Obsessed

by Rick R. Reed

  But none of the routine worked. It was like telling a child to think about anything in the world but elephants. She kept reliving the scene with Joe and Margo over and over again, as if she had been there with them: in the underpass when Margo stabbed Joe and later in the storage room when Joe had awakened and taken the communion of blood Margo had offered him. The words Joe had written were no longer what she remembered. What they had described, though, had come alive as she went over it again and again, as if she had been a mute observer, undetected.

  Nick was knocking at the door. Anne took a final look at herself in the mirror and opened the door.

  She kissed him and led him inside. "Let me take that from you," Anne said, taking the bottle of wine he held. She left him to take off his coat while she put the white wine in the refrigerator.

  "What are you making for dinner?" Nick asked when she returned. "Ashes?"

  "Very funny," Anne said, picking up his coat from the chair he had left it on. "Let me hang this up for you." She left him once more to go to the hall closet.

  He came up behind her as she was closing the closet door. He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. He smelled clean.

  "What's wrong?" he whispered into her hair. "It seems like you're avoiding me."

  She turned to him and kissed him. Her kiss was hungry, full of a desire for all the comfort her fear and turmoil required. She stopped and looked up at him. "I'm not avoiding you," she said. "I'm trying to avoid thinking. It's not working very well."

  "Why?"

  "Could we just get out of here? I want you to take me out for dinner. Someplace noisy . . . someplace where there are lots of people, where it's brightly lit."

  Nick looked at her for a while, expecting her to maybe break down and tell him everything. Everything that had been hidden in her voice since she had called him at his office that morning to invite him over for dinner. But she didn't return his gaze; instead, she reached into the closet and brought out his coat. She handed it to him and pulled hers out.

  She squeezed his hand. "Let's go. The wine should chill for a few hours anyway. We can open it when we come back."

  He followed her out the door. "Anyplace in particular you want to go?"

  "Ever been to Dave's Italian Kitchen in Evans-ton? It fits the bill."

  "Perfect," Nick said, even though he ate there at least three times a week.

  The apartment was dark. Nick was glad. A winter moon shone in through the bedroom windows, giving a silvery-gray sheen to everything in the room.

  Nick felt the silk of her hair as she placed her head on his chest. What was wrong with him? "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It wasn't your fault."

  "Yeah," he said. Nick turned and grabbed a cigarette from the nightstand, lit it. He stared at the moon for a long time, wondering about himself, about this room he was in. The bedroom of some missing guy, he thought, and here I am fucking his lady. Well, not even that tonight.

  Anne got up on one elbow. "Look, it really doesn't matter."

  He knew it did.

  'You're probably just "keyed up."

  Oh, no, why should I be keyed up? I'm in bed with the wife of some guy who's half off his rocker. Who's keyed up? He stubbed out the cigarette and turned to look at her. There was hunger in her eyes. He felt like she was staring right through him. He laughed, but there was no humor in it, only darkness. "Tongue still works," he whispered.

  She smiled at him, but desperation came through. "Don't. That's not all I'm interested in, you know." But already she was kicking off the sheets, the silver-ivory thighs parting in the moonlight.

  He could smell her. He kissed, starting at her ears and went downward. "Yes," she moaned when he reached her sex. What was it she said then? Take me away?

  He felt like a machine. I should get away from all of this, he thought, get away before I'm too ensnared. But even then, he was grinding his tongue up inside her, taking her someplace else.

  After, he told her he didn't feel as if she was really with him that evening. He asked if it was his fault.

  "I think you know who's fault it is, but I'm sure you have no idea why, even though what you already know might make you think you know why." She burrowed her face into the hair on his chest. "I don't know how I can talk about this." Her voice was muffled. He felt the warm wetness of her tears. What's the matter? he wondered. Did she find out he's gay? A child molester? What?

  He lifted her face and licked her tears away. "I'm going to get us some wine," he said. "Maybe that'll help."

  She watched him walk naked through the bedroom, remembered seeing Joe do the same thing so many times before. Sitting up in bed, she drew her knees up to her chest and encircled them with her arms. Will my life ever be normal again? she wondered, staring out at the night sky.

  Nick came back with two wineglasses and the bottle. He sat on the edge of the bed and poured each of them a glass. Anne gulped down her first glass and took the bottle from him and refilled. "Courage," she whispered, lifting the glass.

  "Last night I found some of Joe's journals. What I found really scared me. I don't know what to think. Joe grew up horribly abused. . . ." Anne went on to tell him about the sexual abuse Joe received from his father and how his sister helped and his mother looked the other way. When she got to the last part she found it hard to continue.

  "Anne, you've got to tell me everything," Nick said, "so I can help."

  "He thinks he's some sort of . . . vampire." She got up from the bed and went to the dresser. She had kept the last journal there, in with her socks.

  "Here," she said, returning, "read it for yourself."

  Nick took the journal from her and switched on the bedside lamp. He looked more and more confused as he read. He had been face to face with a lot of odd situations in his work, but nothing compared with this. The guy had to be completely nuts, he thought. But then, who wouldn't be, with the kind of upbringing he had?

  "Do you think there could be anything to what he's said?" Anne asked him when he finished reading.

  "Yeah, I think there could be a lot. Not that he's some sort of vampire, but that he's really, really sick . . . and maybe he could hurt somebody."

  Anne stiffened in bed beside him. She remembered the killings in Berwyn. "Nick, there's something else you should know. Over the winter there have been a couple of killings in Berwyn. In both cases a sharp instrument was used to slash the victims to death. Nick, Joe never, ever went to Berwyn for any reason before you saw him go there. Now, I don't know why he's suddenly decided to go there . . . and that's what worries me. What also worries me is that I found a bloody X-Acto knife in the bathroom a few weeks ago. I just don't know what to think anymore."

  "Well, don't get too worried. The killings could just be a coincidence."

  "Another thing: All the recent journals are gone. I'm sure he would have continued keeping journals. So he must be hiding something."

  "Then why would he want you to see any of them?"

  "I don't know. Who said he wanted me to?"

  "Well, if he's hidden some of the journals, why not hide all of them?"

  "I don't know." She thought for a long time. "Maybe he did want me to see them. Maybe it was a way of telling me, of letting me know how sick he's become. Oh, Nick, maybe what he wants is help."

  "Well, he does need that."

  "We have to find out more. Could you help, Nick?"

  "I don't know how much more I can find out. He's not staying at the Y anymore. I've lost track of him."

  "I mean, could you help by finding out a little bit about his past?"

  "You mean by trying to find his family or something?"

  "That's exactly what I mean. He was always evasive about his family, evasive to the point of obviously hiding something. Now, I can understand in light of what happened not wanting to have anything to do with them, but maybe they know something more. Something that could help us find him. I want to help him, Nick. And I want us to find him before he ruins what
's left of his life."

  "I don't know where to begin looking."

  "I do. He mentioned the town in his journal. It's in Pennsylvania ... a little steel town called Summitville, a little ways west of Pittsburgh. Please, Nick, could you go for just one day? I'll pay for the flight."

  "I'm not worried about that. It's just that I don't know what good this will do."

  Anne shook her head. "I don't know either. But we'll never know unless we try. You're a private investigator, you should know that. Sometimes you find things you aren't expecting. Please, Nick. Couldn't you do it for me?"

  "Okay, but I can't spend longer than a day."

  "When will you go?"

  "I can't go until next week. But I promise to go early, Monday maybe. Tuesday at the latest."

  Nick arrived at the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport Tuesday morning. He had never been to this part of the country and was amazed, as the plane descended, at the natural beauty of the area. There were big, tree-covered hills everywhere. The airport wasn't really near the city at all.

  By the time he rented a car, the sunlight that had dappled the hills was gone. Outside the airport the sky was heavy with clouds and there was a fine mist in the air. He knew he'd have some fog to make his ride to Summitville a little more difficult.

  Once outside the airport, he began heading west.

  The Summitville Town Hall was brand new, a squat, red-brick, one-story structure in the middle of the downtown. After Nick had explained at the front desk that he was a private investigator, he was introduced to Eula Simmons, the woman in charge of taking care of the records housed in the basement of the building. Eula was an old woman who had probably, Nick supposed, worked in the records department since she was just out of high school. She was overweight and wore a bright pink dress and red shoes.

  But Nick found that in spite of her appearance she was competent.

  "Margo MacAree? The name doesn't sound real familiar, but then there's over sixteen-thousand people in Summitville; I guess I can't know 'em all. You're looking for a birth certificate?"

  "Well, that'd be a start. I want to find out what I can."

  "Sure you do! Listen, it would help if you knew what year she was born in."

  "I can guess, in the late forties, early fifties."

  Eula laughed. "I'll let you do the searching." She led him into the records room. "We aren't computerized, so I imagine you'll have to do some looking. Good luck."

  She left Nick standing in the middle of a caged-in room. He located "1948" and decided to start there.

  After four hours Nick came to the death certificate of Margo MacAree. She had been a suicide: death attributed to massive loss of blood as the result of self-inflicted wrist wounds. Nick looked at the date, remembering Joe's entry in his journal. Joe's entry had been in 1981. The death certificate clearly stated that the approximate time of death had been 7:00 a.m., August 5, 1981. It couldn't have been long after she came to him in Chicago, if she really had come to him at all. I suppose, Nick thought, I'd kill myself, too, if I'd stabbed my brother and then made him drink my blood.

  Christ, what have I gotten myself into?

  Nick stood and stretched. What was going on? It was obvious: Joe MacAree had been crazy long before he even met Anne. Who knew what was true in those journals? Nick supposed it was all true for Joe. The poor guy.

  He decided he should recommend to Anne that as soon as they find him they should have him committed. Nick reasoned he was probably harmless—Anne's fears about the killings were, most likely, paranoid. Nick copied down the address from Margo's death certificate to see if any of the MacArees were still living at the same address. Even if they weren't, he could probably track them down through the phone company.

  His next stop was the Summitville Public Library. There he might be able to find a newspaper story about Margo MacAree's suicide. In a town as small as Summitville, it might be big news.

  Big news it was. Nick sat in the basement of the fading old building, the smells of must and old men around him, and stared at the blue-tinged screen of the microfiche.

  He shook his head. This just gets weirder and weirder.

  Margo MacAree had killed herself in Pattison's Motel on the outskirts of town. She had exchanged the motel sheets for white satin ones and then, after slitting her wrists (deeply and vertically, with a razor), laid herself out, cruciform, on the bed.

  Vivaldi's "La Primavera" was on the little portable record player she had brought with her.

  Nick's time spent in the basement of the library had allowed the sky to darken into night. As he drove along the Ohio River to the outskirts of town, he noticed how dark the trees looked against the night sky and how steam rose off the river. Across the water, huge cooling towers rose into the sky, pouring steam into the air. The blinking lights of industry kept the river banks bright. Nick noticed the barges floating silently down the river.

  He took a right turn and maneuvered the car down a bumpy road that led into a valley near the river. Nick thought that the people who lived down here must get flooded out a lot. He stopped wondering why they would live there when he saw the poverty of the area. Most of the houses were wood-frame, and most were in need of paint. Those that didn't need paint were covered with tar paper masquerading as brick. It was here, Nick thought, stopping and looking at the house, where Joe MacAree had grown up. Nick matched the address he had written down with the one near the mailbox. This was the right place.

  The house was dark. But Nick thought he would try anyway. He was supposed to fly back to Chicago late that evening, and if he didn't get the chance to find the MacArees tonight, he never would.

  When he got out of the car he noticed how quiet it was, except for the river rushing by. There was a fishy smell in the air, mixed with the steel-mill smell of sulfur. Rotten eggs and fish. What a wonderful place to live.

  There were no sidewalks in this neighborhood, and Nick's feet sank d6wn into mud as he walked to the front porch of the house. As soon as he put his foot on the front step, it creaked. The creaking aroused a dog in the backyard who started barking. Nick heard the metallic sound of the dog straining to free itself from the chain that must have confined it. A porch light went on, and before Nick had a chance to knock he saw a man coming down the steps in the house. The man switched on a few lights inside before he came to the door.

  Without opening the door the man shouted, "Who's there?"

  Nick couldn't see his face very well because he was looking through sheer curtains that hung in the front door.

  "My name is Nick MontPierre. I'm trying to locate the MacAree family. Are you Mr. MacAree?"

  The man opened the door, and Nick stared at a balding old man holding a can of Black Label beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He wore a T-shirt and green work pants. "C'mon in," the man said, opening the storm door.

  Nick stepped inside and looked around. The wallpaper was yellowed from what Nick guessed was years of heavy cigarette smoke. The whole house smelled of stale cigarettes, almost as if the windows had never been opened.

  "Are you Mr. MacAree?" Nick repeated his question.

  "Why?"

  "I'm a friend of his son's; my name's Nick—"

  "I heard you the first time." The man paused for a moment. "No, I ain't Mr. MacAree."

  "Would you know where I could find him? The family used to live here, you know."

  "I know. The MacArees is all dead, far as I know." The man spoke matter-of-factly, as if he didn't care about showing any sympathy.

  "Do you know what happened?"

  The man shook his head and stared at the floor. "Nah. I think the daughter mighta killed herself. I don't know about the boy. He disappeared. You say you know him."

  "That's right." Nick lied. "We went to school together and I've worked with him since then."

  "Where'd you say you was from?"

  "Chicago."

  "Oh."

  "When did you move in here?"

&nb
sp; "I don't know where that's any of your business, mister. I gotta be gettin' to bed. I gotta get up early."

  "Well, thanks for your time."

  The man closed the door in Nick's face.

  The man turned around and peered into the darkness of the living room. "Who was that?"

  "Just some bum. He wanted to know about Joey, I guess. Or at least about his family. We're dead, accordin' to me." The man laughed.

  "Yeah, as far as that boy's concerned, we are." His wife took the beer from his hand and drank.

  21

  Randy had waited several days to get up the courage to call Joe MacAree. If he was fortunate enough to speak with him, he had rehearsed what he would say. He knew he didn't want to scare him away, so he decided to pretend he was an auditor with the IRS. Randy had thought through several guises, among them a disc jockey announcing Joe had won a cash prize and would have to meet him to claim it, a long-lost relative who was in town on business, and dozens of other possibilities. Although most of the other pretenses seemed more pleasant, none would have the authority of an IRS auditor. Even a murderer couldn't refuse.

  But on this Saturday morning Randy found it difficult to pick up the telephone; his palms were sweating. The muted floral pattern of the wallpaper in his bedroom closed in on him, making him feel trapped by his own impatience to see

  Joe MacAree. His heart pounded because he had never had such a desire to kill anyone before and had never felt so eager to get a job done. He felt nauseated each time he picked up the phone and started to dial the number. He hung up just short of hearing the ring each time.

  He was in the process of dialing for about the fifth time when his mother opened the door. She stood looking at him, and Randy felt as if he had been caught masturbating. His face flushed; he could feel cold sweat on his forehead and upper lip. When he spoke he heard himself speaking in the voice of an adolescent: high and almost quivering.