Trophies

by J. Gunnar Grey

  I raced across the flowerbed and jumped atop the fence's horizontal brace. In the neighbors' domains and the edge of the front yard visible, no one was in sight, running or otherwise. The dog barked again, then a car engine started in the next street over.

  Standing openly on the fence staring around, rather than peering from cover, was crazy even for a crazy man. All I was doing was making the most stupidly conspicuous target of myself, and in the heat, no less. The engine noise diminished in the distance and odds were the burglar escaped with it. There was nothing more I could do.

  I hadn't faced a non-training, combat-type situation since before the diagnosis, so this was a first. I was glad to see I had handled it, if not with the smarts my training should have brought to bear, than at least without having to fight my way through a series of flashbacks or something similarly unstable. Perhaps the Army shrink who'd analyzed me after the war hadn't known as much as he'd thought. I jumped down from the fence feeling better than I had yet that day.

  Nevertheless, reaction was setting in as if I had suffered a flashback. I looked down at the P-38, an evil-looking German weapon from the Second World War. It started shaking in my grip. Not good news, that, and I flipped on the safety catch with a sigh.

  Patty and Caren met me on the deck. I swallowed irritation and ushered them back inside.

  "Was that wise?" Caren's eyes were even wider and so dark they seemed almost black. Her skin, normally the shade of mocha java with a little cream, was flushed, I suppose with shock at my silly mistake.

  She had not dressed for the office, but wore a casual blouse and shorts in shades of brown that matched and complemented the browns of her eyes, dark hair, and skin. The long line of her legs was tempting, but as usual I couldn't escape sinking into Caren's bittersweet chocolate eyes. They swamped me. I'd missed her without realizing how much.

  "That was extremely unwise." I leaned against the butcher block table and set down the Walther. The shaking was so bad it was obvious. Anything I held would only amplify the movement — but at least I'd been in control during the action itself. "Thankfully he didn't stop for potshots or target practice. He might not have been carrying."

  "Did he take anything?" Caren asked.

  It didn't feel like a robbery. How could a lone burglar haul his swag over the back fence to a car on the next street? But it was best to be certain. I re-holstered the Walther and herded still-frightened Patricia into the parlor, trusting Caren to follow. Aunt Edith's beloved sterling silver vase, a marked Paul Revere, held a bouquet of cut red roses atop the coffee table, and her tiny hippopotami, carved in the late 1700s from gem-quality jade, amethyst, and multi-colored tourmaline, huddled in a tight herd on the sideboard, on the folded-up doily crocheted by Uncle Hubert's great-grandmother.

  "No," I said, "all the small, expensive stuff is still here."

  "Then what—" Patricia said, breaking off as the house phone jangled.

  I sat on the short sofa and pulled the cordless from beneath the roses. Who knew which of Aunt Edith's collection of artists, charities, or brokers it would be. "Hunter residence."

  Winded gasping came over the line. For a moment I didn't understand. Then I did. Too shocked to breathe, I sat frozen and listened.

  "They're mine." The voice was hoarse, whispered, and full of hate. "Mine, I tell you. Give them up."

  "What are you talking about?" Even in that stunned moment, I knew better than to request a name.

  "Mine!"

  The parlor faded about me and the sidewalk before the gallery took its hazy place. Bullets slammed one after another into the small, shadowy form and drove her back against the brick wall. Blood sprayed. Her hair jerked from its chignon, her shoe dropped off as she staggered. Her fading echoed through me like a dwindling ghost as she fell onto the sidewalk beside her teenaged great-nephew and a fat, middle-aged security guard. She collapsed onto her back, legs bent, glassy eyes staring up at the night sky.

  I gripped the closest pillow with one hand, the receiver with the other, staring at the blood-red, wilting roses—

  —the picture window of the Carr Gallery, just overhead, was splattered with something dark. More of it sprayed the polished maple door, the brass railing and handle and mail slot. A small hole in the door, at waist level, had been marked with chalk—

  —more dark stains, lit obliquely by the dawn light, trickled down the red brick, dripped from one concrete step to the next, painted the sidewalk. I suddenly realized I could smell it—

  —but all I heard was a dial tone. I stared at the receiver. The pulse pounded in my ears and my breathing came in quick shallow puffs. "That was him."

  "Who?" Patricia said.

  Caren was a step ahead. "The burglar?"

  "No," I said, "the murderer. That was him. He was right here, in this house." And I missed him. Damn.

  I threatened Caren and Patricia with horsewhipping if they left the parlor and searched the house to be certain the danger was past. In the dining room behind the stairs, the china cabinet door was slightly open; in Uncle Hubert's study, the books were no longer pulled into even lines near the edges of the shelves. The cellar door in the pantry also gaped. Upstairs, Patricia's bedroom was rumpled, but my mousy cousin wasn't the best housekeeper. Aunt Edith's master suite, the guest room, and my old room were immaculate, which perhaps meant we'd surprised the murderer before he climbed the stairs. Satisfied, I released the ladies from their imprisonment and turned my attention to the front door lock. Something in the keyway was one question I could solve quickly.

  The first option was to take apart the deadbolt and pry open the cylinder. I could always send Patty to the closest hardware for another. But I wasn't comfortable with that plan and wasn't certain why not. The next idea, to send Patty back to my condo for the rest of my lockpicking kit, left me no happier. It's Patty, I decided. I didn't want Patty nor Caren out of my protective sight, not with the owner of that vindictive voice loose out there, and so I would have to solve this little puzzle with the tools at hand.

  Thankfully, Aunt Edith hadn't left me bereft in the lockpicking department, at least.

  Patty vanished into the kitchen and began banging about. But Caren stood nearby, watching me with a clinical expression, and again I nearly drowned in those eyes. Even while performing a subtle examination, she was sensuality in sandals. I forced myself back from that relational cliff — funny how I still felt comfortable with her, awkwardness had seemed more likely given our breakup — and asked the question I could not ask before Patty.

  "Caren, did you bring your kit with you?"

  The corners of her eyes crinkled. "My makeup kit?"

  She always loved scoring off me that way. Even then, it made me smile and want to banter. But Patty could walk in on us and I needed this information first. "Your little black bag, Doctor Gallardo."

  Caren sobered. "No, I didn't. Charles, I saw you shaking, just as Patricia said. How are you feeling?"

  That sounded less like the captivating woman and more like the psychiatrist, and the depth of my sudden disappointment astonished me. Caren was inherently a "soul doctor" who always understood what I was trying to say no matter how it came out, who saw through my every polite lie and let me know it. And now I remembered why I'd broken up with this gorgeous, intelligent, witty, warm woman: she was so damned empathic she scared me. It was bad enough my emotions showed clearly on my face and everyone knew how I felt; for this woman to always know what I was thinking, as well, had been simply too much.

  During our earlier, abbreviated relationship, Caren had refused to treat my PTSD. Girlfriend or doctor, she'd insisted, but not both. Now that I'd entered some sort of difficult stage — three flashbacks in one day plus extra adrenaline surges I didn't need — I was grateful she seemed willing to bend her own rules. Of course, it was also true she wasn't my girlfriend any longer. But that thought, instead of comforting me with the knowledge the doctor was truly in, instead disappointed me further.

  I pulled
a face. "If I start hallucinating, just knock me out with something."

  "That's a deal."

  After rummaging about Aunt Edith's bedroom, I found her toolkit in the back of the closet, up on a shelf where it would have been out of sight for someone of her tiny stature. The blue leather was smooth and soft, old and well-handled. I unzipped it as I trotted downstairs. Bits of elastic held picks and rakes in place on the right-hand side, slim wooden handles polished by use. The shims of various sizes and curvatures were neatly separated. A white hand towel, little more than an absorbent handkerchief, covered that side.

  And on the left were the miscellaneous tools not contained within my smaller kit: a penlight, a jeweler's hacksaw with spare blades, a few needle files, and tiny tweezers made for removing bits of broken keys from doorknobs.

  I kept the tweezers out and zipped the case shut again. It was bad enough I'd drawn Patricia's attention to my unsavory reputation. I'd leave her memories of Aunt Edith as untarnished as possible.

  Caren awaited me at the foot of the stairs.

  She held a frying pan like a baseball bat.

  I couldn't help it. I laughed. Patty stepped into the hall from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel, and giggled. Simply as that, the tension in the house shattered. Could I learn to live with a woman who knew me better than I knew myself? She wasn't the first such I'd met, and our relationship did seem to be picking up right where we'd left it off.

  "You always know the right thing to do," I said in passing.

  Caren hefted the pan onto her shoulder, like a sentry's rifle, and followed me to the front door.

  Inside the house, the deadbolt unlocked with a lever. I flipped it, pulled open the door regardless of the invitation to the resident insect life, and dropped to my knees facing the deadbolt.

  Caren slid down beside me, cradling the pan on her lap. "Explain to me what you're doing."

  With the best grace I could manage, I told her about picking the lock and how it had taken longer than normal. Patricia would pour her heart and disappointment out to Caren, it was the other reason she'd been invited over, we all knew it, so there was no sense in attempting to hide my lockpicking skills now. Little as I liked airing my secrets — and it felt like ripping a bandage off a certain hairy and private portion of my anatomy — the quicker I aired them, hopefully the quicker they'd be forgotten.

  While I spoke, I inserted the tweezers into the keyway and felt about. Her gentle, amused eyes watched me and my hands by turn, both the show and the narrator.

  "If my theory is correct," I said, "there's something inside this keyhole and it's not a pine needle — ah hah, I've got it."

  I pulled out the tweezers. They gripped half of a toothpick, broken raggedly down the middle.

  "A key wouldn't have worked very well even if you'd had one," Caren said. "How did that get in there, o man of many talents?"

  Sore as I felt, her appreciation was a balm. "It's a trick professional thieves use when they want to make certain they aren't disturbed while ransacking a house."

  "And it would have worked if you hadn't picked the lock. Charles, did the burglar pick that lock, too? Why didn't he just kick in the back door or break a window, or something?"

  I sat back and got comfortable. The porch faced south, but the big oaks in the yard shaded it from the direct sun and it was almost as cool as inside. "You're right, he could've. But he didn't. He chose an unobtrusive means of entry. And if we'd tried the knob and made a fuss when it wouldn't open, he'd have been warned and left before we walked around to try the back door."

  "Surely he realized we'd catch onto his trick sooner or later."

  "Yes, but by then our murderer would have been long gone. And I'm certain he wore gloves while he worked, so this would have gone on police records as another unsolved break-in." I tapped the tweezers against my propped-up knee.

  "Perhaps someone hired a professional burglar to search the house." She tilted her head, eyebrows up, personifying her question.

  "Perhaps, but on the phone, he said, 'They're mine.' That's personal, not professional."

  "All right, he's after something he wants for himself."

  "Something he believes Aunt Edith has." I couldn't yet bring myself to speak of her in the past tense.

  And Caren, bless her, didn't comment. "But obviously not something she carried with her. Otherwise he would have gotten it from her last night."

  A new thought wrenched my insides like a flashback. "And perhaps then she might not have been murdered." The battle for self-control wasn't one I wanted to lose in front of Caren. I fought and pushed back the raw emotions, drumming my fingernails on the porch. "Maybe she doesn't actually have what he's looking for."

  "If she told him that, he didn't believe her." With no sense of bedside manner, Caren slapped my noisy hand, not gently, then raised the frying pan over it.

  I jerked my hand to safety and wrapped both arms about my propped-up knee: if they couldn't move, then they couldn't start any more nervous mannerisms and irritate this woman while we were getting along so well. Granted, I hadn't yet answered my own question as to precisely how well I wanted to get along with her. Was I subconsciously considering dating her again? Damn it, Patty could have called someone else. Anyone else.

  But even after that battle for self-control, my clasped hands were steady about my knee. The shakes were past. I hadn't fallen apart. Even without drugs or her little black bag, this gorgeous doctor had taken care of me.

  "Laughter really is the best medicine, isn't it?"

  "Mmm." Her eyes smiled at me again.

  Impulsively, just to see how it felt, I reached out and cradled her cheek in my palm. Brown hair, soft as a child's, caressed the back of my hand, and her eyes glowed. Oh, I loved her eyes. They were so deep a man could fall headfirst into them and I usually did. Caren had this way of looking at me, not intending any flirtation — I knew that for a fact — but with a soulful brown gaze that was more intimate than sex with any other woman I'd ever known. I loved that look, but it also embarrassed me, as if I was a little boy caught doing something naughty. We'd never gone to bed, had never gotten past casual kissing because she wasn't going there until she had some sort of commitment from me; and sometimes in the still watches of the night I wondered. If her expression was this intimate during casual conversation, what would those wonderful eyes be like in the depth of passion? During my more honest moments, I wondered if that was my subconscious reason for breaking off with her: in the depth of passion, could I match her intimacy? Would I want to?

  She glanced at my hand, then back to me. I withdrew and stared at the roses. Our break-up had hurt her. She seemed accepting, even inviting, but I'd have to earn her trust again.

  "Caren—"

  "Dinner tonight would be lovely." Those crinkle lines encircled her eyes. She'd scored again.

  "Would you mind staying over for a few days?"

  Her gaze slid sideways, toward the roses, away from me.

  "I don't mean that," I said. "All right, I do mean that, too, but not this time. See, he might have gotten your license plate number. If he has any resources, that would be easy enough to trace."

  Her expression sharpened. "And you think he might come after one of us?"

  "Well, I wouldn't want him to have a hostage, especially as I don't have a clue what he's looking for. But the guest room's lovely. You'd like it."

  Caren stared at the frying pan as if it was suddenly important. I examined my fingernails, which needed trimming. It would be inappropriate to say anything about my room, of course.

  "Charles," she said, speaking to the pan, "maybe he's looking for something Edith refused to give him, even though he threatened to kill her."

  "Let's start looking." I stood and offered her my hand. "Let's see if we can figure out what was so important Aunt Edith died for it."

  Archive Three

  seventeen years earlier

  Word of my career ambition spread like a jungle
drumbeat through the first-year crowd. By the time I settled into bed that evening, nightlamp on and a boring science reader camouflaging Cartier's journal, I was the class pariah. The kid in the next bed wouldn't look at me even when I farted, which was both funny and irritating. Being ignored in large chunks got old fast.

  Heavy dusk peered through the open window above my bed, the late summer warmth laden with the scents of honeysuckle and the nearby woodland. A cricket and owl argued, as mismatched a pair as myself and my surroundings, and the last rays of the sun lit sparks from the windowpanes above my feet.

  Cartier's first journal entries were tame stuff, probably dating back to his early days at the school judging by the loopiness of the handwriting and no more than the comments anybody might make about his classmates and teachers. But as the pages passed beneath my fingers and the years passed in his life, a spikiness developed as the content and tone changed. Enthusiasm about Hardenbrook's soccer prowess gave way to comments about "that ruddy bugger and his rules," and respect for Headmaster Tufton degenerated to musings regarding his inclinations between the sheets.

  I was sophisticated enough to know what it meant. I simply wasn't mature enough to care. Besides, it rang blatantly false and I believed not a word of it. But one thing was clear even to me: Cartier's journal was utter dynamite. And it was set to explode all over him.

  I slipped the journal beneath my mattress and placed the reader openly on the nightstand, then leaned over and tugged the lamp's chain. Darkness consumed my corner of the room. The other first-years had already retired and the remainder of the dorm was black and still.

  But light still flowed into the room through the window. I peered below the panes into the night. It came from the next wing over, where a wash of lamplight escaped a set of opened shutters and window. Two heads leaned together, a frantic hand waving. One head glowed auburn, the other yellow, and for the first time in my life I felt a rush of pure hate. They sneered at us and taunted us and tried to make us fear them, simply because we were young and small. In that moment of sudden clarity I decided I didn't want to be anything like them, ever. I was glad Langstrom's sister hadn't cried.