Winter of frozen dreams (3 page)

The three-story edifice included Yosts Campus Store, a women's apparel shop, on the ground floor. Sunprint Gallery, a cozy cafe that featured cappuccino, linzertortes, and the art of local photographers, shared the second floor with a dentists office. The space above had been converted into small apartments leased primarily by students, as the U.W. campus lay half a block away. Barbara Hoffman waited in the stairwell for her morning ride, and before Davies could tap the horn she was in the front seat, awarding her boyfriend a perfunctory kiss.

They spoke little during the ride to EDS Federal.

"When are you going home for Christmas?" Davies asked as he parked in front of the office complex.

"Tomorrow, on the late afternoon bus."

"Do you want a lift to the bus station?"

"Thanks, but I can take a taxi."

"So will I see you before you leave?" he ventured timidly, his hand circling the steering wheel.

"I don't think so. There's lots to do, and I won't have any time. Call me a couple days after Christmas, okay?"

"Okay."

Barbara hopped out of the car, forestalling further conversation, and disappeared behind a revolving door.

The terse exchange led to a hellish day at work for Davies, filing film canisters, stacking spools of microfilm, battling wicked ruminations about his beloved Barbara. Davies fretted he was losing her affections. A week ago he'd discovered two cigarette butts stubbed out in a saucer on the kitchen counter in Barbaras apartment. She didn't smoke, and the story she'd devised was lame. Also, their time together had diminished. What had been visits once or twice a week had been pared to once every two weeks or less, and even then Barbara appeared nervous and distracted. In the spring, when Barbara had postponed their wedding, she'd reassured Davies that it was a delay, not a cancellation, and that they would indeed get married, though she shied away from announcing a definite date. This procrastination had caused the first crack in Daviess devotion. Now, again, he feared something was amiss.

The major decision of that evening was whether to eat at Pizza Hut or slip a Swanson's Hungry Man dinner into the oven. He bought a six-pack of Leinenkugel beer and chose the TV dinner. A phone call interrupted his meal. It was Barbara. Was he free, and did he still wish to visit her tonight?

Like smart game-show contestants, both knew the answer before the question was completed. Sure, he said, he could stop by in about an hour.

Because Barbara didn't want to sit at home, they drove out Park Street to Jerry's apartment and listened to music. The tension of that morning had evaporated. Barbara was complimentary, and her teasing lacked the venom it often contained.

At around 10:30 p.m. the couple returned to State Street. They nestled on the sofa and drank orange juice spiked with vodka for a nightcap. A candle flame and the blue haze of the twelve-inch TV screen were the only illumination. Johnny Carson provided the entertainment. Barbara curled in Daviess arms, docile, devoted, her long

chestnut hair forming a puddle in his lap, which his fingers stroked languorously.

Barbara dozed. Davies felt the rise and fall of her rib cage, felt her slender shoulders, felt the notches of her vertebrae against his thigh. The silly thoughts, the paranoia and pessimism of that morning, had vanished. Where had they gone? How was it such worrisome thoughts could be eradicated so swiftly, so thoroughly?

Davies didn't have answers, and he let the questions fade. He smiled at his fortune and wondered what he had done to deserve to feel this happy. Lying with Barbara, he experienced a bliss unlike anything else in his life. His meditations drifted to his older brother Bob, who had joined the navy. He remembered the stories Bob told him of exotic women in Pacific ports, and he thought of Bob lying next to an Oriental woman. He thought of Chuck Richardson, his only friend from boyhood, now married and with a daughter, lying next to his schoolteacher wife. Did they enjoy this sense of luck and happiness when they rested next to a woman? Was this serene satisfaction that Davies felt the core of things, the bond that held men and women together? Was it intimacy rather than lust, the yearning for closeness rather than sex, that compelled the genders to unite?

Davies wasn't adept at deciphering these tangled emotions, and he wasn't used to basking in such deep pleasure. It touched at something extraordinary. He didn't have the words to formulate what it was that stirred him so remarkably. All he could conclude was that a warm sensation permeated his bones and mellowed his head, and the jagged worries of the morning seemed a vague dream. His big toe poked the off button, and Johnny Carson dissolved.

lerry, wake up."

The candle's bright flickerings imbued Barbara's face

with a golden intensity. She hovered over Davies. Darkness swallowed everything else.

"Jerry, we have something serious to talk about. Wake up."

"What time is it?" he grumbled.

"Wake up, please." Barbara plied his neck with her fingers and repeated her plea.

"Okay, I'm awake," he sputtered.

"Jerry, listen carefully. A horrible thing has happened. When I came home from work yesterday, there was a body in my bathroom, a dead body. I got scared. I didn't know what to do. Youve got to help me get rid of it." The pupils of her eyes were huge, like brown bottle caps shining in the candlelight.

Davies blinked uncomprehendingly. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was 2:30 a.m., Christmas Eve morning. "Why don't we call the police?"

"We can't do that. How can I explain how a dead body got in my bathroom? I had nothing to do with it, but the cops won't believe that, and they'll try to implicate me. Jerry, I think people from the massage parlor, from Jan's, are behind this. They want to get me in deep trouble." Barbara bit her lower lip. "We have to get rid of it tonight, before anyone knows." Her fingers threaded Daviess fingers.

"How? People will see us."

"Everyone's gone. It's Christmas vacation. Go to the parking ramp and get your car and pull around back. I'll meet you there."

"Barbara . . ." His voice quavered. The apartment was still. Minutes passed.

"Goddamn, Jerry, my life has been messed up for too long. I'm finally pulling the pieces together, and now this. Its unbelievable. I had nothing to do with it. I don't even know who it is, but whoever it is, Jerry, his life is over and mine isn't. I can't be connected with the body."

The candle flared. Perspiration dampened Daviess armpits. His throat was dry.

Barbara again pleaded for his help.

Jerry sat up. 'Til go get the car/ 7

As instructed, Davies pulled the Chevy into the tiny lot behind 638 State Street and backed to a mound of snow near a green Dumpster. The single beam from a neighboring spotlight bathed the night in a bluish haze. Madison was cold, desolate, soundless at 4:00 a.m.

Barbara crouched over the mound, brushed away layers of snow until she struck the frozen bedsheets—white on white—that enshrouded the body.

The bundle was heavy. Barbara grunted as they tried to wedge the corpse into the trunk. A body, especially one buried in the snow for twenty-four hours, does not bend and fold like a lawn chair. After minutes of smacking around, they decided to cram the corpse into the car.

It didn't fit across the backseat, so they lowered the front passengers seat and maneuvered the body in on a diagonal. Thus Barbara was forced to ride in back with the covered head in her lap. Davies drove. The corpses toes protruded from under the sheet and nudged the dashboard clock, which didn't work.

The Chevy traversed the U.W/s sprawling campus, which, as Barbara had predicted, was abandoned. The route weaved past the red sandstone Science Hall, up the steep slope of Bascom Hill with its elm and oak trees sketching barren silhouettes, and onto Observatory Drive, with its panoramic view of Lake Mendota—twenty-six miles in circumference, frozen, cratered with ice and snow, a nocturnal lunar landscape—then down, past the tennis courts, now rectangles of snow, and behind the dormitories.

A silence and a stillness pervaded the night. Barbara proposed dumping the body out on Picnic Point, a finger of land that poked into Lake Mendota on the far west end of the campus, but when they idled at the gate she decided against the idea and commanded Davies to drive farther.

They passed through Shorewood Hills, an affluent village bordering the campus where a couple of the university professors that Barbara used to masturbate for fifty bucks a come shot now slept with their wives. No

one disturbed their journey.

The fear that oozed from Davies was palpable, yet Barbara remained unfazed by their mission. She calmly issued directions. They drove out Madison's west side, out University Avenue, to Mineral Point Road and beyond. The countryside was a blur of bleak fields, fences, trees. The Chevy cruised past horse stables, turned right, and then an alcove of maple trees appeared at a crest of a hill. Barbara told Davies to pull over and stop.

The hot air from the car heater had loosened the wrap of the linen. As the furtive pair dragged the corpse from the car, the crumpled bottom sheet lifted and slid off, exposing the dead man from the waist down.

Barbara observed a look of fear transmute into terror as Davies sighted the crotch. Without comment she deftly snatched the sheet and re-covered the body.

Because they were cold and frightened, they buried the body neither thoroughly nor deep. It was dropped into the snow and hastily covered by the labor of guilty hands. Barbara stuffed the bedsheets into a garbage bag. Davies drove the car back onto the road. Barbara obscured their tire tracks with a pine bough.

The ride back to Madison passed without conversation. They sat in their separate worlds, distracted by what had happened, by what might happen next. Davies felt queasy. His flesh itched; sweat trickled down his back. Barbara seemed absorbed in private thought.

As they neared State Street, Barbara told Davies to vacuum the car. He was to buy K2R cleaner and wipe down the backseat, the dashboard, the whole interior. Davies nodded.

"Go home and rest, Jerry. And remember, I'm your fiancee."

At 638 State Street Barbara got out and didn't look back. Davies drove home. Sleep eluded him. He did his best not to think. He cleaned the car as Barbara had insisted. In the evening he drove to Spring Green, for he'd planned to spend Christmas, as he had every year of his life, at home with his mother.

— 7 —

Ruth Davies immediately noticed her son's exhausted condition. Soup and tea were administered. Jerry warded off his mothers questions, admitting only to an upset stomach and dizziness.

The inside of the one-story shack was decorated with a wreath, assorted bows, a string of colored lights. There was no Christmas tree, and the only presents on the kitchen table were those Jerry had brought from Madison. Ruth read a letter she had received from her son Bob.

Jerry idolized his brother and never compared himself to Bob, for comparison was folly. Bob did what Jerry was incapable of doing. He'd been a member of River Valley High Schools only undefeated football team, a bulwark in a defense that had never been scored on. Jerry had been a second-string defensive back on a squad that matched River Valleys usual record for mediocrity. Bobs horizons extended far from home, while Jerry could get no farther from Spring Green than Madison. Bob boasted of his randy escapades, and Jerry had little to brag about. Barbara was the only woman he had kissed.

Ruth read the missive, interjecting her own opinions and asides so freely that Jerry couldn't distinguish what Bob had actually written and what were his mothers digressions. Jerry faded in and out of listening. The hours became elastic, each one stretching, snapping, popping to the next. When Ruth retired for the night, it was early Christmas morning.

Jerry remained at the wobbly kitchen table. He crossed his arms, which formed a cradle for his head. All the years he'd been away from home, and what had changed? Not the burlap curtains made out of old feed bags, not the brass teakettle on the old Amana stove, not his mothers tortuous talking, not the stump leg of the table, not the cobwebs in the corner near the stovepipe. What had changed was the year printed on the Agway Feeds calendar. Nothing else.

Davies shut his eyes to seal out the past and the present, to welcome sleep. But what greeted him in the darkness was a sheet lifting off a body and genitals swollen the size and color of the number-seven ball on a pool table, but not nearly so perfectly round, rather chipped and veined, and then the enlarged and discolored penis . . .

Daviess stomach surged like a spasm of white water. His lungs burned. Perspiration beaded on his forehead in large droplets, as if he were sweating translucent kernels of corn. The vision flashed again before his open eyes— the gray, the cold, the waxen skin discolored, disfigured, the pubic hair like a thousand frozen questions marks— and Davies sobbed. His trembling body rocked the kitchen table.

His mother scrambled eggs for breakfast and peppered him with questions. Davies nibbled at the eggs and fasted from talk. The phone rang. Ruths daughter was calling from Indiana to wish her a merry Christmas, and while Ruth chatted long-distance, Jerry kissed his mother, told her he had to drive to Madison on an errand, and assured her he'd be home for dinner.

— 8—

By late afternoon on Christmas Day a search warrant was issued for apartment 306, 638 State Street. Unable to locate the landlord and obtain a key, a quartet of police officers removed the door from its hinges to gain entry.

Inside, 306 was hot, muggy, and resembled a botanical garden. Spider plants were suspended from hooks in the ceiling, and their umbrella shoots bobbed in the air like green starbursts. Corn plants, ferns, a persimmon tree, and an azalea bush crowded the room. Philodendron and ivy spilled out of clay pots, sending leafy runners across the floor. Hibiscus flowered vermilion and scarlet. Under fluorescent tubes a miniature hothouse of exotic

flora bloomed in badges of deep color. Because the thermostat registered seventy-nine degrees, the officers, in their police parkas, quickly began to perspire, and on a holiday, when an off-duty cop sweats, he often reeks of booze. One cop flopped on the sofa, dizzy from the severe temperature change and the days consumption of alcohol.