Dead Man's Bridge

by Robert J. Mrazek

  The knuckles on both hands were a more immediate problem. The three on the right were in bad shape, the middle finger already swollen. If I didn’t ice them right away, they would be almost useless for a day or two.

  I was soaking both hands in a bowl of ice in the kitchen sink when I saw headlights filtering through the trees from the lake road, and a car came slowly down the driveway in the rain. I turned off the kitchen light and waited by the window.

  It was Jordan’s ten-year-old Volvo. I dried my hands and headed for the front door. As usual, his timing was perfect. The visit would give me the chance to ask him all the questions I had come up with on the ride back from the Wonderland.

  Only it wasn’t Jordan.

  “Happy birthday,” said Blair from the shadows.

  I had forgotten that my birthday was coming up in a few days. I was even more surprised that she remembered the date.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  There was an awkward silence. I wondered how she knew where I lived.

  “I’m sorry to come here like this,” she said, “but I need to talk to you, Jake.”

  She didn’t wait for an invitation to come in, walking past me through the dark entrance into the living room as if we were still living together and she had just gotten back to our apartment after class.

  Taking off her wet raincoat, she hung it on a peg by the fireplace. She was wearing a blue nylon warm-up suit and sneakers. Her hair was fixed in a ponytail. Bug came over and stood by my side as she turned toward me. When she saw my face in the light, her eyes widened in alarm.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Just some new character lines,” I said.

  “Tell me the truth, goddamn it,” she demanded, her face pale.

  “I was in a fight.”

  There was no point in lying to her. The results were self-evident as she came toward me. She looked down and saw the swollen knuckles.

  “Jesus, Jake,” she said. “Do you have any antiseptic?”

  She followed me through the kitchen and into the bathroom.

  “In the medicine chest,” I said.

  She found some Merthiolate and cotton balls along with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. While I sat on the closed toilet seat, she leaned over me and began to clean the abrasions on my face.

  “Just like old times,” she said with a laugh, “with me here to bind your wounds.”

  That familiar laugh. It seemed to well up from deep inside her.

  “Those were football games,” I said.

  I felt her breath on my cheek as she cleaned and patched. Her fingers moved across my face with agile dexterity.

  “This is going to sting a bit,” she said, holding the cotton ball soaked in Merthiolate against the deep gouge under my right eye.

  It did.

  “Do you know why I fell for you?” she said, her lips just a few inches away.

  “Ancient history,” I said.

  What was it that made her so compelling? She was beautiful, but it wasn’t a classic beauty. Maybe it was her eyes. They were a chameleon’s eyes, a startling violet with little gold flecks in the iris that came alive whenever she got excited.

  “That first night we met . . . one of my girlfriends pointed you out across the room,” she said with a chuckle in her throat. “‘What a magnificent animal,’ she said to me. And it was true, Jake. You looked so indestructible back then. You had that incredible hardness about you . . . your face, your shoulders, your legs . . . every part of you.”

  “Yeah, I was a Greek god.”

  She reacted to my sarcasm with a stern elevation of one brow.

  “But that wasn’t why I fell for you,” she continued, the gold flecks now lighting up. “When we were introduced, I fully expected you to give me some stupid jock line that would lead right back to your bedroom.”

  I remembered that night.

  “And the first thing you wanted to discuss that night was Hemingway versus Fitzgerald . . . which one was the greater writer,” she went on.

  “Which one was it?”

  “Fitzgerald . . . you thought he was the best writer of the century . . . and then I saw that your eyes weren’t hard at all . . . and then when you smiled . . . God you were beautiful, Jake.”

  And Jordan was more beautiful. And he cared enough about her dreams of changing the world to do something about it.

  I didn’t respond to the compliment.

  “All better now?” she asked softly.

  Her face was still inches from mine, the familiar soapy scent of her all around me when she leaned down and kissed my mouth. It was a sweet kiss, nothing more, just a gentle brushing of her lips. She pulled her face back and smiled.

  “I read once that a kiss was designed by God or nature to stop speech when words become superfluous,” she said.

  “Why are you here, Blair?” I asked, breaking the mood.

  Her smile slowly evaporated. When she turned to put away the Merthiolate, I stood up and went out to the kitchen. She followed me.

  “Do you have a drink?” she asked.

  I had to laugh. In the years since she had left, I had probably consumed a small warehouse full of them.

  “Sure,” I said, pouring myself one from the open bottle of Johnnie Walker.

  Glancing over my shoulder, she spied a split of Hennessy’s that was sitting on the shelf over the sink. I had lifted it from the banquet table after a St. Andrews faculty benefit in support of efforts to establish contact with “otherworld benevolent beings.”

  Blair opened the split, poured it into a coffee mug, and added two ice cubes from the bowl in which I had been soaking my hands.

  “There’s something wrong with Jordan,” she said, her low voice barely audible over the wind and rain buffeting the windows.

  Yeah, I thought. Your husband dresses up like a lingerie model a couple times a month. That might be part of the problem.

  “I think he might be having a nervous breakdown.”

  I remained silent, wondering how much she knew.

  “He refuses to tell me what it is, but he has been acting strangely, going out at all hours. Now he’s even sleeping in the den. Two nights ago, I went down there and . . .”

  Tears swelled over her lower eyelids and slowly ran down her cheeks. It seemed like a good moment to take her into my arms and comfort her the way an old lover should always be ready to do. Instead, I stepped away from her.

  “Jake . . . he was sobbing,” she said.

  Lifting the mug to her mouth, she knocked the Hennessy down in one long swallow. I heard the ice cubes clink against her teeth.

  “So . . . why me?” I asked.

  “Because his secretary told me that you saw him this morning. You must know something, Jake. Please tell me what’s going on. I can’t help him unless I know what it is.”

  I debated whether to tell her what was happening.

  “I love him, Jake,” she said. “You know that more than anyone.”

  I felt the familiar anger welling inside me and barely managed to control it. She must have seen it in my battered face.

  “God knows . . . you deserve a better explanation for what happened back then, Jake.”

  Taking my hand, she led me over to the couch in front of the fireplace.

  “When I first went out to join Jordan, it was simply for the job . . . you have to believe that. I was still in love with you then, and terribly worried about what might happen to you in Afghanistan. But I was also turning against the war . . . all war.”

  She waited for me to say something. I didn’t.

  “I had no idea what it would be like in Detroit, but from the first day I started my job, it was just . . . pure adrenaline . . . like I was plugged into some powerful electrical current . . . a force that could truly empower people and change their lives. It was Jordan, really, at least at the start. He had grown so much since I had known him in college. He was so poised . . . so charismatic.”

  Her face had taken on that
inner glow I remembered, reflecting the light.

  “We were working out of a decrepit storefront in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. But people were coming there for help. And he was showing those powerless people how to take control of their lives, giving them the tools they needed to solve the problems they confronted every day in the streets . . . the homelessness, the drugs, the violence. When they realized he wasn’t out for himself, they began to believe in him; he started getting real support.”

  “When did your feelings for him change?”

  She smiled at me. It was a sad smile.

  “I guess it started with a sense of admiration for what he was accomplishing with his life. After Yale, he could have gone into the most prestigious law firms in the country . . . but he chose to be there. As the operation grew, he began treating me as a full partner, knowing he could rely on me to do things well. After a few months, we were doing everything together . . . it evolved, you see. I never wanted to hurt you, Jake. But when he told me he loved me, I . . . I just knew it was right . . . I was part of his life and his work, and I wanted to be.”

  “And now?” I asked.

  “And now . . . it isn’t the same. Back then, we were making a true difference in people’s lives, and we were doing it together, wherever the work took us, partners in every sense. Here at St. Andrews, I feel like a politician’s wife. My job is to entertain faculty wives, cut ribbons on new building projects, and stand by his side while he strokes the big givers who just want their name on things . . . I hate it here.”

  “Life is tough,” I said.

  “We’ve talked about going back to Detroit,” she said. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

  The conversation hadn’t answered any of my more pressing questions.

  “Does Jordan have any enemies?” I asked her.

  “Enemies?” she asked, taking ten seconds to think about it. “There are people here who don’t like him. There have always been people who don’t like the idea of us as a couple if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “What about Dennis Wheatley?”

  Shaking her head, she said, “Dennis worshipped him.” A moment later, she added, “Does his death have something to do with this?”

  “Have you received any threatening notes in recent weeks?”

  “No. At least I’m not aware of any,” she said, her face going pale again. “What’s going on, Jake?”

  A sudden gust of wind blew open the porch door. It slammed against the inside wall with a loud bang, and she visibly started at the noise. Across the lake, a bolt of lightning arced across the black sky.

  “What’s going on, Jake?” she repeated.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m trying to find out.”

  “Then just tell me what you know.”

  “Why don’t you ask Jordan?”

  “I already have, but he won’t tell me anything.”

  “That’s his decision then,” I said. “Look, Blair, I’m really tired. I’ve got to get a few hours of sleep.”

  Her eyes clouded with anger.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said.

  “You’re right.”

  Without another word, she took her raincoat off the peg by the fireplace. I heard the front door slam and the Volvo start up. From the kitchen window, I watched the car move off through the swaying spruce trees until the lights disappeared.

  You stupid asshole, I thought. It was only after she was gone that I realized she had never bothered to ask me why I had gotten into a fight. Picking up the phone, I entered Jordan’s cell number. After five rings, I got his voice mail recording. I left a message for him to call me as soon as he could and hung up.

  Going over to the kitchen counter, I poured myself another Johnnie Walker.

  “Happy birthday,” I said aloud to myself.

  As a kid, before my parents died, the day had seemed important. Would I finally get the .410 shotgun? The cat boat? Of course I would. It was my birthday, the most important day in the whole world.

  The world had shrunk a lot since. For now, there was just Bug and me.

  Heading back into my bedroom, I lay down on the bed. Bug joined me there a few seconds later, crawling slowly up onto her side of the coverlet. I decided to close my eyes for a few minutes, figuring that Jordan would be calling back soon.

  I dreamed of Afghanistan.

  13

  “It could be a trap, Major,” he called out to me in the dream, just as he had called out those same words on that bitterly cold night near Kandahar.

  “It probably is a trap, Sergeant,” I told him as we waited in the darkness of the bombed-out village.

  The S-2 in our battalion’s intelligence shop had convinced the colonel that one of the border chieftains in our sector was willing to bring two important Taliban leaders over to our side.

  My special operations team was ordered to secure the ground for an Afghan army escort that would meet them in a small village near Lashkar Gah and then take them on to Kandahar.

  We infiltrated the village shortly after night fell and found it deserted. I assigned three of my men to wait inside the only building still standing for the arrival of the Taliban leaders. The rest of us took up positions behind the stone walls that surrounded the village. I made sure we had a full field of fire for our M249 Squad Automatic Weapons in case it was a trap.

  A few minutes after the scheduled rendezvous time, a small caravan of vehicles rolled into the village. Through my infrared scope, I saw that they were driving Afghan army trucks.

  The men who emerged from the vehicles were dressed in American camouflage uniforms. There were ten of them, and they were equipped with American-supplied M-4 carbines and MP-5 submachine guns, just like us.

  Half of them went inside the building. I radioed my unit commander to tell him that the Taliban group still hadn’t gotten there but that the escort had just arrived. He said that was impossible because the Afghan army escort had been delayed by a car bombing in Kandahar. That’s when I knew we had been betrayed. They were Taliban fighters, and we were their target.

  I ordered my team to open fire. A few moments later, the Taliban who had entered the building burst out through the door. They were cut down before they reached their vehicles. The Taliban fighters who had been deployed outside disappeared into the darkness.

  We found the three men in my combat team inside the building. They had paid with their lives for my mistake. Each one of them had been horribly mutilated before he died.

  In my dream, the three of them stood before me again, their knife-punctured eyes pleading for me to save them. I was wrenched out of the nightmare by the jarring ring of the telephone.

  My jaw felt as if someone was boring into it with a dull bit. The muscles in my shoulders and back were aching. Lying across the bed, Bug was giving me a vicious glare that suggested enough was enough with these late-night disturbances.

  I remembered leaving the message for Jordan to call me back as soon as possible. Swinging my knees over the edge of the bed, I stood up. Once on my feet, the forward motion took my legs into the kitchen, where I picked up the phone. Whoever was calling hung up just as I got there. I heard only a dial tone.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Looking at the wall clock, I saw that it was three thirty. The storm had risen in intensity since I had gone to sleep.

  I went into the bathroom. Searching under the sink, I found a dust-covered bottle of Listerine. After rinsing out my mouth, I tried to move the loosened tooth again. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed a little tighter. I was taking some satisfaction in that when the phone began ringing again.

  “Officer Cantrell?” asked the voice almost timidly.

  “Yes, Carlene,” I replied.

  “You’re needed here right away,” she said.

  “Maybe you don’t know it, Carlene, but I’m officially suspended from duty,” I said. “I’m
only a liaison.”

  “I know that,” she came right back, “but Captain Morgo asked me to call you to please come right away.”

  I wasn’t about to have any part of it.

  “Sorry, but I’m waiting for an important call.”

  There was another short pause before she blurted, “We have another deceased individual on campus. The caller said the dead man is hanging from the suspension footbridge.”

  For a moment I wondered if I might be traveling through a time warp.

  “Didn’t we have this conversation last night?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “But . . . this is a new one . . . Captain Morgo is on her way there now. She asked me to find you as soon as possible. She told me to tell you—”

  Her voice was cut off midsentence. I heard a gurgle in the phone line and it went dead. I wasn’t surprised. My telephone line ran along the forest road, and it took just one falling limb to wipe out service for everyone farther down the lake.

  Putting down the phone, I stepped out onto the front porch. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, and the wind was probably gusting at forty miles an hour. I turned on the floodlight that was mounted on the end of the cabin roof. In its glare, I could see that the rain was being driven almost horizontally by the wind.

  A hundred feet out, the surface of the lake looked like the North Atlantic. White-capped waves were slamming into the shoreline, sweeping right over the dock pilings and up the grassy rise toward the cabin. The base of the apple tree next to the dock was already underwater. My old heavy bag was swinging back and forth as if stuffed with feathers.

  I heard a ripping sound followed by a loud resounding crack. As I watched, an eighty-foot-high spruce tree came roaring down, smashing straight through the roof of the neighbor’s art studio in the next compound.

  I bolted the porch door behind me and headed back into the bedroom. After putting on a denim work shirt, boxer shorts, and white athletic socks, I went to the hiding place next to the chimney and strapped on my leather shoulder harness, socketing the .45 automatic into its holster.

  After snugging the chest strap, I put on my army-issue waterproofs along with rubber wading boots. Loading two spare magazines with ammunition, I secured them in the side pocket of my jacket. The last thing I did before leaving the cabin was make sure Bug had plenty of water in her bowl. There wasn’t time to make her breakfast.