The Clairvoyants

by Karen Brown

  “How do you know she’s dead?” I said. “You can’t talk like that here with her friends all around.”

  “Oh, I have it on good confidence that she’s dead,” she said. “And she may be stuck in between worlds, or have some last words. She may want to name her killer.”

  Mary Rae had stopped at the porch party that night, lingering, as if she wanted to join them. “Where did you hear this?” I asked Del.

  “I have some friends who talked about it,” she told me.

  I went to the bar and poured myself a new glass of wine. Del reached for the bottle. “Stop it,” I whispered. “Just stop it.” I grabbed the bottle back from her. Her medication clearly prohibited the addition of alcohol. “What friends? Where did you meet them?”

  Del sighed. “It’s too hard to explain,” she said. “They live in the encampment. And I know you’re going to ask me ‘what encampment,’ but I’m not even going to try to describe it. I will take you there.”

  “What?”

  “They want to meet you anyway.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Sybil Townsend,” she said. “She reads cards.”

  “Not a very original name,” I said, laughing. “She reads cards in the encampment?”

  “Yes.” Del spun her empty wineglass in her hands, and I took it from her and set it on the bar.

  “You’re going to break that,” I said.

  I worried that Del had lost the plot, as Geoff would say. I should have kept a more careful eye on her. The concerto spilled through the window speakers, and we could hear the low voices of the people around the bonfire.

  “Sybil read my cards,” Del said. “She said someone close to me is in touch with the dead girl.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “That’s just not true.”

  Geoff was walking up the sloping lawn. “You two tending the bar?” he said. He uncorked the bottle of bourbon, and I could smell it, and smell the dead leaves, the drying hedges around the terrace, the bonfire smoke. “Come down to the fire. Get something to eat. It’s warmer.”

  Del and I grabbed plates—vintage Spode china depicting an autumn scene—and stood in line for grilled chicken threaded on skewers with vegetables, warm bread. We followed Geoff back to the fire, and Del and I took open seats, separated from each other. Geoff introduced us to the people sitting nearby—a woman named Lucie, tiny, almost frail, wearing a man’s coat that seemed to dwarf her; her boyfriend, Joseph, burly in a heavy plaid shirt. I recognized Lucie’s voice as that of the woman at the porch party. A woman to my left introduced herself as Alice.

  “This town is cursed,” Alice said. A tremor moved through her, from cold or fear, I couldn’t say. Her long, dark hair reminded me of Mary Rae’s—she wore the same style of curls.

  Joseph, as if to corroborate, told about people they knew, presumably from high school, a litany of tragic ends—Jerry Zelnick in his blue Pontiac on Trumansburg Road, Cary Belton in his Camaro in Ellis Hollow—boys who thought it impressed someone to drive without headlights on dark country roads. Alice mentioned a teacher shot by his daughter’s boyfriend, the boyfriend’s subsequent suicide over his own father’s grave.

  “Carl Sutton,” Joseph said.

  “And maybe Mary Rae,” Alice said. She started to cry, softly.

  A few seats down, Del wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold, and a boy sitting next to her gallantly draped his coat over her shoulders. The girl named Lucie rose from her chair and knelt down beside Alice and hugged her.

  “Mary Rae is her best friend,” Joseph said to me across Lucie’s empty seat.

  “I was the last to see her,” Alice said to me. “She spent the night at my grandmother’s house. We got drunk on beer from the cellar refrigerator, and then we went out into the snow in the backyard with my old batons. Mary Rae threw hers up and dented the house’s siding. God, we laughed so hard we wet our pants. We made snow angels.”

  Alice briefly covered her face with her hands, like a child playing peek-a-boo or counting for hide-and-seek.

  “When we couldn’t find her at first I just knew it was my neighbor who took her,” she said. “Me and Mary Rae used to watch him go out all dressed up. He wore these flashy silk shirts and polyester pants and aviator glasses. We watched him through my bedroom window and made fun of him. ‘There goes Lonesome Ricky,’ Mary Rae used to say.”

  Alice’s eyes filled with tears again.

  “One time we snuck into the drive-in—Bobby Sorel had his father’s car, some big sedan, and we both fit curled up in the trunk. When Mary Rae was missing I kept picturing her wrapped with duct tape in Lonesome Ricky’s old rusty Grand Prix, listening to him singing disco music.”

  The wind rattled the branches overhead and sent sparks skittering out of the fire. I’d visualized nearly the same thing about Geoff—minus the duct tape—driving Del and me off in his car.

  “I don’t know what to picture anymore,” Alice said. “It’s all a big nothing.”

  Now might have been the time for me to mention the girl in the narrow room with the icy windows, but I doubted this information and its accompanying image would be welcomed.

  “Did you tell the police about him?” I asked her. “Lonesome Ricky?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That poor man worked for New York State Electric and Gas for thirty years. His only crime was being stuck in the seventies.”

  Geoff had left his seat and was up at the bar again. Del was talking to Anne, beside her, and I worried she would repeat her offer of our clairvoyant services. I caught William watching me, wearing the expression of someone trying to puzzle things out. Alice and Lucie kept me distracted with their reminiscences about their lost friend—how she’d gotten a job at the Viking Lanes bar, how she’d started classes at the community college, how on New Year’s Eve they’d all gone out to the Hill Top Inn.

  “She looked so beautiful,” they said. In the photograph on the telephone pole, Mary Rae wore curls, a fancy dress.

  They told me how they were all champion twirlers—competing all over the state in high school. “Mary Rae was so good,” Alice said.

  “The best of the three of us,” Lucie said.

  They described their costumes—the short skirts and sequins, the warmth of the gym during practice. I’d lost sight of Del—she and Anne had walked out of the bonfire’s ring of light. When I looked behind me, cold air struck my face. The house’s downstairs windows were lit up, and the sorrowful cello piece had come to its close.

  Just then a man in a police uniform came around the side of the house. He approached the fire, his badge glinting, and I wondered if he was mistakenly in costume. Everyone quieted. Overhead, something dark took wing, and the man in uniform ducked, as if he, too, sensed it passing.

  “Officer Paul,” Joseph said, his voice terse but polite.

  The officer came right up to the fire and held out his hands to warm them. He was tall, trim, his shirtfront tucked neatly into his belt. His ears stuck out below the band of his cap, large and vulnerable in the firelight.

  “Good evening, folks,” he said.

  Around the fire, every face seemed marked with trepidation. William kept his face averted, as if investigating something of interest in the woods. This was probably the sole officer on the town force, the first responder to the accident scenes, the one who had come to the doors of houses to report the deaths they’d just cataloged. “No news,” he said. “Just checking a report of a noise disturbance. Playing your music a little too loud?”

  The concerto’s close had ushered in an eerie silence, and we all just looked at one another.

  “The professor around?” Officer Paul asked.

  Someone suggested she had gone into the house, and he started up the lawn toward the terrace.

  In his wake, someone cleared his throat, and someone else made a remark under his breath.

  “He’s such an asshole,” Alice said. “As if any of us would ever do anything to Mary Rae.”


  I suppose I hadn’t considered their involvement in her disappearance until Alice mentioned it, and then I felt—what? Sympathy? Understanding? The days after David Pinney was finally reported missing we waited for the discovery of his body. The uniformed police came around to houses in the neighborhood, asking questions, and we were called downstairs to sit in the living room when Detective Thomson made his first appearance, the chair brought in from the dining room, his trousers riding up to reveal his brown socks, his white legs.

  “Who usually swims with you in your pool? Any neighborhood kids? What are their names?”

  Answering, tearfully, my heart racing, Del clinging to my hand, to our mother’s hand.

  “My girls are distraught,” our mother said. “Must you continue to question them about this? They’ve told you all they know.”

  The days had moved forward then, one into the other like a train chugging off from the station into the city, the world a blur going by. And then that train stopped, and I got off, and first Cindy Berger, and then the other dead—lovelorn, languishing—began to appear to me, and it was senior year, and Del was in the Institute. Detective Thomson continued his rounds of questioning.

  Where were you on the afternoon of Friday, August eleventh?

  At home.

  At your grandparents’ house?

  That is home.

  What were you doing?

  Reading. Upstairs.

  Anyone with you in your room?

  No.

  Anyone else at the house?

  There were kids swimming outside, but a storm came in, and I think they all left.

  Why weren’t you swimming?

  I didn’t feel like it.

  Did you have an argument?

  No.

  Well, did you talk to any of the kids?

  Sure.

  What did you say?

  I don’t remember exactly. We played croquet for a little while. Then it seemed like it was going to rain, so I went inside.

  You didn’t invite anyone in?

  No.

  Why not?

  I’m not allowed to have friends in the house when no one is at home.

  Whose rule was that?

  My grandfather’s.

  And, I’m sorry, he passed away several years ago, is that correct?

  Yes.

  But the rule stands?

  Yes.

  What book were you reading?

  The World as Will and Representation.

  (silence)

  Schopenhauer?

  I understood Alice’s anger.

  “Screw Officer Paul,” I said.

  Alice squeezed my hand.

  “Have you seen my sister?” I asked her.

  The other girl, Lucie, touched my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re all friends here.”

  I understood that it wasn’t just Mary Rae’s disappearance, but the mystery of it, that had these girls frightened, clustered together around the fire. Beyond the firelight the ring of pine woods did feel ominous, a place where the dead might hang back from the brightness, hesitating to emerge. I scanned the woods, and I thought I could see figures, waiting patiently in the shadows. It filled me with a rare dread—I’d never been afraid of them before. I stood to look for Del or Geoff, and my head spun from the wine.

  I moved out of the circle into the cold night air and began to walk across the lawn. Suddenly William emerged from the darkness behind me, reached out for my arm, and held it, loosely, near the elbow.

  “Hang on,” he said.

  I startled, felt the heat of his hand through my sweatshirt. I faced his amber-colored eyes, his square chin. “What?”

  Had Del done something or said something more? He let go of my arm. “It was nice of you to listen to the girls back there,” he said.

  “It’s terrible,” I said. “What’s happened to your friend.”

  “At some point, though, you have to move on,” he said. “They refuse to do it. It’s frustrating to have to hear it over and over. The last night, the last phone call, the last birthday, Christmas, New Year’s.”

  I could tell he was older than the girls, old enough to see them as immature. I didn’t want him to know I was closer to their age than his, to view me the same way.

  “You think I’m being harsh,” he said. “I guess I am.”

  “I think you’re honest,” I said. “I can’t fault you for that.”

  I stepped toward the terrace and warmth of the house’s lights, intent on finding Del, but William grabbed my arm again, this time more forcefully, perhaps surprised that I was leaving him.

  “Wait,” he said. “Could we talk sometime?”

  “About what?” I asked. The pressure of his hand on my arm lessened now that he had my attention. A gust of wind blew my hair over my face, sent a spray of embers up that forced a few people back from the fire.

  “Anything at all,” he said.

  It was as if I had amazing things to share, and that out of innumerable nameless women he might encounter—passing by on the sidewalk, or in their cars—and even over Del, I was unique, and chosen. It was a powerful thing, this being chosen. Strong enough to urge me to assume I had the upper hand, that I could control what I’d give and take. I told him I had to find my sister, and he asked if he could call me. I knew nothing about him—who he was, what he did, why he was even there. Still, I wrote my phone number on an old miniature golf scorecard I found in my bag, and we separated at the terrace steps. I went up to the door and into the glare of the kitchen, where Anne sat with a cup of tea at the counter.

  She raised her hand, weakly, in greeting. “I had a wonderful chat with Delores,” she said.

  I found Anne difficult to read—the thin line of her pressed lips, the trembling teacup in her hand.

  “I hope she didn’t bother you,” I said.

  “Not as much as that irritating police officer,” she said.

  The kitchen was as warm as its lights had promised from outside. Anne gestured to a bar stool beside her. “Sit,” she said. “I found your sister very intriguing—given my circumstances.”

  I didn’t want to sit with Anne. I felt certain I should find Del, and Geoff, and head home. I kept picturing the dead waiting in the fragrant pine shade—souls who knew Anne, family members, friends, Mary Rae herself with her dismal longing.

  “I’m looking for Del,” I said. “Do you know where she is?”

  Anne took a sip of her tea. “I’m going to die soon,” she said. She set the cup down on its china saucer and gave me a look that startled me at first—it was the look the dead gave me, full of worry, and need.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Anne laughed then and did her weak wave. “Oh, well, it’s not your fault. I do wish I could work more—there’s suddenly so much I’d like to finish. I’m sorry about that. And this whole horrid thing about Mary Rae—such a lovely girl.” Anne’s eyes seemed questioning. “I’d like to stick around long enough to find out who did this to her,” she said. “I’m open to any little hints.”

  “Del is full of stories,” I said. I measured the steps toward the glass doors to the patio and escape. “You can’t really believe the things she says.”

  Anne continued to appraise me. “I do,” she said over the rim of her shaking cup. “I believe her.”

  When you’ve spent a long time in hiding—quiet, resourceful, and almost always unsure, questioning yourself and your own sanity—and someone tries to coax you out, it’s a rush of emotions impossible to take in at once. I felt gratitude, relief, an overpowering surge of release, and then cautiousness. Anne’s voice turned soft, kindly.

  “I believe you,” she said.

  The kitchen felt too warm, and my head spun. “I really would like to find Del,” I said.

  Anne set her teacup down in its saucer, where it settled with a brittle-sounding crash. “She met one of the local boys here in the kitchen,” she said, curtly. “They may have gone out front.” />
  I thanked her, and I felt a tinge of regret for not providing her with what she wanted. I didn’t know who killed Mary Rae, and I didn’t want to know those details. I couldn’t have realized then that they would become very important to me later.

  I went back out the doors to the terrace, down the steps to the yard, and around the side of the house. Geoff was there in the glare of someone’s headlights.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said. His voice was slurred. He’d had too many bourbons. “Your sister is taking off.”

  Along the gravel drive the maple trees’ leftover leaves were like torn golden paper in a car’s headlights—a red Firebird, its dual exhaust fanning white smoke around our ankles. Del stood by Geoff, her face lit up. I suppose I knew what she would do before she did it, and still, there was nothing I could do to stop her. The driver reached over and opened the car’s passenger door and Del slipped into the car. I smelled pine tree air freshener. And then she shut the door without a glance back, and the car took off, careening down the gravel drive like a getaway vehicle.

  9

  Geoff wasn’t ready to leave the party, but he took pity on me and gave me the keys to his car to look for Del. I was panicked, and furious with her for taking off.

  “I’ll stay here with Annie,” he said. “She can give me a ride home tomorrow.”

  I suspected it was the bourbon that made him so generous, but I would come to find out that he was often generous with his car. Before I drove off he leaned down to my window, provided simple directions—a few landmarks for finding my way home—and said, “Randy’s a good sort,” referring to the driver of the Firebird. “Don’t get all up in arms.”

  I made it down the gravel drive to the main road, and then circled around town, past the diner, past a park with an old-fashioned bandstand, its intricate woodwork glowing white. The streets were dark but dotted with children walking in groups, their Halloween costumes disarming in my headlights—genies in chiffon and spangles, princesses in blue satin, the long dresses dragging around their shoes. As I drove past them some looked at me from behind their masks—creatures with fangs streaked with blood, monsters with distorted faces, even more friendly cartoonish characters—but their eyes darted, alive and frightening, behind the molded plastic, and I felt a sense of being lost in some strange, in-between world. I had the window rolled down, and I smelled wood smoke and burned pumpkin. My fury at Del compelled me to circle the grid of streets, and looking, in Geoff’s Volvo wagon, like a crazed housewife—desperate and near tears.