The Wife and the Widow

by Christian White

  As she drove, she thought: do this one thing and let that be the end of it.

  When she got home, she marched to the side door of the garage and went inside. She found the pull-string light switch in the dark and tugged it. The harsh lights blinked on overhead. Squinting against them, she stood on the empty strip of oil-stained concrete where Ray’s truck was usually parked and looked over at his workbench, behind which the first-aid kit was stashed. She then shifted her gaze to the bank of shelves that ran the length of the rear wall.

  She took the Salvos box out and opened it. Inside, just where she’d left them, were Ray’s work shirt, cargo trousers and tan-coloured boots.

  Abby snapped on a pair of latex surgical gloves, carefully removed Ray’s boots, cargo trousers and work shirt from the box, and thought, What the hell am I doing?

  She made a space for the clothing on her workbench, between the scalpel blades, insect pins, tongue depressors, pliers, rubber mallet and staple gun. The fluorescent light hummed overhead, and an incessant leak dripped somewhere in the dark corner of the garage.

  She kneeled to search through her taxidermy supplies. Tucked neatly beside the bar fridge was a large plastic tub. She slid it out, popped the lid and riffled through plastic bottles, glass vials and jars, searching for the luminol. As well as playing a small part in the taxidermy clean-up process, luminol was used by forensic investigators to detect trace amounts of blood at crime scenes. When it came into contact with the iron in blood, it emitted a blue glow that could be seen in a darkened room.

  Being careful to distribute the chemical evenly and thoroughly, Abby sprayed the trousers, shirt and boots, praying the garage door wouldn’t swing open to admit Ray’s truck. When she was sure she’d used enough luminol, all she needed to do was turn out the lights. If the luminol found blood, she’d know right away. She took hold of the pull-string light switch in the middle of the garage, and took three deep breaths.

  19

  THE WIDOW

  Inside the black metal lock-box was a one-paragraph obituary, cut neatly from a newspaper. Age had turned the paper yellow and water damage had blurred the ink in places, but it was still readable:

  STEMPLE, David E.

  Taken from this world on the 7th of August 1996. Wait for us on the other side, Dave. Survived by two loving sisters, a cherished son, and beloved wife, Annabel.

  ‘Who’s David Stemple?’ Fisher asked when Kate handed him the death notice to read. They were in his room at the Blue Whale Motor Inn. Fisher was sitting at the desk, ready for a shower, a soft blue towel draped around his shoulders like a pet snake.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Kate said. ‘But I found this locked inside a box in the attic of the holiday house.’

  ‘The house? You went back there? Kate, that’s a crime scene.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Detective Eckman specifically told us not to—’

  ‘I know, Fisher. I just … I was sick of feeling so powerless.’

  ‘Do me a favour and stand still,’ Fisher said. ‘You’re moving so fast it’s making me feel nauseous.’

  She had been pacing the length of the small motel room since she’d arrived, but now she sat down on the bed and stuffed her hands beneath her legs. Fisher really did look nauseous, but Kate thought it might have more to do with the Chivas.

  He read the obit again through bloodshot, squinted eyes, then rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘This obituary is from 1996. How do you know it didn’t spend the last twenty-three years in the attic? Although I suppose Pam and I still had the place back then, and I can’t imagine why either of us would save something like this.’

  ‘The lock-box was pretty much the only clean thing in a very dusty attic,’ Kate explained. ‘Even if it was up there all that time, someone has looked at it very recently.’

  ‘Then it’s evidence.’

  ‘Evidence the cops missed,’ she said.

  ‘We shouldn’t even be touching this,’ he said, placing the obituary carefully down on the desk. ‘There might be fingerprints or DNA on it. This might belong to whoever killed him, Kate.’

  ‘It was John’s,’ she said firmly. ‘He either brought it with him to the island or dug it out when he got here.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Remember the bug zappers Eckman told us about? They were up there too, in a circle around the lock-box. It was like he’d set them up to … I don’t know … protect him from whatever it was that was inside the box.’

  ‘The ghost of David Stemple?’ Fisher asked, dryly. He popped two Disprin into a glass of water and watched them fizz, twirling the glass in a circular motion, trying to speed up their dissolving.

  ‘He was scared of something, Fisher,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘I know. I don’t mean to be flippant. This is just … a lot.’

  He picked up his glass of Disprin even though it wasn’t quite ready – big clumps of medication floated inside – and drank it in one gulp, wincing at the taste. ‘Have you tried looking online?’

  ‘Google gave me three hundred thousand results. It’s a pretty common name.’

  ‘Stemple,’ he said, moving the word around his mouth, as if tasting wine. ‘Maybe it does sound familiar now. I’ll give Pam a call. She might know something … You okay, love?’

  Kate had slumped forward on the bed, elbows to knees and face to hands. She had spent her marriage looking at her husband through a keyhole. Now, she was catching a glimpse of what lay beyond the door, and what didn’t confuse her, was terrifying.

  ‘I just don’t know why he didn’t come to me with whatever the hell he was going through?’

  This is what happens when we don’t talk about the monsters.

  There was a flash of something that might have been guilt in Fisher’s expression, then he shook it off. ‘None of this is on you, Kate. John had a support network. There were plenty of people he could have come to.’

  ‘But I’m his wife, Fisher. I’m his … I’m his … beloved wife.’ She trailed off a moment, then went over to the desk and picked up the obit. Reading aloud, she said, ‘Beloved wife, Annabel.’

  ‘What is it?’ Fisher asked, reading her face.

  Annabel’s death was the leaf that dammed the stream, Holly Cutter had told her back in the empty cafeteria at Trinity Health Centre.

  ‘I have to make a call,’ Kate said.

  * * *

  ‘It’s good to hear your voice,’ Chatveer Sandhu said. Kate imagined him sitting behind the reception desk, surrounded by those relaxing shades of blue and quiet, forgettable artwork, listening to the gurgle of the extravagant water feature. ‘Everyone at Trinity was just sick when they heard the news. Did you get the flowers we sent?’

  ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘But I haven’t been home. I’m staying in Belport for a while.’

  She’d gone back to her room to make the call and was now sitting on the bed looking out at the fibreglass orca. A wet seagull swooped down and landed in the dry spot beneath its breaching tail.

  ‘Do you know yet when his service will be?’ Chatveer asked.

  ‘Not for a few weeks. There’s still a lot to figure out.’

  The truth was, she’d hardly stopped to think about things like funeral arrangements and flowers and eulogies, and, frankly, she understood now that there were two versions of John: the husband and the stranger. She would have to find a way to reconcile those two versions before anyone put shovel to dirt.

  ‘You’re probably looking for Holly,’ Chatveer said. ‘She’s in a meeting right now, but I can give her a message or patch you through to her voicemail.’

  She was pretty sure there was no meeting. After Kate’s unannounced visit to Trinity, Holly likely instigated a strict no-Kate phone-screening policy. Either that, or she was standing over Chatveer’s shoulder right now, waving her hands and whispering, ‘I’m not here!’

  ‘Actually, I was hoping to talk to you,’ she said. ‘I wanted to ask you about one of John’s
patients: Annabel. Do you remember her?’

  ‘Annabel,’ Chatveer said. ‘Of course. Advanced PF. She was a cantankerous old thing, but I liked her. We all did.’

  ‘Holly told me John took her death pretty hard.’

  What she’d really said was that when Annabel died, John took a dark turn.

  ‘When you work in a place like Trinity, it’s impossible not to connect with certain patients,’ Chatveer said soothingly, clearly pleased to be comforting the poor widow. ‘I’m just a glorified secretary, and I still spend half my week crying and the other looking at job ads. But, you know, John and Annabel really had something special. He’d sit with her for hours after the end of his shift. They’d just talk or watch Modern Family. They’d tease each other, like old friends. He was so good that way, Kate, but not everyone could appreciate their connection.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Annabel’s son was…’ he paused to choose his words, then lowered his voice. ‘He was a piece of work. Nobody leaves Trinity, at least not in the corporeal sense, and by the time Annabel came to us it was clear she was on her way out. But apparently her son found hospice care too depressing. The whole time she was in our care, he must have visited twice. Three times at the most. Now, I try to be guided through life by truth, love and empathy, but sometimes you just need to grow some balls. He had no problem visiting after she was dead.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He…’ Chatveer trailed off, then fell silent.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s just, I’m not sure how much we should be talking about.’

  ‘Holly doesn’t need to know.’

  ‘It’s not just Holly,’ he said. ‘John didn’t tell you about all this, did he?’

  Kate didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kate, but he must have had his reasons.’

  She considered this a moment. ‘The second-last thing John ever said to me was, If we don’t talk about the monsters in this world, we won’t be ready for them when they jump out from under the bed. He kept a lot of things from me, to protect me, but he realised too late that it was a mistake.’

  There was a long beat of silence, then Chatveer took a deep, steady breath. ‘Annabel wrote John into her will, Kate.’

  She leaned forward on the bed, pressed the phone closer to her ear. ‘Really?’

  ‘It was a small amount, I’m not exactly sure how much, but when her son got wind of it, he threatened the hospital with legal action, accused the staff of manipulating vulnerable people out of their money. It was all unfounded, of course, but he was furious.’

  ‘How furious?’

  ‘Not furious enough to do what you’re thinking, I’m sure,’ Chatveer said. ‘To be honest with you, he had a point. This kind of thing isn’t unheard of in palliative care, especially with the lonelier patients. They have money and want it to mean something, to go somewhere. But it’s unethical. If John had known anything about it while Annabel was alive he would have put a stop to it.’

  ‘Does this have something to do with why John quit?’

  ‘Officially, John resigned.’ He was almost whispering now. ‘Unofficially, Holly didn’t give him much of a choice. If Annabel’s son carried through with his legal threat, and it seemed like there was a good chance he might, there would be all sorts of trouble heading their way. Don’t get me wrong, Holly puts the needs of Trinity staff ahead of everything else, but you know she’s a cut-and-run type of person. John became a liability, so she cut him loose.’

  The rain outside eased enough for the seagull to creep out from under the orca’s tail and take flight.

  ‘What was Annabel’s surname?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I can’t remember off the top of my head.’

  ‘Can you check?’

  ‘I don’t know, Kate,’ he said. ‘There’s doctor–patient confidentiality to consider.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  Chatveer said nothing, but Kate could hear the tapping of fingers on a computer keyboard. ‘Stemple. Annabel Stemple.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about her husband, was his name David?’

  Chatveer scoffed. ‘Only all the time,’ he said. ‘From what I remember, he died a long time ago.’

  The 7th of August 1996.

  ‘Do you know how he died?’ Kate asked.

  ‘No, but I got the impression it was unexpected. Sudden, even.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘The way she reminisced about him. It was more about the times they didn’t get to share, rather than the ones they did.’

  In a painful, sudden flash, Kate thought about the years that stretched out ahead of her. John wasn’t coming back for them.

  ‘I just need one more thing from you,’ she said. ‘Do you have access to Annabel’s son’s contact details?’

  Another contemplative click of the tongue down the line. ‘What was the last thing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said the second-last thing John said to you was about monsters. What was the last?’

  ‘… He told me he was ready to come home.’

  Chatveer exhaled, then she heard him typing on his keyboard. A moment later he came back on the line and said, ‘Here’s the address, do you have a pen?’

  Kate fetched some motel stationery from the desk. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Oh what, Chat?’

  ‘Annabel’s son. He lives in Belport.’

  20

  THE WIFE

  As Abby stood poised to turn out the light in the garage, a terrifying question occurred to her: What next? What would she do if the luminol revealed blood on Ray’s clothing? Would she run to the police and turn over the evidence, or carry her husband’s secret with her wherever she went like a tumour? What was a wife supposed to do? How far was she expected to go for love? Another thought shot to the surface like a cork. Was her husband a killer? Even with the mysterious phone call, the secret stash of gay porn, his recent defensive behaviour, she couldn’t imagine him ending another man’s life.

  But that isn’t quite true, a dark voice whispered. You can imagine it, because you’ve seen the Switch.

  ‘Do all men have a switch?’ she asked aloud, as if this wasn’t a conversation taking place in her head. Her voice, echoing off the walls of the garage, sounded like a stranger’s.

  And do all men act like Ray when that switch is thrown?

  Abby and Ray argued occasionally, like any couple, but rarely loud enough to bring neighbours to fences. He had never hit her. Never come close. But he did have a temper, and she had seen it boil over into something mean and sharp-toothed.

  She called it the Switch. The last time she’d seen it thrown was on a hot summer night a long time ago, while she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with Lori. The memory slapped over her. It became a trapdoor, and Abby tumbled through it, falling backwards in time, until suddenly it was

  seventeen years earlier, Abby and Ray were on their way home from Belport Medical. They had rushed to emergency because Abby had been convinced she was in labour. As it turned out, she’d been having false contractions, or ‘a belly full of farts’ as the doctor had described it.

  It was a stifling night. The aircon in their old Datsun was broken – the car would be scrapped six months later when Abby slid off the loose gravel shoulder of Old Harbour Road and right into Les and Kathleen Bale’s brick letterbox – so all the windows were down. Warm air filled the car, carrying the smell of bonfire parties.

  It was the middle of January. Bay Street was jammed with traffic. Sandwiched between a yellow BMW and a silver Benz, they stop-started towards home, barely six inches at a time. The footpath was full of sunburned tourists. A gang of teenage girls in bikinis attacked each other with water balloons. The line outside The Dreamy Ice-Creamery snaked into the street. The sound of David Bowie spilled out of the Belly. Inside, as usual, middle-aged men and wo
men would be tearing up the dance floor.

  Ray watched all of this from behind the wheel of the Datsun and grumbled.

  ‘This whole island used to be a hunting ground,’ he said, keeping as little distance as possible between them and the car in front. ‘Aborigines would paddle over from the mainland to collect shellfish and swan eggs. Now look at the state of it.’

  ‘No offence, Ray, but I really can’t talk about shellfish and swan eggs right now.’ Her belly full of farts had settled into a state of nausea.

  ‘All I’m saying is, with the amount of money these people piss away each year, you could practically cure world hunger.’

  The fact that Abby and Ray (along with the rest of the town) depended on tourist money to survive seemed to have temporarily escaped him.

  Finally, the traffic eased enough for them to get a run. ‘Look at this,’ Ray said, gesturing to the cars lining the street. ‘Sports car, sports car, Benz, sports car. That’s a Blackhawk, for Christ’s sake. Do you have any idea how much a Blackhawk—’

  The car shook madly for a moment, then filled with a sudden metallic crunch. Ray, who had gently pressed the brake to let a kid with a BMX over the zebra crossing, clenched his fingers around the wheel and clenched his teeth even tighter.

  Abby – who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt because it felt like a boa constrictor around her pregnant belly – lurched forward. She let out a noise, something like a desperate, frightened whimper, and then wrapped her hands around her stomach.

  They’d just been rear-ended.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Ray muttered, breathing heavily through a burst of adrenalin. His hands were trembling. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Abby said.

  ‘He could have hurt you. He could have hurt the baby.’

  He turned to look at her. His eyes were distant, set behind a fog of quickly growing rage. He glanced into the rear-view mirror, then shifted around in his seat to look through the rear windscreen.