Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  “Yes, you do,” she replied. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You did it to me again just now.”

  She turned and started down the sidewalk. “Be home in time for supper,” she called over her shoulder. “Your father’s expecting you.”

  Molly knew she’d worry about him until then.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Outside the north entrance to Seattle Central Community College, she blended in with a few other students who had stepped outside for a smoke. But she didn’t talk to them. She was too focused on what was happening across the street in front of Bonney-Watson Funeral Home.

  Chris Dennehy was wearing a tie and some nice khaki pants. In all the times she’d followed him, she hadn’t seen him this dressed up before. She’d had a feeling he would be here today.

  Chris hadn’t noticed her at all, and neither had anyone else.

  He seemed to be having a heated discussion with his stepmother. “Leave me alone! God!” His voice boomed over the traffic noise.

  His stepmother said something to him and then walked away. Chris stood there on the sidewalk, rubbing his forehead. He’d certainly gotten his wish. His stepmother had left him alone — and maybe even a bit stranded.

  She smiled.

  It was just how she would get to him — when he was all alone.

  * * *

  Chris paced back and forth under the funeral parlor’s awning. He didn’t know why he’d gotten so mad at Molly. Mostly he was disappointed. After coming all this way, he hadn’t even had a chance to see Mrs. Corson.

  There had been only Mr. Corson’s sister making him feel horrible.

  Despite everything she’d said, he still wanted to talk with Jenna Corson. Part of him wanted to apologize and explain his side of things to her. But mostly, he needed to connect with someone else who grieved for Mr. Corson. Maybe he could even help her somehow. After all, wouldn’t she want to know how important her husband had been to him?

  Chris took off his sunglasses and stepped back inside the funeral home. At the doorway of the viewing room, he scanned the crowd for Mr. Corson’s niece, Serena. At the same time, he kept an eye out for her mother. He dreaded another run-in with her.

  For a few moments, he found himself just staring at the bronze casket at the far end of the room. It was hard to fathom Mr. Corson lying inside it. Chris imagined the three bullet wounds in him, now plugged up by some mortician.

  He went back to looking over the crowd and finally spotted the Goth girl with an elderly man. She nodded at something the old man said, but still had a bored look in her heavily madeup eyes.

  Threading through the crowd, Chris made his way to her. She glanced at him and let out a little laugh. Then she looked at the elderly man again. “Really nice talking with you,” she said loudly.

  Turning toward Chris, she rolled her eyes. “Shit, there are so many old people here, and all of them are close talkers — with bad breath. And I’m stuck here until seven, too. Please, kill me now.” She sighed, then looked him up and down. “So you’re the one who caused all the fuss. Well, I heard you were cute. That’s certainly true.”

  Chris shrugged. “Thanks, I guess. Where did you hear—”

  “I have a friend at James Monroe, and she has a blog,” Serena explained before he finished asking the question. “I see you didn’t let my mother, the Wicked Bitch of the West, scare you away. What happened to the woman you were with? She’s not your mother, is she? She looked too young.”

  “She’s my stepmother,” Chris explained. “She’s on her way home.” He spied Mr. Corson’s sister across the room and pulled Serena into a corner. He hoped a potted palm by the wall blocked the woman’s view of them. “You said something about your aunt getting ready to leave your uncle before he was killed,” he whispered.

  She nodded. “More than ‘getting ready.’ She actually moved out, took my bratty three-year-old cousin, Todd, and went to her sister’s in Yakima. Uncle Ray had to drive to Yakima to visit Todd. But he didn’t complain. In fact, he renewed his life insurance and kept Aunt Jenna on as the beneficiary. My mom’s still pissed off about that.”

  “But you said your aunt was back again. . ”

  “That’s right. While she was in Yakima, she had movers take her stuff from the house to this apartment she rented in Kent. I guess she wanted to be closer to Seattle in case my crazy cousin, Tracy, ever decides to come home. Aunt Jenna’s there now, only my mother wants everyone to think she’s still in Yakima, crying her eyes out or something like that. Todd’s in Yakima with her sister, but my aunt’s at her new apartment in Kent. She just didn’t want to come to Uncle Ray’s wake.”

  “Why not?” Chris asked, frowning.

  Serena shrugged. “Beats me. And Aunt Jenna’s paying for this thing. You’d think she’d want to put in an appearance. I heard my mother on the phone with her last night, begging her to come, saying ‘How do you think it’ll look if you don’t show up?’ and shit like that. If you ask me, Aunt Jenna just didn’t want to be a hypocrite.” She squinted at Chris. “Why are you so anxious to see my Aunt Jenna?”

  “I want to tell her that I’m sorry,” Chris admitted. “Maybe explain things to her, set the record straight.”

  “You mean, about you and Uncle Ray?”

  He nodded.

  “I heard he was trying to fuck you,” she said.

  “You heard wrong,” Chris replied soberly. “Was that on your friend’s blog, too?”

  “Yeah,” she said, half smiling.

  “Terrific,” he grumbled. He glanced over toward where her mother had been earlier, and she was no longer there. Chris looked around, but didn’t see her. A panic swept through him. He didn’t want another chewing-out from her. He turned toward Serena again. “Listen, do you know where in Kent your aunt is staying? Do you have the address?”

  She shrugged. “Well, not on me. It’s one of those new apartment complexes near Southcenter Mall.”

  Chris suddenly spotted Mr. Corson’s sister emerging from a group of mourners nearby. She started toward him and Serena.

  “Oh, shit,” he murmured. “Listen, I got to go, thanks a lot—”

  Ms. Corson was pointing at him. “You. .”

  Just then, a smartly dressed older woman with silver hair grabbed her arm. “Sherry? Sherry, dear, I’m so sorry about Ray. I remember when the two of you were just kids, and you had those skateboards. . ”

  Ms. Corson stopped and talked to the older woman. Her smile looked forced.

  “Thanks again,” Chris whispered to Serena. He almost knocked over the potted palm as he hurried out of the room. He saw a sign on the wall between a tall grandfather clock and the edge of a corridor: RESTROOMS, OFFICES.

  Chris retreated down the hallway and into the men’s room. It smelled like cinnamon-scented urinal cakes. Ducking into a stall, he caught his breath and waited for a few minutes. He figured Serena’s mother wouldn’t come after him in there.

  He stood by the toilet with hands in his jacket pockets. He wondered why Mr. Corson’s wife hadn’t come to his funeral. Did Mrs. Corson believe the lies broadcast on the blogs?

  More than ever, he needed to see her and explain that her dead husband had never done anything inappropriate — at least, not with him. He owed Mr. Corson that much. He wished he could get her address somehow.

  He took his hands out of his pockets, and his sunglasses fell out. They landed beside the toilet. He was about to pick them up off the floor, but he heard the bathroom door squeak open, then footsteps. Chris froze. The person seemed to stop just outside the stall. He tried to peek through the gap where the door was hinged, but he couldn’t see anybody.

  “Chris?” he heard someone whisper. It was a girl’s voice.

  “Serena?” he said, ready to open the door. But when she didn’t answer right away, he hesitated. “Serena?” he asked again.

  “Chris, it’s about to start,” she whispered. The voice didn’t belong to Serena, he could tell.

  “Who’s
there?” He fumbled with the door lock, trying to undo it. “What are you talking about?”

  “The killing is about to start.”

  “What?” he murmured. A chill raced through him.

  There was no response, just footsteps on the tile floor again, and the restroom door yawning.

  Chris twisted the lock another way and finally pulled open the stall door. He raced out to the corridor. It was empty. How could she have moved that fast? He knocked on the women’s room door. There was no response, so he peeked inside at the small lounge area with a settee, chairs, and a dressing table — with two boxes of Kleenex on it.

  He ventured through the next doorway. He heard a steady drip from one of the sink faucets. The washroom looked empty, but two of the three stall doors were closed. Chris crouched down and peered at the openings between the floor and the bottom of the doors. He didn’t see anybody’s feet. He straightened up.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Chris swiveled around and saw a middle-aged woman with stiff-looking platinum-blond hair gaping at him from the doorway.

  “Um, sorry,” he managed to say. “I was looking for my sister.”

  She just stared at him, a hand on her pearl necklace.

  “You didn’t — you didn’t happen to see a girl run up the hallway a minute ago, did you?” he asked. “Maybe she was in the lobby?”

  Frowning, the blond lady shook her head. “If you don’t mind, young man, I’d like to use the facilities.”

  “Sure, sorry, excuse me,” Chris muttered, brushing past her, and then out the doorway.

  He glanced down the corridor again, thinking maybe Serena had ducked into an empty office. That must have been her in the bathroom, playing a joke on him. She knew his name. Who else could it have been? She’d done a good job disguising her voice. But why would she say that? The killing is about to start. Leave it to a Goth girl to think that was funny.

  Chris noticed a long window along the wall farther down the hallway. The wooden venetian blinds on the other side of the glass were slanted open wide enough for him to look into an office. A pale, balding, thirtyish man with black-rimmed glasses sat in front of a computer screen on one of the two sleek mahogany desks. The small office was nicely appointed with hunter-green walls, bookcases full of what looked like catalogs, and a window overlooking Cal Anderson Park. In his black suit, black tie, and dark blue shirt ensemble, the man at the desk seemed to take his job in the funeral parlor very seriously.

  Chris knocked on the door, and then opened it. “Excuse me, hi,” he said.

  The man glanced up at him, thinly disguising his annoyance. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, did you see a girl run down the hallway here a few minutes ago?” Chris asked.

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said. He slid a printed sheet of paper inside an eight-by-ten envelope so the address appeared through a little window. It looked like a bill.

  Chris stared at it. He remembered something Serena had said: “Aunt Jenna’s paying for this thing. You’d think she’d want to put in an appearance.”

  The man gazed at him over the rims of his glasses. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, sir,” Chris said. “My mother sent me in here to get the address for Jenna Corson. She’s Ray Corson’s widow. It’s a new address in Kent, and my mother wants to send Mrs. Corson some flowers.”

  With a pinched smile, the man reached for a business card from a little silver tray on his desk. “Your mother can send the flowers care of us, and we’ll see that Mrs. Corson gets them.”

  “Well, that’s just the thing,” Chris said, taking the card with Bonney-Watson Funeral Home and the man’s name on it. “See, the last time she did that here, Mr. Decker, her friend never got the flowers, and my mom was really ticked off. So she sent me in here for the address. Corson. It’s a new address — in Kent.”

  Frowning a bit, the man turned to his computer keyboard and started typing. Then he copied down the address on a memo pad.

  “And the phone number, too,” Chris thought to say. “The florist is gonna want it.”

  The man sighed and scribbled down the address.

  Five minutes later, Chris was near the side of the Bonney-Watson building to get some distance from all the traffic noise on the cross street, Broadway. He was dialing the number for Jenna Corson on his cell phone. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he got her machine, or if he’d even leave a message. He started to count the ringtones.

  Someone picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Hello, is Mrs. Jenna Corson there, please?”

  “Speaking.”

  Chris covered his free ear as a floral delivery truck pulled into the driveway beside the funeral parlor. “Mrs. Corson, this is. .” He hesitated and glanced at the truck. “This is Emerald City Flowers calling. We have a delivery for you. Are you going to be home for the next hour?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Chris held his breath.

  “Yes, I’ll be home,” she said finally.

  “We have you at 22013 Forty-second Avenue in Kent, Unit 2-F, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll be there within the hour, Mrs. Corson, thank you,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she said. Then he heard a click on the other end.

  Chris switched off the cell phone. He had a strange feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. It had been stupid of him to pretend he was someone else on the phone; but he’d figured she would hang up if she knew it was him. Now she’d be even angrier once she found he’d lied to her.

  He heard a door slam and saw a young, heavyset woman with red hair unloading a blooming plant from the back of the truck. “Excuse me?” he called to her. “Is that for Corson?”

  She hesitated, and then glanced at the card on the plant. “Yeah,” she said.

  “I’ll take it, thanks,” he said, holding out his hand.

  She gave him a crooked grin. “Wait a sec. Who are you?”

  Chris straightened his tie. Then he pulled out the business card with Bonney-Watson Funeral Home and the man’s name on it. He flashed it at the woman. “We were expecting you an hour ago.”

  “Oh, well, sorry.” The redhead handed him the mum plant.

  “It’s okay,” Chris said. “Mrs. Corson will be glad to get it.”

  Minutes later, Chris sat in the back of a Yellow Cab, balancing the blooming plant in his lap. He was on his way to Kent. The card on the little plastic holder read: To Jenna — Thinking of you, with love, Dennis & Debbie Gotlieb.

  Chris felt inside his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, but they weren’t there. Then he remembered — they were on the bathroom floor in the funeral parlor. An eighty-five-dollar pair of Ray-Bans, right down the toilet — or in this case, right beside the toilet. He checked his other pocket just to make sure. No, he had his cell phone in there, and nothing else.

  His cell phone.

  “Shit!” he whispered. He realized — after thinking he’d been so damn clever with the funeral parlor guy and the florist — he’d done something really bonehead stupid. He’d called Mrs. Corson on his cell phone, pretending to be someone else. She almost certainly had caller ID. She might have forgotten to check it when she’d picked up the phone. But chances were she would check it before he showed up at her door. Maybe she already knew it had been him calling.

  He felt that knot in his stomach again and wished he’d just been honest with her. He expected his cell phone to ring any minute — with Mrs. Corson on the other end, ready to chew him out. And he would deserve it.

  “Stupid,” Chris muttered to himself. He adjusted the mum plant in his lap and pressed a hand to his stomach.

  He felt the knot tightening.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Molly was driving on the interstate, halfway home. “Tuesday Afternoon” played on the car radio, and a cool breeze whipped through the half-open window.

  She thought again about c
alling him, but told herself that Chris was a big boy. He had bus fare and a route schedule. He could get home on his own. He was a responsible kid.

  As she watched the road ahead, Molly remembered six months ago and how they’d tried to do the responsible thing. But then it all spiraled out of control.

  Before that, back in October, she still hadn’t known Chris well enough to read his various moods. She’d been married to Jeff for only three months. She’d figured most teenagers were sullen and withdrawn all the time. Chris was still getting used to this strange woman in the house, moving in on his mother’s turf. His behavior seemed normal considering the circumstances. But Jeff was deeply concerned about him.

  “Since Angela moved out, he’s been getting worse and worse,” Jeff observed. “Every time he comes back from a weekend with her, all he does is snarl at me. I’m sure Angela’s bad-mouthing us to him every chance she gets. And poor Chris is her captive audience.”

  Molly tried to reach out to Chris. Having him pose as the teen hero for the cover of the young adult novel, Conquer the Night, helped thaw him out a little. And in early November, when he asked her to come with him to Zales to pick out a bracelet for Courtney, Molly felt she’d finally won him over. She told him in the jewelry store how flattered she was that he’d solicited her opinion.

  He shrugged. “Well, Mr. Corson thought I should ask you — since you’re a woman and you know this kind of stuff.”

  She and Jeff had been hearing more and more about his guidance counselor, Mr. Corson. At first, Jeff had been grateful Chris was even talking to them — about anything. But after a while, Molly could tell he felt a bit threatened. Ray Corson seemed to have become Chris’s new father figure. “I’m not sure I like Chris going on these late-afternoon runs with this guy — just the two of them,” Jeff told her one night. “It’s just weird.”

  But Molly considered Mr. Corson a godsend. Until the guidance counselor came along, Molly hadn’t realized Chris could be so sweet and friendly. She guessed he might have been that way before his parents’ separation; and if so, they had Ray Corson to thank for bringing back the old Chris.