by G. H. Ephron
“I’m not that kind of doctor.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said, chuckling unpleasantly. “You’re the memory doctor. You and your stupid tests. Syl really has the hots for you, you know.”
I’d already started walking over to the phone on the wall beside the refrigerator. I picked it up, hoping to hear the reassuring buzz of a dial tone. Instead, I heard the echoes of an empty seashell. No wonder I hadn’t been able to call Sylvia Jackson back. Then I heard the door from the kitchen to the garage close.
“Is there another phone?” I asked.
“It’s not working? Oh, my, I guess we’ll have to get that fixed,” Angelo said.
“I have a phone in the car,” I said, and started toward the front door. But like a ninja, Angelo materialized in front of it. He stood there, feet apart, knees and elbows flexed, a small gun in his hand. Though he held the gun loosely, pointing it toward the ground, I sensed that every tendon in his body was taut. A jack-in-the-box, he was ready to spring at the slightest nudge.
He smiled at me. His eyes glittered with anger. They were nothing like the flat, lifeless eyes of Ralston Bridges. I had no doubt that the gun was real and loaded. And that Angelo wouldn’t hesitate to use it. But for some reason, I wasn’t afraid. I felt hyperalert. As if I’d been rowing long enough for the endorphins to kick in and create a center of calm, an ability to focus completely on the task at hand. For a brief instant, I even imagined myself neatly kicking the gun from his hand.
“Don’t even think about it,” Angelo said, reading my thought.
I held his gaze as we stood, face to face. A rustle of movement broke the spell. Then footsteps. A connecting door pushed open and Maria Whitson appeared.
I took a step toward her and stopped. “Thank God you’re safe,” I said.
“Dr. Zak. What are you … ? Why are you …?” she stammered. She seemed surprised and something else that could have been afraid. She wore black leggings with turquoise stripes up the sides and a matching windbreaker. A black sweatband held her hair back from her face.
“Come here, doll,” Angelo said, stepping over to her and pulling her toward him. Their wedding picture flashed briefly into my mind. Just as in that carefully posed photograph, Angelo wound his arm tightly around Maria. She was the prize, and he her owner. Once again, I wondered if she’d left that album open on her bed so I’d know who’d taken her.
“Everyone is worried sick about you,” I told her.
“I’m fine,” she said woodenly, each word occupying the same amount of time and space as the next. “Much better, in fact.”
“I’m sure they’ve called the police by now,” I added.
“Shit,” Angelo hissed.
“I told you, you should have let me call the hospital,” she told Angelo.
Then Angelo turned on me, seeming to grow larger. “I knew I should have gotten rid of you a long time ago,” he said. “If you’d just stayed out of it, Doctor, our friend Stuart would have been convicted. That would have been the end of it. But no, you couldn’t leave well enough alone. Fuck you!” His angry look turned to scorn as the gun rose. “You poor, stupid sonofabitch.”
I still felt eerily calm. As if this were all a movie. Breathe evenly, I told myself, and maintain eye contact. “You don’t have to do this, Angelo,” I said, as if we were sitting in my office having a chat. “I know you thought there was a reason to kill Tony Ruggiero, but …”
“What do you know about that?” he snapped.
“I know you thought killing him was justified. Revenge …”
“Uncle Nino,” Angelo jeered. “There’s no more Uncle Nino now, is there? We fixed that, didn’t we?”
I wanted to ask, “Who’s we?” But I thought better of it. What mattered at that moment was getting Sylvia Jackson safely whisked away to a hospital, getting Maria away from here, and getting Angelo put away so he couldn’t hurt either of them.
“But Syl’s different, isn’t she?” I droned on, keeping one eye on the gun he still held aloft. “You know as well as I do, there’s no reason to kill her. She doesn’t remember anything. And she never will. You took care of that when you shot her in the head.”
“She has to die. Like he had to die.” It was Maria Whitson, not Angelo, who said the words that trickled like ice water down the back of my neck. She stared at me wide-eyed. “She was his girlfriend. They both had to die.”
Her eyes were bright. Her pupils were pinpoints. I wondered what she’d taken. And suddenly, I understood. I understood the hurt that the young Maria Whitson had felt when she found her uncle, the young man whom she adored, having sex with his girlfriend. It was a betrayal she had never gotten over. Her recovered memories of sexual abuse were only stand-ins for the real nightmare. Take them away and the malevolence she felt toward her uncle and toward his lovers remained intact.
“You loved your uncle very much, didn’t you?” I said.
“What are you jabbering about, asshole?” Angelo spat.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Maria said calmly, her look defying me to contradict her. She took a half turn to face Angelo and said in a flat, lifeless tone, “Uncle Nino raped me. He did it over and over again. We killed him because he deserved to die.”
Did she really believe this? Was she holding on to this version of her life because she couldn’t do otherwise? “But Sylvia Jackson didn’t do anything,” I said. “Let me call an ambulance while there’s still time. She doesn’t deserve to die. You don’t have anything to worry about, you know. She’s not going to remember.”
Maria started to say something but Angelo interrupted. “Don’t tell him anything. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“But you were afraid she’d remember,” I told Angelo. “You’re still afraid. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you didn’t tell her your real name. As long as she thought your name was Ruggiero, you knew you were safe.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Angelo said.
“Maybe it was something she saw.”
The jeering smile on Angelo’s face froze.
“She saw what I needed her to see,” Maria said.
“Don’t answer him!” Angelo screamed.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Maria said with a little half-smile. “Soon it will all be over.”
“What was it that she saw? What was it that you’re so worried she’s going to remember?”
“Everything,” Maria said simply.
Angelo howled, “No!”
But it made no difference. Maria stared at me defiantly and continued. “I held a knife to her throat while we watched Angelo take care of Uncle Nino. Didn’t we, Angelo? We watched from the stairs.” So Syl had watched Tony being beaten. Only not from the stone steps of the tower. From the stairs of her own home. “But I didn’t go to the cemetery with you. You went alone. That’s what happens when I let you do something without me,” Maria fretted, “it doesn’t get done right.”
“Why the cemetery?” I asked. “Why not finish Sylvia Jackson off right here?”
“Nino and I had unfinished business,” Maria said. “Personal business.”
“That’s when you confronted him. He was still alive, wasn’t he?”
“He was bleeding to death right here.” Maria pointed to the bare floor in front of the fireplace. “He still wouldn’t admit what he’d done to me. He said none of it happened.” Angelo was silent, as if hearing this for the first time. “Then he’s bargaining with me. He’ll admit to anything if only I’ll call an ambulance. He didn’t want to die. In the end, he was crying, saying he was sorry. He couldn’t remember but he was sorry. He was so pale.” She looked up at me hollow-eyed. “It’s not like in the movies, you know.”
“What isn’t?”
“Death. It’s not like you gasp, say something profound, and then roll your eyes back and shudder a few times. He just lay there for hours, making this sound in the back of his throat. I don’t even know if he could hear me, but
I kept on talking. I told him what he’d done to me. I kept hoping he’d open his eyes and remember. But the bastard just lay there. When Angelo got back, Nino was still alive. Angelo wanted to shoot him one more time to end it, but I wouldn’t let him. I kept watching him. I wanted to see him go from living to dead. But it was Angel who noticed first.”
I knew we’d turned a corner and there was no going back. No wonder Maria couldn’t allow herself to accept her uncle’s innocence. And now, she and Angelo couldn’t let me go free, knowing what I knew. One man had already died in this room. Whatever happened, I was not about to go quietly.
“There never was a camouflage hat, was there?” I said, wanting to know and playing for time.
Maria stood and smiled at me slyly. “But Syl saw Stuart wearing it. She swears she saw it.”
“Angelo planted that memory, didn’t he? And then one of you planted the hat.”
“It was Tony’s hat,” Maria said. “Isn’t that just perfect? Angelo hides Tony’s hat in the back of Stuart’s closet and Sylvia Jackson sends the police over to find it.”
“And then you made sure it had some of Stuart’s hair in it.”
Maria smiled and nodded. “Angelo’s so clever. Collected some from the shower drain.”
“I wondered where the pills came from that almost killed Sylvia Jackson,” I continued. “They were yours, weren’t they? Courtesy of Dr. Baldridge. And when that didn’t work, you needed to make sure I’d never convince a jury that Sylvia Jackson’s memory was flawed, constructed. Running me over with the boat doesn’t put me out of commission, so you have to try something else. You get yourself admitted to the hospital as my patient. When we discover that you’re the victim’s niece, my testimony becomes inadmissible. Mistrial. What an incredible coincidence, everyone would say, but these things happen. That was very risky, taking all those pills. But you wanted it to look authentic.”
“I’m an expert when it comes to pills,” she said. “Just enough and not too many.”
“I should have seen through it. Baldridge has never referred a single patient to us.”
“He’s so”— Maria searched for the word— “suggestible. I’ve learned to rely on doctors and their egos.”
“What about Gloria? Gloria really cares about you, you know.”
“Gloria really cares about you, you know,” Maria mimicked me in a whiny voice.
“Was Gloria’s accident your idea, too? Did you help her slip and fall?”
“Shut up.” Maria chewed on a nail and watched me from slitted eyes.
“Didn’t you have a friend who had an unfortunate accident? Slipped and fell down the basement stairs?”
“How do you … ?” Maria whispered.
“What was it that poor girl did to make you angry?”
“That little cunt,” Maria spat out the words. “She deserved it.” Maria stared at me and licked her lips. Her eyes flitted around the room, resting briefly on Syl’s inert form before returning to me. “She humiliated me. She told everyone that I had a thing for Mr. Jaffy. Like it was some kind of a joke. She made it seem — stupid. Do you know what those assholes did? They told the principal. And he hauled me into his office. They thought we’d done something in-app-ropriate,” she said, holding her nose as she whined each syllable. She snorted with disgust. “I prayed for something bad to happen to her. Something really bad. And it did.”
“Think about it, Maria. Praying and pushing are two very different things. You didn’t push her down those stairs. You weren’t even there when it happened.”
“I did it. I pushed her.”
“You didn’t. Your mother told me you couldn’t have. You had a dentist appointment.”
“Right. My mother has an excuse for everything.”
“She dropped you off at your friend’s house after a dentist appointment. That’s when you found your friend. You came running out of her house — there wasn’t time for you to push her.”
Maria put her hand over her mouth. “Braces,” she murmured. “I remember. I had my braces tightened.”
“You might have thought about it.”
“I wanted to hurt her.”
“You might have planned every detail. But planning and doing are two different things.”
“It was my fault,” Maria insisted.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
There was a long pause and a deep breath before Maria asked, “I didn’t hurt her?”
“You might have wanted it very badly. And then, when she really did get hurt, you felt guilty about wanting it so much. But you didn’t hurt her. You didn’t do anything.”
Maria whispered, “I didn’t hurt her.” This time, it was a statement.
“Sometimes, bad things just happen, Maria. Even if you imagine them, wish for them, it’s not your fault when they happen. But Uncle Nino. That’s a different story. You prayed for it and then you got Angelo to do it for you. And you were afraid of what Sylvia Jackson would remember, so Angelo had to kill her, too. And Gloria? I wonder. What was it? A good strong push? Maybe a squirt of detergent? Is that why you needed to clean up the floor afterwards? To hide the soap slick?” Maria stared at me, her mouth open, her eyes wide. “It must have been hard. All that blood. Just like when Nino died, wasn’t it?” Maria’s face was without expression but her cheeks were wet with tears. “You can stop, Maria. You don’t have to keep going down this path. You’ll only self-destruct this way.”
Maria rocked gently forward and back, her arms hugging her body. “Self-destruct, self-destruct,” she repeated in a quiet singsong.
“Sorry, Doc.” It was Angelo. He came up behind Maria and put an arm around her waist. The rocking stopped. With the muzzle of the gun he stroked her cheek. “No way, babe. There’s no stopping now. The only way to walk away from this is to complete the circle. He knows. And one day, she’ll remember.”
Maria rubbed her cheek against the muzzle of the gun, like a cat rubbing against a favorite chair leg. Then she faced me and her eyes hardened. “They’re always trying to take what belongs to me,” she said. Angelo loosened his grip on her. She walked over to the unconscious Syl, stooped down, and whispered into her ear, “And I won’t let them.”
Syl was growing paler by the minute. I couldn’t afford to let the clock keep ticking. Whatever they’d given her was slowly shutting her down. “I’m not alone,” I said. “There’s someone waiting outside. And they’ve already called the police.” I hoped it was true. “So if you kill us, the police will know exactly what happened.”
Angelo leveled a look at me. “You’re lying.”
“See for yourself.” I gestured toward the living-room window. “There, on the street. In the Jeep.”
Angelo sprang, twisted me around, and pinned my right arm behind my back. Pain arced through my shoulder and down my arm. He jammed the barrel of the gun into my ear and shoved me toward the front door. “We’ll just see, why don’t we? Open it,” he ordered. When I didn’t react fast enough, he tightened his grip on my arm. I groaned as my arm tried to separate itself from my shoulder. “Open the door,” he repeated, enunciating the words distinctly and punctuating each one with extra pressure on the gun.
With my free hand, I strained to reach the doorknob and turn it. The door remained in place. Angelo eased his hold. I tried again. This time the door yielded. He whipped me away and wedged his body between the door and the frame. Then he pulled me through the narrow opening. Halfway down the ramp I tried to wrench myself free, but Angelo held on tight.
“Pull that again and you’ll be sorry, so help me God,” he promised.
Angelo propelled me toward the Jeep. I prayed that Annie wasn’t inside. He mashed my face up against the driver-side window. The metallic smell of dust filled my nostrils. Annie’s leather jacket lay on the driver’s seat. Angelo moved me aside and peered in through the window. He took the gun out of my ear long enough to yank the door handle. The door was locked.
Just then the front door of the house
cracked open. “Angelo?” Maria cried out. “Angelo, what’s happening out there?”
“There’s no one here,” Angelo called back to her. “I think he’s playing for time.”
Angelo pushed me back toward the house. Maria met us halfway down the ramp. “You know what we should do now?” she said. “Take them both to the cemetery and put an end to this, once and for all. Finish it the way it should have been finished in the first place. The way we planned it.” The cold words belied Maria’s quavering tone. Her voice pleaded with him. “Then we can be together, you and me — the way it was meant to be.” Maria sobbed and held her arms open. Angelo released me with a shove.
I stumbled and ended up on my knees on the lawn. When I looked up, Angelo was embracing Maria with one arm while the gun still pointed firmly at a spot between my eyes. Where was Annie? I lowered my head and massaged my arm while I tried to decide what to do next.
I staggered to my feet and took a few steps to one side. Maybe I could make a run for it.
“Stay right where you are, Doctor,” Angelo growled.
I caught a glimpse of something just around the corner at the base of the house. I edged over as Angelo bent and touched his lips to Maria’s neck and crooned, “We belong together, Maria. I need you with me.”
I smothered a gasp. What looked like a human body lay crumpled and broken in the driveway at the side of the porch. I strained to see more clearly. It took me a moment to put it together. If the scarecrow dummy was lying dead in the driveway, then what was sitting in the aluminum lawn chair alongside the front door?
“Come on, my Angel,” Maria said softly, “let’s finish this.”
The gun wobbled as Angelo took his eyes off me. Maria turned and walked toward the front door. With one hand on the storm door, she paused. I held my breath as she looked directly at the slumped-over scarecrow dummy. “What the—?” Maria said, taking a step back. Slowly, the scarecrow raised its head. Maria shrieked in terror as the scarecrow rose to its feet.
Angelo bellowed, “Look out!”
Maria spun around to face him. He took aim at the scarecrow. Maria stared at the barrel of the gun. She took a deliberate step sideways, then another. Angelo racked the slide. There was a click as a round was jacked into the chamber. One more step and she’d have put herself directly in the line of fire.
