Closet Full Of Bones

by A. J. Aalto

The constable was still talking in her ear, and now his inflection told her he’d asked a question that she hadn’t heard. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Ellis?”

  Gillian didn’t correct him to Hearth. “I, uh…” You have to report this. He’s going to keep getting away with this shit if you don’t. He’s got a green light to do anything if you don’t show him you’ll do something about it. “I’ve had a break-in. Things are missing.”

  “Mrs. Ellis,” he said, “this morning, your sister reported that a break-in occurred early Friday morning and a theft. Her diaries. Could this be related?”

  “I think so,” Gillian admitted. Frankie reported the robbery? Paul must have given her a talking-to. She felt out of the loop, like things were starting to unravel quickly. A woman who was used to being in control of her life, Gillian now felt as if she were drowning.

  “Could it also be related to the possible poisoning of Barb McIntyre by her sister?” Dean asked her. “By that, I mean, do you believe that Bobby McIntyre could have stolen your things? Because Ms. Farmer believes Ms. McIntyre is harassing her.”

  “It’s one possibility, yes,” Gillian said, her cheeks flaming. How are you going to report missing sex toys? They’re going to want a description of the things. How are you going to look him in the eye and describe your dildos? “Or, it may be the man who threw a brick through my window.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” the cop said. “I’m bringing someone from forensics.”

  Bruce shuffled in the threshold of the bedroom door and Gillian glanced at him, knowing her face was likely pale and horrified, but ready to give up hiding it. Her friend’s face, already concerned about the brick through the window, went through a series of grimaces and twitches as he looked at hers. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he could tell it was ugly.

  Gillian answered the constable. “May I clean up the broken window?”

  “How about you leave it until after we’ve taken another look?” Dean suggested. “We’ll try to be there within the hour.”

  Gillian hung up, clutched her phone to her chest like a tiny shield, and stared at Bruce helplessly. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. If you can say it to Bruce, you can say it to cops. Better get used to talking about it. “Someone stole my…” She choked on it, and tried again. “Private things.”

  Bruce’s eyes cut left to her dresser against the far wall and he frowned. “Like what?”

  Gillian turned to see a drawer open there, too, the top one where she kept her underwear and socks. She approached it with a dry mouth, suspecting what she would find but not wanting to confirm it. When she got close enough to see into the high drawer, her heart sank; there was a single pair of white socks left in the very middle of the drawer, unrolled from their tidy ball and placed in an X pattern. All of her other socks, and all of her bras and panties, were gone.

  Gillian set her shoulders and exhaled angrily through her nostrils. “My underwear. My socks, almost all of them. My sex toys.” Her voice vaulted up through the octaves and she yelled, “My private things!”

  She felt Bruce’s big hand on her shoulder, heavy but gentle. “Okay,” he said soothingly, “it’s going to be okay. We’re going to sort this out. You’re not alone, Gillian. You’ve got people who will stand behind you no matter what.”

  Gillian shook her head, clenching her fists. “He’s going to use this shit to humiliate me.”

  “He can’t,” Bruce said. “Think about it. Are they engraved with your name? Who’s to say they’re even yours? He can show people anything he wants, but if you say they’re not yours, then how can he prove they are? And who cares, anyway? I don’t know a single woman in my life who doesn’t have, you know, stuff.” His big, round shoulders danced upward. “Seriously, you’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “My lingerie…”

  “So what? Gill, seriously, think about it. We all wear underwear. Wanna see mine?” He showed her a lopsided smile and put his hands on his belt. “It ain’t pretty. Hell, it might not even be clean. But if it’ll make you feel better.”

  Gillian squawked a half-sob-half-laugh and said, “Bruce!” to stay his hand.

  He chuckled, and the sound of it reassured her. “Hey, look, you’ve got every right to be pissed off. It’s a violation. No doubt. This is your bedroom, for fuck’s sake. Your private things. No one has any right to do that. But don’t let this pervert make you think that you have anything to be ashamed of.”

  The naked pictures, Gillian lamented. My Greg. Oh, Jesus. I need that one back before it shows up on the goddamn internet. She didn’t even care about her own body being seen; she only cared about protecting the memory of her husband. “I’m not sure I can accept that right now.”

  “Okay,” Bruce said easily. “Feel your feels, lady, totally. What can I do for you? What would help the most?”

  Some of the tension drained from Gillian’s tight shoulders and she gazed up at the big bear of a man, so grateful that she hadn’t been alone when she discovered this. She had considered soldiering on alone this morning, calling a taxi instead of bothering a friend, cleaning up and lifting the garbage herself, relying on tenacity instead of logic. Thank goodness she’d swallowed her stubborn pride.

  “Will you stay while the police are here?” she asked.

  He nodded once, sharply. “Absolutely. What else?”

  “Will you come with me to the new place afterward?”

  “Of course,” Bruce said. “I’ll hang out as long as you need me to. What else?”

  Gillian managed a weak smile. “Stay for dinner with me tonight so I can thank you properly with a good meal?”

  He pretended to consider this seriously, studying the bedroom ceiling. “I dunno… are you home-cooking or ordering in?”

  “I was planning a big pot of vegetarian chili for Frankie, but she’s gone to stay with Henry,” she said, waiting for him to crack some jokes, grateful for the distraction from his worries.

  “Oh hey,” he said, “chili sounds good. How about we stop by the grocery store and I’ll buy salad fixings and some fresh bread to have with dinner?”

  Gillian heard the front door and her phone vibrated in her hand simultaneously. It was too soon to be Constable Jagger, unless he’d been right around the corner, and she wasn’t expecting anyone else. She felt a spike of fear which flipped immediately to anger. She marched to the kitchen, grabbed the boning shears from the knife block, and stormed to the door, ignoring Bruce’s uncertain warnings behind her.

  Not bothering to check who it was, she tore the front door open to a gust of snow flurries and a delivery man whose eyes cut down at the scissors in her fist. He said, “Uh, Mrs. Gillian Ellis?”

  “What?” she clipped.

  “Um, these are for you?” he said, wide eyes wary, not taking his eyes off her weapon. The long white box in his hand was offered cautiously.

  “What is it?” she demanded, exhaling harshly from her nostrils like an agitated bull. “I’m not expecting anything.”

  “Flowers?” Again, it was said uncertainly; the drum-bellied blond man looked like he wanted to back away but was afraid to make any sudden moves.

  Gillian felt her eyes narrow suspiciously. “From who?”

  “I…” He shook his head rapidly. “I have no idea, I just bring them. There’s probably a card?”

  “Open it,” she told him. “I’m not touching those until I know who they’re from.”

  Bruce got closer behind her, literally backing her up. “How about I just take these?” he said, tapping the back of her hand and trying to peel the scissors from her fingers. “Thank you.”

  Gillian released them to him and took a deep calming breath. “I’m sorry,” she told the delivery guy. “I’ve had a very bad week.”

  “Yeah, sure, you want I should open this, or…?”

  “Please,” she said. “Do that.”

  He raised a knee to balance the box and opene
d it and fished out the little envelope containing the card. Gillian got a glimpse of white and purple Freesia sprays and pink roses before he closed the box and held it under his arm. Opening the envelope with his thumbnail, he slid the card out, and his mouth did an unhappy twist.

  “What. Does. It. Say?” Gillian said, her voice deadly low. Bruce’s big hand landed on her left shoulder and he rubbed it soothingly.

  The delivery guy swallowed hard and shook his head. “I don’t get it.” He turned the card to face her.

  It said, SOON.

  After a long silence, the delivery man cleared his throat. “Should I take them away?”

  Gillian felt a cold smile settle on her lips. “No. They’re mine. Thank you. I’ll take the note, too, please. Have a lovely day.”

  The delivery guy shot Bruce a troubled look and nodded, backing away now with relief. “Have a better evening,” he said, and hurried back to the white van.

  Gillian shut the front door quietly. SOON, it said. She stared down at the little card, just a white piece of card stock with four little letters on it. SOON.

  Her fear vanished under a riptide of fury. Soon is right, she thought. Last straw, motherfucker. Soon is absolutely right. “Bruce, there’s a crystal vase in the bottom box in the stack near the kitchen door. Would you be a dear and dig it out for me? I don’t think I could lift things…”

  “Hey, are you okay?” Bruce asked. “Your face is the color of my Cream of Wheat.”

  “Oh?” She smiled tightly. “That’s odd, because I feel wonderful. Look, someone sent me flowers. Aren’t they pretty?”

  “Uh huh.” He wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t seem to know what else to say. “They’re real nice.”

  “And I shouldn’t let such beauty die.”

  “Oooookay. A vase, eh?” he said. “Yeah, I can find it.”

  He started in on the boxes and he’d just found it when there was another knock on the front door. Gillian wondered for a moment where Bruce had tucked her boning shears, put her flower box down, and answered the door with a murderous brand of calm that she hadn’t felt in ages.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sunday, November 2. 5:50 P.M.

  Constable Jagger had brought a few people with him, which was fine by Gillian. She sat at the kitchen table staring at the pink roses and speckled Freesia, mesmerized by the howling maelstrom raging just beneath the skin of calm on the surface of her mind. SOON, the card in her pocket promised. The idea of that soothed her frayed nerves. It’s almost over. A quiet, distant part of her warned, We can stop this. But the rage agreed. Yes, we can and we will.

  Bruce had waited until forensics were done in and around the kitchen window; when he got the all-clear, he began piling long pieces of broken glass in the rubber bin, pulling demolished terra cotta flower pots and their resident herb plants from the sink, disposing of the dishes that had been in the sink, as well as the broken china cups on the floor and under the kitchen table.

  Dean Jagger was scribbling in his note pad, taking down all her words, glancing curiously now and then at the cut glass vase of flowers in the center of the pine table.

  “Those are pretty,” he said.

  Gillian felt a little smile twitch her lips. It felt smug. She heard herself say, “Funeral flowers so rarely include Freesia. It’s a nice touch, don’t you think?”

  Bruce’s shoulders went up, and he rolled his neck.

  The policeman observed her for a long beat, his gaze calculating. She met his eyes with something approaching serenity, though she knew this was a trick her mind was playing on her. A dark shape had taken over, and she was happy to release responsibility to it; it would take care of things now. SOON. She sat ignoring her tea, daring the cop to read her mind if he could. There was nothing he could do to stop her. Not a damn thing. That smug twitch of a smile made an appearance again, and she reached her fingertips up to touch it, amazed at it.

  Dean’s pen moved across his notebook but his eyes didn’t leave her face. “You said private things were missing?”

  Gillian tapped a neatly trimmed fingernail on the saucer under her teacup. “All my underwear. I don’t know how many pairs I had, to be honest. All my socks except for one pair. You’ll see them in there, unrolled and crossed in an X shape in the drawer. From my husband’s night table drawer, all my sex toys are missing; a black eight-inch dildo, a small pink vibrating egg, and a remote control butterfly-style clitoral stimulator that you wear inside your panties. He also stole a tube of regular lubricant and a strawberry flavored one. There was an envelope…” Here, her voice failed her, but she tried again. “Two nude Polaroid photos inside.”

  She watched as he noted this without any outward reaction on his face, like she was listing the groceries she needed. Of course he’s heard worse, she told herself; still, she was glad he had chosen to look at his notes and not directly at her.

  “No note left behind? Or any damage to the room?”

  She took the note card from her pocket and flipped it across the table top at him. It slid and spun in circles on the high-polished pine, and he stopped it with a thick fingertip, spun it to read the single word on it.

  “This came with the flowers?”

  Gillian murmured and smiled coolly.

  “You don’t seem worried.”

  “I was,” she admitted. “I’m not now.”

  Dean leaned back in his chair and sighed unhappily. “Mind if I ask why?”

  “You know the answer to that,” she said, motioning to the note. “He promised it would be over soon.”

  “Some women would be absolutely terrified by that implication.”

  “Do I look terrified, Constable Jagger?”

  “No,” he said, “and that’s what worries me. Do you own a firearm, Mrs. Ellis?”

  “I don’t go by Mrs. Ellis anymore,” Gillian told him. “Mrs. Ellis was the wife of a policeman. And a policeman’s widow. I'm a Hearth girl. I'm my father’s daughter.”

  He didn’t seem to know how to take that. “The firearms?”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “I don't own a firearm and you will find no such weapon in this house or my other.” Because Colin hasn’t brought it yet, she thought.

  “I would caution you not to deal with this person yourself,” Dean told her.

  Bruce coughed loudly, and Gillian knew it was a cheeky form of piping up in agreement.

  “Of course you would caution that, officer,” Gillian said.

  “Who sent the flowers, Gillian?”

  “Can you arrest a man for sending a lady flowers now?”

  “If it was part of a pattern of harassment and he’d been warned to stop, and I could prove he sent them, yes, I could make him sorry. I could at least get you some protection.”

  “Like a restraining order?”

  “Perhaps—”

  “I might as well write ‘fuck off’ on the back of that card and mail it to him.” She smirked. “It would do as much good, and you know it.”

  “As I'm sure Paul Langerbeins has advised you, if we build a solid series of reports against him and he continues to harass you, he will serve time.”

  And he would blab all my secrets to the world the minute he was in an interrogation room, Gillian knew. If he isn’t blabbing already.

  “And by ‘serving time’ you mean he’ll stew in a jail cell and come out a few months later an angrier and more dangerous man,” she said flatly. “Sounds great. Sign me the hell up, officer.”

  Dean tapped his pen on the table and scribbled something in his notes. “Why do you think this man is targeting you?”

  “Because he’s a fucking asshole?” Bruce ventured beneath his breath from the sink, tugging on his heavy leather work gloves so he could gather the smaller pieces of window glass there.

  Gillian smiled sadly at the big grumbling bear and wondered if Bruce would be so quick to protect her if he knew all the things she’d done, all the ugly secrets she’d kept. She realized he probably would,
no matter how ugly the secrets were. That made her even sadder, and her smile faded.

  “What you’re seeing here is the efforts of a small, empty man trying to feel big,” she told the constable, reaching one pale hand out to tap the base of the crystal vase. “The only way to win is to ignore him. That, sir, puts him firmly back in his place.”

  “And where is his place, Gillian?”

  That felt like a dangerous question but she couldn’t resist. “Obscurity.”

  “So you’re choosing to ignore him?”

  Gillian gave what she hoped was a casual shrug. “He broke a window.” Fucked with my car at the grocery store. Left me threatening messages. “He stole some socks and sent me flowers.” And sent a rape fantasist to my house late at night. “The nude photos bother me, I won’t lie about that. I was startled by the other things. I feel a bit violated, yes. But if I send cops to his place, he’ll know he’s winning, don’t you see? He’ll know he’s scaring me, getting under my skin. And I cannot allow that. I won't.”

  “It’s not about winning,” Jagger told her quietly as the forensics team began to bring their equipment back out to the van in the driveway.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, constable,” she said, “and I always win.”

  **

  With the police and forensics gone, and her bedroom tidied, Gillian collected her work clothes, some old jeans for doing outdoorsy work, and all her pairs of gardening gloves. She got some cleaning supplies from under the bathroom sink, and the bleach from the laundry room. Bruce carried the cartons of broken glass and swept-up garbage into the back of his truck for her, while Gillian collected her glasses, contact lens supplies, a roll of duct tape that hadn’t been opened yet, and her medications. Bruce called her name and she shouted that she would only be a second and to go ahead and start the car.

  She took the envelope from the flower note card that said SOON and used it to scribble her new address on and a quick note: Colin, if you need me, I’m staying at my new place. Auntie Gillian. She waited until Bruce was in the truck and putting on his seat belt, and, feeling like the spider expecting the fly, slipped it in her mailbox.