Slice (24 page)

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Authors: William Patterson

BOOK: Slice
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F
IFTY-THREE
“
I
appreciate you helping me tonight, Aunt Paulette,” Monica said, hauling a box of baskets out of her Range Rover and into the Sayer's Brook Community Center. “This is one of the biggest classes I've ever taught.”
“I'm glad the town is giving you this space to use,” the older woman replied, lugging another box herself.
“Giving?” Monica laughed bitterly. “I'm paying a pretty penny to use this room! But what choice do I have? Nobody wants to come out to Hickory Dell since Jessie's au pair was murdered in our backyard!”
“You know, Monica,” Aunt Paulette said, setting the box of baskets down on a large table around which were arranged about a hundred chairs, “I wish you didn't keep blaming Jessie for that poor girl's death. She was terribly distraught.”
“I don't blame Jessie for the death,” Monica replied, unpacking baskets and setting them up on the table. “I just knew that bad things would follow if Jessie came back to town. I wish she had stayed in New York.”
“Sweetie,” Aunt Paulette said, approaching her niece with a tentative smile, “I wish you girls could be friends like you used to be.”
Monica scowled. “We were never friends.”
“Well, I know Jessie could use a friend right now.”
“You know, it would be nice if someone—just once!—could be as worried about me as they are for Jessie.” Monica picked up an unfinished basket and tossed it against the wall. It exploded like a wicker bomb, ribbons flying everywhere.
“Sweetie, sweetie!” Aunt Paulette attempted to take Monica in her arms, but her niece pushed her away. “I
do
worry about you! I worry whether you're happy, whether you and Todd are getting along—”
“Todd?” Monica snapped her head around to glare at her aunt. “Why do you bring up Todd? What does he have to do with this?”
“I've just noticed how the two of you seem so . . . distant.”
“We're not distant,” Monica replied curtly, defensively, gathering up the broken bands of wicker.
“Well, I do worry,” Aunt Paulette said.
“Stop worrying then.” Monica sighed. “Come on. There are still a few more boxes in the car.”
They filed back out onto the street. The night was dark, and the streetlamp on this corner was burned out. Monica popped open the back door of the SUV with her remote control, and Aunt Paulette walked around the vehicle to grab a box. But as she did so, she realized there was a man standing behind the car. He scurried away as she approached.
Aunt Paulette stopped in her tracks as if she's been turned to stone.
“What's wrong?” Monica asked, coming up behind her.
“That man,” Aunt Paulette said, her words barely above a whisper.
“What man?”
“Didn't you see him?”
“I saw no one.” Monica was still in a bad mood. She didn't appreciate her aunt getting her all worked up about Jessie right before a class. How would she be able to concentrate on teaching all these annoying ladies how to thread wicker? “Come on, Aunt Paulette, take one of these boxes, please. We don't have a lot of time.”
But the older woman didn't move. “That man,” she said dreamily. “You must have seen him.”
“There was no man standing here, Aunt Paulette.”
“There
was
!” She grabbed Monica's arm. “I saw him! It was the tall, dark man!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know who he is now!”
“Let go of me!” Monica shrieked. Aunt Paulette's fingers were digging into her wrist.
“It was Emil! It was him! It was Emil!”
“There was no man here, Aunt Paulette.” Monica was beyond annoyed. She was pissed. “It's just another one of your crazy visions. Now let go of my arm!”
Aunt Paulette complied.
“Really,” Monica said, taking hold of a box and lifting it out of the car, “maybe it's time you should see a shrink. These visions you have . . . they're crazy, Aunt Paulette.”
The older woman just stood there, staring off into the dark.
“If you're not going to help me, at least get out of the way,” Monica grumbled. She pushed past her aunt, carrying the box toward the community center.
“It was Emil,” Aunt Paulette whispered to herself. “But Emil's dead.”
She stared off into the dark.
“Maybe that doesn't matter,” she said out loud, talking to herself. “Maybe he still has come back!” She looked over at Monica. “I've got to call Jessie. I've got to warn her!”
Monica just rolled her eyes.
F
IFTY-FOUR
J
essie looked up into the eyes of the man who held her by the wrist.
It was Bryan Pierce.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she seethed.
“I gotchta talk to you, Jeshaloo-loo,” Bryan said, his words slurring together. He reeked of whisky. He wasn't just a little drunk. He was full-blown intoxicated.
“Let go of me,” Jessie said in a low voice.
“Please, Jeshaloo, we gotchta talk,” he mumbled.
From inside the house, Jessie could hear her phone ringing.
“Let me go, Bryan,” she said. “I've got to answer the phone. And Abby is upstairs! Let me go!”
He paid no mind to her pleas. Instead he pulled her in close to him and placed his rank mouth over hers.
“No!” Jessie tried to scream.
She felt his nasty tongue intrude into her mouth. She bit down on it, hard. Bryan let out a yelp, and stepped backward, releasing his grip on her. Jessie quickly bolted into the house, locking the door behind her.
Bryan was banging on the glass. “Jeshaloo, I luff you! I need you! Doncha unnerstand? I luff you! Goddamn it, Jeshaloo! I want you!”
Jessie could hear the anger in his voice. Bryan was a dangerous man. He was walking along the front porch, banging on the windows. If he got inside—
Jessie looked around. She had just opened the fireplace flue, in anticipation of chilly autumn evenings. She'd also brought up the andirons and pokers from the basement, looking forward to the first fire of the winter. Jessie grabbed one of the iron pokers now. If Bryan got in here somehow, she'd use it to defend herself.
“Jesheeee!”
He was rattling the doorknob now. Jessie thought about calling the police. But she didn't want to bring their red flashing lights out to Hickory Dell again if she could avoid it. She couldn't bear being asked one more question by that insinuating Detective Wolfowitz.
“Bryan, go home!” she called out to him. “If you don't leave, I'm going to call Heather! Go now before you make this even worse!”
“Fuck Heather!” he shouted. “I want you! And I'm gonna have you!”
Suddenly his fist came smashing through the glass of the front door. Jessie saw his bloody hand reach down to grab the knob. She raised the fireplace poker and began slamming it down onto his fingers. Bryan shouted in pain and pulled his hand back.
For a second there was silence.
Then came a terrible smashing sound. The old wooden rocking chair that had sat on the front porch for decades suddenly came crashing through the window. Glass sprayed everywhere. Jessie saw Bryan's face looking in from the darkness outside.
She raised the poker over her head.
F
IFTY-FIVE
“
I
tell you, Arthur, I saw them kiss!” Gert Gorin was shrieking. “Right there on her front porch!”
Gert had the binoculars pressed up against the picture window again. This was the kind of drama she dreamed of seeing. Usually she'd only caught Bryan skulking in the bushes. But now there he was, with Jessie in his arms, making out for the whole world to see. Gert was in her glory.
Yet it was getting even better.
“Now they're arguing,” she reported to her husband, giving him a blow-by-blow of the events taking place across the street, even though Arthur said nothing, just kept his eyes on the television set. “She's pushed him away! She's gone inside and slammed the door on his face! He's banging on the door, wanting to be let in!”
Oh, just
wait
until she phoned Rose O'Connell and told her about this!
“Oh my God, Arthur, now he's really getting angry! I can even hear him! I think he's drunk!”
It just kept getting better and better.
“He's smashing the door down! Oh my God, Arthur,
he's smashing the door down!
”
“Maybe we ought to call the cops,” Arthur finally responded, turning away from the television.
“Not yet! Oh my God, not yet! Arthur! Now he's smashing windows!”
Arthur hadn't seen his wife look like this since the last time he'd watched her having an orgasm. And that was a very, very long time ago indeed.
F
IFTY-SIX
J
essie steadied her grip on the poker, ready to bring it down on Bryan's head the moment he stepped through the window.
She watched as one leg began to move inside.
But suddenly Bryan stopped. She heard him shout. His leg disappeared from the window. Jessie heard the sounds of a scuffle on the porch.
John Manning was there. He must have seen or heard the commotion from his house and rushed over. Jessie watched as John grabbed hold of Bryan and pushed him backward. Bryan tumbled but—surprisingly for someone so drunk—managed to keep his balance. He came charging back at John like a furious bull.
“Forget it,” John said, stopping Bryan's assault by grabbing his shoulders and giving him another shove, this time right down the steps of the front porch.
Bryan lay on the ground, looking up as if dazed.
“You'd better get up,” John told him, “and run as fast as your pathetic little legs will take you.”
Bryan did as he was told. Within seconds he had disappeared into the darkness.
Inside the house, Jessie dropped the poker and opened the door. Without exchanging any words, she and John embraced. Wrapped in his arms, Jessie could hear and feel how fast her own heart was beating.
“You should call the police,” John told her.
“No,” she said. “I can't. It would just bring more scandal.”
“That man was going to rape you.”
Jessie gently moved out of John's embrace. “Monica is already not speaking to me because I've brought too much scandal since coming back here.”
“You didn't bring any scandal!” John insisted. “You're not to blame for what happened to Inga or Mrs. Whitman. And you're certainly not to blame for what just happened here tonight! That man needs to be arrested!”
“I know,” Jessie said, but her voice wasn't convincing.
“At the very least, he needs to pay for this damage,” John said.
“I'm going to call Heather,” Jessie said. “I'm going to tell her what happened, and that I have you as a witness. Can I do that?”
There was only the slightest hesitation coming from John, and Jessie remembered the scene between him and Heather outside his house. But then he said, “Of course you can. And I'm happy to corroborate your account to the police.”
“The police can wait. Bryan has two kids. I don't want to hurt them.”
John frowned. “Somehow I'm not sure devil spawn
can
be hurt.”
Despite everything that had happened, Jessie managed a smile. She knew Ashton and Piper were decidedly unpleasant children. But they were children nonetheless, and having their father arrested for attempted rape would devastate them.
“I've got to check on Abby,” Jessie said.
Indeed, when she turned around, her daughter was sitting at the top of the stairs. How much had she seen?
“It's okay, baby,” Jessie said, rushing up to embrace her.
“That man broke our door and our window,” Abby said.
“It's okay,” Jessie told her. “We can get them fixed.”
“And he's gone away,” John said from the bottom of the stairs. “You can be sure of that.”
Abby looked at him but said nothing. Then she moved her round little blue eyes back to her mother.
“Mommy,” she said. “Why didn't you tell me that Aaron came by?”
Jessie was caught short, and didn't know how to reply right away. “I guess you saw me from the window, talking with him earlier?”
Abby said nothing.
“I'm sorry, sweetie,” Jessie said finally. “I just hadn't had a chance. All of this happened. . . .”
“It's okay, Mommy,” Abby said. She stood and walked back to her bedroom.
Jessie watched her. She had the distinct impression Abby hadn't seen her talking with Aaron. She knew that the boy had been here some other way. And that unnerved Jessie even more than the ordeal with Bryan.
F
IFTY-SEVEN
T
his had gone far beyond Gert's wildest hopes.
“I tell you, Arthur,” she said, standing between her husband and the television, “that woman is carrying on affairs with
both
Bryan Pierce and John Manning! She made out with both of them on her front porch! And then the two of them fought over her, and Manning won!”
Arthur sighed. “Gert, would you move, please? The bases are loaded!”
Gert's eyes were wild. “I just wonder if
Heather
knows. Because you know, Heather is sleeping with Manning, too. I wonder if it's one of those Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice situations.”
Her husband just groaned.
“It was a wicked fight!” Gert exulted.
Watching them had been the most fun she'd had in years.
She hurried off to call Rose O'Connell, much to Arthur's relief.

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