In the Night Season (20 page)

“Well,” Travis said. “He did.”

She surveyed it again. “It’s just metal duct—as far as I can see. There’s seams in the side of it.”

He reached down and took hold of her upper arm. “Let’s go look where he came out.”

She stood. He had not taken his hand from her, nor had he moved. His face was perfectly expressionless. She received its blankness as an indication of his confidence in the advantage he possessed over her. She said, “Well—let’s go.”

“If I was a certain kind of man,” he said.

“Well, you’re not,” she told him. It had come out of her before she could stop it. Once more, she had the thought that she must be far more vigilant and cautious.

“I meant the kind that forces himself on pretty ladies,” he said, with an energy that harrowed her soul.

“Like your ape of a brother?” she said. She could not believe herself.

“Want to tell me about it?” He waited a few seconds, still holding her arm, then he undid part of his shirt and wiped her cheeks with it. She cried out, but stopped herself from saying anything. Finally he buttoned the shirt and moved out into the hall, turning to wait. He followed her into the small bedroom, the room she had slept in more and more often as what she believed was the stress of failing business made her husband so remote. On the floor next to the small desk and chair was the vent. She knelt again and looked in.

“Well?” he said.

“It’s all metal duct. It’s like an L. And it runs to the top floor, but all metal.”

He was silent.

She got to her feet and bumped into him; he had stepped close.

“You know what I think sometimes?” he said. “I think ‘Take your pleasure while you can.’ You know? The words go through my mind, like that. It’s from Henry Miller. I read Henry Miller when I was in the army. You know who that is?”

She heard her own breathing and made an effort to slow it, control it.

“Well?”

“Yes, I know who that is.”

“What do you think?” he said.

“You said you were not that kind of man.”

“Tell the truth,” he said. “Ain’t you drawn to me just a little?”

She stared into the muddy green of the eyes. “You and two other men are holding my son. You’ve got somebody else holding my parents. You’ve killed my neighbor, my only friend. Your pig of a brother brutalized me. How can you ask me that?”

“Because I can see it.” He reached for her.

“No,” she yelled. And she swung at him. Her fist glanced across his stubbled jaw—it felt as though it had barked her skin.

He took her by the wrists. “Wait,” he said.

She kicked at his groin, but missed and hit his thigh. And then she had the sensation of having been thrown a great distance, wheeling, the walls caving toward her. Wobbly inside, light cascading over light, roiling, she arrived at the understanding that she lay on the floor, had fallen or been pushed. Her head hurt. He was somewhere behind and above her. Something grabbed her ankles. She thought of the hacksaw blade in her shoe and tried to kick, was pulled along the floor. And then her feet came crashing to the hard wood surface. He was bending to pull her up, reaching along her shoulders. She saw something under the bed, something lying on the dusty shine of the hard wood, thin as a cracker but with a tiny metal gleam along its side. “There,” she said.

He sounded as though he were winded, having fallen back from her, leaning against the closet door, cussing low.

“Look.” She felt the word come almost dreamily from her. Something coppery dripped on her tongue, and she realized it was blood. “Something—” she said, reaching for it under the bed.

His foot came down on her arm. “Hold it.”

She looked back up at him, at the great swaying height of him, and said, “Under the bed.”

He took his foot away, and knelt, his right hand in the middle of her back, pressing her down. She couldn’t breathe in. She saw his left hand reach and pull the object, whatever it was, out. He stood and held it up to his face. He had to hold it close. He squinted at it, and she realized that he was nearsighted—something she might be able to use.

“Shit,” he said. He looked at the bed. “Get up.”

She struggled slowly to her feet, still tasting the blood, while he began pulling the bed apart, pushing the mattress and the box
springs over against the wall, and searching through the frame. There wasn’t anything. He stepped into the frame and brought a switchblade knife out of the pocket of his jeans. The metallic click of it as he opened the blade brought another small shout up out of her throat. He cut into the box springs, tearing the cloth away carefully, slowly.

“Help me here.”

“He wouldn’t put them there,” she said. “How would he do it without my knowing about it?”

“Yeah, well, you found a chip. He might’ve repacked them somehow.”

“I’d’ve known it.”

“You didn’t even know he had them,” Travis said. “Come on.”

“He couldn’t have done this without me knowing about it,” she said.

“Bet me.”

She stepped to his side and started to pull the rest of the cloth away from the springs.

“Wait,” he said. “There can’t be any static charge. You understand? Do it slow.” He began cutting into the mattress.

She stepped up again and pulled gingerly at the stuffing, dropping it behind her, reaching in and getting more, and fighting with it when it caught on the interior springs. Gradually it came to her that the phone was ringing. He seemed to realize this in the same instant. They stopped and stared at each other.

“Answer it,” he said.

She hesitated.

He raised his hands as if to grip her by the neck. “Come on.”

She went out into the hall and along it to the phone. She picked up the receiver, held it to her ear, and found that she couldn’t speak.

“Hello?” It was the slightly wavering voice of Elaine Tyler, her elderly friend from Charlottesville.

“Oh,” Nora said. “Yes. Elaine.”

Travis leaned close. She felt his hair on her cheek.

“Are you all right? You sound funny—is this a bad time?”

“I—I can’t talk right now, Elaine.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll try to call you back.” Her voice shook.

“Poor baby,” Elaine said. “What is it?”

“I’ll call back,” Nora said. “Everything’s fine.” She hung up.

Travis glared at her. “You didn’t handle that too good.”

“Okay,” she said, controlling herself. “I didn’t handle it too good. The lady lives in Charlottesville. It’s seventy-five fucking miles away.”

“Don’t cuss,” he said. “Christ.”

She remained straight, and silent.

He crept to the end of the hallway and looked into the living room. Then he came back. “Thought I heard something.” He entered the little bedroom, with the torn mattress and cotton stuffing all over the floor, and began taking the books out of the shelves on the wall there. He opened each book, flapped the pages, then dropped it.

“What’re you doing?” she said, standing in the doorway. “He wouldn’t have hid anything in his books.”

“A contract on a folded piece of paper,” Travis said. “He could’ve put it anywhere. When we shipped them to him he was putting them in bulk storage in the First National Bank in Point Royal. He’s put them somewhere else. Maybe he hid a key, or a combination or a fucking treasure map. The shit was worth more than two million dollars, and he knew that. It’s losing value every day now. Come
on
. Help me.”

“I’ll look in the ones in the living room,” she said. “And upstairs.”

“Don’t make a mess out there. Somebody might come back. And remember where your son is.”

In the living room were the objects of her previous life. She hadn’t quite noticed them in the steady terror of the minutes. Jason had left things out—books he meant to read or return at school, papers and magazines he’d stacked on the coffee table, a bowl with a dried spot of milk at the bottom of it next to a small statue Jack had brought back from a trip to New York early in the marriage: a cherub, lounging on a small square of marble, set in the middle of a
polished wooden base. Beside this was a stack of art books. It all seemed rather pathetic now. The possessions and effects of someone woefully out of touch with the relentless facts of existence. She hated them, standing there gazing at them.

“Well?” Travis called from the other room.

“Nothing,” she said. She opened each of the art books and put them back. At the bookcase, she pulled a big volume off the shelf and thumbed through it—a history of the Second World War. Jack had belonged for a few years to a history book club. Scribbled on the title page was a note:
Nora’s birthday present…
No year, and no inscription; the note was evidently something Jack had written to remind himself. The pages were intact. She put it back on the shelf and was reaching for another, when a shadow crossed the window to her left. She gasped, turned, and shrunk back. Someone was at the door. There were voices outside.

She stood. Travis kept making noise, pulling books out, opening them, and throwing them. Whoever was out there now rang the bell. Travis came quickly out into the hall and toward her. “Shit,” he murmured. “Get it.”

S
HE LOOKED OUT THROUGH THE
side curtain in the door. Agnes and Marsha James. Nora had rarely seen them in the twelve years she lived here. She had waved at them as they passed by in their ratty old Ford Fairlane with its unsteady left rear wheel and its serrated, rusted-out undercarriage, and had stopped to exchange pleasantries when she met them in the aisles of the Giant Food Store in Steel Run Creek. The little girl, Missy—timid, overly skinny, nervous, and perpetually downcast—was in Jason’s classes at school. Jason had in fact been protective of her on occasion, though he seldom spent much time with her outside of school. The two women had come to pay their respects when Jack was killed. They had spoken of finding other reasons to see Nora—the distance was so small between their two houses. They were anxious to have her call on them for anything at all. And, as had been the case with others, this did not materialize. The two had come by once, when Missy was selling Girl Scout cookies, and another time they prevailed upon a nephew to clear Nora’s driveway after a snowstorm, and Nora asked them all in for coffee. The conversation had been warm and friendly, but wore thin rather quickly, and soon the two women were asking about Jack’s death. Nora wanted to run from them.

Now she opened the door a crack.

The two sisters wore outlandish, multicolored serapes or ponchos and had brushed back their hair in exactly the same way. Their faces shone, as if they had been running.

“Such a terrible thing,” Agnes said. “You heard about Ed Bishop?” They swept toward her.

“I’m—I’ve been sick,” Nora said.

“So has Agnes,” said Marsha. “Can we come in?”

Nora felt the door move and sought to resist it, but the pressure was surprisingly strong, and she realized with a shock that Travis had taken hold of it from behind her. “Come on in, ladies,” he said.

They hesitated. Their gaze went from him to Nora and back again.

“I’m a friend of Jack’s, from the army,” Travis said. “Please.” He stepped aside, and he had Nora by the wrist, pulling her with him. “Nora’s got a little bit of a cold and fever. You know how it is in the winter.”

“Yes we do,” said Marsha, with a faintly puzzled air, moving Agnes forward. She walked in and surveyed the room.

Travis closed the door. He offered them seats on the living room sofa. As they settled themselves, he put his arm around Nora’s middle.

Agnes murmured, “Such a terrible thing.”

“Times are scary,” said Travis. “One thing and another.”

“Tell you the truth—we’re glad to see a man here,” Agnes said. “There are killers on the loose.” Then she addressed Nora. “I’m surprised you’re even here, given the nature of the—the situation.”

“We heard something about it, didn’t we, Nora?” He squeezed her again, then let go, crossing the room to stand in the entrance of the hall. He relaxed, resting his shoulder on the frame. He pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lighted it. “Oh, where’s my manners. Would you two ladies like a cigarette?”

“No,” Agnes said. “We don’t smoke.”

“Honey?” he said to Nora.

She said, “No.” It had come out too loud.

“Oh, that’s right,” Travis said. “You quit.”

“I never knew you smoked,” Agnes said.

“Oh, she used to,” said Travis. “Something awful. Now where’d I put that ashtray?”

“We don’t have any,” Nora said.

“That wasn’t an ashtray I was using?” The green eyes fixed her and appeared to brighten.

She went into the kitchen and brought out one of the lids from the jars she had used for canning.

“There it is,” he said. He put it on the coffee table, flicked ashes into it, stood back, took a long pull of the cigarette, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling.

No one said anything for a few seconds. Travis smiled and blew more smoke.

The two women showed sudden concern, looking at Nora, and abruptly she realized that her nose had begun bleeding. Travis had the same realization and offered her a handkerchief. “My Lord,” he said. “Look at yourself, honey.”

She held the handkerchief to her face.

“How’d you do that?” He turned to the others. “She was up in the attic. Honey, you think being up there might’ve got you going—you know, the dust and all?”

“It’s nothing,” she said. She felt the nausea come. “It’s just a little nosebleed. I get them all the time in the winter.”

“It’s the dry heat,” Agnes said.

“Guess what happened,” Travis said. “Nora was up in the attic and stepped between the beams, you know, and her foot came right through the ceiling. I thought she was going to drop right through. Come here.” He started a little way down the hall. “If you stand here you can see where she came right through the plasterboard.”

Agnes did so. “Oh, dear.”

“I thought she’d fall right through. And you know she was stuck for a little while. We just got her sprung loose.” He waved to Marsha. “You want to see this?”

Marsha said she could imagine. But then she got up and joined them in the passageway, her hand on Agnes’s shoulder.

Travis said, “It scared us when it happened, but of course it’s kind of funny now.”

Both women agreed that it was indeed funny, but they were very solicitous of Nora. “You might’ve really hurt yourself.”

“I’ll bet all that dust got to your sinuses,” Travis said.

“Please,” Nora said. “It’s fine.”

They were all quiet again. She excused herself and hurried into the kitchen to tend to her bloody nose, running water into the sink, and daubing at herself with the wet handkerchief. When she returned to the living room, the others were as they had been—Agnes and Marsha on the sofa, Travis leaning on the frame of the entrance into the hallway.

“All better?” Marsha said.

Nora said, “It’s fine.”

“I used to get them all the time when I was a kid,” Travis said. “I’d look like a crime scene or something.”

Again there was a silence.

Agnes cleared her throat. “Well, as I was saying, we got so scared after the policemen came by and told us about Ed—about Mr. Bishop.” She leaned toward Nora. “You—you must be so frightened. They—did anyone—you know about the hate letter?”

“I know about it,” Nora said.

“It meant—they mean you, don’t they?”

“I don’t know who they mean,” Nora got out.

“We just couldn’t stay there alone in those woods,” Marsha said. “I’ve never seen my sister so upset. We decided to get out. We’re going to pick Missy up at the school and then we’re heading into town to stay with my friend Ruth Morrisey. Nora, do you know Ruth?”

“She wouldn’t have any way of knowing her,” Agnes said.

“Well, I don’t know. I’m so out of touch. She’s in real estate. And Jack worked with real estate people sometimes, didn’t he? Didn’t she say Jack did some things for them?”

“I don’t think I know her,” Nora said. The sisters had averted their eyes from her. She thought briefly that they might know something about this Ruth—the one who had written the note, Nora was sure—and Jack. But then she understood that they were reacting to the fact that Jack’s name had been mentioned. She said, “Jack might’ve known her.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Marsha said.

“You haven’t done anything to be sorry for,” Nora told her.

Travis smoked his cigarette and again Agnes said how good she felt to know a man was on the place. “Are you staying a while?” she asked.

“A little while,” Travis told her. “Few days.”

“Too bad you can’t stay longer.”

“I would if I could.”

“Everybody’s in such a rush these days.”

“Yes, ma’am. I agree. That’s the truth.” He drew on the cigarette, raised his chin, and blew more smoke rings. Once more, they were all quiet. “I’ve got a picture of me and Nora’s husband back when we were in the army—want to see it?”

“They don’t want to see that,” Nora said nervously. She saw Agnes glance at her and was aware that she had begun to tremble, still daubing her nose with the damp, red-stained handkerchief.

“I’m so glad you’re getting on with life,” Agnes said to Nora. “Forgive me. But I’m a plain person and I just say what I mean.”

“No one could ever stop you,” said her sister.

“So, how was Mr. Bishop killed?” Travis asked. His voice was soft, a pitch higher than Nora had heard it before, and his eyes were scarily innocent, wide with interest.

“We don’t know, really,” Agnes said. “Do we, Marsha?” She turned to Travis and continued: “We went by the scene of the crime, and there were a lot of people there, cars and vans and police people combing the scene. A lot of newspeople. I saw two television trucks. It’s so frightening.”

Travis lighted another cigarette, using the coal of the one he’d been smoking. He said, “You know what I’ll bet? I’ll bet it was, like, a serial killer. Something like that.”

“It was racial,” Marsha said.

“Oh, that’s right. But hey—that doesn’t mean it’s not a serial killer.”

“No, I guess not.”

Travis crushed the first cigarette out in the lid, and when he spoke his voice was even softer. “I think I read somewhere that they tend to kill people who
irritate
them. You know? Like a kind of acting out.”

“I never heard that,” Agnes said. She cleared her throat and turned to her sister. “Have you?”

“No,” said Marsha. “But I don’t know anything about it.”

Travis said, “I read somewhere about this guy who killed people by making them swallow things—bottle caps, and pencils, and lye. Things like that. Can you imagine?”

“God.”

“Yeah. People who
irritated
him. Imagine. Guy’d meet a woman at a lunch counter, and if he didn’t like her voice or her accent, he’d just decide on her. So—think of it—you go into some place and talk to a person, and you don’t realize it but you’re talking to a criminal. Somebody making a decision about you, just because you’re irritating him. I find that really frightening, don’t you? I mean—it’s like there’s no rules of safety you can follow and be safe. Except staying inside all the time. But this guy, he was as likely to hurt you at random—come in your house, and all, so even that wasn’t enough.”

“I wish we could talk about something else,” Agnes said.

“Well, you know what—I read that he went around to houses claiming to be a deacon in some religious group. He’d ask if a person wanted to hear a true message about Jesus Christ, and then when people let him in—well—”

“Oh, Lord,” Agnes said. “I don’t feel good.”

“It’s got so you can’t trust anybody.”

“I had the most wonderful afternoon once with two young men who were witnesses for Christ,” Marsha said.

“Well, you took a risk,” Travis told her, blowing the smoke rings. “You shouldn’t’ve let those men in. Because you can never tell when a person’ll use the good graces of the community against you. The devil can assume a pleasing shape, as the Bible tells us.”

“That’s true,” said Agnes. “Oh, Lord.” She was growing more agitated with each passing second. “But this hate letter. This group—they call themselves the—what is it, Marsha?”

“The Front,” said Marsha. “Something.”

“My God, what is that? Front. What do they mean by it, anyway?”

“You know what I think it is?” Travis said. “I think it’s a sign that people are losing all their sense of compassion.”

“I think the media just don’t tell us the right stories,” Marsha put in. “Look at it—they’re all over there photographing that awful scene, and talking about hate groups and cults on the news, and here you are helping a friend, having traveled here all these miles to help. I don’t know why they don’t put that in the news.”

“There you go,” Travis said. “There you go.”

Nora felt herself starting to lose control. It occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon. Yet her abdomen felt bloated, stuffed, queasy.

“I certainly had a wonderful afternoon talking to those two boys about the Bible,” Marsha said.

The phone rang.

Nora looked at Travis, who simply stared back. The ringing repeated.

“Isn’t anyone going to get that?” Marsha asked.

Nora got to the phone and picked up the handset. Travis had stepped into the living room and was not in sight now. She saw the two women giving their attention to him and knew he was talking to them, snowing them in a low, reassuring murmur. “Hello?” she said into the phone.

“Mrs. Michaelson, this is Phil Shaw.”

There was an icy feeling at the back of her neck. “Yes?”

“Would you be able to come in here and talk to me this afternoon? There’s just some minor things I’d like to talk to you about.”

“No, I told you—I’m—I’m not feeling well.” As she spoke these words, their truth gave her a moment’s panic; she was so close to being sick. She swallowed, tried to breathe, fighting the sensation. She made a coughing noise, holding one hand over her mouth.

“Well, Mrs. Michaelson, can I come out there and see you, then? I need to establish some things regarding the time elements involved.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mrs. Michaelson, when exactly did your son leave with his grandfather?”

“I thought I told you that. It was the day before yesterday.”

“And, if you don’t mind. Could I just have your father’s name?”

“Henry Spencer,” she said, feeling abruptly furious at the sensation that she was acting as an accomplice of Travis’s. “1645 Jonquil Street. Seattle, Washington. Do you want the phone number there?”

“Is it a listed number, Mrs. Michaelson?”

“Yes.”

“I’m awful sorry to bother you about all this.”

“You said that, Mr. Shaw. I heard you the first time.”

“Oh, of course. I understand. Well, thank you.”

“Thank you,” she said and hung up. She put both hands down on the phone table, then forced herself to straighten and to assume a calm expression.

Travis looked around from the living room. “Was that the police?”

She nodded. “Mr. Shaw.”

He addressed the two women on the sofa, who were sitting in identical stiff poses, hands on their knees. “They stopped by here a little while ago, asking questions about Nora’s boy. Imagine.” He lighted still another cigarette. “I think it upset her a little. Poor kid’s not even here and the cops want to talk to him about a murder.”