The Northwoods Chronicles (26 page)

He bought a little office building with
Emmiline’s life insurance proceeds, and hung out his shingle. Mitch
Kardashian, DDS. The Smile Specialist. He had to import a hygienist
from the city, but he picked one with small boobs who would defer
to him in all ways, and it was easy to find a receptionist who was
too old to remember romance, so he figured he was safe, at work,
anyway.

Until Tamara Crafts walked through the newly
painted office door and eventually sat in his electric-blue
dentist’s chair.

Usually, the rubber pad under the chair took
away the static electricity that was such a problem in the north
during the winter, but when he touched her for the first time, the
spark arced between his finger and the corner of her mouth with a
blue flash. She jerked her head and he jerked his hand back,
banging it into his instrument tray, sending bright steel tools
flying across the room and clattering to the floor.

“Ow,” she said.

“Good lord,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She held a fingertip to the corner of her
still-lipsticked mouth.

He, flustered beyond anything he could remember
feeling, apologized, then saw to her lip while the hygienist picked
up the tools and brought out a freshly sterilized tray. His first
reaction was to dismiss this patient and refer her to another
dentist. Surely she would never view him the way he required his
patients to see and respect him. He needed to be the authority, the
one with the expensive advice that they would follow without
question.

Then she smiled at him. “It wasn’t your fault,”
she said.

Well, maybe he could salvage her as a patient.
Her teeth were natural and straight and strong, and her hair black
and luxurious. Her eyes were the lightest of blue, an intriguing
contrast with the black hair and brows. He was attracted. He was
more than attracted. She had come for a simple checkup, and he gave
her mouth one, and then he gave the rest of her one, and before he
could stop himself, before he could corral his renegade tongue, he
had asked her to dinner.

She regarded him with a coy, wary eye, then
accepted with a smile, and he marveled that he was not immune to
the power of an incredible smile even though they were his stock in
trade.

He floated through the rest of the day with a
grin on his face and a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He was an addict. He was addicted to women. He
was walking into certain disaster, and he was powerless to help
himself. He needed a twelve-step program. But first, he needed to
wine and dine and perhaps bed the flawless Tamara Crafts.

That night when he picked her up, she wore a
slinky black dress that showed off her mature, voluptuous assets in
a mesmerizing way. He was dressed in a polo shirt and slacks, since
the only place for dinner was Margie’s Diner. “We’re just going to
the diner,” he said.

“Looking nice makes my heart sing,” she said.
“I’ll take any excuse.”

That phrase was hauntingly familiar, but he
didn’t dwell on it. He helped her into his BMW roadster and they
went to the diner in style.

Margie seated them in a corner, where Mitch
toyed with Tamara’s hand and pretended to be fascinated by the
boring world of investment brokerage. Tamara was the only
stockbroker in town, which meant she had a lot of money—he found
that very attractive—and lots of real estate. The heat grew between
them as dinner wore on, and she pretended to be on the edge of her
seat as he discussed the future of dental bonding polymers.

At one point, during the inevitable first date
history revelations, he asked her if she had ever married. “Long
ago,” she said. “Divorced many years ago.”

“Kids?”

“My son is grown. What about you? Married?”

“No,” he said. “No, no no no no no. No, no.
No.”

She fixed him with a queer look. He made a
mental note for the future that one “no” was sufficient.

When they’d finished their coffee, Tamara
offered to show him a piece of property she was thinking about
buying. He accepted. First, she said, she had to stop at her place
and change into jeans.

Going to her place was good. Changing into jeans
was good. Things were progressing, and as they sped down the county
road in the late summer daylight, Mitch thought that maybe women
weren’t all bad after all. This one had intriguing
possibilities.

Her house was small but perfectly appointed.
Mitch wandered around the living room, looking at her art, handling
her knickknacks, touching her lamps, while she was upstairs
changing. He went into the kitchen to find a cross-stitched phrase
mounted in a heart-shaped frame.
As ye sow, so shall ye
reap.
The kitchen was beautiful, in a rustic, northwoods way,
with shelves of canned fruit in front of a lighted panel, so the
light, through the fruit, cast a warm glow throughout the
kitchen.

“Here you are,” she said. “Ready to go?”

She was a vision in a light blue sweater over
jeans. Her slim hips and long legs were just the right flavors of
eye candy. “You look fabulous. Your heart must be singing up a
storm.”

She smiled. “Thanks.” She pointed to the
cross-stitch. “Did you see this?”

He nodded, then did a double take. It said,
No smoking. Curfew ten p.m.

“I stole that from the women’s dorm at Kansas
State.”

“Bad girl,” he said, and put his arm around her.
“I like bad girls.”

She laughed, a tinkling, flirty laugh that
tickled his innards, and as they walked from the kitchen, he looked
back again at the little sign. Sure enough, it said no smoking.

She opened the garage and rummaged until she
found a big yellow flashlight that she handed to him. “Let’s take
my car,” she said, and opened the car door. He got into her
Mercedes SUV and let her take control of the date. He was
comfortable letting her lead. A less confident man might not be, he
reassured himself.

She pulled out of the driveway and after a few
turns, they were on a county road that went straight through the
northwoods for what seemed like a dozen miles. She had a nice soft
classical piano CD in the player, and they zoomed through the
fading daylight as if in a dream. Neither spoke.

Then she slowed, and the bleached white bones of
an old roller coaster came into view. It was off in the weeds a
ways. Further on were the two triangles of a Ferris wheel structure
that had been partially dismantled, and he could see the remnants
of little buildings and what was at one time probably an amusement
park midway.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“This is it,” she said, pulled into a weedy
spot, killed the engine and opened her door. “Bring the flashlight.
It’ll get dark soon.”

As she said that, her face turned in just the
right shadow and she looked exactly like Emmiline. The sight gave
him a start, but when he looked again, it was Tamara. Of course it
was Tamara. The waning light was playing tricks on him, he thought.
Besides, it hadn’t been that long since he lost his wife. It was a
normal thing, he knew, to continue to see a loved one out of habit
after death. He jumped out of the car and ran around to join her,
shaking Emmiline out of his system.

“Enchanted Pines,” Tamara said. “An old
amusement park that went bankrupt a dozen years or more ago. It’s
been for sale for just that long, but nobody has wanted to buy it.
It’s a great piece of property, twenty-four acres, including a
narrow-gauge railroad track that runs clear around. I’m thinking of
developing it.”

“Developing it into what?”

Mitch followed her through the weeds, knowing he
was getting burrs in his socks, and not very happy about that.
Clearly this wasn’t the woman for him. He liked women in jeans, but
jeans with high heels were much better than jeans with hiking
boots.

She shrugged. “Lots of options. Could grow
ginseng, could do a resort, maybe some housing . . . cemeteries are
high-return properties if the taxes stay low.”

“A cemetery?” Mitch shivered and looked around
at the growing shadows. He wanted to go back to her house where it
was cozy. He wanted to see how she’d decorated her bedroom, and if
she had a wine cellar.

“C’mon,” she said and grabbed his hand.

He’d feel better about all of this if she had
brought along a blanket and pillow. He followed her lead, stumbling
behind her as she crossed through the weeds and the occasional
overgrown path to a little railroad track. “See? Isn’t this
cute?”

Mitch especially didn’t want to be here.
Emmiline’s father was in the railroad business. All her money—now
his money—came from inheriting his stock. Mitch always considered
spending the evenings with his in-laws the dues he had to pay for
marrying their heir. The old man was boring in the extreme and his
nagging wife the worst the gender had to offer. Mitch had history
with railroads, and this miniature one was making him think about
things he’d rather not.

“It’s getting dark,” he said.

“There aren’t any boogies out here,” she said,
and laughed. Then she let go of his hand and ran off down the train
tracks into the gloom of pine trees and dusk. It was clearly a
“come and get me” move. He fumbled with the big, heavy flashlight,
his heart pounding a little loudly in his ears, but as he hurried,
trying to figure out how to turn on the light, he tripped over the
small metal rail and fell face down.

The big glass lens shattered.

The night closed in.

“C’mon, scaredy cat,” he heard her taunt from
the distance.

“Emmiline!” he shouted. Oops. He was here with .
. . what was her name? “Tamara, I mean,” he called. “Tamara, I
broke the light.”

No answer except the wind in the trees. He could
see their tops silhouetted in the rapidly fading light and they
swayed back and forth, the sound amazingly loud. He stood up, then
threw the remnants of the worthless light off into the distance. He
brushed off his clothes, felt around for torn places where he could
be bleeding, but found none. “Tamara! Come on.”

No answer. He started off down the tracks,
carefully picking his way, hating her more and more every step.

And then he realized what this was. This was a
setup. Emmiline was behind this. Shivers arced up his body like the
blue spark that had introduced Mitch to this woman. This
demon.
Emmiline had returned from the grave to exact her
vengeance, and what better way than on railroad tracks in the
dark.

He remembered his two much-older brothers
locking him in the cellar at their house whenever the parents went
out. They’d just throw him down the basement stairs, lock the door,
and then turn out the light. He’d crawl up the stairs and whine at
the door, and, now and then, whenever one of them got up to go to
the fridge for a fresh beer, they’d say, “Did they getcha yet, you
little sissy? Did the basement monsters taste your toes yet?” and
he’d pull his feet up under him and start to cry.

Just before the parents came home, his brothers
would let him out and threaten to kill him if he told. He lived his
life in abject terror until they all left home. When Mitch went
away to dental school, he left for good. He didn’t need terrorism
at the hands of his brothers now that he was an adult, and he was
sure they’d continue to hand it out.

Emmiline knew about his fear of the dark.

He heard an owl, and the creepy sound of bats
flying too close to his head. Mitch was out of his element. He was
a city boy. He needed to be in his office, in his home, with a
hefty Scotch and ESPN. What the hell was he doing out in the
woods—with another woman? Hadn’t he sworn off women, just this
morning?

But this wasn’t another woman, he realized. It
was
Emmiline.
It had to be Emmiline. The railroad business.
The cemetery referral. The needlepoint in her kitchen. Emmiline
used to do needlepoint. And she graduated from Kansas State. And
what was it she said when he picked her up for this wretched date?
“Looking nice makes my heart sing.” Those were the exact words
Emmiline said to him the night he picked her up for their first
date.
The. Exact. Words.

Darkness oozed from the thick stand of trees and
surrounded him. He couldn’t see his feet. He was afraid of stepping
off the train tracks and tripping again. He didn’t know the lay of
the land. He didn’t know what was beyond the tracks. He didn’t know
if it was bog or lake or highway or what. The darkness was
complete. He’d never seen such darkness. It was never this dark in
the city. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. He
tried. Couldn’t.

“Okay, Emmiline,” he said. “I got it. I
get
it. Come on, now. Let’s go back and talk this over with
a glass of wine.”

No answer.

“Emmiline.”

No answer.

He stumbled on something but managed not to
fall. He bent over to retrieve it. A short, stocky piece of tree
branch. He felt the ties and rail and knew he was still traveling
within the track. If it was intact all the way, all he had to do
was keep walking and he would end up where he started. Surely he’d
see car lights as he neared the highway, wouldn’t he? He hefted the
branch in his hand. It would be a good weapon in case a bat wanted
to bite him or nest in his hair, or wolves came around sniffing the
scent of his fear.

“Emmiline! Do you want me to apologize? Okay.
I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry.”

He was beginning to hear noises in the woods
that he didn’t understand. His heart pounded so loudly in his ears
that he was afraid he wouldn’t hear something if it sneaked up on
him. He was beginning to see pulsing red globes in the periphery of
his vision, but it was so dark, that was all he could see.

And now this.

He was so afraid he thought it might be best if
he just sat down on the train tracks, tucked his feet up underneath
him and waited for morning. Except that she was out there. She’d
come back, find him and call him a sissy. Emmiline.