Run Jane Run

by Maureen Tan

  The taxi ride had taken me south from the airport, along Dean Forest Road and then farther south along the Atlantic Coast Highway. From there, we’d swung eastward, past a grove of pecan trees and along a familiar flat stretch of narrow road bordered by a wooded marsh. And then past the bait shop. Though I’d often traveled the route, the old building had always been covered by kudzu. But frost had reduced the relentless vine to ropy stalks and limp grey-brown leaves. Through it, the sign painted on the west wall was readable.

  As the taxi drew nearer the bait shop, I picked out other features. The corrugated metal roof extended beyond the face of the building, shading a sagging porch. A single step, dark with rot, led up onto that porch. The doorway into the shop was boarded over with mismatched planks. Narrow window frames, glassless and gaping, flanked the entrance.

  During the growing season, the kudzu had groped its way in through the windows and out through holes in the roof. The vine covered the porch and the rooftop, hung like a tattered curtain between the shop and the skeletal remains of several oak trees. It blocked the entrance to the tiny parking area, imprisoning an old car and a corroding propane tank in thick brown cords.

  The cabby shook his grizzled head and chuckled as we drove past.

  “Times sure do change. Back in ’forty, the gov’ment paid my daddy eight dollars an acre to plant it. Called it the miracle vine. Now they callin’ it the vine that ate the South, keep searchin’ for ways to kill it.”

  Just past the bait shop, the road curved sharply, then straightened to bridge the Ogeechee River with a long, flat span bordered by wooden railings. Alex had once told me that a trail bounded the river, crossed a section of old plantation rice fields, and intersected a path through the densely wooded area at the back of his property. A shortcut, he had called it. Only half a mile. Then he’d described the mud, mosquitoes, snakes, and alligators he’d encountered over the years. The road was far less direct, but drier. From the bridge, it wound for another couple miles before reaching the lane leading to Alex’s house.

  Halfway across the bridge, the cab slowed. Below us, the river was high and fast. Normally, waist-high marsh grass covered the shallow riverbank, making it impossible to see exactly where land ended and river began. Now, only the tallest fronds were visible above the water.

  The cabby’s cocoa brown eyes met my hazel ones in the rearview mirror.

  “Folks ’round here say Willie’s ghost fishes off this very bridge. They all talk about seein’ him—fishin’ pole, bait bucket, and all. Willie’s been seen so often that last Halloween the paper wrote about the haunting.”

  A story I’d apparently missed.

  His eyes returned to the road as he stepped on the accelerator, but he kept talking.

  “Been maybe two years, now. Willie liked his likker. Prob’ly got drunk and fell in. Leastways, that’s what some think. ’Course, other folks, they all say it wasn’t by accident. Rumor is, Willie got hisself mixed up with the kind of fellas a smart man don’t get mixed up with. Problem is, folks can pretty much speculate either way.”

  We were well past the bridge when he glanced in the rearview mirror again, probably wanting to be sure he still had an audience.

  He did.

  “Cain’t even be real sure the body the police found was Willie’s. Cooters and crabs didn’t leave much. I, for one, figure it was him. Mostly ’cause life kinda works that way. Willie, he got bait from the river all his life. Then he end up being nothing but river bait hisself.”

  Bait, I thought, and shuddered. I vowed that if I ever agreed to serve as bait for Mac’s trap, I would fare better than Willie.

  * * *

  Twin stone pillars marked the entrance to the Callaghan property and the end of the blacktop road. The road continued on as little more than a mile-long muddy track that ended at an eroding boat ramp providing public access to the river.

  Ten-foot-tall wrought-iron gates, rusted open for at least a generation, hung from the pillars. The driver swung his cab between them, slowed to accommodate the pecan-shell surface of the narrow lane. We drove half a mile through wooded marsh. Then the lane straightened. The cabby’s whistle was long and low when he saw the white, two-story plantation home at the top of a gentle rise. Doric columns supported the verandah and balcony. Wide steps swept up between the two center columns.

  “Nice place. Belongs to the police chief, don’t it? You a friend of his? Visiting for long?”

  “A friend, yes,” I said. “And probably not.”

  A circular drive looped in front of the house, past a carport, then back to the lane. From the carport, a flagstone path led to the fenced kitchen garden behind the house.

  I leaned forward, looked down the driveway, checking to see which cars were in the carport. As usual, Alex’s personal cars were parked side by side in the shelter. One was a newer, white sedan of the type that screamed “unmarked police car” to most urban American teenagers. The other was a boxy 1969 Chevy Blazer in once-white over faded blue, with dark red spots of primer around the mirror mounts, wheel wells, and gas cap. The back half of the truck was filled with fishing gear. According to Alex, it was the 167th Blazer ever manufactured. He’d told me that proudly. A good reason not to own it, I thought. But I hadn’t expressed that opinion or asked about gas mileage.

  Judging from the mud spattering and thickly caked tires, the two vehicles parked beside the carport had served as the day’s transportation. The bright red pickup truck was Tommy’s. And the squad car—white, with red-and-blue pinstripes running its length and POLICE spelled out in blue block letters on its side panels—had probably been driven by Alex.

  I glanced at my watch. It was after five. I wondered whether Alex and Tommy were taking a dinner break or were off duty. Either way, they weren’t there to greet me. When I’d talked to Alex, I’d been vague about my arrival.

  The cab rolled to a stop near the front door. I opened my bag, caught a whiff of new leather, paid my fare. The cabby carried my bags to the top of the steps.

  As he walked back to his cab, I stood on the verandah, looking out at the wide-branched oaks that dwarfed the massive house, watching the grey-green moss sway in the wind.

  Pretty. Like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Until the flames scorched the branches and the ornaments began falling, shattering—

  For much of my life, I’d ignored the flashbacks and the nightmares. They were irrelevant, distracting. They hurt. And since the drug session at the clinic, they’d become more frequent, more vivid, more painful. My habit was to interrupt the flood of images, to refocus on something— anything—else. But now I fought that instinct and scrutinized the odd, subconscious associations. I saw—

  Twisted olive branches. Thick, black smoke boiling up into a clear, blue sky. Shards of metal raining down on me. Something heavy hitting the ground. A polished black boot, laces neatly tied, a bloody—

  And then I was back, standing on the verandah, the face of the elderly black driver looking up at me through the open window of the cab. He was speaking.

  I forced myself to concentrate on his words.

  “You take care, ma’am.”

  Then he repeated the words, saying them more slowly, as if delivering a different, more important message.

  “You take care.”

  He drove away.

  I left my suitcases where they were, lifted the slim canvas bag containing my new laptop. The old one had burned along with the backup discs and the hard copy. I would have to re-create the chapters I’d written. Not tragic, but annoying.

  I slipped the laptop’s broad strap over my shoulder, crossed the verandah to the front door. I put my hand on the ornate knob, intending to let myself into the house. Despite his position as Savannah’s chief of police—or, perhaps, because of it—Alex was the least security-conscious person I knew. Except during a brief period when I’d first stayed with him, Alex rarely locked his doors. He’d once told me that he was demonstrating his confidence in the city’s police for
ce. I’d suggested that he was simply too lazy to bother with keys.

  To my surprise, the front door was locked.

  I walked down the length of the verandah to the left of the entrance, tried the two sets of French doors that opened out from the suite I’d occupied before I’d tucked into Alex’s bedroom. Locked. I went to the opposite end of the verandah. French doors opened out from the living room and the den. They, too, were locked.

  Odd, but no real problem.

  Except that I no longer had a house key.

  I lifted my finger to the bell, then hesitated as I remembered that, almost a year earlier, Alex had shown me where he kept a spare key. I told myself he would certainly have moved it. I checked beneath a nearby flowerpot, anyway, and found it there.

  I let myself in, pausing to check the remote arming station on the foyer wall. The alarm was on. I took a moment to recall the code, tapped it into the keypad, then rearmed the device.

  Curious. The alarm was rarely used.

  Alex had installed it for my safety before he’d discovered that I could take care of myself. The last time he’d suggested arming it, I’d taken him around to the utility box on the side of the house, pointed to the modular interface between the alarm system and the telephone line, used a screwdriver and demonstrated how easily the alarm could be disarmed. After that, he’d seemed content to resume his old, sloppy habits.

  Joey was right, I thought. Something had scared him.

  I put the laptop and my purse down beside the oak coat tree, peeled off the loose jacket that hid my bandages, and hung it on one of the curved branches. Two branches were already filled. A bulky nylon jacket hung from one. It was indigo, with the bright SPD logo on the left breast. Hanging opposite the jacket was a full-length yellow slicker with SPD in large, reflective letters on its back. Absentmindedly, I reached down to tap the handle of a malacca walking stick poking out from the umbrella stand near the hall tree. The L-shaped handle was of yellowing ivory, bound with a tarnished filigreed band, carved to resemble a serpent’s head.

  “For luck,” Alex had explained when I’d first seen him perform the quick ritual. “This belonged to my father’s great-granddaddy, who built this house.”

  I crossed the spacious entry hall. Overhead, ceiling fans spun quietly, pushing warm air downward from the twelve-foot ceilings. Except for the kitchen, the first-floor rooms had glossy, dark wood floors and dark cherry wood paneling. It was potentially oppressive, but light-colored area rugs, fanciful pieces of art glass, and the clutter of everyday living kept the huge rooms homey.

  To my left, through a set of double pocket doors, was a two-room suite—a library, a guest bedroom, and a bathroom. To my right, another set of pocket doors opened into the living room. Beyond that was the den. A formal and seldom used dining room adjoined the living room and shared the north end of the first floor with the eat-in kitchen.

  In front of me, a wide staircase with ornate spindles and polished handrails on both sides swept up to the open second-floor landing.

  The wide second-floor hallway—blessedly devoid of family portraits—branched east and west. Four rooms, rarely used, shared the east side of the house. In the west wing, the two front-facing bedrooms had been combined into Alex’s living area; the two guest rooms opposite overlooked the well-kept backyard. A small back stairwell led from the second floor back down to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was the least secure room in a house that seemed to have been designed with a total disregard for security. The back door had a large window set into its upper half. Interior French doors connected the kitchen to a bright, window-lined solarium. A narrow, white-enameled door opened down to a shelf-lined cellar, which had a trapdoor that opened up into the backyard. A glossy mahogany swinging door led into the dining room.

  The main entrance to the kitchen was tucked into the shadow of the formal staircase. That door was rarely closed. I paused within a few feet of it, listening more closely to the sounds drifting from the kitchen. A bright jazz tune—mostly trumpet and piano—was playing on the radio. Tommy was laughing. And then Alex spoke.

  God! how much I’d missed his voice, the way it smoothed to a deep, caressing murmur, the way his hands . . .

  I shook my head and banished lust by thinking about Sir William.

  15

  Neither Tommy nor Alex noticed me come into the kitchen.

  They sat with their backs to me, the tails of their indigo uniform shirts pulled from the waists of matching trousers, their booted feet resting on the kitchen table.

  The table was not a pretty sight. Though an effort had been made to tie it into the bright decor of the kitchen, it was an odd note in the plantation home. Too new to be antique, too old to be modern, the table was ugly enough to be retro. Of 1950s vintage, its Formica surface was swirled with intertwining layers of grey and red and silvery white. Originally bright chrome and gloss, the top was scratched, the chrome trim and legs worn.

  The chrome and color was repeated on the four kitchen chairs.

  At the moment, two of those chairs were tipped back at dangerous angles. Between the chairs on which Alex and Tommy sat so precariously was a third. It was pushed slightly back from a corner of the table, its tubular metal legs solidly on the floor, its vinyl seat and back concealed by an open carry-out pizza box. The fourth chair was tucked into the table. Tommy’s SPD jacket was draped over its back.

  The wastebasket had been moved from its spot beneath the sink to the middle of the kitchen. Around it, the floor was littered with crushed beer cans.

  “It’s weird, man. That’s what it is. Weird,” Tommy was saying. “And dangerous. Night-of-the-living-dead stuff.”

  Alex laughed.

  “As your oldest buddy, I’m obliged to tell you that you’re suffering from an acute case of fatherhood complicated by cable television. You and the boys have spent too many nights watching Nightmare on Elm Street reruns over beer and baby food.”

  “No way. Those movies scare the shit out of me. And I sure as hell wouldn’t let my babies watch them. Besides, what you saw was not imagination.”

  “I think I’m probably the best judge of what I saw. It wasn’t real.”

  “Then why are you telling me about these hallucinations of yours?”

  Unmistakable tension in Tommy’s voice.

  Alex ran a hand through his hair, sighed.

  “Figured it was only fair,” he said casually. “You bein’ my second in command and all, Lieutenant Grayson.”

  The reminder of his recent promotion seemed to spur Tommy’s anger.

  “And you want me to do exactly what with this information? Wait around until you’re some kind of fucking statistic for the violent-crimes unit?”

  For a moment, the room was silent.

  “I want you to worry, ’cause that’s what you do best,” Alex said.

  There was anger in his voice, too.

  “Wouldn’t have to worry if you’d keep your white ass out of trouble,” Tommy muttered.

  “Yeah . . . Well . . . So’s your old man. And your mama wears combat boots.”

  Tommy’s irritation dissolved into laughter.

  “You’re hopeless, man. Fucking hopeless.”

  He picked up his can of beer, his hand large enough to completely conceal the red and white label. The can was halfway to his mouth when he paused.

  “Hey, I almost forgot. Miz Briggs called me today.”

  “Lady seems real fond of you. Space invaders again? I thought her daughter-in-law was seeing to it that she took her medication.”

  “I think she is. Miz Briggs hasn’t called for months. And she wasn’t calling about ET. Seems she was out walking her dog last night and saw Willie. Gave him five dollars to come by and mend her screens. Like he used to. He didn’t show up this morning, and she was pissed. Which was why she called me. She said she wanted me to drive over to his place and haul his lazy bones out of bed.”

  “You tell her he was dead?”

  �
��Sure did. She said in that case, he’d stolen her money, and she wanted to file a formal complaint. I gave her five dollars and told her not to be paying for work in advance.”

  Alex nodded.

  “Good solution. Reimburse yourself out of petty cash, okay?”

  Then Alex tipped his beer can to his lips, took a long sip, and turned the can upside down. No liquid spilled out.

  “You ready?”

  “Wait a sec.”

  Tommy finished his beer.

  “Ready.”

  They began counting. On five, each man crushed the can he held and threw it overhand. Both cans landed in the wastebasket. Tommy and Alex belched in unison.

  I burst out laughing.

  Two sets of chair legs crashed squarely onto the floor, immediately followed by two pairs of boots. Heads turned, and startled eyes looked in my direction.

  “Don’t get up,” I said quickly. “I want to fix this scene in my memory.”

  I crossed the kitchen, leaned over, and touched my lips to the fine, white scar that slanted above Alex’s right eyebrow.

  “Hello, love,” I said. “Happy New Year.”

  It was January second.

  “Hello, Jane.”

  His voice was cool, polite. Not quite hostile.

  He made no move to touch me.

  Three days between his invitation and my arrival. He’d had three days to recall that in our brief history together, I’d deceived him, manipulated him, used him, and walked out on him. It was no surprise that he was unenthusiastic about volunteering for more betrayal.

  Tommy’s chair scraped across the floor. He stood, waved vaguely in the direction of the clock above the sink, and snatched up his jacket.

  No smile on his face, either.

  I’d abandoned his friend. But as far as Tommy knew, I’d come back to help at Joey’s request. Awkward for him.