Mystery Dance: Three Novels (42 page)

“That would be fine, ma’am. I’ll go get my thermos. I have to check a couple more things outside first.”

He went out the open front door. When he reappeared several minutes later, he was without his tool belt. He gave her the thermos and waited by the door.

“Say, did you know your clock was messed up?” he asked when she returned with the filled thermos.

“My clock?”

“Yeah, in the bedroom. It was stuck on 4:06 the whole time I was in there.”

She had unplugged the clock. Hadn’t she?

She smiled to disguise the icy rush that shot through her veins. “Thanks for telling me. It’s been acting up lately. Guess I’ll have to get another one.”

“Yeah. Never heard of a digital clock doing that. Usually they just blink or go dark.”

“Stuck in time.”
Just like me.
The smile felt painted on her face, like a dime-store mannequin’s.

“Keeps you young,” he said. “Growing old is for people who give up too soon.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the work.”

“Sure. You need anything else, ask for me. Walter.” He smiled again as he reminded her of his name. It wasn’t a come-on smile. It was a friendly smile, with slightly crooked teeth, the kind you could trust.

No, that’s not true. You can’t trust ANY smile. Because every smile has teeth behind it.

She almost gave him her name then decided against it. “Okay, Walter.”

“You found a church yet?”

“Pardon me?”

“Church. It can be hard to settle in to a new place.” He looked at her with inquisitor’s eyes, as if he had a personal stake in her soul. She resented the notion that he saw her as a chance to bank some goodwill and capital in some heavenly coffer.

“I’m set.” She smiled, the conditioned reflex of people being mindlessly civil to acquaintances. He’d been kind to her and was probably just extending a small-town politeness. She owed him better than a bland brush-off, and her thoughts were already drifting into the dark cracks of the past.

“Have a good day, Miss Stone.” Walter waved and headed for the Jeep, humming a country-tinged tune. Julia closed the door.

Now she was alone.

No, not alone. Inside with the Creep.

The Creep was always in the house, no matter where she lived.

CHAPTER TWO

The phone bleated in a slaughter of electric sheep.

She had two phones, one in the living room, one by the bed. Perhaps overkill for a three-room house, but she liked to have one within reach if she couldn’t find the cell. In case of emergencies.

Julia started down the hall so she could lie on the bed while she chatted, remembering the frozen clock. She couldn’t face that right now. She picked up the phone on the coffee table and flopped onto the sofa.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Julia.” The voice on the end of the line was buoyant and brimming with self-confidence.

“Mitchell,” she said, unsure whether she was glad to hear from him or not.

“What’s going on, honey?”

She winced at the rote, nearly toneless endearment. “Nothing.”

“Great.” There was a pause, the quiet hiss of eight hundred miles.

“So…what’s new?” Julia finally asked.

“The usual.”

That was the trouble with Mitchell. The usual was always new to him. “Working on any interesting cases?”

“Yeah, come to think of it. I’ve got a beaut. This woman owns a piece of land, right? Inherited it from her father, been in the family since Reconstruction. Ugly stretch, half swamp and half hill, forty acres. So this developer makes her an offer so he can build a strip mall.”

“Just what Memphis needs,” she heard herself saying.

Mitchell didn’t catch her sarcasm. “Exactly. This woman wants to keep it, maybe turn it into an organic garden, or heaven forbid, a natural habitat. Jesus, conservation easements are the tool of the Devil. Well, the Board of Adjustment votes to zone the property for commercial use, claiming the area is–let’s see….”

Julia heard the rustling of papers. Mitchell must be at his office on General Pickett Avenue, the one with the view of Beale Street. From his window, he could watch the tourists and the busking blues musicians clog the sidewalks. Most of the modern Memphis bluesmasters knew only the blues of a bad day at the stock market.

“Here it is,” Mitchell said, his words coming out faster in his excitement. “This is classic. The Board ruled that the property was, quote, ‘in an area of urban development of vital interest to the municipality’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.’ And the property’s three miles from the city limits.”

“Poor woman. How can she afford to pay you?” Mitchell billed hourly in the high triple figures.

He laughed, that silk-tie, champagne-etched laugh that sometimes made her skin crawl. “She can’t afford anybody. She’s got the ACLU. We’re going to feed them their lunch. The developer is picking up my tab to work as a consultant to the city attorneys.”

Of course. Mitchell would be on the side of big business, fat money, legal tender that was more immoral than legal and about as tender as a metal-toed boot. The worst part of it was that his cockiness appealed to her sick, weak nature, an addiction that even distance couldn’t break. He was a Leo, through and through, his lion a voracious predator to her moody Gemini.

“But enough about me,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”

“Really?”

Had a note of concern crept into his voice? She gave him the benefit of a doubt. “Yes. The people at the office are really nice. It’s refreshing to cover community issues, the school board and that sort of thing, instead of working the crime beat.”

“Good. You know I never wanted you to mess around in all that murder and stuff. I love this city, but it’s really gone to hell ever since–”

“How are your parents?” she asked, before he could rant about crime and taxes and the lower class.

“My parents are doing really well. They’re up at Martha’s Vineyard right now.” At one of their four seasonal houses. Christmas in Boca Raton, Easter in Santa Monica, Fourth of July in Boulder, slumming in Yankee country through Halloween.

“Tell them I said hello.”

“Sure. You know, they’d love to hear from you. They ask about you all the time. You’re practically family, you know.”

“Maybe I’ll give them a call,” she lied. If she called, they’d use the M-word. Every woman needed a diamond for validation, and a gold ring to seal the deal. That was as certain as the rising sun, increasing property taxes, and Mitchell’s cologne being made by Jovan.

“So, how’s your new doctor?”

“Good. Really good. We’re making progress.”

Mitchell sighed. “You were making progress four years ago, with Lance what’s-his-name.”

Mitchell hid his jealousy so poorly. He assumed that any man that got a woman on the couch was automatically on top of her within fifteen minutes.

No, only YOU, Mitchell
.
Besides, nobody lies down for therapy anymore. That went out with assembly-line frontal lobotomies and Mesmerism.

She said, “I feel like we’re close to a breakthrough. I’m feeling much better. I don’t….”

–
get the Creeps?
–

“…suffer from as much anxiety. I think the mountains are helping me. They make me feel safe.”

To his credit, Mitchell didn’t laugh. “If you’d let me buy you a gun–”

“Are the leaves changing there?”

“Leaves?”

“On the trees.”

“Hold on. Let me look.”

“Never mind.”

“When are you going to let me come see you?”

“Soon.”

“How soon? You said August. It’s already football season.”

“Soon,” she repeated. “I just…want to be ready, that’s all.”

She could almost hear his thoughts, see his handsome eyebrows raised in perplexity.
Women. Why can’t they make up their minds? If I have to wait for Julia to get her head together, I’ll be old and gray and Mr. Happy won’t be able to jump up and do his little dance of joy anymore.

“You know I love you, Julia.”

She nodded at the phone. Her eyes were fixed down the hallway, on the bedroom entrance. The handyman had left the door open, but he must have closed the curtains because the room was dark. She thought again of the clock and those red numerals stuck on 4:06.

The handyman had seen those numerals. But she had unplugged the clock. She was sure, just as she’d been sure she’d locked the door.

The handyman had also seen the blocks lying near her feet. Those weren’t imaginary, either.

“Julia?”

“Yeah?” She realized she was still holding the phone.

“I said I love you.”

“I know you do.”

“Well?”

“Me, too. I…love you.”

Then it started, at that brief hesitation. The slightly perceptible lift, the higher pitch to his voice. The calm before the storm. Those who dealt with Mitchell Austin in the courtroom knew only the calm, never the storm. “When are you going to start thinking about us again, and not just yourself?”

“I’m making progress. Dr. Forrest is really good. I’m–”

“Please. Spare me the details.”

“Mitchell–”

“How about next weekend? I can catch a morning flight to Charlotte, be up in time for lunch. I’ll stop at one of the gourmet shops on my way to the airport. Bet they don’t have brie or leeks vinaigrette in Elkwood, do they? Or wine that doesn’t have an expiration date on the label.”

Mitchell was on track now, as if this were a jury civil trial and he had the main witness squirming. Julia felt oddly defensive about this community that she’d only recently joined. “They’re good people here. I like this place. I like these mountains.”

“When are you going to give in and marry me?”

Said with the same tone as “What flavor of ice cream would you like?” Her own anger rose slightly, a hot snake writhing in her chest. “Mitchell, we’ve been through this a hundred times–”

“Okay, okay. But, really, I’d love to see you. I need to see you.” Voice softer now, trying a different tack. “I miss you.”

“I want to see you, too, Mitchell. I just want to be ready, that’s all. You deserve me at my best, and I don’t think I can give you that right now. Maybe in a few weeks.”

“A few weeks, then. I’ll hold you to that, honey. Listen, got to go. Another call’s coming in.”

Wouldn’t want you to miss a call. Some savings and loan might need help foreclosing on an orphanage.

“Bye, Mitch–”

He’d already hung up.

Julia held the phone to her chest for a moment. No shadows had crawled from the bedroom. No Creep had tiptoed past her to mess with her clock. Nobody had spelled out strange words on her coffee table.

One good thing about Mitchell, he never failed to make her forget her other worries. He’d driven her crazier than a hundred Creeps could. First by getting her to fall in love and then leaving her wondering if love really existed.

It was nearly noon. She took a sip of cool coffee, carried the cup to the kitchen, and rinsed it. She gobbled an avocado-and-bean-sprouts sandwich and grabbed an apple on the way out the door. Even though the day remained chilly, Julia didn’t get her sweater from the bedroom.

The clock might still be stuck on 4:06. Could electronic brains go insane? Or only people?

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

To warm herself, she balled some newspaper, piled the clumps in the fireplace, and struck a match to them. Then she stacked on the wooden blocks, staring wide-eyed as the tongues of fire licked the wood into a gray pile of ash, erasing the name that had been spelled out on the flat wooden faces.

CHAPTER THREE

“What did you dream last night?”

Julia stared past Dr. Forrest to the painting that dominated the office wall. It was done in shades of orange and brown and red, an abstract piece with jagged edges. Piled triangles, shredded squares, the angles reamed and raped. Art that was disquieting instead of soothing.

Dr. Danner had favored pastorals, not-so-skilled paintings of the sort seen in beginner’s art classes. Barns and willows, creeks and fences. No people. No threats. Just plain old boring nature.

“Julia?”

“Oh, sorry.” Julia looked at the doctor. Pamela Forrest smiled wisely, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. Fortyish, well-dressed, low heels and short, up-to-date hairstyle. Comfortable in her leather chair, her neat office the external manifestation of an ordered mind.

And here Julia was again, shrinking her shrinks, comparing their defects.

Dr. Forrest nodded, nudging her along. “You’re a little distant today. What were you just thinking about?”

She thought about lying. But then she’d
really
be crazy. If you couldn’t trust your therapist, who could you trust?

“I had an episode,” Julia said. “When I came home this morning. I…I thought I had locked my front door, but then I found it open.”

“Open?”

“Well, not open, just unlocked.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Scared.”

“Scared of what?”

Julia looked down at her hands. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“Him. It. The Creep.”

“Ah.” Dr. Forrest leaned forward in her chair. “You thought the Creep had unlocked the door and was waiting inside.”

“Yes.”

“Was there a Creep inside?”

“No. But there could have been.”

“And what would the Creep have done?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. It’s not very hard to imagine.”

Julia dreaded imagining it again. The fantasy was almost as painful as the real act would be, had been. But if she acted out the scenario, Dr. Forrest would be pleased with her. Julia needed to please someone.

So she concentrated on what the attack would have been like. The anxiety of that morning came back to her, as fresh as it had been the first time. She gripped the arms of her chair and squeezed until her knuckles were white. “
Please don’t hurt me
,” she gasped through clenched teeth, almost feeling the knife thrusting with every word.

“Yes, that’s it,” said Dr. Forrest, her voice low, intense, urging. “Let it out, live it. Bring out the fear and face it.”