a hard time with him. You can never completely trust a man like that.”

  She looked at him and once again he got the peculiar feeling that she saw too much. “I read your statement to the police, Ms. Gari . . .”

  “Louise. That’s what everyone calls me.”

  “Louise. You said you can see into the Sykes backyard from your front porch.”

  “Don’t tell me your sidekick didn’t notice that. I saw him looking.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And I can, can’t I?”

  “Yes. I’m wondering if you can tell me in more detail what went on that night.”

  She was checking another bottle. “It was sometime around ten. I don’t sleep well at night, so I do little chores like fill the feeder with wild birdseed. There’s not much else to report. He went out there to his pool like I said, naked as a newborn.”

  “Did you see him before he went in the pool?”

  “Yes. He came out of his study with a bottle. Something good, no doubt.” She looked thoughtful. “Dr. Sykes had good taste in booze. Good taste in everything, carefully cultivated. I went to a party there once. Beautiful home, except maybe for his peculiar decorations. I didn’t have much use for him. I know Beth a little better. She’s going to sell the place. Unhappy memories.”

  “Could you tell if he was drunk?” The lab reports had put Sykes’s blood alcohol at .12, pleasantly lit.

  “He was loose. Moved like he had fluid for bones, kind of like my husband, bless his soul, when he’d tie one on.”

  “Did he set the bottle down before getting into the pool?”

  “No. He sat in the shallow end for a while drinking right out of it. I could only see him when he leaned back a few times. The shallow end is mostly out of sight from here, as your friend no doubt noticed.”

  “Then he went in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dove, you said.”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “He went under. Then nothing for a long time. Like he was holding his breath.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “He came up once. He was really puffing then. Then down he went again for a long time. Next thing I knew, he was getting out.”

  “Where was the bottle? Did he pick it up again?”

  “Actually, he tossed the bottle in the bushes. I
remember now. He did that before he went in the pool the first time.”

  “So what did he have?”

  “No idea,” she shrugged. “Wet. Box-shaped.”

  “Then he went back into the study with this box?”

  “No. He swam to the side of the pool. I could see him once or twice. The lights reflected up on his face. He was looking at something in his hand. Then, he dived in once more.”

  “And stayed down a while?”

  “Yes. When he came out, his hands were empty again. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  “What in the world would he store in his pool?”

  “What in the world,” said Paul. “Then what?”

  “Well, the girl came out from the bushes and went into the water herself and got the box out of the pool. I remember it all quite well. I was astonished to see that she’d been hiding there in the bushes.”

  “I still don’t quite understand. Did you see her go into the study?”

  “I made that very clear. I did not. I can’t see the study doors from here.”

  “You must have heard something.”

  “Well. No, I don’t hear as well as I used to. But there were sounds. Arthur heard them. He had his nose pressed right up to the screen and his ears went up and he nuzzled me and whined. I would have called them, but their number is unlisted. And I just couldn’t bring myself to go over there or call the police. Dr. Sykes would have been livid.” She shook her head. “I regret that. And that’s it.”

  “That’s all you saw.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “At any point in the evening did you happen to glance over at their front porch?”

  She thought about that. “When I went to turn out the light. Just for a second.”

  “Was the front door at the Sykes house open?”