A Shiver of Wonder (2 page)

David looked back and forth between them,
suddenly confused as to how he had transitioned from reading the
Shady Grove Courier to becoming a mediator between two females he’d
never laid eyes on before.

“Um… we do call this the courtyard,” he
stated equably. His gaze shifted to the woman. “You probably meant
the common area just beyond the lobby, but there isn’t really a
name for that. Though I suppose in most buildings that
would
be the courtyard. But here…” And once again he found himself
looking at Clair. “…here, we call this the courtyard. How did you
know that?” he then asked the girl directly.

But Clair didn’t answer. The woman had
stepped forward to take hold of her arm.

“Bye, David,” Clair had uttered quietly just
before the two of them turned to exit the garden.

And within seconds, David and Johnson were
alone again, with the click of the closing latch adding finality to
the brief encounter.

~*~*~*~*~

That had been a year and a half into David’s
tenure at the Rainbow Arms. It was another two weeks before he saw
Clair once more, and yet again she had thrown him a curveball.

This time, he met the two of them in the
common area.

“Oh, hello!” he said brightly. He and
Johnson had gone for their usual morning walk, and they were
passing the mailboxes in the lobby when he spotted two pairs of
shoes descending the stairs that led to the second floor. One pair
of light brown, practical flats, and one pair of polished saddle
shoes.

“Hi, David,” Clair said. She smiled at him,
a real smile this time.

The woman was not smiling. David and Johnson
were blocking the way out, and she’d halted unhappily before
them.

“I’m David,” David said, “and this is
Johnson.” He tried to catch her eye. “We’ve met Clair, but I didn’t
have time to introduce myself the other day.”

The woman was clearly uncomfortable, peering
over his shoulder toward Piston Avenue, glancing to the right and
left as though seeking alternate routes of escape. “My name is Mrs.
Rushen,” she said to no one in particular. “Good to make your
acquaintance. Clair is going to be late for school.” Her eyes
hadn’t once alit on David’s countenance.

Clair reached out to touch Mrs. Rushen’s
arm. The woman immediately looked at her. “I like David,” Clair
said. “We won’t be late. I was four minutes early yesterday, and we
left at the same time as today.”

David noted that once again, Johnson was
neither eager to inspect the pair nor afraid of them. He was calm,
cool, and collected. At three years of age, perhaps his skittish
years were finally behind him.

Mrs. Rushen had nodded.

Clair looked directly into David’s eyes.
“You have a girlfriend,” she stated.

He chuckled. Mrs. Rushen gave Clair a funny
look, but remained silent.

“Yes. Sort of,” David answered.

“Well, which one?” Clair asked with a
directness that, considering her appearance, was disarming.

He took a breath. “Yes, I guess. Most of the
time. Sort of, because sometimes we’re… well, we’re just not…” As
he had in the courtyard two weeks before, David found that he
couldn’t quite grasp how the conversation had swerved in the
direction it had. “How did you know about her?” he asked.

“I like her name,” was Clair’s answer.

Mrs. Rushen appeared unperturbed. David,
however, was more than confused. “Her name?” he parroted. Johnson
glanced at him; his two words had come out more strained than
befuddled.

Clair’s smile returned. A hand rose to brush
her bangs to the side. “The pronunciation. Zhahn-vee-ev. Not
Ge-ne-
vieve
, but Gen-vi-eve. I like it better that way.”

David could only gawk at her. What was this,
a joke? Mrs. Rushen had noticed his discomfort, and she once more
began fidgeting as her eyes sought the street.

The smile had evaporated. A look of concern
made Clair appear older, much older.

“We need to go,” intoned Mrs. Rushen.

“I’m sorry, David. I didn’t mean to frighten
you,” said Clair as Mrs. Rushen began moving forward. David and
Johnson both backed out of her way.

“I’m not frightened,” David replied briskly,
unsure of
what
exactly he was. “I just… you just surprised
me, is all.”

As she strode by with Mrs. Rushen lightly
gripping her arm, the smile peeked out again. “I do that
sometimes,” Clair said. “I never mean to.”

But then she was halfway through the lobby,
and on the concrete walkway that led to the sidewalk. And within
seconds, the pair had turned right, heading toward Fifth Street and
presumably the elementary school at the corner of Marion and
Fifth.

David stood frozen in place, his eyes locked
on Piston Avenue, on the spot where Clair and Mrs. Rushen had just
disappeared. How could she know about Genevieve? Where could a
child who had just moved to the building with an asocial automaton
like Mrs. Rushen have picked up the name of David’s on-and-off
girlfriend?

Of course, Clair’s voice was that of a
child, but her words were those of a much older, much
stranger
, girl.

And she hadn’t answered his question. Again.
Just like when she hadn’t answered his question about her age. An
oblique reply, as if she were responding to a different query, or
just imparting information that she wished to impart, never mind
what had elicited the response.

But she ‘liked’ David. Just as she ‘liked’
the way Genevieve’s name was pronounced.

David had shivered, and headed to his
apartment for a shower.

The death that brought Detective Ormsby to
the Rainbow Arms occurred on a Wednesday, four months after Clair
and Mrs. Rushen moved into the building, and two weeks before David
Wilcott’s encounter with his elder self.

David’s first indication that something had
happened was a pounding on his door at six a.m. the following
morning. And if the sound of a fist clobbering the apartment’s
front door hadn’t been enough to rouse him, Johnson’s subsequent
barking fit while he threw himself at the bedroom door was.

“Okay, boy. Okay,” David moaned as once
again the hammering outside began. He made his bleary way through
the living room. “Seriously? At six o’clock?”

Opening the door revealed a ham-like fist,
still raised in mid-swing. David restrained Johnson so he wouldn’t
fly through the opening for an early breakfast.

“David Wilcott?” The resolute fist and a
voice to match belonged to a tall, good-looking man with steely
eyes.

“Yes?”

A badge was flashed, then folded in its case
and stowed. David noted a pair of handcuffs on his belt, as well as
a blinking walkie-talkie.

“Detective Ormsby, Shady Grove P.D. I’d like
to talk to you about your whereabouts yesterday.”

While Detective Ormsby was in plainclothes,
David could see several uniformed policemen and ambulance personnel
moving about the common area. “What happened? Did something
happen?” he asked. And even without his eyes on Ormsby’s face,
David caught the flinch of irritation that immediately tightened
the detective’s features.

“Yes, something happened. Clearly. Now, is
this a good time to talk? Or would you like me to send out for some
pancakes and coffee so you can better pay attention?”

David’s eyes again found his. And while
pancakes and coffee did indeed sound better than continuing this
conversation, David understood that the offer had been made with
distinct irony. “Now is fine,” he replied coldly. “Perhaps you
could give me a minute to put my dog in the other room.” Johnson
was still trying to thrust himself outside.

“That’s fine. Do it,” said Ormsby.

David closed a recalcitrant Johnson into the
bedroom, and then returned to the front door. Ormsby’s eyes
intently locked on his, and an almost palpable aura of hostility
began to ripple between the two men. David knew what he didn’t like
about Ormsby; the authoritarian swagger of testosterone-fueled
masculinity had never been an attribute he’d found tolerable. The
man’s chiseled handsomeness only enhanced the antipathy David felt
toward him.

And Ormsby, looking downwards at the
somewhat shorter-than-average David, saw what he despised more than
anything: a man who was worse than mediocre in every possible way.
Physicality, intelligence, income, lifestyle. What could the world
come to, populated with purposeless weaklings like this?

A notebook came out. An automatic pencil as
well, all without breaking eye contact.

“What do you do?”

David blinked, and cleared his throat. He
felt as if he needed to hold his own here, but was already losing
before he’d even begun. “I’m a website architect. I design… I build
and design websites. For companies that hire me… to do so.”

“Do you work from here?”

Another blink. “Yes, some of the time. If
the company is local, I split my time between the business and
here. I enjoy getting a feel for the company and its – ”

“Were you working here yesterday?”

David shook his head in an attempt to clear
the cobwebs. “Yesterday?”

The detective’s words were laden with
disdain. “Yesterday. Wednesday. The day before today. Were you
working here yesterday?”

David had to think. “Yes. No, not the entire
day. I was at the Culpepper Mills corporate offices for a
while.”

“When?”

“I… I took the trolley downtown around ten.
They have a space there for me to work, and I stayed until twelve
thirty or so. I ate lunch in the public square with Johnson, and
then we wandered around, had some dessert, and then I suppose I got
back here around three fifteen or three thirty.”

Ormsby almost sneered. “Sounds like a hard
life. I might need to speak to this Johnson. Do you have a contact
number?”

David couldn’t help but smirk. “I just put
him in the bedroom. Would you like me to let him out so you can
question him?”

A tightening of the face again. A stiff
inhalation. “No. But I will be needing to confirm your alibi with
someone at Culpepper Mills. What other companies have you
architected
websites for?”

“Alibi? Why don’t you tell me why I
need
an alibi?” David was suddenly angry, pissed that at six
in the morning he was standing in his apartment doorway in boxers
and socks, being questioned like a felon while an arrogant cop
taunted him with his own words.

“I’ll tell you what I want to tell you,” was
snapped back. A hand slid toward the cuffs. “Why don’t you answer
the question, Mr. Wilcott?”

David breathed deeply, trying not to avert
his eyes from the detective’s. “I’ve
designed
over fifteen
websites. Ten were for companies that hired me online, five are
local. Culpepper, Jack Sprague for his real estate business,
Sally’s Flower Cart, the Shady Grove library, and Gâteaupia, which
if it matters is where I ate dessert yesterday before I returned
here to
work
for the rest of the evening.”

“Why did you take the trolley?”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s plenty of parking in downtown.
Wednesday morning, no traffic, Culpepper’s office is one block off
the trolley route. Why didn’t you drive?”

David shook his head in incredulity. “I
don’t own a car! How could any of this, these useless questions of
yours, possibly have anything to do with – ”

“Murder.” David’s jaw dropped. “Murder, Mr.
Wilcott. And in a murder investigation, no piece of information is
useless.”

David’s eyes shot to the common area again.
He peered around Ormsby’s bulk, and saw that, sure enough, a
stretcher with a body bag on it was being carefully guided out of
an apartment door. Apartment 1D. “Janice?” he asked aloud,
disbelieving.

“No.” Ormsby’s head shook. “Not Janice. She
found him, though.” He was scrutinizing David’s face, searching and
studying.

David retreated, and his eyes found the
detective’s again. “Heck?” he asked, puzzled.

A slow nod. “Yes. Hector Vance, age
thirty-seven. Did you know him?”

“Barely. He was sometimes here, sometimes
not. I don’t even know if he officially lives here.”

“Lived.”

“Fine, lived. I didn’t know if he
lived
here.”

“The sole tenant on the lease for 1D is
Janice Templeton. You’re acquainted with her?”

“Yes,” David answered.

“Detective?” A meatball of a man in an
ill-fitting suit had waddled up.

Ormsby turned. “Steve?”

“They need you back in there.” The man
didn’t even glance at David. “Found some things you should check
out.”

The notebook was flipped shut, the pencil
vanished. Ormsby’s glare was back. “I’ll have more questions for
you,” he said to David. “Stick around.”

“All day?” David asked. “All week?” He’d
tried not to be overly flippant, but…

Slowly, slowly, Ormsby crossed his arms.
“Just don’t go crawling into some hole where I can’t find you, got
it?”

And then he was gone, trailing Steve around
the perimeter of the common area toward Janice’s apartment.

David took in the entire scene, and waved
awkwardly at a group of neighbors gazing down from the second floor
walkway. He could hear Johnson whimpering and knocking his head
against the bedroom door.

No use attempting to go back to sleep. He
let Johnson out, and the two of them began to get ready for their
day.

Shady Grove’s downtown district was charming
and relaxed, almost appearing as if it had been engineered to exude
a nostalgic, small-town ambience. A public square anchored the
western end, majestic trees and wood-chip playgrounds and an
outdoor amphitheater with a covered stage offering a social center
to the town. The library and the town hall bookended the northern
and southern midpoints of the square, with the police station, a
stone Episcopal Church, and other esteemed public institutions
dotted about like perfectly constructed hobby shop models.