Elsinore Canyon

by J. M.

  “Dana?” I rolled an inch towards her; she took a deep breath. “Are you full of another confession?”

  “I’m going to tell you everything about the last week.” She sat down on a loveseat. “When I’m done, you’ll turn away and go through that door and never touch me or smile at me again.”

  “Then I’d better touch you now.” I rolled closer and put her hand on my numb knee. She told me everything: about Dr. Claudia’s confession, the shooting in the bedroom, her father’s lie, the ghost, the flight to Bangkok with its terrifying discoveries—the messages on Polly’s laptop, the bottles, her shallow sleep for the rest of the flight—and finally the face-forward, heart-stopping walk off the tarmac at Bangkok FBO all by herself. Dana had stayed at a hostel so she could live off her cash. She had also stayed off her phone and computer to make the lightest possible electronic noise, as I was well aware.

  “For five days,” she said, “I was eating off outdoor carts and bumming around in parks. Lying low. I kept expecting to hear about Rosie and Gale, but it didn’t make the news. I wondered if they’d gotten home. Horst,” she said intensely, “I left the customs office in Bangkok and didn’t look back. And I didn’t have to do that. I could have washed the coke down the drain and smashed the bottles and flushed the shards. No one had to suffer—but I did it to Rosie and Gale. I don’t know how things are going to turn out for them, but I put them on a train to hell. Polly was an accident, but not them. It’s true, the things you do are a part of who you are—that’s how it feels to me. So how do you like me now?”

  My blood boiled up. “Alive—that’s how I like you. What the hell is Claudia missing? She wanted you dead, or gone forever! As if your dad would just get on with things? Just live happily ever after?”

  “He’s doing it now, with my mom gone.”

  “But Jesus, what are the limits? You escaped a murder attempt. Death by judge.”

  “Well, she’s going to be the one to get it—death by truth. I’m showing my dad all this stuff.” She opened Polly’s laptop. “It’s all here, the whole plot. There hasn’t been anything sexy between Oscar and Claudia since that night—they must be talking in person—but I’ve got enough.”

  She and I were puzzled that Polly’s snitchware had gotten Dr. Claudia’s messages; the account he had set up for her wasn’t working when I had last seen his laptop. We reconstructed that fateful evening and looked at the timestamps, and concluded that Polly, bless his heart, had tapped Dr. Claudia’s hard drive as his second-last failure of conscience.

  We copied all the files from Polly’s laptop onto mine, and stashed his machine back in Dana’s suitcase. I caught Dana looking at me in a funny way. “What is it?” I said.

  She answered me with a sad smile. “Will you remember me, Horst?”

  “Remember you?”

  “I had a dream while I was sleeping just now. You and I were back at the cemetery at Saint Maroveus. You remember those times when the two of us would go out there?”

  “When you’d push me up the hill, and you’d rake the weeds and I’d hold that big bag open for you?”

  “You do.”

  “That was funny. You and I were the only ones who wanted that duty—everyone else thought it was creepy.”

  “But it let us get away by ourselves, didn’t it? In my dream we were back there, on this perfect afternoon, just the two of us, happy—and we found a skull by one of the graves. We were making up theories and joking about whose it was. Like maybe it had been a nasty teacher, and we could put the skull in detention. Or maybe it was a lawyer who had sued people out of their entire fortune for playing with bones. Or maybe it was one of those mean doctors who acts like his patients are bodies without heads. See? And then a gardener or janitor came to us and said it was Clyde Dewey’s skull. He was an actual person. You didn’t know him, did you? He was a sort of comic, a retired professor who wrote nonsense poems. He was at our house all the time when I was a kid, especially when we had parties. Always joking, always playing games and making up rhymes and imitating people and making them laugh. He would throw me in the air and sing this song called ‘Pony Girl.’ It made me squeal like mad no matter how many times he did it, and I always said ‘Do it again!’—even after a dozen times, but he would keep going until someone rescued the poor guy from me. And there I was in the cemetery in my dream, all those years later, holding his dead, dusty skull. I haven’t thought of him in ages.”

  GOLDEN AIR OVER A POWDER-BLUE OCEAN

  Her phone buzzed. The courier service had a confirmation with Dr. Claudia’s signature. Dana took it as a cue to get home. She meant to keep ahead of the game, and show up in Elsinore Canyon on her own terms, not be found out like a rat in a wall.

  I thought it was dangerous for her to get anywhere near Dr. Claudia. “Meet with your dad somewhere else first,” I said. “Think things through.”

  “It’s Claudia’s turn to ‘think.’ I’ve done enough. I’ve got my mother’s breath on my back.”

  With grave reservations, which I conveyed with frowns and finger-shakings and cloudy threats, I drove her back down south late the next morning. I instantly agreed when she asked me to pack a bag myself, just in case. “It does seem,” she admitted, “like there’s always a case.” We wondered at what we would find. She still hadn’t picked up any of her messages, and I—well, I had stopped keeping up with my school friends and the local news—what I now loftily considered my old life. Oh yes, I was above it all, elevated by my feelings for Dana and my mission to find a miracle cure for my disability. And so I missed the news that changed everything.

  We pulled onto the tiny road that led to the Hamlets’ house. The main gate was closed and locked, something that almost never happened. “They must be holding off the villagers,” said Dana. I punched in the code that opened it and drove in. “What’s that?” she said. A small, plain sign had been stuck in the ground at the fork that led down to the cottage. We got closer and read the words: “POLONIUS BURIAL.”

  Dana leaned across me, her eyes glued to the sign.

  “Polonius what?” I said.

  “Unbelievable.”

  “The bastard died. Fuck. You could have known this if I’d kept my ears open. For you.”

  “It’s not your duty. You’re not my Oscar.”

  “Christ. What do we do now? Do you want to go?”

  “Yes. We just go.”

  I drove us down towards the cottage, inching the car along. The dunes and bushes and cactus, the topiary garden, the desiccated golf course. As we topped the last little hill, the vista opened up. Golden air over a powder-blue ocean. A few cars were parked around the cottage, and a knot of mourners was gathered on a small rise. I turned off my ignition and rolled up quietly. Perla and Miguel, Marcellus, Mr. Hamlet and Dr. Claudia, Oscar, and a few others stood around Laurie. A Eucharistic minister from a local parish was officiating. Laurie clutched a small box in her arms while friends held her steady. We knew one of them, a girl named Rennie.

  “Your dad and Laurie?” I said. “Both there at the same time? How’d that happen?”

  “Where’s Phil?”

  “They’ve seen us. We ought to get out there.”

  A few people turned, saying nothing, as Dana and I got out of my car and made our way over to within a few feet of the group. We went softly up behind them. People appeared to be praying, only the sounds of their grief making up the ceremony.

  Finally, Rennie spoke to Laurie softly. “It’s time.”

  Laurie huddled over the box. She pled in a tight voice. “Please, someone else, say something.”

  Rennie hugged Laurie’s shoulders. “We’ve all spoken our heartfelt thoughts about him. We loved him, and we love you, Laurie. We’ll stay with you as long as you want, and we’ll talk. All the rest of the day, all night, tomorrow. But it’s time.”

  Laurie twisted away from Rennie. “It’s not his time. Just because your prayers are over.” She sank to her knees, staring at the box. “The brightest
light,” she whispered. “Beautiful Phil. My sweet, sweet brother.” She bumped the lid off the box. Ashes. She let out a high, lingering wail. “It’s not him!” She screamed as tears ran down her face. “It’s not him!” Her friends pulled at her elbows while she sobbed and screamed over and over. “It’s not Phil!” She clung to the box, firm hands pushed and pulled her this way and that. “His bones. His beautiful bones! Ashes—it should be trash that was burned, it should be useless filth! Oh lord, not his arms, his eyes!” She sobbed wildly. Mr. Hamlet tried to step through, but stopped, aghast, as she plunged her fingers into the box and scooped out the grey dust and raked it through her sweat-soaked hair. “No no nooo!” she wailed. “You’ll always be mine, you’ll always be part of me, Phil! I won’t let you go!” She rubbed ashes over her bare arms, her neck, and stared at the grit under her nails. “I won’t let you go, I won’t let you go, I’ll never let you go!”

  Dana had also fallen to her knees just outside the circle. Laurie’s eyes fell on Dana’s dress, visible behind ankles and dark cuffs, and traveled rapidly to her face—the last one on earth she wanted to see. “You.”

  Shocked mourners stepped around, revealing Dana’s wide eyes, fixed on the box. “Phil.” Hands stretched out to set her upright, and she fell back into a lattice of arms. “What the hell has been going on here? When, how—”

  “You!?” screamed Laurie. She tottered up. “You killed him! You didn’t even care that he died, and now you have to come here and ruin this!”

  “Me, kill him. Me, not care?”

  “Get out of here!” Laurie swung her fists. “Who do you think you are, showing up here now?”

  Dana shook away from the supporting arms and faced Laurie through stunned, wet eyes. “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. I’m Dana Hamlet!”

  “I came from the same womb as him!” Laurie screamed. “I’m his sister, do you hear me, and I will keep your filthy hands off of him!” Her arm shot out to Dana’s throat and she pulled her down. They grappled in the white-and-grey fragments.

  The air was filled with shouts and cries—“Oh God!” “Separate them!” “Step back, step back!” Stockinged legs were skinned, and a flurry of arms fought to untangle the two girls.

  Dana rolled away from the mound and her hands rose to her mangled throat, which was smeared with grey. She recoiled at the gritty feel and looked at her fingers, horror-struck. Her arms were smeared, her dress. Phil’s bones and tissues. Her father was at her side, holding her on her feet and saying her name over and over. Dr. Claudia, beautiful in black, extricated herself from the clump that restrained Laurie. She stared in awe and bewilderment as Dana fought in her father’s grip like a tigress. “Fuck sisters! I loved him for his soul, not his blood!”

  “Dana, you’re…off,” her father panted. “Baby, your mind is running away.” He crushed her against his side and held off the shocked crowd. “She’ll be all right in a while. She’s been upset since her mother died.”

  Dana jabbed her head out from her father’s encircling arm and snarled at Laurie. “What’s your problem with me? We were friends, I never did anything to you!”

  “Come on, Dana,” her father said as he dragged her towards my car. I was moving that way, too.

  “God damned diseased minds!” Dana gasped as her father dragged her away. “Hurt me! Try! You’ll be the sorry ones!”

  Her father loaded her into my car. She pulled her knees up and whimpered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Horst, take her up to the house,” Mr. Hamlet said. He put his hand on Dana. “Baby—”

  “I w-want to go,” she sobbed. “I wanna be with H-horst.”

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days,” he said to her. “You never picked up your phone, you never answered your mail—”

  “And I wouldn’t spy on yours!”

  “Spy? Wha— okay.”

  Dana moaned. “I didn’t think it was safe.”

  Mr. Hamlet looked at me. “Horst, I thought you knew. He drowned last Wednesday, surfing, it was in the news. Marcellus and I, none of us thought—”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s my fault, not checking in. How’s Polly?”

  “Alive.”

  MY OWN DARLING PHIL

  I backed my car out and took Dana away. She didn’t want to go back to Santa Barbara. We still had her luggage and mine, so I drove to a motel near the Beach Bean and got us a room.

  She flopped into a chair and looked down at herself: ashes, still, all over her. She hadn’t rubbed them or touched a thing. “Horst,” she said weakly. “Clean me up, will you?”

  “All right.”

  “I don’t want to see it.”

  “You won’t.” She shut her eyes while I swabbed her neck, her shoulders, her hands, her legs. I used all the cloths from the bathroom and then I had to find some wipes in my car; she wouldn’t let me wash anything down the drain.

  “You’ll get rid of those things?” she said. She still wasn’t looking at herself, or the things I’d cleaned her with. “Completely, rid of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Respectfully, Horst.”

  “However you want it.”

  She opened her eyes and stared upward. “Is there anything on my dress?”

  “Some.”

  Her eyes rolled down to mine. She looked at me plaintively for a moment, then leaned forward and rested her forehead on my shoulder. I moved her hair off the back of her neck and unzipped her. She sat up, obediently, and let me pull her dress down, off her shoulders, and over her knees and feet. She sat there in a lacey bra and underpants.

  “You want to take a shower and get changed, and I’ll go take care of it?” I said.

  “There’s no more on me?”

  “No more.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  She nodded again. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Respectful, Horst. Not in a trash can or anything.”

  I went out and bought some lighter fluid and drove to Malibu Creek, where I burned it all, her dress, the wipes, the towels. Those things don’t burn that easily, I discovered.

  When I got back, Dana sat up expectantly from the bed, dressed again. She looked at me and I nodded. “It’s done.”

  “Completely? There was nothing left?”

  “Nothing.” In fact I had overdone it; it probably looked like I was destroying criminal evidence.

  She smiled at me wanly. “It always seems to be that way. I should make my motto ‘Better Horst than me.’”

  “My motto is, ‘Shut up, I’m your friend.’”

  She picked up a piece of paper lying next to her. It was creased and worn, many times folded and unfolded. “You might as well read this. It’s the one e-mail I wrote while I was away. To Phil. I was waiting till I got back to send it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I want you to know. You don’t have to tell me what you think of it.” She pulled her legs back onto the bed and curled up on her side. I read with quite a mix of emotions.

  My own darling Phil,

  I don’t know what you’ve heard about the things that happened in the main house the night I left, but you must believe this: neither I nor my dad would ever deliberately hurt anyone that way, and I would never at all hurt anyone or anything you love. Your sorrows are mine. I’ll be back soon in the hope of comforting you, and I will explain everything as soon as you like. After the last time we talked I also got the feeling there is something you want to tell me. Fear nothing, Phil. There is nothing that could make me love you less.

  That takes me to the main reason for this message. There is so much for both of us to say and it’s so difficult and complicated, so let’s start from scratch, you and I, and say nothing when we meet again. We can pick some time and place to meet—your house, mine, the beach, wherever—and look at each other and say nothing, nothing, until you want us to talk. Whether it’s minu
tes or hours or days or weeks. Just our hands and eyes, no explanations or apologies, no openings for misunderstanding. Yes, I’ll wait for you to decide when to break our silence. And then I’ll answer any question you ask and say anything you want. Phil, I am so ready to submit my whole will to you. I’ve done it before, you know, and I want to do it again. I want us to connect, just us soul to soul with nothing between us, none of the things we’ve been forced to do because of other people who have no place in our feelings for each other. I tried doing this once before—I went to see you just after you got back from Alaska because I missed you so much, and I was perfectly mute. I spooked you. But I’m so sure it would work if we did it together.

  Phil, shall we do it? I so want us to keep loving each other.

  Your Dana

  Dana curled tighter on the bed. “He did drown. I read about it while you were gone. You told me he was acting strange. Was it my fault he died? No no,” she said quickly. “Sorry—I said you didn’t have to talk to me about it.”

  “It’s not your fault. Phil was fragile.” And at that, I was ready to weep for the guy myself. Artistic, passionate, nature-loving, physically perfect, brilliant Phil was gone. We would talk about him in the past tense. The world had barely known him, but how it would miss him. A guy who embodied such goodness and perfection, such a squire, a life that deserved to be told, but who would believe it? Who would believe any description of him that did him justice? Maybe this was how people went crazy.

  And yet, with Dana before me in all her vulnerability, the unthinkable thought wouldn’t leave, the one that had numbed my joints and veins while I burned Phil’s ashes to finer ashes, the one that had come to me the day Dana sat on the roof and told me what her mother’s spirit had said to her. What if Phil didn’t exist? And now he didn’t. “I’m sorry, Dana,” I said. “I can’t even imagine…”

  “Neither can I. People go through this all the time, losing loved ones? How do humans live?”

  “We could go outside and see.”