Raveled

by McAneny, Anne

  I couldn’t take it. I needed to open the door. As I walked over, I had to fight my conviction that the door would be locked. I reached out and it opened, but it was one of those weighted doors that closed automatically in case the nurse’s hands were full as she exited with a dinner tray, or a dead body. I checked the latch—the part that made the satisfying click so you knew were safe—but it had been removed. It made me think of a person with a missing tongue. Maybe it was that kind of squeal in the vent. A tongueless one.

  I let the door close, took a deep breath, and swallowed my fear.

  The scent of the room filled my head. What did death smell like anyway? Like a decomposing raccoon in the sewer where the hawks and vultures couldn’t get to its carcass? Once that stench entered your system, there was no clearing it out quickly. It wasn’t like a sneeze after inhaling pepper. No. Every time death entered a living, breathing human being, it boasted of its presence with a thick, acrid taste and made itself comfortable for a while. When it finally departed, it sucked out a bit of the life it wished it still had. That was why a person who got a good whiff of it always felt queasy. Death had ripped out what it needed, leaving the victim to fill the gap.

  But the smell of a horrific death—a child’s death—had to be different. Why hadn’t it felt that way with Bobby or Shelby? Why was I so much more horrified at the thought of this autistic girl? Despite the curious condition in which Shelby’s broken body had been found, I’d never been able to muster the sympathy I should have. I’d never cried over her loss. Or Bobby’s. Had I been too outraged over the accusations against my father to give a moment’s empathy to the victims? I’d once tried to stop being Allison Fennimore, daughter of Arthur Fennimore, and had imagined being simply Allison, Lavitte Citizen. I’d yearned to feel the emotions that swirled in the eyes of people who looked at my family with such revulsion because I’d wanted to understand them. I never got there. Maybe I was looking in the wrong eyes. Maybe the people who truly felt for the victims didn’t seek the spectacle of a trial, didn’t get off on others seeing their outrage. And maybe none of the spectators in the courtroom were as innocent as they liked to believe. Who among us was?

  One answer flashed in my mind. The autistic girl who’d entered this room at the beckoning of a maternal figure. That was innocence stolen. And still, was I mustering true sympathy for the girl? I hadn’t even cried when my own father died. After I’d been released from my mother’s grasp, I’d turned from the hospital room and walked to the elevator, staring at the scuffed brown shoes of my reflection while awaiting its arrival. When we’d returned home, I made two hard-boiled eggs for my mother and forced them on her before putting her to bed with a valium left over from Kevin’s foot operation a few years prior. She’d slept while I cleaned the kitchen.

  I should have cried then. At least then.

  My laptop dinged again to indicate it was going to go to sleep if I didn’t entertain it. I shrugged away all thoughts of death and mourning and walked over. I typed in Periodic Table of Elements.

  Al and Clar—and all their element friends—burst to life in full color before me. Black for solids, blue for liquids, red for gases. This interactive, computerized version offered a huge improvement over the boring, two-dimensional poster on Dr. Duncan’s wall at Lavitte High. I could even turn up the temperature and watch Al convert from a solid to a liquid to a gas. Ah, sweet distractions. I got to work. It took me fifty-five minutes to crack the code, an interval that would have disappointed Jasper.

  Jasper’s message had instructed me to add. The sum total of the atomic numbers of aluminum, silicon, phosphorous, sulfur, chlorine and argon equaled 93, and they were in the third row down on the chart. When I turned to page 93 in the third yearbook, Jasper had underlined specific words in the faintest of blue lines. Anyone else would have missed them, but I scanned that page for all it was worth. He clearly hadn’t intended for the code to last long. It must have been his back-up plan in case our meeting didn’t happen.

  On the first page Jasper led me to, he had underlined the words letter and floor, which were located in picture captions about Tony Ashford’s varsity letter and the renovated gymnasium floor. On Tony’s face, he’d faintly written another chemical combination. When I added up those atomic numbers and noted their row on the chart, I went to the appropriate yearbook and uncovered the words well and evidence. I could scarcely contain my excitement as each new word revealed itself. Thirty minutes later, I had my message from Jasper. It pointed to a destination in The Willows Trailer Park.

  As I processed what it could all mean, I stared at the dull, grimy walls surrounding me. Slowly, their scratches, stains and smells wormed their way into my consciousness. I reached in, yanked the worm out and cast it against the floor. I had no time for such emotion. I wiped my trembling hands on my pants, slammed my laptop shut and prayed that the hiding spot Jasper had chosen was better protected than the little girl who had entered this room, the one I couldn’t well up a tear for.

  Chapter 27

  Allison… present

  Ray hadn’t given me any instructions about calling before leaving Room 331 room so I ventured out on my own, the yearbooks in my laptop bag pulling like dead weight on my shoulder. I was about to take them out and hold them in my other arm when the elevator doors opened to reveal the pensive face of Detective Blake Barkley.

  We did the shocked stare thing for a good four seconds.

  “Detective, what a weird surprise.”

  “Really? I always run into people I know in psych wards in the middle of the night.”

  “Perhaps you need to reconsider your social circles.”

  He smirked. “I have been. Lately.” The way he maintained eye contact when he said it gave the comment a flirtatious pang that my brain accepted against all contrary instincts.

  “Going up?” he said.

  “Down, actually.” I did break eye contact, figuring the leap from delicate innuendo to blatant fellatio jokes might be too much for the champion grinner.

  He gingerly stepped off the elevator as the doors began to close and we stood alone on the third floor. The emptiness of our surroundings encroached upon me like a suffocating entity with wicked intentions. I pushed the elevator button. “Why don’t we talk in the lobby? Ray might be wondering where I am.”

  “Sure,” he said. The elevator opened immediately, like an overbearing chaperone who’d never actually left. We stepped on but the chilling emptiness followed. Now it was the two of us—and it—in a smaller space.

  “You okay, Allison? You look pale.” His head tilted with concern. “Not claustrophobic, are you?”

  “No. Just not sure we’re the only two on here.”

  He laughed, filling the space with a puff of warmth. “Didn’t expect you to be scared of ghosts.” He leaned towards me and whispered, “Promise not to tell anyone, but this place gives me the heebie-jeebies, too.” His warm, sweet breath filled my ear with a moist heat and tickled the tiny hairs on my neck. I managed to avoid shivering, but barely. Despite my advancing years and endless hours spent in the company of drunken flirts, this aura of romance was foreign to me. In my adult life, I’d only had one serious relationship that lasted longer than three months. The male half, skirting the border between Asperger’s and genius, had made a living in front of a screen with his back to the world, and I, the not-so-soft female complement, had let him be however he needed to be each day. The options had run the gamut. Even with that unspoken, laissez-faire arrangement, we existed like red rubber balls bouncing around an empty white room, two opposing round entities that never quite fit in a structure of sharp corners and flat walls. We’d lived separate lives, occasionally deflecting off one another, never intersecting, darn good at mutual exclusivity. Colliding with full force at times, we’d even explode in ecstasy simultaneously—but never together—then rebound to our separate corners where he lived a life isolated from his foster care past and I stayed exhaustingly busy, trying to forget I had a past
at all.

  Under the watchful but measured gaze of Detective Barkley, I shifted the bag on my shoulder to make it look like it didn’t contain four stolen books from the recently deceased’s room—the same room he’d probably been on his way to search.

  “You know I’ve got to ask,” he said.

  “Ask?” I said in an obvious stall as I let my eyes blink languidly. It gained me a few seconds of postponement but not enough to throw him off the trail.

  “Come on,” he said, nudging me with his elbow. “It’s not like I don’t know why you’re here. I gave you the files, remember? Jasper was one of Bobby’s best friends.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “You know what happened, then?” he ventured.

  “Yes. Can’t believe he’s gone.” Oh yes I could. People don’t leave coded messages in old yearbooks unless there’s a viable threat hanging over their heads.

  “Maybe we can help each other out,” he said confidentially, trying to break through walls I’d spent years constructing. “What do you know?”

  I was at a disadvantage. I had no idea what Ray had already confessed. Trusting my instincts, I put my money on Ray having kept his mouth shut. “Know? About Jasper? Not much, I’m afraid. I left my laptop here the other day and Ray set it aside for me.” I tapped my bag.

  “On the third floor?” Detective Barkley said, his expression curling in on itself. “Couldn’t he have kept it behind the front desk?”

  “Sticky fingers at old Ravine, I guess. Ray seems to be the cautious type.”

  “And you came to get your laptop… in the middle of the night?”

  I glanced at my cell phone to check the time, stalling so blatantly it was embarrassing, when the perfect answer hit me. “Not the middle of the night for me, Detective. It’s barely closing time. I’d still have a ton of work to do.”

  “I forgot,” he said, only slightly defeated. “You must keep crazy hours.”

  “No crazier than yours, apparently.”

  “I love the night shift,” he said. “Gives me time to bike and run during the day.”

  Or practice your jump shot.

  “So why were you coming to see Jasper the other day?” he asked.

  Damn. I hadn’t jumped quickly enough on the biking-running diversion. Men loved to talk about their muscles, and Detective Barkley had plenty to brag about in that department, but I’d let it go. Now we were back to Jasper, whose teenage face pressed into my ribs, maybe trying to shout out the truth to Detective Barkley, maybe trying to bite me sharply to keep me silent.

  “Like I told you at our first meeting,” I said, “my brother thinks Jasper and Smitty know more than what they told the police. I wanted to see if I could jar Jasper’s memory. But when I got here the other day, he was already sick.”

  We arrived at the lobby, the bright lights and intact walls a welcome sight. Detective Barkley gestured for me to exit first. We continued our conversation only two steps from the elevator since he still needed to get to his original destination. Hopefully, Ray hadn’t left any obvious signs that the yearbooks had been taken from Jasper’s room, like an I.O.U. with his signature.

  “You were Jasper’s only registered visitor on Thursday,” Detective Barkley said.

  “Was I?”

  “According to the log.” He flicked his eyebrows up and left them there. “Even though your name was crossed off.”

  “Hmp,” I said.

  His brows came down and the left one formed a curious arc on one side. “As in marker right through your signature. But still readable when held up to the light.”

  Why hadn’t I just ripped that page out and eaten it?

  “Oh, right,” I said. “I did that on my way out because I never got to see him.”

  Barkley furrowed both brows this time. He was like a cartoon dog, after all, his expressions big and animated. Any moment now, the Road Runner might come along and knock him off his feet while an anvil fell towards his head.

  “My turn,” I said. “Why are you here? This isn’t exactly your jurisdiction.”

  “You know how gossip travels in Lavitte. Faster than anything else in town.”

  “Justice,” I said. “They serve that up pretty quickly.”

  “Touché. Anyway, word of Jasper’s death reached me pretty fast. And his name was fresh in my mind after reading your dad’s files. Seemed too coincidental that I’m reading the guy’s name one day and he shows up dead soon after.” His hand went behind his right ear to straighten a hair that wasn’t the least bit out of place, forcing me to resist the inexplicable desire to reach out and run a finger or two through his tempting brown locks. “Tell you the truth,” he continued, “I was a little worried about you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll turn out that Jasper died of natural causes, but look at it from my perspective. Everyone in town knew that I gave you the documents that got you searching for Jasper Shifflett.”

  “They knew how? From Delorma?” The name reflexively carried a sneer whenever it left my mouth.

  “Of course. Or ten other people in the department. Next thing I know, Jasper’s dead. So I had to wonder, was someone worried about what you might say to Jasper, or about what Jasper might tell you?”

  Nail on the head. Strong work, Sherlock.

  “Oh come on, Detective, that’s not all that occurred to you. I’m a Fennimore and vigilantism’s always in vogue. Surely, you considered the possibility that I discovered incriminating evidence against Jasper and decided to take the law into my own hands.”

  The smirk again. It made his eyes crumple up like a puppy ready to lick its owner. Woof. “Only for a second,” he said. “But a straight-A student wouldn’t be so obvious, right?”

  Rather a trick question. I settled for returning his inquisitive gaze with an innocent one of my own. The bag on my shoulder grew heavier.

  “So,” the detective said, crossing his arms like a yearbook poser and letting his head fall a few degrees to the left, “did he?”

  “Did who what?”

  “Did Jasper have something he wanted to tell you? Surely, you weren’t arriving here unannounced the other day. There must have been a preliminary phone call.”

  “You’re familiar with Laurel and Hardy’s Who’s on First skit, Detective?”

  “What’s on second.”

  “That’s the one. Talking to Jasper was a lot like that. I’m not even sure he remembered who I was.”

  “I doubt that.” Behind the full-lipped grin danced lightning rods eager to connect in a forceful ground strike. A regular circuit board of activity twirled and pirouetted behind the chiseled face. “Besides, he agreed to meet with you.”

  “I was once told by an inebriated bond trader that I had a voice so sexy, it could melt Kryptonite.” Total lie. “Maybe Jasper was responding to that.”

  “I guess it couldn’t cut through his coma, though. You went to the infirmary against regulations, as I understand it. Did you talk to him?”

  The knives were out, even though he continued to stand a single step closer to me than the rules of personal space dictated. If I extended my arms to his broad shoulders, we’d practically be embraced in a threatening tango.

  I feigned embarrassment with a practiced bite to the lower lip and a measured flutter of my lashes. “I’m ashamed to admit that I fainted before I even got to Jasper’s room. The nurses will confirm that.”

  “They already have.”

  Damn. Detective Barkley was giving me a bigger run for my money than the waitresses who tried to cheat me out of my cut.

  “Sure you’re not overqualified to be working in Lavitte, Detective Barkley?”

  “Oh, quite sure I am.” Spoken like a future president. He seemed to resist the impulse to wink.

  Ray hustled across the lobby and stopped just short of crashing into us. A worried undercurrent shined out through his small eyes. “Everything okay over here? I guess you two have met.”

 
Detective Barkley glanced at Ray, then slowly back to me, and I could see the circuit completing itself. He nodded ever-so-slightly to himself.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Everything’s fine, Ray. Thanks. Ms. Fennimore and I go way back. And forward, too, I hope.” Not at all like red rubber balls.

  Chapter 28

  Allison… present

  I returned home at 5:00 a.m., my brain on overload. I’d spent half the car ride home reliving every moment with Detective Barkley to be sure I hadn’t imparted anything that could compromise my position—while a primitive iota of my brain begged to be compromised. The other half of the ride revolved around Jasper’s code. The final message from my former chemistry partner had read: Letter and evidence in well behind Willows. In roof floor. Do not let fall. Jasper had used the seasonal section of his senior yearbook to relay the last word. Each of four pages had shown photos of one season. Winter! Spring! Summer! Fall! It was one of the easier clues to find as fall was the only word on the page.

  I’d seen enough movies to know not to write down the message. The only place it existed was in my head. I had to get to that well but there was nothing I could do until daylight. Of the many ways to get a shotgun in your face in the remoter parts of North Carolina, traipsing around The Willows in the dark surely topped the list. My body demanded rest but every time my eyes closed, I sensed a madman tinkering with the neurons in my brain. I finally drifted off only to startle awake at 8:45. My head felt like a sneaker tossed in the dryer, thoughts banging into the confined limits with each rotation.

  My mother dropped something heavy in the kitchen. The follow-up rattle of several pots and pans couldn’t be a good sign. She always got clumsy and tended to flit about the kitchen when she was in one of her spells.