“Can I look at it first?”
She batted long, dark eyelashes at me. She was dressed in a black turtleneck, black hip-hugging jeans, and a black leather belt with a giant silver buckle. My little ninja. It was my favorite sweater, the one she’d worn when I’d met her at the Portland Museum of Art so many years ago. Billie had a beautiful body, naked or clothed, but there was something about the way that sweater clung to her curves that drove me crazy.
“You have to promise you’ll hang it no matter what,” she said.
“Why? You know I’ll like it. I always like your paintings.”
“I’m a little more nervous about this one. It’s . . . different.”
“The suspense is killing me here,” I said.
“Okay, fine, go for it.”
Like a kid at Christmas, I eagerly unwrapped the painting and held it up so I could get a good look at it. She was right, it was certainly different, but not in a bad way. In the center was a logo of sorts, a glowing gold medallion with the letters MV in the center in a stylistic font, as if scratched instead of written. Behind the logo was the city of Portland at night, a view from the Morrison Bridge, the gauzy lights of the buildings mirrored in the Willamette River. The scene was both impressionist and realistic at the same time, capturing not only how it looked but also how it felt.
“Wow,” I said.
“You like it?”
“Gives me chills,” I said, and I didn’t mean it in a Hallmark greeting sort of way, but genuine chills. I couldn’t believe how much effort she’d put into it, to create something so personal to me. If she’d asked if I’d wanted a logo, I would have refused, probably saying the idea was silly, but now that I saw it, I was in awe. Which was probably why she hadn’t asked. “Where should I hang it? Conveniently, there’s already some picture hooks on the walls.”
“You decide. But somewhere people can see it when they come in.”
I considered it. When people came through the door, they’d be looking at the window, which was the same place I planned to put the metal desk I’d picked up from Goodwill that afternoon. The wall just to the left, though, would be clearly in view of my potential customers, and it had the added benefit of hanging over where I most likely would put my computer. I hung it there and stood back to admire it.
“Well?” I said. “What do you think?”
When she didn’t answer, I turned and found her standing by the window, gazing at the street below. In the pale afternoon light, she was a study in monochrome, black eyeliner, pearly white skin, black clothes—even the white walls around her completed the picture. Concentrating as she was, face lost in contemplation, she was both close to me and unreachable at the same time. Not wanting to break the moment, not wanting to disturb that perfect thing about her that I could never express in words, I found myself just watching her until she finally spoke.
“Elvis is down there,” she said.
“What?”
“Come look.”
I did. Sure enough, on a street that was alive and bustling even on a winter day, with all manner of people in all manner of dress, there was a guy who looked just like Elvis working a bright yellow hot-dog stand on the corner. It was the heavy Elvis from his later years, a bit bloated in his white polyester suit, but there was no mistaking that plume of dark hair and sideburns down nearly to his chin. He was serving up a hot dog to a dusty-faced man in a miner’s cap, smiling and laughing like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Think he’s the real deal?” Billie asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’ll have to talk to him and find out. He’s certainly having fun.”
The two of us stood watching him for a time, me sneaking in glances at her beautiful face, our hands nearly touching—if they could have touched. I wanted to hold her hand. She’d never been much of a hand holder in her living years, but she’d put up with it for my sake. It was one of those little things that I missed. It was good, though, just standing close to her.
Things still weren’t right between us, but we were getting closer. We were closer to a good place than we’d been since the shooting and the many rocky years before that. It was only her suicide that lingered like a curtain between us. I knew until we parted that curtain and faced the truth of our lives, without any dissembling or deception at all, that our relationship could never fully heal.
She gave me her own fleeting glance, her eyes full of worry as if she’d been reading my thoughts, then looked back out the window. She swallowed and leaned closer, the shadow of the window frame casting a dark bar across her eyes that resembled a blindfold.
“I want to tell you something,” she said, “but I’m afraid.”
“You don’t need to be afraid. You can tell me anything.”
“I wish that was true.”
“It is, Billie. You know it is.”
“It’s a very bad thing. I don’t know … if you could ever forgive me.”
“I can forgive anything. I love you. You know how much I love you.”
She glanced at me. There was so much anguish on her face that it alarmed me. This was not a woman who wore her emotions on her sleeve. This was a woman after my own heart, a woman who bottled up all that torment inside. On some deep level, it made her impossible to really know, but it also completed me in a way I would never understand. She peered out the window, her breath fogging the glass. I knew her breath wasn’t really fogging the glass, just as I knew the painting wasn’t anything more than a blank canvas, but what I knew and what I saw were not the same and might not ever be again. I don’t know if I’d ever be okay with that, but I was finally beginning to accept it.
“I’ve been thinking about this story,” Billie said softly. “I don’t think I ever told you about it. It was about this … this beautiful princess who did all these terrible things. She didn’t mean to, it was just the way she was, but she lost everything and everyone she cared about because of her wickedness. Her family died. Her castle crumbled. She ended up alone in the forest, living in a cave, full of remorse. Then one day a handsome prince riding on horseback saw her drinking from a stream and fell in love. But she wouldn’t have him. She said if he knew all the terrible things she’d done, he could never love her.”
“Billie,” I said.
“Shh. Let me finish.” Her voice had taken on a warbly, strained quality. “This prince … he said he couldn’t live without her, so she made him a promise. If he could find a way to erase all the terrible things that had happened, so she could be the princess he wanted her to be, then she would marry him. And the prince … this prince, he searched and searched and finally found an old witch who made him a potion that would do as he asked. If the princess drank the potion and kissed him, all the terrible things would be erased. The old witch warned him that there was a cost, there was always a cost, but the prince was already riding away.”
Billie turned to me, wearing a wan smile. I heard some strange sounds coming from down the hall, something like the bleating of sheep mixed with harps not in tune, but I was too enraptured with Billie to care.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He brought her the potion,” Billie said, “and explained what it would do. She was skeptical, but she drank it anyway. It made her feel warm inside, full of love and joy. Grateful for this second chance, she leaned in to kiss the prince—and that’s when she knew the terrible price she must pay. She knew all those terrible things would really be erased, but only from her own mind—not for real. And that wasn’t even the worst part.”
“What?”
“The worst part was that when they kissed, the horrible memories that haunted her every waking thought, all those awful things she’d done, would pass into him. She would forget, but he would remember exactly who and what she was. She knew the prince. She knew if she told him that this was the price, he would have begged for her to kiss him anyway. He would have told her he would love her no matter what she had done. He would have told her that ther
e was nothing that could force him from her side.”
She fell silent, blinking long eyelashes at me, as if waiting for me to answer some question she hadn’t even asked. The bleating sheep down the hall were growing increasingly louder. Maybe they were actual sheep. Maybe, if all their racket kept up, we would be having lamb for dinner.
“Well?” I said.
“Well, what?”
“Well, what did she do? Did she kiss him anyway? Did she leave? Don’t tell me they just went on with that being the status quo, never kissing. That’s not how it ends, is it? Come on, I need some hope here.”
She opened her mouth as if to answer, then stopped abruptly and looked out the window again. “You know, this is a pretty interesting neighborhood. I think I’ll go wander around a bit, exploring.”
“Billie,” I pleaded.
“I bet there’s even a graveyard. Those are always a good place to think. Never find any ghosts there. Who wants to hang around a bunch of rotting corpses?”
She walked toward the door. I couldn’t believe it.
“Billie, come on,” I said. “You’re killing me here. What’s the ending of the story?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What? What do you mean, you don’t know? You mean you don’t remember it? You told me this story and you didn’t even remember the ending? You can’t do that!”
At the door, she turned and looked at me over her shoulder, both sadness and impishness in her eyes. That was the Billie I knew, impish and sad. I would take her that way for all eternity if she let me. I really didn’t care about the truth, when it came down to it. I just cared about her.
“No,” she said, “I mean I haven’t thought it up yet. I’ll be sure to tell you when I do.”
Then she walked through the door.
Chapter 27
It wasn’t until dawn on Tuesday that I finally made it back to Portland from Government Camp. There was the hike up the river to where the cell phones could get reception, the waiting for the police and the medics to trudge into the wilderness, the barrage of questions, a hike back to the sherriff’s office, more questions, lots and lots of questions, an intervening call from Alesha’s department chief, and, finally, many hours later, the drive back home.
The sky over the oaks was still a hazy charcoal black except for a purple ribbon low on the horizon. Pulling the Prius into our driveway, I took a sip from the coffee I’d gotten at a little market on the way down and winced at how cold it was. It seemed like I’d only picked up the coffee minutes ago, but it must have been much longer. I’d barely been conscious of driving, I’d been so lost in thought.
Or just lost.
Mrs. Halverson, the old woman who’d died the previous winter, was out in her white terrycloth robe and pink slippers at the mailbox, waiting for the postman. Unfortunately, my odd ability hadn’t been affected at all by Tony’s death; I still saw ghosts everywhere. Getting out of the car, the air was wet and heavy. It was going to rain and it would be a cold rain. November rains were always cold. There would be Karen Thorne to deal with, and her father, maybe a few other loose ends like Manuel Loretto, but those things could wait. Right now I needed answers from my wife.
Still not knowing what I was going to say to her or how to say it, I ascended the steps to the porch. After hesitating with my hand on the doorknob, I entered the house. I’d left lights on in every room, but she was nowhere to be found. Not in the living room. Not in her studio. Not in the bedroom. Nowhere. I searched the garage and the backyard just to be sure, but she was truly gone.
I felt the first cold grip of panic taking hold of me. I couldn’t have her disappear on me. Not like this.
Not content this time to wait around for her to show up, I hopped in the car and circled the neighborhood, checking the route I knew she often walked. No suck luck. Feeling increasingly more desperate, I headed to the office, gas engine roaring, tires squealing as the Prius rounded each corner. A group of young men in World War II Army uniforms, some with bandaged arms and legs, were crossing MLK Boulevard, and I barreled right through them. Fortunately they were ghosts and not on their way to some strange masquerade ball. I watched them shaking fists at me in my rearview mirror.
I reached the office in less than ten minutes. No Elvis at the corner. Must have been his day off. I saw the soft glow of the desk lamp in my office window, but of course that didn’t mean she was there; I left that one all the time just in case she stopped by when I wasn’t around. Weaving around a couple of pigtailed girls carrying tin lunch pails and five guys smoking weed, I sprinted into my building and up the rickety stairs to my office. She wasn’t inside.
I stood there for a moment, catching my breath, heart racing and face coated with sweat. Where would she go? There were dozens of places that came to mind, and surely another couple dozen I didn’t know about, but one jumped to the top of the list.
A brisk walk through the chill air and I was relieved to find her the same place I’d found her a week ago, after Karen Thorne had shown me that photo of Tony Neuman—sitting on the bench in the little park next to the Gothic church. The shadow of the steeple cut across the middle of the park, dividing it like a knife. Billie wore a tan, wide-brimmed fedora, bent low and shadowing her eyes, a leather jacket with lots of pockets, khakis, and ankle-high hiking boots. A pair of binoculars hung around her neck. A young man and woman with two kids, Tommy Hilfiger types in polos and white pants, as if they’d just gotten off a plane from Martha’s Vineyard, were playing over by the aluminum slide. It seemed a tad early to be taking kids to the park, but I saw the bright red backpacks and matching lunch bags and figured it was a quick stop on their way to school. Probably a posh private school, by the looks of them.
I sat next to her, the metal as cold as ice. Billie went on staring at the ground, neither of us saying a word for a long time, the children’s laughter ringing off the church’s stone walls.
“The man is a ghost, you know,” she said finally. “The women and children are alive, but the man is a ghost.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“I just figured I should tell you.”
“Good to know,” I said. The woman with the kids glanced at me, and I reminded myself to keep my voice low.
We sat in silence. I watched the family. At first, I couldn’t see any sign that the father was a ghost—they seemed to act as one unit—but then I saw how the children and the woman never looked at him. He cheered them on and clapped as they went down the slide, but he got nothing in return. He was a spectator, nothing more.
I cleared my throat. “Billie—” I began.
“Tony killed me,” she said.
“What?”
“It wasn’t a suicide.”
She still wasn’t looking at me, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the bench. I’d been prepared for a lot of things, prepared for an ugly truth that had been buried for years, but not for this.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re saying … I don’t understand …”
“I’ve been thinking about where to start,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s a good place, but I want you to know that first. I didn’t kill myself. I was unhappy, but I didn’t kill myself. I wouldn’t do that. I’d never do that.”
She lifted her head back, her eyes closed and the morning sun hitting her fully in the face. I waited for her to explain.
“We were in a bad place,” she said. “I’m not making excuses. What I did … What I did was horrible. Horrible. But when we couldn’t get pregnant, things just went bad between us. We were both kind of walking our own path, you know? I was lonely. I was so very lonely.”
“I was always there,” I insisted. “I never left. I never once left.”
“Then Tony came along,” Billie continued, as if she hadn’t heard. “Only he didn’t call himself Tony. He went by the name Greg Ostertan, and he was a photographer who traveled the world. That was his story. He was very kind. At least he seemed kind. I didn’t know he w
as a con artist. I—I guess I didn’t want to know.”
“So he was right. You did have an affair with him.”
“Yes.”
“How long was it going on? A year?”
“I—I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And he got you pregnant?”
She winced. “It wasn’t something I wanted.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. So the miscarriage … ?”
“I had an abortion. It was actually—actually twelve weeks, not ten. I knew it was his. I thought, you know, we wanted to have a baby so much … But I just couldn’t. It wasn’t yours. Ours. I couldn’t.”
“I see.”
“I never even told Greg about it. Until later.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
She was crying now, silent tears streaking that alabaster skin of hers, but this time I felt no desire to comfort her. I steeled myself to ask the question I’d been pondering all the way back from the mountain.
“Did you two plot to kill me?” I asked.
She whirled around and finally looked at me. “No! It wasn’t like that!”
“Then what was it like, Billie?”
“Somehow—somehow Greg, I mean Tony … He found out about your life-insurance policy. He arranged that whole thing at Starbucks. I didn’t know about it until after it happened. Not at first, either. When I saw you in the hospital that first time, I had … I hated myself. I hated everything I’d done. Tony tried to come around, and I told him I never wanted to see him again. He gave me some space, but when the weeks passed and you still weren’t … you weren’t getting any better …”
“Oh, God! I was in a coma and you slept with him again?”
“Myron—”
“Jesus!”
I was shouting. Alarmed, the woman across the park gathered up her kids and hustled them to the exit. The man, lingering after them, looked at me coldly. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if anyone heard, dead or alive.
“I can’t believe this!” I cried.
“I know,” Billie said, her voice retreating to a whisper even as mine grew in volume. “I’m horrible. I know how horrible I am.”
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