(II)
“I want you out of
there right now! More murders? That place is
dangerous.”
Patricia sat
comfortably on the bed. Sunlight streamed into the room, warming
her face. It was Byron she was talking to on her cell, and the
previous, very loud exclamation had been his response when she’d
told him about the burning last night, and the gruesome deaths of
David Eald and his daughter. “Honey, you’re overreacting again.
It’s just some people way out on the Point who got involved with
drugs—”
“And those two people
who got murdered the other night—what was their name? The Hilds?
The Halds? Whatever! They were involved in drugs, too! Which is why
I want your butt in your car right now,
heading north!”
Patricia rolled her
eyes. “There’s plenty of drug-related crime in D.C., but we don’t
move because of it.”
“That’s four murders
in a week,” Byron countered. “No, five. Don’t forget about Dwayne,
the whole reason you went back to that nutty place.”
“The Ealds weren’t
murdered. Their place burned down, probably an accident. It’s
actually kind of common in makeshift meth labs. Making the stuff
involves several flammable solvents.”
“That’s supposed to
put me at ease? It’s okay because it’s common for drug labs to burn down?”
“No, but I’m just
saying—”
“And it could just as
easily be that someone else torched the place, couldn’t it? Another
turf murder. Didn’t you say the Hilds were murdered by a rival drug
gang for operating on their turf?”
“Well, it’s possible.
That’s what the police think. But . . .” She paused over the phone.
How can I argue with him? He’s actually right.
The place very easily could have been burned down by a rival drug
gang. “Honey, still, you’re overreacting. Everything’s fine
here, and we’re perfectly safe. Judy’s still shaken up over the
funeral and all, so that’s why I’m here. I told you, I won’t be
gone longer than a week.”
“Promise.”
She laughed. “I
promise!”
“So what are you
going to do today? Chew tobacco? Sit on the porch in a rocking
chair?”
“Agan’s Point isn’t
quite that backward. I’m just going to
go for a drive into town this morning—”
“You shouldn’t be
driving into town; you should be driving out of town.”
She just shook her
head and continued. “And then I’ll probably just hang around the
house and help Judy with some things.” She began to tell him about
the big clan cookout tomorrow—if the Squatters still had it now—but
as she talked, her focus dissolved. Was that a splattering she
heard? Yes, and a hiss. She noticed then that her bedroom door was
open a crack, and as she peered down the hall, she saw that the
bathroom door, too, stood open a few inches.
Ernie’s in there taking a shower, she realized.
He’s so used to having this wing of the house
to himself that he forgot to close the door. . . . This
wouldn’t have meant anything to her, but . . .
She could see
flesh.
A convenient angle
allowed the shower to reflect in the bathroom mirror, which she
could see a significant slice of through the crack in the
door.
She kept talking to
her husband without even thinking, and suddenly had gotten up and
walked to her own door for a better view. She could see him in
there, all right—he hadn’t closed the shower curtain.
My God, what am I doing? What if he saw me? He’d think I
was a total perv . . . which I guess I am. A female voyeur?
Looking at other people in secret had never been a desire of hers,
but then a lot of things about herself had changed since she’d
gotten back. What would Dr. Sallee say about
this? she wondered. It was just the midlife sexual peak of
all women, so . . .
Was it that
bad?
Her sense of guilt
struggled to cut into her thoughts—as she continued to talk to her
loving husband, no less—but she easily blocked them
out.
And
watched.
And then
imagined.
Suddenly she saw
herself in the shower with Ernie, and
the more deeply she thought about it, the more clearly the vision
focused. . . .
He wasn’t even
surprised as she stepped in; it was as though he were expecting
her, as though his flesh were a summons to her desire, and he knew
it. When the cool spray hit Patricia’s breasts, her nipples shot
right up. Something else shot right up, too, when she put her hand
to his sudsy groin. She could feel it beating in her
hand.
Then, in gestures
that nearly seemed rough, his calloused hands spun her around by
the hips, and then he was feeling her up into a suit of suds. He
stood behind her, his manhood hot against her buttocks. He was
manipulating her flesh the way a sculptor manipulated clay.
Patricia grew short of breath at once, rising on her tiptoes, her
mouth and eyes wide open. The rough fingers skipped back and forth
between corkscrewing her nipples and massaging her sex. She just
stood there and let herself be felt. .
. .
She talked on to
Byron, locked in some split stream of consciousness, communicating
to him and regarding his replies with no real awareness . . . while
the rest of her mind delved deeper into the sexual musing. Ernie
still stood behind her, the shower hissing over them. One strong
forearm locked around her waist, and then he was lifting her up.
Her feet came off the shower floor. She could feel her buttocks
sliding over his penis as she continued to rise, as if he would
penetrate her from behind with her feet off the ground. Her sex
burned; she was squirming—
Oh, God, no . . .
“Patricia?”
It was about to nudge
into her all at once.
“Patricia? Damn, I
think your cell phone cut out. Can you hear me?”
Her legs were
tensing, her back arching as her inflamed breasts and nipples
thrust outward, and she was already beginning to cli—
“Patricia!”
Reality slapped her
in the face. No, she wasn’t in the shower with Ernie; she was
talking to her husband! “I’m here,” she
assured him, waiting for her heart to slow down.
“You sounded way off
in space.”
Not in space, she thought, visibly blushing.
Just in the shower. “The reception down
here isn’t always that great. When I call tomorrow, I’ll use Judy’s
phone.”
“So how is Judy
doing, considering?”
Patricia tore herself
away from the gap in the door, then went back and sat on the bed.
Her last real image of Ernie had been of him stepping out of the
shower, in the reflection. She struggled to reengage her mind
against a backwash of guilt. “Actually, okay, I think. She’s seemed
to be handling Dwayne’s death pretty well since I got here, but now
she’s kind of rocked by what happened last night. She even said
something to the effect that it might be a good idea for her to
sell the Point.”
“I think she should.
Sounds like the whole place is turning into Drugtown. Sell it
before all the property value goes down the tubes.”
“Really, Byron, it’s
not that bad. There’re luxury condos going up on the other side of
the river. That’ll drive any bad elements out faster than
anything.”
“I hope you’re
right.”
“You get back to work
now,” she said, “and I’ll call tomorrow. And there’s something you
need to know.”
“What?”
“I love you,” she
said.
“Well, I love you,
too, so come back soon, will
you?”
“I will,” she
promised, and then they hung up.
Patricia sighed.
My fantasies are out of control! It
aggravated her so much now. But at least there was some solace: Dr.
Sallee said this is common for women my age.
There’s no reason to feel guilty, because they’re just fantasies.
I’d never really cheat on Byron. . . .
Before she could
consider anything further, she spotted Ernie coming down the hall
in a robe.
“Hey, Ernie?” she
called out.
He stuck his head in,
his long hair combed out in wet lines. “Oh, hey. I didn’t even know
you were here.”
Yeah, I’m here, all right, spying on you in the
shower. “I meant to get up early, but it took me a while to
fall back to sleep once we got back from the fire. How’s
Judy?”
“It’s funny,” he
said. “She’s more pissed off than depressed about the Ealds. She
don’t like the idea that Squatters are makin’ dope on her
land.”
“Well, it’s just a
few of them.”
“Yeah, I know. She’ll
be all right. It’s just too much goin’ on at once. She ain’t
handlin’ it well.”
Patricia deliberately
avoided eye contact. Just his being in the same room relit some of
the shower fantasy’s fire. “I wanted to ask you something. Do you
know who officially declared Dwayne dead? I know he was cremated at
the funeral home, but where was he autopsied? Is there a family
doctor or something?”
“It was the EMTs who
picked his body up just off the Point,” Ernie informed her. “And
they took Dwayne’s body to the county hospital there, to the county
morgue. So I guess that’s where they did the autopsy, but that’s
about all I know. You might wanna ask Chief Sutter.”
“I already did,” she
said, looking off. And he seemed
vague.
“What’cha wanna know
that for?”
She shrugged. “I just
want to see the autopsy report. Nobody seemed to know any details
about the murder, not even Judy.”
“That’s ‘cos Judy
doesn’t want to know ’em. You know how she is. She coulda got a
copy of the autopsy report, legal-like.”
Legal-like, Patricia thought. Even the backwater
way he talked seemed attractive. “I do know how she is, and I can’t
really blame her. Learning the details
of how her husband got his head cut off would just rub her face
deeper in the tragedy. But I keep hearing funny things about the
incident, and no one seems to know exactly what
happened.”
Ernie nodded. “Just
like any small hick town. Everything’s rumors.”
“What other rumors
are there?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Well, over the past
coupla months a lotta Squatters have disappeared—that’s the biggest
rumor goin’.”
“I’ve heard something
along those lines. But they didn’t really disappear, they just pulled up roots and moved
somewhere else. Even Squatters can get sick of living in the same
place.”
“Sure, and that’s
probably true. But that’s what I’m talkin’ about. The way people
are in a town like this. There’s always gotta be a mystery goin’
on, even if it ain’t true. Rumor is some of these Squatters was
actually murdered. By Dwayne.”
The comment jolted
her. “Dwayne?”
“Um-hmm. And you
wanna know the rest?”
Now Patricia was
almost laughing. “Of course!”
“Rumor is that Everd
Stanherd used his boondocks magic to kill Dwayne—for
revenge.”
“And people actually
believe this?” she asked, astonished.
“Oh,
yeah.”
“I don’t believe in
‘boondocks’ magic, and I’m sure you don’t either.” She paused,
looking at him hard. “Do you?”
He paused himself,
which seemed strange, then cracked a smile and said, “A’ course
not. All I meant is to show ya how things work here. There’s rumors
for everything. And that’d be great if you really could see Dwayne’s autopsy report, and put an end
to that rumor.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I
will.”
“I got work to do in
the yard, so I’ll see ya later,” he said, and disappeared from the
open door.
What a strange
conversation. But at least it got my mind off
. . . him. Middle age is turning me into a closet slut! And
he was right about the rumors. People made them up to make their
lives feel more interesting. Patricia had to admit she was
intrigued herself, and that was why she picked up her cell phone
again and called her office. Her associate put her through to the
boss, the chief managing partner, Tim McGinnis.
“So how are things
down there in . . . where?” he
asked.
“Agan’s Point,
southern, southern Virginia.”
“Never heard of it.
Sounds like a hillbilly town.”
“It sort of is,” she
said through a laugh. “D.C. and this place are two different
worlds. Everything all right at the firm?”
“Well, other than the
roof threatening to collapse since the day you left, things are
great. I hope you get back here soon, because the Walton account
wants to go to settlement.”
“Give it to the
associates; I don’t have to be there.”
“They want you,
nobody else. I guess you’re the only lawyer in D.C. they trust.
Please come back soon.”
“God, you sound like
my husband. Don’t worry; I won’t be more than a week.”
“Thank
God.”
“But I also wanted to
ask you something.” She got to the point of her call. “Didn’t you
tell me once that some buddy of yours works for the governor of
Virginia?”
Tim laughed snidely.
“Yeah, but he’s not my buddy; he’s my brother. He’s the number four
man in the state government, director of public safety. Oversees
every police department in the state, every fire department, county
sheriff’s—everything.”
Perfect, she thought. “Are you in any position to
ask him a favor?”
Now Tim laughed
harder. “Since I practically put his boss in office with private
fund-raising contributions, I think I can safely say my brother
would shit turkeys and whistle ‘Dixie’ if I told him to.
Why?”
Patricia was amused
by the talk. “I need access to an autopsy report, and I don’t have
the time to do a FOIA request. My sister’s husband—Dwayne Parker.
Nobody knows the exact cause of death, and I want to find
out.”
Tim’s incredulity
could be sensed over the line. “I thought you said he got his head
cut off! That’s the cause of death: head cut off.”
Patricia felt guilty
getting a laugh out of the tragedy. . . . But
it is kind of funny when you put it that way. “There’s this
rumor down here that there was some oddity relating to the
decapitation, and I haven’t gotten anywhere with the local police
chief. I really need this, Tim. The autopsy report is in the morgue
at the county hospital in Luntville.”
“I’ll make a call.
Just go to the place tomorrow, and it shouldn’t be a
problem.”
“Thanks, Tim. It’s
just that there’s some weird stuff going on here, and I’m curious
about it.”
“Hmm. Well, remember
what curiosity did to the cat. I don’t really like the idea of my
star attorney running around down in Hooterville inquiring about
decapitations.”
“The weirdest part is
that there have been several more murders just since I’ve been
back—”
“What!”
“Drug-related stuff.
It’s very uncharacteristic in a place like this.”
Now her boss lost his
levity. “Why don’t you just come home? Don’t tell me some
other people got their heads cut off
too.”
“No, but it was
pretty brutal stuff. I just want to check some things out, get my
sister squared away; then I’ll be back.”
“You’d damn well
better, ’cos let me tell you something. If you wind up getting
your head cut off . . . I’m going to be
pissed.”
A final laugh.
“Thanks for your help, Tim. And I will be back soon, with my head
securely attached to my neck.”