Half In Love With Death (25 page)

His grip was like iron as he dragged me toward the pool. We stopped at the very edge. The water was black and still. He ran his hands through my hair. His thick fingers traced the tendons in my throat.

“Leave me alone,” I screamed.

“Be quiet. If you stay quiet, nothing bad will happen,” he said, but I couldn't stop screaming.

He took off his bandana. As he tied it around my mouth, there was a look in his eyes as if he wasn't here but someplace else, and I wasn't here, either, but far away with him. He smiled sadly as he knotted it tight. “You're such a little thing. You can scream all you want. You can talk all you want. No one will ever hear you now.”

He pulled me up against him. My fingers tightened on the handle of the knife. As his hands closed around my neck, I stared into his blue-flower eyes, and shoved the knife into his stomach. The slippery feeling of the blade going in sickened me. His warm blood ran all over my hand. He staggered backward.

“What did you do?” There was a look of surprise on his face as if he couldn't believe that I, of all people, had done this to him. “I can't die.” He looked down at the dark stain spreading across his shirt and clutched his stomach. Something passed between us, soft as a breeze or a ghost.

• • •

I turned and ran. When I reached the mesquite tree in the front yard, I looked around to see if he was following me, but he wasn't. I thought of going back into the house to call the police, but what if he was in there? I was about to dash across the street to Billy's when my parents' car pulled up. Doors were flung open. Light spilled on the sidewalk. Mom came running toward me, followed by Dad carrying Dicky. I pulled off the bandana.

“Caroline,” Mom called out. “Are you all right?”

“I am.” Tears were running down my face, but I felt a million miles away. I dropped the knife in the grass.

She touched my cheek with the cool tip of her finger. “Billy saw Tony's car in front of our house. He called us at the Beckhams' and told us that you weren't with May and Sheila, you were going to California with Tony. Is that true?”

I turned away. “We were going there to find Jess.”

“Oh, honey.” Mom reached for my hand, but as she pulled me toward her, she shrieked, “Is that blood? Are you bleeding?”

Dad put my brother down and leaned in close, his face sweaty and pale. “Caroline, are you hurt?”

I shook my head. Mom kept asking me what happened but I couldn't speak. The whole world around me—the crooked branches of the mesquite tree, the pearl glow from Billy's living room, the paving stones on our walkway, the dark blades of grass—I was grateful for all of it, but at the same time none of it felt real. A faint breeze toyed with the black leaves, and I worried that nothing would ever feel real again.

Dad glanced toward the street. “That's Tony's car. Where is he?”

Mom gripped my shoulders. “Where's Tony?”

I nodded toward the backyard. “He's there. He tried to kill me.” The words felt unreal as they left my lips.

“Stay here.” Dad propelled himself past us.

As he rushed toward the backyard, Mom yelled, “Please, Jack, don't go back there alone.”

He turned to her. “I can handle this.”

All I could think of was Tony lying by the pool, dead.

Mom held me so close I could smell the dull sweetness of her perfume, feel her silky dress against my face. I couldn't stop shaking. “I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost you,” she said.

Dad came back a few moments later. “No sign of him,” he said. “All I found was this.” He held up the white shoe. “We better call the police.”

We waited while Dad searched the house for Tony, and then went inside. As I washed the blood off my hands in the kitchen, the pink water going down the drain made me gag. I looked out the window at the backyard. Lavender moonlight, like chips of nail polish, flecked the pool. I felt a twinge inside that was part sorrow and part fear. Tony wasn't lurking in the shadows. He wasn't waiting for me.

We were sitting in the living room when the police arrived. While one policeman looked around outside, I told Officer Barnes everything, even the parts I'd lied about before.

His pale eyes met mine when I said, “Tony was going to take me to California to find Jess. But he lied to me about her. I don't know where she is. And I'm pretty sure he killed Geraldine.” I looked around the room, my heart racing wildly. “He tried to kill me too, so I stabbed him.” I expected him to arrest me on the spot, but all he did was nod and tell me to go on. I felt weird showing him the blue necklace, the white shoe, the photo, the postcard, the red bathing suit, but he told me I was a big help. He dropped them one by one into a plastic bag, like words in a crazy, jumbled-up poem I would never understand.

When I finished, he shook his head. “You're lucky to be alive.” He rested his hand on mine. “You're very brave.” I looked into my parents' stunned faces.

The other policeman came in with the blood-smeared knife in its own plastic bag. They waited with us for a tow truck to take Tony's car away.

The room fell silent after they left. It was the sort of silence that we would have avoided in the past, but now we had no choice but to bear it. Finally Dad asked if I really was all right. I told him I was, though as I spoke, it was like it wasn't my voice, and I was looking at everything—Mom, Dad, Dicky, the blank television screen, the yellow curtains framing the darkness—from far away.

A few hours later the police called to tell us they'd found Tony hitchhiking out of Tucson and arrested him. His wound was minor.

Two years had passed since Tony was sentenced to life in prison for killing Geraldine Keanen. I thought about him sometimes, wondered what he was doing in jail. Did he write poems to pass the time? Did girls write to him? Did he ever think of me or Jess? My sister was still missing.

My parents hardly ever talked about her anymore. Once in a while Dad added some photos of her to the ones already on the mantel, or to the photo cube on the coffee table—on each side, there she was. Sometimes Mom would mention how Jess could have been a movie star. Sometimes I was afraid that I was already forgetting her.

Just recently Tony had lost his appeal for a new trial. That was a huge relief. I'd worried they'd let him out and everything that had been taken away from me would be taken away again. He was supposed to be interviewed on the news at noon. As I sat on the couch trying to do my homework, I kept glancing at my watch. I hated him, but there were times when I'd remember the soft touch of his hand, the sadness in his eyes, and wonder how he could have done what he did.

I learned many things at the trial, but not everything I wanted to know. My testimony about the shoes and the necklace turned out to be the key to putting Tony in jail. After I testified, other kids came forward. Debbie and Moose admitted to helping Tony bury Geraldine. They said they were there when he drowned her but they had nothing to do with it. Debbie claimed she didn't come forward sooner because she was afraid. I didn't for one minute believe that. Debbie wasn't afraid of anything.

It turned out that Moose had called the police about the body. He was sure that Tony was going to kill Edie, and he couldn't let that happen.

Neither of them said that Jess was there when Geraldine died.

No one even mentioned her until Edie took the stand. I wanted to cover my ears and make it all go away, but I had to listen. Edie testified that she'd called Jess on the day she disappeared and told her that the white shoes belonged to Geraldine. When the lawyer asked how Edie knew they were Geraldine's shoes, she told him, “Lots of kids knew about the shoes. Jess was probably the only one who didn't know.”

She pushed her green ring up and down on her thin finger and added, “Jess shouldn't have made such a scene that night. She shouldn't have told Tony she was going to the police. Everyone knew you didn't say something like that to him.”

What I found out next was worse. Linda testified that after Tony and Jess fought about the shoes that night, Jess said she was taking the bus to California. Tony took Linda aside and asked her to pretend to drive her to the bus stop but to drop her off at a gas station along the highway instead. He'd meet them there. He wanted one more chance to convince Jess not to leave.

Linda watched the two of them drive off into the darkness, and that was the last she saw of my sister. On the stand she cried and said how sorry she was for not saying anything sooner, but Tony had threatened that if she breathed a word about this he'd do the same thing to her he'd done to Geraldine.

Tony didn't testify. As he sat at the front of the courtroom in his suit, every now and then he'd make a remark to his lawyer or scribble something on a piece of paper. Not once did he look at me.

In the weeks that followed they searched for Jess in the miles of desert around the gas station. Some high-school kids even helped. Eventually, they gave up. It was such a vast place, and there was no sign of her.

• • •

Now, as I sat on the couch, images from the trial swirled in my mind—Debbie walking to the stand with her arms by her side, her strangely muted voice and the way nothing seemed to touch her, Edie's white hair, Linda's red car, the ghost of sunlight on the window—like pieces of a puzzle that still wouldn't come together.

It was almost noon, so I turned on the television. Tony had been in the news a lot since the trial. Some people called him a monster. Others speculated that he had brain damage from almost drowning, or that drugs had made him do what he'd done. He remained a mystery to me. I thought of the infinite darkness I'd seen in him. Jess had seen it, too. It had touched both of us. I'd unraveled enough of the mystery to save myself, but I hadn't found her.

Dicky curled up next to me and began doing his homework. I opened my English book to Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale.” I loved poetry more than ever now, especially the intricate, formal kind, the words like flowers strewn on stone, the marble solidity of it. It was about something that would always be there, something that couldn't be taken from me without warning. I planned to study poetry when I went to college in the fall. As I underlined “I have been half in love with easeful Death,” the interview began.

I sat up. I hadn't seen Tony since the sentencing two years ago. He looked different, almost like someone I'd never known. His hair was cut short and his eyebrows seemed too thick and dark, but his blue eyes were still the same. When asked if he had anything to say for himself, he leaned forward and said, “I'm as horrified by what happened as you are. I had nothing to do with it.”

The interviewer coughed. “Not many people believe that.”

Tony smiled. “Lots of girls believe me. They write me letters, and I send them my poems.”

I flinched.

When he asked if Tony had any more to say about the disappearance of Jessica Galvin, I held my breath. I couldn't shake the sense that he was staring straight at me as he said, “She's in California. It's the God's honest truth.”

I turned it off.

Dicky tapped me on the shoulder.

“What?” I said.

“I saw him that night,” he whispered.

I dropped my book. “Who?”

“Tony.” His small fists were clenched tight as flower buds. “I went to the window when Jess woke me up with her scream. She was running and he was chasing her.” He tilted his face to the side. “I thought it was a dream.”

I exhaled slowly, remembering that voice I'd heard in the night. I'd thought it was a dream, too.

• • •

I went outside to wait for May and Sheila. May wanted to drive around in the sports car her dad had given her for birthday. Ever since I'd practically become famous for testifying against Tony, we'd started hanging out again. They said they were proud of me. I never asked about what they hadn't told me. We weren't close friends, but being around them was better than being alone.

Billy came walking out of his house. He and May weren't together anymore. Her new boyfriend looked like a blond Adonis and sold pot. As Billy was getting into his car, he smiled at me before driving away. We were going to the movies later. We'd gone on a few dates recently. His hair was longer now, and he wore it in a ponytail. He looked different, with an earring in one ear, and he didn't play football anymore. We still didn't agree on everything, but sometimes when I was with him I felt like I could begin again.

A few minutes later May showed up. I told her I loved her car and settled myself in the back seat.

She smiled. “Since the divorce, Ron has become a lot more generous.”

“It must almost make the whole marriage breakup thing worth it,” Sheila said and we all laughed a little too hard. Betty had found out that Ron was fooling around with his secretary and that she was only one of many. Mom never said anything about this unless you considered staring longingly out the window at nothing a statement.

May gunned the engine, and we headed into the desert. The white lines in the road stretched for miles ahead. She turned the radio up high and drove fast, the hot wind blowing in our faces. The Beatles came on singing “Strawberry Fields Forever.” May and Sheila sang along, but I couldn't bring myself to join in the carefree refrain about nothing being real. A place where nothing is real wasn't my idea of a good time. Too many things that I'd thought were real had turned out not to be.

After we'd driven for a while, May pulled over. I looked at her questioningly. She took a camera out of the glove compartment. “Another birthday present from Ron. Come on, let's take a few pictures.”

I dragged myself out of the car. It was blistering hot. The last thing I wanted was to walk around in the desert. I stood apart from them while she and Sheila clowned around with the camera. I'd grown suspicious of photos and the illusion they created that the past wasn't really gone. It was just another lie. Push aside the curtain and all that was left was something you didn't want to see.