Fog of Dead Souls

by Jill Kelly

  4

  Find something else, will you?” Joel’s voice was just this side of belligerent. He didn’t usually care what they listened to on long car trips as long as it kept him awake, but tonight he was the kind of angry he got when he was wrong and, clearly, the angst-ridden hits of Steve Perry and Journey weren’t working.

  Ellie opened the glove compartment to get some light and looked through the CD carrier. “Van Morrison?”

  Joel shook his head.

  “James Taylor? The Eagles?”

  Joel gave one of his famous you-just-don’t-get-me sighs and then shrugged in agreement.

  Quickly the music churned up the silence and Ellie could turn away, back toward the night rolling past.

  They’d left Greensburg late, well after six, even though they’d agreed to meet up with Sandy and Arlen in Gettysburg for dinner. Ellie had left campus at three so she could shower before they left. She’d packed her bags that morning, and getting the cats situated had taken only a few minutes. By four, she was ready. By quarter after four, she was calling the hospital.

  “He’s in surgery,” Nadine said. “Gunshot wounds. Went in at three, probably be a couple of hours.”

  “He told me he was off at noon.” She tried to hide her frustration. It wasn’t Nadine’s fault.

  “Well, you know how he loves to ride to the rescue.”

  “All too well.” She and Joel’s assistant had had this conversation before. “Will you see him later?”

  “I doubt it. I’ll be leaving at five; it’s Friday. But I can leave a message.”

  “It won’t make any difference. Thanks anyway.”

  Ellie closed the phone and made some chamomile tea. She felt calmer, okay with waiting, so she took the novel she was reading out of her suitcase and went up to her bedroom and lay down. The early October dark was creeping in the windows when she heard his key in the door.

  “Ellie, are you ready?” he called. She could just see him standing in the doorway in the long leather coat he always wore, looking for all the world like a cowboy gangster from the 1880s.

  “I’ll be right down,” she called, though she felt leaden from the sleep and more inclined to suggest they leave in the morning. But she knew Joel would be hyped up from the surgery, so she washed her face and hands, hurrying in the threat of his impatience.

  Now they’d driven nearly three hours, mostly in silence. When she’d asked about the surgery, he’d scowled and said nothing, a code she’d learned to recognize that told her the patient had died. She softened her heart and body then, put her hand on his knee, and leaned into him in support. But he didn’t soften back. After a few minutes, she pulled away and went back to watching the road, watching her thoughts.

  Mutual acquaintances had fixed them up at New Year’s. She’d been eager to meet someone new, and he’d been looking for a date for the hospital fundraiser. Joel was attractive and stylish. What’s more, he was the right age and the right amount of single. His work as an ER surgeon was a bonus. It gave him an edge of drama and sophistication that the other men in her world, academics and administrators, could only talk about.

  Ellie was a bit surprised when Joel pursued her. There were flowers and candlelit dinners and sweet notes in the mail. For all of his cynicism and sophistication, she thought she saw through to the ardent heart of the young man he had once been, and she fell in love with that. And there was something else about him, a streak of renegade that she admired. Always too much the good girl, she hoped Joel could teach her how to kindle that streak in herself.

  The honeymoon, as she saw it now, had lasted two months. Then they had settled into a pattern of dinners out and sex and a little conversation—a pattern, he said, that matched his chaotic work life. She thought briefly of asking for more, but her own career was busy enough with committees and publishing, and she let the moment pass. Now she felt hungry for an intimacy that seemed out of reach.

  Outside of Bedford, they moved off the freeway and into the countryside. Ellie turned off the climate controls and rolled down her window. The warm humid night rushed in. Crickets singing, moths flying into the windshield, the occasional white rails of a thoroughbred farm whizzing by … The little town of McConnellsburg slept on as they drove through it and the clear, starlit night. Then five miles from Gettysburg, the first few tendrils of fog appeared in the headlights.

  5

  She heard it as distant thunder, a faint rumbling noise, and half awake, she wondered if a storm was brewing. The rumbling drew nearer and louder and then moved away, and she opened her eyes to the hotel room and realized that a housekeeping cart was passing down the hall.

  Straight over her was the ceiling of nubby plaster. She found it oddly fascinating in the dawn’s early light and smiled at the stupidity of her fascination. She felt groggy and languid in an old familiar way, and she realized she was stoned. She smiled at the absurdity of that too—it was years since she’d touched a drink or a joint—and she closed her eyes and assumed she was dreaming.

  She slept again, and when she opened her eyes, the light through the sheer inner curtains had changed, fuller now as though the morning were well into itself. The grogginess was gone, but it had been replaced by a headache and a queasiness that also was familiar. A wave of distress and disbelief washed over her. I couldn’t have had anything to drink, she thought. I just couldn’t have. Maybe she had the flu.

  She groaned and moved to roll over on her side, but she couldn’t. Wide awake in an instant, she felt rather than saw that her wrists were tied to the bed posts. Fighting the panic, she willed herself to calm down. She closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, felt her heartbeat slow a little. She could feel the sheets against her bare skin and that her feet were free. Somehow that helped calm her, too. She began a mental scan of her body. Her arms and legs were stiff and ached. So did her lower back. She pulled her knees up to relieve her back and a pain in her genitals shot through her. They were sticky and sore. The nausea and panic rose up again and she started to cry. For what seemed a long time, she let the fear and self-pity take her. Then self-preservation kicked in.

  The room felt empty. The bathroom door stood ajar, but only the faint glow of the night light on the hair dryer shone out. Most of the bedroom also lay in deep shadow from the heavy curtains, just a stripe of muted white coming onto the bed through the inner sheers.

  She pulled and struggled for a moment against the bonds that held her. There was some play in them and she hoped they would come loose. The gold braided cords that held her looked familiar, and she realized they’d been swagging the curtains the night before. She remembered thinking how elegant they were, like the down comforter and the fruit basket. Joel liked to go first class and she’d been happy to go along if he wanted to pay for it. Joel, she thought. Where was Joel? Was he hurt too?

  She pulled her knees up farther and inched upward in the bed. She tried to reach the cords with her mouth, thinking that she might be able to undo them with her teeth. The one on the left was too tight and too far, and after a minute she gave up and tried the other. It was a little closer and a little looser and she worked and worked it, desperate to get free and desperate to pee. Finally her bladder could hold no longer and she wet the bed. She didn’t care. That seemed the least of her problems.

  She kept working on the cord and finally she worked it free. Sobbing with relief, she moved away from the wet sheets and towards the other bedpost to free her left hand.

  She pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the bed. Strangely, the panic subsided with the freedom and an odd sense of calm washed over her. The room was warm—she was sweating from her efforts, but she didn’t want to be naked even with herself, so she pulled the comforter around her and then turned on the lamp.

  Joel sat in the armchair in the far corner of the room. His head was leaning against the wingback and his thinning dark hair looked as though he had just run his fingers through it. His skin was pale and smooth—he looked very young. His op
en-eyed gaze was turned toward her, like he’d been watching her sleep. She didn’t cry out, she didn’t speak his name. Where he had gone, he couldn’t hear her, and she knew it.

  6

  The police weren’t long in coming. Ellie called the front desk and asked the clerk to call 911. She stared at Joel for a long moment after she put the phone down, then went into the bathroom, peed again, and brushed her teeth. She’d watched enough police procedurals on TV to know she shouldn’t shower, though she ached to do so. But she hoped that brushing her teeth wasn’t a violation of some statute.

  Then she wandered around the room, dragging the comforter with her. There was no sign of struggle, no furniture overturned, no clothes strewn about. None of this made any sense to her, but the order in the room somehow made her feel calmer, safe even.

  She opened the curtains to let the daylight in and saw that the sky was blue overhead, the fog of the day before gone. On the small table next to the armchair were two bottles and a glass. Without looking at Joel, she reached for the glass. It was half-empty and smelled of scotch. There was a second glass on the nightstand. She went over to it and picked it up. Her lip gloss was on the rim. She sniffed it, then tasted it. The neutral nothingness of club soda. Relief flooded her. She went to her suitcase, found clean underwear and slacks and a sweater, and took them into the bathroom and closed the door. When she saw the marks on her body, her hands trembled so hard she couldn’t put the clothes on.

  The knock on the door was loud and it startled her even though she was expecting it. When she opened the door, a man her own age stood there, a photo ID in his upraised palm. His suit was as tired-looking as he was. She said nothing, just tightened the comforter around her, and moved back into the room. There were two other men, both much younger, both in suits as well.

  The tired policeman wanted her to sit on the bed but she refused, so the hotel manager, the youngest of the three, brought in a straight chair and placed it in the middle of the room. The second policeman ushered him out, and then Ellie sat in the chair and answered the first man’s questions. She was aware that the room stank of urine and sweat and her fear, but the tired detective didn’t seem to notice. He just went on asking questions in a soft, kind voice.

  She told them of waking up in the bed. She showed them the cords, the marks on her wrists. Her hands shook, her voice shook. She told them she thought she’d been raped.

  There was another knock on the door. The second policeman opened the door and a young man brought in a tray with a coffee pot and several cups. The young man looked at Ellie with frank curiosity, then left. The older detective offered her a cup and though she didn’t like coffee, she didn’t want to offend him, so she took it. It was warm in her hands and it helped her stop shaking so much.

  She told them how she found Joel once she had freed herself. No, she knew nothing of the needle in his arm. No, she hadn’t touched the body, even to see if he was dead—she could see he was dead. No, no one else had come back to the hotel with them after dinner, not Arlen or Sandy. No one.

  The truth was she didn’t remember. She didn’t remember anything between dinner and waking up that morning. No, she hadn’t been drinking. She was four years sober. Ask Arlen. Ask Sandy. She couldn’t tell if the men believed her or not. She began to cry from fatigue and frustration.

  A woman officer had arrived by then, and the men asked Ellie to get dressed. The tired detective asked the female officer to help her, asked Ellie if she needed immediate medical attention, but Ellie shook her head and the two women went into the bathroom. When Ellie dropped the comforter, she heard the woman suck in her breath. She glanced over at the officer, and the woman turned away. Ellie took a deep breath and put on her clothes. The burns and strap marks and bruises made her wince with pain and the bra was impossible, but she managed to put on a pair of soft cotton slacks and two layers of knit shirts.

  When she came back into the room, more people were there, taking photos, examining Joel’s body. She couldn’t manage to get the socks on so the woman officer helped her with them and with her trainers. All the while, she avoided looking at Joel. She felt desperate to get out of the room, to get some fresh air. She said as much to the female officer, then sat back on the chair and closed her eyes, hoping it would all go away.

  7

  The beep-beep-beep of a garbage truck pulled Ellie from the dream. A dream of hallways and empty rooms, of fleeing and pursuing, she wasn’t sure which. The only memory that had lasted was of a whiteboard in a classroom, the words on the board erased by an invisible hand faster than she could write them.

  The lamp beside her was on, for she couldn’t sleep in the dark now if she was alone. The truck beeped one more threesome. Then the driver shifted gears and it rumbled off out of the parking lot, the sound growing faint as it moved onto the street.

  The clock on the nightstand glowed 3:47. The room was as silent as the street outside. Ellie ventured a foot toward the other side of the bed, but the sheets were cold. She was alone and awake in the night, and relief alternated with fear.

  She got up, used the bathroom, and opened the curtains a bit so she could find the bottle. There were a few shards of ice floating in the plastic bucket. She fished them out and into the glass that stood next to the bottle, then drank down the cold water straight from the bucket. She was surprised to see that the bottle was mostly full and she relaxed as she poured some into the glass. Then she pulled on her nightshirt against the cool of the room and sat down in the faux-leather chair by the little table that held her salvation and tried to remember the night. She remembered the long day of driving, the Maverick Bar. Her stomach rumbled and she realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. And then Al’s handsome face came back to her. She felt a wave of something, desire maybe, the first she’d felt in all those months, and then a twinge of hope. Could she hide here? Had she run far enough? Could Al protect her?

  She sat for a long time in the half-stupor that drink-induced sleep created for her—that friendly relaxed place where she didn’t have to worry. She let her mind go blank and she left the bourbon untouched. When she came back to awareness, the clock now showed 4:38. So she drained the glass and got back in bed, willing herself to go back to sleep. The days were already long enough, empty enough, she thought, without adding on a couple of hours in the dark.

  She slept soundly for nearly two hours, turned off the alarm before it went off at seven, then slept again until after eight. She ignored the huge mirror and unflattering light in the bathroom. Since Gettysburg, she’d given up looking at herself in the morning—assessing the deepening marks of hangover and fatigue had not been a great way to start the day. She made coffee in the little coffeemaker and took a shower, running the water cold at the end to jolt herself into the day.

  Once dressed, she was unsure again. It was only nine, plenty of time to leave. So why didn’t she?

  The truth was, she was too tired to go. Too tired to run anymore. And the fact that Al had wanted breakfast instead of sex made everything different. That little spark of hope flared up once more and she saw that she had put on the rumpled black knit slacks and t-shirt that she traveled in and went to change into something more, well … she wasn’t sure what exactly, but just more.

  8

  Ellie went to Gettysburg Hospital in a squad car, accompanied by the woman officer, whose name badge read HARTWELL. Ellie asked after the detectives—she’d assumed they would come with her, protect her. But Hartwell said no; they had work to do at the crime scene. Ellie nodded, though she didn’t really understand. She felt a bit sick and her head ached, but Hartwell let her roll the window down and the fresh air made her feel better and a little more normal.

  There was no long wait at the hospital, only an intake form and copying of her insurance card from the college. It was early Sunday afternoon, and the emergency room was quiet. Ellie relaxed a little. The cold and trembling had eased up, and the staff was kind as they took her information and her
vital signs.

  A young woman doctor came to the ER cubicle right away. She asked Ellie if she could stand so that photographs could be taken of the bruises and burns and strap marks on her back and her buttocks and her thighs. Then her fingernails were cleaned onto special sticks, and every orifice swabbed and inspected. Ellie tensed at each new intrusion, but the doctor was kind and gentle and respectful. She asked Ellie what she remembered and Ellie felt apologetic that she couldn’t help much.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the doctor said. “Your body will tell us a lot of what we need to know.”

  “Do you know what drugs he …” She couldn’t say it. “What drugs I was on?”

  The doctor hesitated, then sighed. “I can guess. A sedative of some sort, a benzodiazepine, and most likely rohypnol. Do you know what that is?”

  Ellie nodded. “The date rape drug. It’s happened on our campus to a couple of girls.”

  The doctor nodded in return. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It would explain why you can’t remember. And why you’re not more upset. The sedative is still in your system. I’ll give you a prescription for more when you leave.”

  “I can’t take them,” said Ellie. “I’m in recovery.”

  The doctor paused. “I understand that, but you’re going to need some help when the drugs wear off. You’ve been through a lot.”

  Ellie didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to fill the prescription.

  “We’re also going to admit you overnight, just to keep an eye on things.”

  Ellie nodded. “I want a shower.”

  “Of course. As soon as we can transfer you to a room. And then I want you to take something and sleep.”

  Ellie protested. She didn’t want to be sedated anymore, but the doctor convinced her that a few hours of sleep would help her heal.