A Winter Haunting

by Dan Simmons

  “She said that she and the Diane woman were fixing it up . . .” he began again and then stopped. I dropped Michelle off here after I saved her from the black dogs at the schoolyard that night. She went inside. I told the deputies this.

  Dale fell silent and just watched the two men watching him. “You knew this in the middle of the night at the hospital when you were taking my statement over and over,” he said.

  Deputy Presser nodded. “We knew that no one has lived here or stayed here in the past ten years. We know more now. Go with Deputy Taylor in his car.” Presser turned on his heel and clomped out of the dead building.

  Dale had imagined the sheriff’s office to be in the tall old courthouse on Oak Hill’s central square, but it turned out to be in a low, 1960s-modern brick building a block from the courthouse. There were a few offices with venetian blinds closed, an artificial Christmas tree with one string of colored lights blinking on the dispatcher/receptionist’s counter, and enough cubicles for four or five deputies. Presser had Dale walk back to the furthest cubicle, where two glass walls met. The view was across the street to Gold’s Deluxe Bowling Center. The building was boarded and closed.

  Well, thought Dale as the deputy waved him to an empty chair, at least they haven’t booked and fingerprinted me yet.

  “Deputy,” he began, “I swear I don’t understand. Michelle told me that she and the other woman were living in that house when I met her . . . saw her here in Oak Hill for the first time a few weeks ago. That’s where she had me drop her off the night she called me about the dogs by the school. The sheriff can verify that . . .”

  Presser held up one hand in the same motion he had used to silence Deputy Reiss. Dale shut up.

  “Mr. Stewart,” said Deputy Presser, “I need to tell you about your rights. The sheriff has called me—he’s going to be back late tomorrow or early the next day—and he wants to talk to you, but he’s authorized me to carry out this interview. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Dale. “Am I a suspect?”

  “Let’s say that you need to know your rights right now,” said the deputy. “You’ve probably heard this a million times on TV, but I’ve got to do it. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you . . .”

  “Christ,” repeated Dale. He felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of him again. His headache throbbed. “So I’m a suspect in Michelle’s disappearance.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Presser. “Anything you do say can be held against you in a court of law. Now, would you like to call an attorney, Mr. Stewart?”

  “No,” Dale said dully, knowing that he was being a fool and not caring.

  “I’m going to turn on this tape recorder, Mr. Stewart. Are you aware of it and do you agree to me taping this interview?”

  “Yes.” It was an old-fashioned reel-to-reel recorder, and Dale could see the reels turning, the brown tape sliding through its gate as Presser spoke into the microphone, giving the date and time of the interview, giving Dale’s full name and his own, and positioning the microphone on the desk. Both the deputy’s voice and his own sounded very distant to Dale. “If I’m not a suspect in Michelle’s disappearance, what am I being read my rights for? What other crime has been committed?”

  “I’ll ask the questions during this interview,” Deputy Presser said flatly. “But I will tell you that it’s against the law to file a false report alleging that a crime or kidnapping or violent incident has occurred when it has not.”

  Dale felt like laughing. “Oh, a violent incident has happened all right, Deputy. And Michelle Staffney is out there somewhere, possibly dying, because we’re wasting time here with you interviewing me. That’s the crime.”

  “Mr. Stewart,” Presser said, obviously ignoring everything Dale had just said, “would you please read this?” He opened a thin file folder and slid a printout across the desk to Dale.

  Dale first noticed the black-and-white photo of Michelle Staffney in the left column. The AP article was dated a little less than two years earlier.

  HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER CHARGED WITH DOUBLE MURDER

  Hollywood producer Ken Curtis was arraigned today in Los Angeles Superior Court for the January 23rd shooting murder of his wife, actress Mica Stouffer, and her alleged lover, Diane Villanova. Ms. Stouffer, the screen name for Michelle Staffney Curtis, had been separated from her husband for three months but was still involved in what friends called “a stormy relationship” with the producer. Curtis pleaded not guilty today and it is expected that his attorney, Martin Shapiro, will invoke the insanity defense. “Ken was obviously not in control of his faculties at the time,” Shapiro told reporters.

  Curtis is known primarily as the producer of the successful Die Free films starring Val Kilmer. Mica Stouffer, a member of SAG for thirty-one years, had done bit parts for most of that time. Diane Villanova, with whom Ms. Stouffer was living for two months prior to the fatal shooting, was a screenwriter with such credits as Fourth Dimension and All the Pretty Birds Come Home to Roost.

  Both Stouffer and Villanova were pronounced dead on the scene at Ms. Villanova’s Bel Air apartment last January 23 after neighbors called the police about—

  Dale quit reading and set the piece of paper on the desk. “This has got to be a mistake,” he said thickly. “A joke of some kind . . .”

  Deputy Presser removed two more pages from the file, slick old-fashioned thermal fax pages this time, and slid them across to Dale. “Can you identify either of these women, Mr. Stewart?”

  They were morgue photographs. The first photograph was of Michelle—mouth open, eyes almost closed, but with a slit of white showing from beneath the heavy eyelids. She was on her back and topless to the waist, her perfect, pale augmented breasts flattened by gravity and the photographer’s flash. There were two perfectly rounded bullet holes at the top of her left breast and another—with a wider entrance wound—just below her throat. Another bullet hole was centered in a bruised discoloration in the center of her forehead.

  “Michelle Staffney,” said Dale. His throat was so thick that he could hardly speak. He looked at the second photograph. “Christ,” he said.

  “Curtis used a knife on her after he shot her,” said Deputy Presser.

  “The hair and shape of the face looks like Diane . . . like the woman I met with Michelle . . . but . . . I don’t know.” He handed the photos back to Presser. “Look, your sheriff saw me with Michelle—with this woman.”

  Presser just stared. “And when did you say that you first saw these two women in Oak Hill, Mr. Stewart?”

  “I thought . . . I mean I saw them about six or seven weeks ago. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I think . . .” Dale stopped and shook his head. “Could I have a drink of water, Deputy Presser?”

  “Larry!” shouted Presser. When the other deputy appeared, Presser sent him to the water cooler.

  Dale’s hand was shaking fiercely as he lifted the little paper cup to drink. He was stalling for time, and he knew that Presser knew it. The deputy had paused the tape recorder, but now he started it again.

  “Is this woman from the news reports—Mica Stouffer, aka Michelle Staffney—the same woman that you say was attacked by dogs and carried off at the McBride farm last night, Mr. Stewart?”

  “Yes,” said Dale.

  There was a long silence broken only by the tape hiss.

  “Mr. Stewart, are you on any sort of medication?”

  “Medication?” Dale had to stop and think a minute. “Yes, I am.”

  “What kind is it, sir?”

  “Ah . . . Prozac and flurazepam and doxepin. One’s an antidepressant . . .” As if the entire world doesn’t know that, thought Dale. “. . . and the others are to help me sleep.”

  “Are these medications prescribed by a psychiatrist?” asked Deputy Presser.

  Is it any of your goddamned business? thought Dale. He said, “Yes. They’re prescribed by a psychiatrist
in Montana where I live.”

  “And have you been taking them regularly?”

  No, thought Dale. When was the last time he took his meds? Sometime before Thanksgiving? He could not remember. “I’ve missed some,” said Dale. “But I only take the doxepin and flurazepam to sleep and it was about time to wean myself from the Prozac anyway.”

  “Did your psychiatrist say to do that?”

  Dale hesitated.

  “Are you on any psychoactive or psychotropic drugs, Mr. Stewart? Any medications for schizophrenia or similar disturbances?”

  “No,” Dale said, more stridently than he should have. “No.” At this point in a movie, Dale would be screaming, Look, I’m not crazy!, but the truth was that this had hit him like a sledgehammer and he suspected that perhaps he was coming unhinged. Unless he was dreaming this encounter with the deputy, then some other memory was false. The photograph of Michelle, dead, cold on a Los Angeles morgue slab, had been real enough. Perhaps Michelle has a twin sister . . .

  Right, Dale mentally answers himself. Has a twin sister who comes back to Elm Haven with this Diane Villanova person’s twin sister, and then passes herself off as Michelle Staffney for no reason . . . Dale shook his aching head. He remembered the Staffney family from when he had lived in Elm Haven forty years ago. Michelle had no sisters.

  “Mr. Stewart?”

  Dale looked up. He realized that he had been cradling his head, perhaps muttering to himself. “My head hurts,” he said.

  Deputy Presser nodded. The tape recorder was still running. “Do you want to change the statement you made to us about the dogs attacking you and Miz Michelle Staffney?”

  Still rubbing his head, Dale asked, “What’s the penalty for false reporting, Deputy?”

  Presser shrugged, but punched the PAUSE button on the recorder. “Depends on the circumstances, Mr. Stewart. Tell you the truth, this situation’s mostly been inconvenience, it being Christmas Eve when you called for help, what with only four people on duty last night and you tying up three of them and all. But as far as I can see, no real harm’s been done yet. And you obviously did injure your head last night, Mr. Stewart. That can cause some funny reactions sometimes. Do you remember how you hurt your head?”

  The hellhounds knocked me against the door while they were ripping Michelle apart and dragging her into the dark, thought Dale. Aloud, he said, “I’m not sure now. I know how crazy this sounds, Deputy.”

  Presser started the recorder again. “Do you wish to change any of your statement, Mr. Stewart?”

  Dale rubbed his scalp again, feeling the stitches there and also feeling the pain and throbbing just under the bone of the skull. He wondered if he had suffered a concussion. “I’ve been depressed, Deputy Presser. My doctor—Dr. Charles Hall in Missoula—prescribed Prozac and some sleeping medication, but I’ve been busy and—upset—in recent weeks and forgot to take it. I admit that I haven’t been sleeping much. I’m not sure how I hurt my head last night and Michelle . . . well, I can’t explain that, except to say that things have been a bit confused for me the last few months.” Suddenly he looked up at the deputy. “She brought a ham.”

  “Pardon me?” said Presser.

  “Michelle brought a ham. We ate it yesterday. And some wine. Two bottles. Red. That’s something physical. We can check that. Maybe some other woman who . . . anyway, we can check the ham and the wine.”

  “Yes,” said Presser. “I have Deputy Reiss out doing that today. We found a receipt in the Corner Pantry bag in your kitchen. Deputy Reiss is going to talk to Ruthie over at the Corner Pantry and then visit the few liquor stores in the county.”

  “You searched my kitchen?” Dale said stupidly.

  “You gave us permission last night to search the house,” Deputy Presser said stiffly.

  “Yeah.” Dale lifted the small cup to drink some more water, found it empty, crumpled the cup, and tossed it into a wastebasket. “Am I under arrest, Deputy?”

  Presser shut off the recorder and shook his head. “I mentioned that the sheriff wants to talk to you tomorrow or the next day. We could keep you here until then . . .” Presser made a vague gesture toward the far wall, behind which Dale guessed there were jail cells. “But you might as well wait at your farm.”

  Dale nodded and winced at the pain. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me my shotgun back. The black dogs might be real, you know.”

  “Deputy Taylor’ll drive you back to the farm,” said Presser, ignoring Dale’s question about the over-and-under. “Don’t go anywhere without letting us know. Don’t even think about leaving the county. But there’s one thing I think you should do, Mr. Stewart.”

  Dale waited.

  “Call this Dr. Hall,” said Presser.

  TWENTY-THREE

  * * *

  IT snowed all the rest of Christmas Day. Exhausted and confused, Dale stood at the study window and watched the deputy’s car disappear into the snow, and then just stood there watching the snow continue to fall. After a long period of this during which his thoughts were as vague and opaque as the low gray clouds, Dale went over to his ThinkPad and powered it up. Switching from Windows to the DOS shell, he typed after the blinking C prompt—

  >Am I cracking up?

  Dale did not expect an answer—certainly not while he sat there waiting—and he did not receive one. After a while he wandered out to the kitchen, washed the plates, and tidied up. Someone—Michelle last night?—had put Saran wrap around some of the ham and placed it on the second shelf of the refrigerator. Dale knew that he should be hungry, since he hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before—Did I really have dinner last night, or did I imagine it as well?—but he had no appetite now. Dale pulled on an extra sweater and his peacoat and went out into the snow.

  Several inches of wet, heavy snow had accumulated in the turnaround. Dale headed west, past the white-shrouded sheds and the barn—its large door still slightly open—out toward the low, flat hill above the creek. There were no dog tracks on the rutted lane, no human footprints in the corn-stubbled field, no sign of an injured woman dragging herself.

  Am I nuts? It seemed probable. Dale realized that the deputy’s advice had been sound—he should call his therapist. Dale might have called from Oak Hill if not for the presence of the deputy during the ride back.

  It was snowing harder when Dale reached the small rise where Duane had buried his faithful collie, Wittgenstein, that same summer of 1960. The trees along the creek running north and south were indistinct in the snowfall, and Dale could not see even the barn, much less the farmhouse. Sound seemed muted. Dale remembered days like this from his childhood in Elm Haven and elsewhere: a day so still that the slight thrumming of one’s own heartbeat or pulse sounded like the settling of snowflakes.

  1960. Dale tried hard to remember the details of that summer. nightmares—he remembered nightmares. White hands pulling his younger brother under his bed in their shared bedroom in the tall white house across from Old Central in Elm Haven. The ancient school itself, boarded up and awaiting demolition, but burning mysteriously at the end of that summer before the wrecking balls could bring it down. A green glow from the shuttered cupola atop the monstrous old building. The kids had created legends and spooky tales around that school. And some of those legends seemed real after Duane died in these very fields that summer.

  Dale turned slowly around. Below the slight rise, a few shattered cornstalks were the only hint of even faded color against the featureless white, rows upon rows of slight mounds that had been high stalks even this summer past.

  What the hell happened to our generation? Dale tried to remember his college energy and idealism. We promised so much to so many—especially to ourselves. He and other professors his age had often commented on it—the easy cynicism and self-absorption of today’s college-age students, so different from the commitment and high ideals of the mid and late 1960s. Bullshit, thought Dale. It had all been bullshit. They had bullshitted themselves about a revolutio
n while really going after exactly what every previous generation had sought—sex, comfort, money, power.

  Who am I to talk? Dale tasted bile as he thought of his Jim Bridger books. It was work-for-hire these days: a set fee for a series of formulaic frontiersmen-and-Indian-maiden tales. They might as well have been bodice rippers for all the serious intent that Dale had brought to the writing the past few years.

  Sex, comfort, money, power. He had obtained everything on the list but the last—and had schemed and connived in faculty politics to obtain even his pathetic version of that over the years—and what had it brought him? Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with a ghost.

  Dale left the low hill and began walking south along the creek, using the wooden cross-braces to climb over fences. A dog was barking far away to the west, but Dale could tell from the sound that it was just a run-of-the-mill farm dog, a real dog, a mortal dog. As opposed to what? My hellhounds?

  Dale wished that he believed in ghosts. He could not. He realized that everything—life, love, loss, even fear—would be so much easier if he did. For decades of adulthood now he had tried to understand the psychology of people who prided themselves in believing in ghosts, spirits, feng shui, horoscopes, positive energy, demons, angels . . . God. Dale did not. It was a form of easy stupidity to which he preferred not to subscribe.

  Have I gone crazy? Probably. It made the most sense. He knew that he had not been sane when he had loaded the Savage over-and-under a little more than a year earlier and set the muzzle to the side of his head and reached to pull the trigger. He could recall with perfect tactile memory what that circle of cold steel had felt like pressing into the flesh of his forehead. If he was crazy enough to do that, why not all this?