by Ritu Sethi
She threw down the sponge; it bounced and nearly hit him. “What killer? What body? You believe that spook at the body farm, don’t you?”
“Please don’t call her that.”
“Why not? Are you protecting her?”
“Look, let’s not fight. You can stay with someone I know in Vancouver, free of charge. I’ll arrange everything, even your ride down there.”
“In this weather? Are you trying to kill me?” Sita indicated towards the window where the wind had picked up, and rain slashed sideways against the fogged glass.
Outside, debris and abandoned garbage cans rolled across the road. Things had deteriorated since his drive back with Seymour. She was right. He couldn’t risk sending Sita and Noel out in this. Now what?
“And who is this person in Vancouver I’d be staying with – free of charge? A girlfriend?”
“Don’t,” Gray said. All the while, wondering how he was going to protect them.
Should he bring mother and daughter back to the cottage? Not with that recent threat. And he couldn’t stay with them all the time with a murder to investigate.
“Reggie told me what your scientist said. She imagines dead people because that’s her obsession. Sutured lips and a missing body? For God’s sake. I don’t see why I should have to leave my home, my place of business over her delusions.”
“Reggie Slope is wrong about Emmy.”
“Oh, it’s Emmy now. We’ve moved on from Dr. Kaur, haven’t we? Has your ‘brown fever’ resurfaced, or is she better than me because she’s half white? The missing link between us?”
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. An indifference to cultural differences had always been a strength between them. How could trauma change a person this much?
Nevertheless, her jealousy stung. Gray wasn’t used to Sita being jealous; that had never been a problem before. Or maybe, he’d never taken the time to uncover her insecurities. Another failure, another lack on his part she was probably all too willing to point out.
Gray’s head pounded. A sheen of sweat coated his aching body. He had to get through to her.
She watched him, unblinking. Her motives felt mixed, a tangled web he couldn’t unravel. It threatened to choke him, and Emmy’s description of the body came to mind: the strangulation marks. Unbidden, the image of his child as a future victim slammed his brain. He couldn’t lose control. Couldn’t lose focus.
“Don’t make this about our relationship,” he said. “We can’t sort that out now, not with a killer loose.”
“There is no killer loose!”
Except maybe you, her eyes seemed to say. No matter how much she may or may not want Gray back, that thought still stood between them.
Had he ever apologized for being a workaholic? For not being there for her in so many ways? No. Should he apologize now?
Of course, he should.
His nostrils flared, and his fists clenched. Frustration burned a hole inside him.
“We never could talk through our problems,” he said.
“Because you’re impossible to communicate with. You won’t stick to the issue. Everything is logical, mathematical. We weren’t allowed to be ourselves and relax in our own house. You always judged us as just short of your expectations, and worse yet —”
“What?”
“You expressed it. Craig was a naturally nervous child.”
“Every time I make a suggestion,” Gray said, “you think I’m controlling you.”
“You suggested Noel and I leave town; I said no, now that’s that.”
“I understand it’s too late to leave in this weather.” Gray said. He held out his hand is in appeal. “Noel’s life could be in danger. You want me to protect her, don’t you? Only a few hundred people live in this village; those aren’t great odds with a serial killer on the loose. We’ve found the victim’s car, Sita. Even Reggie agrees something’s going on.”
But she couldn’t let go of what lay unresolved between them.
“You never approved of what I thought or felt.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe it. His teeth ground together; a sharp pain shot up his left jaw.
“I was never enough. Oh I know, you never looked at other women. But every time I felt worried – about Craig being nervous, not his adjusting to school — you dismissed me as a neurotic. You threw us into a pit to teach us that life is tough; we didn’t make it out of that pit, Gray.”
“What pit? How hard was your life?”
“Craig could never have met up to your expectations; he’d be trying to please you forever. To satisfy the Iceman father who found his family wanting because they’re not perfect.
“You have to stop talking now.”
Her breath came sharp and fast. “I don’t want to stop. I should have screamed like this years ago. And left you. Then maybe, my son would be alive.”
“Then why did you come back?”
His legs shook.
In the ensuing silence, the thumping of his heart sounded like a drum.
What the hell was he saying? He didn’t want to risk losing either Sita or Noel again. He finally had a child. Just how stupid was he?
A wrench twisted in his gut. He knew he was to blame, but for the life of him, he couldn’t give in to bullying. Damn it; he couldn’t give in.
And wasn’t this the flaw she’s pointed out? His gigantic ego — expectations of himself and others — which had cost them a son.
She wasn’t going to take Noel to Vancouver; she wasn’t going to stop attacking him. He had to sidestep this conflict, prevent it from turning into another festering wound which ate at his heart. But the need to defend was too great. Even when he knew he was wrong, he knew he had suffered that wrong in isolation. And spent every minute since trying to undo it.
“I didn’t kill Craig. The storm killed him. I don’t control the weather any more than I control whether an earthquake sinks us all into the Pacific.”
“At least then I’d be with Craig.”
“A man can’t have a conversation with you. You have no communication skills. Everything is about blame. Everything that goes wrong in your life is somehow my fault.”
“Everything? We’re talking about my son. And now my daughter. I can’t believe I thought she needed a father. Maybe, she does, and maybe it’s not you.”
This couldn’t be happening. No way. Not like this. What the hell did she want from him? What did everyone want from him?
“I’m trying to help Noel, keep her safe.”
Don’t say it, something inside him screamed; don’t do this to her, but he shot out the words anyway. “It was my fault. I know. Believe it or not, I have tried to change. But the loss could have brought us closer together. You, me and Noel could have been a family if you had—”
Sita threw a glass across the room. It smashed against the wall and left wine-colored shards sliding down the white surface.
Every muscle in her body stiffened; words ground out of her teeth like rounds from a machine gun.
“Noel and I are not going anywhere. And I’m through with you telling me what to do. So, fuck off. Do you hear me, Fuck off!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
T HE DRIVE HOME passed in a blur. Gray couldn’t recall making that right turn off the main street, winding down the mud road towards the ocean, or pulling into his wide cobblestoned drive. At least, the sky offered a reprieve from the rain.
He’d lost control since coming back to where Craig died. And he was saying things – foolish, awful things – he didn’t believe and never thought himself capable of. This had to stop.
Pushing himself up from the bucket seat, he focused on the stones below his feet, held together by concrete he and dad had poured when he was fifteen.
Some of the edges, now cracked from decades of use, appeared gritty and dark compared to the remainder of the red and white stone.
How simple life was in those days: Mom writing her book inside, yelling out that lemonade awaited them
on the round kitchen table; her intense face hovering over the obsolete electric typewriter she refused to get rid of, a pencil behind one ear, a cold cup of coffee forming a thick film of skin to her right.
Before Gray had done everything wrong. Before Mom passed out of their lives.
Sita was right; he was a bastard. But he couldn’t admit it; he couldn’t. Revealing he’d changed might lead to what? Resolution? A return to that domesticity in which he’d once again be vulnerable, once again have everything to lose.
Or more shamefully, in one where he’d be forced to surrender the one thing which sustained him: his solitude.
Gray decided to take his nightly constitutional walk before going inside the cottage.
Since his return, through unspoken agreement, his long-time neighbors had given him that space this time of night – to walk the lonely beach, to visit the vastness of the ocean and attend the exact spot where it had all happened.
Other town residents didn’t blame him the way Sita did. But then, he’d grown up here, one of their own, accepted, loved even.
They saw him with the indulgent eyes they’d laid upon Craig, with Gray cast in the role of co-victim because something authentic had died inside him that terrible night. And something frightening was born.
The wind cut across his face. Waves crashed upon the rounded, worn boulders lining the shore, with the frothy foam shooting violently back into the black depths as though pulled by an unseen hand.
Dark bushes twined between towering and creaking pine, birch, and maple formed an impenetrable wall to his left which swayed back and forth with the bursting wind.
Nature on both sides felt alive with movement while he stood still in between, trapped.
Turning to face the cobalt, angry sea, he tried not to reimagine what his son endured under that blackness. The cold. The pain. The mercilessness, pounding current which now wore down small, fragile bones and tore at soft, supple flesh -- leaving behind what? A broken boy which his father had broken. A child alone in the darkness who shouldn’t have trusted his dad.
Gray said his son’s name. The wind ate it.
A violent storm churned in his chest. His legs shook; his lungs felt drenched in a salty tang, making it harder to breathe. Taking deeper breaths helped, but the air felt lacking in oxygen.
Why couldn’t he change this? Why couldn’t he yank his son out of those inky depths so he wouldn’t be alone? Gray’s life was completely out of control.
He wasn’t across the country now. He stood here, in this exact spot with no buffer and no mercy. Facing the sharp stab of reality. Was this the man he was destined to be: restless, angry, and intolerant? How could he go back to being his serene self now that he had Noel and so much to lose?
The numbing pain in his hand returned; the scar was a dark-wine color and the middle fingers stiff and wooden.
Maybe he should sculpt Craig’s face again, to take away this caustic acid eating his chest. But he’d brought no clay with him. And that hardened molded image couldn’t live and experience what Craig had missed. It couldn’t give Gray retribution.
The world blurred. He turned away and looked down the length of the beach.
A lump lying up ahead reminded Gray of Craig sleeping in his twin-sized bed, curled up in a ball with his blankets kicked off.
He always slept like that. Gray would give both his arms to be able to tuck his son in, one last time — as he had on all those lazy and peaceful nights long ago, not knowing that some things lost, never come back.
Gray ran towards the huddled figure. I’m coming, Son. It’s windy and cold. I’m coming.
His thighs burned; pain shot through his head, but he got closer and closer – and soon he’d reach the mirage, his son; but it wasn’t a mirage, it had to be Craig.
The form took life.
The dim light outlined a small shape with arms and legs sprawled. A child’s form?
Gray’s heart slammed, the frantic pounding backdropped by his labored breath, the rustling trees, and the incessant thrashing of angry waves.
Heat flushed every inch of his skin, scalding, burning, and then, still at a distance, he made out the dark, short hair.
The object lay in a fetal position, tan skin torn and ripped and rippling in the wind.
Except closer now, he saw it wasn’t skin. The image registered, and his knees buckled under him, and he fell onto his hands.
Sand as gritty as glass dug under his nails while the frigid surf slapped and grabbed, soaked his pants.
No. No.
He had to get closer, even as his heart sank into his stomach; he must go and see. Foolish delusions proved futile. A crippling rage tore open his chest.
It wasn’t skin, he saw. It was something else shrouded in darkness, splaying threaded fingers from neck to hips – a coat. A woman’s jacket.
Not Craig; not Craig.
Pale stockinged legs lay bent at the knees, with feet encased in low black boots. Wet sand curdled the short black hair. Red, youthful lips pulled down at the edges, unnaturally tethered.
This wasn’t his child -- it was someone else’s.
Gray pushed himself up and stopped, noting a sudden silence. For a moment, the wind stilled, the tide didn’t ebb.
Delilah Atkinson’s body blurred and cleared. He wiped his eyes and tried to focus until sanity returned.
A rush of surf came his way, but strategically located boulders formed a protective V around the body. But soon, the tide would rise above the rocks, and salt water would contaminate the scene.
Gray must act fast.
After reaching into his pocket, he cursed. His cell must have dropped out in the car.
Which meant running back to the cabin to phone Slope, Seymour, and a SOCO team — before the killer removed this body; before the water destroyed everything.
It dawned on Gray that this Stitcher chose him as a witness — a chief inspector. Were they mad?
A volcano bubbled inside his chest, threatening to erupt. The poor girl’s eyes were closed and puffy, her full lips pierced and puckered with nylon thread — all red, and blue, and distorted — just as Emmy had described…just as he had imagined — and Gray wanted nothing more than to rip the killer’s heart out.
For tearing the life out of this poor young woman; for leaving the body here, for Gray to find on his nightly beach walk.
The policeman inside him finally kicked in.
He must gather his observations he could and preserve whatever evidence remained — before calling for help.
The surf might wash away evidence, maybe even swallow the body, but a more immediate threat existed: Gray would bet the killer hid in the sidelines this very minute — watching, relishing — waiting to take away Delilah’s dead body the second Gray left.
A few footprints led from the trees to the victim, barely visible in the dry, compacted sand, and already dispersing in the high wind.
He burned their size and shape to memory and looked all around. But there was nothing. No dropped clues, no indication of more than one person bringing the body here, dumping it, and leaving.
To his left, bushes packed within densely grown trees continued to rustle in the keen wind. The prints stopped immediately before the woodland.
Without a flashlight, making chase after a hidden killer could prove deadly. He’d already tried that once, although one thing was different.
If only the clouds would part, he’d be able to see in the moonlight, but they hovered overhead like thick gray soaked sponges about to plummet from the sky.
How could he leave Delilah? Abandon her to the sea and sky? But he had to.
Taking off his jacket, he swung it around and covered her face, knowing how futile the gesture was before turning toward the thicket once again.
The hell with it.
Gray ran into the darkness.
If he couldn’t see the killer, the killer couldn’t see him – and any torch would surely give the culprit away.
The
wind whipped at his clothes. Thick drops hit his cheeks. Reaching the tree-line, he lifted each leg in turn and climbed over the Alaskan Willow. Needles from a Western Larch scratched his cheeks. Inside the protective canopy, perfumed pine replaced the ocean’s tangy saltiness.
Speed was his ally. The killer could only watch from so many spots in this darkness for him to come and must have seen him discover the body. Must have watched him mourn for Craig.
Red scalding heat flooded Gray’s face. He tore through the brush, a canopy of dried leaves crunching under his feet. The deafening sound of crickets echoed in his skull, broken only by the pounding of his blood, the fuel of his rage.
Something crunched a few meters ahead, and he whipped through the thicket and bellowed.
“Show yourself, you coward.”
Stopping only a moment to listen, he pushed forward some more, knowing someone crept nearby. Let them attack. Let them try, and he’d rip out their eyes and strip off their skin for invading his home.
No one answered. Nothing sounded nearby, and the constant pounding in his skull eased.
Gray evened his breath. Leaning on his knees, breathing in the scent of rotting leaves broken by gusts of salty wind, he re-evaluated the situation.
What the hell was he doing? Trampling all evidence near the body and in the woods where the culprit hid – further compromised the investigation.
Three times, Gray had chased this man, and three times, he’d failed.
He had to leave Delilah where she lay and accept the inevitable. The culprit would drag away the body, but in doing so, leave more evidence of their coming and going.
But Gray had another option. One he hadn’t thought of in his emotional state, and one he’d never thought to consider in his career. Could he go against every trained instinct? Break every rule of detection and suffer the wrath of Slope and any future investigating officers? Would he be able to defend his actions, given Slope wasn’t yet entirely convinced of any murder having occurred?
The alternative loomed heavier. Leaving Delilah to be taken away by this monster was out of the question, taken so that Teddy could never mourn her loss — the way Gray never got to see his son’s broken body. The way Gray never got closure, and now came to this beach, forever craving completion and a way to say goodbye.