Mystery Dance: Three Novels

by Scott Nicholson

  “See you in a few hours,” she said. “Bye.”

  She made flight reservations and took a shower. Her suitcase was nearly packed when she heard a knock on the front door. She tightened her bathrobe and went to the living room, peering through the crack in the curtains. Walter’s Jeep was parked at the curb.

  She hadn’t called Mr. Webster about any repairs. What was the handyman doing here?

  “Hello?” she called from behind the closed front door. Perhaps she should have waited to see what he would do first. If he were a Creep, he might try to break in one of the windows. Then she remembered that he probably still had the key to her house, the one he had gotten from Mister Webster.

  “Hello, Miss Stone?”

  He could come right in if he wanted, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She considered what Mabel Covington had said about Walter’s wife.

  She glanced at the phone. The cops might need fifteen or twenty minutes to respond to a call this far from town. Plenty of time for Walter to do whatever he had in mind, unless he was one of those meticulous Creeps, the kind who liked to slowly peel his victims like ripe peaches–

  She pressed her fist to her forehead.

  “Miss Stone?” Walter repeated.

  “What is it?” she asked, careful to control her voice, trying to sound unconcerned.

  “I was just on my way into town, and I had something I thought you might like.”

  A knife to the throat, maybe? Or a screwdriver punching me a third eye socket? Or whatever you did to your wife when you took her to the woods on Cracker Knob?

  In jurisprudence, suspects were innocent until proven guilty.

  Julia remembered the kindness with which he’d treated her.

  “Hold on a second,” she called.

  She glanced at the phone, decided against it, went to the bedroom and slipped off the robe. As she slid into a T-shirt and jumper, she thought she heard something bump against the window. The glass was misted from the shower’s steam, so she saw nothing. She collected the mace from her purse and held it behind her back, and then returned to the door and opened it.

  Walter stood off the edge of the stoop, by the snowball bush. He looked ill at ease, without his baseball cap and wearing a short-sleeved knit shirt instead of his usual flannel. Like a starched golfer instead of a carpenter.

  “Sorry to drop by unexpected,” he said, his cheeks crinkling as he tried to smile.

  Julia pushed her wet hair behind her shoulders. “Is something broken that I don’t know about?”

  “Uh, no. I was just passing by, and I thought of you.”

  “The electricity has been fine,” she said. Did Elkwood handymen drop by to check up on their work? Was that another of the maddening unwritten rules of mountain pride, along with extending invitations to church?

  “Good. Wouldn’t want the house to catch on fire.”

  “Thanks for checking,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’m in a hurry. I’ve got to make a flight.”

  Walter nodded, the smile frozen on his face, squinting in the day’s brightness. “Where you fixing to go?”

  “Memphis.”

  “Oh. Old friends, I guess.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I won’t keep you, then. I brought something I thought you might like.” He pulled an envelope from the rear pocket of his jeans and gave it to her.

  Julia looked across the street to the apartments, and then shifted her gaze to Mrs. Covington’s house. She peeled back the flap and peered inside the envelope, expecting one of those cartoonish Bible tracts that showed the car-crash victim wandering through the flaming tunnels of hell and eventually realizing he was dead and it was far too late for the salvation offered by John 3:16.

  Her first peek, however, suggested photographs.

  She pulled them out. Not photographs, but baseball cards.

  Ozzie Smith. Jack Clark. Willie McGee. Ted Simmons. A few scrub pitchers and utility infielders, the Julian Javiers of the world. And some older cards, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ken Boyer. And the last…probably the greatest Cardinal ever. Stan Musial. The Man.

  “Do you like them?” he asked, his eyes wide and serious.

  “Yes, they’re wonderful!” she said. “My father used to give me baseball cards when I was little.”

  Walter grinned at her happiness, his slightly crooked teeth making him look innocent and young. “One of my buddies gave them to me a long time ago. They were tucked away in a drawer. I got some others, too, but they ain’t Cardinals.”

  “That’s really thoughtful of you,” she said. “But I can’t take these. They must be valuable.”

  “Some of the old ones might be worth a little bit of money, but value is from what you care about them,” Walter said. “I don’t care that much. I bet you could care about them more.”

  That made sense, in a strange kind of way. She studied the cards. Pieces of the past. But not a bad past, because in the photographs the outfield grass was green, the players smiled, and baseball was just a game.

  “Well, I’ll let you go,” Walter said. “Hope you have a good trip.”

  “Thank you, Walter,” was all she could think of to say. “This is the best thing to happen to me since I’ve been to Elkwood.”

  He waved as he drove away, the cloth top off his Jeep, his hair ruffled by the wind.

  Julia sat on the couch and looked at the cards for a few minutes, read the statistics on the backs, spread them out on the coffee table. She arranged them into a lineup, setting the batting order by position. The smile felt good and rare on her face. She’d almost forgotten such simple, childish delights existed.

  She set the VCR to tape the evening’s doubleheader, finished dressing, and drove to Charlotte-Douglas Airport, where she caught a jet. As the plane lifted off the runway, she embraced the freedom of flight and vowed to leave her mental baggage behind, even though she wasn’t sure what memories were tucked inside it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  On the approach to Memphis, Julia marveled at the lights of the big city, a million stars spread against a dark backdrop, the Mississippi like a galactic rift. After the months in the rural Blue Ridge Mountains, the crush of people at the airport seemed senseless, like a stampede of cattle into the slaughterhouse.

  Mitchell met her as she debarked. He wore his unbreakable lawyer’s smile, a Rolex, a tailor-cut pinstriped suit, shoes so gleaming that he could check his dark, curly hair in them. Perfect Mitchell. Still perfectly, utterly the same as when she had last seen him, as when she had first seen him. He didn’t age, only accumulated thicker layers of sameness.

  As he headed toward her at the luggage conveyor, she wondered why she couldn’t be grateful for the stability he offered. All she had to do was say “Yes,” and she could be Mrs. Austin by April. Sure, he would irk her from time to time, would grant only the perfunctory four minutes of intercourse before rolling over to call his stock broker, would pat her on the hand and call her his “Little Woman,” would smother her with boring endeavors like tennis dates and new window treatments. But he would never, ever create a bad memory for her. In fact, she was quite sure that, after a lifetime with him, she would have very few memories at all.

  And that might not be such a bad thing.

  They hugged stiffly, him looming over her, trying to press her breasts against him. He kissed her cheek before finding her lips. No tongue, and she didn’t offer hers. His cologne was musky and sweet.

  “You’re looking great,” he said, letting his eyes roam over her figure. If he noticed the weight she’d put on, he didn’t say anything, but he might have been calculating its effect beside the country club’s pool, and how a small bulge around the bikini lines might affect that complex formula of social standing. Arm candy couldn’t eat candy, at least not too much of it.

  “You’re looking perfect, as usual,” she said.

  “I work at it,” he said. Truer words never spoken. Another thing about Mitchell, he was pretty honest for
a lawyer.

  “Did you find out anything about my dad’s case?” she asked.

  “A little, but can’t it wait? I got us reservations at The Blue Note, and it wasn’t easy, let me tell you. Even Mitchell Austin has to grease a few palms to get a good seat in this town.”

  Now he was referring to himself in third person. How the mighty had risen in her absence.

  He pointed to her hand. “Hey, where’s the rock?”

  She mulled the short list of lies and came up with a tired one. “I was cleaning the stove before I left and didn’t want to tarnish it. I was in such a rush packing, I forgot to put it back on.”

  “Jesus, Julia, do you know how much that cost?”

  She supposed in the five-figure range, but she merely said, “Don’t worry, I left it in a safe place.”

  “You’re not waffling, are you?”

  Lying got easier with practice, and she served it up with one of Mitchell’s pet phrases. “No, Mitchell. I’m sticking with the game plan.”

  He smiled but the gesture didn’t reach his eyes. He took her hand and dragged her toward baggage claim.

  They caught a cab downtown, Julia gawking at the skyscrapers like a tourist as Mitchell possessively put his arm around her. He helped her out when the cab pulled to the curb. The muggy air on the sidewalk settled around Julia like a second skin. The car exhaust, the noise of traffic and evening commerce, the kaleidoscopic neon and flashing lights all kept her off balance. How had she survived this sensory overload for so long?

  They had a cucumber salad for openers, Mitchell ordering wine, Julia sticking with lemonade. “So, tell me what you found out about my father,” she said.

  Mitchell arranged his napkin with a flourish. “Later. This meal is costing a small fortune. You can pay me back by gazing into my eyes and melting.”

  She gazed, but didn’t melt. She hoped someday soon she would be able to melt again, but not tonight. “It’s important, Mitchell.”

  He sighed and drained his glass, tapped it until the waiter brought more. “It’s like I told you, not much new. I got hold of the detective who worked the case, a Lieutenant James Whitmore, he’s retired now, but I served on a Chamber of Commerce committee with his sister, so he was easy to track.”

  Mitchell fumbled in his jacket pocket, brought out a small sheaf of papers. “Got these at the records division. The case is still officially open, of course, but several hundred people have disappeared since then. Yesterday’s news.”

  Julia scanned the documents. The basic details were unchanged: Douglas Arthur Stone, age thirty-six, reported missing on the morning of September 28th. He’d called the police to his house for an emergency. Stone’s four-year-old daughter was found outside the house, confused, bleeding from cuts on her belly, and asking when her father would be back. The front door was unlocked, none of Stone’s clothes appeared to be missing, his car still in the driveway. Credit-card and financial records had gone unchanged. The few distant relatives lived on the West Coast, and had heard nothing from him. And that was that.

  Strange that, for years, all she could remember of that night was standing barefoot in the grass. Now, Dr. Forrest had led her to the memories that had been lost for so long.

  “What did Whitmore say?” Julia asked, after reading the neighbor’s unrevealing statements.

  “Said he remembers following up leads at the school where your father taught. All dead ends. The case got buried pretty fast.” Mitchell leaned over the table and held her hand. “Why don’t you just let it go?”

  She pulled her hand away. “I can’t.”

  If only she could tell him about the image of the Black Mass, the recovered memory, the only piece to this puzzle that she had. However elusive that memory was, at least it was something. But part of her was afraid that Mitchell would be shocked, view her as damaged goods, and once and for all decide that her “behavioral disorder” was no longer just a cute little quirk and decide to cut his losses. Though she was unsure what place she had in Mitchell’s life, she couldn’t bear the thought of being without him and the secure future he offered. The other part of her was afraid that Mitchell would laugh in her face.

  Dinner came, and they ate over small talk of Mitchell’s legal cases, local politics, how Julia should re-invest the small inheritance that her adoptive parents had left. It was easy for her to fall into the role of sympathetic listener, nodding and affirming Mitchell’s rightness in all matters.

  Mitchell walked her to a downtown hotel and rode the elevator with her. “Your skin smells sweet,” he said at her door, his breath on the soft nape of her neck.

  “You feel good,” she said, her arms embracing his familiar and comforting form. He took that as an invitation and dug his fingers into her shoulders. She dodged his next maneuver, a nuzzle under the ear. He hadn’t changed his repertoire in her absence.

  He would follow his instructional manual by rote until Tab A was inserted into Slot B. Part of her wanted to surrender, through the genetic instinct that needed a mate and provider, but her head was swirling so much she wouldn’t have been able to derive any pleasure. And though Mitchell was certainly not afraid to indulge himself irrespective of her response, she wasn’t up for a game of false enthusiasm.

  She kissed his cheek and danced away from his grasp. “Not tonight, honey. But soon.”

  His face darkened. “As soon as you’re better?”

  “You’ve always said you don’t want half a woman.”

  “I don’t want half, but I could at least get a piece.”

  “Mitchell.”

  “If I didn’t have so much invested in you….”

  “If you really love me, it’s worth the wait.”

  “I can’t wait forever,” he said, anger flushing his cheeks red, portraying emotion he would never let loose in a court of law. “I’m under a lot of pressure. I’m out on the gangplank with some creditors, and these people play for keeps. Once we’re legal, I can get your money for you. For us.”

  “My inheritance wouldn’t even cover the down payment on a house, much less bail you out of big trouble. And I’d give that to you right now if you ask.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “I’ve got people to see.”

  He gave her a kiss and pressed a slip of paper in her hand. He hurried down the hall, giving her a terse wave as the elevator swallowed him. She put her fingers to her lips, about to blow him a kiss, but he was gone before she could float the gesture his way.

  She looked down at the paper. It was James Whitmore’s phone number. Beneath it, in Mitchell’s neat, obsessive-compulsive writing, was written: “Sweet dreams, Jooolia.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Julia met James Whitmore at the hotel bar. She picked him out immediately. He’d told her to look for the man who didn’t belong, and that would be him. Whitmore sat on a stool, three hundred pounds, his bald head reflecting the neon beer signs. His face was wrinkled with great folds of ebony skin, but his eyes were clear. He was drinking milk, and a milk mustache contrasted with his broad lips. He nodded at her in the bar mirror as she sat beside him.

  “Mr. Whitmore?”

  “My, haven’t you grown up,” he said.

  She realized he must be comparing her to the four-year-old Julia, the one whose father disappeared one autumn night long ago.

  “Thank you for coming down. I know you don’t owe me anything, and you probably had plans for the evening.”

  “A drink with a pretty lady? Sounds like a plan to me.”

  The bartender came, and she ordered a gin gimlet. The strong bite of the alcohol kicked away some of the day’s accumulated weariness. “I know Mitchell Austin talked to you about my father’s case, but I was hoping you might remember something he overlooked.”

  “Doubtful,” Whitmore said. “Lots of people owe him favors. If he asks for something, he usually gets it. You with him?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You his girlfriend? Wife? Or, what do they call it now, significant
other?”

  “We’re engaged,” she said, taking a second, larger swallow of the gimlet. “Could you please go over the case for me? Just one more time, and I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Not much to add. I wasn’t the lead, that was Lieutenant Snead. I was just part of the investigating team. You’ve seen the case files and the incident report. We put out an APB, sent photos to the FBI and the state agencies, dug into his background to see if anybody had a grudge.”

  He looked down at her. “We talked to you, too, of course. But you were so confused, you didn’t know what happened. My, you were cute. We felt so sorry for you, losing your Dad like that. And the deep cuts on your belly, from the broken window in your room. You must have tried to crawl out.”

  “The reports said that, besides the broken window, there was no evidence of forced entry and nothing was taken.”

  “As far as we can tell. Of course, he might have had a million dollars in a paper sack, for all we know.”

  “He was a high school teacher.”

  Whitmore looked at her over his glass of milk. “Some people don’t like to hear bad stuff about people they thought they knew. What about you?”

  “Try me,” she said. “I’ve probably imagined worse things than you can come up with.”

  He smiled, eliminating the fierceness that would otherwise show in his bold features. “I suppose you have. Well, he could have been into drugs, maybe he was dealing. Couldn’t find anybody who dealt with him, but it’s not exactly the kind of information you volunteer to the police just to be a good citizen.”

  The night’s band was setting up on the stage at one end of the room. A stringy-haired teenager plugged in a guitar, one of the legion of fast-fingered guitarists that wandered through Memphis on their way to nowhere. Julia had watched them all her life, marveled at the endless power that dreams held on people, dreams that let them lie to themselves about the odds of making it. Or of being happy.

  Whitmore’s bulbous eyes took in the scene. “Your father was pretty white-bread plain, as far as we could tell. Could be that he tried real hard to make it look that way. Wouldn’t be the first.”