Fear Dreams

by J. A. Schneider

  “I spoke to your partner Doug.” Kerri gave a quick smile of thanks to the tech leaving. She had her notebook out and her ballpoint ready. “He only remembers the injury but used the same word you did – weird – about there being more to that accident. He couldn’t remember what.”

  “Well, that night…” Peter’s sensitive eyes looked into the screen. “Doug’s doing better. He’s…”

  “Out of rehab, yes, doing great. Volunteer teaching kids about drug and alcohol abuse.”

  “We Skype. I helped him white-knuckle it.” Peter glanced down to the table before him and clasped his hands; then he looked back to the screen. “So, that accident was something. Head trauma, a broken rib and the leg a really messy compound, comminuted fracture - under the lights you could see it from fifteen feet away, the bone all splintered and sticking right through her jeans. Awful.”

  Kerri had researched Liddy Barron’s accident; now picked up one of two printouts before her. “The police report just lists the accident’s bare details, the felony hit and run, and catching the drunk driver minutes later. There’s nothing here suggesting what you and Doug felt about something weird - only that the injured woman ran right into the path of the oncoming car. The officer writing up the report said it looked like she was trying to kill herself.”

  “Definitely,” Peter nodded. “Like I said, it was awful.”

  “Was the husband there?”

  “No, and that was the first, less strange thing. He came running out just after we arrived, hysterical, telling the cops he’d been looking all over for her. I heard and thought that was ridiculous - hell, if you live in a New York apartment, how much looking do you have to do? I don’t think the cop questioning him thought it odd, but I did.”

  “Anything else you noticed about the husband?”

  Peter frowned slightly at something off camera, remembering. “They’d both been drinking – you have that?”

  “Only Ms Barron’s blood alcohol, zero point one three.”

  Peter looked back, raised his eyebrows. “He reeked too. It seemed pretty clear they’d been drinking and fighting. He insisted on coming in the ambulance – understandable – but that’s when I noticed the second strange thing – what really made me remember.”

  “What?” Kerri sat forward, suddenly breathing and scribbling faster.

  “The unconscious woman’s hair was wet. Rather, still damp as if it had been wet. I was curious, so I felt her collar. Also damp, and her jeans. The cops wouldn’t have noticed ‘cause it was us cutting her clothes off. It just seemed strange - who has damp hair and clothes at three in the morning?”

  “And goes tearing out into traffic,” Kerri muttered, scribbling madly, thinking - a water connection!

  “Weird like that you remember,” Peter said, shaking his head as if still seeing the accident.

  Behind Kerri the door opened and Alex came in, hearing that last comment, sitting next to her out of picture range where the tech guy had been. He leaned and started reading her notes. She was concentrating intensely, but she felt his surprised glance.

  “What about the husband’s hair and clothes?” she asked Peter Dunn. “Also wet?”

  “Hard to say – his hair looked either damp or sweaty, it was a hot night and he was sitting on the opposite bench. I couldn’t very well reach across the ambulance to feel his shirt.”

  “But you wanted to?” Kerri was clutching her pen so hard that her fingers cramped.

  “I’ll say. It bugged me later that I didn’t mention what I saw to the cops.”

  “Ha, you know what you would have gotten at that hour?” Kerri put down her pen and grimaced in pain, trying to straighten her bent fingers. She heard Alex snicker. Seven thousand miles away, Peter also saw and cracked a smile.

  “You just made me feel better,” he said. “Yeah, cops are in wonderful moods at three in the morning. They would have told me to just do my damned job and don’t bleeping complicate things. The scene was pretty chaotic…then days later things got crazy ‘cause I had to get ready for this.” Peter gestured around him. The clock behind him read four fifty-six.

  Kerri said, “I can’t thank you enough. You’ve given me a new slant on this case.”

  Peter Dunn smiled. “Hey, I’m relieved. Three months later and it still nagged.” Somewhere in the background a buzzer sounded. “Oops, gotta go. Good luck with it.”

  “And you, Peter. Thanks again and stay safe!”

  “I’ll try. It was nice talking to you. Makes me less homesick.”

  The screen went blank. Kerri fell back in her chair, letting out a huge, pent-up breath. Alex reached for her notebook and flipped pages, stopping where her handwriting got crazy excited.

  He pointed. “Wet? Liddy Barron’s hair was damp from being wet? That’s something.”

  “Another water connection and a big one.” Kerri felt suddenly drained. “It means something…but what? I’ll go back over her files, the hospital report, witness statements, swill caffeine extra strong to re-stoke the blown gray cells... Am I stuttering? Making sense?” She saw Alex was looking at her funny, smiling. “What?”

  “Your hair. It’s cute like that, half in and half out of its ponytail.”

  “Fix it. Put an ice pack on my head while you’re at it.”

  He leaned back, used both hands to pull her hair back into its band. They were alone in the control room with its monitors and floor cables. He pulled close again, and kissed her cheek. His warmth, the soft scrape of his stubble…the comfort felt so good. Tension started to drain away, Kerri turned her face to him, and they kissed, long and tenderly.

  “I’ll help you,” he whispered. “Together we can-”

  “Stop. Kiss me again.”

  He did.

  Then he said, “Do this at your place? Home is better. Can I sleep over?”

  “Yes, my bed has so missed you.” She dropped her brow wearily to his. He cupped her cheek with a warm, strong hand.

  “I’ve stuff to finish here, can be at your place in an hour. Don’t make the coffee too strong.”

  “Okay.”

  47

  Key in the lock, done.

  Open door, done.

  Punch keyboard buttons, lock up again, done. Her hand shook just a little.

  Liddy turned to face the apartment. Everything was gray. Gloomy gray light came in from the early dusk, no shadows, even the white columns looked gray.

  She didn’t feel afraid; didn’t feel much, actually. In this long, long day something in her had turned to lead. He told Beth he’d be here, would go to work then be back early - but the place was nearly dark. There was a musty feeling to it too, no coffee or cooking smells. Paul could make eggs at least – and here it was after seven and the place was like a mausoleum. How fitting, she thought. She had lain awake until almost seven this morning, then had slept at last and slept late, waking to find Beth’s note – “Decaf! Just press da button!” - and Beth’s key duplicates and a pile of pastries in the kitchen.

  But she’d barely eaten. Had gone back to bed in Beth’s small guest bedroom, pulled the blanket up around her, and lain and thought. For hours, lying still, she’d let her mind float free. Tried to, anyway.

  Sasha’s faces, all of them, kept coming back to her. Alive, smiling and happy online. Then weeping in the mist before the plants, and in the shower stall; then the eyes, most of all, mournful and begging to her with Help me scrawled beneath.

  Had Paul seen the painting? Gone into the studio? Oh God…

  Liddy switched on the lamp by the door, then the Victorian glass lamp by the couch, glancing down, for a moment, at the DVD of Vampire Island, remembering the night they had watched it. Rather, the night she had watched it. Paul had gotten almost immediately antsy and jumped up, walked away. Couldn’t bear watching someone dying and begging for help, even if just on film.

  Remembering that night was one of the things she’d kept coming back to, lying in Beth’s bed. It should have seemed like a small t
hing…but it wasn’t.

  A sound from the bedroom. The mattress creaked, then footsteps approached, and there he was.

  Paul, standing uncertainly in the dimness of the hall, looking suddenly thin, very thin, unshaven with dark circles under his eyes. He was dressed in a wrinkled oxford shirt and dark pants; shoes, too. So he’d gone to work, come back to bed but never took off his shoes? Or had he just put them back on?

  “Liddy.” His voice was a croak.

  She said nothing; went to turn on the second lamp on the side of the couch near him. This close, his appearance scared her, started her heart thudding. His eyes were lost dark wells, darker still in the hall where he still stood, fixed on her.

  Absurdly, having no words, she said the first thing she would have normally said. “Have you eaten?”

  Vague nod. “At work. Came home early.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “No.”

  He went to her, his arms out to embrace her. She let him. He hadn’t showered. He was trembling, squeezing her, mumbling about his relief, his sorrow. “Never again,” he kept saying. “…don’t know where my mind was. The stress, the research, the flattery from some kid when I was scared of failure.”

  Some kid. He had toyed with her and she was just some kid…

  Liddy’s heart pounded harder. After long seconds she pulled away; made herself look at him dead on. “Before anything,” she said shakily, “I need to know. Did you have anything to do with Sasha’s disappearance?”

  “God, no.” He turned away, headed back up the hall. “It was a mistake, an insane mistake. I beg you, can we put it in our past?”

  Nothing about the painting. He hadn’t been in the studio.

  There was more Liddy had to ask him. Things that had come to her at Beth’s.

  She followed him into the dark, musty bedroom that smelled of sweat. Not the old sweat of gyms, but new sweat – lots of it. She bent and felt Paul’s pillow. Damp. Ditto his sheets. He was pacing, a dark silhouette on the other side of the bed. Liddy straightened; faced him across the bed that seemed as dark and wide as a battlefield at night. She didn’t turn on the lamp.

  “So you ended it,” she said unsteadily.

  “Yes.” His silhouette turned; paced the other way. There were maybe four feet between that side of the bed and the window. His body was hunched, as if wanting to run, but he was stuck in his little alley over there.

  Another question rose that had nagged the whole afternoon at Beth’s. Liddy looked across their dark battlefield, and inhaled. “We spent four years in the old apartment, didn’t we?”

  The silhouette looked briefly toward her; looked away, paced. “Yes,” he answered again, but in a tone that said, What of it?

  “It was actually four and a half years, during which I always wanted to move, and you didn’t.”

  “The recession. It was a big place for a good price. A good deal.”

  “It didn’t stop being a good deal. Yet after my accident, why were you suddenly in such a rush to move - you even went looking with Beth before I could walk, see places for myself. Why was that?”

  The silhouette stopped, spread its hands, took a ragged breath. “Because I loved you. Wanted you to be happy.”

  “And not remember the night of the accident? I’d lost my memory – a stroke of luck for you-”

  “No.” He came toward her again. She wheeled back out to the dark hall, crossed to her studio, felt around frantically for her tensor lamp. He was on her heels in the dimness, pleading that he’d known she’d always wanted Soho. “Frankly I felt guilty for being a tightwad.”

  “Although you kept the boat, the really expensive boat.”

  “It was my father’s, it was all he had.” Shakily she got the lamp on as he tripped over her tall stool, righted it and himself and just stood there, breathing hard, looking desperate. “Lids, for God’s sake…”

  She backed away. Her heart whammed and her leg ached. “You got worried when you saw my memory starting to return – then, oh didn’t you work fast! You thought this glorious move with all its” – her hands flew up – “busyness would take my mind permanently off seeing you and Sasha-”

  “No....” He stepped pleadingly toward her as she backed away further, close to her shelves. Peripherally she saw her box cutter, inches away.

  “I want you,” she said bitterly, “to tell me what happened that night. I have to know,” she cried, her finger jabbing like a crazy person’s to her chair before her work table. “Sit. Tell me,” she ordered.

  He gave up. Fell to the chair like a marionette whose strings have been cut; dropped his sweaty brow to his hand. Behind him, glowing, the painting he hadn’t seen. The face was different; the eyes glared down at him.

  “I…” Paul’s voice was thin, desperate. “…couldn’t let you know, because if you did…”

  “I’d what? Turn you in? Wreck your life and your prestigious research?” Liddy inched closer to her box cutter; noticed – oh God - that her long scissors were still on her work table behind Paul. She feared him seeing them so she pointed jerkily to the door. “That bedroom you spent hours in smells of guilt. You were sweating buckets of guilt, weren’t you?”

  He was shaking his head, his head that was still in his hand. “Not guilt,” he rasped, very quietly…and suddenly the room stilled, became quiet as death.

  Paul looked up at her, his eyes stricken. “I was sweating fear.” He inhaled, then plunged as if his next words would finish them both. “Fear you’d remember…that you killed Sasha.”

  48

  She just stared at him, for long, ticking seconds.

  “You bastard,” she finally whispered.

  His head was back in his hands, but he seemed quieter now; resigned. His free hand gripped her chair arm.

  “What you were crying about at the lab,” he said softly, “that Sasha and I had been…skinny dipping? Her hair was wet?” He looked sorrowfully at the floor. “It was your hair that was wet,” he whispered, then stopped dead silent.

  Liddy’s heart racketed so loud she could hear it.

  “Remember now?” he said after a bit. “Did I just jog the rest?”

  After everything, everything, the thought that he would play this final, hideous trick on her took her breath away, and suddenly a longing dragged at Liddy to do nothing but collapse, to surrender completely before such evil. She withstood it though; shut her eyes tight for a second, then pulled together all her resolve and hatred too; hatred for this man she’d never really known who had put her and was still putting her through such horror. Fast, she reached for her box cutter; flicked the blade out to its longest; held it firmly point-down at her side.

  Insanely, Paul didn’t react. Just sat there, looking sad. “Another death, Liddy? Okay, go for it. Without me to cover for you, what will you do this time?”

  She gripped her blade tighter, trembling. “I never went near Sasha.”

  He stared limply at the floor. “You came back from that gallery opening and found us. Found us fighting, ironically. She just…showed up because I’d been trying to break it off. She’d been pleading and crying, hanging on me when you walked in.” Paul looked up. “Does that bring it back? DiStefano’s gallery opening? You’d been drinking, came home holding a half empty champagne bottle and threw it at me.”

  “No,” Liddy breathed. Then, like a flash, part of it did come. Her knees buckled. Her back hit the wall and she slid slowly to the floor. “You told Sasha…‘Wait for me in the boat’…I heard you say that.” Her face crumpled; an angry tear spilled down her cheek.

  He rose from the chair and knelt to her, held her shoulders. “No,” he said gently. “’Wait for me in the boat’ is what you texted her - from my phone later while I slept.” He looked down at the blade she still gripped; tried to ease it from her. She wrenched her hand from him and raised it, glaring and threatening. He held his hands up in surrender.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Keep it. Just listen.” But one
hand dropped close to hers, ready to grab.

  “I heard the door close when you left.” His eyes grieved. “We’d been fighting and drinking after she ran out. I thought you’d left me and I just…lay there, miserable. Then it occurred to check my phone…” He gulped air. “I ran. Wasn’t in time. You were in the water. She was…gone.”

  His free hand reached to brush a strand of hair from her brow; his other hand stayed near hers gripping her blade. “I got you out, soaking. I walked us back. Didn’t even want a cab to see.”

  Liddy gaped at him, struggling to breathe, tears of shock streaming.

  Paul pulled her to him, comforting, comforting, again trying to take her blade, again giving in to her resistance. “Did you take one of my anesthetics with you? Find her in bed and knock her out? You drowned her, Liddy. Weighted her down with something, let the current carry her off, that’s what you said. You even sent her phone down with her. All the way home you ranted, ‘See? I thought of everything.’” He exhaled hard. “It was almost three in the morning. You were still…crazed, fighting with me, drinking more when we got back. Then you…ran out.”

  “Into the traffic,” Liddy wept, gripping her blade.

  “Yes.”

  “Wh-what about your phone? If I texted her…”

  “I erased it.”

  He pulled her to him again. “Shh…they’ll never know. The girl was self-destructive, and we’ve been through a bad patch. What happened is out now between us, but they’ll never know. We’re going to be okay.”

  Liddy looked up to the painting, saw the eyes.

  “I remember now,” she breathed, tears slowing, finally seeing every image of that terrible night flashing, resurfacing. “You brought it all back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Only, you told it backwards.”

  He looked at her. “What?”

  “You told what you did, and I followed. You were drunk when I got you out of the water, ranting she was going to go to the dean, ruin you. You’d swum out with her, let the current take her. No one would know, you kept saying. They’ll never find her.”