by Alan Russell
“Helen,” he said.
He was both right and wrong. His hesitation allowed Cronos to buck him off. Cheever tried to fight a defensive battle, and things went from bad to worse. The detective slipped on the wet grass, and Cronos made him pay, kicking him savagely. Cheever covered up, but not completely. Cronos saw his exposed collarbone and moved to stomp it, but the leg never came down...
Nemesis emerged and slowly lowered her foot. This was not justice, she thought. The detective had only been trying to assist her host body.
From out of the darkness came a laugh. “Why stop now?” asked Rollo Adams.
Nemesis didn’t hesitate. She went straight for him and he shot her twice. She fell near his feet. Her hand stretched toward him, clawing the grass. She tried to pull herself forward, but her body failed her. With vengeance too impossibly far away, Nemesis disappeared. And then a little girl started crying for all the pain she had suffered and all the hurt her body was carrying.
In the distance Cerberus howled, lamenting the terrible agonizing of his young mistress.
“Daddy,” she cried. “Where are you? Daddy, I hurt so much.”
“Here,” Cheever said. “Right here.”
He walked toward her, paying no attention to the gun. Nothing was going to stop him. He went to her, got down on his knees and took her hands so that he could be close to her.
“Daddy, I’m so cold.”
His tears fell on her face. He hadn’t cried for so long that he couldn’t even remember what it felt like. A stream came out of him.
“I’m here to warm you,” he said.
“Daddy, I can’t move.”
She tried to mute her whimpers, tried to be brave, and that made it all the harder for him.
“Yes, you can,” he said. “All you have to do is think of where you want to go and you’ll be there. Can you picture that place? Can you feel its sunshine and warmth?”
“Are you there with me?”
The gun was pointed at his face. There was enough light that he could see the smirk on Adams’s face.
“Yes.”
“I feel so strange, Daddy. I feel so light.”
“I love you,” he said, his voice choking.
She must have waited to hear those words for a long time, as long as he had waited to say them, and yet they were words meant for that moment, meant for each other as much as for any ghosts of the past.
“I love you,” she said. Her words were weak.
In the distance, Cerberus barked furiously, as if trying to keep something at bay, as if trying to protect her from something that was approaching. But then he howled, a cry full of pity and anguish, and howled again.
Helen Troy closed her eyes. She didn’t move. To all appearances, her journey was over. Cheever took a deep breath, then exhaled more than he had taken in.
“I prefer a knife to a gun,” Adams said, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing the weather. “I used to butcher pigs with a knife, knew how to stick ’em so that they couldn’t even squeal. But I usually didn’t do it that way. I liked to hear them squeal.”
Cheever didn’t say anything. He knew he should be planning something, stringing Adams along. Help would be there soon. But he felt too numb.
“It’s just business,” Adams said, referring to the trigger he was about to pull. “There was talk that I had put my money down on the wrong horses, that I had made some stupid investments downtown. I needed to show them I hadn’t blown it. That’s what everyone was whispering. The Carnation District’s going to prove that I knew exactly what I was doing. We’ll see who’s snickering then. Nothing stands in the way of my business.”
Or in the way of your pride, Cheever thought. He waited for death. He thought about trying to jump Adams, but he was so tired that even death didn’t excite him. His marathon was run and he was out of strength. He thought about Rachel, hoped she’d be safe, and wished there was a way for her to know that he thought about her at the end.
Cheever never heard the approach. He became aware of the attack only when Adams screamed. When he looked up Cerberus was already ripping into his arm. The dog appeared to be myth incarnate, the watchdog from Hades with a mission. Pluto had a need for another soul. The dog’s eyes were red, surreal, and his bared teeth were already awash in blood.
Adams fought desperately. He had lost his gun at Cerberus’s first lunge, but tried to hold the dog off with his hands and feet and body. “Get away! Get away!”
But neither Adams’s words nor his blows deterred Cerberus. The dog kept springing at him, rending whatever flesh was available. He forced Adams back, lunging, feinting, biting, and finally dropping the man to his knees. His level. The dog pressed his advantage. Adams tried holding off the dog’s jaws with his hands, but it was as if Cerberus really had three heads, all of them snapping.
“Help me!” he screamed at Cheever. “For the love of God, help me.”
But Cheever didn’t move to help him. His attention was on Helen, or most of it. The dog didn’t have Adams’s talent, didn’t know how to “stick ’em” so his squeals couldn’t be heard. The man squealed plenty while the dog sent him to hell.
It was Rachel who led the police to where they were. On one side of Helen was Cheever, and on the other was Cerberus. The dog licked her face while Cheever performed CPR. He kept breathing in and breathing out, refusing to give her up to death. Between breaths he gasped, “Don’t let her pass through the gates, Cerberus. Don’t let her in.” And the dog would stop his licking to reply with a whimper.
Cheever didn’t give up trying to breathe life into Helen until the paramedics took her away.
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
Police had their hands full. Bodies kept turning up at Kate Sessions Memorial Park. The present and the past kept merging.
The presence of Jason Troy’s sedan in the parking lot prompted the police to search the entire park for the professor. Just as day was breaking, they found Troy deep in the chaparral still busy at work. He was digging with a rock. His fingers and hands were bloodied, but he seemed unmindful of that. He had partially uncovered a small skeleton. Kathy Dwyer’s. The police helped him finish the job. The professor said he’d talk, but asked that Cheever be the one to interview him.
They met a little after nine at the downtown station. Cheever had come from the hospital, had left Helen to talk with her father. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Both men looked like they should have been in hospitals themselves.
“How is Helen?” Troy asked.
“She’s survived one operation, but the doctors say they’re going to have to go in again. They’re waiting for her to stabilize before they do.”
“I would be there with her,” Troy said, “except that the constabulary is insisting that I answer other questions first.”
“Skeletons make us curious,” Cheever said.
“The body is Kathy Dwyer’s,” he said. “I buried her twenty years ago.”
“I’ll need to read you your rights,” Cheever said.
Troy waved him off. “I’ve already consented to speak with you freely, and of my own accord and on the record,” he said.
Cheever Mirandized him anyway, then asked, “Did you kill Kathy Dwyer?”
“No. Kathy’s death was a tragic accident.”
“Tell me about the accident.”
“Katie and Helen were playing downstairs. I was with them. My wife awoke from a drunken stupor. She had been mixing pills and alcohol and awoke very disoriented. Her speech was slurred and her coordination was unbalanced. She was carrying a vodka bottle in her hand. For whatever reason, Delores became incensed. She broke the bottle, and then started waving the broken hilt around in a threatening manner. I suppose Delores slipped. Her makeshift weapon pierced poor Katie—”
“Where?” Cheever asked.
“In the chest. It must have caught a vein or artery near her heart. There was blood everywhere.”
The third wound, Cheever thought. T
he one Hygeia wanted to take on. The one Helen showed to the world.
“Go on.”
“My wife broke down when she saw what she had done. She tried to cut her own wrist, but I disarmed her. At the same time I tried to help Kathy, but it was clearly too late.”
“What’d you do then?”
“I medicated my wife and put her in bed. I debated calling the police, but I knew Delores had suffered too much already. I made the decision that I know in retrospect was very wrong. I buried Kathy Dwyer in Kate Sessions Park.”
“When did you bury Kathy?”
“In the early evening. I went out driving. I pretended to be looking for Kathy. By that time the entire neighborhood was out searching for her.”
“Was Helen with you?”
“Yes.”
“Weren’t you afraid Helen was going to tell someone what really happened?”
“That’s why I kept her near to me. I didn’t trust her to say the right thing.”
“You mean the wrong thing.”
“Over time I knew she would come to understand.”
“How did you manage to keep her silent for so long?”
“I worked on her story over and over again. After a time, I think even Helen began to believe that Kathy never came over that day. Helen stayed home with us all week, but no one thought that was unusual. Most of the parents on the block also kept their children home.”
“Did Helen ask you questions about what happened?”
“She tried to, but I kept telling her that she had had a nightmare, and that if she persisted in such foolish talk terrible things could happen to her mommy and me. I said that if she told anyone her stories we could end up being taken away and never see her again.”
“How did Kathy Dwyer come to be at your house in the first place?”
“I suppose she just wandered over. The world was more innocent in those days. Children were freer to come and go.”
“What set your wife off?”
“I’m told that with drugs and alcohol—”
“Did she catch you abusing the children?”
“No. It wasn’t abuse. It was...”
The professor stopped speaking.
“It was what?”
“Nothing. Everything happened as I have already explained it to you.”
“You were vague about how Kathy was stabbed.”
“That’s because it was all so confusing at the time.”
“But surely you’ve had enough time to sort matters out by now.”
“I’ve tried not to think about it. We’re talking twenty years ago.”
“Think about it now, then.”
There wasn’t any compromise in Cheever’s voice. During the professor’s telling, Cheever realized he had already heard another version of this story. Helen had unknowingly shown it to Dr. Denton in the garden where Bonnie Gill was murdered.
“But I’ve told you—”
“I want to hear what happened when your wife entered the room.”
“She was walking downstairs. Delores broke her bottle on the banister—”
“Purposely?”
“Yes.”
Another image came to Cheever: Helen’s painting of the drunken woman and the title Russian Roulette. “Then what?”
“She started saying all sorts of incoherent things.”
“Give me a few examples.”
Troy wouldn’t meet Cheever’s eyes, only said, “I don’t remember.”
“So what do you remember?”
“She started jabbing with the bottle, using it like a weapon. I kept yelling for her to calm down.”
“Where were the girls?”
“Helen was behind her.”
“How’d she get there?”
“Delores had grabbed her and pushed Helen behind her.”
“And where was Kathy?”
“Katie was with me. I was trying to protect her.”
That wasn’t how Dr. Denton had heard it. Mrs. Troy had been yelling for the girls to get behind her. She’d been incensed at her husband. “Did Kathy need protection?”
“Delores was acting like a madwoman—”
“And yet she was also acting as a protector. She had put Helen behind her. That would suggest she was afraid of something. Or someone.”
“She was probably seeing pink elephants...”
“No,” Cheever said. “I think she was seeing you. I think she caught you doing something you don’t want to talk about.”
Cheever got up from his chair. The interview room was small. But it was large enough for Cheever to act out what had happened to young Helen Troy and her friend. The murder of Bonnie Gill had made Helen remember another death, confuse the two perhaps. In a state of shock, she had pantomimed the tragedy of what her mother had done. He played out what Dr. Denton, and Helen, had showed him.
“Your wife was screaming ‘No’ and ‘Stop it.’” Cheever’s voice was loud in the small room. “She was weaving around the room, but it was you she was after, you she was trying to subdue.” His arms flailed as if battling ghosts. “She tried to use her glass shard like a sword. I suspect she was trying to cut your exposed genitals.”
Cheever lunged a last time, brought his hand close to the professor’s body. Troy flinched and turned away. “That’s preposterous,” he said.
“Is it?”
Troy didn’t answer.
“Your wife kept calling for the girls,” Cheever said. “She got Helen safely behind her, but she was still concerned about Kathy. I think she also wanted to hurt you. She was mad enough to want to kill you. But something happened, didn’t it?”
“I told you, she slipped—”
“Professor Troy, you didn’t call me here to tell more lies, did you? I think you asked for me because you were finally ready to tell the truth. You buried that poor little girl, and you helped unearth her skeleton. It’s time to let go of all the skeletons.”
Troy started to shrink, first his shoulders, then his head. “When Delores burst into the room it was all so confusing. I had Kathy by the arm. Delores came at me, and I moved away. I didn’t mean to pull Kathy. I forgot I was even holding on to her.”
“But she ended up being your shield, didn’t she?”
“Unwittingly. I certainly didn’t mean...I never...”
“Why don’t you tell me the whole story? You’ll feel better.”
The professor opened his mouth, but then he closed it and shook his head.
“Your wife caught you sexually abusing the girls, didn’t she?”
“No. It wasn’t really that. Maybe it looked like it, but it wasn’t.”
“Why would it have looked like it?”
“Because the three of us were playing a game.”
“What game?”
“It was a classical game. Educational, really. I was Zeus, that is, Zeus in disguise.”
“What disguise?”
“A bird. That was one of Zeus’s favorite transformations. He—”
“Tell me what Zeus was wearing.”
“Some feathers. And a mask.”
Cheever remembered that Helen had been bothered by the birds. He could understand why. “How were you able to wear feathers?”
“I had this fabric, very gossamer, very fine, with feathers glued to it, soft, downy—”
“Was this a game you had played before?”
“Yes.”
“What did you call it?”
“Leda and the Swan,” he said.
Cheever remembered the Correggio painting, the swan with the very phallic neck. He remembered the way Troy had recited the Yeats poem, recalled his fervor and excitement. After all these years, and all the misery, the man was still turned on by his perverse memories. Cheever took a deep breath, willed himself to be in control.
“Did you wear clothes during this game?”
The professor turned away from Cheever’s stare. “Look at almost any classical painting. All of the frolics are natural—”
/> “You were naked weren’t you?”
“It was in keeping with the spirit of the classical era,” he said. “We combined play and mythology. It was really very innocent, just a game—”
“Had Katie Dwyer ever played that game before?”
“No. When Helen brought her over I remember being slightly annoyed. I had told Helen we would be playing Leda and the Swan, and then Katie was suddenly there. But Katie said she wanted to play the game too.”
“How far did the game go?”
“I don’t—”
“Did you force sexual relations on the girls?”
“Please don’t say those kinds of things. You don’t understand—”
“You were aroused, weren’t you?”
“It was necessary for the swan,” he said, allowing his admission as if pointing out the obvious. “That was part of the game. The swan’s neck, you see. But it wasn’t perverse—”
“What was it?”
“They petted the swan. That’s all they did. That’s all we did. You should be able to understand. You know about the power of mythology.”
Cheever had heard enough. He wondered if he had ever felt so tired and empty before.
“I don’t know about the power of mythology,” Cheever said. “I’m still working that out. But I do know about the power of prison. And you should know I’m going to work to put your bird in a cage for the rest of your life.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
Cheever still didn’t like hospitals, but for the better part of a week he’d been spending all of his spare time at one. He walked into the ICU and saw that his lunch date was already inside finishing up a yogurt. Rachel moved her index finger up to her lips and motioned for silence. Cheever nodded.
