Mystery Dance: Three Novels

by Scott Nicholson

  A Creep in a Jeep? Sounded too much like Dr. Seuss to be dangerous. Silly. A coy boy with a toy, bark in the dark, a metal muddle mental puddle. Still, the adrenaline jolt tingled her nerves at a hundred amps and caused her fingers to twitch.

  She cleared her throat. One final test. “Did George Wellman send you?”

  “Webster,” he said, staring at her strangely, as if not sure what to make of someone who didn’t know the name of her own landlord. “Mister George Webster from Silver Key Properties. I do a lot of work for him. Name’s Walter.”

  “Of course,” she said, gathering her nerve enough to step forward. They were both looking at the red canister of mace on the floor. His forced smile was more like an embarrassed grimace, his cheeks creasing and blushing slightly. She bent and picked up the mace, kicking aside one of the wooden blocks.

  “You have kids?” he asked.

  She shook her head, avoiding his eyes. How could she explain that the blocks weren’t hers without sounding like a lunatic? But the problem was she couldn’t be sure the blocks weren’t hers or whether or not she was a lunatic.

  “Listen, I can come back later,” he said. “I’ll just pick up a key from Mister Webster and do it while you’re at work.”

  “No, I’m fine. Really.” She wiped her hair from her eyes, and her fingers came away moist with sweat. She tried to cover her jumpiness with a lie. “I just ran through the house, I heard the phone ring, and I thought I heard somebody at the door, and–well, look at me, I’m just a babbling mess.”

  He looked, a few seconds longer this time. Then he cast his gaze down to the porch. “Well, ma’am, I guess I should have hollered when I saw the door was open.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Julia hated herself for her panic. “I just wish Mr. Webster had told me you were coming.”

  “He said he left a message on your answering machine.”

  She nodded again, feeling as wooden as the blocks that were scattered across the floor. “Why don’t you go ahead? I’ve got to go back to work in a little bit.”

  “Won’t take long.” He was around thirty. His hair was brown and just long enough to curl a little at the ends. His muscular hands bore several scars, but the skin on his face was smooth under his short beard. He didn’t have the beaten expression worn by many people who worked with their hands, though the shadows of his face harbored a hint of sadness and darkness. He didn’t look like the sort who would play pranks with wooden blocks.

  Then again, they never did.

  “Come on in.” She stepped aside so the handyman could enter. His tool belt jangled as he passed. He went to the front windows, flipped back the locks and slid them up. A draft of forest-flavored air wended across the room.

  Julia left the door open and crossed to the sofa, sat where she could see him, and pretended to thumb through Psychology Today. Her hand gripped the mace tightly. The landlord had seemed overly eager to rent this place. How many keys did Webster have for the house?

  “These are fine,” the handyman said, sliding the windows closed. “Anderson windows are built good. Double panes. Ought to really help on your heating bill.”

  “I’ll be burning wood,” she said, turning the magazine page to an article entitled “Precious Memories: How To Preserve Your Family’s Past.” She kept looking past the magazine to the blocks on the floor.

  “Good for you. Cheaper and you get a little exercise. Where you from?” he asked without turning around, his screwdriver creaking as he tightened a curtain rod hanger.

  “Memphis.”

  “You’re in for a treat. We get about eight or ten snows every year. Don’t get much down there, I reckon.”

  “Just once in a while. It melts before you even get to pack a dirty snowball.”

  “Can’t stand to be in the city myself. Breaks me out in a sweat. People piled on top of each other like Japanese beetles on a cherry leaf.”

  Julia said nothing. She wasn’t used to loquacious carpenters. In Memphis, skilled laborers did their work in silence. She was used to her own crowd, other reporters, artists, Mitchell’s lawyer friends. In the city, strangers kept to themselves. Unless they wanted flesh, blood, or soul.

  “How long you been in Elkwood?” he asked, not pausing in his work.

  “Four months,” she said.

  “That figures,” he said. “I did some work here at the start of summer. House had been empty for a couple of years.”

  “I wonder why. It’s a cozy little place.”

  “Hartley used to live here.” The handyman said “Hartley” as if spitting out the name of an old enemy.

  “Don’t tell me I’m living in a haunted house,” she said.

  “No ghosts here. Just bad memories.”

  He gathered his tools and moved into the kitchen. Julia remained where she was, slipping the mace into her pants pocket and browsing the magazine.

  After several minutes of the windows sliding up and down and tools rattling, the handyman appeared at the end of the hall.

  “Okay if I go in the bedroom?” he asked.

  He probably found some embarrassing things in his job. He went into private places, patched things where secrets hid. But Julia had no secrets there, not much to blush about in her bedroom. No ceiling mirrors, no bedside sex toys, no leather straps or chains dangling from the bedposts.

  Just a crazy clock that was stuck on 4:06.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Can I make you a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks, ma’am. I don’t want to put you to no trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. I’m going to make some anyway. I only want a cup or two, though.”

  “Well, in that case, I’d appreciate some to go. I got my thermos out in the Jeep.”

  Julia busied herself in the kitchen, whistling as she filled the pot. She didn’t glance over her shoulder, even though the urge was strong. With the water running in the sink, he could sneak right up behind, reach out his long, long fingers–

  She twisted the tap angrily. Tears filled her eyes. Her lip quivered.

  It owned her.

  Maybe it–the fear, the darkness, The Creep–wouldn’t take her this morning, but she knew it was out there.

  No, not out there. In here.

  In her head.

  The worst place of all. This was an inside job all the way. The monster rummaged in the rooms of her mind, hid in cramped closets, staked out the shadowed corners of her psyche. What scared her most was the knowledge that she had built that monster herself, bit by bit, sewn it from scraps of memory and the threads of what-if, imagined it to life. The cellar of her head-house was a Frankenstein laboratory for bringing strange creatures to life.

  No monster had spread those blocks on her coffee table, had spelled out that name. Because everybody knew that monsters weren’t real. Especially Dr. Forrest.

  She started the coffee maker. Her therapist in Memphis told her to lay off the caffeine. Dr. Lance Danner. Lance. Freud could have had a field day with that name. Sometimes a cigar was just a cigar and a lance was just a lance.

  Dr. Danner also told her that, although they had been progressing in the therapy, a move was probably a good thing for her. He’d encouraged her to take the job in Elkwood, depressurize, embrace a rural lifestyle. Dr. Danner even made a referral to a doctor here that Julia felt comfortable with, touting it as “a continuum of care.” Mitchell had been against her leaving, but his possessiveness had only made Julia more determined. If she was ever going to show him she was a big girl, now was the time.

  Big girls don’t cry, though.

  Julia wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She was glad she didn’t wear make-up, because the streaks would show. Not that she cared much what the handyman thought of her. She definitely wasn’t out to appear attractive to anyone, especially a potential Creep in a Jeep.

  She took her cup of coffee to the living room, picked up the magazine, put it down again. She stared out the window at the red, purple, and yellow of the cha
nging leaves. The mountains were comforting despite their mystery. The ancient ridges of the Appalachians rolled out like soft ocean waves, in a rhythm that promised protection and peace.

  The buildings of Memphis had been suffocating, the giant walls looming, dense traffic like a herd of sulfur-spewing demons. The hot jaws of the city nipped at her heels with every step, hounded her, gnashed steel-and-concrete teeth at her. A million Creeps lurked in the alleys, two million eyes followed her every move. Memphis would have chewed her, ground her bones to powder, swallowed her.

  The move here had not been a mistake. For the first time in his exalted reign, Mitchell had been wrong, though Mitchell would never admit it.

  “All done, ma’am,” said the handyman, coming back into the living room. “The locks are all sound, and you shouldn’t get any bad drafts come winter.”

  “Great.” She reached for her purse on the floor beside her. Her foot kicked one of the blocks and it rolled to Walter’s feet.

  “You a schoolteacher?” he asked.

  “No, I write for the Courier-Times. How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Mister Webster pays me. Repairs are the landlord’s responsibility.”

  She thought about tipping, decided against it. These mountain folks were proud about such things. Far different from the grabby people in the city. Instead, she said, “Let me get that coffee for you. Soy creamer’s all I got. Me and dairy disagree.”

  “That would be fine, ma’am. I’ll go get my thermos. I have to check a couple more things outside first.”

  He went out the open front door. When he reappeared several minutes later, he was without his tool belt. He gave her the thermos and waited by the door.

  “Say, did you know your clock was messed up?” he asked when she returned with the filled thermos.

  “My clock?”

  “Yeah, in the bedroom. It was stuck on 4:06 the whole time I was in there.”

  She had unplugged the clock. Hadn’t she?

  She smiled to disguise the icy rush that shot through her veins. “Thanks for telling me. It’s been acting up lately. Guess I’ll have to get another one.”

  “Yeah. Never heard of a digital clock doing that. Usually they just blink or go dark.”

  “Stuck in time.” Just like me. The smile felt painted on her face, like a dime-store mannequin’s.

  “Keeps you young,” he said. “Growing old is for people who give up too soon.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the work.”

  “Sure. You need anything else, ask for me. Walter.” He smiled again as he reminded her of his name. It wasn’t a come-on smile. It was a friendly smile, with slightly crooked teeth, the kind you could trust.

  No, that’s not true. You can’t trust ANY smile. Because every smile has teeth behind it.

  She almost gave him her name then decided against it. “Okay, Walter.”

  “You found a church yet?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Church. It can be hard to settle in to a new place.” He looked at her with inquisitor’s eyes, as if he had a personal stake in her soul. She resented the notion that he saw her as a chance to bank some goodwill and capital in some heavenly coffer.

  “I’m set.” She smiled, the conditioned reflex of people being mindlessly civil to acquaintances. He’d been kind to her and was probably just extending a small-town politeness. She owed him better than a bland brush-off, and her thoughts were already drifting into the dark cracks of the past.

  “Have a good day, Miss Stone.” Walter waved and headed for the Jeep, humming a country-tinged tune. Julia closed the door.

  Now she was alone.

  No, not alone. Inside with the Creep.

  The Creep was always in the house, no matter where she lived.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The phone bleated in a slaughter of electric sheep.

  She had two phones, one in the living room, one by the bed. Perhaps overkill for a three-room house, but she liked to have one within reach if she couldn’t find the cell. In case of emergencies.

  Julia started down the hall so she could lie on the bed while she chatted, remembering the frozen clock. She couldn’t face that right now. She picked up the phone on the coffee table and flopped onto the sofa.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Julia.” The voice on the end of the line was buoyant and brimming with self-confidence.

  “Mitchell,” she said, unsure whether she was glad to hear from him or not.

  “What’s going on, honey?”

  She winced at the rote, nearly toneless endearment. “Nothing.”

  “Great.” There was a pause, the quiet hiss of eight hundred miles.

  “So…what’s new?” Julia finally asked.

  “The usual.”

  That was the trouble with Mitchell. The usual was always new to him. “Working on any interesting cases?”

  “Yeah, come to think of it. I’ve got a beaut. This woman owns a piece of land, right? Inherited it from her father, been in the family since Reconstruction. Ugly stretch, half swamp and half hill, forty acres. So this developer makes her an offer so he can build a strip mall.”

  “Just what Memphis needs,” she heard herself saying.

  Mitchell didn’t catch her sarcasm. “Exactly. This woman wants to keep it, maybe turn it into an organic garden, or heaven forbid, a natural habitat. Jesus, conservation easements are the tool of the Devil. Well, the Board of Adjustment votes to zone the property for commercial use, claiming the area is–let’s see….”

  Julia heard the rustling of papers. Mitchell must be at his office on General Pickett Avenue, the one with the view of Beale Street. From his window, he could watch the tourists and the busking blues musicians clog the sidewalks. Most of the modern Memphis bluesmasters knew only the blues of a bad day at the stock market.

  “Here it is,” Mitchell said, his words coming out faster in his excitement. “This is classic. The Board ruled that the property was, quote, ‘in an area of urban development of vital interest to the municipality’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.’ And the property’s three miles from the city limits.”

  “Poor woman. How can she afford to pay you?” Mitchell billed hourly in the high triple figures.

  He laughed, that silk-tie, champagne-etched laugh that sometimes made her skin crawl. “She can’t afford anybody. She’s got the ACLU. We’re going to feed them their lunch. The developer is picking up my tab to work as a consultant to the city attorneys.”

  Of course. Mitchell would be on the side of big business, fat money, legal tender that was more immoral than legal and about as tender as a metal-toed boot. The worst part of it was that his cockiness appealed to her sick, weak nature, an addiction that even distance couldn’t break. He was a Leo, through and through, his lion a voracious predator to her moody Gemini.

  “But enough about me,” he said. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”

  “Really?”

  Had a note of concern crept into his voice? She gave him the benefit of a doubt. “Yes. The people at the office are really nice. It’s refreshing to cover community issues, the school board and that sort of thing, instead of working the crime beat.”

  “Good. You know I never wanted you to mess around in all that murder and stuff. I love this city, but it’s really gone to hell ever since–”

  “How are your parents?” she asked, before he could rant about crime and taxes and the lower class.

  “My parents are doing really well. They’re up at Martha’s Vineyard right now.” At one of their four seasonal houses. Christmas in Boca Raton, Easter in Santa Monica, Fourth of July in Boulder, slumming in Yankee country through Halloween.

  “Tell them I said hello.”

  “Sure. You know, they’d love to hear from you. They ask about you all the time. You’re practically family, you know.”

  “Maybe I’ll give them a call,” she lied. If she called, they�
��d use the M-word. Every woman needed a diamond for validation, and a gold ring to seal the deal. That was as certain as the rising sun, increasing property taxes, and Mitchell’s cologne being made by Jovan.

  “So, how’s your new doctor?”

  “Good. Really good. We’re making progress.”

  Mitchell sighed. “You were making progress four years ago, with Lance what’s-his-name.”

  Mitchell hid his jealousy so poorly. He assumed that any man that got a woman on the couch was automatically on top of her within fifteen minutes.

  No, only YOU, Mitchell. Besides, nobody lies down for therapy anymore. That went out with assembly-line frontal lobotomies and Mesmerism.

  She said, “I feel like we’re close to a breakthrough. I’m feeling much better. I don’t….”

  –get the Creeps?–

  “…suffer from as much anxiety. I think the mountains are helping me. They make me feel safe.”

  To his credit, Mitchell didn’t laugh. “If you’d let me buy you a gun–”

  “Are the leaves changing there?”

  “Leaves?”

  “On the trees.”

  “Hold on. Let me look.”

  “Never mind.”

  “When are you going to let me come see you?”

  “Soon.”

  “How soon? You said August. It’s already football season.”

  “Soon,” she repeated. “I just…want to be ready, that’s all.”

  She could almost hear his thoughts, see his handsome eyebrows raised in perplexity. Women. Why can’t they make up their minds? If I have to wait for Julia to get her head together, I’ll be old and gray and Mr. Happy won’t be able to jump up and do his little dance of joy anymore.

  “You know I love you, Julia.”

  She nodded at the phone. Her eyes were fixed down the hallway, on the bedroom entrance. The handyman had left the door open, but he must have closed the curtains because the room was dark. She thought again of the clock and those red numerals stuck on 4:06.

  The handyman had seen those numerals. But she had unplugged the clock. She was sure, just as she’d been sure she’d locked the door.

  The handyman had also seen the blocks lying near her feet. Those weren’t imaginary, either.