Present Tense

by Gil Hogg

  I didn’t know how to play this. I didn’t reply. “Detective Beckman tells me the bedclothes smell of whiskey, Mrs Stamford.”

  “Chadwin was drinking.”

  “You didn’t join him in a drink?”

  “No.”

  I was trying to keep the story basically true, but as simple as possible. I had to gloss over points which seemed unimportant, or change the facts slightly. I always had the Westchester court in my mind, and how what really happened there was changed by mentioning some facts and leaving out others, to fit the picture Chadwin and Shultz wanted to portray. Small, virtually irrelevant facts could be held against me – like having a drink with Chadwin in the bedroom.

  Cavallo drove me to Clayburg to be examined by a doctor, and my bruises photographed. I could feel his silent displeasure pressuring me all the way. After the examination, he arranged for a police driver to take me back to Cedar Falls – I wasn’t fit to drive.

  “Mrs Stamford,” he said, as I climbed into the police cruiser outside the doctor’s surgery. “With all due respect to you, this is a homicide case, unless this man has managed to get to shore. There’s a whole lot of things we don’t know. Things that don’t add up. We need your cooperation, and I don’t think we’ve had it so far. Think about it!”

  I felt like a stranger as I walked up to the door of our Cedar Falls home, past the neatly trimmed lawns, seeing signs of family habitation. Greg must have left Baltimore immediately after my call. He and the twins were back. A bike was collapsed in a hedge. A basketball rested in the rose garden, a baseball cap on the front steps. A window was open, a curtain blowing in the breeze, bringing sounds of young voices. A family lived in this house, and a woman was entering it, after being questioned by the police about what they suspected might be a murder; a woman who had kept part of her life in a secret compartment for years. And the secret compartment was leaking, like a broken sewer pipe, oozing a smelly mess over other lives in the family.

  I let myself in. The stereo was blasting. Nobody was in the living room, dining room or kitchen. I went through to the games room at the back. I was deluged with tearful cuddles from the girls, with Greg and Grace waiting patiently behind.

  “I’ve told them there’s been an accident at the lake, and a man got drowned,” Greg said.

  “If he did,” I replied.

  “Do you seriously think Chadwin could have saved himself?”

  “Why not? I did.”

  The children reverted to a serious, staring-eyed silence very quickly. Greg asked them to go to bed, and took my arm solicitously. He led me into the lounge. Grace followed.

  “It’s Chadwin isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Everything is all right, dear. It’s all over now,” Greg said.

  “He attacked you again,” Grace said.

  It was fairly obvious from the look of me. “Yes he did, but he won’t do it again,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the police will get him.”

  “But the other man…”

  “Schultz is dead.”

  “You know that?”

  “I do. We’re both safe.”

  Grace sobbed. Greg put his arm round her shoulders. “You go up and see the children are in bed, and go to bed yourself. There’s nothing to cry about.”

  As she went hesitantly out of the door, Grace looked back, and her beautiful, panic-stricken face made me want to cry. Grace didn’t believe us. And I didn’t believe entirely, either. Chadwin was indestructible. He had qualities which were not human or civilised. He was smashing my life – the life of our family – like a demolition ball.

  “You look all in,” Greg said to me when she had gone. “Do you want a rest? We can talk later.”

  “I don’t feel well, Greg. I’ll use the spare room in case I disturb you.”

  Greg looked slightly disappointed. He was trying to encourage me, and I was withdrawing. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be away from everybody.

  I went upstairs and pulled back the covers in the spare bedroom. I kept the bed made up and aired for the babysitter. I knew what I was going to do, and I felt numb, utterly weak. I had in mind the Zen saying Just do it! I was going to do it by the simplest route. No preparations, no anticipation, no more thinking. I peeled off my tracksuit, and kicked off my trainers. I stank. I hadn’t had a shower since I plunged into the lake. My hair hung in sticky threads, my fingernails were broken, my hands grimed, my teeth were slimy, my mouth tasted of blood and ash and the rank taste of river water.

  I went into the ensuite bathroom in our bedroom, and opened the cabinet. In a transparent jar, set behind the bottles of bath foam and moisturiser, were sleeping pills. It was always the same, that jar, because Greg and I seldom used the pills. I emptied three pills from the jar on to my palm, and washed them down with a glass of water. A pale, mussed, blond woman, with grey smears on her face, looked at me from the mirror; her dead eyes were like raw oysters on the shell. A stranger.

  “Just do it,” I whispered, and spread a handful of pills on my palm this time.

  I was completely worn down. The two possibilities confronting me seemed like vast boulders, impacting to crush the life out of me – face Chadwin again in the street, or face a murder enquiry, and all the disgusting sludge that would leak out as it progressed.

  I filled the glass with water. When I looked up, Greg was in the mirror. He was standing behind me, watching. He stepped forward, took my wrist firmly, and shook the pills into the hand-basin.

  “How many have you taken?”

  I was silent for a few moments, and then I said, “Only a couple.”

  Greg squinted at the level in the jar, and seemed satisfied.

  “I’ll take care of these,” he said, removing the jar, and turning me round gently.

  “You’ve been through it,” he started softly, “but don’t take that cowardly way out. People here need you. I do. The children. And Grace. You did your best to deal with Chadwin when he surfaced again in your life. Don’t hold yourself responsible. You’re just a leaf in the stream…”

  I looked up at him, rested my fingers on his cheek. “Thanks, Greg.”

  “Loren, talk to me…”

  “I want to rest, please, Greg.”

  “Aren’t you going to shower?”

  “I’m just going to bed,” I said, and I went into the spare bedroom, closed the door and crawled, naked and dirty, between the crisp sheets. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I was falling, plunging down into complete darkness.

  My head was full of disturbing shapes and noises, which at first seemed meaningful, but I found eventually, after a struggle to understand, had no meaning, and filled me with a deep sense that I could not achieve whatever it was I was seeking. The surreal futility of the dream woke me.

  The curtain by the open window was moving in the draught. It was dark outside, the neighbourhood silent. I looked around the deeply shadowed room. It was like being in a friend’s house, known, but still strange. I’d never slept in this room before. By the wardrobe was a deeper shadow, and the way the light fell around this area made it look as though somebody was standing there. I dismissed the thought, and let my eyes travel on round the room, past the dressing table, the bureau, the cheval mirror, the big lampshades, the heavy drapes, and outside – I had left the drapes open – in the moonlight, a blurred view of treetops and a neighbour’s roof.

  My eyes returned to the deep shadow by the wardrobe. Was there a movement there, somebody standing quietly, watching? It was Greg, my poor worried husband… No, Greg had no need to watch from a secret place. The only person it could be was Chadwin! Chadwin risen from the tide of the river.

  I dispelled the thought. Imagination. Unreasonable fear. Surely, the first thing Chadwin would do, if he saved himself, and he could not lay hands on me, would be to go to his wife. How could I see him in my bedroom in the middle of the night? He was a marketing director, not a cat burglar. I was becoming more accustom
ed to the half darkness. I could make out objects like a silver photo-frame on the dressing table, and my discarded sweater over a chair. It was somebody! The shadow came to life. Chadwin!

  The wide-shouldered and thick-necked figure that stepped towards me could not be mistaken. I could see a crumpled open shirt, the beefy forearms, the hands that had locked my arms as we went down in the lake. He had a pair of trousers on now.

  The scream was inside me, bursting my head, but not coming out, because I was being taken too quickly. Chadwin bounded across the room, and crushed an open palm across my mouth, shoved me back into the pillow, mashing my nose and lips.

  “I’m going to finish the job, bitch!” he hissed.

  He tore the sheet away, and threw himself on top of me, spreading my legs, pinning my arms, and raising an arm over me. I could see the broken bottle in his hand, jagged at the neck. I writhed under his weight, but it was like trying to move a huge stone, a stone that smelled of river damp and rotting logs. I twisted, and tried to turn, but my strength had leaked away like the yolk from a broken egg. Chadwin levered himself off me and plunged the bottle. I screamed. I could feel it tearing, searing, lacerating me from groin to navel.

  14

  Suddenly the room was flooded with light. There was perfect silence.

  “What the devil’s going on?” Greg said quietly, standing at the foot of the bed in his pyjamas.

  I was flat on my back on the mattress, the bedclothes and pillows on the floor. I was wet. My body ached. My breasts felt bruised, even my mouth and nose where Chadwin had crushed them. My groin was on fire. But there was no Chadwin.

  “A bad dream, huh?” Greg said, sitting beside me on the bed, and reaching out to touch me reassuringly.

  A small face peeped around the door with an enquiring look.

  “You OK, Mom?” Rosemary asked.

  I said I had a bad dream, and Greg got up to take the child back to bed.

  “Gosh, those are awful marks, Mom,” Rosemary said as she was being carried out of the door.

  When he came back, Greg said I was making enough noise to wake the neighbours, let alone the kids.

  “It was Chadwin, trying to kill me.”

  “The chances are he’s dead, Loren.”

  I didn’t say any more. I drew Greg down beside me, and felt the peace of him flowing into me. After a few minutes, I rose, had a shower, washed my hair, and made two chocolate malts; then we curled up to sleep in our own bedroom. I slept dreamlessly.

  The next day, I called in sick at Ulex. Greg phoned me from the office telling me that the local TV and radio had a mysterious missing-person-in-the-lake story. “Something cobbled up from police reports.”

  Cavallo was on the doorstep by mid-afternoon. I invited him inside and made him a cup of coffee.

  “Nice home you have here, Mrs Stamford,” he said ruminatively as he sipped the coffee, and looked around at the furnishings.

  In my over-sensitive state, I thought that he was implying that the home might be in jeopardy, and it rattled me.

  “I think it’s about time you told us what actually happened at the lake. Mr Rovnik a county officer has come forward. And we’ve also spoken to a Mrs Kutash whom he named.”

  I sat quietly for a while, and so did Cavallo. He had dark smears under his eyes which made him look sinister, although his manner was easy. He had a capacity for quiet which didn’t seem to fit a police lieutenant. I had wanted to keep Rovnik and Donna Kutash out of it, because they would only cloud the case, but that was impossible now.

  “You didn’t mention Mr Rovnik or Mrs Kutash,” Cavallo said reproachfully.

  “Why? They had nothing to do with it.”

  “Were they there when Chadwin was there?”

  “No. Before.”

  “Mr Rovnik said you first spoke to him a couple of weeks ago when he was working at the lake.”

  “That’s true. I was worried about the rats.”

  “He says that on another occasion you used him to get rid of an unwelcome caller.”

  “True. That was Donna Kutash’s husband who was making a nuisance of himself.”

  “And on the day of the alleged drowning, you invited him inside, gave him a drink, and told him you had a man in the house who was threatening you. The part about a man in the house wasn’t true, because you’ve already told me Chadwin wasn’t there.”

  “That’s right. It was Mr Kutash.”

  “In the house?”

  “Well, I thought he might arrive.”

  “Mrs Stamford, Mr Rovnik says he thought you were interested in him. And it kinda looks that way.”

  “That’s absolutely wrong. I felt insecure. I wanted protection.”

  “Mr Rovnik says you made a fuss about seeing a rat in the hall.”

  “I did.”

  “He thought you were acting jealously, because he was paying attention to Mrs Kutash.”

  “There was a rat, and I was revolted by it. I had no interest in Mr Rovnik.”

  “Why did you invite him inside the house?”

  “I wanted to persuade him to take me to Clayburg immediately. That’s the only reason.”

  “Why go to Clayburg?”

  “To get to a phone to call the police and my husband.”

  “But no wrong had been committed against you.”

  “I felt threatened.”

  “Mrs Kutash says she called in to your place around one pm. She was in the kitchen and the front room. She passed through the hall. There was broken glass, an ice-bucket, and bloodstained rags on the floor, in an alcove in the hall.”

  “I was cleaning up the house.”

  “Mrs Kutash says she thought you had a man there, and were trying to get rid of her.”

  “Donna Kutash is a dirty minded bitch!” I said, stung. “I love my husband. I don’t have other men.”

  Cavallo paused, his eyelids moving slowly as he blinked, whether out of tiredness or exasperation.

  “We found the remains of two crystal glasses, and a bottle of bourbon in the trash. Who were you drinking with, Mrs Stamford?”

  “Nobody. I threw away a cracked glass, that’s all. The other was used by Chadwin.”

  “The fragments of both glasses and the bottle have signs of blood on them.”

  “Probably contaminated in the trash.”

  “You have some ready answers, Mrs Stamford. We’ll want to check whose blood that is.”

  “Sure.”

  “The medical report on you says you have cuts on your feet and one arm – apart from bruising. Mr Rovnik says your arm was bleeding when he met you at the door of your place around the middle of the day.”

  “I cut it in the workshop.”

  “We’ve found a pair of jeans and a sweater and underwear, newly washed in the washing machine.”

  “I changed my clothes.”

  “We think there are traces of bloodstains on them.”

  “I changed after Chadwin beat me up.”

  “Mr Rovnik says you were wearing a green track-suit – the one you handed to us – when you invited him inside.”

  “He’s mistaken.”

  “If he’s right, Chadwin was already at your house, and the assault had happened.”

  “I don’t know …I’m all mixed up.”

  I had made a lot of facile answers. Being interrogated was like trying to cross a fast-flowing stream. Each answer was a stepping stone, and I felt momentarily safe – but then I had to find another stepping stone, and another, always in danger of falling. Cavallo wasn’t drawing any conclusions in front of me about my stumbling performance.

  He rose to go, and said mournfully, “I’ll be back. I don’t have to tell you Mrs Stamford that there are serious penalties for obstructing a police investigation.”

  Later in the afternoon, Donna Kutash called me.

  “Wow! Darling, have you been having a ball!”

  “Donna, I haven’t.”

  “Bucky is missing. In the lake! Jesus, Loren,
what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly.

  “What kind of tricks were you guys up to? I mean, I knew Bucky was there, and you two were – you know?”

  “Nothing. You’ve got it completely wrong.”

  “I had the police here, Loren. The police!”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t realise you were in some kind of trouble. I thought…”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, hell, darling, I can help you.”

  “Just tell the police what you know, and lay off all your assumptions.”

  “What do you want me to tell them, Loren? Anything you tell me, I tell them. Gospel.”

  “You’ve already spoken to them.”

  “Oh, yeah. But I was none too sure, and I can remember better for the police if you tell me what happened.”

  “No, Donna.”

  “I’m trying to help you, honey.”

  “No.”

  “I’m your friend.”

  “I know.”

  “Wow! Bucky Chadwin. He was one nice guy. And what a looker.”

  Donna was peeved. Her tone changed. “Eve Chadwin is pretty pissed. I spoke to her. I mean… her husband in the lake. He is in the lake isn’t he, Loren?”

  “I told you I can’t talk about it.”

  “Well, dear, you really are a one,” Donna said, ringing off abruptly.

  Cavallo telephoned me a few days later to say that the County Lake Rescue Service had recovered Chadwin’s body. I said no more than “Yes”, but privately I flooded with relief, and a very slight sense of triumph. The man had got what he deserved. He would haunt me no longer. And I felt no guilt for his death. Apart from submitting to Chadwin’s will, I believed I could not have done anything other than I did to save myself.

  The local news media gave a lot of space to the violent death, particularly because Chadwin was a senior executive with a local company. Greg and I, identified as the owners of the property where it happened, were under a cloud. We could do no more than refuse to speak to the reporters who doorstepped, and photographed us.