The Winter Girl (12 page)

He would pay, somehow. I told Carmelita to roll her sleeve back, just to show me the burns. She hesitated, but then she let me see her forearm and I stood over it, camera pressed to my face like some kind of evidence technician. She stood up, and as I was checking the photo of the arm, she unzipped her sweatshirt, then crossed her arms and pulled off her shirt.

I stood there for a moment, first stunned that she was half naked, and then sickened by the precise blue and dull orange bite marks around her small breasts, as if some insane suckling child had tried to tear away her dark nipples. Near her waist, there were three more distinct bites, one so deep that it had completely discolored the skin near her left hip, turning it black. I imagined her sitting in a chair, screaming, the rattling sound the chair's thin ivory legs made on the floor as he sank his yellow incisors into her.

I crouched and took photographs as she turned, bracing myself as she showed me her back, but surprisingly the skin was unbroken, except for the loose collar of bruises around her neck. I moved closer and focused on the skin there, the semicircles left by his fingers.

“Show's over, mister,” she said in a fake childish voice, smiling as she pulled the shirt back over her shoulders and zipped up the sweatshirt. She didn't sit back down on the couch. I had the distinct impression she wanted me to leave.

“I'll get you some more money,” I said. “Or at least I'll try.”

“Give him a kiss for me,” she said, turning her back to me. She reached for the banister, and I watched her soundlessly climb up the staircase and disappear into one of the bedrooms.

“I'm leaving,” I said, but I just stood there for a few more minutes, wondering if she screamed or held it all in as he went at it.

“Any good shots?” Elise said, folding a pair of Victor's gray sweatpants as she did laundry upstairs. She chucked them in a plastic basket and slammed the dryer door closed.

“Just the usual,” I said, standing in the doorway and watching her. I was weighing how I should tell her about Carmelita. Then Elise slammed the stubborn door of the dryer as it drifted open again, and I thought there might be a better time.

“He made Sandra sing,” she said, brushing past me with the basket and walking downstairs. I followed her. “Some lilting Polish lullaby. Now she's making him goulash or something.”

As I trailed Elise downstairs to Victor's bedroom, I could smell the onions being sautéed and Sandra still humming to herself in the kitchen. Elise pushed the door open and marched into the room with the laundry basket, ignoring her father. He was sitting upright in bed, wearing an olive-colored shirt with one quilted shoulder. It was part of an old hunting outfit.

“Going to shoot some quail?” I said, sitting on the empty twin bed.

“It's all that was left in the drawer,” he said tersely. “Before this one had the bright idea to actually lift a finger.”

This one,
my wife, opened a dresser drawer and chucked in his sweatpants, velour leisurewear, socks, and a pile of underwear.

“How are you feeling today, Victor?” I said. “You look like you have more energy.”

Any direct question from me always met with the same glittering stare. He considered me for a few seconds, trying to gauge whether I'd followed up on his tip from the night before.

Elise slammed the drawer, placed the laundry basket on top of the dresser, and left the room. I waited until I heard her asking Sandra something in the kitchen, and then I switched the camera on.

“I took some interesting shots today,” I said, standing up and crossing over to his bed. It was strange sitting down next to him. He seemed to have an intense reaction to my physical proximity, lifting up his legs until they formed a tent under the sheet and taking in a deep breath, as if he were about to swim a length underwater.

“You gave her the money?”

“Yeah,” I said, angling the camera toward him so that he could see the photograph I had selected. The one of Carmelita's bruised chest.

“I can't see anything in this light. What are you showing me?”

“People go to jail for this, Victor. It's called torture.”

“Finally,” he said, his thin blue lips rolling up until I could see his teeth. It was as if his mouth were being pulled back by invisible wires. “You have some purpose. Something to wake up for.”

He never really finished the sentence because my hand was around his neck. I wasn't going to strangle him, but it must have looked that way to Sandra. She was standing in the doorway with a small red tray in her thick arms. His goulash was ready.

“Scott!” she shouted at me, putting the tray down on the bed and grabbing at my arm, even though I was already letting go. Victor's spit covered my thumb. He was doing his best to look like I was completely psychotic, coughing and turning blue as I stood up again, the camera around my neck.

“It's all right, Sandra,” he said, cooing at her as if she were some loyal protective pet. “He's harmless, absolutely harmless. There's nothing to him.”

I glanced at him one more time before I left the room. In her rush to rearrange his contorted body, Sandra had knocked over his array of pill bottles. They rolled in all directions on the carpet, one thin container coming to a rest underneath the curtain, where I hoped it might always be forgotten. On the way out, unseen and harmless, I cleared my throat and spat in his steaming soup.

I could hear Sandra's thumping footsteps as she followed me out of the room. She shouted my name as I entered the kitchen, still filled with the cloying smell of the goulash. A pale lump of leftover macaroni sat in a colander next to the sink.

When I turned toward Sandra, her face was contorted and red. She picked away a strand of blond hair from her perspiring forehead. I felt sorry for her, of course, not the sadistic prick in the other room.

“You were killing him,” she spat out, keeping her distance from me.

“I lost my patience,” I said softly. “I was actually trying to help him sit up in bed. You know how difficult he can be.”

She didn't buy that. I could tell that much right away. I watched her turn toward the portable phone and immediately pictured her picking it up and dialing the police.

“I'd love some goulash,” I said, in a voice so plaintive it even surprised me. “I'm starving.”

Her back was still turned, and I could sense that she was still sizing me up. Was I a generally trustworthy person who'd just lost it? Would I have finished Victor off if she hadn't heard the commotion?

“Let him rest,” she ordered, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and then carefully folding it in half and then in quarters. “He's scared to death. I can see it in his face.”

I offered her an apology, and then even threw in another one as she left me alone in the kitchen.

“I feel awful,” I said loudly, to no one in particular.

A
t 3:00 p.m. that day, Elise was dressed for her job interview. Jacket, skirt, boots, hair pulled back in a tight bun.

“How do I look?” she said.

“Really sharp.”

“Mastic, here I come,” she said.

I opened the front door for her and we walked to the Volvo. I was just about to kiss her goodbye and wish her good luck when she went to pieces. I hugged her as her shoulders jiggled up and down, listening to her make a crying sound I had never heard before. It almost sounded like a long, prayerful moan.

“I don't want to work in Mastic,” she said, her words muffled against my chest, though I could feel the specific heat behind each one, puffing against my skin.

“Then don't,” I said. “Let's just kite checks. Steal his fucking money. Make him pay.”

This immediately cut off the moaning and bobbing. She pushed me away, and now in the draining afternoon light, I could see the inky river of mascara pooling around the corners of her eyes.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He's evil, Elise,” I said. “That's probably why he's not even dying. If he were a nice guy, he probably would have died two months ago.”

That was the moment she'd either slap me, defending the bastard, or forgive my outburst.

“I know he's evil,” she finally said. “I just thought it was going to be over. We'd get the house.”

“It could go on for months. You heard what the doctor said.”

Don't bet against him,
the doctor had said to us in private, after a quick house call the previous evening. Even without saying a word, Elise and I turned toward each other and knew our hearts were sinking.

“Well, there's no way out,” she said, opening the car door and climbing inside. “And maybe there's worse things than being an assistant speech therapist at a speech rehab center in Mastic.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to look convincing, because at that precise moment I was picturing a room full of moaning adults in an industrial park and Elise cheerily trying to make the best of it with her trusty color-coded flip cards. Pictures of bicycles and mice and flowers.
What vowel do you hear?

She slammed the door, waved at me, and gunned the accelerator, causing the crows that always sat in the pine tree above the driveway to reluctantly flap away, their surprisingly long wings barely beating at first.

A
s soon as Elise had been gone five minutes, I opened the door to Victor's study, which was directly above his bedroom downstairs. Elise and I, out of curiosity, had already tried to open the safe in the closet, and failed. Short of hiring a professional safecracker, we were left only with Victor's old business correspondence regarding the Hensu Knife. Considering it was a product that no one remembered, it was odd that he had kept photocopies of all the old print ads, and even a satchel full of VHS videotapes containing the knife's thirty-second spots.

I was pawing through the drawer of Victor's desk, searching for anything of value I could give to Carmelita, when I heard the muffled sound of singing downstairs. It was Sandra, cooing Victor his late-afternoon lullaby. I pictured his thin lips peacefully pressed together, his chalky hand squeezing Sandra's fleshy thigh again.

Meanwhile, I was left staring at the magnetic orifice of an old paperclip box. I shook it a couple of times and plucked out one paperclip, unbending it until it was the length of my index finger. Flicking it on the worn carpet, I began to close the drawer when I felt something underneath. In an instant, I was on my knees, tearing off the small manila envelope that he had taped there.

It contained a single brass key that had no marking except for the words
SOUTHINGTON, CONN.
on the edge. As I listened to Sandra continue her lilting song downstairs, I tore through Victor's closet again, but there was no hidden file cabinet or secret compartment. Just that safe, hidden behind the dry-cleaned jackets he'd probably never wear again.

Eventually, I told myself, I'd find the door or cabinet or shed that key unlocked, but for now I just stuffed it in my pocket and walked downstairs. I was so preoccupied by the key that I didn't even notice Sandra until I got to the bottom step.

She had her coat on and the portable phone was in her hand.

“What's wrong?” I said to her, ashamed that I was secretly hoping that Victor had taken a turn for the worse.

“Crumb cake!” she suddenly shouted at me with a forced smile, her eyes widening. It was like she was speaking to me in code.

“I don't understand,” I said, but the words were barely out of my mouth before I heard Victor bark another order from the room.

“Entenmann's!” he shouted.

“My husband is going to pick me up and drive me to the store,” Sandra said, keeping her distance from me. “You don't have to worry about a thing.”

“Sandra,” I said, suddenly hating her for indulging every one of his whims. “You don't have to do this. It's probably the medication talking.”

She snorted at that though, actually turned away derisively and waited outside the door for her husband to arrive, glancing through the glass and nervously watching me on the other side. I thought I should open the door and apologize for my loss of control with Victor, but I had the feeling it was a lost cause. Her husband pulled into the driveway a few moments later. He was one of those old-school guys who smoke a pack a day. Forehead as big as a concrete pillbox, and a military crew cut to match. The Buick was filled with trapped smoke and I could hear the strangled sound of some classic-rock song within, though he obediently turned down the radio as soon as Sandra climbed into the passenger seat. I could see Sandra shaking her head as they drove away. She was surely talking about my heartless comment about an ailing man's afternoon wish. I watched the car speed off and then I entered Victor's bedroom.

“I can make them do anything,” he said, as soon as I entered the room. “I could get Sandra to kill her husband. It would just take a little patience. You have to put a little thought into it.”

“She's getting you crumb cake, Victor,” I said. “Don't get too excited.”

But he was excited. His slender fingers clenched the top of the sheet that Sandra had lovingly pulled up to his chest, and then he yanked it down. The top of his blue pajamas was soaked with sweat, patches of the cotton turned bluer by the perspiration.

“I could teach you some things,” he said softly. “That I've wanted to share for years. But you're just like them. You want to be controlled.”

I could have nodded, or laughed, or come up with an insult of my own. But I had no interest in bonding with Victor. Seeing that, he stopped grinning and reached underneath the blanket. Somehow, he had prepared another envelope, though this one was thinner. He held it in his hand, waiting for me to take it.