Deaths of Jocasta (11 page)

“Sorry, Micky,” she apologized. “Go tell Emma. I’m going to change. I don’t want to meet the local boys dressed like this.”

She took my arm and turned me away from the body.

“Leave her like this?” I asked, too aware of the corpse in the dark behind us.

“Not much we can do for her now,” Joanne replied, leading me back to the path.

We walked together, silently out of the woods and to the lawn.

There were some people milling about, more arriving to see what the excitement was about.

I saw Rosie, signaled to her, and gave her a brief version of what had happened. “Stay here. Don’t let anyone go into the woods,” I told her. “I’ll be back soon.”

I walked away, leaving Rosie on guard, Melanie faithfully at her side.

“Joanne?” Alex questioned as we reached her.

“Let’s go change,” Joanne said, putting her arm around Alex.

“You okay, Micky?” Alex asked me, as they started to move away.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered grimly. Compared to being dead and eaten by insects, I was great.

I walked toward the house to find Emma. As I got to the back porch, I saw Cordelia. She was holding Nina, who looked small and fragile tucked under Cordelia’s arm. Cordelia was saying something to her, smoothing her hair back. She didn’t see me. I went into the house.

I found Emma in the library. When she saw my face, she broke away from the group she was with and came over to me.

“Let’s go to your study,” I said, then let her lead the way.

“I imagine it’s serious,” she said as she closed the door.

I told her about the body. She listened quietly to my narrative. I was as brief as possible. Emma didn’t need the details.

“Do you want me to call the police?” I finished.

“No, I will,” she answered. “I know Sheriff Hampton. It would be better if I did.” She picked up the phone.

“Emma?” I said, wanting desperately to say Miss Auerbach. “I’m sorry this happened. I should have… You hired me to take care of things.” I felt somehow this horror was my fault. If I hadn’t been running around trying to sleep with half the women here…

“Don’t be nonsensical,” she replied, putting the phone down. “I don’t blame you for the simple reason that it’s not your fault. What were you supposed to do? Run around telling people not to die on my property?”

“I don’t think she just died,” I said, voicing the undercurrent that neither Joanne nor I had spoken.

“You think she was murdered? Why?”

“I’m probably way off base,” I retreated.

“But why?” Emma asked again.

“She was young. Late teens, early twenties. Too young to die easily. And…just a feeling,” I finished, remembering the eyes I was sure had been watching.

“I hope you’re wrong,” Emma said, taking my hand and holding it for a moment, then letting it go to pick up the phone again.

“So do I,” I said as I let myself out of the study.

I went back outside to the tool shed. I got several flashlights and a Coleman lantern, which I lit.
Scare off the ghosts with a barrage of light, Micky?

Then I went back into the woods, nodding at Rosie and the stalwart Melanie on my way. Carrying both the lit lantern and a bright flashlight to keep the dark away all around me, I went back to the body.

I had to make sure she was still there. Somehow I couldn’t leave this dead woman alone in the dark.

I was torn between being afraid that she was gone, only a nightmare haunting the world I thought to be real, and fearing she would still be there, chewed and convulsed by the rapacity of nature during a warm summer night.

She lay as she had, a pale form against the brown bed of pine needles. Insects scurried away from the burning lantern. I tried not to see them. I placed the lights around her, a haphazard box. Nothing could keep out the darkness of death. But the lights could keep the night at bay, a small bit of the darkness she had been so callously thrown into.

I sat down, a few yards away, next to the lantern, the brightest light. She was young, probably not yet twenty. Maybe even pretty when she was alive. A day, a few hours ago? Her hair was dark brown, her makeup now garish on her immobile face. She was wearing a cheap cloth coat, inappropriate for the weather. Her legs were bare. I couldn’t tell if she had any clothes on under the coat. Probably not, a cheap cloth coat thrown on to cover her nakedness.

Raped and left here to die, I thought bitterly. Isn’t that what usually happened to young women found in the woods? Left to the scavenger ants. Men who do this should have pictures of decaying corpses put on the walls of their prison cells. This is what you did, you were so clever and hid her body so well, this is what it looked like when we finally found it. This is what her parents identified in the morgue, what a woman stumbled over one summer night, what I sat next to because I couldn’t leave her all alone, couldn’t leave her deathwatch to insects.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped away in startlement.

“Come on, get out of here,” Danny said gently. She was dressed soberly now, looking like an assistant D.A.

“I want to at least keep the insects away,” I mumbled.

“One of the things that drove me crazy about you was your insistence on being responsible for the sins of the world…”

“It’s been a long night,” I broke in. “Believe it or not, I’m not in the mood for a laundry list of my many faults.”

“It was also one of the things that made me fall in love with you, idiot,” Danny replied. “But you still need sleep. It’s past four in the morning. Be light soon.”

“I hope so. I think this night needs to end.”

“Guests have been leaving like the proverbial mice on the sinking ship,” Danny said.

“I don’t blame them. Not too many gay people like to be in the middle of a police investigation. Isn’t Joanne raising hell?”

“Not her jurisdiction. I gather the local sheriff said they could go. Poor Nina gets to stay and give a statement.”

“How is she?”

“She’ll be okay. She’s tougher than she looks. Just not used to tripping over bodies in the moonlight.”

“Like the rest of us.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. “Not a good way to end a party.”

“You don’t have to stay. This is my obsession,” I said.

I heard Joanne’s voice. It was her professional voice, cool, almost toneless. She was talking to the local police and leading them here.

“Aha. The cavalry,” Danny said.

“Much too late,” I answered.

The police arrived, bringing voices and lights everywhere. There was nothing more I could do. I went back to the lawn. Sending Rosie and Melanie to bed, I took up the guard post to keep away the idly curious. Few people came by, most staying away from this part of the yard. A lot of people had left. More were leaving as I stood my watch.

“Mick? They want to talk to you,” Joanne said, coming up behind me.

I followed her back into the woods. But this time I didn’t go near the body. I could do no more for her. I told them my story (leaving out what Joanne and I had been doing when we first heard Nina’s screams). They nodded silently and wrote it down. Then Danny led me away.

“Get some sleep, Mick,” she said. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Danno.”

We walked out of the woods together.

“Good night,” she said, hugging me tightly, then yawning, she turned toward her cottage.

“Night, Danny,” I answered, glad for a friend like her.

I walked back to the house, tired, but knew I couldn’t sleep. The first gray light of dawn was visible, finally fighting the dark night.

I went to the kitchen to see if there was anyone around. But the room was dim and deserted, people gone or gone to bed. There were no voices, no creaking floorboards to indicate anyone about.

I stood in the silent kitchen, wanting to put something between me and the scene in the woods. My hands were trembling. I found a bottle of Scotch. I went back outside, heading in the opposite direction from where the police surrounded the lonely body.

Dawn was still only a gray reflection of the sun. I walked down a trail into the forest to a clearing where I knew the sun would soon shine. The stump of an old oak tree destroyed by lightning a long time ago was there. I sat down on it, setting the bottle beside me.

The first tendrils of light found their way through the trees. A pale golden dawn. I sat still, listening to the wakening birds calling one another to the morning.

Death hits hard. It always does. She was younger than I.

“Well, you were right about one thing,” I said to myself, “You didn’t get to sleep with anyone tonight.” I was talking out loud to hear the sound of my voice. I sounded cracked and tired, not like the brave sophisticate I wanted to be. I looked at the bottle, but I didn’t pick it up. Instead I watched the rising sun as it colored in the glade.

“Drunk enough yet?” Joanne said from behind me. “I saw you cut across the lawn with a bottle.”

I turned my head toward her, too benumbed by the night’s events to jerk or even be startled at her abrupt appearance. She had taken a shower. Her hair was still wet, her eyes a veiled gray behind her glasses.

“Why don’t you put the bottle away and get some sleep?”

“I’d have to be very drunk to sleep. Too drunk to wake from nightmares.”

“Shit,” Joanne muttered, shaking her head. “You might be a decent person if you weren’t a drunken fuck-up,” she added angrily.

“Half right. Yeah, I’m a fuck-up, but at least this time I’m not drunk. I haven’t been drunk in a while.”

I picked up the bottle and put it between us. Joanne lifted the Scotch and examined the unbroken seal.

“How long?” she finally said.

“Two months.”

She didn’t say anything, still looking at the bottle as if she didn’t believe me.

“I know it’s not much,” I said. “Not enough to bother mentioning…”

“It’s a start. I’m sorry for jumping on you.”

“It’s okay. I’m sure I’ve done something to deserve it.”

“No, you haven’t. Not tonight.”

“Well…” I looked at her. “No need to pin any medals on me yet.”

“Two months…” Joanne said, then broke off. She walked to the edge of the clearing, then turned back to me. “My father drank himself into his grave. He was fifty-four when he died. My mother…I can’t remember her sober. I finally gave up hoping that one day she might call me and not be drunk. After twenty years of being disappointed every time I heard her voice, I just had to give up.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Life goes on,” she shrugged, walking back to me. “How do you feel?”

“I feel… Oh, God, Joanne,” I suddenly blurted out, “I can’t sleep because I finally feel things. When I would get hurt or scared before I would drink it away. Now…” I stopped and held out my hand, watching it shake. “What does it feel like to die so young? How do you do it? Do you get used to it?”

“No, I’ve never gotten used to it. I don’t think I ever will,” Joanne replied. She reached out and took my trembling hand between both of hers, holding it steady. “Tragedies happen every day. It’s inevitable that we stumble over them.”

“Was it murder or tragedy?”

“What’s the difference? Every murdered person is a tragedy in someone’s life.”

“Was she?” I persisted.

“Yes.”

“Raped?”

“Probably.”

I shuddered at the common horror of it. “Can you find out?” I wanted to know this women’s fate, the final details. Knowing, no matter how brutal, would be better than imagining.

“Yes, I can,” Joanne answered.

“Tell me.”

“I will.”

“Maybe I should try to get some sleep,” I said shakily. I was suddenly aware that Joanne looked tired. She hadn’t been to bed yet either. I didn’t think she would leave me alone in the woods with my Scotch and trembling hands.

“Do you want me to hold you?”

“No, I’m okay,” I lied. Joanne, behind her glasses, dressed in the sober clothes of a policewoman, seemed too distant. I wasn’t sure just who the woman was who kissed me last night, but she had vanished with the morning light.

“Look at me. Look at me and say that,” she caught me.

I couldn’t. I glanced across the clearing. Joanne put her hand under my chin and turned my face back to her.

“I’m not okay. How the hell can you be?” she said.

I started crying. Joanne put her arms around me.

“Do you want me to make love to you?” she asked with simple directness.

Of course, I wanted her to make love to me, more now than last night. My desire had gone frighteningly beyond want to need.

“No,” I said, afraid to be so vulnerable. Then, “How did you know?” and finally, “Yes…yes, I do.”

She took off her glasses. Her eyes were unhidden, the flecks of blue in the dense gray brought out by the morning light. Then she kissed me, slowly, no haste or hurry, no sense of obligation on her part, not blatantly sexual.