by Mark McNease
“Wynn’s gay,” Gerri said. Wynton Dahl, like his aunt Gerri, had always used a diminutive of his name. Maggie and David had never had the slightest issue with their son’s sexual orientation; nor had Wynn appeared to have any difficulty with it. He was gay—he knew it from the age of five and Maggie knew it even sooner. She and David cared about Wynn’s happiness and the things he wanted to achieve in life, nothing else.
“Gerri,” Maggie said, sipping a glass of wine on her couch while her sister, an hour away by car, drank gin, “I don’t think there’s some list of …”
“Symptoms, just call them symptoms.”
“Being gay is not an illness with symptoms, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Traditions, then. Manifestations. Affectations. Whatever. John was dreadful in bed … or on the couch or in the laundry room, wherever we did it.”
“The laundry room?”
“It’s more common than you think.”
They’d shared a laugh at that and changed the subject. A week later Gerri told her she was coming to Lambertville.
“Coming?” Maggie had asked, feeling her stomach drop.
“Moving, Maggie. I’m moving in with you.”
Maggie had suspected this was coming but was still startled when Gerri said it so matter-of-factly. “Why would you want to move here, Gerri?”
“Listen to yourself! You’re so lost without David you can’t even see the obvious. You need me, and I will not, under any circumstances, fail to be there for you.”
“You can visit me.”
“No, no,” Gerri had said with a finality that told Maggie there was no point in resisting, at least not for a while. (She hoped Gerri would find Lambertville stifling, small and inhospitable, and move back to Philadelphia within a few months.) “I will be moving in to support you as only a sister can. You need me, Maggie.”
Maggie had wanted to tell her the best way she could help would be to stay in Philly. But … the truth was she was incredibly lonely without David. The house was so big and empty, more so with the unfinished renovations they’d started. The only company she had anymore were visits from Janice to go over the books, and a local contractor named Chip McGill they’d hired to help with the house. The business was still struggling to finds its legs, and the store was planned for a mid-October opening just a week away. She needed companionship, if not help. She’d not argued with Gerri after that, and now, with things heating up and moving quickly, she welcomed her sister to her home with some appreciation and great hesitation.
The move went smoothly and quickly. Gerri had brought her belongings in a small moving truck, with one man driving while she’d sat pressed between the other and the door. Maggie had hurried home after the call at the factory and found Gerri standing on her porch as if they’d just hung up from talking. The men were sitting in the truck cab smoking cigarettes. One of them glanced at his watch when Maggie arrived, a signal to get this over with.
The entirety of Gerri’s possessions consisted of her bedroom set, her clothes, some wall hangings, a filing cabinet, a coffee table, two book shelves, and a desk Maggie recognized as having belonged to their grandmother. Harriet Dahl had been a gossip columnist of minor fame. The desk had been moved into the Dahl home after Harriet died when Maggie was thirteen, and there it had remained until their parents were killed in a car accident on the Taconic State Parkway. A drunk driver going the wrong way had veered into their Taurus and ended their lives instantly. Maggie was forty at the time, Gerri forty-three. The desk was the only thing from their parents’ Brooklyn apartment Gerri wanted. Here it was, being moved into Maggie’s house and carried upstairs to one of the two rooms Gerri would be calling her own.
The next time Maggie checked her watch it was six o’clock. The afternoon had flown by, with Gerri talking nonstop about her life without “that man,” as she called her third ex-husband, about her disillusionment with Philadelphia after living there for so many years, about her expectations for a new life in Lambertville.
Neither woman felt like cooking; besides, Maggie had a habit of keeping almost nothing in her refrigerator. It was another change since David’s death: she wasn’t hungry and took no pleasure in grocery shopping, the way she had when it was the two of them going aisle to aisle at the Giant in New Hope. Even grocery store aisles seemed haunted to her now, so she avoided the place and shopped instead at a local corner market, buying just what she’d need for a meal of pasta and a salad, or to make a sandwich with a bowl of soup.
“You’re too thin, Maggie,” Gerri said, when they finally sat in the large, overstuffed matching chairs in the living room.
Maggie and David had brought the chairs from their apartment, where they’d seemed massive and a little cramped for the space. Here, in the Lambertville house David had insisted they buy specifically because it was so large and in need of renovation, the chairs seemed swallowed up by the room. Angled toward each other, they faced a fireplace that had not been used in years and that David had looked forward to lighting logs in. Now Maggie would be doing it alone—or, more precisely, with her sister—but do it she would. Winter was coming, and the room, as well as the rest of the house, had to be heated. Maggie dreaded the bills she’d be seeing.
“I thought you couldn’t be too thin or too rich,” Maggie said, staring at the cold, empty fireplace, swirling a glass of red wine in her hand.
Gerri looked at her over the rim of her eyeglasses. “I’m serious. You’ve lost weight, and you were already small as a bird.”
Maggie was a short woman and she had always maintained a low weight. It was true she’d lost ten pounds since David’s death. On the other hand, she’d finally pulled out of her emotional tailspin and was focused on the factory, store and, soon, the house.
“I’ll put the weight back on,” Maggie said. “Don’t worry about it. You’re just thinking about food because you’re hungry.”
“Well, it’s almost seven o’clock. How about DiPalo’s?”
Lambertville offered an impressive selection of restaurants, with some of the finest dining in New Jersey. DiPalo’s was a local legend, an Italian restaurant run by two women who’d been in business for twenty years and married for five. Maggie knew them well and could think of no better place to eat. But the day had been long, and tomorrow would be even longer as Maggie set about getting everything done before Halloween. Going out to dinner was not something she was really up to.
“How about Chinese?” she said. “There a good place not far from here that delivers.”
“Ugh,” replied Gerri. Then, probably realizing she’d frustrated her sister, she said, “Sounds fine, Maggie, really. Rice, broccoli, steamed chicken. But you get an eggroll and lots of that brown, gooey sauce. You need the calories.”
“I’ll call them,” Maggie said. She was just about to get up from her chair when she heard a noise. She stopped, her hands still pressed on the arm rests. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Gerri said.
“Shh. Listen.”
Both women remained still, turning their heads. Then it was clear: a meowing, coming from outside.
“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Gerri said.
“I don’t. But I know who does.”
Maggie got up and went to the front door. Opening it, she saw Checks, the missing cat, perched on her porch just inches from the door. He looked up at her, his expression one of annoyance and impatience. And he meowed. Again and again.
“That’s odd,” Maggie said, glancing around outside. She flipped on the porch light. Looking down at the black cat with white paws, she said, “What are you doing here, cat? Or should I call you Checks?”
The cat waited silently a moment, as if weighing his response, then yowled, throwing a piercing meow at the woman who did not seem intelligent enough to understand him.
“What’s going on?” Gerri called from inside.
“Nothing,” Maggie said over her shoulder. “It’s just my neighbor’s missing
cat.”
She pondered her options, worried that if she simply closed the door, Checks the cat would keep crying all night.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Maggie said. “Get the takeout menu. It’s in the kitchen drawer under the phone.”
Maggie stepped outside, closing but not shutting the door behind her. She leaned down and picked up the cat. He was heavier than she’d expected, and she had to cradle him like a giant sausage in her arms. To her surprise, he stopped crying and offered no resistance. She hurried over to Alice’s house, wanting to be done with the errand and get back for her dinner. She felt mild hunger pangs and realized she may finally be returning to normal, whatever that was.
She rounded the front hedge that gave Alice’s house some privacy from the street … and she stopped, cat in arms. The lights were off. That was odd. Despite her habit of wandering, Alice rarely went anywhere at night. She was usually home, and even when she wasn’t, she left the lights on, as much for the cats as to foil any intruders. Maggie could normally see lights in the living room and kitchen. If the sun was going down, Alice’s lights were coming up, that’s how it had been since the first day Maggie and David lived in the house next door.
Maggie felt the cat begin to squirm in her arms.
“Hang on,” she said, carrying him up the steps and onto the porch. Holding Checks with one arm, she reached out and rang the doorbell.
Nothing. She rang the doorbell a second time, then a quick third, waiting to see a light come on or a sleepy-eyed Alice open the door and explain that she’d been taking a nap.
No Alice appeared. Instead, Maggie was met with silence and a strange misgiving. She stepped to the side and peered through the front window.
“Oh my God!” she shouted, stepping back and dropping Checks, who landed on his paws and scurried quickly away.
One of Alice’s other cats, a fat Calico, had jumped up onto the inner window ledge just as Maggie peered in. The sudden sight of the cat had startled her.
Something felt wrong to Maggie. She cupped her hand over her eyes and peered into the house.
“Huh,” she said, stepping back. She doubted anything had happened to Alice, but you never knew. She hadn’t expected David to die in his sleep, either, leaving a beloved corpse to shock his wife the next morning.
Maggie decided to go around to the back of the house. She knew Alice had a kitchen entrance there and often used it when she came out to tend her small garden or hang her clothes on a line. That Alice still hung clothes out to dry was another thing her neighbors complained about—this was not a tenement neighborhood on the Lower East Side in the1930s—but there was no city ordinance against maintaining a clothesline.
Maggie hurried around back, conscious of her sister waiting for her at home. She got to the back door and stopped. It was open slightly. She stared at the door knob. She quickly ran through a couple scenarios in her mind: maybe Alice left the door open hoping Checks would come back; maybe Alice went off to visit someone and didn’t want to take her key. That’s absurd, Maggie thought, still staring at the open door. Alice kept a hidden spare key outside that she’d told Maggie about, in case of emergency; she wouldn’t need to leave the door open. She knew the only way she could answer her own questions was to go inside. She reached out and gently pushed the door open.
“Alice?” she called out. “Alice, it’s Maggie. Are you here? I found Checks!”
She carefully stepped inside. The kitchen was dark. The whole house seemed to focus its emptiness on this small space, disturbed only by the unseen movement of cats.
The moon provided the only light, sending its faint glow through a window above the sink. Maggie pondered its eerie beauty for just a moment before her gaze scanned down from the window, down from the sink, onto the floor, where she saw it and screamed.
Alice was not gone. Alice was dead, flat on her back with her eyes gray and staring up at nothing. A hammer lay on the floor next to her with what appeared in the moonlight to be a piece of Alice’s scalp stuck between its claws.
What if she’s not dead? Maggie thought, her mind racing. She hurried to Alice and knelt down, reached for Alice’s arm and felt for a pulse. The flesh was cold. Alice was not breathing. Maggie screamed again.
DAY 2
“In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods;
they have not forgotten this.”
– Terry Pratchett
CHAPTER Five
MAGGIE WAS SURPRISED SHE’D SLEPT at all. The last three hours felt like a waking dream broken only by brief periods of blackness. The clock had advanced ten minutes or so each time she’d looked at it before slipping back into oblivion.
“You look awful,” Gerri said, standing in Maggie’s bedroom doorway. “I’ve got some coffee for you.”
Wearing a thick blue terrycloth robe and holding a large mug of coffee in her hands, Gerri walked over to the bed and set the mug on Maggie’s night stand.
“Did you sleep?”
Maggie rubbed her palms over her eyes, stretching the skin of her face. “Here and there, I think.”
“It’s better than nothing. Are you taking the day off? I think you should.”
“I can’t, Gerri,” Maggie said, picking up the coffee and blowing across the top of it before taking a sip. “The order has to go out soon for Thanksgiving and we’re finishing the last batch of Pumpkin Paradise. This is a big deal for us, two thousand jars to Hearth and Home. They’ve got stores all over the east coast. This could make us, Gerri.”
“Can’t Janice handle it?”
“She’s got enough on her plate. Besides, I need to stay busy.”
“David’s death still weighing on you?”
Maggie wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. She said nothing for a moment. She knew grief did not have a beginning, middle and end. One of the best things she’d learned from a bereavement group she’d attended was that “grief is not linear.” It’s more like a wave that comes and goes. And while she did not want to come out and tell Gerri she was still haunted by David’s death, that was the truth. She had trouble most days just moving forward. She knew it would be this way for a long time, but for now she had other excuses.
“It’s a horrible thing to find your neighbor dead like that. Murdered, Gerri. Someone smashed her head with a hammer. I can’t get that image out of my mind.”
“Well, you’ll have to relive it for a while at least. You’re scheduled to meet with Sergeant Hoyt this morning.”
Ah, Maggie thought. Sergeant Hoyt. He’d arrived at Alice’s house shortly after the first patrol car came. It took only minutes for the police to get there, though it seemed like hours. Maggie was waiting for them in the yard with Gerri standing next to her. She’d led them to the back door. They’d told her to wait outside while they entered the house and saw the body for themselves.
About fifteen minutes later a plainclothes sedan showed up, driven by a man who appeared to be in his early forties. He was wearing a suit with a badge clipped to his belt and, Maggie saw, a gun holstered next to it. He introduced himself as Sergeant Bryan Hoyt and asked Maggie and Gerri to follow him to the front of the house. Apparently one of the arriving police officers had unlocked the door and turned on the living room lights.
The next hour was a blur as Maggie told Hoyt what happened while Gerri waited on the porch at Hoyt’s request. Sitting on Alice’s couch, listening to the sound of people in the kitchen, Maggie told him how things had unfolded: hearing the cat at the door, taking it back to Alice’s house, finding the back door unlocked, and finally seeing Alice’s body on the floor with the hammer next to her.
She’d noticed the sergeant glance at her clothes and realized he was probably looking for blood, even as he continued writing down what she told him.
“Did you call the police immediately?” he asked.
“Well ...” Maggie said, feeling rattled and having to stop and think back. “I screamed, and then my sister Gerri came running over.”
>
“The woman on the porch?”
“Yes, she just moved in with me today from Philadelphia.” After thinking a moment, she said, “Oh my God, she must have thought I was being attacked!”
“It’s okay, Ms. Dahl.” Taking her name down had been his first order of business. “Please continue.”
“Well, she came running over and I showed her the body, and then we used the kitchen phone to call 911.”
He continued to interview her, asking certain questions two or three times. She knew, reflecting on it afterward, this may have been his way of testing her—to see if her story was consistent.
By the time he’d finished his preliminary interview, Maggie knew there were more people in the kitchen with Alice’s corpse who had arrived since she’d been in the living room. She could hear them talking as they examined the scene.
At the end of their conversation, Hoyt told Maggie to come to the station the next morning and make a formal statement. He then asked her to wait on the porch while he interviewed Gerri. Impatient and agitated, Maggie had gone home instead, pacing in her kitchen while she waited for her sister to come back. Apparently the sergeant had fewer questions for Gerri, since she showed up at the house fifteen minutes after Maggie had gone home.
Finally, near midnight, they had eaten their boiled eggs and cereal in silence, each tired of talking and wanting to just lie down.
Maggie took another long sip of her coffee and set it back on the nightstand. “You never told me what Hoyt asked you,” she said.
“Probably the same questions he asked you.”
“Then why was there no request for a second interview with you?”
“Maybe he sees you as the prime suspect and I’m just your alibi.”
Maggie looked at her in horror.
