As she turned from the phone, it rang.
It was Drake. “Katie, my God, what the hell’s going on out there? Are you all right? I heard the news on the radio. Please, can I come out there? I want to be with…”
“I’m going in to work, Drake,” she said with a calmness she did not feel. “Will you come to The Coffee Shop this morning?” Surprisingly, she was glad to hear Drake’s voice. Glad he had called. “I—really do want to talk to you.”
“Going into work? Katie, are you…? All right, I’ll see you there.”
She would tell him what she had to in person. She at least owed him that much. She hoped she would still have his friendship. She could use a good friend right now. Oh, Jason. She sagged into a chair and let the tears come.
When she arrived at the restaurant, a flushed and clearly disturbed Mrs. Cameron met her at the door. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you in here this morning, Katie. You should be home.”
“I thought it would be better if I was working. Anyway, I’ve missed too much time already.” Mrs. Cameron said nothing further, but her expression spoke loudly. She didn’t want Katie here, and it was not out of any concern for Katie’s welfare. “I’ll just put this overnight case behind the cash register,” Katie said quietly, not understanding. “If that’s all right.”
Her employer glanced curiously at the overnight case Katie held, shrugged her indifference and left.
As the morning wore on, Katie found herself confusing orders, dropping dishes, and trying not to see the curious, suspicious glances of both staff and customers. Yet no one came right out and questioned her about what had happened, or offered a word of sympathy. One customer, a woman who always seemed so pleasant, refused to be served by Katie. From behind the cash register, Katie could feel Mrs. Cameron’s sharp eyes, like burning coals, watching her. What was going on? It was as if she were being blamed for something. Why? What had she done?
It occurred to her as she refilled a customer’s coffee mug that she must seem terribly callous coming in to work with her friend lying on a cold slab in the morgue. The thought produced a picture in her mind, and she began to shake, spattering the back of her hand with the scalding liquid. Bursting into tears, Katie fled to the kitchen where she lay her head against the large refrigerator. Its hard coolness felt soothing on her forehead, contrasting with her burning hand. Mrs. Cameron had been right; it had been foolish to come into work this morning. She was a mess. Katie whirled at the slight pressure on her shoulder.
Frank Cramer drew back his hand, his smile quickly fading at Katie’s expression of fear.
“Katie, I only wanted to…” His thin, deeply creased face turned beet red as Katie rushed past him.
In her haste to get away, she came face to face with Joey out in the hallway. He was carrying a pail of blackened, soapy water, and some of it sloshed onto floor. A sour smell mixed with creosote drifted up to her. Joey was staring at her. Then he smiled. What did he always wear that stupid, mindless smile? Joey? Was it Joey? Did Joey—murder Jason? Oh, God.
He set the pail down, spilling more water onto his big boots. “Hi,
K—Katie, you still my gurfriend?” came the inevitable question.
“No, I’m not your girlfriend, Joey,” she cried, tears blinding her. “I never was. Please, just leave me alone.”
Like a child unjustly punished, Joey’s face crumbled, hurt filling his eyes. He lowered them and reached for the pail.
Her regret was immediate and Katie’s hand went out instinctively to touch him. “I’m sorry, Joey,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean…”
His pathetic attempt at a smile of forgiveness wrenched her heart. Despising herself, she watched him turn his face from her, hefting the pail of water with the strength of a man and the awkwardness of a child.
Heaviness descended on her like a wet, black shroud.
“You can go home now, Katie.”
Mrs. Cameron stood before her. Her eyes and voice were firm in their decision. Unyielding. Obviously, she had just witnessed the scene with Joey.
“I’ll be all right. I just…”
“Get some rest,” Mrs. Cameron interrupted. “Francine is managing quite well.”
“I need this job,” Katie said, and hated the plea she heard in her voice.
“We’ll see, Katie. Right now, there’s—too much talk. Take some time until it dies down.”
“Talk? I don’t understand. What kind of…?”
“I’ve made up a month’s severance pay for you.”
Clearly, it had been decided even before she arrived this morning that her services were no longer required. But why? She knew it had to be something other than her losing time. But what? What had she done? What were they saying about her?
Forcing herself to stand taller, she said, “Thank you. You’re more than generous. Could I ask—just one last favor of you, Mrs. Cameron?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember Drake Devlin—the man I was planning to go out with on the night of my accident?”
“I remember,” she said without hesitation. “A nice young man he was.” Flushing a little, she added pointedly, “A real man.”
Looking into the woman’s eyes, seeing the unveiled contempt there, even embarrassment, Katie suddenly understood everything. The media (probably thanks to Sergeant Miller) had not ignored the homosexual angle in the case, and she was somehow being made part of something sordid, something unhealthy. This was a smaller town than she’d thought.
“He’ll be in later this morning,” she said, refusing even to acknowledge the unspoken accusation. People believed what they wanted to believe. “The overnight case is his.” Here was something else they could discuss among themselves, she thought bitterly. Something else they’ll enjoy speculating on.
“I’ll see that he gets it,” Mrs. Cameron said stiffly.
Katie scribbled a hasty note to Drake and slipped it inside the case.
After rezipping it, she went back out to the kitchen, knowing she couldn’t leave without first apologizing to Frank. Surely he would know the strain she was under and forgive her. Yet, she managed only to say his name before he turned on her, his face livid with rage and indignation.
“You’re just like all the rest,” he lashed out, waving the egg turner dangerously in the air. “You think you’re so good Frank Cramer shouldn’t put his dirty hands on you. But I listen to the news, Katie— you’re not what you pretend. You think Frank Cramer is nothing, only a useless drunk. Well, I’ll show you. I’ll show everyone.” With that, he picked up a stainless steel pot and flung it at the side wall where it made a loud thunk against the bricks, then bounced along the tiled floor. “Frank Cramer is an artist!” he proclaimed to Katie and the world at large.
“Frank, you’re wrong,” Katie stammered into the tirade. “I mean…”
“I don’t care what you mean,” he yelled, the vein pulsing visible in his forehead. He turned away from her to furiously scrape two scorched, smelly eggs from the grill into the garbage can. The back of his neck was purple.
Katie walked out of the kitchen feeling totally numb, as if something in her had shut down. As she reached for her coat on the rack, Mrs. Cameron came up to her. Wisps of white hair had escaped her usually neat braids. “You know Frank,” she said in a kindly voice. “He gets a little crazy sometimes. He’ll be okay. You know as well as I do what the real problem is. Frank likes you, Katie.”
It was the only warmth the woman had shown her since she got here but Katie was far removed from its having any beneficial effect. As she let the restaurant she heard Mrs. Cameron’s voice, sharp and angry, behind her. “Joey, when you take the truck out to do an errand, don’t stay half the day. And don’t leave here again at night without mopping up this floor.”
Poor Joey, Katie thought as she let the heavy door close behind her for what she knew would be the last time. And yet she couldn’t really blame Mrs. Cameron for chastising Joey. No more, she supposed, than s
he could blame Mrs. Cameron for firing her.
She did, after all, have a business to run.
The talk though. That was something else. It was ridiculous and sickening.
Katie drove home in a daze. In her studio, still wearing her coat, she curled up on the cot in a fetal position and fell into a sleep so deep and sound she might have been drugged.
Soon, she dreamed.
She was sitting in a corner of a cold, dimly lit room surrounded by dark forms—human forms? Straining in the near-darkness, she saw that they were not human forms at all—but strawmen. The throat of each lay open, a gaping wound oozing blood that dripped onto the cement floor, where each drop became a small puddle, quickly spreading its red-blackness over a larger and larger area, until all the floor was covered in blood. Katie felt its warm stickiness under her.
Where the strawmen had stood unmoving, they now, like grotesque wind up toys, began to move toward her. Stiff-legged they came, zombies whose greedy, dead eyes burned into her, dead eyes that she knew could somehow see. Katie’s flesh crawled, her knees drawing up ever tighter to her body pressed hard against the rough, cold wall, but there was no where to go. No escape. She watched in helpless terror as skeletal hands reached out to her. As the strawmen came closer, their limbs made a dry, raspy sound that, to Katie, was more horrifying than the thunder of boots. Insane with terror, she fought to move, to get away, but it was as if she was bound with invisible ropes. Then she felt a hand on her cheek—light as spider legs—and saw that the straw fingers had become pale bones, and the nails touching her face were long and curled and yellow from an eternity spent in the grave…
She screamed.
And sat bolt upright on the cot, hearing the echo of her scream all around her. Her breathing ragged, her body drenched in perspiration, Katie scanned the room, peering warily into dark corners, not yet certain if she was really awake or still locked into her awful dream. At last she got up and lit the lamp.
Only when the lamplight had chased all the shadows from the corners, did she breathe a sigh of relief. She was safe—at least for the moment. She tried not to hear the whispery sounds of movement that lingered at the edge of her nightmare.
She’d lit the fire and was taking off her coat when the phone rang, jarring every nerve in her body. She snapped it up on the second ring. Drake, she thought, and half-hoped it was. She would be grateful for his company. He’d probably read her note by now. She hoped he would understand and take no for an answer, but she also knew it wasn’t like Drake to give up without a fight. She definitely had no strength for a confrontation. She said hello, her voice sounding small and weak in her ears.
At the sound of breathing, her heart gave a little skip. Not Drake. It was him. “Hello,” she said again foolishly. “Who’s calling, please?”
No answer.
Suddenly more angry than frightened, Katie slammed the receiver down. Before the phone could ring again, she took the receiver off the hook.
For a solid hour she sat staring into the fire. At last she rose and walked to the desk, picking up the manila envelope that had come in the mail along with a postcard from her mother. Ignoring the postcard for the moment, she slid the photograph from the envelope, and moved closer to the lamplight.
As Katie studied the photograph, she gradually began, both consciously and unconsciously, to slip into a different world. A world detached from all the terrible things that were happening.
Hattie Halloway was neither young nor beautiful, not in the traditional sense, yet her face was far from uninteresting. The word aristocratic came to mind. Vaguely reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy. Her eyes were her best feature—deep-set, wide, intelligent, almost black in color. Her mouth bordered on thin. Her dark hair was softly styled in a rather out of date pageboy, framing an oval face accented by high cheekbones. Wonderful bone structure, Katie thought, with a mild stirring of excitement. It was a face that begged to be captured on canvas.
As she gathered her brushes and paints together, arranged the canvas on the easel and uncapped a tube of flesh-tone paint, Katie realized this was exactly the sort of therapy she needed right now. Painting required nothing short of her full concentration.
After donning the yellow, paint-spattered smock that hung on the hall tree, she turned up the wick and placed the lamp just to her left on the table so that its flame spotlighted the canvas. Holding her brush delicately between thumb and forefinger, Katie began the deft, fine strokes that would form her outline.
Deeply immersed in her work, she did not hear the car when, two hours later, it pulled into her drive. She whirled at the pounding of feet up her back stairs, knocking the jar of brushes to the floor.
“Katherine, are you in there? Katherine?”
Letting out a breath of relief at the familiar voice, Katie unlocked and slid open the doors. “Jonathan, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, more pleased at the sight of him than she wanted to be.
“I know. I’m sorry to barge in on you so late. I tried to call you, but all I could get was a busy signal.”
He looks tired, Katie thought, and realized she was tired herself. Her shoulders ached, and her eyes felt as if someone had rubbed them with sandpaper. Yet, on a deeper level, working had calmed her.
“I took the phone off the hook,” she said, taking his coat and hanging it on the rack. “I didn’t want to be disturbed. What time is it, anyway? My watch seems to have stopped, and I keep forgetting to wind the clock.”
He held his wrist up to the lamp. “Twenty to ten. I called you this morning, too, but—uh, I guess you went to work.”
She chose the moment to gather her brushes from the floor. Jonathan bent to help her. “I thought I should,” she said. “It seemed important at the time.” It occurred to her that losing her job wasn’t the tragedy she’d expected it to be. In a way, it was even a blessing. She had a month’s pay in her purse, and there would be the money from the portrait, and from the sale of her other paintings. For a little while, at least, she would be free to do her real work. Odd, that something in her life should still matter to her.
“I dropped in to The Coffee Shop,” Jonathan said, handing her the brushes he’d picked up off the floor. “I spoke with Mrs. Cameron.”
“And she told you she fired me.”
“She chose a nicer way of expressing it. I’m really sorry. People can be so…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Katie cut in. “Look, I was just about to have some coffee. Would you like a cup?” She might as well be civilized. He had, after all, been kind to her. She couldn’t very well hate him. There wasn’t enough emotion left in her for that, though it might have been easier. Besides, she could hardly consider herself his victim when she knew full well she’d boldly and willfully thrown herself at him.
He accepted her offer of coffee. “I—uh, need to talk to you, Katherine.” As he ran a hand through his thick, black hair, Katie’s senses recalled the way it had felt to her touch. She remembered its clean, soapy fragrance. The memory shattered when Jonathan added,
“What happened to your lawyer friend? I half-expected to see another car in the drive.”
She briefly considered telling him the truth, that Drake wasn’t coming, but knew he would then feel obligated to stay with her, and further obligating Jonathan Shea was the last thing she wanted to do.
“He was tied up. He’ll be along later.”
That was good, he said, and told her there was a police cruiser in the area, so she could feel relatively safe anyway, which Katie found comforting. She saw him looking at her canvas.
“The commission I told you about,” she said. “A portrait. There’s not much to see yet, but maybe when it’s finished, you’ll give it a review.” She managed a smile at him, then showed him the photograph of Hattie Holloway.
As Jonathan studied the woman in the photo, Katie saw recognition come into his eyes. “I know this lady,” he said. “Or rather, I know her husband, George Holloway. He’s a land developer. They’
ve just donated a new wing to the hospital. They’re wealthy people. And good people.”
Katie had figured with what Mrs. Holloway was paying her, they weren’t exactly paupers. “I supposed she must be a patron of the arts,” she said. “Otherwise, she would have chosen a name to do her portrait.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Katherine. I’m no expert, but your work looks damned good to me.”
She warmed at his compliment. “Thanks. Actually, I never imagined it could be anything but a hobby.”
“Well, I won’t press you on that,” he said smiling. “Is this your first portrait?”
“The first one I’ll get paid for. Please, sit down, Jonathan. Make yourself comfortable,” she said, suddenly self-conscious talking about herself. “I’ll get the coffee.”
When she returned he was sitting on the cot, legs angled out in front of him. She handed him his coffee. “You said you wanted to talk. Do the police have any leads?”
“Nothing solid.” He patted the place beside him. Katie tensed for a second, then, not wanting to create an issue, sat down.
“I’ve been at the police station most of the day,” he said, “going through reports, computer files…” He shook his head despairingly. “I thought we might stumble on something helpful if we went back to the beginning. To the night you saw the strawman—assuming that’s what it was—in the back seat of your car.”
“It’s what I saw all right. I’m sure of that now.” Her nightmare came back in a rush. She forced it away. “But I don’t know what I can add that I haven’t already told you.”
“Neither do I. But humor me for the moment. Unfortunately, we don’t know anything about that particular one,” Jonathan went on, talking more to himself than to her, his forehead creased in concentration. “But we do know about the effigy of Todd. We have the physical evidence of that one. Of course, they could have been one and the same. I had hoped it was just some sick Halloween prank, but too much has happened for that to stand up.”
Meaning Jason was dead and that Jonathan believed, as she did, that he’d been cold-bloodedly murdered.
Listen to the Shadows Page 15