“Problem is my truck is stuck in a ditch a couple miles in the opposite direction. I’ve been walking for a long time, and . . .” Bruce snort-sniffed, hocking a wad that he must have swallowed. “Come on . . . I really need a phone.”
Shit. Debra didn’t want him anywhere near the other side of the door. Okay, he was presumably harmless; at least that’s what the County Department of Wildlife had said.
“. . . fine.” She relented, letting him come inside.
Bruce took off his muddy shoes and carried them with him, following her inside. Debra showed him to the phone inside the kitchen, and watched his every move, leaving just once to change her socks and put on some slippers. In the kitchen, she flitted through the mail, never letting go of the rifle.
The phone to his ear, he turned his back to her. “Madison, Bruce Madison . . . yes. I need a tow on Adams Road just south of Route 303 . . . .” He stood erect, his legs apart, knees locked, balling up the telephone cord in his fist.
Debra took a frustrated breath and huffed it out.
“I get it. Okay? They put me on hold.” Bruce seemed agitated.
Then the doorbell rang. Debra hesitated to answer the front door. This door in the living room was the only door with a doorbell. She glared at him, conveying the message, ‘hurry up.’ The doorbell rang again. She stepped backward to the arched doorway between the kitchen and the vast living room, hoping to see who ever it was through the far off Victorian window that faced the porch. The bell rang for the third time. She hesitantly left Bruce, and hurried through the living room.
Hiding her rifle behind the umbrella stand, she opened the door and then the screen door where a postal carrier was waiting. From here, she could only see a swatch of Bruce’s faded jean jacket.
“Would you mind coming inside?” she asked the carrier, holding open the door, not wanting to go outside because she wouldn’t be able to see Bruce.
“This will just take a minute.” The postal carrier held out a package and a clipboard for her to take, coaxing her onto the porch. “I just need a signature.”
She stepped out onto the porch, holding the screen door open with her foot, and tossed the package inside.
The postman dropped the pen. “That’s the kind of day I’ve been having.” He bent over to pick it up, rolling it clumsily with every touch. The pen rolled off the porch. “I’ve got another one here somewhere.” He unzipped his jacket and fingered his shirt pocket.
Debra shifted one foot in the door, trying to see Bruce, even a stitch of his clothing.
“Sign right here.”
She scribbled her name.
The postman tore the perforated receipt the same awkward way that he’d dropped the pen. “How did you like all that snow we had the other day? Must have had six inches.”
She nodded her head, anxious, “Yes. You have a nice day, too. Thank you,” she pelted polite words, abruptly shutting the door, hurrying back to the kitchen.
Bruce was gone. It was four-thirty, and Julie pulled in the driveway right on schedule, passing the postal carrier on her way. Debra was already at the door, locking it when Julie came up to it.
“I brought some WD-40.” Julie seemed to be her old cheerful self. “I dug it out of Kyle’s truck.”
“What is that?”
“Oil in a can. You’re going to like this.” Julie set it down on the kitchen counter. “You’re not ready yet?”
“Let me get my shoes.” Debra opened the closet and dropped to her knees rummaging through a bunch of mismatched shoes to find them.
“What’s in the package?” Julie picked up the package that was still on the floor, from when Debra had kicked it inside. “It says, The Co-Stan Homeowners Association. That’s a big outfit.”
“Is that who it’s from? I didn’t even look at it.” Debra forgot all about finding her shoes, and grabbed a letter opener from a kitchen drawer. “I shouldn’t have left this on the floor.” She took the package from Julie, and cut it open. “The contract. Greg got the job. You can’t imagine how much we wanted this.” She handled the pages with care, taking them out of the box. Underneath, in the bottom of the box, she saw a check for ten-thousand dollars, with a note that said, ‘Please accept this check as a down payment. We have another project when this one is finished, if you are interested.’ Debra put everything back the way it had come. “Greg has worked so hard for this. I can’t believe I just tossed it aside,” and placed it in the back of the closet for safekeeping.
“What was it doing on the floor?”
“That game warden was here when the delivery man came.” Debra found one of her shoes. “He was in the kitchen using the phone, and I was trying to keep an eye on him from the front door.”
“You let him inside?”
“Not for long. One minute he was here and the next minute he was gone.” Debra found the other shoe.
“It still makes me mad, what he did to those cats. Did anyone ever do anything about that?”
“Not as far as I know. If it was up to me, I would throw him in jail,” Debra tied shoes, trying to hurry, wanting to leave right away, so they wouldn’t come back to a dark house.
“I wouldn’t have let him inside. There’s a lot of sick people out there. Another woman was raped and killed in Parma this time. I just heard it on the news. They said her name was Dee Something. I don’t know why, but that name sounds familiar . . . . I’m so glad that Greg put dead bolts on my doors.”
“That’s quite a ways from here. I would think that whoever killed her wouldn’t come out this far.” Debra buttoned her coat. “I hope they catch him.” She tucked her hair under a stocking cap. “With everything that’s been going on, it scares me to think, that could have been one of us.” She locked the dead bolt as they left. “I had this crazy dream . . . .”
Upstairs in Debra’s bedroom, Bruce watched them walk to the end of the driveway and onto the road. He sniffed a pinch of cocaine, and after the initial high subsided, he opened the dirty clothes hamper that was nestled next to the dresser and found Debra’s panties. Smelling her sweet scent was a high all in itself.
Chapter 49
Debra felt the warmth coming back to her feet, her leather tennis shoes splashing through the sidewalk slush. The once orange mums she’d jogged by all month were drooping heavily to the ground, brown around the edges. Some of the houses showed signs of Thanksgiving, which was next week. She hadn’t gone over the dream with Julie, not in its entirety. Right now she couldn’t help but wonder where Bruce had gone, probably back to his broken down car. Mad at herself for letting him in, she wished that she had seen him leave. She could have locked him out for good and all. He had to have left . . . of course he left. They said he was harmless. That’s what they’d said . . .
Julie clawed at the inside of her wrist, scratching it. “This itches so bad. Is this what I think it is?” She took off her glove, jogging all the while, and showed Debra three ugly welts, each the size of a dime, red bumpy, oozing.
“You’ve got it pretty bad.” I wish I would have known the cats were sick. I can see it starting on your neck, too. Have you been using the fungicide?” Debra said, feeling terribly guilty.
“I’ve been spraying the kitten.” Julie kept clawing at her wrist. “I never thought to spray myself. It didn’t show up until last night, and I thought it was something else.”
“Don’t scratch. It’ll spread.” Debra scooped a handful of snow that hadn’t melted yet. “Hold this on it. Ice really helps. You need to buy some Tinactin.” Debra said in puffy breaths, jogging again, fast and quick. “Hey. Do you want to have dinner together? How ‘bout Chinese?”
“Chinese . . . I know a new place so desperate for business, they’ll deliver anywhere. We’ll look up Won Chow when we get back,” Julie said, the two of them jogging together, breathing heavily in the cold. The smell of wood burning from someone’s fireplace; the rhythm of their feet hitting the wet sidewalk; the sound of Julie’s breaths—each in their own right, en
chanting, in these last hours of daylight.
At Debra’s house, after an hour-long jog, they called Won Chow. Debra wasn’t thinking about Bruce anymore, at least that’s what she’d told herself. Julie sprayed the basement door’s hinges with oil, and swung it open and closed to make sure the squeak was gone. Then she sprayed the bathroom door.
“Do you want me to spray the doors upstairs?”
“May as well. How much is left?”
Julie shook the spray-can. “Must be a new can. I think it’s full.”
Just then, floorboards creaked from up above.
Julie threw a hushed glance at Debra “You locked the doors, right?”
“There’s no one up there, this house creaks for no reason at all.” Debra walked over to the umbrella stand and retrieved the rifle.
“Then what’s that for?”
“A little persuasion for ‘no reason at all.’”
On their way upstairs, with every footstep, the stairs creaked their nostalgic song. Julie ran her finger along an extension cord that was tacked to the wood molding along the stairway.
“What’s the extension cord for?” Julie asked, following Debra, going up another step. Three steps from reaching the top.
“There’s no electricity up here. Greg wired that up to a light switch in our bedroom.”
Finally at the top of the stairs, Debra faced the long narrow hallway that was lined with doors. “Which room do you want to see first? We don’t have much time. It’ll be dark soon. There’s no light in these rooms.”
Something tinny tapped against a window to the uneven rhythm of the breeze outside. Julie followed Debra to the furthest door down the hall, and turned the glass doorknob. A net of cobwebs swayed with the motion of the opening door. The hinges creaked a solitary voice. Duty-bound, Julie sprayed them with oil. Going inside, floorboards creaked beneath their footsteps. Scant beams of light filtered through the windows into translucent hues on the unfinished walls, on the vintage furniture. It was getting darker.
“This is so creepy,” Julie said, running her finger over a cracked wall.
“Wait till you see the next room.”
Bruce heard them talking. He eased open the bedroom door slightly to see through a small crack, the hunting knife in his hand. Behind the bedroom door, waiting, listening, he shifted his weight back a step.
Another floorboard creaked. Perfectly still, the two women exchanged glances.
Eyes wide, Julie mouthed, “Did you hear that?”
Debra mouthed back, “Yes.” She was glad that Julie had heard it. She was glad that it was creepy and scary and all the things she’d tried to convey. Panicked and glad and scared and happy . . . she didn’t have the crazy gene. Above all things, she didn’t have that.
“Let’s go to my house.” Words came in whispers.
“What about the Chinese food?”
“We’ll wait for it in the car.”
Bruce opened the door a little more, trying to squeeze out of Debra’s bedroom. He could see the rifle. That damned rifle. Opening the door a little further, the hinges creaked. He plastered his body against the wall, waiting for a few seconds. Then he took a step forward. The floorboard creaked.
The sound of a door convinced Debra and Julie to leave. The sound of the footstep ordered them to run. They met up with Bruce by her bedroom door. He took off, two steps at a time down the stairs.
“Stop!” Debra cocked the rifle. “Stop right now!”
Bruce jumped down three more steps.
Debra fired a shot over his head, trying to scare him into stopping. But he didn’t stop. She fired again. Bruce fell down the rest of the stairs, his feet out from under him. His body hit the floor just short of the bathroom door. He didn’t move, not even a little.
“You got him,” Julie said, skimming past Debra, making her way to Bruce’s body.
Debra’s dream came back in a blur, the vision of her shooting him, of him grabbing her ankles, of him taking her down. “No. Don’t.” She quick grabbed Julie’s arm.
Debra aimed at him, close range. “I just put two bullet holes in my new drywall because of you. Go ahead. Lie there. Just don’t pretend you’re shot. I didn’t even come close.”
Sprawled out, the knife’s handle in his opened hand, its cutting edge against the floor. His eyes were closed. The cut on his forehead, the reason he’d used her phone, was bleeding. A wicked smile crested his lips, and he opened his eyes. “Enough foreplay,” he said, rolling, grabbing for her ankles. Debra quick-stepped backwards. And shot him, aiming to graze his arm. Bruce sprang to the bathroom without an utterance of pain, and slammed the door shut. She heard the lock catch.
“Good,” Debra yelled through the door. “Lock yourself in.”
“It’s him.” Julie said to Debra. “There’s no mistaking those tattoos. He’s the one who broke into my house that night. I’ll call the sheriff.”
“Tell them we can’t wait for someone to just happen by. Tell them I’ve killed a man, if you have to. If they don’t get here soon, that might be the truth.”
Julie called the sheriff’s department from the kitchen, and came back a few minutes later. For reasons unknown, she still had the oil spray can.
“It didn’t matter what I said. There’s a multiple-car accident on Route 71 and the dispatcher said the department’s short of officers today.”
“I hate to ask this, but what about that cop, Jack?”
“His number’s at home. I was this close to throwing it away,” Julie said. “I wish I could call the detective who was on Kyle’s case, Lieutenant Barger. He’s the only one I trust. But he only takes homicide cases.”
Bruce made an awful racket inside the bathroom—metal on metal. It sounded as if he was bashing the plumbing in there. Debra tried to think of what could make a sound like that. “The ventilation grate,” she said out loud. “He’s trying to get out through the ceiling.” The shaft was big enough for him to crawl through, to the upper floor above. “That comes out by the other staircase in the other part of the house. Those stairs lead to another kitchen and to another door that goes outside.”
Without thinking, Debra bolted up the stairs, leaving Julie by the bathroom door. When Debra got to the room with the ventilation grate, she looked for something heavy to block it, and ended up going to her bedroom where he had pulled out her dresser drawers. Dragging two dresser drawers the length of the hall, she realized that she couldn’t hear Bruce anymore.
Then she heard Julie scream.
Debra wildly raced down the hall, back to the stairs, and down to the living room, the rifle an appendage now. The bathroom door was open. Bruce was holding Julie in a chokehold, using her as a shield, his knife at her throat. He pressed his oil-glazed face against hers. WD-40, Julie must have sprayed him.
“Let go of her.” Debra said softly, her face, her hands, sweating, pulsing. “I have no problem killing you.”
“Go ahead. Pull the trigger. Let’s see how far this knife can slice Juliet’s throat before I go down.” He tightened his grip on Julie, his face against hers, and sloppily licked her cheek.
The phone rang, adding to the height of tension. It rang again. His skull-tattooed wrist, his tight fisted grip, his knife’s polished blade—all a part of the whole—all poised at Julie’s throat. The phone rang again.
Her eyes on his, Debra could see his reflection, Julie’s too, captured in the knife’s steel blade. The rifle barrel seemed to melt in her sweat-laden hands. She could see the skulls, as many as there were, each one unique—all with her eyes on his.
The phone rang again, and the answering machine picked up the call.
Debra’s recorded voice mechanically announced,
“This is Hamilton Carpentry. Please leave your name and number, and a short message, and someone will return your call. Thank you.”
“If you’re there, pick up the phone. This is Jeff. I saw my mom’s car over there, and our house is locked. Is someone there? I’m at Grams with
Nate. We’re going to have a sandwich first, and then we’ll be over to get the key. Bye.”
Bruce displayed a sort of smile through his stone cold expression. “You know I have to kill you. Don’t you?” he said to Julie, his mouth nuzzled to her ear. “I have to kill your prick sons, too. That husband of yours should never have messed with me.”
“Why are you doing this?” Julie asked.
“Come on, don’t be stupid. My whoring wife, your prick husband. Dee is dead. Just up and died in her sleep.” He tightened his grip. “See what happens when you mess with me?”
Chapter 50
It was Jack’s day off and he had been listening to the radio. He had just heard the news. ‘Dee Madison, dead in her mother’s home.’ He checked his police scanner. An all-points bulletin was out for the prime suspect, Bruce Madison.
Jack had never wanted it to get this far. Disheveled, he’d been working outside in his back yard where he’d buried various cats over the years. The first on the scene for every complaint, so no one would find out about Bruce. Bruce, swearing each time that he’d never do it again. The fire-bush hedgerow had lost its leaves, and now he could see where a cat skeleton had eroded toward the surface. It was better to conceal a carcass at night, but the neighbor’s dog had discovered the skeleton and had started to dig it up.
Twenty minutes of driving had felt like hours. His tires sent eroded gravel pinging beneath his car, driving so fast on Adams Road. All these days and weeks, months of destroying evidence.
Bruce had promised. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
In his rattiest clothes, a worn out painter’s pants and a stained Hard Rock t-shirt, Jack cut the wheel. The car’s tail end hit a rut at the end of the driveway. Getting darker by the minute, he bounded to Julie’s door, laid on the doorbell, and slammed his fist on the door. What if he’d already been here? Jack busted the lock with a police-issued tool.
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