The Ex

by Lutz, John

  “Sometimes, yes. You should be, too. Goodbye, Molly.”

  “Wait! Please! Will you call if you learn anything else I should know?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve done what I decided was necessary. Be on your guard, Molly. Deirdre wants what’s yours. And there’s something about her. I think she always gets what she wants.”

  “Darlene—”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. We’ve talked long enough. And don’t mention to anyone that I called. Especially David. I wouldn’t want Deirdre to find out.”

  “Why don’t you tell me some way I can get in touch with you?”

  There was only soft silence on the line. Darlene had hung up, but not before uttering, “She’s dangerous.”

  42

  Lisa Emmons had stopped for groceries that evening on her way home from Sterling Morganson. She bought food often, a little at a time, since the nearest place to buy groceries was three blocks from where she lived. That way she never had to carry several heavy bags and then lug them up the three flights of stairs to her walk-up apartment.

  She entered her apartment and, still gripping the plastic bag of groceries, backed into the door and gave it a final shove with her rump to close it.

  After fastening the chain lock, she carried the bag into the small but neat kitchen and laid it on the breakfast counter. She draped her purse by its strap over the back of a chair then began unloading the bag and putting away the perishables she’d bought—a pint of milk, half a dozen eggs, frozen yogurt, a tomato; small amounts, recipe portions for one.

  When she was finished, she got a bottle of Evian from the refrigerator, opened it, and carried it into the living room.

  That room was small, like the kitchen, and also neat, with a gray area rug, blue upholstered chair and sofa, and bookcases that a onetime boyfriend named Chuck had built for her lining one wall. On another wall were two original oils by unknown artists, which she’d bought in the Village on the recommendation of a friend who painted. Alongside a combination secretary desk, bookshelf, and TV stand hung an old-fashioned, schoolhouse wall clock that had a modern quartz movement and ran on tiny AA batteries.

  Lisa sat down on the sofa, slipped her feet out of her high-heeled shoes, and relaxed. Sterling Morganson had briefed everyone on the necessity of the fee reading department to generate more income. Lisa would be given additional duties. There would not be a commensurate increase in salary. It had been a long day at work.

  She sipped water from the clear plastic Evian bottle and again considered seeking another job. She lived alone in her one-bedroom apartment and had few bills, but in New York even a modest lifestyle was expensive. She had excellent qualifications and could possibly find a higher-paying position, but there were other considerations: security, the new health care plan the company might make available…other considerations.

  Maybe tomorrow she would check the classified ads and see how the job market looked, she told herself. She might even call a few people she knew who could furnish leads. It wouldn’t hurt to inquire.

  She smiled. She’d had this conversation with herself a hundred times but hadn’t acted on it with any real resolution. Circling want ads with a pen and calling some of their phone numbers was as far as it usually went. Once she’d gone to interview for an associate editorial position with a large publisher, but at the last moment she’d decided she couldn’t accept the job even if it were offered to her. Which, to her relief, it wasn’t.

  Well, maybe someday she’d listen to herself and take her own advice.

  When the Evian bottle was empty, she took it into the kitchen and dropped it in the container for plastics. Then she went back into the living room, picked up her shoes, and carried them into the bedroom.

  The window looking out on the air shaft was open, letting in warm air and the peculiar musty odor she suspected came from the pigeon droppings on the outside sill. The pigeons used to keep her awake at night, with their periodic cooing and flapping, but finally she’d gotten used to them and even found their presence oddly soothing. Lisa lowered the window and locked it.

  The bedroom was the size of the living room, with a tall walnut wardrobe as well as a closet. The bed had a brass headboard with white porcelain knobs, a gift from her father when she’d moved into the city. A framed blowup of a Gothic romance paperback cover illustration given to her by a writer was on the wall opposite the bed, a young woman with windblown hair and a long, flowing dress standing on a cliff looking out at a sweeping view of sea and clouds. The woman had her hand raised to her forehead, as if straining to see something far out from shore. Something in her stance and expression suggested that she yearned to sail on that sea. It was a corny illustration, Lisa knew, yet some nights in bed it comforted her to lie and stare at it until she fell asleep with the light on. She didn’t like to admit that her life was lonely.

  Still with her shoes in her right hand, she walked to the closet, opened the door, and was face to face with the woman from the office, David’s woman Deirdre.

  Lisa was shocked into paralysis. The shoes slipped from her hand and thunked on the floor.

  This couldn’t be happening!

  Deirdre was smiling and holding some sort of long-handled tool close alongside her body. A shovel, maybe. She moved it slightly and a rusty implement came into view from between two dresses—a mining tool, Lisa thought. A pick.

  This wasn’t real!

  Deirdre took a quick step forward.

  “Wha—” Lisa managed to say, before the pick struck her in the chest, knocking the wind from her.

  She was lying on her back on the floor with no sensation of having fallen, and she was having great difficulty breathing.

  She tried to roll over and found she couldn’t move. It was then that she saw the wooden pick handle extended upward at an angle from her body. She glanced down and there was the rusty pick itself protruding from her chest just below her heart.

  …couldn’t be real!

  When she inhaled, a terrible pain jolted through her body.

  She lay back and was very still, as if her life depended on an intricate balance she didn’t understand.

  “Hurts…” she heard herself moan.

  Above her, Deirdre grinned wildly and shook her head in mild disapproval. “Picky, picky!”

  Lisa saw her bend slightly and grip the wooden handle firmly with both hands. She planted her foot on Lisa’s stomach and grunted with effort as she withdrew the pick. As its long, rusty point pulled from the gaping wound, pain too severe to allow breathing or thought raged through Lisa like fire.

  Through blurred, agony-slitted eyes, she saw Deirdre raise the pick high, saw its bloody point descend in a rush toward her head.

  She tried to turn her head to get it away from the deadly arc of the pick. Pain exploded in her temple—and was gone in a burst of brilliant red.

  Then she was falling, plunging faster and faster, and everything was white.

  Then black.

  43

  Deirdre lowered the pickax and listened to her own breathing in the quiet bedroom.

  “My God!” a breathless voice said.

  When she raised her head, Deirdre saw Darlene’s reflection in the dresser mirror.

  “She wanted David,” Deirdre said to the reflection.

  “She wanted what you wanted, so you killed her.”

  “Exactly. I have the right. David was always mine, and always will be mine.”

  “You’re evil, Deirdre. You were always evil.”

  “That isn’t true! Evil was done to me.”

  “That’s not an excuse.”

  “You were lucky. You died when you were five. You stayed good. Father never had a chance to—”

  “To what?”

  “You know. Mother knew too, but then she didn’t know. So I was never good enough, never bright or pretty enough. I was never you. I couldn’t live up to you because you weren’t there to live up to. It wasn’t fair!”

  “Scarlet fe
ver wasn’t fair to me.”

  “I would have been better off dead too. Almost every night I wished I was dead. Someplace where I couldn’t be touched. At peace like you. You could never have been what they pretended. You would have been just like me if you hadn’t gotten sick and died, not some pure and perfect angel that belonged in heaven. That’s where they always said you were. When you died, I was condemned to hell. I wish it had been you in the bedroom when the door opened, and you who was forced—”

  “Forced?” Darlene smiled. “You know that isn’t true.”

  “Not after a while, maybe.” Pressure built in Deirdre’s throat and she swallowed. “You never knew what it was, never saw the blood on the sheets. I have scars, inside and outside. I look different from what I am. Sometimes people think a sexy woman is dumb.”

  “Not you, Deirdre. Nobody ever took you for stupid after they knew you for a while.”

  “But when they did think I was stupid, I made them sorry.”

  “It’s time to be honest with me. Honest all the way.”

  “I learned to do to men what was done to me. To control them.”

  “That must have proved useful.”

  “It’s still useful.”

  “What about the fire?” Darlene asked. “Remember that night? Mother and Father? It was like our house was screaming, only it was—”

  “Shut up! Now!” Deirdre stood very straight and glared.

  “You don’t like thinking about it, do you?”

  “You don’t know about the fire!”

  “Oh, sure I do. And I know about that place you ran away from.”

  “I’m not surprised by that,” Deirdre said bitterly. “You’re nosy, a spy. You’ve spied on me for a long time, haven’t you?”

  In the mirror, Darlene smiled. “You sound just like a little girl I used to know.”

  “I didn’t do what they said I did,” Deirdre told her.

  “Sure you did. But you don’t remember.”

  “Hah! Like you were there!”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Yes. Still spying, sneaking, working against me. You’ll tell the police what I did here, won’t you?”

  “Of course I won’t. We’re sisters. You more than anyone know how certain things must stay within families.”

  “Mother and Father! You’ll tell them!”

  “They know all about you, anyway. Everybody who’s dead knows all about you. I won’t tell anyone who’s alive.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Darlene’s reflection said smugly. “You can’t trust me any farther than you can know me.”

  Deirdre drew a deep breath, then turned away from the mirror and faced Darlene.

  She raised the pickax.

  Darlene didn’t move.

  Only closed her eyes and smiled.

  44

  David took care of the matter the next morning, as promised.

  He was aware of Molly watching him closely, standing in the center of the room with her arms crossed, her shoulders slightly hunched in a manner that was becoming habitual.

  “This will solve the problem,” he said, looking down at the red-handled hammer and the small box of nails he’d bought at a hardware store on Second Avenue. Hammer and nails were lying on Michael’s bed, within easy reach of Muffin’s permanently propped-open window.

  “Of course,” he said, “this is breaking the city code, interfering with access to a fire escape.”

  “We don’t have fires in this building,” Molly said flatly, “only fire alarms.”

  “Nevertheless, I bought long nails so we can leave them sticking out half an inch and I can easily pry them out with the hammer. We’ll keep the hammer on the top shelf of Michael’s bookcase, where he can’t reach it and we can get to it fast if it becomes necessary.”

  She said nothing, and he was aware of her in the corner of his vision as he wielded the hammer and drove a long nail into each side of the wooden window frame.

  “It’s always possible the faulty wiring that causes the alarm to sound might also cause a fire,” he said.

  She remained silent and solemn, ignoring his pass at irony.

  He tucked the hammer in his belt then, with effort, worked the paperback books loose that had been propping open the window. The rending action ripped the cover from the top book, a bestselling British mystery novel of a decade ago, and caused the pages of another to come loose from the binding.

  “Do you want to keep any of these?” They were used paperbacks they’d bought years ago at the Strand, and he knew they wouldn’t have been used to prop open the window if they’d had any lasting value in the first place. But he thought he’d better ask the question anyway before he condemned the books to the incinerator.

  “They’re out-of-date reference books and a couple of cozies,” Molly said. “Go ahead and pitch them.”

  He dropped the books into Michael’s painted wicker wastebasket then returned to the window. It was frozen open six inches now. Spreading his feet wide for leverage, he yanked and pulled on the sash to demonstrate to Molly that the window was immovable.

  “See, Mol,” he said, turning to her and smiling, “problem solved.”

  She simply walked from the room, saying nothing.

  He wondered if Molly knew or merely suspected that nailing the window frame had been a show for her benefit; that not even changing the locks would help. He had to find some way to stop Deirdre.

  He propped his fists on his hips and stared at the window. At least his handiwork should be good for Molly’s peace of mind.

  And they owed her some peace of mind, he thought guiltily as he laid the hammer and remaining nails on the bookshelf and left the room.

  He walked into the living room and got his sport jacket from the coat closet, then picked up his attaché case from the chair. Molly was nowhere in sight. She’d already dropped Michael off at Small Business. Maybe she was in the bathroom, or had decided to jog and was changing clothes in the bedroom.

  “I’m going, Mol!”

  There was no answer.

  More concerned than angry, David draped his jacket over his shoulder and went out the door.

  The business with the window had made him late leaving the apartment. Then someone had fallen ill on the subway, necessitating an unscheduled stop and emergency treatment, and causing all the trains on the line to grind to a halt and not move for more than an hour. It was almost eleven o’clock when he finally arrived at Sterling Morganson.

  He’d barely gotten settled in his office when Josh, carrying a tall stack of manuscripts, stopped at his door and stuck his head in.

  “Heard from Lisa, David?”

  David looked away from his flickering computer monitor. “No. Should I have?”

  “She didn’t come in this morning, and she doesn’t answer her phone.” Josh was obviously worried.

  David didn’t see any big problem here. “Call her father’s number. It’s in her file. He might know where she is.”

  “I called him. That’s what seems odd about this. He says she was supposed to meet him for dinner last night but didn’t show or call, and she didn’t answer her phone. He hasn’t heard from her this morning. He phoned back a few minutes ago and said he’d gone to her apartment but she wasn’t home, and there was no indication of where she might have gone.”

  “It’s only ten minutes past eleven,” David said. “I don’t see why you’re concerned.”

  “Her father noticed a throw rug in her bedroom where there hadn’t been one before. When he lifted it, there was a damp, dark stain underneath.”

  David looked at him more closely. “Are you saying you suspect foul play?” God, he’d sounded like one of the characters in the manuscripts that poured into Sterling Morganson.

  Josh seemed puzzled. “Well, I don’t know. But her being so late and not calling in, and standing up her father last night…it doesn’t seem like Lisa.”

  “Maybe she wou
ld have called her father this morning, but she got sick and went to see a doctor. That would explain the stain on the carpet. Also explain why she hasn’t called in yet.”

  “Waiting rooms have phones,” Josh pointed out.

  David suspected that Lisa might have gone to an early job interview somewhere and had been taken seriously enough to be asked to stay for further consideration. She was overqualified for her work at the agency and had gone job hunting before, and now she was scheduled to do more work for the same salary. He wouldn’t blame her for switching jobs.

  Josh smiled suddenly and shook his head at his own concern. “I guess it’s too early to bring in the police,” he said.

  Another line from the amateur manuscripts piling up at the agency. It was affecting them all.

  “When the time comes,” David said, “they’ll round up the usual suspects.”

  Perceptive Josh knew what he was thinking. “Maybe I’ve been reading too many unsalable mystery novels and it’s gotten to me,” he said. “Still, it’s after eleven o’clock, David. You’d think she’d have called by now. Or that she’d be home and answer her phone. I don’t know why, but I’ve got an uneasy feeling about her. It really is possible something’s happened to her and she needs help.”

  David imagined Lisa dressed in a business suit, sitting for an interview at one of the major publishing houses. “Anything’s possible. Maybe she fell in love and eloped.”

  Josh looked at him curiously, then smiled wryly and shook his head. “I doubt if that’s what happened, boss.”

  David had so many other problems that he couldn’t work up much worry over Lisa not coming in for work. “If she doesn’t turn up tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll call the morgue and all the hospitals.” Another deliberate cliché.

  “Bad joke,” Josh said. “Anyway, tomorrow’s Saturday. But if nobody makes contact with her and she isn’t here Monday, I think we’d better bring in the police.”

  “That would be Morganson’s decision.”

  “No,” Josh said, “my decision.” He went on his way, as serious as David had ever seen him.