by J. R. Rain
All of which might have happened had I not scooted along on my bike.
So was I safe here? Was I safe anywhere?
I headed quickly along the path, smelling all the aromas the flowers created. The scents were very real, and so was the cool breeze blowing along the quiet street. Yet the events that led me back here after being gone for ten months were so unreal: a dead Amanda, a bewitched old lady and killer mice. God, now I can see how some of these poor devils go insane—if you overload the mind, things fall apart in your head until you’re just a gibbering idiot. All of this was almost too much to bear.
I reached the front door, and without hesitation I knocked. Already, I could see the mice coming, zeroing in on me, if you will.
I waited impatiently.
Heels clicked on the wooden floor on the other side of the door. The door opened.
Chapter Eight
Standing in the doorway, face silhouetted by the yellow foyer light behind her, she almost made me believe in ghosts.
Hell, I’d come around on curses, so why not? What was one more leap of faith into madness?
But a hope nearly as mad sprang from my throbbing heart. I could easily have believed I was looking at Amanda, that all the reports of her murder had been wrong, and that ten months had not passed and we were still deeply in love.
“Can I help you?” The voice was different, slightly deeper, the words spoken about half again as fast as Amanda would have said them. Amanda had told me about Tabitha, of course, but because I’d kept it all a secret I’d never met her sister. On second look, as my eyes adjusted to the light, the woman was slightly taller and built perhaps a little more athletically. Her facial features were just a touch harder, too, but that might have been her preparation for hating me.
“My name is Albert Shipway. I spoke to you earlier on the phone today...about Amanda.”
She paused. And I knew her mind must have been racing, thinking thoughts such as: So this is the adulterous creep, the father of Amanda’s illegitimate child, the man who destroyed our family–what could he possibly want from me? Hasn’t he caused enough trouble?
Of course, that’s what I assumed she had been thinking. This is what she said. “Of course, Mr. Shipway. What can I do for you?”
I realized that her voice wasn’t just deeper, it was thick with emotion or sadness. But there was also aloofness to it, as if she’s been trained to control her emotions. Or maybe she’d been rehearsing all afternoon.
I was glad I’d decided to do this in person instead of over the phone. I’d taken the weasel’s way out long enough, and now there was something else at stake bigger than my pride. “I really, uh, need to talk to you about...Amanda, for starters.”
Her face masked in shadows, I still managed to see her blink, the whites of her eyes momentarily disappearing behind her closed lids. She hesitated for only a moment and said with forced politeness, “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes, thank you very much.”
She stepped aside and I passed across the threshold, catching hold of her perfume, a wonderful, pleasing scent. Even better than the flowers outside. Inside, I was instantly assaulted by the memories of Amanda. The house was so very familiar to me: the small, quaint kitchen just behind the family room, a kitchen that allowed for some very interesting moments when two chefs were diving for dessert instead of prepping the main course; the living room just beyond the foyer, decorated with oaken furniture and plants in every corner; European landscapes painted in the Impressionistic styles of the early twentieth century covering the walls. Along the hall, where the house’s three bedrooms could be found, though I couldn’t see it from where I was standing in the foyer, were pictures of the Mead family.
I would never see Amanda again. A little mist gathered in my eyes, but I blamed it on the drive over, even though I had a face shield. Wind. Yeah, always the wind’s fault.
I turned around when the door clicked shut. I had seen Amanda’s sister in pictures along that hallway. She was, of course, even more beautiful in person, she and Amanda looking so very similar. Amanda had a more dignified look, perhaps a look she had purposefully acquired to meet the expectations of a college professor. Amanda had been fond of small wire-framed glasses that she wore at the end of her nose while reading. Her dress was very conservative and her speech was impeccable.
Tabitha clearly had a shared genetic code. But similar facial and body structures were where it all stopped. Her sister was wearing sweat pants and a tank top, both abundantly filled by nature or a generous God above, and I didn’t care either way. Amanda would not have been caught dead in a tank top. She had admittedly been a little too stuffy, though I hadn’t minded, and even found it quite charming. The more tidy and together Amanda had been, the more I edged toward scruffiness, so we could always take vicarious pleasure in playing “opposites attract.”
Her sister’s hair was tied up in a haphazard way that allowed some of the black locks to fall forward over her forehead and right eye. She was breathtaking. She’d never be Amanda, but who would?
I reminded myself why I was there. I’d have time for heartache later, if I could find any heart left. The little glowing coal that had been there after Amanda dumped me had been successfully doused by the booze. That made all of this much easier. I was so dead that I might as well have been a ghost myself.
But, damn it, you’ve got a kid. Save the pity party for a private room.
Tabitha was looking at me with concern, bright eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath. “Quite frankly, no. Do you mind if I sit? I promise not to take long.”
“I wasn’t going to give you long.”
“Thanks for letting me in. I know this—”
“You don’t know anything. You’re here because I need you, not because I want to help, or let you cry a little, or explain how it all could have been different.” She pointed to the living room and she followed me in.
I sat on the edge of the couch, the plaid one with the little pillows that Amanda and I had used in creative ways. She sat across from me, rigid, clearly all business.
“I’m sorry,” I said, in the quiet of a house that would never hold Amanda’s laughter again. The words died as if they were the last words whispered in a mausoleum.
I sensed waters of rage dammed up inside her. I braced for the expected explosion, wondering how her grief would play itself out. Maybe I hadn’t murdered her sister, but in my experience, you take your feelings out on whatever happens to be close at hand. Yell at the receptionist, slap your lover, stomp the living hell out of an innocent mouse.
But she exhaled as if she had fought the rage and conquered it, determined to be emotionless while I was there. With a sadness in her voice that made me want to break down right there and cry like a baby, she said: “You two were pretty close.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. Sisters talk to each other, and I’m sure she knew the whole story. As awful as I’d been, I couldn’t imagine Amanda painting me as the ogre in her fairy tale.
“We were. It was special. It was also very, very hard on me when it ended. And even harder on me to hear....”
She nodded slowly, looked as though she wanted to say something, then moved off quickly to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door yank open, a can fizz, the glug of beer being poured into a glass. And then the sounds were repeated as she poured herself one. I figured the rote hospitality was a cover for her to squeeze off a tear or two and get her Miss Cool act in place.
She came back with two very large glasses of frothing beer. My mouth watered and I hoped she didn’t notice my trembling hand as I reached for reprieve.
I shoved the glass against my lips, careful not to look too eager, and then drained half of it in a blink. I sat the glass down and wiped my mouth.
“Foster’s,” I said.
“She told me it was your favorite. It was her favorite, too, of course.”
“She told you pr
etty much everything, huh?”
“It’s the only reason I haven’t killed you yet, Albert.”
I couldn’t quite tell if she was kidding. If she was going to play hard, I figured there was no more need to pussyfoot.
But the thought of the mice coming for me filled me with dread once again, right when I’d been trying to man up. Amazing how meeting Amanda’s sister had made me forget for a few minutes that I was doomed to meet all my greatest fears.
Maybe Tabitha was one of them.
“Look,” I said. “The police think my ex-wife killed Amanda and took our baby. So I need to know everything you know.”
“I’ve talked to the police, too.” She said it with a smirk. The kind of smirk only a cop could give, as if she’d watched all the Dirty Harry movies as part of law enforcement training.
“I get it,” I said. “You’re a cop, too. If Amanda hadn’t told me, I could tell it a mile away.”
“So you think I’ve got some inside info, huh? And I’m going to give it to you so you can play cowboy and go get the bad guy? Or, in this case, the woman you screwed around on and probably drove the rest of the way over the edge. You ask me, I think they ought to build an electric chair built for two in this case.”
“Hate me all you want, but I need to fix this.”
“You should have fixed it before you followed your naughty little bits over a cliff edge and took my sister with you.”
It’s amazing how quickly grief could turn to anger. Or maybe that’s just the way we drunks did it. “Look, just tell me where they think she is and I’ll be out of here.”
“Yeah, like I trust you to blunder into the scene while your deranged ex is holding a little baby hostage?”
“I need to do something to help.”
“You’re still a selfish bastard, even after all that’s happened?” She said it with a sense of dubious amazement. “You wreck four lives, and all you can think about is absolving your guilt?”
Damn right. I killed the beer and headed for the liquor cabinet. The Mead family was upstanding, the father in real estate, mother heading a non-profit arts organization, and they were the kind who socialized. Me, I never had a liquor cabinet. I could never own two bottles at the same time without emptying one and a half.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” Tabitha said, and it was almost like Amanda was sitting there, her ghost accusing me in a way her living spirit never would have dared.
The whiskey looked good in a glass and even better heading toward my mouth. Which was good, because it kept my tongue from spewing enough venom to get me kicked out before I got what I came for.
Her tone changed again as I refilled my glass, high and neat and heavy in my hand. Tabitha was riding her own emotional roller coaster, and she’d barely sipped her beer. “Amanda loved you so much. Even though she knew you were an asshole. But she saw something sweet in you, something good and hopeful that the world needed. That’s why she kept the baby.”
That cut me in mid-swallow. “Thank you.”
We were silent for a moment. I was gathering my thoughts; she was staring at me, her eyes wide and blue and shiny. Without hardly any forethought, my mouth opened and these words poured out, blowing my script all to hell: “I loved her, too. God, I loved her. She was so wonderful. We were perfect for each other. She...she never let me explain. I would have given up everything for her, everything in the world. I wouldn’t have gotten serious if I had any doubts, but I knew I was divorcing my wife. It wasn’t just an affair. It was a relationship. She was the love of my life.”
Tabitha was still guarded. “Are you divorced now?”
“No, separated. My wife can sometimes display a temper not found on mentally balanced people. I didn’t discover this temper until we had been married for some time. Quite frankly, she scares me, and when I met Amanda I knew I had the strength to go through with the divorce. Last month I talked to my attorney about it, about how I could do it quickly and get out of the relationship. I could see Gerda doing something mean, horribly mean, and that scared me. And I had this little dream of finding Amanda and winning her back.”
“Albert Shipway as a dreamer. That’s a new one.”
“I don’t see a badge on that tank top.”
“You know what they say about cops. We take the job home with us. Especially when it’s personal.”
I tossed down another couple of ounces of eighty proof. I’d need it for the next part. “There’s a little bit more to it.”
“Besides what you told the detectives this afternoon?” She caught my look. “Yeah, I read the report. And obstructing justice is a pretty serious charge.”
“Great. After you get done frying me, you can scrape me off the chair with a spatula and give me a lethal injection.”
“Have a drink, Albert. You look like you could use one.”
I slammed the glass down nearly hard enough to crack it. “That thing I didn’t tell the detectives? I think it’s all tied in with this, but I didn’t want them to think I was nuts.”
“Hey, I’m a Mead. We can handle weird. Or maybe Amanda didn’t tell you everything about us.”
The mention of her name sent another spike through my heart, and even the whiskey couldn’t blunt the pain. “I can’t do this.”
“The clock’s ticking, Shipway. Every second you waste feeling sorry for yourself is a second Amanda’s child might get closer to death. If he’s not dead already.”
“Fine. How’s this? A crazy old woman came up to me on the street today and said I’d meet my greatest fear. Since then, I found out Amanda was killed, that I was a father, and....”
Her face was blank and eyes like Arctic ice. No more judgment, just waiting for me to get done so she could make up her mind.
“And she put a curse on me. I think. No, I’m certain. Something from my childhood, something she couldn’t have known about unless she was clairvoyant or something.”
“A curse?” Her face didn’t crack in the slightest.
“Yeah, and the reason I came here is because I thought she looked familiar. Down the hall, that photo from what looks like a family reunion. The little old woman in the center–”
“Nana.”
“Yes. Well, Amanda had mentioned that your mother had died when you two were very young.”
“Yes, when I was eight and Amanda was twelve. Nana raised us.”
“Your grandmother. Amanda told me she was different, and I suspect that was why Amanda strived so hard to conform and appear straight-laced. She was so afraid of turning out like that. You know....”
“A witch?”
Witch. The word seemed like it should never be uttered in the real world. It was a word that belonged in Halloween movies, with black cats and broomsticks and bubbling cauldrons. Yet Tabitha presented it as scientific fact.
I continued, a little embarrassed for both of us. “It’s really important that I know this, and I will tell you what I’m getting at and what has happened to me in just a minute.”
“I told you, we don’t have a minute. Nana’s a witch. And Amanda could have been, but she chose the right-handed path.”
I watched her lips for any sign of a smirk, but all I saw was grim impatience and determination. Nothing to do but spill it all.
“I got home and there were all these...mice, just like the one that killed my best friend when we were kids.”
“That’s not good.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No, it means she really did a put a curse on you. And when Nana puts on a curse on you, it usually sticks.”
“Ah, so this is a family thing, right?”
“Every family has secrets, Shipway.”
“Does your grandmother—Nana—live in the area?”
“In an old folk’s home in Fullerton, about ten miles from here. But if she wanted out, she has her ways.”
“Let me guess. Magic spells, mumbo jumbo, cloak of invisibility.”
“If I know Nana, she blames you for
Amanda’s death.”
“You’re serious.”
Tabitha took another sip of her beer, leaving a dot of foam on her nose. Ordinarily it would have been incredibly cute, but right now all it did was give me a few seconds to get grounded again.
“Tell me everything, and don’t treat me like a cop,” she said. “Treat me like Amanda’s sister. I have a right to know what we’re dealing with.”
Great. Permission to sound like a lunatic.
So I told Tabitha of the events of the day, starting with my encounter with the old lady at lunch, my feeling of losing a minute of my life, of the old lady mentioning my fear of mice, of the old lady saying just what would be done and that she would then be content but never satisfied. And then I told her that something about the old lady alarmed me, and I had indeed thought of Amanda. And then the cops delivering the guillotine blow of Amanda’s murder. And my call to the Mead house, knowing Tabitha was my last link to learning the truth. And then I told her of the mice swarm.
“That weird voodoo doll they found at the crime scene,” Tabitha said. “That doesn’t sound like Nana’s style.”
“So, what now?” I asked, still expecting her to laugh me out of the house, or maybe follow through on her threat to kill me. Revenge seemed to run in the Mead family.
“Your wife. What’s her name again?”
“Gerda Shipway.”
“Sounds like a real bitch.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, the detectives had a lead up in Oregon, something about her in-law’s property out in the sticks. But she’d never do the expected, right?”
“One thing about Gerda, she doesn’t play by the rules.”
“And neither does her husband,” she said, spearing me with those eyes that were as blue as Scandanavian skies and as sharp as a February icicle.
I said, “Like you said, we’re wasting time.”