Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 01 - The Trouble With Charlie (6 page)

“No, Susan. Don’t dismiss us. After my grandpa died, my grandmother continued to see him all over their house for years. She talked to him, held conversations, even argued with him.”

“But, Becky,” I insisted, “this wasn’t just wishful thinking. It was real.”

“So was that.”

“Becky’s right,” Jen’s mouth was full of bread. “Stuff like that happens.”

“Oh, please.” Susan shook her head.

“It’s funny that we’ve never talked about this stuff before,” Jen went on, ignoring Susan. “But when my dad died—I mean the moment he died,” her eyes got big, “I was seven hundred miles away at college, but I suddenly got the worst headache of my life. And my arms got heavy and stiff, almost paralyzed.”

Like mine had when Charlie died?

“So I went to lie down, dozed off, and dreamed that my dad
flew away. Just jumped off the sidewalk into the sky, like a bird without wings. What was that? Why did my body get weak just when he died? Why did I dream of him leaving the earth? I’ll tell you why: life energy. A loss of life energy.”

Susan snorted. “Hocus pocus, Dominocus.”

“Shut the F up, Susan.” Jen’s eyes glowed.

“But it’s hooey—”

“Hell if it is. Life energy connects us with the people we love. When a loved one dies, we lose energy. That’s what gave me a headache and made my arms weak. And that’s what happened to Elle last night. She lost Charlie’s life energy. And some of it must have lingered around her even after he died.”

Susan laughed out loud. “Jen, that’s pure crap.”

“But it wasn’t just energy, Jen.” I needed to explain. “Charlie called my name. He said, ‘Elle,’ just as loud and clear as my voice now.” The kiss on the back of my neck had been physical, and his voice real enough to make me drop my plate. “It was not just a loss of energy. There was more.”

“So, if he could say your name,” Susan dumped sugar over the berries, set the pot on the stove, “why didn’t he mention who killed him?”

Susan relied on visible, tangible evidence. Her career was about concrete facts. If you couldn’t prove it, it didn’t exist for her. But at that moment, I needed her to believe me. “Susan, I’m serious. There was a rose in the house. Charlie moved it. He took it from the front door to the kitchen, then up to my bedroom.”

“God, Elle.” Susan closed her eyes. “All of you. Get a grip.” She turned down the burner and sat beside me. “Elle, someone you loved has suddenly died.” She spoke with authority, as if she were some kind of sudden-death expert. “It’s understandable. There’s nothing supernatural going on here. You don’t want to accept the death. So part of your mind refuses the facts. It fights them by keeping Charlie alive and—”

“Susan. I did not imagine this—”

“No. No, you didn’t imagine it. You hallucinated it. There’s a difference. Hallucinations seem real.”

I opened my mouth to argue. Closed it. Realized there was no point.

“So, Susan, what about this?” Jen wasn’t giving up. She crossed her elbows on the table. “I swear, this is the truth. My mother’s uncle always kept his shoes beside his closet door. After his stroke, he was bedridden, so his wife put the shoes inside the closet. When he was dying, my great aunt and their kids were standing around his bed, saying goodbye when, suddenly, there was a thump. They turned and, guess what? His shoes were right back where he kept them. Beside the closet door. That was no hallucination. It was him, his energy saying he’d crossed over.”

Susan groaned. Wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “Jen, I had no idea you were so—”

“So what?”

Susan scowled. “I don’t know. La-la? Delusional?”

“Fine. You don’t believe it? I’ve got another one.” Jen’s voice lowered as she told us how her mother’s friend’s niece had died a few years earlier in a car accident just before her sixteenth birthday. Every year since, on the birthday, the woman makes a cake, lights the candles, and the girl’s spirit comes by and blows them out. “I’m dead serious. It’s the girl’s energy,” Jen said. “It remains with the mother.”

“Bull,” Susan disagreed. “If it’s anything other than a tacky ghost story, it’s the mother’s own energy. She wants her daughter to be there so badly that she creates the situation. Not consciously, maybe. But she does it herself.”

“Either way.” Jen sat up, arms crossed like a petite blonde guru. “It’s still energy. Linking us. You don’t have to be dead, either. Like my friends Luke and Riley—you met them, Becky—at the shore.”

Becky had been oddly quiet, but she nodded. “The twins?”

“Right. Twins. One was in a ski accident in Jackson Hole one winter. At the very moment he broke his femur, his twin had terrible leg pains and couldn’t walk. It’s the same thing. Life energy. It links us.”

For a few beats, nobody said anything. Becky shifted in her chair, looked from Susan to Jen. “Does anybody but me think Elle should talk to a priest?”

I wasn’t Catholic; Becky knew that.

“A priest?” I was baffled.

“Just because this thing smells and sounds like Charlie, doesn’t mean it actually is—”

“Becky, stop.” Susan rolled her eyes, half laughing. Not joking. “I mean it. Stop.”

Becky sat up, petulant. “Why should I—”

“I see where you’re going, and it’s absurd. What are you saying, that Elle’s got a loose demon in her house and needs a priest to do an exorcism?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Even Jen didn’t get that wacko.”

Now Jen was in it. She and Becky both went after Susan. “Excuse me? Just because you don’t agree with me doesn’t mean—”

“I was just making a suggestion.”

“That I’m wacko. And who said you’re the one to judge.”

“Neither one of you is helping Elle.”

“I just thought she should talk to someone with more experience.”

“Or to decide what is or isn’t true?”

“EVERYBODY STOP.” It was my voice, bellowing.

They did. The bickering stopped, and they sat suddenly quiet, although disgruntled.

“I know you want to help. Just, please don’t fight.”

Nods. Shrugs. Agreements. And then Jen went back to presenting
more stories. People reacting to a shift in energy when loved ones were endangered, injured, or killed. People sensing the energy of those they’d lost. And Susan continued to debunk the stories as wishful thinking or perceptual phenomena involving the subconscious mind. Reminding everyone that, no offense, but I was distracted and forgetful even under normal circumstances, that the shock might have made me even more so. No matter their reasons, they both made it sound completely normal that I’d sensed Charlie around me. And completely impossible that he actually had been.

There was no point trying to convince them. They hadn’t been there, couldn’t grasp it any better than I could.

Finally, Jen and Becky left around one thirty. Susan’s blueberry pie was out of the oven, cooling, and she was folding her third or fourth load of laundry, talking to some opposing counsel on the phone. I went to the spare bedroom and lay down on the floral comforter.

I wasn’t sure I could fall asleep, but behind closed doors, away from cops and friends, at least I was alone and finally would have a chance to cry.

The next days passed in a haze dotted with more press coverage, police and legal interviews, muddled memories, and fleeting moments of clarity when I grasped unacceptable facts. Charlie was dead. He had been murdered. The murder had been committed in my house. And, at least partly because of the cut on my hand, the police suspected me.

At some point, it occurred to me that the killer might still have been in the house when I’d come home. That the killer, not Charlie, might have kissed my neck, called my name, moved the rose. Played with my mind. I began to doubt my own perceptions of that night. Questioned my memories. Slipped back into my protective haze, watching life from a safe distance. As time passed, I wasn’t sure anymore what I’d seen or heard. Probably
Susan was right; my mind had been playing tricks. Probably I was jumbling events and distorting impressions because I wasn’t able to absorb or bear the truth.

By Saturday, the police had finished examining the crime scene. I could go home. But I was in no hurry. In fact, I dreaded going home. Charlie’s blood would be on the sofa. It would have dried, darkened. Might look black. And the drinks I’d poured would still be there, the ice melted. Water marks on the cabinet.

But it wasn’t just the study. I dreaded the kitchen, too. The lingering odor of spilled dressing. The pieces of lettuce or cheese drying out, rotting in the sink.

And the whole house might smell of death. Or of Old Spice. Either way.

So, I remained in exile from my home. Exile seemed better than confronting the mess of Charlie’s murder. For two days after the crime scene was cleared, I stayed at Susan’s. I would have stayed longer, but the fact was that by Monday, I couldn’t take another day in her house.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids—I taught seven-year-olds, for God’s sakes. And Charlie and I had been trying to get pregnant when we’d fallen apart. In theory, I still hoped to be a mom someday. But, honestly, I didn’t know how Susan could stand it. Her husband, Tim, was almost never around, traveled for business. And her home was in constant uproar. Noise. Clutter. Thundering, bellowing commotion. Three girls bickering, shouting and whining, their music and the television blaring nonstop.

After three days, I needed to escape. So, despite Susan’s generosity and hospitality, and regardless of her concerns about me going back to the place where Charlie had been murdered, I insisted on going home. I craved stillness and quiet. Needed privacy and space.

Even so, I felt uneasy. The police and crime-scene crew would have gone through everything. The place would be a disaster.

Charlie’s blood would still be on the sofa.

And who knew where the rose would be.

In the end, I had to go. I had no choice. Monday morning, I told Susan I’d be leaving. She didn’t argue. Merely commented that she thought I should wait a little while so she could go with me. “You shouldn’t go back there alone.”

In truth, having company made it easier. Susan took the top down on her BMW. The sky was clear, the weather warm. Optimistic. When we pulled up, I understood why Susan had asked me to wait. She’d needed time to rally Jen and Becky, who were on the porch, waving. Welcoming me home.

Bolstered by friends, I unlocked the door and stepped inside, tentatively sniffing, anticipating the smell of rotting flesh or Old Spice. Sensing neither, just the fresh scent of pine. Pine? As in cleaner? I was puzzled, but said nothing. Becky watched me, smiling slyly. Jen led the way.

“Come on, Elle.” Jen hurried to the back of the house. Straight to the study. Why? Did she want me to face the blood right away? Why was she grinning?

I followed slowly. Passed the living room. Wait. Something was different in there. And the kitchen. When had I done the dishes? Picked up the salad? Cleared the countertops? I had no memory of cleaning, must really have been in a daze.

Jen and Becky rushed into the study. Susan stayed behind me, her hand on my back. Pressing me on.

At the study door, I stopped, remembering Charlie, the slackness of his jaw. The knife in his back. I wasn’t ready, didn’t want to go in.

“Dammit, Elle.” Susan shoved me forward. “Move.”

So I did, slowly. Cautiously. And became confused. The room smelled fresh, faintly of leather and chemicals. In a moment, I realized why: There was a new carpet. Cream-colored. And a new chocolate-brown upholstered sofa where the bloodied old gray one had been.

Three faces grinned at me, expectant and proud.

“Susan’s housekeeper came and worked all day yesterday—”

“And Jen got the couch. And there were stains on the carpet, so we pitched in—”

“You did this? So fast?”

They had.

I didn’t know what to say. How to thank them.

“She’s FBA.” I knew that one: Fucking Blown Away. And Jen was right, I was. I remember hugs and tears. I remember flopping onto the sofa, taking my shoes off to feel the thick soft rug. I remember going to the bar, pouring drinks, ordering pizza, and laughing too much and too loud. And sometime in the middle of the raucous sisterly bonding, I remember Elvis singing, “We’re caught in a trap—” and picking up my phone.

Charlie’s body was ready for release. I was listed as next of kin, and the coroner’s office wanted to know when I would have a funeral parlor pick it up.