A Long December

by Richard Chizmar

  Frank got like this once in awhile—all red-faced and stuttering and pissed off at the world. A heart attack just waiting to happen. And when he did, it was best to just sit there and listen and not open your mouth. Maybe nod your head once every couple minutes to show that you understood.

  “And then when the news is over, you get the goddamn commercials. Fortune tellers, mind readers, psychic healers, mystic forgivers. You tell me, Ben, what the fuck’s a mystic forgiver?”

  I shook my head and tried not to laugh.

  “And people trying to sell you goddamn everything. What does some crystal you wear around your neck have to do with the year 2000? What the hell can you do with 60 different types of organic herbs? I’d like to shove those herbs up their asses is what I’d like to do…”

  I steered onto Exit 23, our tires cutting fresh tracks in the deep snow, and turned right at the first stoplight. A bunch of kids were having a snowball fight on the front lawn of an old elementary school. There had to be at least twenty of them out there.

  About a mile up the road, I turned left and we were there. Squad cars and flashing red lights everywhere. Couple of ambulances. One drove right past us when we pulled to the curb.

  “Looks like a goddamn traffic accident,” Frank said. “What’d they call us out here for?”

  “Let’s check it out.” I turned off the car and got out. Took a half-dozen steps and wished for a warmer jacket. Maybe a scarf. In the police lights, the falling snow was the color of blood.

  It was a working class neighborhood. Small houses built forty, fifty years ago, narrow front yards—run down and neglected now, peeling paint and cracked driveways. Even the snow couldn’t make it look pretty.

  There were two cars sitting in the middle of the street. Connected nose to nose by twisted metal. The smaller car was missing a windshield. Frank was right; it looked like a head-on collision.

  I looked around. None of the folks involved in the accident appeared to still be at the scene.

  I spotted Harvey Weidemann standing next to the ambulance and walked over. Frank stayed behind, talking to one of the uniforms.

  Harvey used to work city five, six years ago, but then he got married and moved out to the county. Wife’s orders. They were going to have kids and she didn’t want to raise a family on her own. Smart lady. Harvey’s a big man. Real big—six-six and more than two-fifty. These days, most of it’s fat, but not all of it. He’s still pretty impressive to look at.

  “Hey, Harv. What’s going on?”

  He looked up from his notebook and smiled warmly.

  “Christ, look what the cat dragged in.”

  We shook hands. The bastard was wearing leather gloves. And a scarf.

  He glanced over my shoulder, squinted in the falling snow and flashing lights. “And, hey, there’s your better half. And wearing a goddamn suit. Never thought I’d see the day.” He shook his head, pointed at the cars in the middle of the street. They were quickly disappearing beneath the snow. “You believe this shit?”

  “What’s the story?” I asked.

  He smiled again. A big fat grinning pumpkin. “You’re not gonna believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Red Cavalier is Marcus and Joanna Firestone. Husband and wife. Live up the street on Hanson. According to their statement they been drinking all day, since before noon.”

  He walked over and patted the hood of the other automobile—the one missing a windshield—a dark-colored Toyota. “This one is Freddie Jenkins. Next door neighbor to Marcus and Joanna Firestone. The three of them started partying together before lunch. Nothing too serious—beers and a couple of joints. Then a few friends come over and things really start cooking. New Year’s Eve comes a little early, if you know what I mean. Seems that sometime around three or four, Marcus catches Freddie making time with his old lady in the upstairs bathroom. Right on the fucking sink. Only he doesn’t say anything at the time. Doesn’t let on that he knows.

  “Around seven, the party gets even bigger and moves across the street to another neighbor’s house. But before heading over, Marcus and Joanna drive over to Luskin’s Liquor Mart for a beer run. They get their beer and on the way home, they start arguing. Marcus comes clean with her about what he’d seen, even starts crying while he’s driving. Now get this: the old lady gets pissed off. You believe that shit? She gets royally pissed off. Starts screaming at him about not trusting her and spying on her and bullshit like that. Starts beating on him while he’s driving.

  “Anyway, while they’re weaving up the street, already drunk and stoned off their minds, here comes their neighbor Freddie Jenkins cruising in the opposite direction.”

  I rolled my eyes and whispered, “Oh, shit.”

  Harvey’s smile got wider and he held up a finger and said. “It gets better. So Marcus sees Freddie coming his way and with his wife’s fingernails digging into his neck and her screaming in his ear YOU DON’T TRUST ME!, the poor guy does what comes natural. He fucking loses it. He backhands his wife until she shuts up, crashes head-first into Freddie’s Toyota, grabs a gun from under his front seat, jumps out of the car and onto the hood of Freddie’s car, kicks in the windshield, pulls Freddie out and gut-shots him right then and there. Then he does the wife.”

  I shook my head. “Jesus.”

  “When the first car got to the scene, the officers found Marcus sitting on the trunk of his car, drinking a Budweiser. They said he was just sitting there, waiting, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt; they found it in the front seat of his car, draped over the steering wheel, soaked in blood. Freddie Jenkins was laying on the road, already dead, and Joanna was still in the front seat. She got it in the head…twice. She was a mess. Paramedics said she’s eighty-twenty.”

  Harvey wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Marcus wanted to give a statement right then and there, so they let him do it. He was crying the whole damn time. They finally took him downtown ’bout a half-hour ago. The poor son-of-a-bitch. I felt sorry for him. I really did.”

  “You’re not kidding.”

  I thanked Harvey and told him it was good to see him. I took a few steps and turned and asked about his wife.

  “We’re divorced,” he said. “Two years ago. She got the kids.”

  I told him I was sorry and found Frank waiting by the car.

  We got out of there.

  11:57 pm

  “Weird couple of calls, huh?”

  Frank looked at me and raised his eyebrows “Hey, it’s the millennium, remember?”

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Not really so weird anyway,” he said. “Not so much out of the ordinary.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. Just kinda felt that way tonight is all.”

  We were sitting at the end of the bar in the Brass Horse Saloon. Best cream of crab soup in the city. And the prettiest waitresses too. None of that mattered tonight, though. It was a mad house—New Year’s Eve and all.

  Frank had wanted to go someplace quieter. But I thought it might do us some good to be around people for awhile. Normal, everyday, regular-joe, happy, non-homicidal people.

  Of course, when we pulled up, there was a fistfight out in the parking lot. Two big guys fighting over a woman.

  I finished my drink and looked over at my partner. “You gonna be alright?”

  “Susan, you mean?”

  I nodded my head.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I really don’t know.”

  People around us starting counting.

  “You know, you need a place to stay for awhile, you always got me.”

  He looked up from his drink, and I saw the fear in his eyes. It was the wrong thing for me to say and the look on his face made my fucking heart ache. I turned away and ordered another round, but the waitress didn’t hear me.

  “Frank, I didn’t mean—”

  The place erupted then. Streamers and confetti and annoying little party horns. Hugging and kissing and yelling. />
  A man I had never seen before in my life slapped me on the shoulder and gave me a thumbs-up. A very fat redhead kissed Frank on the cheek, then moved over and did the same to the man sitting behind him. A couple of college kids jumped up on the bar and started dancing.

  Frank and I just sat there and looked at each other, both of us thinking the same thing.

  After a few minutes of this, Frank leaned over and raised his voice above the crowd. “Hey, great idea, coming here. Thanks for cheering me up, partner.”

  I showed him my middle finger and said, “Happy New Year, Frank. Happy fucking New Year.”

  He smiled and raised his glass.

  My glass was empty but I raised it anyway.

  THE LAKE IS LIFE

  Police officer: When did you realize something was wrong?

  Witness: When I saw the blood.

  Police officer: Where was the blood?

  Witness: Everywhere.

  My parents decided to separate the summer I turned fourteen.

  It was a bad time. Not a lot of screaming or yelling or fighting. Just long, awkward silences and the occasional sniffle or dirty look exchanged between Mom and Dad.

  June passed in a blur of family counseling sessions and solo shopping dates with Mom and dinner dates with Dad. When I wasn’t being dragged to one place or the other, I was hidden away in my old treehouse. Rereading Harry Potter or listening to my iPod.

  By the time July rolled around, Dad was drinking again and I was living with Mom in a second floor condo near my school and going alone to counseling twice a week. I had finished all the Harry Potters and had moved on to my mom’s old Sidney Sheldon paperbacks. A little racy, but I was growing up fast by then.

  On the fourth of July, Mom and I went to dinner at Harrisons and watched the fireworks from the pier with about a billion other people. On the way home, she broke the news to me:

  In a week, I was heading to Grandma’s house at the lake. I was going to spend the rest of my summer there, while she “sorted out some things.”

  I could tell Mom thought I might be disappointed with the news. Maybe even angry. But I wasn’t.

  I loved the lake with its quiet coves and peaceful woods. And I adored my grandma. She was the one who had taught me how to fish and pick berries and mark a trail. She was the one who had taught me my love of books and astrology.

  I felt bad thinking it, but when Mom told me, I was actually relieved.

  I was tired of my counselor’s voice and the way my friends all looked at me. I hated the condo, it smelled funny, and I was starting to be scared of my dad.

  The lake sounded wonderful.

  It felt a little like running away from home.

  “My gosh, Becca, look at you! So tall!”

  I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling as I lifted my suitcase out of the trunk of Mom’s car. “Grandma Maggie, you just saw me a month ago.”

  “I know I did, and if you haven’t grown another inch, I’m Raquel Welch.”

  I hugged her in the driveway, and she hugged me back twice as hard. It felt good. It felt like what I remembered happy to feel like.

  “Don’t break her, Ma.”

  Grandma laughed at that and hugged my mom next. “Don’t break me either!”

  Then we were all laughing and staring out at the lake. A boat buzzed by and we could hear muffled laughter on the evening breeze.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I said, mostly to myself.

  In my peripheral, I saw the two of them exchange a look that said: we did good bringing her here.

  “You know what your grandfather always said…”

  Grandpa had died of a heart attack when I was seven, but I remembered him well. I smiled. “The lake is life.”

  “Yes, indeed.” She laid a wrinkled hand on my shoulder, and I touched it with my own. “The lake is life. So let’s get on living it.”

  We walked inside the house together.

  I saw the boat again three days later.

  I was sitting on the pier with my toes in the water, writing in my journal and soaking up the sun, when I heard the whir of a small outboard. I looked up just in time to see a dingy round the point and come into view. There was only one person in the boat and as they drew closer, I could see that it was a boy. Probably not much older than I was.

  I felt exposed sitting there, so I pulled my feet up out of the water and propped my legs up under my chin.

  The boy was shirtless and wearing a red baseball hat. Even from fifty yards away I could see that he was tan from the sun and had muscles. I guessed then that he was older. Maybe even old enough to drive.

  He waved as he passed me, and after a moment’s hesitation—born of equal parts sheer panic and excitement—I casually waved back, and then looked down at my journal again.

  I counted to ten. Slowly. And then I looked up again.

  The boat and the boy were gone.

  With one exception, my first week at the lake passed in a kind of drowsy haze, as time there usually does, and I was happy to settle into a daily routine.

  Each morning I would wake early and eat breakfast with Grandma Maggie out on the deck overlooking the lake. After we did the dishes together, we would walk the winding dirt path to the point and back. Grandma was in pretty good shape for a woman her age, but she was finally slowing down, so I never pushed to go further. I saved those longer hikes for the afternoon and did them solo.

  In the evenings, we cooked dinner together and often left our dirty dishes on the table to sneak away and fish for crappie or sunnies or bass before the sun went down. Other times, we cleaned up our mess and sat in rockers on the porch and read or talked. She had a television in the den, but we rarely watched it until bedtime.

  We barely talked about Mom and Dad and what was going on at home. Sometimes, she would tell me stories about Mom when she was my age or when she was in high school. I had mostly heard them all before, but I still liked listening to them. And I know it made Grandma happy to tell them.

  Grandma never mentioned it, but I’m sure Mom had told her all about my mini-breakdown and the resulting appointments with my counselor. I was pretty certain it would come up in time, but for now I was grateful it hadn’t.

  Mom called to say goodnight every evening around nine, but I didn’t ask many questions and she didn’t offer much in the way of news. It was still good to hear her voice. My dad hadn’t called yet. I had tried to call him a couple times, but it always went straight to voice mail. I didn’t mention this to Mom, and she didn’t ask.

  It was a good first week.

  The exception happened as I was getting ready for bed one night.

  Grandma was already asleep in her room, and I had just come upstairs after watching a late movie by myself. I was certain that my bedroom window was closed because I remembered pausing to close the curtains right before I took my shower.

  But when I came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, freshly clean and wrapped in a towel, I saw the thin curtains fluttering in the night breeze.

  I stood there in the bathroom doorway, staring at the window. Momentarily frozen with fear. Holding my breath.

  Then, as if waking from a dream, I quickly glanced around the room, searching for an intruder. I found nothing out of place and realized there were only two places someone could hide: under the bed and inside the closet.

  I considered yelling for Grandma Maggie or making a mad dash for her room, but the longer I stood there, the more foolish I felt. I had just watched a stupid horror film. My imagination was probably running wild. What did I expect?

  I took a deep breath and, before I could change my mind, dropped to a knee on the floor and checked under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies.

  Emboldened, I walked over to the closet and flung open the door. Nothing inside except my summer clothes.

  I walked over to the window and pushed it closed.

  Just as I was turning around, I saw a flash of movement in the yard. A shadow shifting within a l
arger, darker shadow.

  I stared outside for a long time, and then I locked the window and went to bed.

  Police officer: What were you doing in the woods again?

  Witness: I told you, we were playing a stupid game.

  Police officer: (checks notebook) Hide and seek?

  Witness: (nods) Yes.

  Police officer: Aren’t you all a little old to be playing a kid’s game?

  Witness: I said the same thing to Benjamin.

  Police officer: And what did Benjamin say?

  Witness: He said they played it all the time. They liked to scare each other.

  Two things happened on the Monday of my second week at the lake:

  Grandma Maggie brought up the “D” word for the first time and I met the boy from the boat.

  We were on the way home from our morning walk and Grandma had been extra quiet, so I wasn’t at all surprised when she finally asked, “What would you think, Becca, if your parents got a divorce?”

  I think she expected me to stop walking or start crying or something equally dramatic, but I didn’t have it in me. “Why? Did Mom say something to you?”

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “No, no. Nothing like that. I was just wondering if now that you’re feeling better…if you had thought about the future.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think it really matters what I think, do you?”