False Impressions

by Laura Caldwell

  A loud horn sounded and Madeline stopped, gasping, her hand on her heart.

  A snowplow hauled past her, driver leaning on the horn, almost hitting her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard it coming.

  Madeline panted. She looked behind her. The snow was even thicker. She could see even less.

  She saw no one. But she could feel them.

  She put her hands in her pockets to find her phone. She would call Izzy back. She would at least text her to report where she was.

  But she’d forgotten her phone in her haste to get out of the house. And it was dead anyway.

  Get away from the ghosts.

  Madeline only wanted comfort from this disquieting evening, from the dreams. And after she had hung up with Izzy, she had craved more human comfort.

  She crossed the street fast, arms wrapped over her chest, protecting her heart against…what? She didn’t know.

  When he opened his door, he wore white flannel pajama bottoms, a black T-shirt. His hair was tousled. He rubbed his eyes, then seemed to wake up. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head “no.”

  He stepped forward, encircling her with his arms and she squeezed him around the middle.

  Having Izzy in her life had helped Madeline—being near someone whom she liked very much, someone who knew what was happening.

  But he would not only sympathize, he would understand the dilemma at every level.

  So she told him everything, and when she got to the end of her tale—that someone was apparently following her, and she and Izzy had been trying to “smoke out” the person (as Mayburn had put it) but then she’d lost Izzy in the crowd, and she’d had the strangest dreams, and she felt jumbled and jarred. That she felt like ghosts were following her.

  “You feel broken,” he said.

  She nodded. He knew.

  She cried. And he held her.

  45

  When I woke, I wiped what felt like grit from my eyes and looked into the front seat. Vaughn was awake, chewing gum, his eyes flicking around.

  He’d let me out of the car to pee in the snow, making me feel like a golden retriever in my blond wig. Once that was accomplished and Vaughn was cranking the heat, I’d found it surprisingly easy to sleep.

  I glanced outside now and with the streetlights’ glow, I could see that while I had napped, Vaughn had made additional attempts to clear some snow with the pathetic scraper/shovel instrument. The snow was slowing.

  “Car still dead?” I asked. It had died half an hour or so ago, and it was beginning to get cold.

  He shook his head tersely. “Fuckin’ CPD cars—when these pieces of shit decide to go, they go.”

  We looked out the window. “How long have we been in here?” I asked.

  “Couple hours.”

  I looked for more signs of irritation on his face, maybe even rage, but he looked…well, he looked rather chill. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was trained to be calm no matter what. It was just that whenever I was around, Vaughn always seemed short-tempered.

  He put a headphone earpiece in his ear. He listened.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, when he’d taken it out.

  “It’s a shit storm. No. It’s a snow shit storm. Lake Shore Drive is frozen over.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It is.”

  “No, it’s not. There’s no way.”

  He turned and glared. “The Drive is frozen. There are hundreds of cars frozen on Lake Shore Drive. And I can’t be there. I can’t help. I can’t assist. I cannot report for duty.”

  Both of us sat in silence. Something occurred to me.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. I wondered whether raising the point that was poised in my mind would be right. One never knew with Vaughn.

  Why the hell not raise it? The blonde was, apparently, back. “That’s kind of a good thing, right?” I said to Vaughn.

  He said nothing, didn’t reply.

  Might as well go all the way. “Because you don’t like your job. And right now, you can’t do your job. It’s kind of a windfall if you think about it.”

  Vaughn looked at me. Both I and the blonde leaned back a little, unsure how this would go over.

  “I know.” He smiled. “Chew gum. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been just going over it all.” He chewed his gum harder, faster.

  “Can I have a piece of that gum?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He tossed one back at me. “It’s what I do when I’m thinking. I like to pace, but obviously…” He waved a hand at the window.

  “Anyway,” he said, chewing, chewing. “I’ve been going over and over it all.”

  “Like what?”

  And right then, Vaughn started talking.

  Previously, I’d barely heard the guy utter more than a sentence or two at a time, even on the witness stand, but now he was talking—about how he usually spent his time at work, how he’d started in the business, what he liked and didn’t. There were a lot more didn’ts. At the top of the list was the grunt work, which he said was what comprised most of his job.

  “Ninety percent of the leads you get are dead ends,” he told me. “And you wait for-fucking-ever to talk to someone, which is why I got this thing.” He gestured at the dashboard, which was tricked out with an iPod dock and a state-of-the-art GPS. He’d used his own money, he said and he brought them in and out of the car every day. The new superintendent was apparently considering disallowing detectives to do that. Which was another thing that pissed him off.

  As he said this, he shifted and I saw him gesture toward the gun in his holster.

  “Do you like carrying a gun?” I asked.

  He looked at me, sort of surprised. “Yeah. Ya gotta. At least it scares some people.”

  “Some?”

  “You’re not gonna scare the friggin’ gangbangers. They’ve seen more shit than you and I could even imagine.”

  “So how do you handle them?”

  Another shrug. “With respect. Everybody deserves that, no matter who you think they are or what you they think you did.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t help but let some sarcasm seep out into that word.

  “What?” he said.

  “You didn’t give me much respect when you came to question me that first time.”

  “You’re not a friggin’ gangbanger.”

  “But you just said, everyone and—”

  “Forget it.” He turned and he sighed, and that sigh contained all the heaviness in the world, all the frustrations with his job and the sadness I assumed he suffered from his divorce. “What I should have done with my life,” he said, staring forward, “is be a lawyer. With all the experience I have, I might as well be an attorney right now.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I’m just saying. I get subpoenaed by lawyers like you, and I’m good.”

  “I was able—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, cutting me off. “When you cross-examined me at trial, you got me to admit a few things. Whatever. But I know what’s admissible, what isn’t. If we’re on the same side, you tell me something you want to get into evidence, and I’ll find a way.”

  “You should go to law school.”

  “Nah.”

  “Why not?”

  “Like I told you. I have an expensive divorce and a kid to put through college.”

  I thought about it. “You would be a good lawyer.”

  He didn’t turn, but I felt a stillness, then heard a different tone enter his voice, one that was lighter, curious. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Thanks.”

  We heard a rap on the window. They were all steamed. Vaughn rolled his down. “Garcia!”

  I felt a little sinking in my chest. I had, I realized, been enjoying talking with Vaughn.

  But then the sinking went faster, held something heavier. Because I remembered what was happening—really happening—outside the reverse-snow-globe c
onfines of the car.

  I was supposed to be watching over Madeline. And yet I was being taken to Belmont Police Station.

  46

  The next morning, I immediately remembered Vaughn and the blizzard, and knew that I did not want to open my eyes. I reached down and felt for my clothing. My fingers touched the yellow sweater-dress. Yep, I was wearing the same clothes I’d gone out in. Not good.

  I took a few deep breaths, not eager to start a day with a new low point—jail. I felt, at that moment, as if I were two different Izzys—the one who represented people who had been to jail, and now, the one who had firsthand knowledge of being arrested.

  The fear was growing, and I really don’t like fear. So I decided to get it over with.

  I opened my eyes.

  Vaughn.

  I growled, closed my eyes, summoned my courage and opened them again.

  And this time they opened wider and I saw Vaughn…in my condo? He was slumped in my favorite yellow-and-white chair, sleeping.

  I stared at him. I remembered Vaughn arresting me, the blizzard, then Garcia and the snowplow that came to get us, and then…

  It all came back with a rushing-river surge of relief.

  Officer Garcia, a short, friendly guy, had talked to Vaughn, assessed the situation and told us they had bigger problems. Vaughn, he said, should get me home and get his ass “back to the station.”

  I was shocked to hear anyone talk to Vaughn like that. I didn’t think he would take it. But either he was feeling kinder or he was realizing the storm was even more massive than he’d thought. After his car was jumped, we slowly drove home.

  It was a strange time to be in Chicago, to drive through the city led by one of the few vehicles that moved. The blizzard had driven everyone inside. The convenience stores appeared depleted. Most of the bars and restaurants bore closed signs. Cars were stranded mid-street by the snow. The sidewalks were empty. And over it all, now that the snow had stopped, the moon shone for the first time in weeks—a full moon.

  The snowplow guys told Detective Vaughn they would wait for him and lead him to the station, but he insisted that he would see me to my door and get himself to the station. The men looked a little concerned, looking at me as if to say, You okay with this?

  I nodded. I knew that Vaughn didn’t have any nefarious intent toward me. I now knew he just wanted to get out of work, like a third-grader wants to get out of school.

  When he’d walked me up, I opened the door and turned. I actually started to thank him, like we were on some kind of forked-up date. When the truth was, he’d arrested me.

  He saw that all in my face. He must have, because his words rushed in, one after another. “I’m really sorry, Izzy. I mean, technically, what you did, running past those bouncers without paying, is against the law. I had a right to arrest you.”

  “Uh-huh. And is that what you would usually do when your buddy, the bar owner, tells you about a problem like that? Do you usually arrest them without even speaking to them? Or does the bouncer just throw them out?”

  A sheepish silence.

  “Well, then.” I turned and opened the door farther, then stepped inside and turned around, my body blocking the entrance.

  “I really am sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I do this…why I keep doing this to you.” He shook his head glumly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  I felt bad for him. He appeared sincerely confounded and also severely depressed. And on an impulse, I invited him in for a cup of tea.

  We sat on the couch for about five minutes before I fell asleep again. I hadn’t wanted to go to my bedroom and leave him out there alone. And, somehow, it didn’t seem a bad thing to have Vaughn there, to have some protection from the fear for Madeline that had been growing, making me feel some of that old fear myself. I had been followed before. More than once. I knew exactly how it felt. And I was starting to feel it again. Whether it was sympathy pain for Madeline or actual instinct for myself, I didn’t know.

  Madeline! I sat up on the couch and grabbed my home phone. I took it into my bedroom, which was massively bright with new sun bouncing off all that snow. I called Madeline. Just as it had the night before, her phone went right to voice mail.

  Minutes later, I was standing at my kitchen counter. I stared at Vaughn, his long legs stretched out and crossed, boots stacked one on top of the other. His face had slumped to his shoulder as he slept.

  My cellphone, on the table in front of Vaughn, rang and he leaped to his feet.

  I mean that literally—he went from slumped and sleeping, directly to standing and staring.

  He seemed to assess the situation in one quick second. Then his body relaxed. He lifted the cellphone and handed it to me.

  It was a 312 number I didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Madeline.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not too far from your place, I think.” She gave me an address on Goethe.

  “Yeah, that’s about four blocks from me.”

  “Can I come see you?”

  “How are you going to get here? Isn’t everything still snowed in? Are you okay?”

  “I’m definitely okay. And they’re getting it plowed now,” Madeline said. And then she giggled. It was a delightful, unexpected sound. “I’ve got a ride, so to speak, so I can definitely get there.”

  “Then, sure.”

  “Great. I need to tell you something.”

  47

  “You told Syd?” I demanded after Vaughn had left, Madeline had arrived and we had rehashed last night’s craziness.

  I had told her about getting arrested by Vaughn. Then she had told me about taking a cab home, her weird dreams, her walk to Syd’s, feeling haunted by ghosts and how she’d spent the night with Syd. And how she’d told him everything—about the paintings being stolen, about someone betraying her and invading her gallery and about the paintings being forged. How she’d sold those paintings and how she, and her gallery, were barely hanging on by a string—a string that was someone else’s to cut.

  She was talking on and on, quickly.

  “Let’s go back to when we spoke on the phone,” I said. “You were there one minute, and then you suddenly had to go.”

  Madeline nodded.

  “I called you back over and over, and you never answered,” I said.

  “My battery went dead, and then I just wanted out of my house so badly that I forgot the phone. By the time I realized it, I was too far to go back.”

  She told me about how comforting it had been to tell Syd about the forgeries and have him understand. She told me how Syd had gotten her over to my house that morning. “He found a guy with a sled, and he paid him one hundred dollars to buy it, and he pulled me here. Can you believe that?”

  “Hell, yes, I believe it. He’s still in love with you.”

  This didn’t seem to concern her. She readjusted her position on one of the counter stools. Compared to how gritty and exhausted I felt, Madeline looked refreshed, relieved.

  “You really told Syd?” I asked.

  “He’s one of my best friends.”

  “Mayburn and I asked you not to mention this to anyone until we could start eliminating people.”

  “And you haven’t eliminated Syd?” Madeline asked.

  “Let me stop and ask you a question. Did you tell him I was working on the case, helping you to figure out who had done this?”

  A pause. Then she nodded.

  “So if it was him, the one who’d done all this, then you just tipped him off. Not only about yourself and the investigation, but about me.”

  She took a quick but deep breath. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Another breath as if adjusting. She nodded. “But Izzy, I know it will be okay. Because I believe in him.”

  “Well, I don’t.” I paused. “I can’t yet,” I said, revising. Something struck me. “Is that why you put us in the Pyramus together? So he could convince me that he wasn’t part o
f the forgeries?”

  “Are you saying that you discussed the forgeries in the pyramid?”

  “No!” I said. “Of course not.”

  She studied my face. Was she trying to tell if I was being honest?

  “I didn’t,” I insisted.

  “Then, of course, I didn’t pair you with Syd for any particular reason other than I think he is fascinating and wonderful, and I think the same of you.”

  I smiled. A little. “Thanks.”

  But it seemed to me that something had crawled between Madeline and me. Some kind of mistrust.

  She was such an aware person, so creative, and at the same time, matter-of-fact. She called it like she saw it. And yet she was talking about her nights being filled with ghosts and dreams and ghosts inside of dreams. It was all sounding a little…well, iffy.

  As if sensing my hesitation, Madeline changed the topic. “Oh, and I spoke with Axel Tredstone, sent him some pictures of you. And he wants to talk with you. If he likes you, he’ll paint you the same day.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. You would be exquisite.” Madeline turned and smiled my way. “Didn’t you like creating yourself as a blonde last night?”

  I put my hand to my head. Sometime last night, I’d pulled off my wig, which had grown heavy and itchy.

  But I had to admit—I had liked being a blonde very much. I couldn’t imagine going there on a regular basis, but I’d enjoyed last night (before getting arrested)—the feel of weightlessness, as if losing a version of myself, just for a little while.

  “Do you think I’ll get that same experience with Tredstone?” I asked Madeline.

  “Oh, no. Better. Much better. You would be his canvas, his clean slate.” She looked at her watch. “Izzy, will you come to the gallery with me today?”

  “I am not going on a sled with Syd,” I said.

  Madeline laughed. “Syd’s gone. He had plans to meet a friend.”

  I turned around and looked out the window over the kitchen sink. “Actually, I’m seeing cabs.” And people shoveling and salting and a few kids in the playground tackling each other into the snow.