Cage of Night

by Ed Gorman

  This was right near closing time. It had been a slow business day. I'd spent most of my time in the back room rearranging some old stock and marking it down for an upcoming sale. Some of the shoes make you wonder what consumer the manufacturer had in mind. One pair had platform heels, ankle straps and a flowery bow that went across the instep. Apparently, Carmen Miranda was coming back in vogue.

  "Are you Spence?"

  As I said, I didn't recognize him at first.

  He was a small, quiet-looking man with a receding hairline, sad brown eyes, and a forlorn little mouth.

  "Yes, I am," I said.

  He put out a small hand. "I'm Don Myles, David's father."

  "Oh."

  I shook his hand. I had no idea what to say. He obviously didn't either. I felt kind of sorry for both of us.

  Then the irony of it struck me. It happened this way sometimes, little gray guy like this siring a strapping handsome superstar like David. Recessive genes, maybe.

  "I'd like to ask you a favor but I don't want you to feel obligated about it in any way."

  "All right," I said.

  "The missus was wondering if you might possibly stop over at our place after the funeral."

  "Your place?"

  He nodded. "She'd like to talk to you about how David was."

  I see.

  "The last hour or so."

  "Right."

  "If he said anything particular."

  —Tell my Mom and Dad how much I love them, Spence. Tell them that I sure wish I would have listened to them.

  That's what Mr. Myles hoped that David had said.

  The poor shambling bastard, standing there so sad, utterly destroyed, the rest of his life never to be the same again.

  "I'd be happy to, Mr. Myles."

  "Really. You wouldn't mind?"

  "No; no problem."

  I was going to make something up. I'd have to think about it. If I made it too corny, they'd know I was making it up. I'd have to think of something that they'd keep with them the rest of their lives.

  "How about if I call you?"

  He stared at me and then averted his eyes a moment. "I know what he did to you. Ramming your car that night."

  "Don't think about that, Mr. Myles. I wasn't hurt bad."

  "It was her. He changed after he met her. I'm not saying that he wasn't wild before but—but after he started hanging around with that Cindy Brasher—" He shook his head.

  "The missus really would appreciate you stopping by, Spence."

  "My pleasure, Mr. Myles."

  He nodded, and went quietly away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I smelled snow on the wind as I came out of the store that night. Winter always comes abruptly in these parts. Even though the day had been sunny and warm, tomorrow could be white and bitter cold.

  Dusk was coming earlier, too. By 5:45, darkness covered everything. The parking lot lights looked dim and ineffective against the vast gloom.

  I got in my car and had my first winter encounter with the engine. Damned thing didn't want to start.

  I watched as all the other cars pulled out of the lot, owners waving goodbye. A few were nice enough to shout that they had jumper cables but I waved them on. I figured I could do this myself.

  Then I was alone and when I looked up at the light, I saw the first few whipping traces of snow.

  I tried the engine again and this time it caught but just as it did, I saw a car pull next to mine, and a familiar face looked over at me.

  He was out of his car and into mine in moments.

  "You need a better car."

  "Thanks for the tip," I said.

  "I've got a lot of good advice for you, Spence."

  "Yeah, I'll bet you do."

  "Especially about Saturday night."

  I didn't say anything for a time, just sat there and looked out at the whipping snow. "The Chief talked to you, huh?"

  "As far as I knew, he had a gun, Spence. That was why I shot him."

  "Right."

  "Don't fuck with me, Spence. I'm not that shitty little punk you used hang out with. I'm a lot different these days."

  I turned and looked at him. "Yeah, I noticed that Saturday when you killed Myles."

  "He killed Nancy Tumbler."

  "That didn't give you the right to execute him."

  Now it was his turn to pause. He let out a long, ragged sigh. "I want you to drop this, this whole thing, you understand?"

  "You're safe, Garrett. The Chief believes that you didn't hear me say he was unarmed."

  "I didn't hear you say it."

  "Right."

  "I don't give a shit if you believe me."

  "I noticed that."

  "It's over and done with. There's going to be an inquest and an investigation, and then the Chief said it'll be over."

  "Sounds like it's going to be a great investigation."

  He opened the door.

  The cold air felt good. Clean.

  "He used to beat her up."

  "Yeah, he did."

  "And as I remember, he also beat the hell out of you."

  I didn't say anything.

  "So what's the big deal? If I didn't kill him, he would have just rotted in prison the rest of his life anyway."

  "You're rationalizing, Garrett. There wasn't any reason to shoot him and you know it."

  Another sigh. "I don't want you talking to the Chief anymore, you hear me?"

  "I hear you."

  He reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. It was a surprisingly gentle hand. "You're a nice guy, Spence. You really are. I've got a lot of good memories about you, Conan and all that bullshit. So I'm asking you, don't push it anymore, all right? I did what I had to do Saturday night, and it's that simple. If you want to believe that I murdered him, that's up to you. But I'm trying to be a good cop for this town and I don't want that kind of rumor undermining me. So I'm asking you to keep your opinions to yourself." He paused. "I really didn't hear you say he was unarmed, Spence. I really didn't."

  I almost liked him right then. He was almost the geeky kid I'd hung out in bookstores with. Conan and all that bullshit, as he'd just said.

  And I almost believed him, too. Maybe there'd been wind and he hadn't heard. Or maybe it was as simple as the Chief had said. Maybe when you were approaching a car with a dangerous man inside, your mind was totally fixed on that moment, and you just tuned out everything else.

  I guess I wanted to believe that right then, guess I wanted to believe that the world was a safe and sane and trustworthy place after all, and that a cop wouldn't shoot somebody without justification, and then lie on top of it.

  Not in this nice old world of ours, he wouldn't.

  He took his hand away. "I still think we should go have a pizza sometime and then go have a few brews somewhere."

  But then he said, "He didn't deserve her, Spence. She's a very special girl."

  And then I knew he was lying.

  And knew why he'd killed Myles.

  Because of Cindy.

  "You going after her now, Garrett?"

  The smile was almost a smirk. "You're a little behind the times, Spence. I've already been seeing her."

  "What the hell you talking about?"

  He got out of the car and started to shut the door. Just before he did, he said, "She asked me to take her to the Christmas dance, Spence."

  The smirk was still there.

  He closed the door quietly, and walked away.

  I let him pull out before I tried the motor again. It was twenty minutes before the engine turned over.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Thanksgiving came and went in the usual way. Mom slaved away in the kitchen all morning, we had our feast, then Dad, Josh and I settled in to the living room to watch some serious football.

  I had trouble concentrating though. All I could think of was what Garrett had said to me about Cindy asking him to the Christmas dance.

  The next day, I became a criminal.
<
br />   There was a new state law that prohibited one citizen from following another citizen. The anti-stalker law had been voted in after two women, in the same week, had both been killed by stalkers.

  I was a stalker.

  The first night, I only followed her for an hour. She led me out to the mall. I waited thirty, forty minutes for her to reappear but then got so bored that I just drove on home.

  The second night, I got more adventurous. She went to a movie with three girlfriends. Once she was inside the Cineplex, I drove over to a tavern, drank two slow beers and played a little bumper pool, and then eased back out to the movie house just about the time the film was ending.

  Cindy and her friends went to get a pizza. I guess I was mostly trying to see if she met up with Garrett any place. She didn't, not in the half hour I sat down the street from the pizza place.

  The third night, I knew right away something was going to happen.

  She drove straight from her house to a city park that had been closed down for the winter. The temperature was just barely 20. The snow flurries were starting to get serious.

  Following her wasn't easy.

  The park was heavily forested and the roads narrow. Even if I hung back as far as a half mile, she'd be able to see me in her rear view.

  The park looked lonesome, all shorn tree limbs and empty tennis courts and battened-down concession stands.

  Where was she going?

  She went all the way through the park and then turned down a short gravel road that led to the boat docks.

  A few houseboats bobbed darkly on the cold water. A stray dog, hungry and sad, sniffed around the rusty door of one of the boats.

  She parked and got out of the car and walked down to the dock.

  She looked small and vulnerable against the winter night, bobbing up and down with the turbulent water.

  I'd parked my car behind a copse of trees on the hill above and looked down on her now with my binoculars.

  The car appeared without warning, headlights garish in the darkness.

  As it passed me, going down the steep slope to the docks, I could see that it was a police car.

  The car stopped right at the waterline. He cut the beams down to the fog lights.

  When he got out, he stretched lazily, not seeming to acknowledge her in any way.

  Then he strolled over to the walk and started across the bobbing boards toward her, a kind of lazy insolence in his step. In just a month on the force, Garrett had already become the worst sort of cop.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her.

  It was that sudden.

  He walked up to her, slid his arms around her, brought her to him, and kissed her.

  For a long moment, they were one in the night, two darknesses fused.

  Then they separated and started walking together toward the far end of the dock, their bodies finding the rhythms of the chopping waters, undulating in a way that was almost comic.

  They didn't seem to be looking at each other as they conversed. They just walked and talked. No touching. No more kisses.

  When they came to the end of the boards, they stopped and stared out across the water to the bluffs silhouetted on the far side of the river.

  This time, she took him in her arms. I could almost feel the smooth touch of her fingers on the back of my head as she pulled me to her for a kiss. I could taste her mouth again, her sex, see the way the moonlight painted her naked breasts in the back seat of the car. It had been like a space capsule, my little car, us all snug and warm inside of it, her loving me as she'd loved no others even if she had given them her body—a space capsule blissfully lost in space, just the two of us, for all eternity.

  And now she was bringing Garrett to her as she'd brought me to her.

  That queasy mixture of rage and grief worked through my stomach again.

  I leaned against the cold black tree and thought how foolish and pathetic I must look—spying on a girl who no longer cared anything about me.

  I left.

  Got in my car and left.

  She could have him, then.

  There was nothing I could do about it anyway.

  By the time I got home, a bitter wind had swept down from the hills. In my room I pulled out the skin magazine and tried to interest myself in that but I was beyond the lonely solace of masturbation.

  I couldn't read, either.

  I just lay there with the light out wanting to cry but I couldn't even do that.

  She was lost to me, forever.

  "Oh, Lord," Mrs. Myles said, and started crying.

  In high school we studied a playwright named Henrik Ibsen. He believed that there is a good kind of lying and a bad kind of lying. The good kind is when you keep something from someone so as not to hurt his feelings. Or you invent something to tell him so he'll feel better.

  Mr. Myles had stopped by the store again that day—three days following my last glimpse of Cindy at the boat dock—and asked me if I could stop over at their place tonight.

  David Myles had been popular because he'd been a good looking football star, not because his parents had money. They lived in a fading crackerbox in one of the town's first housing developments. The living room was surprisingly cheery, the couch and arm chairs in good condition. The walls were a bright buff blue, complementing the deeper blue of the furnishings. There was a bookcase filled with book club bestsellers. From the kitchen came the pleasant smells of a good dinner.

  Mr. and Mrs. Myles vaguely resembled each other. They were both worn looking, and every word they spoke was filled with apology. He wore a cardigan sweater and a white shirt and slacks. She wore a ruffled white blouse and dark slacks. They looked like two people who'd played parents a long time ago in a fifties sitcom. Strapping David Myles really must have come from their recessive genes.

  The moment she started crying, Mr. Myles leaned across the couch and put his arm around her.

  I wondered if I'd done the right thing.

  I'd been here twenty minutes, giving them a highly cleaned-up version of that terrible Saturday night. Good lies, mostly of omission.

  But then I decided to tell a few lies for their sake. And so when Mrs. Myles asked me, "Did he say anything about us?" I said, "He said he wished he'd been a better son, and that he loved you very much."

  But now that I saw her sobbing, I wondered if I'd done the right thing after all.

  Mr. Myles got her calmed down and she looked over at me and said, "He really said that?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "That's what people didn't understand about him."

  "Ma'am?"

  "How sweet he was. Inside, I mean."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "They just saw the aggressive football star."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "They didn't see the sensitivity and the caring."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "He really was a good boy," Mr. Myles said. "A lot of people didn't know that."

  "It was her," Mrs. Myles said, fingering the brooch that she wore on the front of her ruffled white blouse. "That Cindy Brasher."

  "I guess I don't know what you mean, ma'am."

  "My wife thinks that she got David to believe all sorts of crazy things, and that that was why he snapped and—Well, why it all happened." He gave her a tiny hug again, as if to second her theory.

  "What sort of crazy things?" I said.

  "All sorts of crazy things. You should hear the tapes. Right, George?"

  He nodded. "David always had a good, level head on his shoulders but then he started acting really—" He shook his head. "And it started when he met that Brasher girl. Started right away, too."

  "We could barely recognize our own son," Mrs. Myles said, "the way he was carrying on."

  "You mentioned tapes, Mrs. Myles."

  "On his little tape recorder. He used it instead of a journal."

  I see.

  "We didn't find them till the other night," Mr. Myles said.

  "We tried to give
them to the Chief of Police but he wasn't interested." For the first time, she sounded not only sad and angry but bitter. "You listen to those tapes and you'll see what we're talking about."

  "I'd like to hear them, Mrs. Myles."

  She glanced up sorrowfully at her husband. She was speaking to me but she didn't take her eyes from him. "Wait till you hear him start talking about the well."

  I knew better than to act disturbed or excited. I just said, "I really would like to hear them, Mrs. Myles. I feel a kind of—bond, I guess—with David. After Saturday night—"

  She nodded solemnly.

  "There was no reason for that Garrett to kill him, either," she said. "David didn't have a weapon."

  I didn't want to tell her that I'd called out to Garrett. It would only make her feel worse, and there was no solution for it, anyway.

  "You ever been out there?" Mr. Myles said.

  "Out there?"

  "To that old cabin in the Hampton woods."

  "I guess so," I said, casually as possible. "When I was a kid."

  "There's on old well out there," Mr. Myles said.

  "He became obsessed with it," Mrs. Myles said.

  "And that's the right word for it, too," Mr. Myles said. "Just wait till you hear these tapes. I really believe my son was clinically insane at the time of his death."

  "And she did it, that Brasher girl," Mrs. Myles said. "She did it. Putting all the crazy stuff in his head."

  We talked for another fifteen minutes, and then Mr. Myles went and got two tape cassettes, dropped them into a manila envelope, and handed them over to me.

  "You tell me if this doesn't sound like a boy who's clinically insane," he said.

  By the time I reached the door, Mrs. Myles was sobbing again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I started following Cindy again two days later.

  During that time, she met Garrett four different times, twice at the mall, once at a closed skating rink, once in a parking lot behind an abandoned warehouse. At the warehouse, they got into some very heavy sex. In the front seat of his cop car, no less. The way she was straddling him, I was pretty sure they were doing the deed.

  All the time I followed her, I had David Myles' cassette tapes playing on the portable player on my front seat.