The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  And then it was like an electric switch had been thrown. They moved the remains of the food off the blanket, and straightened it somewhat, and then they were out of their clothes and fumbling with each other and then, suddenly, they got it right. It was over almost before it began. But later Corrie remembered that the sun through the trees didn’t look the same afterwards, the light was different, the feel of the ground underneath him different, the sounds of the distant birthday party filtering through from the picnic grounds different. The day even smelled different, Autumn-cool and at the same time sun-warm.

  He lay back with his hands behind his head and stared at the gently swaying branches of the trees; a leaf from a nearby oak broke away from its branch, dying, vivid red, and slowly pirouetted down at him.

  Kathy’s face loomed over him, blocking out the trees, the sky—

  “Now you own me,” she said. “And I own you.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but covered it with a sound as if something was stuck in his throat and said nothing.

  Later, when he was alone, he thought about what she had said and it frightened and thrilled him at the same time.

  Kathy did not last the semester at school, and when she came home something had changed. Not with her — she was the same as when she had left, as ardent in her need for him. Something had changed in Corrie, and she knew it immediately.

  He did not come to see her. When she called him repeatedly, getting no answer, she finally went to his house. She knew he was there, could feel his presence behind the door, the shaded windows. She heard noises, deep rumblings and stirrings and other sounds of his captivity. Angered, she found a rock near the front walk and threw it at his window, missing but hitting the shutter with a clack.

  He came to the door then, opened it and came out. He looked very tired and disheveled. He would not look at her but then he did, when she asked him what was wrong.

  “It’s been very bad, in the house.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “At work.”

  “I thought we made a pact that we would help each other.”

  He nodded, looked at the ground, said nothing.

  “Corrie, the deal was that we help each other.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you—”

  “I’m talking about you, Corrie. You need help.”

  “I’m coping,” he said.

  She was filled with anger. “You’re not! When was the last time you slept?”

  A wry smile flitted across his face. “A while ago. When I sleep I dream as if I’m awake. When I’m awake …” He shrugged, turning to look back into the house.

  “Corrie, let me help you.”

  “I’ll manage—”

  He took a step back into the house, and she reached out and held his arm. He looked down at her hand as if he had never seen it before.

  “I have to go back in—”

  “Let me go with you.”

  He focused on her. “That wouldn’t be wise. It doesn’t want you to. It told me to make you go away.”

  “It can’t stop me—”

  She took a firm step forward, but now Corrie’s hands were on her, holding her back.

  “Go away, Kathy.”

  She resisted, trying to step into the house.

  Suddenly he slapped her, and a series of rattles and a thumping boom sounded inside.

  Startled, Kathy put her hand to her cheek where he had hit her.

  “I’m … sorry …” he said, moving past her into the house. He closed the door and she heard the click of the lockset and then the slide of a bolt.

  She stood staring at the door, and her hand fell to her side.

  “But I need you!” she shouted once, at the mute door.

  She went to school nearby, earning her library science degree. Corrie was now a senior. They saw each occasionally, always at her instigation, and there were more awkward silences, no intimate moments.

  “I love you,” she told him one night that summer, after a nearly silent dinner. They sat in her car in front of his house.

  The silence in the car was a live thing.

  “I don’t know what to say to you,” he said, finally. Then he added: “Yes, I do. We made a deal always to be honest. I think you fell in love with me to take the place of that voice in your head that made you try to kill yourself. You want me to take the place of that voice and tell you what to do. I can’t do that, Kathy.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I think it is. I think that for whatever reason, because that voice was part of you for so long, you need something to replace it. You don’t really love me, you just want me to tell you what to do.”

  “Then you don’t love me.”

  “I thought I loved you for a time, but I found out that what we shared wasn’t love, but need. We needed each other, because we had nothing else, no one else in the world to trust. That isn’t love, Kathy.”

  She stared straight out through the windshield, and then, to his surprise, she nodded.

  “I want you to say you’ll do one more thing for me.”

  He started to speak but she put a finger on his lips, silencing him.

  “It’s a simple thing,” she asked. “Do it because I ask you. I want you to meet me in Ranier Park tomorrow, at five o’clock.

  He studied her a moment, trying to read her face, and then he said, “All right.”

  It was a raw March day, spring only a week away but wet snow mixed with what felt like ice pellets was falling. It was already dark. Corrie’s work boots made evident black footprints in the slushy mixture as he entered the park, hands deep in his parka’s pockets, baseball cap getting wet on his head.

  He vaguely heard the slam of a car door and saw a figure approaching the entrance behind him but moved on, putting his head down.

  The wind was sharp, picking up. The ice cut like tiny white knives against his face. He wished he had worn a woolen coat, a wool cap. His boots made wet, slurpy sounds as he walked to the picnic area.

  He stopped. Wind whistled high above in the trees; some ice had coated the higher branches and it tinkled like glass. There was no moon behind the clouds, and a thin, chilled fog pooled along the ground like snakes of smoke.

  “Kathy?” he called out.

  He heard something behind him, and turned, but no one was there.

  He trudged on, past the picnic area, into the woods.

  Again he heard a sound behind him, and abruptly stopped. The sound, like an echo, halted a half-second later. “Kathy?” he called again.

  The wind howled, driving wet snow and hail at his unprotected face.

  He turned and made a horn of his hands, shouting into the woods: “Kathy!”

  There were only the sounds of the storm, and he pushed on.

  He came abruptly to the small clearing where they had made love, and nearly tripped over a heavy rock that had obviously been moved there. Under it was a rope that snaked loosely along the ground and up the trunk of a huge nearby pine tree and next to it was a soaked manila envelope.

  He picked the envelope up and angled it toward the faint light from the gray glowing sky.

  OPEN ME, it read.

  He ripped it open and drew out a single sheet of paper, dotted with wet spots. A smudged single line of handwriting said: PULL THE ROPE.

  Becoming angry at the game, he picked up the rope and took two steps back until it went taut. Then he gave it a yank—

  He heard a gasp, and something crashed down through the branches of the pine and came up short five feet off the ground.

  It was Kathy Marks, hands bound behind her, rope around her neck leading up into the pine tree.

  “Kathy!” Corrie shouted, dropping the rope, but it had no effect on Kathy, who was struggling for breath, her body swinging to and fro—

  “Don’t move!” a voice shouted behind Corrie, when he took a step toward the pine tree.

  He turned around, confused, his hands held out.


  A man was standing with his eye aimed down the barrel of a gun at Corrie.

  “But—”

  “Shut up and get on the ground!”

  A second man stepped out of the trees into the clearing.

  “Bill, let him get the girl down.”

  The first man continued to aim at Corrie. “I saw him yank the rope! He’s killing her!”

  The second voice, more reasonable, said to Corrie, “Son, hoist her up on your shoulders. I’ll help you in a minute, after I give a life lesson to this police officer.”

  “But I saw—!” the first man shouted. The second man was aiming at the first.

  “If you make a move to shoot him, I’ll have to shoot you, Bill. Lower your gun.”

  Corrie had taken a tentative step toward the tree; the man named Bill followed him with his gun.

  “Go on, son,” the second man said to him. “Before it’s too late.”

  Corrie took another step toward the thrashing figure of Kathy Marks, then ran the remaining steps and lifted her up.

  A shot rang out, and suddenly the rope collapsed, and Kathy Marks fell onto Corrie, who broke her fall. Then she was on the ground, and Corrie quickly loosened the rope from around her neck.

  The second cop, fat and with a thoughtful yet kind face, stood over the two of them and tucked his gun away. “It’s nice to see I can still shoot a rope when I have to,” he said.

  Corrie looked up to see the first cop, gun hanging loosely at his side, looking down at the ground and breathing heavily.

  “Don’t worry about him, son, he’ll be all right,” the second cop said—

  The banging was not part of the dream, but was very loud, and finally Corrie woke up. He gave a start, finding himself in his bed in his bedroom, not wet and cold with an unconscious Kathy Marks in his arms.

  The banging continued.

  He was too exhausted to move.

  Hoarsely, and then forcefully, he shouted through the open door, “Come in!”

  Ted Bright heard a muffled shout from within the quiet house which was followed by a distinct call for him to come in. He tried the front door he had been banging on for five minutes and it was unlocked.

  He pushed open the door, entering partial gloom. To his left was a dark first floor, but straight in front of him was a landing and a stairway leading up.

  “Corrie Phaeder?” he called.

  There was light upstairs, but there was no answer.

  Then he heard a familiar sound issuing from upstairs: thunder, lightning and the crash of mighty waves.

  “Jesus,” Bright whispered.

  He mounted the stairs and stood at the top of the landing; at the end of a short hallway was a room with its door open, bright light issuing from within.

  He approached it, his heart hammering.

  He stood in the doorway, expecting to be hit by a mighty wave of water.

  The bedroom was filled with light and sound.

  And in the center of the room, in the exact same position as his daughter had been earlier, was Corrie Phaeder, gasping for air, floundering and suspended in space.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The doctor tried to gently bring up the NO SMOKING sign to Grant, but then gave up.

  Already thinking lawsuit, Grant thought absently as he lit a second Kent from the ash of his first. He dropped the first on the waiting room floor and ground it out on the linoleum.

  “Terrible accident,” the doctor was saying. His name was Jones or James, something like that, and he was young and nervous and probably competent and rattled as hell. “Something like this happens once in ten thousand electroshock treatments. The shocks just stop the heart. It’s very rare, but it happens. It’s in the disclosure and release forms.”

  Grant’s look made him stop talking. “I want to see her.”

  “Of course,” the doctor said. He held a door open for Grant, then another door — the hated antiseptic smell tickled Grant’s nostrils, disappeared when the third door closed behind them, replaced by a new smell: burned meat. Grant wondered if perhaps some intern or technician had wandered away, forgotten …

  Grant spied a small kitchen off to the right of the hallway they were in, a stove, a hamburger smoking in a frying pan, unattended.

  A swinging door, and the air conditioned, antiseptic smell was back. She was on a flat gurney, eyes closed, dressed in a white hospital gown.

  Grant looked down at her—

  She looked as peaceful as she ever had.

  “She wanted to be cremated,” Grant said; “I’ll call you with the arrangements.”

  Grant was sure of the relief in the voice: No autopsy, the young doctor was thinking.

  “The Gannon Funeral Home people will be in touch right after the autopsy.”

  He took a secret, sick pleasure in feeling the other man stiffen.

  Grant bent down and kissed Rose, closing his eyes as he always had, ever since their first kiss.

  Good-bye, baby. I never stopped loving you. Not for a minute.

  “Don’t worry, asshole, I’m not going to sue you,” he said to the doctor on the way out.

  They were holding Marvin Soames in the drunk tank. Grant was mildly annoyed about that, until he saw the condition the man was in.

  Pell Simpson, who had accompanied Grant to the back reaches of the jail, remarked, “Hell, we almost sent him to the hospital — looked like alcohol poisoning. But then he puked a stomachful and woke up for a while, so we decided to keep him here for you.”

  “Thanks, Farmer.”

  The tall, thin detective hesitated. “Say, Bill …”

  “I’m okay, Farmer. You gave me your condolences upstairs. I’ll let you know about the arrangements. I’ll be okay.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather be home?”

  Grant turned his tired eyes on his coworker. He reached into his jacket pocket for a cigarette but then stopped; he couldn’t get away with it here. “Pell, if I go home I’ll go nuts. I won’t be able to concentrate on anything, and the phone won’t stop ringing. If I do it my own way, I’ll be fine.”

  He found himself laying a hand on Farmer’s arm, though he still didn’t know the man very well. “If I need you I’ll call you, podna.”

  Farmer’s eyes widened slightly. “Riley Gates used to use that term.”

  “Still did, until yesterday.” Grant nodded toward Marvin Soames, sleeping on the iron bunk in the cell, snoring slightly. “Leave me alone with this squirrel, will you?”

  “Sure. Just be …” he nodded at the cold eye of the video camera mounted on the wall behind them; it’s wide-angle lens covered the drunk tank and the two holding cells, currently empty, next to it.

  “Yeah, Big Brother. I won’t lay a hand on him.”

  Farmer gave a thin, humorless smile. “I almost did myself. We found him with the knife he used, passed out on the floor of Riley’s barn. Just doesn’t seem possible that a souse like this could take out Riley Gates.”

  Grant was staring at the snoring man. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Five minutes later Bill Grant was alone in the cell with Marvin Soames. There was a wooden stool in one corner, and he drew it close to the bed and sat regarding the drunk before he woke him up. Almost immediately, he moved the stool back a couple feet — Soames smelled to high heaven. One shoe was missing half its lace, tied at mid-point up its grommets; his trousers were filthy, his shirt tatters held together by air. One elbow on the flannel shirt was rubbed through, and it was buttoned up wrong. Soames hadn’t shaved in a while, and his last haircut was a distant memory.

  Grant pushed a toe out at the sleeping man’s thigh. “Marvin, wake up.”

  Soames snorted, put his hands out, then tried to roll over, still snoring every third or fourth breath.

  Grant kicked him harder, moving it up to his ribs.

  “Soames, get the hell awake.”

  The man’s eyes snapped open, and he uncurled into a sitting position.

  “Sam?”
/>   “No, it’s Grant. Time to talk.”

  The man’s eyes looked through Grant, then slowly came to focus.

  “Holy shit.”

  “I’d say that’s what you’re in, Marvin. Unholy shit, more like.”

  Soames was staring at him intently. “I know you …”

  Grant nodded slightly. “I’m a friend of Riley Gates.”

  Soames nodded vigorously, up and down. “Knew it. How is Riley? You know, I get pissed sometimes when I think of Riley runnin’ me in like he did those two times, but, hell, I guess he was just doin’ his job. You, too.” He looked around him. “What’d I do?”

  “You’re in the drunk tank, but we’re pretty sure you killed Riley Gates.”

  Soames’s eyes grew wide as saucers. “No!”

  Grant nodded. “You put a knife into him in his own pumpkin patch yesterday, Marvin.”

  Something strange happened then. Grant had grown accustomed to drunks over the years. They had peculiar thought processes born of a pickled brain. They could be very precise, but only on isolated matters. When they concentrated on one single thing, they were as good a witness as anyone. But that single thought existed in a vacuum. It was as if they were in a closed-in bubble and the rest of the world, literally, did not exist.

  Marvin’s face went through a series of contortions, as if he were flipping through various isolated memories. It was like watching a pinball hit different lighted targets. And then he seemed to hit the jackpot.

  His face collapsed. He stared down at his hands as if everything he owned was there.

  “Oh Lord God,” he said.

  “Marvin?” Grant urged. “Did you kill Riley Gates?”

  “These hands killed him,” Soames said, in a low, sure voice. “But it was Sam did the killing.”

  “Sam?”

  Marvin nodded, and his eyes met Grant’s. The fear and confusion in them was startling. “Man in a cape. Not much of him there, mind you. Brings me things, wine and such. We talk. Never asked me to do anything until yesterday. Asked me not to tell—”

  As if a switch had been hammered off, he shut up.

  “Marvin?”

  “Can I have a drink, Mr. Grant?” His voice sounded like a child who had done a bad thing.

  “That I can’t do, Marvin. But we can get you fixed up pretty good if you tell me—”