Authors: David Daniel
The Marble Kite (27 page)
“A few?”
“Did I mention that? She said the guy was a judge.”
Tyler Park was a lot farther from the Lower Highlands than the actual mile or so distance might suggest, so the gas station man's surprise at Flora Nuñez's interest in the neighborhood would have been real enough. This was old-moneyed Lowell, and if not as grand as Belmont Avenue in the lofty heights of Belvedere, it nevertheless could stand proud among the districts of the city. Martin Travani's home was a stately Tudor, one street back from the wooded park that gave the area its name. The grounds were neatly landscaped, the lawn beneath several ornamental fruit trees confettied with small bright leaves. I rang the bell.
As I waited, I stepped back from the brick stoop, still uncertain of what I would say if Travani opened the door. But he didn't, even after a second ring and a knock. No one did.
I wandered around to the side, where a stone path led between the house and a detached garage. I peered through one of the panes in the nearer of the two garage doors. A sea-foam green Continental was parked inside. Farther in was a second vehicle, partly concealed by the Lincoln, but I could see that it was gold, with a black vinyl bra on the front.
At a side entrance to the house I rapped on the storm door. The gold car, I realized, was Carly Ouellette's Mazda, last seen leaving her apartment
by the building superintendent sometime last evening. Across the backyard, several young landscapers were mowing a neighbor's lawn, as they would need to do several more times before the killing frost. I thought of my own handkerchief-sized lawn. I knocked again.
by the building superintendent sometime last evening. Across the backyard, several young landscapers were mowing a neighbor's lawn, as they would need to do several more times before the killing frost. I thought of my own handkerchief-sized lawn. I knocked again.
Shortly after Lauren and I separated, and I was finally living in my own small apartment after several weeks on the sofa at my office, something happened to me one night. I was lying in bed sound asleep when for some reason I woke. As I sat up, rubbing my eyes, wondering vaguely why I was awake, a print of van Gogh's
Starry Night
in a heavy frame that I'd hung over my bed pulled the nail out of the wall and fell right onto my pillow. If I'd been lying there, it would have been a starry night, all right. The frame might have broken my jaw, or even decapitated me. Why had I awakened? Had I heard the faint sound a nail under stress makes and unconsciously become alert? Had the painting fallen
because
I'd sat up, perhaps making the bed vibrate? Or was there some primitive awareness at work, something at the farthest rim of perception? I've thought about that incident from time to time, and I never get any closer to understanding it. I have a professor acquaintance who insists that people don't have instincts, that any atavistic knowledge was left far behind in our animal past, that everything we know is a result of learning. I don't know about this, and maybe I use the word “instinct” imprecisely, but on occasion I have had odd perceptions, usually of something amiss.
Starry Night
in a heavy frame that I'd hung over my bed pulled the nail out of the wall and fell right onto my pillow. If I'd been lying there, it would have been a starry night, all right. The frame might have broken my jaw, or even decapitated me. Why had I awakened? Had I heard the faint sound a nail under stress makes and unconsciously become alert? Had the painting fallen
because
I'd sat up, perhaps making the bed vibrate? Or was there some primitive awareness at work, something at the farthest rim of perception? I've thought about that incident from time to time, and I never get any closer to understanding it. I have a professor acquaintance who insists that people don't have instincts, that any atavistic knowledge was left far behind in our animal past, that everything we know is a result of learning. I don't know about this, and maybe I use the word “instinct” imprecisely, but on occasion I have had odd perceptions, usually of something amiss.
I had one now. It passed along my spine as a tingle.
I knocked again: louder, more insistent.
The lawn mowers went on growling. I took out a credit card and tried using it to slip the lock, but I couldn't make it work. I looked around and in a bed of pachysandra I saw a stone rabbit. I hesitated, thinking of Frank Droney's threatâ
I could tank you for interfering
âthen picked up the rabbit and shoved it through a pane of glass. It was crude, but so was Mike Tyson's knockout punch. I didn't hear an alarm. I reached carefully past the jagged edges and unlocked the door.
I could tank you for interfering
âthen picked up the rabbit and shoved it through a pane of glass. It was crude, but so was Mike Tyson's knockout punch. I didn't hear an alarm. I reached carefully past the jagged edges and unlocked the door.
“Judge,” I called into the house. I listened for a voice. “Ms. Ouellette?”
I stepped into an entryway, anticipating someone frozen in fright, or a face squinched behind a trembling pistol. I saw only an array of coats hung on pegs and a pair of knee-high rubber boots, the kind that gourmet
garden catalogs call wellies. I walked on soft feet down a short passageway, on the walls of which was a display of old-time photographsâphotos, I realized, that mostly showed a stern, matronly woman and a boy. I went into a spacious and airy kitchen. On a tray on the counter were a china teapot and two cups and a plate of cookies. Comfort food. But what I smelled wasn't food or comforting. It was a faint, sour smell.
garden catalogs call wellies. I walked on soft feet down a short passageway, on the walls of which was a display of old-time photographsâphotos, I realized, that mostly showed a stern, matronly woman and a boy. I went into a spacious and airy kitchen. On a tray on the counter were a china teapot and two cups and a plate of cookies. Comfort food. But what I smelled wasn't food or comforting. It was a faint, sour smell.
“Hey, Judge,” I called again, louder, as though to scare away someone or something I didn't want to encounter. It was warm in the house, from the afternoon sun streaming through the windows, and a film of perspiration had formed on my brow, but cold prickled on the nape of my neck. On legs I had to coax along, I went through a set of sliding pocket doors into a large room with furniture that was a long way from new but whose elegance remained. I walked over carpets that oozed plushly under my hesitant footsteps. Photographs were a persistent theme, as was the presence of the pinch-faced woman in them, along with the sad boy/young man. Beyond was a dining room, with a big claw-foot oak table; a corner china closet held crystal and silver that hadn't felt elbow grease in many moons. Was this how the other class lived? It wasn't anything special. Maybe you only noticed the differences inside a bank vault.
I worked from room to room downstairs, opening and shutting doors. Beyond was a broad hallway, and the swoop of a banister and wide stairs to the upper floor.
In an upstairs bedroom, on a table was an array of framed photographs, many showing the same woman and boy as those downstairs, but moving the pair ahead through time, so that I recognized that the boy was Martin Travani. And I realized that no matter how much he aged in them, he was always the little boy.
Downstairs again, I began to breathe a little easier. I was headed for the exit when I spotted something I'd missed before when I'd been moving in the opposite direction. On the parquet, only partially visible, was what appeared to be a bloody footprint. It was man-sized, from a work boot, I judged from the sole pattern. What was puzzling, however, was the angle and its position facing out from the wall. Then I understood. The wall was constructed to conceal a door. It opened with a firm push.
I wrinkled my nose as the odor I'd smelled before became instant and pervasive. It was a scorched, vinegary, gunsmoke smell. The door had
concealed a dark inner chamber. Breathing through my mouth, I felt for a light switch, and my fingers discovered that the walls were paneled in egg-crate foam, the kind used to baffle sound. Was I in a home music studio? I located a rheostat knob and gave it a slow twist.
concealed a dark inner chamber. Breathing through my mouth, I felt for a light switch, and my fingers discovered that the walls were paneled in egg-crate foam, the kind used to baffle sound. Was I in a home music studio? I located a rheostat knob and gave it a slow twist.
In the gradually revealing light from spots set in the ceiling, details came into view. One wall was a mirror. Suspended from the ceiling were several knotted ropes, with velvet cuffs and Velcro fasteners. To the left, built into the corner, was what looked like a wardrobe cabinet with a drape-hung door and crisscrossing lattice on the side. I turned the dimmer knob all the way up.
On a pale beige leather couch set near the right wall lay a woman, her back turned to me so that all I could see was a disheveled mass of blond hair against her black ribbed-cotton sweater. Asleep? I had to bend across her and lean close to get a look at her face, and even then recognition came slowly. She didn't resemble the way she'd looked the last time I saw her, when she'd ducked into her apartment and slammed the door in my face. A gunshot to her head at close range had given her skull an odd, elliptical elongation, the way passage through the birth canal sometimes will a newborn's. Her jaw was wide open, locked in a silent scream. From the front edge of her cheek all the way back to behind her ear was a mess of erupted tissue, like the lobes of an overripe cauliflower. Curds of blood, like dark red smoke, had bubbled from her mouth to form a congealing pool on the bone-colored leather cushion.
My head swam. I fought an urge to flee â¦
might
have fled, but I wasn't sure my knees would hold. I braced on the sofa and shut my eyes. Tiny motes of light drifted before them. When I opened them, I saw the red spatter on a pillow wedged between her shoulder and the sofa back, its brocade fabric blackened around a burnt hole. I stood for a moment, trying to slow my heart for what I dreaded to find next.
might
have fled, but I wasn't sure my knees would hold. I braced on the sofa and shut my eyes. Tiny motes of light drifted before them. When I opened them, I saw the red spatter on a pillow wedged between her shoulder and the sofa back, its brocade fabric blackened around a burnt hole. I stood for a moment, trying to slow my heart for what I dreaded to find next.
The judge was behind the couch, underneath a sofa table, as if he'd crawled under there looking for safety. He was on his back, one leg curled and leaning against the wall. He was wearing the same suit he'd been wearing several hours ago at his club, but it was a mess. His starched shirt collar was blood-soaked. His mouth was collapsed inward, and the teeth, which indeed were in a dental plate, lay on the braided rug several feet
away, evidently having been blown out by the impact of a gunshot. There was a thread of blood on them.
away, evidently having been blown out by the impact of a gunshot. There was a thread of blood on them.
I looked around for an obvious explanationâfor a gun that would make it play as a murder-suicide, but there wasn't one, as the footprint in the hall should already have told me. When I looked back at Travani, his eyes were on mine. He was alive.
I gripped his hand. “Hold on. I'm going to get help.”
I rushed back to the kitchen, found a wall phone, and punched 911 and was amazed at the speed with which the call was answered. Ignoring the operator's request for my name, I told her two people had been shot, one still alive. I gave the address and hung up.
At the center of my fear and nausea, like the eye of a storm, was a cold calm. In a drawer by the sink I found several clean dish towels. I wet one under the tap and went back to the concealed chamber. Careful of where I stepped, I put the damp cloth on his forehead. I looked for the wound. It seemed to be behind his head. I didn't want to move him. He kept his eyes on mine. Perhaps he was speaking with them, though I didn't know what they might be saying. Maybe he had no idea who I was and was just trying to keep some link with the living.
I held his hand, and with my other hand I reached to the wardrobe cabinet and drew aside the drape. Instead of shelves or hanging clothes, I looked into an empty booth. For an instant I was confused, and then I realized what it was, or was meant to resemble. Lying on the floor in one corner was a costumeâa nun's habit, and looped atop it a rosary. Thoughts were clustering at the back of my mind, like moths gathering around a faint light. I waved them away.
The judge's mouth twitched, an odd movement without teeth. Wanting to tell me something? I bent near. Instead of words, I heard a soft, clattery sigh, like a footfall in dry leaves. His eyes were still open, and there was still a pulse, but the light was fading from his eyes. What did judges dream of as they lay dying? A writ from on high? A full pardon? Conviction?
I heard the first siren. EMTs or the police. I wasn't there under any jurisdiction that I could invoke. The police would charge me. Criminal trespass, destruction of evidence, tampering with a crime scene ⦠They might even try for two counts of murder, though that one wouldn't stick.
At the very least, they'd demand a full statement, which would have to be typed up, read, and signed. Not today.
At the very least, they'd demand a full statement, which would have to be typed up, read, and signed. Not today.
As I stood up, it was as if I'd stepped off a still-moving carousel. For a moment, the world lurched under me, and then it steadied. Outside, from closer now, came an overlapping wail of sirens, approaching even faster than I'd imagined they would. Driving away, I had to force myself not to speed.
Â
Â
When you get overstressed, your mind starts to yammer. It begins to see things that may not be there. It can, says Poe, hear things in hell. Mine insisted on imagining stories. If the waitress from Viva! who wanted to write for the movies had been there, I'd have asked her if that was the way it happened, if the narrative suddenly took form in the mind, complete with characters doing their bits of business and action, speaking lines â¦
“Jesus. What happened?” The cop bends over the dead woman on the carpet. She's in the black-and-white costume of a nun. Cinched tight around her throat is a small beaded chain: a rosary. A rill of blood has run from one nostril, almost dry now. The cop draws back and turns to the judge. The judge sits on a bone-colored couch, bent forward, head in hands. He is having a difficult time of it. “Tell me exactly what happened,” says the cop. “Everything.”
I drove by rote through the afternoon traffic, the houses and buildings and bright trees blurring by. A weight of exhaustion was dragging hard behind the adrenaline, like a string of loaded boxcars hooked to a locomotive on a steep uphill climb. In those boxcars I could feel the freight shifting around.
The judge is hyperventilating, his face damp with sweat, his hair mussed. “She came here today and said she was going to stop this ⦠not meet me anymore. I ⦔ He swallows and regains some control. “I asked her to wear the habit one more time. Just once more. And go in there.” He gestures at the booth in the corner. “To tell me her sins ⦠ask me to absolve her, make her do penance. May ⦠maybe I pulled too hard, I don't know. thought the chain would snap. Oh, God, what have I done? What's going to happen now? I don't ⦠Iâ”
“Shut up! Get hold of yourself. Tell me what happened!”
“There's a man whoâ”
“What man?”
“Huh
?
Who she was going to marry. A man she knew a long time
⦔
?
Who she was going to marry. A man she knew a long time
⦔
Grim-faced, the cop paces, leaving a space around the woman's body, glancing at the judge in disgust. “Did you spank her this time?
”
”
At a stoplight, I saw a donut shop. Beyond the big windows, decorated with cutout paper leaves and cornstalks, people were sitting on stools, drinking coffee, reading newspapers, talking about the weather, and I had a powerful yen to go in there, to reenter that everyday world. But even as I thought this, I knew I was far beyond that. When the light changed, I sped past.
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