“All right.” I folded my arms, waiting.
“She and the dog, they were trudging through the blackberry thicket on the downslope from your house when they both saw somebody coming out your back door. The dog took off after the intruder, and hasn’t been seen since. Truevine and me, we been tracking him most of the night.”
“Someone was going through my house last night?” My voice had come out much higher than I’d hoped it would.
Skid grinned. “Still want to go home?”
He looked toward the door but all I could do was stand there and try to stay awake.
11.
A half an hour later I discovered that my house was a disaster. One of the windows was broken. The front door lock was torn up. The porch was muddy and covered with old leaves and twigs and new pollen and bird droppings.
I pushed in the broken front door to find that the front rooms, usually neat as a pin against the advent of surprise company, were an irritating clutter. The kitchen was musty and smelled like a nursing home. Papers and tapes and all sorts of books and records were everywhere on the floor.
The worst of it for me, though, was the obvious ambience in the rooms: the feeling that no one lived there. The exposed rafter beams looked dusty. The wood floors seemed stained. All the furniture was musty. The rugs were askew. The walls seemed a bit moldy. And all windows were the dull, heavy-lidded eyes of a corpse.
“The guy left this mess,” I said softly to Skid as we stood near the doorway, “and there’s no evidence? No fingerprints or fibers or shoe prints?”
“None.”
“No hair or dried sweat or greasy residue?”
“Not even snot,” Skid answered. “You want to stand here and talk about that or you want to clean up?”
“I can clean up?”
“Fever,” he reminded me, “the crime happened over three months ago. We’ve been over everything seventeen times. Please. Clean up your house. Damn.”
I bent over and picked up a book and was immediately disheartened by the prospect of a cleanup. Facing my first night back home without the comfort of hospital personnel or the benefit of intravenous food, that also seemed suddenly daunting.
As if hearing my thoughts, Skid headed into the kitchen.
“Girlinda was worried about your eating, so she made enough food for ten people to live off of for a month. It’s all in the ice box. She didn’t know how you’d be with solid food yet, so she made some awful good soups. One’s a cream of turnip and parsnip that’s just as sweet as candy, and my favorite is a white bean soup with little bits of Benton’s bacon in it.”
Then, without any fanfare at all, came a sound from upstairs that filled me with a kind of celestial gratitude. I heard Lucinda’s voice, singing softly.
I looked over at Skid.
He blushed—actually blushed. “Well, you didn’t think we were going to let you be alone on your first night home, did you?”
“In the final analysis,” I answered, not looking at him, “I don’t deserve friends like you.”
“That’s true, you really don’t.” He patted my arm. “But that’s me: I’m a good Christian. Everybody says so.”
“Hallelujah.” I smiled.
“Plus,” he went on as he opened the refrigerator door, “you got a fiancée who’s a nurse and Girlinda for a cook. Cussed as you are, you’re lucky you don’t live on the side of the road somewhere, let alone in the lap of luxury.”
“‘Let alone in the lap of luxury,’” I repeated. “That’s fun to say.”
He shook his head. “You know, if I wanted to,” he said heavily, “I could worry about you all the time.”
“All right.” I took in a deep breath and headed for the mantel. I knew the tin box I was looking for wouldn’t be there. I knew that Skid and plenty of other people had exhausted every possible effort to discover clues of any sort. I knew that I would feel worse after I looked and discovered the same thing. Still, I couldn’t help staring at the empty spot over the fireplace where the old clock and the mysterious tin box should have been.
I heard a noise on the stairs and turned to see Lucinda watching me. She was wearing a light blue sweater and old jeans and looked a little like an angel.
“That’s where your tin box used to be?” she asked, still standing on the steps.
“Right, yes.” I smiled. “I wish I could tell you how happy I am that you’re here.”
“And I wish I could tell you,” she returned, taking the last few steps down and into the living room area, “just how unhappy I am that you’re here—and not in a hospital bed.”
“Which soup you want?” Skid called from the kitchen.
I looked into my kitchen, and the incongruity of a man with a gun strapped to his waist holding a pink Tupperware container in each hand made me laugh.
“This is my new money-making idea,” I told Lucinda. “A reality television show called Sheriff Chef! With an exclamation point. Law officers from small municipalities would compete—”
“Don’t.” Lucinda sighed. “The title says it all. Don’t explain it.”
“I really liked the sound of that white bean soup,” I told Skidmore.
“It’s puréed?” Lucinda asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Skid answered.
“All right then,” she told me. “But just one cup.”
“I heard,” Skid allowed. “Just one cup.” He went to work pouring some soup from one of the Tupperware containers into a bowl and heating it up in the microwave.
“Have you eaten?” I asked her.
“Look,” she said sternly, “you should emphatically not be up. You should be lying in bed or at the very least sitting in a big old chair with your feet up.”
“I feel fine,” I protested.
And, of course, just then a crashing wave of exhaustion hit me. I reached quickly into the pocket of my jeans, found the little metal screw, and shoved it into my thigh. I did it so quickly that my leg reacted with a will of its own, as if I’d been stung by a bee.
“What?” Lucinda said instantly, seeing me twitch.
“I just remembered something,” I lied.
“What is it?” Lucinda said, a little alarmed. “Sit down.”
“Yes.” I collapsed onto my sofa.
“What did you remember?” Skid called from the kitchen.
“How much have I told you about these dreams I’ve been having?” I asked, mostly to cover my dizziness.
Lucinda sat next to me on the sofa. Skid came into the living room area and took the big chair next to the sofa, setting a small bowl of soup down on the coffee table between us. There was a tablespoon in the bowl, and the soup gave off lovely steam and an even more inviting aroma.
“These dreams,” I continued, “are directly related to the crime that took place in this house.”
They were both staring at me, and it was obvious that they were much more concerned with my current state of consciousness than my theories about crime and the unconscious.
Then another great surge of dizziness threatened to capsize my brain and I saw, quite clearly, my mother standing beside the fireplace. I knew I was seeing a memory, but it was as solid as any reality. It was as if two pieces of film or two slides were being projected onto the same screen in my living room.
Unbidden, a sudden memory leapt into my mind, and I found myself, almost in a trance state, relating that memory to Lucinda and Skidmore.
“In the early 1960s my parents left Blue Mountain,” I began. “They went to Atlanta to change the world, and my mother volunteered to be the den mother of a certain local Cub Scout troop. It had been formed somewhat illegally in an Episcopal church and included two Mexican brothers, a Jamaican child, and three Caucasian sons of various ministers in the area. It was an obvious attempt to challenge the Scouts’ mentality concerning integration in the South of that time, and my mother rose to that challenge with great fervor.”
Lucinda put her hand on my shoulder.
“So my
mother’s first idea was a field trip to the Wren’s Nest. That’s a house in West End where Joel Chandler Harris wrote the ‘Uncle Remus’ stories. She marched the boys in, slapped her purse on the counter at the entrance way, and took out the several dollars’ worth of fee, the price of admission.”
“Fever?” Skid began.
But Lucinda shot him a look, and he continued to listen to my story.
“Behind the counter was an ancient woman who had worked at the Wren’s Nest forever and she stared at my mother indignantly.
“‘You can’t bring those little colored boys in here,’ she whispered to my mother.
“‘I can’t do what?’
“‘We don’t allow Negros.’ The woman apparently had a very difficult time pronouncing the last word correctly.
“‘If you aren’t the most ignorant cracker bitch in this entire world,’ my mother is reported to have responded, ‘then I don’t know who would be. First, two of these children are from Mexico and one is from Jamaica. Second, you’re telling me that Negros aren’t allowed to pay to come into the house of the man who stole their stories, made money from them, got famous from them, and never gave them a dime in return? Is that what you’re telling me?’
“‘You’ll have to leave,’ the old woman said, picking up the phone to call the police.
“‘You couldn’t pay me to stay,’ my mother told the woman.
“Then my mother kicked the counter that lay between her and the old woman. She kicked it so hard that the glass cracked. She marched the Cub Scout troop out of the house, onto the porch, down the steps, and they all went half a block to the Gordon theater and saw a Tarzan movie—one with Gordon Scott.”
Skid and Lucinda stared at me. Several silent seconds slipped past.
“What are you talking about?” Skid finally said.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “But there’s something important about that memory. You have to believe me.”
“Who’s Gordon Scott?” Lucinda wanted to know.
“I have to piece together these memories and strange bits of dream,” I mumbled, “and if I do, I somehow—I’ll figure out why the tin box was so important, what my mother was trying to tell, or trying not to tell me. And why my assailant would take that box and an old clock, and nothing else.”
“Skid,” Lucinda whispered, “I don’t think we’re going to need that soup right away.”
And with that, I dropped off into peaceful slumber, slumping down on the sofa.
* * *
When I woke up I was lying prone on the sofa with a blanket over me, and it was nighttime. Eyes closed, I heard familiar voices from the kitchen. I sat up.
Three sat at the kitchen table, talking quietly.
“Where’s my soup?” I called out, sitting up.
“Well, look who’s decided to wake up.” The accent was unmistakable.
“Dr. Andrews?” I scrambled to get my legs over the side of the sofa and lean forward.
“Your soup’s right here in the microwave,” Lucinda said, turning. “Why don’t you come and eat it at the table?”
“Who let him in?” I stood and inclined my head in the direction of Winton Andrews, the world’s most unlikely Shakespeare scholar. He was a rugby player from Manchester, England; tall, blond, and bony, the sort of person who would bet strangers he could drink them under the table in any neighborhood bar—and win that bet. He was also quite capable of directing plays at the New Globe Theatre in London to rave reviews. He had been my best friend in Atlanta before I’d left the university, and we’d remained close enough for him to become inextricably involved in my little Blue Mountain community. Especially now that he was, apparently, quite enamored of our Nurse Chambers.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” I asked him.
“I came to Casablanca for the waters,” he said with a completely American accent.
“Waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.” I headed toward the kitchen.
“I was misinformed.” Andrews grinned.
“What the hell are you boys talking about?” Skid asked.
“Casablanca,” we both said.
“It’s a scene from the movie.” Andrews winked at Lucinda.
That was new. I’d never seen him wink before. In fact, as I examined him, several things were new about our boy. His hair was shorn. He was not wearing a loud Hawaiian print but a muted polo shirt. And he was wearing his glasses, which he never did.
“Did you just wink at my fiancée?” I asked, going to the microwave.
“What makes you think she’s still your fiancée?” he replied, luxuriating over the final word, giving it the full French treatment. “You’ve been out of commission for a while. And I do have, as you know, a way with les femmes.”
“God,” I mumbled, pushing the timer on the microwave. “Here’s what I know. I know you have to figure out a way to keep Stacey Chambers from calling you ‘Winnie.’”
“I think it’s cute,” he protested.
“Here’s what I’m worried about,” Skidmore interrupted, a little more vociferously than was necessary, I thought. “Now that Andrews is here, I’m worried that the damn Hardy Boys are going to ride again. And I don’t want that. (a) Fever’s not up to it, and (b) it just gets in the way of the actual police investigation.”
“When you were a deputy I never heard you curse,” Andrews said.
“I’ve pointed that out to him,” I told Andrews. “I think it’s the pressure of the sheriff’s job.”
“I’m serious with you both,” Skid said louder. “Last thing I need in this mess is a visit from the Two Stooges.”
“Are we the Hardy Boys or the Stooges?” Andrews said. “You’ve got to make up your mind. I have costumes to prepare. I’d rather be the Hardy Boys, the Stooges are too physical.”
“Stop it,” Lucinda piped in. “Skid’s right about your not being up to anything much, Fever.”
“I’m fine,” I told Andrews lightly.
Lucinda turned to Andrews. “I told you: he falls asleep in the middle of a sentence. He can’t be out and about.”
“I haven’t done that so much in the past couple of days,” I insisted.
The microwave sounded its alarm, and my repast was ready. The cup was very hot, but I didn’t care. The soup smelled heavenly. I took it and sat at the last available chair around the old chrome and Formica dinette table.
Lucinda looked me in the eye. Without a word, she held up her fist, then turned it and opened her hand. In her palm lay a small metal screw.
“You think I don’t know every trick?” she sneered. “You think I don’t know my job? I saw you put your hand in your pocket, and then I saw you jump. You think you invented that, the idea of staying awake by—I mean, my God, you never heard the expression ‘pinched himself to stay awake’?”
“That’s an expression?” Andrews wondered. “It sounds more like a phrase.”
“You shouldn’t be out of the hospital at all,” Lucinda went on.
“Nothing to worry about,” Andrews announced. “I’m here.”
“Lord,” Lucinda swore. “That’s just what I am worried about.” She reached across the table and tapped Skid’s arm. “Can you arrest them both—like on suspicion of something or other?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Skid said right away. “It is my suspicion as the sheriff of this county that these two boys are idiots.”
“Serious as a crutch,” Lucinda said sharply to Andrews, “he needs rest. He’s not right. He has dire health issues. You understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Andrews answered very sincerely.
“And while we’re at it,” Skid added, “there are about a hundred legal reasons why you two are not permitted to pursue the matter of Fever’s assault. Is that also clear?”
His voice was so strong, so filled with iron, that Andrews and I both nodded solemnly.
The conversation, greatly subdued, turned to the magnificence of Girlinda’s culinary accomplishments
, and that might well have been that: a fine place to end our story.
12.
Again, I might have continued in a happy state of suspended animation, carelessly falling asleep at a moment’s notice, living as much in dreams as in reality for the rest of my life. Some people do indeed have that sort of luck. My lot was more tragic, or, to put it a little less theatrically: more complicated.
Lucinda stayed with me in my room that night; Andrews passed out in the guest room. Skidmore went home to report to his wife that her cooking was, once again, a treasure greatly to be prized by everyone within sight or smell of any dish she had created.
I, only, alone, escaped sleep, thinking to wander the house in search of clues, like Ishmael trying to find reasons for Ahab’s murderous obsessions. I couldn’t say that I had harbored any hope of finding physical evidence, but when I threw my legs over the side of the bed at 3:00 a.m. and patted Lucinda’s arm as she slept, I did see something that no one else had mentioned.
The clock, my father’s clock, was ticking loudly on the night table beside my bed—the clock that should have been on the mantel.
I hadn’t noticed it when we’d come to bed but I had barely noticed the bed itself before I’d collapsed onto it. Sleep had been instantaneous.
Yet there it was, that clock, the missing, stolen clock, ticking as if it might explode at any moment.
I sat staring at it, trying to think how it had gotten there, and why no one had told me it hadn’t been stolen, and—not the least mystery—who had wound it up during my three-month absence? I always forgot to wind it and sometimes went for months without hearing it tick.
Thanks to those questions, I was wide-awake, blood pounding in my ears. I was trying to bring my mind to a focus it hadn’t known in quite a while, even before my assault. It didn’t take long for me to assemble a preliminary theory. The killer had found the tin box he was looking for behind the clock on the mantel. He had pocketed the box and brought the clock upstairs. He’d shot me in my sleep, then watched the clock for a certain span of time he deemed sufficient for me to be dead. Then he’d called 911. He’d called to gloat, to brag. He’d called so that someone would know right away that he had done his work.
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