Night Corridor (7 page)

St. Simeon was a quiet town, and Detective O'Neal liked it that way. Murder, especially one as brutal as this one, was rare here. Most crimes consisted of drunken driving and the occasional domestic. A couple of years ago there'd been a knifing at Dreagan's bar, but that was it.

"I'd say she was there maybe…five, six hours," Henry Beal, the medical examiner said in answer to his question. "We had partial rigor when we brought her in," he answered. He mimed covering the girl's face with the sheet, eyebrow raised in a question, and Tom nodded in the affirmative. Was relieved when he couldn't see her face any longer, only the telling shape beneath the sheet.

Henry Beal was a slight man with thick glasses, thinning brown hair. He was also a black belt in Karate, and had the deep voice of a radio announcer, which, each time he spoke, never failed to surprise Tom.

They'd searched the alley for clues, came up empty. A few cigarette butts were bagged, but the alley was off a public street and they could belong to anyone. Her purse lay beside her, black, oversized, no money, but credit cards still in the wallet, along with her ID and a small black notebook.

On the first page of the notebook, at the top of the page, she'd neatly written her name, Lorraine Winters, and her address and phone number, which she'd presumably crossed out later and put her new address and phone number underneath. The pages following had the names and phones numbers of acting agents, friends. His partner, Detective Glen Aiken was back at the station, already going through that list with a fine-tooth comb, making phone calls, setting up interviews

They'd check out both addresses. One was on Peel, a quiet street. He thought he knew it, a rooming house, a few scraggly elms in front. The new address was a little more uptown, maybe something a little nicer, more fitting for a budding actress.

The M.E. had returned the body to its stainless steel locker, was peeling off his latex gloves. Tom thanked him for his help and left, eager to breathe in some fresh air.

Nine

Caroline knew she had insulted someone Mrs. Bannister loved dearly, but she didn't know what to say to make everything okay again. Could think of no words to dissolve the anger on the woman's face.

They continued walking in silence. Caroline felt like a child unfairly chastised for some wrongdoing. For she knew she had done nothing wrong. Knew she was within her rights as a tenant. Nurse Addison had spent a lot of time talking to her those last few days, forewarning her, telling her what to expect.

"He's a good boy, Caroline."

"I know, Mrs. Bannister. I'm sorry." She really didn't know. She didn't know him at all.

"You're not still worried because Lorraine Winters once lived across the hall from you, are you?"

"No." It gave her a strange feeling thinking of the woman who lived there, and she was sad about what happened to her. But it didn't frighten her.

It was not the first time violent death had touched Caroline. She remembered a roommate at the hospital, a young girl who slashed her wrists with a shard of broken glass. Caroline had just come back from lunch and found her on the floor, tears still drying on her ashen cheeks. There'd been blood on the sheets, the walls and the floor. Even after they cleaned it up, some of the stains were still visible.

Caroline knew it could just as easily have been her lying there. For as much as she didn't want to die, she hadn't known how to live. She had tried hard to crawl out of that deep hole, again and again, but the sides were slick and treacherous and she would slide back down into its depths, and darkness would once more claim her. She would not have made it out without Dr. Rosen's help. Or without Nurse Addison's friendship.

I don't want to go back to that awful place in my mind, ever. I want to stay strong.

Anyway, this was not about self-inflicted death. It was about murder.

"Don't look so worried, dear," her landlady said beside her. "I think you're being a little paranoid, but never mind. We'll wait till you're back home and then Harold can bring the TV up then, if that'll make you feel better."

"Thank you. I like Harold," she said quickly, grasping onto this olive leaf offered her. "He's very nice. And he's kind." But she didn't change her mind about him going into her room when she wasn't there.

"People can turn on a dime," Martha used to say. "Only God can really know what's in someone's heart."

"Yes, he is," the landlady said. "But you're right. You pay your rent, you're entitled to your privacy."

It was exactly what Nurse Addison had told her.

She suddenly felt proud of herself that she hadn't gone against her own rules just to please someone, that she had stuck up for herself. But at the same time, she didn't want to lose favor with her landlady. She'd call Nurse Addison and ask her what she thought about it. She'd seen a pay phone next to a dry cleaning shop, not far from the restaurant where she would be going to work.

Would she be annoyed if I called her at the hospital? She didn't say it was okay to call but that was only because she believed I was ready to live life on my own and make my own decisions. Wasn't it?

She glanced at the landlady and saw the stiffness still there in her face as they walked along the sidewalk, Mrs. Bannister limping heavily beside her. She had promised her the TV, and they were shopping together like friends. But Caroline felt alone.

You were always alone. It's not so different now. Dr. Rosen and Nurse Addison have their own lives, their own families. You were just their patient. Nothing more. They were nice, but you couldn't take advantage of people just because they were kind to you.

Anyway, Nurse Addison might not even be there now. The hospital was closing down and soon no one would be there, no one to answer the phones. And finally not even any phones, no furniture, just an abandoned building, filled with echoes of lost souls.

What will happen to Martha?

The landlady turned and smiled at her, but it was a stingy smile. She's different now.

"Let's go in here, Caroline, I need some stockings."

The name
Natalie's Boutique
was etched in lavender on a sign hanging above the door. A little bell rang as they stepped inside.

A pretty woman with hair like cotton candy was draping lovely silk print scarves on hooks on what looked like a hall tree, by the counter. She smiled brightly at them, a smile that lifted Caroline's spirits. The shop was warm and cheery, and smelled nice.

Ten

The vision of the woman imprinted on his mind, he was trembling when he returned to home. Her gentle lovely face, dark hair, and blue eyes. It was her. She was the one. He knew it as soon as he saw her. Not like the others at all. They were mistakes.

Buddy, which was his secret name given him by his spirit father, crossed the linoleum floor and stood before the full-length closet mirror, studying his reflection in the glass, searching his eyes for some flicker of recognition.

Gradually, the room faded from view, and he was back in his old room, the room of his boyhood. As the years swept backward through the corridor of time, he now saw only a young boy in the glass, the boy he had been. A timid, needy boy, anxious, never knowing what would happen next, a ready flinch on his face. He was blond, small for his age.

Always eager to please his mother, and now and then he had succeeded. But she couldn't be trusted or counted on. Sometimes she'd be nice to him and he would dare to hope. But then she would disappear into a bottle of Vodka or a new lover and he would be nothing again. Only an irritant, someone in her way. She had a quick hand and he felt the sting of it often. He would try to stay out of range, and sometimes he managed it. But not always.

It wasn't just me she punished. Millie, too. Millie was only three years old. He could still hear her panicked screams coming from the bathroom, hear his mother's voice… "damn you, your little bitch, I told you if you wet the bed again… didn't I tell you? Didn't I…DIDN'T I…?"

"…No, please, mommy, no…" Millie want get out of tub…" more screams, struggle, the water splashing, awful sounds as some body part struck against the tub…her head, a small foot…

Buddy clapped his hands over his ears.

When at last he took them away the house was silent.

He never saw Millie again. Millie, who had followed him about the house, smiling sweetly, blond curls bobbing as she ran to hug his leg, looking adoringly up at her big brother. She had loved him, and he her. His mother had taken away that love. Had crushed it. Crushed him.

And then for a second time.

He went through a series of uncles his mother ordered him to 'be nice to'. A couple of them beat the hell out of him; one or two ignored him. And one raped him. He was eight years old at the time. The man threw him face-down on the bed, his big rough hand pressing down on the back of his head, pushing his face into the blue and white striped mattress. Its sour taste and smell was still in his mouth and nose and throat. He could smell it now, taste it, like filthy socks jammed into his mouth. His small body felt like it was being torn apart, and he screamed out in pain, but the man just drove his face deeper into the mattress, smothering his cries. Not that anyone would have heard him; his mother was passed out in the other bedroom. When he was sure he was going to die from the pain, for want of breath, the man gave a guttural groan, then got up off him and told him if he ever told anyone, he'd come back and kill both him and his mother.

He buried the bloody sheet and his small stained shorts in the backyard so no one would ever know his shame.

And then one day Uncle Earl entered his life—big, gruff, fun Uncle Earl Parker who played the guitar and sang country songs, ruffled his hair, and said with a grin, "Hey, Buddy, how you doin'?"

He made Buddy ham and eggs and sat across from and asked about school and what he thought about things. Leave the kid alone, he'd say, when his mother was about to backhand him.

He said I was a good kid. He loved me. He cared. I know he did.

Buddy thought he had died and gone to Heaven when Earl lived with them. But it was not to last.

"She sent him away," he told the boy in the mirror. She took away love.

He would get it back though. He had always dreamed of having a father who loved him, and Earl Parker gave reality to the dream. His mother would stop drinking and she and Earl would get married. They would be a real family. A normal family.

For a brief time, he had felt safe and protected.

The dream was shattered when one day he arrived home from school to find Earl and his guitar, gone, the closet emptied of his clothes. His mother said he just took off, but Buddy knew better. Hs mother had sent him away. He hated her.

He waited and waited for Earl to come back to him, but he never did. Buddy checked the mailbox every day for a letter, but none ever came. He suspected that his mother tore them up and burned the pieces, or maybe flushed them down the toilet.

But none of that mattered now. Everything would be the way he had always dreamed. He would find Earl very soon. He knew Earl would welcome him with open arms, would be so glad to see him again. Buddy never knew his biological father, but he didn't care about him. Earl was his real father, his father in spirit. That was what was important.

Gradually, the face of the boy in the glass darkened, and akin to a photo aging, the features broadened, the smooth skin coarsening until it morphed into the man the boy had become, who looked back at him. Something forever changed behind the eyes. Even Buddy could see that.

He turned from the mirror. He didn't like looking at himself for long.

He hadn't meant to kill that girl. Not at first. It was her own fault. He had only wanted to talk to her.

The phone was ringing. Fully present now, the dead woman another mistake he'd erased, he picked up the receiver. It was his boss calling; he had to go in to work.

Eleven

It was lovely to sit on the sofa and watch her own television, (not have to worry about someone changing channels in the middle of a program she was watching) and sipping tea she had made herself, from a real china cup. Even if the cup did have a chip at its rim. She bit off a corner of toast she had made in the toaster, spread with Kraft strawberry jam.

Pleasant to sit here warm and cozy in her new soft, yellow pile robe she had purchased when she was out shopping with Mrs. Bannister. While the landlady purchased her stockings, Caroline had spotted the robe on a rack, only $14.99 on sale. Even the color made her feel warm, like being wrapped in sunshine. She had been hesitant to spend the money but the landlady, who had stopped being mad at her by then, (or at least it seemed so) told her she deserved something new and special to celebrate her new life. On a whim, maybe because she was so relieved the landlady wasn't mad at her anymore, she bought it, and also bought two pretty blue cushions for the sofa.