by Rosa Sophia
“I’m not going to kill you, Katherine.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
He set down his water and clasped his hands. “I’m going to let you figure it out.”
“Why?”
“Look at me. I’m an old man. I don’t have much time left and I certainly don’t have anything to lose. You’d better leave now, Katherine.”
Click. Click.
She froze. The steady noise was coming from her purse.
“What is that?” Phillip croaked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying!” he growled. Then he grabbed for her purse. His strong, gnarled fingers took hold of the bag and pulled it.
“No!” Kat gasped. She tried not to let go. But even in his old age, Phillip was stronger. A moment later, he overturned the purse and watched the recorder land and bounce once on the floor. One of the buttons was unintentionally pressed and the recorder opened. Both of them desperately made a lunge for the tape and the ensuing scuffle decided which one of them had gained possession.
Phillip pushed her away, laid the tape on the ground, and crushed it under his heel. “Get the hell out,” he growled.
“First, you tell me something, you fucker! Why did you have to kill him, huh? Why did you kill John? And why the hell did you try to kill me, your own goddamn granddaughter?”
“Keep your voice down! I’ve got dementia, remember?”
“And why is that?” Kat moved closer to him and whispered, “Why are you pretending to be this way and how is it that no one has found you out yet? You had something to do with Jonathan Stark’s death, didn’t you? Admit it, damn it!”
“I can’t tell you anything.”
“Why? Are you protecting someone?”
“I thought I told you to leave?” Phillip sat back down in his chair and turned it toward the window again. “You’ll get nothing out of me.”
Kat watched him for a moment. He relaxed. His gray hair rubbed against the back of the chair. He became the useless old man once again, the one who could barely remember his own name. Katherine slowly moved toward the door.
Before she unlocked it, she turned back and said, “I’ll put you in prison if it’s the last thing I do.”
She opened the door and left, closing it tightly behind her. There was a woman sitting on a bench near the door. She looked at Kat.
“There’s something strange about him, isn’t there?” the woman said.
“There is.” Kat hurried down the hall, into the foyer and out of the building, glad to leave the dismal nursing home behind.
***
Several miles off the coast of Maine was a small island called Cliff. The roads were made of sand and dirt, the oldest house was almost a centennial, and one of the community’s inhabitants was a man named Ike Averson.
He took his speedboat to Portland every day, where he was a police officer. But no matter what, he couldn’t bring himself to live in that bustling city. He had grown up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and although a small house on Cliff Island was nothing like a farm, it was still very close to nature. Ike loved it there.
The Cliff Island community was small and Ike was friends with nearly all of his neighbors, close and far—far being less than three miles down the stretches of sandy streets.
It was a cold day in the beginning of September, but nonetheless, Ike needed ketchup. He had just made a burger for lunch and realized he hadn’t a drop of ketchup in the house, which he felt was extremely necessary for almost anything. So he put on his coat and headed outside, thrusting his hands into his pockets. He began to wish he’d put a warm hat on over his brown hair, but he tried to ignore the cold and continued on.
The general store was a very short distance down the road. The only problem was, it was closed at this hour. He would have to go to the owner’s house, a good friend of his, and ask him to unlock the shop for a bottle of ketchup. He couldn’t do without it. As he walked, he heard the sound of an approaching golf cart.
“Hey, Ike,” the driver called. The driver’s wife waved from the passenger side, her face mostly obscured by a scarf. “Hope you’re not lookin’ for some booze!”
“Ha!” Ike yelled loudly. The golf cart drove on and disappeared around a bend. Ike’s friends always joked with him about alcohol, because he never drank.
By the time he got to the general store, he knew his burger was probably cold. Nevertheless, it was not prudent to go without ketchup for an elongated period of time. He pushed through the small gate by the general store and climbed the steps that led up to Jimmy Pedigree’s apartment.
Jimmy’s family had always lived on Cliff Island and had operated the general store for many years. When Ike knocked on the door and Jimmy answered, the white-bearded older man didn’t even say hello. Instead, he smiled knowingly.
“You ran out of ketchup again, didn’t you?”
“You read my mind, Jimmy.”
“You’d better come in.”
Ike stepped over the threshold and followed Jimmy to the stairs in the house. The top floor was where the owner lived. Down below, the entire first floor served as the store.
The two men strode down the stairs that led to Pedigree’s Grocer. The steps came out behind the front counter.
This half of the store was small and cramped with shelves and various products. A passageway on the other side of the room led to a deli, where ice cream, sandwiches and lunch meat were available at limited hours of the day. Jimmy flicked on a light while Ike searched for a bottle of ketchup, then returned to the counter.
“We’ve got woolly hats if you want one,” Jimmy said. He took the correct change from Ike and put it in the cash register. “It’s bound to rain any minute now. That water’ll be colder than the bay.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Not gonna stay and chat?” Jimmy went to the front door of the store and unlocked it for his friend.
Ike stepped out onto the dirt, facing a glorious view of the wharf and the bay beyond. “Don’t think so, buddy. My burger’s probably cold by now.”
“Everything gets cold in this weather,” Jimmy said. “Especially my wife!”
On the way back to the house, a freezing drizzle began, just as Ike’s friend had suspected. Tall pines and naked maples swayed in a sudden stinging wind. The general store was right next to the wharf. Ike fleetingly heard the high tide crashing against the rocky cliff that rose up toward the buildings. Halfway up the road, another sound echoed down the path.
“Ike!” It was a woman’s voice, distant but clear. Just as he rounded a corner in the road, the source of the call became apparent. It was Ike’s neighbor, a plump woman in her mid-forties. Ike jogged until he grew close enough to her that he could speak without yelling.
“What is it, Mabel?”
She pulled her hat down over her ears and readjusted her sheepskin coat. “I heard the phone ring in your house. I was already outside picking up some wood for the fire and it was a good thing, too.” They started walking back toward their houses.
“Who was it?”
“She said she’s a cousin of yours or something. She said it was extremely important, so it’s good that I caught it.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t want to talk much due to the cold. He just wanted to get home and eat his lunch. He couldn’t imagine who the woman on the phone could be. He had a lot of cousins, many of whom he hadn’t seen in years. A large number of them were very distant. Why did she want to talk to him? The only thing he could guess was that someone in the family could have died.
“I left the phone out and told her it would be a few minutes,” Mabel noted, then she hurried across her yard.
A moment later, Ike pushed gratefully through his front door of his house and closed it firmly behind him. He threw off his coat, set the ketchup down on the kitchen table and went directly to the phone. Ike sat down and put the receiver to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Ike?” It was a woman
, all right, but he didn’t recognize her voice.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Katherine. Don’t you remember me?”
“Wait, let me think.” Ike sighed and leaned back on the couch. It wasn’t all that comfortable, as it was an antique mission style couch, but it helped him stay awake as he searched his tired memory. He tried to recall each family reunion he had ever attended.
“What’s your last name?”
“Maslin,” Katherine replied.
“I know that name. I just…I can’t place it.”
“I was never at many family reunions. I think I only met you once.” The voice on the other end of the line was soft. Ike thought he detected a tinge of exhaustion.
Then he remembered something. When Ike had been in his twenties, his parents had rented a small house in Arizona to serve as a location for a family get-together. It hadn’t just been the Aversons. The Maslins had come as well. There were only three of them—a mother, a father, and their daughter. She had been blond and fair-skinned. She had spent most of the time drawing.
Ike made the connections. “Oh!”
“You remember?”
“I do. You were the blond girl in Arizona. How are your parents doing?” Now that Ike recalled her, his interest piqued.
“My mother’s all right.”
“What about David? We talked a lot that weekend, mostly about cars.” Ike laughed. “Common interest, I guess. He still have that auto body shop?”
There was a long, uncomfortable pause on the other line. Then a sigh broke the silence.
“He’s dead. I’m surprised you didn’t hear.”
Ike gulped down a clump of saliva and gasped uncomfortably. Then he coughed. “I…I had no idea. You don’t hear much up here. I’m surprised no one tried to contact me.”
“I guess you were never that close to the family.”
Ike couldn’t tell if that was an affront or simply a stated fact. He wanted to change the subject, but he also wanted to know more. “How?”
“He killed himself when I was sixteen.” The answer was blunt, but it sounded as though she had forced it. She hadn’t wanted to say it, and Ike didn’t blame her.
“God, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”
“I know. Anyway…”
“Yes, let’s get back to, uh…what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“You’re still a cop, right?”
“It’s my calling in life, yes,” Ike said nervously, still unable to tear himself from what he had just learned.
“Could you get me some dirt on somebody?”
“What do you mean?” Ike was surprised. No one had ever asked him that before.
“I mean, maybe you could look someone up for me. You know, see if they have a past criminal record.”
Ike scratched through his mousy brown hair. “Hmm,” he said.
“Can you?”
“I suppose I could. It’s not something I do normally. But I could take a look at some records after hours at the station, and there are a few people I could call, I guess. The question is, why should I do this and why do you need to know this person’s past? I need reasons, Katherine.”
“I think this guy is up to something. I just want to make sure that he’s not sneaking around behind my back. And you can call me Kat.”
“And the reason you called me is because I’m the only cop you know?” Ike still couldn’t understand why this was happening, but he was extremely curious.
“Yes. I need to know if there’s anything he’s done that’s on file. It’s very important.”
“All right, tell me his name.”
She told him and he wrote it down, as well as her phone number. He promised her he would look it up and call her back when he got the chance. He also told her to be careful. “Whatever it is you’re researching, don’t try to be your own private eye,” he told her in a fatherly tone.
Perhaps that was what she needed—fatherly advice. Ike hoped this was nothing too important. Maybe it was an ex-boyfriend giving her trouble. He hung up the phone and thought about it. The way her voice had sounded was not at all reassuring. The tone resonated deep fear and confusion. He would stay in touch, even after gathering the information, just to make sure Katherine stayed safe.
Ike went into the kitchen, where a cold and unappetizing burger was waiting for him, a bottle of ketchup standing beside it.
Chapter 11
Looking For A Shovel
Phillip walked into the kitchen, and Katherine screamed. She felt groggy and the dirt and wetness in her eyes hazed her vision, but she knew who it was. And what was that in his hand? It was blunt and turned off toward the end, squaring into a gray broken shape that was most likely—
“Kat, what’s wrong?” The voice interrupted her jumbled thoughts. It was a calming utterance, and she recognized it. She stopped screaming. Another glance around her made her realize she was on the floor. The face in front of her startled her, but she relaxed when she saw it was Jake.
“Kat, what the hell is wrong? I came in and you threw back your chair and slammed yourself against the cabinets.”
She couldn’t remember. Had she been asleep the entire time? Had she dreamt Phillip’s presence? She saw flowery wallpaper, a frying pan, and the wooden stool in the corner. By the looks of it, Phillip hadn’t been there at all.
And when she thought about it, how could he? He was miles away from her, trapped in a nursing home and being forced to live out his days in a cowardly denial of the truth.
When Jake repeated his question and pulled Katherine into his arms, she told him what she had seen.
“You looked like you were asleep when I came in,” he told her. “You were resting your head on the table. You must have dreamt it.”
“I guess. It couldn’t have happened anyway.” Kat stumbled to her feet and reached for the coffeepot. There was a tiny bit left in the bottom. It had a thin layer of dust covering it and it was probably cold, but she didn’t care. She reached for the pot, but a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.
“No, Kat. Bad idea. What you need is sleep.” Jake gazed into her bloodshot eyes as though he were looking for something. He urged her out of the kitchen.
“How did today go?”
“Badly. I got rejected from another interview. Come on, I’ll walk you to the bedroom.”
Kat glared at him. “I’m not going to bed,” she growled. As soon as she said it, she realized that she had never spoken to Jake in such an aggressive tone. He appeared shocked. Instead of apologizing, she went back to the kitchen, grabbed the coffeepot and shakily poured the remaining tonic into the nearest cup, which happened to be a dirty one from the day before. She gulped it down and dropped the cup into the sink.
Then she headed toward the front door and slipped on a pair of sneakers. Jake followed her.
“Where are you going?” His voice was choked with tears that wouldn’t come out. Katherine stumbled, accidentally knocking over a framed picture of Corry with her current boyfriend.
“Out,” she told him.
“Kat, where are you going?”
“I’m going to look for something.”
“Katherine, please don’t do this.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her away from the door. For a moment, she was docile. They looked into each other’s eyes. “Kat, I love you. Please don’t go. I’m afraid for you.”
“Don’t be.” She glanced away from him, down at the ground. “I love you too, Jake. But I have to go. There’s something I have to do.”
“Don’t you realize you could get yourself killed out there, looking for whatever it is you’re trying to find? I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s not worth your life. Nothing is.”
“I’m going now.” Kat stepped outside.
“Katherine! You don’t have a jacket. It’s cold out there.”
She realized she was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her key ring.
“I don’t care.”
Jake grabbed an article of clothing from the coat rack, ran after her and intercepted her. “At least wear this.” He wrapped the coat around her shoulders and she reluctantly pushed her arms through the sleeves.
There was a quiet moment in which the two lovers simply stared into each other’s eyes. There was tension within that gaze.
“What is it, Jake?” Kat saw his pain. Part of her was saying, nothing is greater than my pain. No one’s fear is more important than my own. She wasn’t sure whether this was a normal feeling or a selfish one.
I sound selfish, she decided. Jake hadn’t spoken, so she repeated her question. He leaned on her shoulder and tried not to cry.
“Do you even love me anymore?” It was barely a whisper. She could feel his breath on her neck.
But the only thing Katherine could think about was the barn behind the Maslin house.
It had become an obsession. The memory beyond those doors was locked there, frozen in time. She was the only one who could bring it forth and expose it. She was the only one who could execute this memory.
“I said, do you love me anymore?” Jake had lifted his head.
“Of course I do,” Kat told him quickly. But she had meant it. Deep inside of her, a voice whispered. She wondered if it was her own conscience or Julie’s lost spirit, sending a word of advice to her kin—
Don’t lose sight of what’s truly important. Don’t become obsessed with revenge. If you do that, what room is there for love?
She knew the voice inside her was right. But she also knew there were things she had to do. If she didn’t take care of this now, she would be having nightmares about John and Julie for the rest of her life. She would see the blood, all the time, and she would know, deep down, that she had given up.
Kat kissed Jake on the lips. She could taste salt on his skin.
“I love you,” she said, pulling him close. Jake’s body shuddered with uncontrollable sobs. She had never seen him cry like this before. “I will always love you,” she repeated, “but I have things I have to do.”