Kissing the Beehive

by Jonathan Carroll

  There were no cars on the street when I pulled up in front of the Tyndall house. The driveway went up at a slight angle and I didn't want to risk getting stuck so I parked directly in front.

  When I got out the wind gusted snow into my face and made me close my eyes. I locked the car door and turned toward the house. Lights were on in the ground-floor rooms. I stood there, hoping to see something inside. Hoping to see my daughter standing at the window.

  A scraping down the street announced a snowplow was on the way. It was so quiet otherwise that the sound of the blade on the pavement was remarkably loud and reassuring. Like Johnny out on his march, the snowplow doing its job said, when this is all over, beyond this hour's fear, is your everyday and soon you can have it back again. I waited until the truck had passed and was ridiculously happy when the driver gave me a wave as he rumbled by.

  I took a deep breath, made fists and started for the house. The fresh snow crunched beneath my boots. I was so hot from worry I could feel myself sweating beneath the heavy coat. I said to myself, be calm. Hold your temper. Just go in there and get her back. Just get her back. Just get her back.

  The brass doorknob turned smoothly in my hand.

  I walked into the house and closed the door gently behind me. The hall floors shone with wax, the house was so cold my breath came out in plumes.

  "Veronica?"

  "In here."

  Her voice came from the living room. The room where they'd pissed on Johnny Petangles, the room where Pauline had carved on the wall. I walked in.

  Sitting on the floor in the middle of the room was Pauline Ostrova.

  Same red hair, same face, same clothes I had seen her wearing in an old photograph I kept framed on the wall in front of my desk. For a few seconds a hundred years long, everything I had known, lived, thought about for the last months went up in smoke. Everything I believed was wrong. She was alive!

  I was so overwhelmed by the apparition that it took more seconds to realize it wasn't Pauline, but Veronica made-up so perfectly that she could have fooled anyone into believing it – for a short while.

  She clapped her hands like a child and laughed. "It worked! I can't wait to tell Cass! She said you'd never fall for it but you did. You thought I was her!"

  I wanted to strangle her. "Where is my daughter, Veronica?"

  "Oh come on, give me some credit, Sam. For two seconds I had you. Did you see this?" She jumped up and ran over to the wall where Pauline had done her artwork. "Look! Pauline did it –"

  "I know, Veronica. I saw it. Is that what this is about? Is that why I'm here, so you can show me some letters cut into a goddamned wall?"

  She turned away and touched the words. Her hand slid slowly down the white wall and dropped to her side. It was the most defeated gesture I had ever seen. She stood there, motionless. "No, that's not why. But I didn't know you'd already seen it. It was going to be a little extra surprise for you." She walked back to where she had been sitting and dropped to the floor again. "I have to tell you what I discovered. It's going to change your whole book, Sam. Do you know about John LePoint?"

  I could barely contain myself and was just able to ask, "No, who is he?"

  "Edward Durant's cellmate at Sing Sing. He's still alive. I found him for you. He lives in Power, Maine. You have to talk to him. You have to."

  "I don't give a shit about the book, Veronica! I want my daughter. Just tell me where she is. Tell me and I won't say anything to anyone. No cops, nothing. Where is she?"

  She dropped her head to her chest so I could only see the lush red hair spilling down, covering everything. Another wig, another trick. "Why can't you ever just be yourself, Veronica? Why do you always have to lie or pretend you're another person?" Looking at her bent over like that, repentant again for yet another awful act, my anger took precedence over everything else.

  Her head rose slowly and she looked at me with a crooked smile that gave away nothing. When she spoke, her voice was cool and distant. "Because you were the one. The person I have loved and admired most. It began a long time ago and then for a little while it was happening. We got so close I could smell it, I could feel it in the palm of my hand! God God God!" She shuddered and closed her eyes.

  "When I realized I'd done it all wrong, again, I thought maybe I could be someone else you'd love. But I kept getting that wrong too, didn't I?" She shook her head and shrugged, defeated. "I met Cass's mother. I followed her around one day and struck up a conversation in Bloomingdale's. What a loser, Sam. What a stupid, vacuous loser she is! All Armani and half a brain. But you married her didn't you?" She slammed her open hands on the floor. The slap echoed throughout the cavernous room. The jolt to her body caused a small revolver to jump out of a dress pocket and fall onto the floor.

  I took a step backward. Mustering my courage, I managed to whisper, "Where is my daughter? Please."

  She picked up the pistol and put it in her lap. Then she took a deep breath and let it out, her cheeks ballooning. "At the Holiday Inn in Amerling. Room 113. I would never hurt her, Sam. Never. But it was the only way you'd talk to me. I saw it in your eyes the last time we were together. I thought, okay, I'll leave him alone. But then I found out about LePoint and I knew we had to talk again, just once. So I –" She tried to say something more, but the words died on the cold air.

  Amerling was only two miles away. I could be there in ten minutes. I took a step toward the door. She stood up so quickly that I didn't have a change to take step two. The gun was in her hand, pointed at my head.

  "Don't move! You have to listen to this! I've been looking and looking. I wanted to help you so much that I stopped everything else. All I've been doing is research. And I found it! I found everything, Sam! Everything you need for your book. Talk to John LePoint. That's all I'm asking. I swear to God I'll leave you alone. Just promise you'll go talk to him –"

  "I don't care about the book, Veronica. Burn it right now, right here on the floor, I don't give a damn. Let me go. Let me get Cass and take her home."

  "The only women you love are your daughter and Pauline. The only ones. You can't love anyone else. Except yourself.

  "But you know what? Your daughter likes me! She likes me a lot. That's what she said before I came over here. 'I pray you work this out with Dad.' I don't care if you believe that, because it's true. That's exactly what she said!"

  I stabbed a finger at her. "I believe you, but which one does she like? Huh? The real Veronica Lake, whoever that is, or one of those masks you carry around in your pocket like breath mints? Yeah! Breath mints, to cover up the smell –"

  "Shut up! Stop it, Sam!" She turned the gun from me and put it onto herself. "You can't love me? Fine. But I can haunt you. That's good. Second best. Good enough! You're going to watch this and I'll live in you forever!"

  "No! Don't do it! Please!"

  Her face softened and she lurched forward. At first I thought she was throwing herself at me. I heard shattering glass and saw a great jet of blood shoot out the middle of her chest. As she moved, she was hit again. Only then did I know she'd shot herself! She did it, she shot herself!

  But that couldn't be, because she had the gun to her chest and she should have gone backward, not forward, like someone had given her a hard push from behind and the blood would have gone the other way and her pistol was so small so how could there be so much blood and why was it coming from the wrong way and . . .

  After the second shot, her arms flew up. The pistol sailed out of her hand and hit me in the face. I twisted away as she pitched forward and slid a long way across the floor.

  I went down and grabbed her. Her blood was everywhere, smears, gobs. It continued to pump out, still alive, deep red and shiny.

  "Veronica!"

  Her eyes fluttered and closed.

  Deep and distant in my mind I knew someone out there had shot her but I could not move. I could not give up her body even if it meant a good chance of seeing who had done it.

  I held her and look
ed at her face – half Pauline, half Veronica. Then my mind cleared and I put my hand on her chest and felt soft ooze. No skin anymore. I was touching only warm slippery things and sharp snapped bones. I pulled my hand out and looked at the blood and viscera covering it.

  I don't know how long I sat with Veronica's body in my arms. I spoke to her for a long time. I don't remember what I said.

  When I was able to, I lowered her gently to the floor and stood up. At the door, I turned and looked back. She lay in the middle of the room. The only thing keeping her company was Pauline's old love line on the opposite wall. The two dead women in there together.

  I walked down the hall and went outside. On the porch directly in front of the door was a bouquet of flowers exactly like the ones I had received earlier in Connecticut. They were colorful and fragile against the whiteness of the snow. I should have been frightened but wasn't. Could he stand and watch me after having shot her? No, he was smarter than that. He would be driving out of town, slowly so as not to have an accident or chance trouble. I picked up the flowers and looked for the note. It said, "Hi Sam! Now she won't bother you anymore. Your daughter is at the Amerling Holiday Inn, room 113. Go home and finish the book."

  I crumpled the note and dropped it on the porch. I didn't want to touch it again. He had shot her twice in the back and left me flowers. I knelt to pick up the note but stayed hunched down, the full effect of what had happened washing over and making me sick to my stomach.

  The street was empty and silent. Darkness had come and the streetlights lit small patches through the blowing snow. Lights were on in all the neighboring houses: People were watching television, talking, drinking scotch and enjoying the coziness of being at home on a snowy night.

  I walked to my car and opened the door, then switched on the telephone and called Frannie McCabe. I told him what had happened and that I was going to the motel to get Cass. He asked me to stay where I was until he got there. I said no, I had to get my daughter. I would return when I knew she was safe. He said he'd send someone for her immediately but please stay where you are. I hung up.

  The Holiday Inn glowed welcomingly. If I had been a traveler I would have been so happy to see its familiar sign.

  When I found the room, fear squeezed my chest. I put my head against the door and knocked.

  "Yes? Who is it?"

  "Your dad."

  A very different kind of horror followed that day. Cassandra was traumatized by Veronica's death. She could not get over it, and despite being told the facts innumerable times, she still felt that my behavior toward Veronica forced her to be in that house, on that day, waiting for that bullet.

  My daughter refused even to speak to me for three weeks and when she did was cold and rude. When she finally agreed to meet, she insisted that Ivan be in the room. The girl I had for so long thought was strong and perfect was no more and no less than a very smart and fragile teenager from a broken family who for years had been holding too many things inside. No longer. Veronica's death brought them all out.

  Most of what Cass said to me was the absolute truth, which is always the hardest to bear. I had thought our love for each other was the only good, true thing in my life. The only relationship that I had worked desperately hard to nourish and protect. That was only partly true. I had made big mistakes, many of them, and now my daughter did not hesitate describing them to me.

  Today things are much better between us, but often when we are sitting together and I risk a peek at her when she isn't looking, I wonder about so much.

  It turned out Veronica Lake had no family and her affairs were chaotic. When I discovered how few people knew her well I was deeply saddened. I willingly took on the job of setting everything straight – paying her debts, arranging the funeral, closing up the very peculiar shop that had been her life.

  For a time I considered burying her in Crane's View but realized how much misery the town had caused her. It seemed she had never had peace in her life. Couldn't I do that for her now? Veronica often mentioned how much she loved the ocean and the towns far out on Long Island. After some inquiries and negotiating, I was able to find a small rural cemetery for her not far from Bridgehampton.

  Only Frannie, Magda and I attended her funeral on a very cold and colorless day. Cassandra wanted to come but her mother absolutely forbade it. The minister wore a pair of thick gloves when he said the final prayer. Watching him, I realized it was the kind of detail Veronica would have enjoyed.

  Riding back up the Long Island Expressway in McCabe's car, I asked if he remembered catching fireflies when we were kids.

  "Of course I remember – every kid does it."

  "But remember how easy it was to catch them? How tame they were?"

  I was sitting in the backseat. Magda was in front but turned around, smiling. "That's right. They really were tame. You just had to reach up and you could catch as many as you wanted."

  "But you never knew what to do with them once you caught them. You'd hold them in your hands awhile, or else put them in a bottle with wax paper over the top. But you knew they'd be dead by the next morning if you kept them in there." I looked out the window. "But we still went out every summer and caught them, didn't we?

  "That's what it was like with Veronica. In the beginning, she glowed – like a firefly – and I really wanted to hold her. But when I had her, I didn't know what to do. I've never known what to do with women. Three marriages? How can you be married three times and not learn something?"

  "Sam, don't get all nostalgic, huh? The woman kidnapped your daughter!"

  "I know. But no matter what happened, it was my fault too. I knew the minute we met she was going to be a handful. So why didn't I just leave her alone? How long does it take us to learn to keep our hands in our pockets and just watch most things fly around, out there where they belong?"

  Snow had begun to fall again outside. I watched it awhile. "I blew it, Frannie. I'm not even talking about Veronica. I'm talking about her and Cass and three wives . . . Yoo-hoo – how come none of this is working? How come everyone is saying pretty much the same thing? How come everyone you know is on the other side of this glass?"

  Edward Durant collapsed the afternoon of Veronica's death. On coming to, he was barely able to call an ambulance. In the hospital they discovered there were new things wrong with his body, all of them working in concert to kill him as quickly as possible.

  I stayed with him in his hospital room and we talked for hours and hours about Cass and what I could do to reconcile us. I realized his intense interest in our situation was due to his own failure with his son. With so little energy in his body, he would still grab my hand, look at me with feverish eyes and say, "Fix it! Use whatever you have. It's the only thing that matters."

  The investigation into Veronica's death was long and useless. All they found were two spent shells from a deer rifle. Nothing else. But I was questioned until I thought I would go mad and, good cop that he was, McCabe didn't cut any corners for me. He wanted to know everything that happened that afternoon, but whatever I remembered didn't seem to help at all. God knows I wanted to help, but certain memories stuck while others fled. How had Veronica gotten into the house? I didn't know. I remembered the way she fell, but not the sound of the two shots. Or if I saw anyone at the window behind her. I was not a good witness. More than once I saw both derision and disgust in my friend's face. I could understand why and that made me feel worse.

  I had dinner one night with Frannie and Magda. It was awkward and much too quiet to do any of us any good. I left early feeling failed and alone.

  The end of this story is full of ironies, but the greatest for me was that my estranged daughter saved me. Naturally, after Veronica's death I thought almost nothing of the book. I knew he was out there waiting, but I heard nothing from him after the night of the murder. Which was good because despite the unspoken ultimatum he had given, I could not work.

  But one day during a particularly difficult meeting with Cass, she
turned to me and asked how the book was going. It was the first time she had mentioned it and it took me off-guard. I stared at her as if I didn't know what she was talking about, then admitted I hadn't done any writing since that day.

  "So it was all for nothing? Veronica did all that work for you and found out whatever her big secret was and you're not going to finish it? You have to. You can't stop now!"

  I would like to say I went back to work with renewed purpose. But the truth is I went back to work because of the threatening look in my daughter's eye and nothing more.

  I reread the manuscript and all the notes I had taken. I listened to the tapes and stared out the window and watched as spring arrived in Connecticut. Somewhere along the line the professional writer in me took over and told me what to do. Without telling anyone, I began working day and night. One rainy afternoon I contacted the man Veronica had told me was Edward Durant's cellmate at Sing Sing and arranged a meeting.

  John LePoint lived in a town in Maine very much like Crane's View. I arrived early for our meeting and spent an hour sitting in a coffee shop wondering what was the name of this town's Pauline Ostrova – its wild girl with too many brains for her own good and consequently a fifty-fifty chance her life would be tragic.

  LePoint turned out to be a jolly old man in size-fourteen shoes who spoke about his life of crime as if it were one big joke. He regaled me with stories about break-ins and assaults, great meals and women paid for with stolen money, prison life and some of the oddballs he had known along the way. But he was "retired" now. He had a pregnant cat and a skinny son who sent him money. There was a pain-in-the-ass neighbor who he wouldn't mind seeing dead, but he was too old for that kind of shit now and besides, in jail they didn't let you choose which channel you wanted to watch on TV.