by Ivan Blake
The Principal pulled a gray metal chair up in front of his desk for Chris then sat on the other side. “Very tragic affair,” he said, and then waited for Chris’s reaction.
Chris knew only too well what a piece of work Principal Dell was. The kids in the junior school had invented a jump-rope rhyme which pretty much summed up people’s feelings about the Principal:
Mr. Dell loves to ring his bell,
Mr. Dell wants us all in class,
Mr. Dell can go to hell,
Mr. Dell can kiss my butt...
One, two, three, four...
The entire school hated Dell for being a preening, fawning, interfering prig whose only goals in life were to impress the school superintendent and to get a better job elsewhere, preferably as far from Bemishstock as possible. Chris guessed Dell had probably been mad as hell when he’d got word of a second suicide among his students in as many weeks. How was he going to explain that to any prospective employer? Chris guessed Dell would be looking for revenge.
“You were close to Mallory Dahlman,” Dell said.
“Maybe for a while.”
“But not lately?”
“No. Sir, can you tell me how Mallory died?” He stared directly at the principal. Dell smiled.
“I understand Mallory was upset. Friends had been trying to comfort her all evening. They’d put her to bed, and, at her mother’s suggestion, they’d given her cocoa with a couple of sleeping pills dissolved in it.”
“Sleeping pills? Did Mallory know about the pills?”
“No. Anyway, her mother had gone to bed and her friends thought Mallory had dropped off, so they left. Soon after, however, Mallory got up, left the house, and went to the garage. There, she started her mother’s car, wrapped herself in a blanket, and lay down in the back seat. She died from carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“So...she killed herself?”
“There’s some question about that, whether she intended to die or was simply trying to keep warm on a terribly cold night.”
“Mallory was too smart to think she could run a car in a closed garage.”
“She was distraught,” Dell said. “Her emotions may have clouded her judgment. She was waiting for someone, someone she loved, someone who did not show up.” Dell might have expected Chris to say something, but he didn’t. “You, she was waiting for you, Chandler. Isn’t that correct?”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. Miss Dahlman asked you to come.”
“We’d broken up. I thought she was seeing someone else.”
“She asked you to come to her house, no one else.”
“I thought it was some kind of trick.”
“She begged you, her friends begged you. She even told you she might hurt herself.”
“No, she said she might do something. I didn’t know what. I thought it might be a trap, like she wanted to hurt me. “
“Mallory Dahlman? You thought Mallory Dahlman wanted to hurt you?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I didn’t think for a moment she’d actually kill herself. She was strong, she was proud of being strong.”
“Her heart had been broken, and she reached out to you, and you ignored her.”
“I had something else to do.”
“And what was that?”
“It’s personal.”
“You disgust me, Chandler. You’d been given the opportunity to save a life and were too selfish to even try.”
“You know nothing about Mallory Dahlman. If she killed herself—and I’m not sure she did because she thought suicide was weakness—but if she did, then she was probably trying some stunt that went wrong, because she sure as hell didn’t kill herself from a broken heart. I don’t believe Mallory Dahlman ever had a heart!”
“You’re mad.” The principal’s face filled first with amazement as Chris spoke, and then with rage.
“If you want to know how I feel,” continued Chris, “I think Mallory Dahlman was the cruelest person I’ve ever met, and believe me, I’ve known a few real bastards. I think Mallory drove Darleen Jansen and Floyd Balzer to suicide. I think she wrote the letter that got Mr. Duncan fired, and I think she may even have started the fire which killed Mrs. Holcomb, her or her pet monkey, Billy. Ask him! Ask Billy about his arm. That’s the kind of monster your precious Mallory Dahlman was.”
“And how is it you saw this monster in Miss Dahlman when no one else in this entire town could see it?”
“Be...because she told me. She thought we were alike.”
“And were you?”
Maybe, maybe they were; he’d let her die, hadn’t he? Oh Christ, he’d let Mallory die! Then Chris pulled himself together.
“Look, if you called me in here to ask if I feel guilty for not stopping Mallory from killing herself, then yes, I guess I do. If I’d thought for one minute she was going to harm herself, I would have done whatever I could to stop her. So, guilty yes, but am I sorry she’s gone? No. Not one bit.”
“I think you’re sick,” Dell said. “I want you to leave now!”
“Did you ever wonder why so many rumors get spread around school? Ever wonder why so many hate letters get sent or secrets somehow get exposed? Mallory!”
“Get out of my office!”
“She inflicted so much pain, and for all your snooping and interfering, you didn’t have a clue.” Chris got up and went to the door. “The day will come when this school will realize it’s better off without Mallory Dahlman.” He opened the door to leave.
“Wait in the hall for the police. They have questions for you,” Dell shouted.
“So what else is new?” He walked out of Dell’s office and then, without stopping, into the hall, past the sobbing girls, and down the corridor toward the main entrance.
The school secretary yelled after him, “You have to wait for the police!” He kept on going. He threw open the front door, ran down the steps and across the parking lot, and got into the Buick. Clutching the steering wheel as hard as he could, he shouted, “No more! For Christ’s sake!” The cry was primal, like he needed to smash something or put a fist through a wall. He spotted a couple of teachers and several members of the hockey team running toward him. The old Buick roared to life and raced out of the parking lot.
Chris was halfway home before he remembered Gillian.
* * * *
The police cars were still parked out front of the Dahlman house and Deputy Pike still manned his roadblock at the top of the lane. Pike recognized the Buick as it flew past. He shouted something and stuck his middle finger in the air. Chris raced by without a second glance.
No way was Chris going home; after the promise of the previous evening, he couldn’t face his mother’s inevitable disappointment. He drove up Felicity’s track to the mountain meadow, parked by the ashes of the cottage, and sat staring out over the bay.
What the hell could he do? There would be no getting out of this mess, no lying low, no keeping it together until after graduation, not anymore. Everyone at school—hell, everyone in the whole town—was going to want to make Chris Chandler’s life an absolute nightmare. There would be no escape this time.
And his family? What would they make of a son who’d had the chance to save a life and chose instead to test drive his new car? It would confirm their worst suspicions about their thoughtless and surly son. Do the right thing or do the selfish thing, and sure enough, he’d done the selfish thing.
Only it wasn’t like that. He’d had to make a choice between honoring the last wishes of a true friend and saving the life of a real monster...and he’d honored a friend. Then why didn’t it feel like the right choice? Maybe because all he’d done was save a corpse. A corpse, half a corpse, that’s all he’d rescued. And who the hell would ever know or care? He couldn’t tell anyone, and even if he could, who’d ever believe him? He was screwed, royally screwed, and he could see no escape.
He was tired of fighting all the time and with every goddamn person in his crappy life. He put his he
ad down on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. Maybe Mallory, in her own sick way, had shown him how to find peace. After all, he had a car, and you don’t need a garage to fill a car with exhaust, just a length of pipe and some rags, and there were sure to be both in the ruins of Felicity’s cottage. He was just sick and tired of being the butt of everyone’s insults and suspicions, and after today, his life was going to get a helluva lot worse.
Nobody was ever going to give him a break now.
Well, nobody except Gillian...
* * * *
A sharp knock on the driver-side window woke Chris with a start. It took him a moment to shake the cotton from his brain. The windows of the car were fogged over. He wiped away some of the moisture.
“Gillian!” She looked blue with the cold. He rolled down his window. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Quick, get in.” She ran around the car and climbed in the passenger side. “What time is it?”
“Way past four.” Gillian was still shivering and the sun was setting.
“So I’ve been up here for hours,” Chris said. “I...I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t stay at school.”
“Yeah, I saw you drive away.”
“Christ, I should have waited for you.”
“That’s okay.”
“Did anybody give you a hard time?” he asked, “You know, for being with me?”
“I...I don’t think anybody believes we might be together, don’t think they even noticed.” She looked down at her lap.
“No?”
“Not sure I do either.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s pretty obvious you’re really broken up over Mallory.”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“I guess I was stupid to think you were over her...”
“Gillian, listen to me. I hated Mallory, I did. I don’t think I ever cared for her, not one bit.”
“You sure fooled everyone at school...and me. They’re saying her death was a terrible mix-up, and they think you’re heartbroken over it. At least some people do. Others, well, they blame you.”
“But it’s neither of those things. I’m not heartbroken, but I didn’t want her to die. I...I guess I’m ashamed. “
“Ashamed? Why?”
“I’m such a scumbag.”
“A scumbag?”
“I...I got mixed up with her because, well, you know, because of her...”
“Her breasts. I kind of guessed that.”
“Her looks, and her popularity, and I guess because I was flattered, because she said I was dark and cool and mysterious and dangerous...and that’s how I always hoped people might see me.”
“As creepy, you mean. Yes, you can be creepy at times.”
“But it was just a stupid act...a disguise. Felicity saw that.”
“And called you a hero.”
“I’m no hero. That’s the last thing I am.”
“She saw you as a hero because, in spite of everything, you were still you.”
“Around her maybe. Around everyone else I’ve been acting like an idiot! I don’t know who the real me is anymore.”
“You rescued Felicity from Meath. That’s the real you.”
“I probably did it for the car.”
“You did it because you knew how important it was to Felicity that she rest beside her Harold, because that’s how you treat your friends.”
“I had the chance to save a life, and I messed up!” Tears were running down his cheeks.
“Chris, you couldn’t have done anything to save Mallory. Her fate was always in her own hands, not yours.”
“I know. Still, shouldn’t I at least have tried?” he sobbed.
“And done what? You know she was trying to manipulate you. She was a stupid bitch, probably too stupid to realize running the car in a closed garage would be dangerous. And if she did know, then she was probably so confident you were under her control she thought it worth the risk. She wanted to own you, and if she’d got you back, she would never have let you go.”
Chris took a big breath and tried to compose himself. “I guess maybe Mallory’s gods have other plans for her.”
Gillian wiped tears from Chris’s cheek. “Scumbag, huh?” she whispered.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday, December 5 to Saturday, December 14
Everyone in town knew about Mallory’s note—her minions made sure of that—and just as Gillian had said, folks fell into two camps. Either they believed Chris to be the broken-hearted suitor who’d failed to reach his beloved in time, or the monster who’d coldheartedly let his ex-girlfriend take her own life because he’d been too busy to help her. Of course, there were a helluva lot more people in the second camp than the first.
People gave Chris a wide berth, like he carried the plague or something. The whispers and the stares were almost worse than the taunts had been. When Chief Boucher demanded Mallory’s note, he’d probably hoped it might somehow implicate Chris in her death, but it didn’t. Besides, Gillian Willard gave Chris an alibi for the time of death. “Again,” said the Chief.
Chris’s role in Mallory’s suicide wasn’t the hot topic of conversation in town for long; Mallory’s visitation quickly took over. Mrs. Dahlman arranged to have her daughter laid out at the funeral parlor for nine days prior to the interment. Word was her father needed the time to get home from Indonesia. The funeral home announced Mallory would be on display from noon until seven every day, and visiting quickly became the thing to do. Over lunch hour, every kid in school trekked to Brewster’s to see her laid out in a dazzling pink satin dress which seemed garish to some and breathtakingly beautiful to others.
To Gillian, Mallory looked like the kind of cheap prize doll they give away at carnivals, her arms stiff at her sides, rigid, white as porcelain, anatomically bizarre and dressed in shiny satin. The coffin was a pink and purple affair covered with huge flocked roses. By Wednesday, the crowds of students had become so unruly, Mr. Brewster asked Mrs. Dahlman to curtail visitation. Thereafter, Mallory was returned to the freezer to await her funeral the following Sunday.
For the six days Mallory was on display, her brother sat by her side the whole time as though he dared not miss a single second of the experience. Rudy’d been released from hospital against the doctor’s wishes and kept the vigil in spite of his heavily bandaged stump and apparent pain. He looked like death itself, sitting for hours on end by Mallory’s corpse. Some thought him courageous and devoted. Others found his presence disconcerting—sitting there motionless, not speaking, head bowed, and wearing the strangest grin like some sort of simpleton, like he was gloating.
* * * *
Chris agonized over the funeral. His parents would not attend; they were too confused by their son’s apparent indifference to a young girl’s suffering. His mother was heavily medicated and didn’t leave her room for the entire week. If Chris decided to go, he’d be on his own.
Emotions would be raw at the service; there was no knowing what might happen if he attended. He was equally afraid tempers might boil over if he didn’t, if people thought he’d turned his back on Mallory yet again. Gillian offered to accompany him. He wouldn’t hear of it however. No, he had to face the ordeal alone.
The day before the funeral, Chris resolved to attend. He planned to sit at the back, participate respectfully, and then leave. He’d do nothing to draw attention to himself and speak to no one. If there was going to be trouble, he wouldn’t be the instigator.
Then Rudy Dahlman telephoned.
“I have a favor to ask,” he said with a creepy snigger.
“Of me?”
“No matter what happened between you and my sister, you were close, for a while anyway.” That weird giggle again.
Where was this going?
“I’ll be at the funeral service tomorrow, only I can’t be a pallbearer,” Rudy said. “So I wondered if you would be.”
“What?
Be a pallbearer? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“It’s no big a deal. You help lift Mallory’s coffin from the hearse and then carry it down the aisle at the start of the service. Then you sit with the other pallbearers during the service, and at the end, you help carry the coffin outside again. Then you help lift it back into the hearse, and at the cemetery, you help carry it from the hearse to the grave. That’s it.”
“Who are the other pallbearers?”
“Oh, you know most of them: just a few of Mallory’s friends and a couple of family acquaintances.”
“Who specifically?” Chris trusted Rudy like kittens trust pit bulls.
“Okay, there’s Billy, a couple of his teammates, Principal Dell, and Chief Boucher.”
“What are you playing at, Rudy?”
“Nothing. How can you even ask me that? I thought you’d like a chance to help.”
Crap, oh crap. He felt trapped, like he had to say yes or be thought to have rejected Mallory a second time. “All right, I’ll do it.”
“I figured you would. Anybody else in your shoes would have said no. Not you, you just had to say yes.” Rudy sniggered again. “You really are a do-gooder. Always gotta be better than everybody else.”
“I’ll do it because Mallory was a friend once.”
“You think she was ever your friend? You’re such an idiot. I guess nobody told you what the cops found in her room.”
“No.”
“Well, along with her candles and masks and herbs and bugs and bones and all the other Torajan crap, my dear sister had this piece of old animal skin—from a cat or something—and she’d made two dolls out of it. She’d glued some human hair onto one of them—blond like yours, by the way—and stitched your name across the chest. The other was this girl doll with black hair. There were strings attached to the arms and legs, like puppets. And get this, they were sitting in a little cardboard car.
“The police figured they were just some weird toys. We know different, don’t we. Mallory actually believed she could control you with her dolls and her magic. Fuck, was she ever wrong!” Rudy laughed hysterically.
“Rudy, if you know how much Mallory hated me, then why do you want me to be a pall bearer; I never did anything to you.”
