Spawn of Hell (14 page)

Anna couldn’t sleep, no matter what; not even a tranquilizer did the trick. Thoughts of Jeffrey kept coming into her mind. Thoughts of growing up with him, playing with him. Wondering where he was all the time after he had left home. Those cards and letters and birthday gifts sent in the mail. His sad eyes. It all came back and kept coming back and it seemed as if hours were going by.

She slept intermittently. Finally she saw the light coming in through the window, checked the clock, and discovered it was six a.m. For a second she wondered where David was—she had planned for him to sleep over —then realized that he had not spent the night, and worse, realized
why
he had not. Thoughts of Jeffrey came back to her again, leaving her hollowed and desolate with despair. Now that her marriage was breaking up, she had subconsciously been thinking more and more about her brother, her closest relative. He had always been there, a comforting presence, only a phone-call away. Someone to talk to. Now there really was no one she could talk to. Except maybe David.

She thought about David again, wishing he had been with her all night. Her fingers strayed down between her legs, and she imagined him beside her, inside her, all over her, kissing her neck, as he had done the first and only time, kissing her mouth, her face, his hands in her hair. She groaned aloud with pleasure, feeling his presence by proxy. She felt herself follow the twisting paths of her imaginary erotic journey until she reached its obvious conclusion.

She relaxed and thought about David in less sexual terms. Was he someone she could count on? She knew nothing about him. Last night in the living room he had been warm, comforting. Did that make him special? Was she maximizing his strengths and minimizing his weaknesses because she feared being alone, feared the loneliness her life might be plunged into once her breakup with Derek was finalized?
Loneliness can kill,
she remembered saying. But wasn’t it preferable to plunging into another pointless relationship? Another Derek she didn’t need. Although David was nothing like Derek, who knows what hidden flaws he might have.

Besides, it wasn’t 1950 anymore. A woman didn’t have to run from one man to another, as if she were somehow incomplete all by herself. She could go it on her own if she had to. There was no need to rush into anything.

Derek wasn’t going to be back until the evening, if then. She wondered for a second how she could have been so bold, actually planning to screw another man in their very bedroom. What if Derek had come back early? Would it have made any difference? Would she have been glad to see the surprised look on his face? How
would
he have reacted?

That almost brought a smile to her lips. She got up out of bed, put on a bathrobe, and went down to have some breakfast. She put a pot of coffee on the stove. Clara was still sleeping; there was no reason to disturb her.

She was trying very hard not to dwell on Jeffrey’s death. The Police Chief had said he would call today if they had any new information, new details. She was in part dreading the call. Details? What kind of details could there be to what was apparently some sort of horrible, tragic accident? She couldn’t bare details.
Bad enough, to know someone you loved had died in, say, an auto crash, without finding out how many pieces they’d been left in.
Although she had no reason to think that anything quite
that
awful had happened to her brother.

She remembered that the police chief had said something about the body being held for study beyond the initial autopsy. What were they doing to it?
Putting it together?
Stop that, she thought. Stop being more morbid than you have to be. He
only
fell through a hole.

And then what?

The coffee was ready. She drank the strong and tasty brew slowly, not sure if she
wanted
it to clear away the cobwebs, to perk her up and help her to face the unfaceable.

Perhaps oblivion was better.

So far this had been a very eventful week for David. First, he had gotten out of the hospital, then he’d run into George (or his clone), then he’d met and made love to
the
Anna Braddon, and now he was on his way to an interview with an art director at a prestigious greeting-card firm. Everything was so upbeat too, except for his encounter with George; and, of course, the news of Jeffrey Braddon’s death. For the first time in a long time David felt like things might be swinging his way. It was a fabulous feeling.

He had had a good night’s sleep and gotten up extra early. He put together what he hoped was an impressive portfolio, and went to the Post Office to cash the money order his father had sent. Then he took the subway to work.

He went straight to the ninth floor, bypassing the one with the stoned young lady and the kid with the radio stuck on his ear. He went down the hall and turned into the art department. The receptionist had not yet arrived. He sat down on the small sofa across from her desk and waited.

A few minutes later he heard the sharp
click click
of high heels and the woman he was waiting for rounded the corner. She was wearing an attractive blue dress that matched the color of her eyes. Her hair was short, but full and bouncy. David figured that she was around thirty-seven. He hadn’t noticed much about her yesterday, he’d been so glad she had even deigned to speak with him.

Ms. Morrison took pity on him again and escorted him into her office. She took a canister of coffee out of a paper bag and sat down behind her desk. David opened up his case and removed the sketches. He realized that he was shaking a little, and he felt as if the temperature in there had risen to ninety degrees. Why did he have to get anxiety symptoms now, when he had been so calm and cool beforehand?

She was wonderful. She made him feel right at home, and showed genuine interest in his work. She particularly liked his drawings of cute little animals. He knew they’d look good on greeting cards. “You’re very talented,” she said.

She completely forgot about her coffee, concentrating instead on his assorted designs, done in ink or charcoal, on all kinds of backings, some in colored pastels, some black and white. “Yes, yes,” she said, nodding her head. “This is good stuff.” She looked up at him. “I like your work.”

He sat down, wondering when the bubble would burst. Things were always most encouraging just before the final letdown.

But she did not let him down. “Look, we haven’t any openings in our department this minute, but we will have in a month or so. Maybe two months. One of our senior designers is retiring this summer, definitely by September. We’ll need extra help then. Would you be interested? “

He stammered. “W—would I? You bet.”

“In the meantime, I could give you some free-lance assignments. We simply don’t need a full-timer just yet —although we will—but we do need extra work done from time to time.”

“That’s okay with me.”

“Good. You’ll have to fill out some forms. Didn’t you say you were working here already?”

“Temporarily—through an agency. But not anymore.” He had just blurted it out. There was no way he could descend to the depths of clerical work now that he’d found a creative niche of sorts. He’d think of another way of surviving until September, at the latest, if the free-lance stuff didn’t pay well enough, or if there wasn’t enough of it.

“Well, come with me to personnel, and let’s fill out some forms. Then we’ll come back here and I’ll give you some things to try out.

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I think you’ll do nicely.”

David beamed.

The Milbourne Police Chief had not yet called. Clara was busy fixing a delicious Spanish supper that she hoped might help to cheer up her employer. And Derek walked in at quarter of six, briefcase in hand, looking tense and, as usual, gorgeous in spite of it.

“What a fucking day this has been?” He threw his case onto the couch and went straight to the bar to fix himself a drink. “Can I make you one, Anna?”

She sat in a chair by the window, flipping through a fashion magazine. She had been home most of the day, except in the afternoon, when she’d taken a walk around the block. She had canceled the two appointments she’d had. “No, thank you,” she replied. “Didn’t things go well today?”

“I suppose so. It was just hectic, that’s all. How about your day? You look awful, if I may be so blunt.”

“You always are. I got bad news last night. My brother was killed.”

Anna found herself still in the habit of making excuses for Derek. He did his best to look disturbed, but he had never met Jeffrey, and Anna probably looked so distant, so untouchable, that he couldn’t summon up enough energy to show concern. “Oh, Anna. That’s too bad. How did it happen?”

She told him what she knew. “I’ve been waiting for the police to call, but. . .”

“Forget about waiting,” Derek said. “Let me give this joker a ring right now.” He headed towards the phone on the corner table.

Anna hated herself the most at times like this. She hated—yet loved—the way Derek (in fact everyone she knew, except herself) could instantly take charge of a situation, could in fact, take charge of
her life,
just like that, and do a better job than she would have. She’d been pampered and petted all her life, dressed in glamorous outfits, sculptured with cosmetics, told which lines to say and how to look and how to walk. She had taken on the role of mindless sex object gladly, anything to escape the drab existence of her youth, anything to ensure that she’d never have to live a life that didn’t suit her. What a price she had paid. With a few drinks she could maneuver a man into bed, but she couldn’t even make arrangements for her brother’s burial. She was glad Derek would do it for her, although she wished that he wouldn’t have had to bother with it. She wished she was stronger.

Derek got much more information than Anna had. Apparently the man in the police station gave her husband some of the grisly details about the condition of Jeffrey’s body that he would never have given her. Before he was through, Derek had finished one martini and was motioning Anna to make him another: a double. Anna tried to decipher what he and the other person were talking about, but all she got from Derek’s end were grunts and monosyllables and a troubled expression. When he finally hung up the phone, she handed him his drink, and clutched his shoulder with her tapering fingers. “What did he say?” “Uh, the Chief of Police wasn’t there, so I spoke to someone else.”

“Yes?” She nodded impatiently while he took a healthy swallow from the cocktail glass.

“It isn’t pleasant, Anna.”

“I didn’t think it would be.”

“Ann, he’s dead. There’s no need to go into all this.”

“I can handle it, Derek. He’s my brother. I’ve got to know what really happened.”

“Anna, are you sure? Sure you can handle it?”

“Tell me, Derek. Please.”

“All right.” He went over to the couch and sat down, then patted the cushion on his right. Anna came and sat beside him. “Well?” she said.

“He wasn’t killed by the fall, assuming he really did fall through the floor in the store’s cellar. They accidentally found him down below after another employee had fallen through. His body had . . . deteriorated. Anna, they think he was killed by some sort of animal or something. Nobody knows for sure. They’re still investigating. His death is a bonafide mystery.”

“Animals? What kind of animals? What did they do to him?”

“They’d been—they’d been
at
him. Maybe it was rats.”

Anna grimaced and turned away, her hand to her mouth. “God. God. God.”

“Now they didn’t say it was rats. Something else may have happened. They just don’t know yet. But they have to keep looking over the body for some clues. They’re afraid what happened to Jeffrey might happen to others.”

“What
happened to him? What are they doing to him? Dissecting him, studying him like he was some piece of meat. They can’t do that to his body, I won’t let them.”

Derek appeared to be afraid that she was going to get hysterical. Perhaps he figured a good shock might serve to stun her into silence. “Anna, there wasn’t much left of him to begin with.”

It worked. She got up, and walked slowly to the window, muttering over and over again: “I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.” Her fingers went into her mouth and she started chewing them nervously, all thought of her lacquered nails forgotten. “Oh, Derek, I’ve got to go up there and speak to someone. I have to know what happened.”

“After what I’ve just told you, why would you want to know more? It happens, Anna. Bodies lie around in dark places for days and something happens to them. That’s all there is to it. I can’t understand why there’s such a mystery about it myself. Look, if you’re that interested why not call them back after dinner?”

“Dinner? I don’t want dinner. I want to find out what happened to my brother.”

“The Chief of Police will be back around eight p.m. the guy said. Why not give him a call? Look, if you want Jeffrey buried immediately you can have it done. They probably can’t keep his body a day longer if you don’t want them to. But what if it’s important? You
do
want to know why he died, don’t you? “

“Why did they tell you all that stuff, and not me? Did they think I couldn’t take it because I’m a woman?”

“Because you’re his
sister.
They don’t give out details like that the same time you’re notified of someone’s death; and they don’t give details to someone quite so close to the deceased.”

The deceased. Jeffrey wasn’t a person anymore. He was something to be studied. An enigmatic corpse.

“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone,” Anna said. “I want to go to Milbourne to find out what this is all about. I’ll drive up there tomorrow. Will you come with me?”

“Anna, really. Let the experts handle this. They said they’d call us when they had more information.”

“I don’t care about experts. I want to find out what happened to my brother once and for all. I’m not going to go to pieces over this. I’m not. I can do that much for him, at least.”