The Dark

by Andrew Neiderman

The bubble light on the police car behind her resembled a toy top, mesmerizing with its spinning. Maggie sat quietly in her automobile. Outside, on the sidewalk, two uniformed policemen spoke softly. Another black and white pulled up in front of her and two more uniformed officers got out and began a conversation with the two who had already arrived. Everyone was waiting for Detective Hartman to come down from the apartment. When he finally appeared, all eyes were on him. He paused in the doorway and looked at Maggie. She was staring down and didn’t see him approach the car from the passenger’s side until he reached for the door handle.

  She looked up sharply as he got in. For a moment he just sat there staring out the front window of the automobile. Then he took a deep breath and turned to her.

  “I think most people, even defense lawyers, would say I’ve been very patient with you, Mrs. Blaine. Some might even call me a horse’s ass.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He stared and then smirked.

  “There’s no body up there; dead body, that is. And what’s more, there’s no blood. When someone is stabbed and falls to the floor, he or she usually bleeds and some of that blood stains the carpet.”

  “What?” She shook her head. “I did it. He grabbed me, tried to rape me, and I . . . I did it.”

  Hartman stared at her, gazed out the side window a moment, and then turned back.

  “All right. How did you get up there?”

  “How did I get up there? I went to the front, pushed the buzzer by his name, and when he buzzed me in, I went up.”

  “You spoke to him through the intercom?”

  “Yes. Look, when I got to the apartment, there was a neighbor there. I forgot her name. Mrs. . . . Lucy?”

  “Yes, that’s his neighbor. I spoke with her before and I spoke with her now. She told me Mr. Bois left earlier today.”

  “Left? Left for where?”

  “He didn’t tell her. He asked her to look after his things until he sends for them.”

  Maggie shook her head.

  “That’s not true. That can’t be true. She’s lying.”

  “You insist you killed him?”

  “I know I killed him!” Maggie cried.

  “Okay.” Hartman opened the door. “Let’s go upstairs together.”

  Maggie got out of the car. Her legs were shaking, but she held together and followed Hartman into the building.

  “Why did you come here, Mrs. Blaine?” Hartman asked as they rode up the elevator.

  “To put an end to all this, to confront this man, a man Father Dimmesdale believes is the Devil himself,” she blurted.

  Hartman’s eyebrows rose.

  “Father Dimmesdale? And who might he be?”

  “Someone Mrs. Flemming told me to see,” Maggie said as the doors opened.

  “Mrs. Flemming? The one who shot her husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t she in the loony bin?”

  Maggie looked toward the apartment door. It was open and Hartman’s associate, a younger detective, was talking to Amanda Lucy. The elderly lady paused to look as Maggie and Detective Hartman approached.

  “Where did the body fall?” Hartman asked.

  Maggie looked at the floor. It was clean, spotless, not a drop of blood and no Bois.

  “Right there,” she said, pointing. “You remember me, don’t you?” she asked Mrs. Lucy.

  The old lady looked at the young detective first and then at Maggie before shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “I was just up here! You let me in,” Maggie cried. “What is this?”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Lucy said. She brought her hand to her mouth and her eyes went wide and frantic.

  “Take it easy, Mrs. Blaine,” Hartman said, stepping forward. “You’re frightening her.”

  “Frightening her? What do you think she’s doing to me?”

  Hartman seized her at the elbow and pulled her back before turning to the elderly woman.

  “You can go, ma’am,” he told the elderly lady. She looked very grateful and hurried past Maggie and out the door.

  “She’s lying. She must be part of this.”

  “Part of what? Is she hiding his body? Did she clean up the blood? Why?” Hartman asked. “What’s going on, Mrs. Blaine? Are you a one-woman team out to wear down the Los Angeles Police Department?”

  Hartman’s young partner smiled.

  “I . . . don’t understand,” Maggie said.

  “Imagine how I feel,” Hartman replied.

  She glanced at him and then at the floor.

  “You checked the other rooms, the bathroom, closets?”

  “You want me to find the body of someone you killed that bad? Yes, of course we checked around. If you go look in the closets, you’ll find most everything’s gone. From the dresser drawers as well.”

  “I did stab him in self-defense,” she insisted. She shook her head. “I did. He attacked me right here.”

  “Okay. On the way out we’ll check the garbage chute. Maybe he had a good cleaning lady, right, Carnesi?”

  “Right,” the young detective said.

  Maggie straightened up, regaining her composure. She blinked back the tears at her eyelids.

  “Is it all right if I leave, then?” she said.

  “Frankly, Mrs. Blaine, I don’t give a damn,” Hartman said in his best Clark Gable voice, and Carnesi roared.

  Maggie hurried out to the elevator. Her heart was pounding as she hit the button and traveled down. All the uniformed policemen, aware of the situation, stared at her as she walked to her car. She took a deep breath, started the engine, and drove away, her hands shaking every time she lifted them from the wheel.

  The car phone rang. She fumbled it and then took a firmer grip.

  “Hello.”

  “Maggie, it’s Phil. The hospital has been looking for you.”

  “Grant?”

  “Yes, he’s apparently been asking for you.”

  “What?”

  “The amnesia, it’s over,” Phil said.

  “Oh, God,” Maggie said. She started to cry, sucked in her breath, and headed for the hospital.

  Grant was actually sitting up in bed and eating a soft-diet early dinner when she arrived at his room. He looked ravenously hungry and practically ignored her arrival.

  “Hi,” he said quickly, and put another spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. She kissed him on the cheek and he reached for his coffee.

  “How are you, Grant?”

  “I feel like Rip van Winkle, and from what they tell me, it hasn’t been that long.”

  “No. No one expected this fast a recovery.”

  “Beat Christ, huh?”

  “Pardon?”

  “My resurrection. His took three days,” Grant said, and laughed.

  “Oh. Yes. I guess it must feel sort of like a resurrection to you.” She pulled a chair up to the bed and sat. Grant paused and considered her.

  “You look worse than me,” he said. “I guess you’ve been overwrought with worry. I’m sorry, honey.”

  “Do you remember all of it now, Grant? What happened to you at the office?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Mr. Ormand did not appreciate my efforts to have him stay, so he forked me.” Grant laughed. “Go fork yourself,” he said.

  Maggie smiled with confusion.

  “How can you laugh about it, Grant? You nearly died.”

  “It wasn’t personal,” he said. “I just happened to be at the other end of the fork at the wrong time. A little carelessness, that’s all. Mr. Ormand needs more tender loving care. He has to be eased out of his psychosis, not tugged. I should have known better.”

  “He won’t be eased out of anything,” Maggie said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess I’ll be the one to tell you first.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “He’s dead, Grant. The police found him hanging in the closet.”

  Grant
paused and then nodded.

  “Gosh, that’s too bad. I suppose he couldn’t live with the guilt. See what guilt can do to you, Maggie?” He shook his head and looked despondent.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Grant. If it was anyone’s fault, I’m sure it was that man’s.”

  “That man’s? Who?”

  “Jules Bois or whoever he is. Grant . . .” She bit down on her lower lip, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “What is it, sweetheart? I’m going to be all right.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “You haven’t done anything else, have you, Maggie? It was enough you put that detective on Mr. Bois,” he said in a soft tone.

  She sat back and pressed her lips together as if to keep herself from talking.

  “What have you done now, my love?”

  “Grant, a man attacked you, nearly killed you. Bois just happens to come upon the scene in time? What do you say about that?”

  “I’d say I was a lucky man.”

  “Don’t you think this is all too convenient, Grant?”

  “Criminal attorney’s paranoia again? Come on, Maggie. Bois was just early for his appointment. We should be grateful.”

  “Grateful?” She started to laugh. “Did you know that Fay has been seeing this man socially?”

  “Fay’s been a very lonely woman, neglected, very insecure. I can’t blame her for reaching out and finally pleasing herself. Mr. Bois can be very charming.”

  “But . . .”

  “Stop worrying. No one got Jerome Ormand to do this to me. He had a logical reaction to what I had done to him.”

  “Grant, I went to his apartment. I confronted him and he tried to rape me, so I stabbed him,” she said.

  “What?”

  “But when the police came, there wasn’t any body, and there wasn’t any blood. What’s more, the neighbor, an elderly lady, who was there when I first arrived, claimed she had never seen me before. And she was the one who let me into the apartment.”

  “You stabbed him but there wasn’t any body or any blood.”

  “Yes.”

  Grant stared at her a moment.

  “Maggie, you’re the one who sounds like she should be in this bed.”

  “I know. I’m going mad.” She took a deep breath and sat up. “But I won’t let this happen. I won’t let him do this to us,” she said firmly.

  “Who? Do what?”

  “Never mind. We’ve got to get you up and around first. That’s the priority,” she said.

  Grant shook his head.

  “Stabbings, no bodies, no blood? Lying elderly neighbors? I think maybe both of us are due for a vacation, Mag.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against his pillow. “You’ll tell me all of this later and I’ll figure out what happened. Maybe . . . you’ve been hallucinating? You’re not the only one. Right now, I’m suddenly tired, very tired.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk about it later, Grant. For now, you just rest.”

  “Right,” he said, nodding, still with his eyes closed.

  She watched him awhile. His breathing grew regular, and in moments he was asleep.

  Carl Thornton was just coming down the hallway when she emerged from the room.

  “I hear he’s back.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You were right.” She leaned against the wall to steady herself and Carl grabbed her arm.

  “Whoa. What’s wrong, Maggie?”

  “I need a strong cup of coffee, maybe something stronger.”

  “Let’s go down to the hospital cafeteria. The coffee here is usually pretty stale by this time of day. It should take the hair off your chest,” he said, and held her arm as they went toward the elevator.

  On the way down, she began to tell him what she had done and what had occurred.

  “Maybe you just wounded him, Mag, or nicked him and he fainted. Then he woke up and left.”

  “I felt that sharpened cross go into his body, Carl,” Maggie said. They were at the table, sipping coffee.

  “No evidence of blood and the old lady doesn’t remember you?”

  “Yes. As you can imagine, the police, especially Detective Hartman, are somewhat upset with me.”

  “I can imagine,” Carl said, laughing. “So the old woman next door claims he’s gone?”

  “That’s what she told the police.”

  “Good riddance.”

  “But that doesn’t explain it, does it? It’s all so . . . strange—Lydia Flemming, the priest, my stabbing no one, Grant’s miraculous recovery . . .”

  “Not so miraculous. I predicted his recovery, remember?”

  “Yes. Yes, you did. Thank you, Carl.”

  “It’s all right. He’ll be home in a few days and you’ll get your lives back on track.”

  She smiled.

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so,” Carl said.

  “But what if that man didn’t leave, Carl? What if he starts all this again?”

  Carl considered.

  “Let me do some digging around. It’s not ethical for one psychotherapist to investigate another’s patients, but in this case . . .”

  “Yes, please call. Do what you can or I’ll . . . I’ll go mad myself!”

  He stared at her a moment. Her hair was disheveled, her face flushed. He had never seen Maggie Blaine this way.

  “Okay, Maggie. I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you, Carl. Thank you,” she said, squeezing his hand. Then she closed her eyes, the exhaustion hitting her like a punch in the stomach.

  “You’d better go home and get some rest, Maggie.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you make it on your own?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, Carl. Thank you,” she said, rising.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, and I’ll look in on Grant before I leave the hospital.”

  She smiled and then went home.

  When she arrived, she decided to make herself a cup of warm milk. She got undressed and into her nightgown first and then warmed the milk. As she sipped it, she reviewed the events of the past few hours, feeling now it had all been a dream, a horrible nightmare. Maybe Grant was right: maybe she had hallucinated everything.

  As she wandered back toward the bedroom, cup steaming in her hands, she paused at Grant’s den and turned on the lights. She had the strange sensation that someone had been there, even though the alarm pad on the garage door had indicated no one had entered this house. Still, she moved about the office, checking the windows to be sure they were locked and not opened, and then she stopped at the desk and looked down at the manuscript Grant had been working on. It looked like three, four hundred printed pages.

  She gazed at the title page.

  THE SEVENTH WAVE by Grant Blaine, A Study of the Negative Effects of Guilt on the Human Psyche.

  She wasn’t going to read any of it now, even though she had always wondered what it was about and why Grant was so secretive about it. Before she turned away, however, she spotted a folded page with just enough of a signature visible to demand her interest. She unfolded it and read.

  The manuscript I promised you. Henry would have wanted you to finish it and get it published.

  Best,

  Jules Bois

  It was as if the paper were on fire. She dropped it and stepped away. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought she would faint. Then she stepped forward again, now her curiosity piqued, and gazed at the front page, the preface.

  The idea that guilt is the root cause of most of our psychological difficulties has more merit than we would first believe. We’ve got to stop worrying about being selfish. First, we must please ourselves and when we are happy, we will best be able to help others. Guilt is the great incapacitator and unfortunately, most of our so-called organized religions weigh us down with it. Confession, asking forgiveness, ten Hail Marys, fast for Yom Kippur . . . atone, atone, atone, it’s maddening, it’s what makes us mad.

  We no longer measure things in the traditional Judeo-Christian w
ay. The mind is its own place and, as John Milton wrote, “makes a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.” In other words, we’ve got to come to a realistic understanding of guilt and how it can incapacitate us. Once we do that, we realize being selfish isn’t as bad as the corporate religious groups tell us it is.

  Once we understand that evil as we were taught it no longer exists in our sophisticated world, we can throw off the burden of remorse and become happier, well-adjusted, and more productive people.

  Maggie stepped away from the desk, her eyes glued to the pages as if they might jump up after her. These weren’t Grant’s words; these couldn’t be Grant’s thoughts. She felt an inherent evil in them, an evil that reached the bottom of her stomach and made her cringe.

  Suddenly she was filled with rage and determination. She put the cup of warm milk down and went to the fireplace. She turned on the gas, lit the fake logs, and went back to the desk. In a swift, impulsive, but decisive move, she brought the packet of pages to the fire and cast them in. They exploded in sparks, flying up the chimney, and then . . .

  It was as if she heard someone scream. She actually put her hands over her ears. It only lasted a few seconds and it was gone. The pages folded into the flames and were quickly reduced to ashes.

  A great sense of relief came over her. She smiled, watched the flames consume the last piece of paper, and then turned down the fire. She stared at the ashes a moment before turning and leaving the den, putting the lights out behind her.

  After she crawled under the blanket and started to close her eyes, the phone rang. It was the hospital.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Blaine, but your husband won’t go to sleep until he speaks to you.”

  “Oh? Okay. Thank you.”

  “Maggie.”

  “Grant? Are you all right?”

  “Are you all right? I woke up, realized you had been here and left, and remembered some of the things you babbled. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, Grant. I’m okay now, darling.”

  “Great. I’ll be home before you know it, Maggie, and things will be different. We’ve got to get serious about becoming parents, honey. That’s the first thing that came to my mind when I realized what had happened to me.”

  “I think you’re right Grant.”

  “What about partnerships, law cases, careers . . .”

  “We’ll find a way to do it all. We’ll make the compromises that matter.”