Modern Masters of Noir

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  Stacey was unnaturally quiet for days afterwards. We expected something of the sort and hoped she’d pull out of it on her own. Naturally the police had asked her a lot of questions about Tommy, what he and Stacey had talked about that fateful day in the back yard. All Stacey would say was that Tommy had admitted to killing his parents. He said he’d used a butcher knife from the kitchen, done it while they were sleeping. The police verified the murder weapon. Then Stacey shut up tighter than a clam. She wouldn’t say anything else about what happened that day or anything about Tommy Bracken. We all tried to get her to talk about it, we thought it would be good for her to get it out, but she wasn’t going to say another word. I figured it best not to press her, she’d talk when she was ready. She was only 5 years old for heaven’s sake! To be exposed to so much at that young age was a lot even for the most precocious of children to handle. Stacey was Tommy’s best friend. Now they had a secret she couldn’t talk about. I didn’t like that.

  One day she told me she had words she couldn’t say buried way down deep inside her. They were a secret she could never say. If she told, the secret would come to life and the words would cease to be mere words and become something real and very bad.

  The shrink didn’t help much. Stacey refused to talk to him about Tommy and their secret.

  The dreams began about two weeks later. She didn’t cry out. She was a brave little girl. She just lay in bed whimpering, shaking, alone and so small in the sheets, hardly moving at all. Fearful to move, to breathe. When Gail and I went into her room she was as pale as a ghost, her flesh cold and clammy. She hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, obviously none that particular night. There were big, dark rings around her eyes. She hadn’t eaten well the last few days. She was losing weight. Gail and I were so scared. We didn’t know what was happening but we knew we had to do something to save our little girl.

  The next day we made an appointment with Dr. Torrence, a shrink friend who specialized in children’s problems. Stacey wouldn’t talk to him either. He tried a lot of ploys and strategies but none of them worked.

  “I have to keep quiet about it, Daddy,” she whispered to me on the drive home from the doctor that afternoon. “Tommy explained it all to me. You know, Tommy didn’t really kill his mommy and daddy. Tommy was a good boy. Something else did it, something very bad, and if I mention it it will come to life and kill again. Then someone else will have to take the blame for it like Tommy did. That’s what Tommy told me. That’s the way it works. I can’t talk about it. If I say the word it will happen again, more people will die, someone else will be blamed. You understand, Daddy?”

  Well, I told this all to Dr. Torrence. The next day Gail and I brought Stacey to see him again. They talked for a long time.

  Finally Dr. Torrence called Gail and me into his office. We told Stacey to sit in the waiting room for a few minutes.

  “You see,” Dr. Torrence said in his usual confident voice, “Stacey has received a terrible trauma. Not only the violence, which was so close to her, a very real part of her world and very scary to a small child, but her best friend was involved. And the crime, so terrible . . . She feels somewhat to blame. She’s weaving herself into Tommy’s problems. Trying to help him in her own way.”

  I said, “Is she creating this story to prove Tommy is really innocent? The way she makes it sound, it’s as if Tommy was actually trying to protect us all from something very bad. Something we don’t understand. It all seems so twisted.”

  “Of course. In Stacey’s mind she wants things to be the way they were before this tragedy happened. Kids are like that, they don’t understand finality. So she makes up this bogeyman responsible for the killings. It is a natural enough reaction for a child after all she’s been through.”

  “I think I understand, Doctor,” Gail asked quickly, “but what can we do to help her?”

  “The most important thing is to break open this secret, enter this secret world of hers and get her talking about it so she can realize that it is just a fantasy, a natural reaction to a terrible tragedy that a child can not understand, and nothing more.”

  It was a difficult session. Dr. Torrence, Gail, and myself trying to get Stacey to talk about the secret she and Tommy shared. We followed the instructions Dr. Torrence gave us and after a grueling hour of explanation, pleading, and hugs by each one of us Stacey finally seemed resigned to talking. Eventually. Though she tried to put it off as long as she could. She was obviously under tremendous pressure, full of fear, and finally she broke down in a stream of tears. Perhaps finally accepting the fact of Tommy’s horrible deed for the first time now. Gail jumped up to console her, in tears herself at the suffering of our only child. I tried to play the big strong male. It wasn’t easy. It tore me apart to see her so upset but by facing the problem I hoped we’d finally get this settled so we could go on with our lives.

  Stacey moved out and away from Gail’s loving embrace, to stand alone in the center of the room.

  “I tell Tommy’s secret, but Ell only tell Daddy,” she said, and she looked at me so serious and added, “you must promise never to tell anyone.”

  I smiled, “Sure, Pumpkin. Come over here and whisper it in my ear.”

  Stacey came up close, that serious look on her small delicate face, climbing upon me, placing her mouth close to my right ear.

  “Go ahead, Princess. Tell me what was such an important secret between you and Tommy.”

  “Daddy?” she whispered so carefully.

  “Yes,” I replied quietly, Gail and Dr. Torrence watching us intently.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  “I know, Pumpkin,” I said smiling and giving her a little squeeze, “Mommy and I love you too.”

  “I won’t tell Mommy. It’s better if I only tell you. You’re a man. You’re strong. Tommy told me it would happen quick for them, but you’ll have to live with it for a long time. Like me. Like Tommy. It’s not easy, Tommy said if I ever had to tell anyone, you should be the one. Sometimes secrets can be so hard to keep. Tommy said I should tell you. You would understand.”

  “That’s fine, Stacey, now tell me all about this secret of yours.”

  Her lips brushed my ear. So slightly. She whispered a word, so lightly. I wasn’t sure I’d even heard it. I don’t know what it meant. It didn’t make any sense, but somehow deep within me I knew that it didn’t have to make any sense. No sense at all.

  I looked at Stacey and she seemed so sad now.

  I said, “What did you say, Pumpkin?”

  She came up close again, and in a barely perceptible tone said something that sounded like “La-La.” It made no sense. I couldn’t figure it. Maybe that’s not the word she said. I don’t really know now. She said, “La-La, Daddy. Tommy told me La-La.”

  I don’t know why the silly, meaningless words disturbed me so much. Why I grew so immediately fearful. I got goose bumps all up and down my arms. Chills surging through my body.

  Gail looked at me so strangely, saying, “Ben? Are you alright?”

  Dr. Torrence said, “Mr. Combs? Mr. Combs? Can you hear me?”

  Stacey said, “Daddy? Remember, we have a secret now. Don’t tell anyone.”

  Dr. Torrence, Gail and Stacey were found dead a few hours later by the doctor’s next appointment. I waited patiently for the police to arrive. I never said a word. I couldn’t even open my eyes until I was placed in the cell downtown. Later, when it was time for my trial, I pleaded guilty. Nothing much mattered by then anyway. I was convicted and thrown in a prison where they throw away the key. I didn’t care. I never talk about it now. I can never tell the truth about what happened. My wife, my daughter, one of the city’s most noteworthy doctors. All dead. And now I have a secret with Stacey, one that I’ll never reveal.

  I’ve thought a lot about it these long years. I don’t know what it could mean. How such a thing could be. I don’t know what really happened, how it could happen, I can’t explain it, but I was innocent of the murders. I never kille
d Stacey, Gail or Dr. Torrence, but of course no one would ever believe that. Some things are not meant to be seen, some are never to be understood. One of them is what happens when you whisper a certain word into someone’s ear.

  The reporter comes every day now. At first I thought he was ok, some yuppie liberal hotshot out to do some good, but he’s become a real pain-in-the-ass. He’s certainly determined, I’ll give him credit for that if nothing else.

  He says, “Mr. Combs, I know there’s a lot you’ve never told about the murders. I know you’re holding back, keeping a secret maybe. I want to know what it is you’re hiding.”

  I tell him to shut up and leave me alone. I tell him if he only knew the truth he’d never be able to handle it. It would crush him. Wipe that permanent-press arrogance right off his face forever.

  That really got him. He must have smelled a story. He wouldn’t leave me alone after that. He’d come and visit me every day, badgering me, laying the guilt trip on me about Gail and Stacey. Like I didn’t feel bad enough about what had happened. But I kept telling him I did not kill them and Dr. Torrence. It was not I who did it.

  He laughed. I think he was trying to get at me. Goad me. Well, he was doing a good job at it.

  “I’m really innocent!” I protested, telling him, one man to the another. It was all off the record. I’d never admit it publicly. I couldn’t. It was still a secret I shared with Stacey. It was our only connection now.

  He smiled, condescendingly, patronizingly, “Sure you are. Now why don’t you tell me all about it?”

  “No! I really am innocent! I didn’t kill them! I would never do such a terrible thing!”

  “Then who did, Mr. Combs?”

  That was it. I was silent.

  He nodded. Smiled that hateful smile of his.

  “I can’t tell you.” I said quietly.

  “Of course you can’t. That’s all very convenient. Why don’t you just admit it, like you did during the trial. You’re back-peddling now. Why don’t you give me the details. The public wants to read about this stuff. How you did it? Why you did it? What was going through your mind as you were killing your wife and daughter?”

  Bastard! I was about to plow his head right into the bricks when I changed my mind. He thought I was some vintage crazy who heard voices, saw things, got secret messages from some damn place! I’d show him.

  He took my inaction as a sign of weakness. I figured this sick parasite might just deserve to know my secret after all.

  And God help me, I broke my promise to Stacey. I moved close to the reporter and whispered a word in his ear.

  The reporter moved back from me. Slowly. Carefully. Visibly scared now with a strange look on his face. He called out loudly, “Guards! Guards! Get me the hell out of here!”

  I relaxed. It would be all over soon. The look in his eyes gave it all away. I knew by the time the guards came I would be long dead and free from this horror my life had become. It would finally end for me. For him it would just be beginning. Too bad, but he’d be blamed for my murder, there could be no other rational explanation. I smiled as he came at me. This would really put a crimp into his journalistic career. He’d gotten the best story there ever was, but he’d never be able to write one word about it.

  Some things are not meant to be seen, others too terrible to understand.