Death Trance

by R. D. Zimmerman

  “Let's hope we'll have clear sailing today,” I said as I parked in front of Liz's apartment.

  We went in. We entered the dark apartment, and Toni shook her head, looked around.

  “Oh, God, what do you think happened to her?”

  “I don't know, but regardless,” I said, walking into the kitchen, “I'm dumping that sandwich.”

  Which was still parked on the counter. I poured out the coffee, too. It was then that I noticed the handful of photos on the refrigerator, held by magnets in the best suburban fashion. There was a picture of Toni, one of a group of women.

  I called out to Toni, “Have you talked with any of Liz's friends?”

  “Not really. I suppose I should—she didn't have that many, though.”

  I tilted my head to the side, saw that one of the things on the refrigerator wasn't a picture at all but the business card of Dr. Edward Dawson. There were two numbers given, one printed with a downtown prefix, and then a second number, handwritten, with the same prefix as mine. So Dawson lived in Kenwood, too. I stood staring at the card, realized how important this must have been to Liz, this card, these numbers, her shrink and the medication he prescribed. Then again, Dawson didn't seem hard to get hold of, so help must always have been at hand. I couldn't help but wonder if Liz were depressed enough to kill herself, wouldn't she have called him first, wanted to talk to him, instead of just dropping him a note?

  Turning around, I strode out of the kitchen, down the hall, into the bedroom where I'd been bashed with that lamp, which still lay on the floor along with a variety of other objects that had been thrown around. I flicked up the shades, opened a window, went back into the living room, where Toni was doing the same. Letting life back in.

  Then Toni planted herself in the middle of the room, looked around, moaned. “What am I going to do with all this stuff?”

  It was mostly junky furniture, true, but there obviously had to be a number of things that either Toni or her family would want to keep. Photos, memorabilia, some old family mementos. Right. There was a silver box on a coffee table—family scrap, I thought.

  “I guess you pick what you want, then give the rest to the Salvation Army,” I said, offering the obvious.

  “Just what I need, more stuff.”

  Toni went to the brick-and-board bookcase, which held a row of books, some CDs, a camera, and at one end a pile of papers. Bills? No, bills would have been smaller.

  “What's all that?” I asked, nodding toward the pile.

  Picking up a notebook, she said, “One of her poetry manuscripts.”

  I moved closer, peered over Toni's shoulder. “If she wanted to do an article on this cult, do you think she'd have already done any work?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, taken some notes, done an outline. Maybe even started it.”

  Toni eyed me, brow raised. “Yeah, she probably did. She could have started it, realized she had something. But she wouldn't have written anything in here. Not about that, not journalistic kind of stuff in here with her poetry. Maybe in her journal, but I kind of doubt that, too.”

  “Well, did she have a computer?”

  “No.”

  “Then if she had started something, it should be around… maybe something even typewritten.”

  I turned around, scanned the room. A legal pad? A folder? Was there anything?

  “Alex,” called a distant voice, “what about the intruder —the guy you surprised the other night in the bedroom?”

  I stood still, hit with the obvious. “So that's what that guy took—not any of her poetry, but her notes.”

  Yes. The guy who'd whacked me with the lamp. Rob Tyler or perhaps someone else had broken in here and gone through Liz's things, not looking for money or valuables but what she had written about this cult. Of course. The intruder was trying to prevent anyone from learning about the group and stop anyone from linking Liz's death to them.

  “You're right, Alex. You've got to be. You saw that guy carrying a notebook and nothing else was missing. Nothing of obvious value, anyway.” Toni picked up the entire pile of papers, searched the bookcase for more. “He could have missed something, though. I'll go through this —why don't you check the bedroom. I think she has a desk back there.”

  “Sure.”

  I started toward the rear of the apartment, hadn't gone more than a couple of steps when I heard heavy pounding on the door. I stopped, glanced back at Toni, who looked at me and shrugged. We hadn;t told anyone we were coming over here. I was a little concerned, but I doubted someone like Rob Tyler would have knocked.

  “Who's there?” I called.

  A deep voice called, “It's the caretaker. Who the hell are you?”

  Toni instantly started for the door, saying, “Oh, John, hi. It's Toni, Liz's sister.”

  Papers in hand, Toni opened the door, exposing the guy who'd helped Toni kick in the bedroom door the other night. He didn't look happy, and he didn't look like he'd changed clothes since then, either. Blue plaid shirt that was dingy and wrinkled, old blue jeans that were struggling to contain his waist, and the same brown shoes that were all cracked. The reddish hair just as messy, too.

  “Hi,” repeated Toni. “I'm just here with my friend Alex. I have to go through all of Liz's things, you know, and—”

  “Yeah, well, I heard some noise, you know, and I wanted to make sure no one was busting in again.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  Without asking, he strode right into the apartment, looked around, said, “So, ah, everything okay?”

  Toni glanced back at me, shrugged, then turned back to John. “Everything's fine.”

  “What about the police? Did they say anything?”

  “They're working on it.”

  “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Did you tell them about me, that I was down here?”

  “Actually, no, I don't think we did.”

  “No, we didn't,” I seconded, wondering why it mattered.

  “Good. Good. It's the landlady—she don't want any more problems. Wants to get this place rented real quick.” He eyed all the CDs. “When you going to get all this stuff out of here?”

  “By the first, don't worry.”

  He turned back to Toni, said, “So, ah, you're from Chicago, right? Me, too—grew up in one of those brick apartment buildings right across the street from Wrigley Field. Used to sit up on the roof and watch the games. It was great. How do you think the Bears are going to do?”

  Toni took a deep breath, ran a hand through that hair. “Listen, John, I've got a lot to do.”

  “Oh. Oh, sure.” He pointed across the room. “Say, you want to sell the stereo?” He laughed. “I know it works ‘cause your sister, she played it so loud.”

  Across the hall a door opened. I stepped around, peered out, saw a smallish woman locking up the other first-floor apartment. John grunted a couple of more things, then turned and stared at the woman as she came over.

  Tapping hesitantly on the open door, she said, “Hi, I'm Chris. You're… you're Liz's sister, aren't you? The doctor?”

  “Yeah,” replied Toni. “I think we met when I was up last year.”

  Chris was a small, pale woman, early thirties. A bookish sort. Mousy brown hair, glasses, small, hesitant mouth. Blue T-shirt, plain khaki pants. Very ordinary. Probably an English major, a lonely one at that.

  Chris glanced briefly and uncomfortably at the caretaker, said, “Hi, John. I… I just wanted to talk to Toni for a minute.”

  An awkward moment passed in which it became abundantly clear that John didn't get it and that he wasn't going anywhere. Toni seized control, motioning Chris in.

  “Come on in, Chris. John was just leaving.” She turned to the caretaker. “Thanks again for checking. It's great of you to keep an eye on the place. I'll let you know about the stereo.”

  John stared at Toni, then Chris, and finally began to move, a bothered, even angry look on his face. Toni paid no attention
and waved as the caretaker made his way out.

  “Oh, okay,” stammered John. “Well, I guess I gotta get going.”

  “‘Bye.” Closing the door behind him, Toni shook her head, muttered, “Oh, brother.”

  Chris leaned forward, whispered, “Don't mind him. He's smart—I mean, he must be, he's a telephone repairman—but he's a little slow, too.” Then Chris looked at the floor, shuffled from side to side, mustered up her purpose of coming over, and said, “I just wanted to say I was really sorry about your sister. We were friends, kind of.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “She was really nice to me. Sometimes we'd just stand in the hall here and talk and talk—once last winter for almost an hour. I liked her poetry—she let me read some of it a couple of times and we talked about it, too. She was a good writer.” Then again, “I was really sad to hear the news.”

  Toni said, “I miss her, too.”

  Something uncomfortable seemed to float downward, through the room, around us. Maybe it was Liz passing by.

  I cleared my throat, asked, “You didn't happen to see Liz before she died, did you? That week, perhaps?”

  “Oh…” Chris shifted from foot to foot. “Didn't the police tell you? Like I told that detective guy, I saw her the night before she died.”

  Toni eyed me briefly, managed a small “Oh?”

  “We didn't really talk or anything—it was late. I was coming home. I was parking and she waved at me.”

  I looked at Toni. Why hadn't Jenkins mentioned this?

  “I have tickets to a dance series, and I went with a friend,” continued Chris. “It was the American Ballet Theater. Yeah, that's right. Normally I'm not out so late.”

  “Was she was all right?” Toni added, “Could you see if she was happy or if she might've been crying or anything?”

  Chris walked over to the large front window, and we followed. Out front I spotted John climbing into a dark brown van, starting it up, and driving off.

  “Well, I don't know. I couldn't really tell,” began Chris. “See, I was down there on the street and they were way up here at the front door. She seemed fine, though.”

  I peered down the street, asked, “They? Was she with Rob, her boyfriend?” But she'd broken up with Tyler almost a month earlier, hadn't she? “Did you know him —kind of a punker type?”

  “No, she was with the other one.”

  Toni couldn't hide her shock. “Other one? What other one?” Toni moved close to the window, right next to Chris. “You don't mean she was dating two guys, do you?”

  Chris glanced from Toni to me and nodded. Nodded just a bit as if she were telling a secret, a deep secret or a dirty one. Had she, her expression said, just betrayed her dead friend Liz?

  “It's all right,” I said quickly. “We're just trying to piece a few things together.” I sensed I shouldn't broach the issue that Liz might not have committed suicide; Chris didn't look the sort that would handle murder well. “Toni just wants to understand what happened and why. She just wants to talk to anyone who might have seen Liz that last day or so, you know, to find out how she was doing, what was going through her head, what might have upset her.”

  “Oh.”

  “So did you know this other guy?”

  Chris shook her head. “I never met him—that was the only time I ever saw him.”

  Toni asked, “What did he look like?”

  “He was older.”

  “Like how old?”

  “I don't know. Maybe fifty. I don't think he was real tall or anything.”

  “What color hair?” I asked.

  Chris shrugged. “I don't know. Gray, I think, but I'm not sure.” She turned back to the window, gazed out. “Like I said, I was way down there and I couldn't tell much. But it was still kind of cold and I think he was wearing a hat.”

  Toni looked at me and her eyes said; Liz dating an older man, someone she never, ever mentioned to me? What was this?

  I asked, “You don't know his name, do you?”

  “No, she never told me. She just told me she was falling in love with this older guy. She was really crazy about him and she didn't know what to do.”

  My mind careened back to our venture down in the Warehouse District. Most of the guys seemed younger, but there were several older men. The one with the feathers—wasn't the hair on his chest all gray? And the leader, what about him? I'd speculated on something like that earlier, the possibility that Liz had become involved with someone else in that cult and that Rob Tyler had killed her out of jealousy. Could that be so very far off? Perhaps not. Whoever this older boyfriend was, whatever part he had or hadn't played in Liz's death, he'd certainly have some insights into Liz Domingo's emotional stability in the final days of her life.

  “Do you think you'd recognize him?” I asked.

  She shrugged, looked sheepish. “I don't know, I didn't get a close look at him, but maybe.”

  She probably could, though. Someone like her; an observant person sensitive to literature and the finer details of life. But how were we going to do that? Bring her to one of those cult meetings? Hardly.

  Toni eyed me, clearly wondering what I was scheming, then said, “Let me do some checking around. It'd be great if you could help us, Chris. I… I just want to talk to someone about Liz who knew what was troubling her. It'd help me a lot.”

  “Okay, good.” Chris shrugged again, smiled, and said, “Well, I gotta go or I'm going to be late for work. Just let me know if I can do anything. I'll be around—mornings or after eight or nine at night are best. I work afternoons and evenings.”

  So Chris the neighbor lifted her hand in a small wave and left. I watched as Toni shut the door after her, then I heard Chris's steps in the hall, heard the front door. I went to the large front window where all three of us had just been standing and watched Chris as she descended the concrete steps out front and walked across the street to a small yellow car. A tiny one, a little rusty. From the living room window I kept my eyes on Chris, and as I did so, an awful dread started growing inside me. A cold sense that swept through me, entangled me.

  Toni came up to me, put a hand on my shoulder as I stood peering out, and asked, “What is it, what's the matter?”

  I couldn't voice it, of course, not back then, but I started trembling because inside me I knew. There was someone out there, someone who'd seen the three of us standing in the window and who was now watching Chris, the quiet, bookish neighbor, climb into her car.

  “Alex, what are you saying?”

  I didn't know it back then, when all of this was really happening. I only pieced it together later, in the end. It was the only way it could have happened. Liz's killer had to have been out there.

  My God, I thought, we had no idea of the trouble lurking so close by.

  Chapter 15

  But as far as any kind of cult stuff, Toni and I didn't find anything. We searched the apartment, clawing through drawers and shelves, and came up with nothing, which meant that either we were way off or that the intruder had in fact ripped off Liz's journalistic endeavors about Rob Tyler's cult. Both of which were depressing thoughts.

  Almost an hour later we left discouraged and returned to my apartment a little after noon, not sure what to pursue next. Boxes, Toni suggested as we drove. We should hit the liquor store and start collecting boxes so that she could start packing up Liz's things. It was close to the end of the month; only another week of April left. John was obviously eager to have the apartment emptied, and if Toni didn't have all of Liz's things out of there, she'd have to pay another month's rent. What fun, new moon, new month. Packing up a dead person's things.

  I parked in front of my building on Humboldt, and we got out, headed up the sidewalk.

  “I think you'd better give Jenkins a call,” I said as we climbed the three outside steps. “Ask him about this second boyfriend.”

  “I can't believe he didn't even mention it.”

  “Just call him, Toni. Besides, you need to let h
im know you're not at the hotel anymore.”

  “I suppose.”

  When I opened the outer door and ushered Toni into the vestibule, we discovered a man, bent over and his back to us. The postman, I assumed, getting ready to sort the mail. But on second glance, when did postal workers start looking so scruffy? Where was this guy's uniform? Why the black jeans, let alone the black leather coat?

  When he failed to move, I said, “Excuse me, can we get by?”

  The guy laughed, rose, and a bald head emerged. Oh, shit. This wasn't any mail carrier.

  “Hello,” said Rob Tyler, smiling as he turned around. “How are you two today?”

  At the sight of the long, shiny knife in his hand, my whole body stiffened. Both Toni and I edged back as this creep with the smooth-as-silk shaven head stood before us. It was a fresh shave, too, for his head was nicked here and there. Little dots of dark, crusty blood. He grinned, his eyes small and dark, and I wanted to ask, The girl, the blonde, what did you guys do to her? Where is she? Still alive or already hacked to pieces?

  I knew I'd be lucky to get that far, though, so I asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Well…” He pointed the long knife—a large hunting one—right at Toni. “The doctor here said if I wanted to talk, I should go to that Holiday Inn. So I go there and then they tell me you split, Doc, and that you're shacked up with this guy. Only one thing, I thought you were a dyke. Didn't Liz say something like that?”

  I blurted: “Tyler, why don't you get the—”

  Just as quickly, Toni's hand was on my arm, and she cut in, her voice measured and heavy, saying, “What do you want, Rob?”

  My heart was on high, beating with anger, but Toni was right. She was obviously more experienced in these situations—her femininity as well as her homosexuality undoubtedly having been harassed over the years—and she knew the wise course. Dial it down.