The Rules of Dreaming

by Hartman, Bruce

  I was relieved when Nicole finally left my office that afternoon. Frankly I had enough on my mind without having to humor someone who couldn’t tell the difference between real life and an opera. Things had been getting strange lately, but not quite as strange as an opera, where the characters might as well be living in a madhouse. Perhaps that was what Nicole was trying to tell me—after all, I was living in a madhouse. Don’t the patients always start to think of their physician as one of the inmates? In fact I was trying to get my life back to some semblance of normality, which was not an easy task. Glad as I was to be rid of Olympia, I dreaded spending the long nights without her. Sometimes I would awaken not knowing who or where I was, and I’d make it all the way to the bathroom—where I’d finally see my face in the mirror—with the conviction that I was someone else. An identity disorder, Dr. Neuberger had called it, and until then I thought I’d left it behind me. The police officer in charge of the search for Hunter had been calling and leaving messages on an hourly basis; he wanted to ask me about Hunter’s course of treatment, medications, habits, and so forth. I would have been perfectly willing to accommodate him but I was under strict orders from Dr. Palmer not to talk to anyone. It was almost as if I were the murderer and Dr. Palmer was afraid I was going to incriminate myself.

  * * *

  Nicole’s house loomed over the narrow street like a black hole swallowing the few stars that penetrated the clouded night sky. From where he sat in his car across the street, Dubin could just make out the jagged roofline of gables and chimneys and the untrimmed cypress trees that sheltered the old house from the wind and concealed its decay. The lights had gone out long ago but Dubin stayed behind, watching, listening, wondering whether Nicole was asleep in her garret or watching him from one of the mullioned windows. Every now and then he would ease out of the car to prowl through the shadows closer to the house, listening for movement near the darkened side entrance. Once he tried the door and found it unlocked, slipping inside and up the stairs to the third floor. It was quiet there, deserted—no sign of Hunter Morgan or any other madman or intruder. Just himself and the mortal silence of people dreaming behind closed doors. A cat ran down the stairs and out the door. Dubin clicked the latch behind him as he went out.

  Back into the shadows. Encircling cypresses, evergreens that looked full and black even in the darkness, invisible tentacles with thorns reaching out to snag him as he passed. He moved carefully but not furtively. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move. He turned quickly, ready to pounce or run, he didn’t know which. A man lurched in front of him.

  “Hold it!” the man said.

  A flashlight shined into Dubin’s eyes, then quickly turned upward, revealing the front of the man’s torso and the undersurfaces of his face. Dubin saw a tall, slightly lopsided figure with thinning gray hair and a politician’s smile. It was Frank Lynch, the retired cop he’d last seen cleaning bluefish at the Jersey shore.

  “Remember me?” Lynch asked.

  “Sure. You’re Frank Lynch. My name’s Dubin.”

  “I remember you,” Lynch said. He held out his hand. “How you doing? Let’s step over into the light.”

  They walked about fifty feet to a spot where the neighborhood’s only street light drooped over the sidewalk. “Still working on that article?” Lynch asked in a friendly, insinuating tone.

  “I sure am.”

  “It must be a long one.”

  “Too long,” Dubin agreed. “And it’s getting longer all the time.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The murder here in town. I’ve got the feeling it’s somehow connected with Maria Morgan.”

  Lynch pretended to feign surprise. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “You’re a detective. You must have noticed the similarities.”

  Lynch laughed noiselessly, displaying his missing teeth. Dubin had forgotten about the missing teeth.

  “Or maybe since you retired,” Dubin went on, “you don’t think about such things, just boats and fishing and the like. By the way, aren’t you a long way from home?”

  “I’ve been called out of retirement, believe it or not. Special assignment just for this one case.”

  “So you’re a cop again?”

  “You could say that. But I’ll be back down the shore soon. We expect to pick up Hunter Morgan within a couple of days.”

  “You think he did it?”

  “Let’s just say that right now he’s the one we’re most interested in talking to.”

  “You think he killed his mother too?”

  “You’re a writer. You must have noticed the similarities.”

  It was Dubin’s turn to laugh. Lynch was the kind of cop he feared the most—warm, witty and apparently on the level. Someday he’d like to hear the story of how each one of those missing teeth had fallen out of his smile.

  “Who are you working for?” Lynch asked, a little less amiably.

  “I’m free lance. As I told you. A free lance writer.”

  “You have a license?”

  “Does a writer need a license?”

  “They ought to, in my opinion. But you’re not a writer.”

  “What do you think I am?”

  “I don’t think you’re a writer. I think you’re a private cop. Or maybe something worse.”

  “Something worse?”

  “Something like a blackmailer.”

  Dubin laughed again. “Why a blackmailer?”

  “The similarities are obvious. Even I can figure that out.”

  * * *

  Nicole had given up trying to sleep at night. At eleven o’clock she turned out the lights and lay on her bed fully clothed, shivering with cold because that was better than trembling with anxiety. Someone was stalking her; she knew that. But she didn’t call the police because if it was Hunter she wanted a chance to talk to him before they caught him and locked him up someplace where she’d never see him again. Had Hunter really killed Mrs. Paterson? She didn’t believe it but there was only one way to find out. Search parties had spread across the countryside in every direction but she knew he couldn’t be far. And she knew she didn’t need to search for him. He would find her.

  A couple of nights earlier she’d spotted a dark figure prowling in the bushes around the house. The man—she assumed it was a man—let himself in the downstairs door and crept up the stairs as she stood motionless at her door listening and holding her breath, both hands clamped on the doorknob as if she expected him to wrench the door open and burst inside. She heard him come slowly up the stairs, one step at a time, stopping when the stairs creaked, taking another step when nothing stirred in response. There came a sudden hiss as a cat leaped away from the landing and bolted down the stairs. The man stood outside Nicole’s door a minute or two, not touching the door knob, listening, possibly sensing her presence on the other side of the door, before he turned around and retreated down the stairs. Nicole nudged the door open and peered down the dark staircase, half expecting to be grabbed by the throat and dragged back into her apartment, but all she could see was a dead mouse left by the cat. She stood listening until she heard the outside door click shut. The rest of that night she sat by the window, watching for any movement among the black cypress trees that crowded the house. Nothing moved, not even a cat, but in the morning when she peeked back into the hall the dead mouse had disappeared.

  During daylight hours—and each day brought fewer and fewer of them—she tried to do her work, writing compulsively but not productively. The coffee she drank to stay awake only fed her anxiety. After a few hours of this she would often drift into that twilight state on the edge of dreaming where she did her best thinking, only to be brought abruptly back to reality by a barking dog or the clatter of a passing truck. Every unexpected sound triggered a fresh jolt of fear and a fresh attempt to argue herself out of it. All fear is fear of the unknown, she would type on her screen. If you know what’s going to happen, there’s nothing to be afraid of. And then s
he would add, as if it were an afterthought: Try to keep from going crazy.

  She had stashed the unopened envelope from Miss Whipple in a place where no one would ever find it. She didn’t know why she felt she had to do that, or why she’d even been afraid to read it. If anything happens, Miss Whipple had said—in the meantime she wasn’t supposed to open it or read it. But isn’t something always happening? What could Miss Whipple have meant by anything? Did she mean what people who say that usually mean: if I die a sudden and unexplained death, then you should open this letter? But if it’s that important, why not open it now? What if it implicates Hunter in Mrs. Paterson’s death? Or on the other hand, what if it implicates someone else—wouldn’t that absolve Hunter? She could open the envelope and take a peek, then hide it again until it was really needed. If it implicated Hunter, which was impossible, she would have to figure out what to do. No, she decided. Leave it alone. Wait until after you’ve talked to Hunter.

  But that night, when it was so dark and so quiet that her mind seemed as bright and noisy as an arcade, when sleeping was out of the question and the stalker, whoever he was, seemed to be keeping his distance from her door, she stood up from her bed and groped her way through the darkness into the kitchen, where she climbed on the counter and reached behind a cabinet to the spot where she’d stashed the librarian’s envelope. Unwilling either to turn on the lights or to wait until morning, she opened the envelope with a bread knife and found another, smaller envelope inside, which was already opened. Inside the smaller envelope she found a folded, handwritten letter, which she read by the eerie light of her computer screen.

  Dearest,

  Plane held over in Boston due to bad weather so I’ll take this time to drop a note. Hope you’re over your cold and the rehearsals are going well. I’m keeping my head above water but I can’t imagine the current situation continuing much longer. A. is a fool to think he can keep you away from me—if he succeeds I may do something drastic. There are worse things than unhappiness. I think about you constantly, even when I’m supposed to be concentrating on my work. A textbook obsession, I’m afraid. Like Hoffmann in the Venice act, or my little friend Nero, racing around and wagging his tail when he sees me coming and moping when I’m gone. You must decide soon, my love. XX

  Nicole read the letter three times. Obviously a love letter of sorts, but why had Miss Whipple confided it to her? Why was it suddenly important for Nicole to know that the spinster librarian had a secret, romantic past? In her youth, of course—but no, the letter didn’t seem old enough for that. Nicole squinted at the postmark and as she held the envelope up in the dim light she realized that it wasn’t addressed to Miss Whipple at all. It was addressed to Maria Morgan and it was postmarked a week before she died.

  Chapter 18

  Dubin drove up the driveway rehearsing a lie he’d never have to tell because Avery Morgan was nowhere in sight. Susan crouched in front of the barn combing her golden retriever as if she’d been expecting him. She seemed glad to see him but he could tell from the look in her eyes that something had changed.

  “I’ve tried to call you about a dozen times,” he said as he climbed out of his car.

  She smiled and led the dog into its pen next to the barn.

  “It was always somebody else who answered the phone.”

  “Not surprisingly,” she said, “I’ve been busy.”

  “Out searching for Hunter?”

  “About twenty-three hours a day. I’m working with the police around here while Avery’s upstate helping the state troopers.”

  “Then you’re here by yourself?”

  “My mom has the kids.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of. Hunter isn’t a killer.”

  “Somebody is,” Dubin said.

  “Is it you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then I have nothing to worry about for the next thirty minutes.”

  She poured Dubin a cup of coffee and sat down across from him in the little kitchen in the barn.

  “I thought you would’ve left town by now,” she said.

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right.” He stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee and took a sip. “And I want to help.”

  “Help?”

  “Help find the killer. I feel responsible for what’s happened. If I hadn’t been snooping around—”

  “It’s not your fault,” she interrupted, a little sharply. “Whatever happened had nothing to do with you.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “You’re just a detective without a client, remember?” She was teasing him. “You’re just in it for the money.”

  Dubin smiled, but he felt belittled. He was annoyed that his moral seriousness wasn’t being taken seriously. “How do you know it has nothing to do with me? Don’t you think this death is related to the one seven years ago?”

  “I don’t see how it could be.”

  They sat quietly for a while, and then Dubin said: “Can we go upstairs?”

  “Haven’t you been up there enough?”

  Upstairs, Susan perched uncomfortably on a wooden stool while Dubin crouched beneath the overhead light, brushing away the dust on the floor until he found the dents and scuff marks that Frank Lynch had noted in his report. When he stood up he examined the record turntable, noting the dented corner where it had evidently landed on the floor. He studied the light fixture over his head and imagined Maria Morgan kicking the turntable off its stand as she swung and thrashed in her last moments. “Three items are missing that were here when Frank Lynch took his inventory,” he said. “A photograph of Maria Morgan, a kaleidoscope, and a record.”

  “You mean a CD?”

  “Not a CD—an old fashioned vinyl record.”

  “I remember the picture. It was a glossy black and white publicity photo. She used to keep it tacked up on the wall over there.”

  “Do you remember the kaleidoscope?”

  “No, I never saw that.”

  Dubin glanced back up at the light fixture. “How was the turntable found?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was it set up like it is now or knocked onto the floor?”

  “I don’t remember. There were some things on the floor that she’d kicked over when—you know. The turntable might have been one of them.”

  “Then somebody must have set it back up.”

  “I think Avery picked up the stuff that was on the floor.”

  Dubin stepped over to the window and looked out over the brittle winter landscape. “What about the record?” he asked. “Do you remember the record that was on the turntable?”

  “No. Was there a record on the turntable?”

  “Frank Lynch listed a particular record on the turntable and its jacket on the shelf.”

  She rolled her eyes toward the bookshelf. “Maybe they’re still over there.”

  “No, I checked the last time.” He turned back around to face her. “What I’d like to find out is, where did the record go? And the picture and the kaleidoscope? Did Avery take them?”

  Susan was getting bored with his questions, even annoyed. “He might have,” she said. “This is his house, you know. He could clear out the whole place if he wanted to. But he’s always said he didn’t want to touch the studio. He wants to leave it the way it was when Maria died.”

  “Then who else could have taken those things out of here?”

  “Anybody could have. We didn’t used to keep it locked.”

  “What I’m wondering is why anybody would have taken the trouble to remove just those three items.”

  “I don’t see what difference it makes.”

  “What about Hunter or Antonia? Could they have done it?”

  “Done what?”

  “Taken those three things.”

  Susan slipped off the stool and stood facing Dubin defiantly. “That’s ridiculous. I would have found them
in the house when—when they left to live at the Institute.”

  Dubin accepted her answer and changed the subject. “How long did they stay here after their mother died?”

  “Not very long,” she said, still sounding argumentative. “And Avery didn’t let them come up here, I remember that. He told me to keep them out of here.”

  “When were they institutionalized? How long after Maria’s death?”

  “Not very long afterwards. They both went off the deep end and Avery had no choice but to put them in the Institute.”

  “How long?”

  “Like about a week later.”

  “And they never came back?”

  “No. They’ve never come back.”

  “Why not? Couldn’t you—”

  “Because I didn’t want them to.”

  She turned her back and headed down the narrow stairs. “Turn off the lights when you’re done.”

  “I’ve seen what I needed to see.” He turned off the lights and followed Susan down the stairs, wondering what she had to hide. Was she just being protective or was there more to it than that? She was tall and athletic and completely amoral as far as he could tell. She could have done anything Hunter or Avery could have done.

  By the time he caught up with her she was outside the barn sweeping some rotting leaves off the driveway. “I’m sorry if I ask too many questions,” he said.

  She turned it into a joke. “I know you’re supposed to be a detective,” she laughed, “but I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a client. Can’t you give me a break and pick somebody else’s brain for a change?”

  Dubin would have joined in the joke but he needed to ask one more question. “Has Frank Lynch been here?”

  “Sure he’s been here. He’s been called back to work on the case.”

  “Why?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know. Because he worked on the last one and he knows Hunter, I guess.”

  “Did he know Maria?”

  “Everybody around here knew Maria.” She turned away with a mischievous smile. “Some a little better than others.”

  * * *

  Nicole was right about one thing: I was growing more and more obsessed with Julietta. And the more obsessed I became, the more Gottlieb preyed on my mind. There was something frightening about Gottlieb, something unkempt and unpredictable that made him as menacing as a drooling ape. The idea of his touching Julietta almost made me sick to my stomach.