House of Skin (19 page)

They went inside and the crowd grew silent.

A shot rang out.

The three lawmen left the shack, the sheriff holstering his handgun. Through the open doorway Myles could see the walls flicker and dance, watched McCabe’s meager possessions shimmer as the flames spread. A fishing rod. A yellowing poster of Betty Grable.

The sheriff addressed the crowd in McCabe’s front yard.

“We all know what happened here tonight,” he said. “And we all know what might have happened had this thing gone to trial. We know from the note David Carver found that McCabe killed five kids, that he had to pay for it. Well, he’s paid in this life and he’ll pay in the next as well.

“Anyone asks you what went on out here, you tell them you were at the bars, drinking.” Ledford laughed sourly. “That shouldn’t be hard for anyone to believe.”
 

He scowled at the men, who nodded at him, faces earnest. “You hear me? You had nothing to do with this and neither did we.” Gesturing at his deputies. “We all wanted justice done. It’s done. Let’s not dwell on it. Main thing is, this stupid son of a bitch got what he deserved.”
 

With no more fanfare the group broke up. Myles watched them go, lawmen back toward the house, no doubt to make sure it burned enough to destroy any evidence, most of the men toward the limestone quarry where their cars were parked. He did not see David among either group.

He knew he’d been caught dozing. David would take the car back to Watermere, celebrate his moment in the sun with Annabel, while he, Myles, would hold his pillow over his head and wish the walls were thicker. Annabel never moaned louder than she did with David.

His hands balled into fists.

An idea came. He took off through the forest, left the path the drunken men stumbled down. Leaping over deadfalls and rocks he headed for the quarry, knowing if he beat everyone there he would have a chance.

The distant sounds of their laughter told him he would make it. The woods thinned. He broke from the forest and made for Sheriff Ledford’s patrol car.

The keys were in the ignition.

Knowing to dwell upon his good fortune was to risk it, he fired the engine, floored the cruiser. Not bothering with the lights, he relied on familiarity. He had lived in Shadeland all his life, knew every twist and turn by heart. Ahead, he spied a pair of taillights blinking like red eyes in the forest. David’s Mercury was moving fast, but he had clearly not spotted Myles. Figured he was still back at the barbecue.

Myles swung the Panzer-sized cruiser onto the macadam lane behind the Mercury and accelerated.

The patrol car smashed into the Mercury’s rear end, its left taillight shattering. David’s car fishtailed, its roof shiny in the moonlight. Before it got traction Myles rammed it again, this time sending its right side careening onto the sloping shoulder. The gravel gave way under the Mercury’s weight. Myles watched as David’s car tumbled end over end, rested at the foot of the decline.

He pulled the cruiser over.

Knowing the lynch mob would be driving back this way to return to town, Myles hustled down the slope, moved around the side of the Mercury, which sat upside down against a tree. David lay unconscious inside the smoking hull, his blood staining the spiderwebbed glass.

Myles forced open the passenger’s door, took care not to upset the balance of the car, which teetered as he climbed inside. His brother’s forehead was a bloody mess, a deep scarlet gash running from his nose to his hairline. Myles put a finger to David’s neck, felt a pulse, very faint.

Then, he put his hands over his brother’s mouth and nose, waited until the breathing ceased.

Reaching into David’s pocket, he retrieved a silver lighter. Climbing out, he flicked the lighter, held it over the exposed chassis, which glimmered in the starshine. Leaning closer, he saw a flicker and took off up the slope. The fire spread over the side of the car, engulfing it within seconds.

As he stepped toward the cruiser he perceived headlamps growing from the direction of the quarry. Multiple sets of them. Myles climbed into the police car, started it up. In the rearview he beheld a pair of brights less than a hundred yards away. He stomped on the gas, worked the wheel to give the patrol car some traction. Behind him, the oncoming lights reached out, sought his rear bumper. He got the car under control, sped off down the country road, putting distance between him and the car behind him. Then, he saw a flash of light, heard the Mercury explode. The cars behind him stopped to see what was happening.

Soon, Myles rolled to a stop outside Watermere. Its brick façade had never looked so good.

He expected to find Annabel in the master suite, but she wasn’t there. He searched the library for her but it was empty. The den, the kitchen. Then he was outside again, the August heat baking his skin, and for the third time that night, he saw flames.

Near the wood’s edge, in the back corner of the yard, stood Annabel, naked. Myles moved toward her, ready to tell her she belonged to him now, to rape her if necessary.

Tall, thin, she watched the flames. Her golden hair flowed over her shoulders, down her smooth pale back. He stared at her over the fire, her blond pubis shimmering in the heat, her nipples red and hard.

Myles said, “I killed him.”
 

She smiled drowsily. “I know.”

“I mean I killed David. I killed your husband.”

“I know.”
 

He stared at her, wondering at her tone of voice. But she was always a mystery to him. “You knew I would kill David tonight?”
 

“I knew you’d make it happen eventually.”
 

In his throat was a thickness. He swallowed it.

“And how do you feel about that?” he asked her.

“Does it matter?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but her nakedness, her long curving body, silenced him. He had to avert his eyes, so he stared at the circle of flames between them, the little ring no wider than a washtub.

“You going tell me what you’re burning?”
 

“Things,” she said.

“Whose things?”

“David’s.”
 

“Because he’s dead now?”

“Because they had blood on them that wouldn’t come out.”

He stopped, bit his lip. “McCabe’s dead too.”

Annabel stood silent.

“It’s just as well,” he went on. “There won’t be a bunch of damn children playing on our porch now while we entertain.”
 

“Oh no?” she asked.

“People will feel safe to leave their kids with sitters now that McCabe’s dead.”

“McCabe didn’t hurt anyone.”

Myles gazed at her, her shimmering smile.

“Say that again?”

Annabel watched him over the flames.

He asked, “Why did David’s clothes have blood on them?”

“I think you know the answer to that.” Her eyes lowering to the smoldering clothes, the scorched handle of the hunting knife.

“David would never do that. He’d never murder a child.”

“He would for me.”

Myles felt the tightening in his throat, fought it back. He strode around the circle of flame and belted her with the back of his hand. She dropped down laughing and lay in a bed of grass.

“Shut up,” he said, but she went on.

“Shut up,” he said, louder this time. Annabel only hugged herself, her mouth bloody.

“God damn you.”
 

He pounced on her, splayed her apart. He rammed her as she lay beneath him laughing and when he was spent he rolled over, stared with shiny eyes at the moon and hated her and still she laughed.

Later, as they lay in bed in the early dawn light, he went down on her, made her writhe and cry out. Shortly after that, there was a knock at the door and a shouting. Myles put on his boxer shorts to answer it.

Sheriff Ledford stood on the porch, fists clenched.

“Help you, Sheriff?” Myles asked and leaned in the doorway.

“Wipe that sorry ass grin off your face and get in the car.”

Myles nodded toward the cruiser, in which sat one of Ledford’s deputies. The other one was pulling away in the car they’d ridden up in.

“See you got your car back.”

“I told you to wipe that shit-eatin’ grin off your face.” Ledford fingered the butt of his holstered revolver. “Listen, Carver. You’re gonna burn for what you did to your brother. We all know what happened out there.”

“Funny you mention burning, Sheriff. Seems to me we’ve both killed tonight, haven’t we?” Myles scratched his belly, yawned. “Only difference I can see, there’re witnesses to yours. Mine, well, it might have just been an accident. Careless driving.”

“I’m not letting you off,” Ledford said. His sullen face was unusually animated.

“Oh you’re not? You’re going to tell a judge how I got to be in your car, how you got to be out at McCabe’s? You really want them snooping around his shack, find his body, the bullet you put in his brain?”
 

Ledford stepped toward him, jaw trembling. “Why you son of a bitch.”

“I’m not the one killed a man tonight, Sheriff. I’m just a grieving loved one whose brother passed on.”
 

“You son of a bitch,” Ledford repeated.

“’Night, Sheriff,” Myles said and nodded at Ledford. Then he shut the door and went up to Annabel’s room, where they made love on David’s side of the bed.

The End
 

Paul set the final page upside down on the stack. He’d not numbered the pages, but he was sure the tale was novel-length. And even as he fought off the nausea the narrative brought on, he wondered whether it were publishable.

For one thing there wasn’t a single likeable character in the whole story. He felt sorry for McCabe, but that didn’t make the gardener someone an audience could hang its hat on. Myles and David were scumbags, lechers and murderers.

Annabel was another story.

She was awful, inexorable. But she fascinated him too. He wished his uncle hadn’t destroyed all evidence of her. Paul wanted to see her, see this woman who led others to murder and betrayal. A woman like that, she had to be a goddess, primal beauty and infinite evil in equal parts.

Paul left the den. It felt good to get out of there, to escape the curdled semen smell and breathe other air. Though he’d done his best to clean up the vomit, the room still reeked of it.

When he got to the library he stopped, listened. The scrabbling sounds were furious, louder than they’d ever been. His eyes darted nervously to the wall, expecting at any moment a pair of claws to scratch through, a floodgate opening and a tide of great black rats spilling out, a brood of rats tumbling onto the hardwood floor, the ragged hole in the wall broadening like a vagina giving birth.

Shivering, he continued on down the hall. The story pursued him. It was terrible, but did that make it unmarketable? And if the events chronicled in
The Monkey Killer
were true, did that change anything?
 

He thought of the gravestone then, the scarring and the blood-red spray paint. WHORE. DEVIL. BURN IN HELL. Those epithets could only be intended for one person. If that grave belonged to Annabel, if the things he’d written last night were true, she deserved to be called those things and worse. Though Maria was the only person she’d physically murdered, she was responsible for seven others: the five children, McCabe, her own husband. And since she was alive at novel’s end, who else had she gone on to kill?
 

She was the true villain, and if
The Monkey Killer
revealed that to the world, who would protest? She was dead, her remaining relatives would not claim her, and who could blame them? For the first time Paul understood why his family never spoke of Myles, David, or the woman who’d married them both.

He’d make copies of the manuscript, send them out, and if they were rejected, what had he lost? But if some editor liked it, at least some good would come out of the tragedies. His bank account would get fatter, and everyone back home would know he was a published author. He thought of throwing the hardback version of
The Monkey Killer
at his father’s feet and laughing in his condescending face.

In the ballroom he poured himself a vodka to take the edge off. As the liquid slid down, a question wormed its way through his headache.

But he didn’t care to speculate about where his inspiration had come from or what had guided his hand, so he capped the vodka bottle, plucked his keys from the kitchen table and drove to town to research markets for his novel.