Dante's Wood

by Lynne Raimondo

  But trapped beneath the Arc that night I knew.

  And oddly enough, I stopped giving a fuck.

  By this time the shivering in my limbs had turned to near convulsions and it was only through sheer will that I wasn’t coughing up the water now steadily seeping into my esophagus. I knew that if I tried to breathe, even for a second, it would all be over. The bands of hot steel around my chest were growing tighter and tighter. Soon my lungs would burst from the strain. I thought of Jack and Annie and my fatherless son, Louis. I still hated myself for everything I had done to them and always would, but there was yet a possibility, however slim, that I could make amends. Find a path out of the dark wilderness where I was lost. So while the water raged around me, clawing at my sides like the vines and branches of Dante’s wood, I fought. I fought even though it was hopeless, even though my insides were on fire, even though if I did manage to survive, I would never look upon their faces again. I fought for that last chance to see another day. And when I couldn’t fight any longer, I cried out.

  A sort of giddiness came over me then, followed by the sensation that I was dreaming. It wasn’t such a bad dream. A ghostly figure appeared and called my name. A shade, I decided. Just like in mythology. There would be a dog, too, a nasty three-headed thing, slavering and snapping at my heels. But my guide would steer me past the monster, help me safely across the river. My very own Beatrice. Whoever it was was removing my bindings, plucking at them as easily as a harp string. I was gathered up and carried off, laid down in a meadow of incredible softness. The apparition stood over me, beckoning me to rise. I smiled at her as she bent down to kiss me.

  Except that the lips kissing mine weren’t soft. They were pointed like a shark’s snout and concealed a row of sharp teeth. And they weren’t kissing either. They were pushing and pulling, gnawing at my lips. The gnawing grew more insistent until it felt like my tongue was being ripped out. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t make any sound. And then the fire in my chest returned, filling my mouth with smoke. It tasted like a campfire and I had to spit it out . . .

  “Mistuh Mark?”

  I rolled onto my side and vomited.

  “Mistuh Mark, are you OK?”

  Twenty-two

  The weapon was where I told O’Leary he would find it, at the bottom of the rooftop compost bin Alice had shown me on my first visit to the New Horizons Center. It was a stainless-steel tool normally used for sculpting ceramics, slender but sharp enough to carve a hole in someone’s aorta if you knew what you were doing. Alice’s fingerprints were on it, along with traces of Shannon’s blood. It was wrapped in a hooded parka next to the charred remains of a ruled notebook presumed to be Shannon’s missing diary. A check with the secretary of state confirmed Alice’s ownership of a tan Civic hybrid with recent repairs to its front bumper. Further investigation uncovered a pattern of regular transfers from the center’s bank account to an art-supply firm in Carbondale later revealed to be a shell licensed in Shannon’s name.

  “I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” Alice said. We were sitting across from one another in the Cook County jail, separated by half an inch of Plexiglas.

  “I wish you’d considered that before you tried to waterboard me,” I replied, only partly in jest.

  “Yes. It was generous of you to come.”

  My eye was healed and other than a few scrapes and bruises, my near-death experience had left me largely unscathed, except for an irrational fear of the shower. I’d bathed at the sink that morning and put on a freshly pressed suit, thinking it would be the last time we ever met. It had been an ordeal getting in. The guards had declared my cane to be contraband and I had to be led by the hand by a puffing matron who acted like a blind visitor was an affront to prison regulations. “I’ll be back when your thirty minutes is up,” she said, dumping me into a cubicle that smelled like a lavatory stall. I had to put my lips up to a mouthpiece in the center to make myself understood, and hold my ear to its scratched surface to hear Alice’s replies.

  “Are they treating you all right?” I asked.

  “Not as badly as I treated you.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” I pointed out.

  “I know. When . . . how . . . did you figure it out?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but I think it began with Nate’s note to Shannon, the one Judith produced in court. It was too convenient, and the timing was ambiguous. The note could have been written months earlier, an invitation to one of their out-of-town flings, but as Hallie explained the science to me, Nate would never be able to prove it. It started me questioning my own motives. Had I pursued Nate to the exclusion of other suspects because of a subconscious need to see him—and by extension, myself—punished? What if I was guilty of the same rush to judgment that put Charlie behind bars?”

  “And your self-doubt ultimately led to me?”

  “Not at first. I hardly wanted to think I was sleeping with a killer. But I did go back over some of the things I’d learned about you. Like Regina’s observation that you were always kowtowing to Shannon, as though you were afraid of her. I couldn’t imagine why. It seemed inconsistent with the strong, confident woman I was getting to know. You were also the person who had the most to lose if anything questionable came to light about the center, and of course, you’d once been a nurse. Still, I didn’t see how it was possible until I visited my eye doctor.”

  I told her about my conversations with Turner and the clerk from the DMV. “I recalled then that you’d lost your sight to a head injury and the other pieces started falling into place. Little things, like how quickly you caught on when we were first introducing ourselves. And that night in your apartment, how long you left me by myself. It was like you wanted to me to find all the things that would normally show up in a blind person’s living quarters. Except for the tulips on your coffee table, everything was as it should be. Tulips are beautiful, but they have almost no scent, not the first flower of choice for someone who can’t see.”

  “You are dangerous. But then, why didn’t you turn me in before we had dinner?”

  “I wanted to be wrong. And it wasn’t until you made that mistake about my name that I knew for certain.”

  “What mistake?”

  “At the restaurant. You asked me what the initial D on my business card stood for. You’d only know there was one if you could read the printed inscription. I didn’t have them include it in the Braille overlay because there wasn’t enough room.”

  “And yet you calmly sat there eating with me as though nothing had happened.”

  I grinned crookedly at her. “A fellow’s entitled to a nice night out before he turns his girl in for murder.”

  “I’m glad we had that last time together. If it means anything, I was having trouble reconciling what I had done with my feelings for you.”

  “Do you know where they’ll be sending you?” I asked, to move us off the subject again.

  “To the Lincoln Correctional Facility, a medium-security facility for women. With credit for community service and good behavior I could be paroled before I’m ready for a cane again. I’ve offered to teach classes on living skills to senior inmates who are losing their sight.”

  “I can’t imagine a better teacher.”

  “You’re being kind again. Tell me, what brought you here?”

  “I wanted to ask you something. Not about the murder—something else.” I stopped, unsure now whether I had made a mistake in coming.

  Alice read my mind. “You want to know what it was like.”

  It made no sense, but I had to find out. “Yes,” I said hesitating, then with more conviction. “Yes, I think I do.”

  Alice chose her words carefully. “Terrifying in the beginning. I know, I’m supposed to say I was positively leaping with joy. But it wasn’t like that. I hadn’t been unhappy living as a blind person. When I thought about it at all, it was just another part of who I was. What I couldn’t face was another setback. Becoming attached again to things I no l
onger missed. Does that seem strange?”

  It didn’t. Not any longer. “Did it happen all at once?”

  “You mean like in the movies, when the heroine’s bandages are lifted and her doctor’s face swims slowly into view?”

  “You’ve left out the part where her fiancé shouts ‘It’s a miracle! Now we can be a real family!’”

  Alice nearly choked laughing. “No, nothing like that. It was so gradual I didn’t even notice at first. But after a few months I couldn’t deny what was happening. I was in line to get the job at the state agency I mentioned to you. I knew they couldn’t hire someone able-bodied when there were so many other deserving candidates vying for the position, and I wanted to be chosen more than anything else. You know what those agencies are like—half the time the employees are just as bigoted about the people they’re supposed to be helping as the rest of the world. I thought I could change things from the inside. So I didn’t tell anyone my sight was getting better.”

  “And kept it a secret even after it returned to normal.”

  “It was almost too easy. And it enabled me to set an example as a capable, independent blind person succeeding in a position of responsibility. I bought contact lenses that were too powerful for what I needed and wore them at work, so I wouldn’t be tempted to use my eyes when others might notice. No one did. All they ever saw was the cane.”

  “That first night we were together, in your apartment . . . you took your contacts out while I was exploring.”

  “I wanted to get a good look at you. My vision’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but at close range not far from what it was before my accident.”

  “And while you were checking me out you looked to see if I was wearing a wedding ring.”

  “Yes. That was another mistake. I was worried you’d catch on there and then.”

  I didn’t comment on how she’d distracted me. “And you cheated on other occasions as well.”

  “I couldn’t help it. It was so glorious, so liberating to be able to see again. As you guessed, I had my driver’s license reinstated and bought a car so I could take long rides in the country on weekends. North to Door County, east to the Michigan shore. And that’s how the game finally caught up with me. I was stopped at a gas station on the toll road in Indiana when Shannon pulled up behind me. I was by myself so she figured it out instantly.”

  “And began blackmailing you.”

  “Yes. She cleaned out all of my savings. But that wasn’t enough for her. I had to start embezzling from the center to keep up with her demands. I was living in constant fear that someone—Regina especially—would become suspicious about why I was always giving in to her. And then I found them—Shannon and Charlie—together.”

  “Where?”

  “In my office. I noticed Charlie was absent during lunch one day and went looking for him. When I opened the door Charlie was stretched out on the couch. It was horrible, she was standing over him . . . urging him on. Charlie, the poor dear, he didn’t understand. But Shannon . . . I can still see the expression on her face, the look of obscene triumph. I shut the door and waited outside. When Charlie came out I told him he was a good boy and asked him to help himself to a snack. Then I went inside and confronted Shannon. I said what she had done could never happen again. She just laughed and said she’d see me arrested and the center closed if I tried to interfere. I knew then there was only one way to stop her.”

  “How did you get her into the alley that morning?”

  “I knew she’d been using the parking lot when she wasn’t supposed to. I made a point of mentioning at a staff meeting that I expected one of the spaces to be available that week. I drove around every day waiting to see if she’d take the bait. I knew it was my only opportunity to make it look like a random killing . . . like those other poor women who died. I’d almost given up hope when she showed up that morning. I didn’t know she and Judith had arranged specifically to meet there.”

  “It’s a wonder you two didn’t bump into one another.”

  “Yes. Or Charlie. You can imagine how I felt when he was arrested. I was debating what to do when you showed up at the center. When I saw how determined you were to find the real killer, I thought there might be a chance of casting the blame on someone else. So I took it.”

  “And me in the process.”

  “You say that so easily now.”

  “I’ve had time to get over myself. I know it wasn’t all pretend—for either of us.”

  “If you can believe it, I never really meant to cause you harm. That first time, in the car, was only to keep you from suspecting me.”

  “And the second time?”

  “To give myself room to get away. And yes, to punish you a little. For turning up in my life when you did. For letting me see what might have been.”

  What could I say? That we were both sinners? That she had taught me a valuable lesson? That while I’d never be able to explain it, I forgave her?

  Alice let a few moments of silence pass before asking, “What will you do now?”

  “Go back to my job. I have to put food on my table. And I’ve been thinking about trying to do more courtroom work. I seem to have a knack for it. And . . . well, maybe it would help change some of those perceptions you were talking about earlier.”

  Alice said, “I like that idea, but I was referring to other unfinished business.”

  I looked down at the table, traced its grimy surface with a finger. “I haven’t made any decisions about that.”

  “What’s holding you back? Your son needs you in his life.”

  “I know. It’s . . . more complicated than you think. My wife—my ex wife—doesn’t know . . . about this.”

  Alice sounded shocked. “You never told her?”

  “I’m not supposed to communicate with her, except in writing through our lawyers. I don’t know what to put in a letter. ‘Dear Annie, I am pleased to inform you that the bastard you wished dead—or worse—has received his just reward. P.S. You don’t owe him a thing.’”

  “Why not just explain the facts? Are you worried that she’ll pity you?”

  I shook my head. “Not that.”

  “What then?”

  “That she’ll forgive me when she shouldn’t.”

  Alice’s jailor was back, telling me it was time to leave.

  “Is there anything I can do for you while you’re away?” I asked.

  “Write to me once in a while. And send me any Braille books you don’t need. I’m sure we’ll be able to use them in the prison library. And Mark . . .”

  “Yes?” I said, rising to go.

  “If it’s not too hard, find a way to forgive yourself.”

  “I can see why you were concerned,” Sep was saying.

  We were in his office and I had just finished telling him about the day I found out I was losing my sight. As promised, I had come completely clean with him. I had left nothing out, starting with my father and continuing right on up until the day Jack died. Told him of the shattering guilt I had suppressed for so long after. The guilt that allowed me to think I was losing my mind.

  “Unilateral presentation is one of the classic symptoms. It was entirely rational for you to suspect a conversion disorder—hysterical blindness.”

  “I thought so, too. I couldn’t stop remembering what Annie told me when I explained where I’d been that night. She said she never wanted to see me again. In Turner’s office that afternoon I realized I had been hoping for the same thing, wishing there was some way I wouldn’t ever have to look at myself again. It seemed like too much of a coincidence.”

  Sep said quietly, “And perhaps still does. Are you sure your first instinct wasn’t right?”

  I wrinkled my nose in displeasure. “You mean that I’ve been making it up all along?”

  “‘Making it up’ is the wrong way of putting it. You’ve undergone a terrible loss, not just your child but your faith in your ability to heal others. It can take the psyche years to recover fr
om such an event. There may yet be a possibility, however remote, that your vision will improve someday.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not saying anything I haven’t wished a thousand times. But genes don’t lie—even when they don’t tell the whole story. I’ve had a time bomb ticking inside me my entire life. It was bound to go off sooner or later. I’m just lucky it happened as late as it did.”

  “But to play devil’s advocate, as you’ve explained to me, not all people with your mutation lose their sight. Some never develop any symptoms at all.”

  “True, but it’s been almost two years. I have to accept that it’s here to stay.” I shrugged and added, “If only to keep from truly driving myself crazy.”

  “I’m sorry, then.”

  “Me, too. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other issues to keep me occupied.”

  “Our colleague may be able to help you there.”

  “If only he’d stop thinking my hearing was suspect too. I’m considering wearing ear plugs to our next session.”

  “Go easy on him. It takes time to get used to your sense of humor. And what of Charlie?”

  “He’s doing much better now that he’s home. Judith has given me permission to see him while she’s at work. In fact, I’m going over there after we’re finished.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Shall we set a date for your return then?”

  “Only if I can be forgiven for feeling a profound sense of déjà vu.”

  When I arrived at his home, Charlie was waiting for me on the front steps. He jumped up to give me a bear hug. I was carrying an overnight bag and he asked me if I was going on a trip.

  “I’m taking a plane to New York City.”

  “That’s where the Mets live,” he said excitedly. “In Shea Stadium.”

  I didn’t have the heart to correct him. And to my way of seeing, it would always be Shea.