Last Chants

by Lia Matera

  “Is it really necessary to continue hiding?” Arthur wondered.

  “Yes.” I’d gone over it and over it in my mind. Until the police had a suspect in custody, we wouldn’t be safe. “We can’t keep it up much longer, but the longer we wait, the more likely . . . ” I rubbed my forehead, trying to rid myself of a headache. “If nothing’s changed by Monday, we’ll talk about coming forward. We can’t do this forever.”

  Edward gave me a tap on the arm. “Abby Hoffman held out ten years,” he pointed out. “Had his nose surgically enlarged.”

  I didn’t bother to respond.

  “But he might have drawn the line at a Prince Valiant hairdo.”

  I continued practicing forbearance. “Shouldn’t we go pick up those pictures?”

  Edward rose, gathering our breakfast debris. “Arthur, I’m going to drop you off before we get to town—not a good idea for you to show your face. I thought I’d take you to the resort so you know where it is. Let you hike around, do your thing. It’s on a piddley-ass creek about the size of this one—place is billed as a riverside resort. We’ll meet you back there around check-in time, around three, show you which cabin’s ours, okay?”

  Arthur seemed about to suggest an alternative plan. Then he nodded.

  By the time we dropped him off, I’d admonished him several times not to miss our rendezvous.

  When Edward and I reached the drugstore, it was just opening. I strolled while Edward went inside and picked up the prints.

  I could tell by his face, even at half a block’s distance, that he’d gotten a good shot of the man in the woods. He pulled the pictures out, grinning, when I joined him. At that moment, someone hailed him.

  We turned to find Galen Nelson striding toward us. Edward let the photos slide back into the envelope.

  Nelson’s brows were pinched to a tight line over his thin nose. He looked like a displeased monarch.

  So his words took me by surprise: “I owe you an apology.”

  “I doubt that,” Edward smiled.

  “I didn’t take your warning very seriously last night.” He looked more angry than repentant. “But our place got broken into, our home. Some computer components were damaged downstairs.”

  “No shit?” Edward’s shock was apparent. “Your wife’s okay? Nobody got hurt?”

  “No, we’re . . . well, very shaken up. You can imagine. We were upstairs, but we didn’t hear anything, we didn’t hear it happen.”

  He seemed to find this startling, maybe galling.

  “No alarm system?”

  “On the house? Not much of one, not like the one at Cyberdelics. But I’ll have top quality by tomorrow, I’ll tell you that. I lost a bit of work!” His lip quivered under its trimmed mustache.

  “Anything stolen?”

  “No. Just sabotage. Except . . . possibly . . . ” Nelson looked troubled, at war with his own reticence. “I’m not sure; Toni misplaces things all the time.”

  “What’s missing?”

  “Probably nothing. Toni doesn’t keep track of mere objects; she seems to feel artists shouldn’t bother.” He seemed too annoyed to elaborate.

  “What object are we talking about?” Edward pressed him.

  “If she’d go clear out her ex-husband’s garage, she’d know what was downstairs and what wasn’t.”

  “Tell me Stu’s last name again?” Edward asked.

  “Winsler.”

  “Well, here’s something you’ll be interested in.” Edward spoke quickly—burying his question under new information? “Someone broke into my Jeep this morning. Stole my camera and”—he paused for effect—“took a shot at me when I chased him.”

  Nelson looked more than merely interested. He practically grabbed Edward. “What time?”

  “Dawn.”

  “Have you been to the police?”

  “Nope. I was waiting to pick up these photos.” He held up the packet. “I recognized the burglar. I saw him in the woods yesterday.”

  Edward opened the envelope, Nelson and I hovering as anxiously as Oscar nominees.

  He pulled out three snapshots—none, I hoped, of me bending over. Topmost was a slightly blurry one of the two “backpackers.”

  Nelson squinted at it for a moment. Then he looked at Edward. “Why’d you take this photograph?”

  “I’m a private eye, remember? Alice got spooked by this Pan guy Tuesday night. I went out and snapped these yesterday morning.”

  “I thought Pan was . . . unclothed.”

  “So clothes make a good disguise. I wanted to ask Alice if Pan’s one of these guys.”

  “Is it?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “They didn’t see you take the picture?”

  Edward shrugged. “Actually, I’d guess they did. Considering this one”—he pointed at the stockier of the two—“broke into my Jeep and took my camera. Luckily, I dropped off the film yesterday.”

  “Let’s go to the police.” Nelson’s tone brooked no argument. “This might help—” He’d fanned pictures, looking at the one beneath. “Wait a minute!”

  “You recognize that kid?”

  Nelson scrutinized the photo of the young man with the shaved head.

  “It’s Joel Baker. I’m almost sure.” He looked at the third photo but seemed to find it of little interest.

  I craned my neck for a better view: It was a picture of the wood shavings we’d found near Bowl Rock.

  “Who’s Joel Baker?” Edward was staring down at the photo, a shot of the man, his lean-to, and part of his meat-smoking rack.

  “Without giving you his whole résumé—he’s been a hacker, a designer, you name it—he’s basically become an industrial spy.” His lips crimped into a sour line. “At least, that’s been our suspicion, our best explanation for how a few things jumped from one company to another.” He tapped the photo. “I’d say this confirms it.”

  “How do you do industrial spying living in a lean-to in the woods?” Edward wondered.

  “My gut feeling?”

  “Go for it.”

  “You get Billy Seawuit convinced you’re living like a Native American.” He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. “I never trusted that phony shaman.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I never trusted Seawuit. Goddamn Louis stuffed him down my throat—made me take him in. And Toni! Jesus, she thought he walked on water!” Again he tapped the photo. “Look at this hokey Indian crap!”

  Edward seemed pleased, though he hid it when Nelson glanced back up. “And the other guy, the one who stole my camera, you don’t recognize him, huh? Or his friend?”

  “No.” Nelson seemed reluctant to return the pictures. He glanced at the drugstore. “Do you mind if we take the film back in? Get a couple more sets made?”

  Edward hesitated. “If they can do them same-day. They went and closed on us yesterday.”

  “They close early on Wednesdays,” Nelson said absently. “Rhonda’s daughter has treatments. They’ll do them right away for me,” he assured us.

  “Look,” I said, “you guys have your errands and I have mine.” No way was I going to visit the police with them. “I’ll see you later.”

  Nelson shook his head. “The police will want to ask you about Pan.”

  “Edward saw him, too.”

  Edward, never slow on the draw, said, “Yeah, that’s right,” though he’d had the barest glimpse and hadn’t spoken to him. “Go ahead, Alice. Meet you back at the place.”

  I took off before Nelson could voice other obvious objections. As I rounded a corner, I thought I heard him calling me back.

  I dashed down rural sidestreets. I seemed to be doing evasive maneuvers a lot lately.

  I stopped when I noticed where my circuitous route was taking me. I was approaching the road leading to the Nelsons’. I turned back around.

  Not soon enough. I heard a woman shout my name. I glanced behind me. It was Toni. Though she wasn’t close, I recognized her size, her hair, her fisherman’s sweat
er.

  I picked up my pace, pretending I didn’t hear her. But when she shouted again, she was obviously closer. In fact, she had to be running to have covered so much ground so quickly.

  Maybe it was cowardly, I didn’t care. She was too weird for me to risk meeting her alone.

  I broke into a jog. I had visions of hurrying back into town and encountering Galen, of being trapped between them like a horror-movie heroine. I looked over my shoulder. Toni was running like an athlete, unself-consciously pumping every limb. The sight of it scared the hell out of me.

  I took a sharp turn down a road I’d never seen before. (I wondered how many tombstones bore that epitaph.)

  As I ran, my devolving brain fed me potential disasters: that Toni Nelson would claw at me, beat me with her fists, stab me with the knife that had disemboweled Billy Seawuit. It was countered by social shame: Jesus, here I was, a grown woman . . . running from someone who probably just wanted to tell me her house had been broken into.

  Whatever the reality, another glance over my shoulder told me she was gaining fast.

  I took off across a field and behind a house. Then, because I didn’t want to be alone with her in the middle of nowhere, I hesitated.

  In my moment of indecision, she pounced on me.

  She grabbed me from behind, saying, “What’s the matter with you? Didn’t you recognize me?”

  There wasn’t much point in being coy. “What do you want? Leave me alone!” I wriggled sideways in her arms, trying to see her face.

  Either my rudeness made her angry or she’d started out that way. She’d scowled herself scarlet.

  “Let go of me.” I tried to bat her hands away. “You’re always grabbing me.”

  But she didn’t let go.

  “Leave me alone.” I struggled, but it seemed to make her more determined to keep me there.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

  “Wrong with me? I didn’t punch you in the nose and pin you to the wall.”

  “I didn’t punch you in the nose. And I didn’t lie to you about who I am, either.”

  I froze for a second.

  “I know a liar when I see one!” she continued. “Maybe Galen didn’t recognize you, but I did.”

  I found my strength, wriggling free of a woman at least six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than me. I ran again.

  I didn’t believe her; didn’t believe she’d been present the day of my interview with Curtis & Huston, the day I’d first seen Galen. I’d have noticed her, remembered her. But I ran anyway.

  Whoever she thought I was—assuming her accusation wasn’t generic—that person wasn’t safe with her.

  I made for the road this time. I wanted to be around people.

  But a glance over my shoulder made it clear Toni would outrun me and overtake me before I made it.

  I pushed the thought away—I didn’t want to consider it. But I had to admit, and quickly, that I couldn’t outrun her. I’d have to hide from her.

  I veered off into a margin of oak and madrone. I was panting, nearly out of breath, my legs close to cramping. I was a good walker, but never a jogger, and it had been a tiring few days.

  But I had to make it into deeper forest, I had to take cover, that was the most I could hope for.

  I could hear her crashing along, not far behind. God, I hoped she wasn’t a distance runner.

  I grew hot in my sweatshirt. I heard myself gasping. I had to create enough of a lead to take advantage of a hiding place—if spotted one.

  Anger helped: Damn this woman. What did she have against me? Who did she think I was?

  A second later she tackled me, sending me sprawling over dried leaves and clumps of bark and dirt, over prickly berry vines and sharp saplings.

  Exhausted and in distress, I blurted out the babyish truth: “I hate you!” I cried.

  Her voice had a similar sobbing breathlessness. “I hate you, too. You liar!”

  Not since childhood had I had a fight that was based purely on antipathy and stress. We rolled and punched and cried and pulled hair. And I knew even as I succumbed that it was pathetic and stupid and fruitless, an embarrassment in every regard.

  I just couldn’t stop myself. She’d pushed me too far: I was willing to sink to her level. Hell, even lower.

  Maybe there was more to it. I’d been frightened all week: running from the police; hiding in the woods; startled by pipe-playing, Jeep-breaking, lean-to inhabiting men. I’d been forced to depend on Edward, a former boyfriend I’d barely begun to forgive. And I’d had to keep a tight rein on Arthur through all of it.

  I transferred all my frustration and fury onto Toni Nelson. I lashed out at her, hitting her anywhere I could, rolling in the duff with her like an animal. Though I’d worried about running out of energy, I suddenly had an inexhaustible supply.

  And her blows, though I registered their location and intensity, didn’t really hurt. She wore a fanny pack facing front—that did smart when it burrowed into me. But I knew she felt it, too, so I didn’t mind. In fact, I seemed to detach from my body, using it only as a vehicle to express a primal, generalized anger.

  But even I couldn’t remain irrational forever. There came a moment when self-knowledge reared its shamed face. Then temerity crept in, reminding me that the odds were against me, that I was going to get trounced, that there was no way I’d walk out of these woods the winner.

  And then, with a sudden, swooping, almost Tarzan-like entrance, Pan was with us. He appeared out of nowhere—from behind trees, I later supposed—a blur of naked, hairy flesh. I didn’t notice much more, didn’t focus on his face. I watched his vast arm reach down and yank Toni off me.

  I scooted back in the duff, so startled I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around it.

  Pan pulled her farther back, farther away from me, both his arms around her so she couldn’t hit him. He lifted her off her feet so she had no traction, no leverage.

  He’d seen her on top of me, and he’d assumed she’d attacked me—which, in fact, she had. He’d freed me from her.

  I watched him hold her as if oblivious to her wrigglings, too powerful even to stagger.

  She still stared at me, hot-eyed, red-cheeked, not seeming to care who’d pulled her off me, ready to renew the attack.

  She’d jump back on me if she got the chance, I was sure of it.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran. Ran without regard to course or direction, without regard to anything but getting out of there.

  I ran without concern for the stitch in my side or the hot pain in my lungs. I crashed over vines and through brush, doing a broken-field run around trees and stumps, down hills, and up seams of eroded dirt. I ran until I fell from exhaustion.

  Somehow the terrors and worries of the last few days had crystallized into this one morning. I’d been running on fear, not real energy.

  I lay on the ground in the middle of the forest, having absolutely no idea where I was. Every part of me hurt—my head, face, trunk, arms, legs, lungs, heart. I was so hot I thought my skin would blister.

  I felt worse in repose than I had in motion.

  I lay there groaning.

  That’s when it occurred to me: Maybe Pan hadn’t been rescuing me. Maybe he’d seen Toni as his Syrinx; maybe he’d grabbed her to ravish her.

  I sat up. He’d talked about spotting Syrinx in the woods. He’d talked about consummating an ancient longing.

  Oh God, what if I’d left Toni Nelson with an insane rapist?

  What if I’d run off—congratulating myself for having escaped—and all the while . . .

  I struggled back to my feet, lurching along like a zombie. My calves were in spasm, my body was stiff.

  I tried to scream “Toni,” but it sounded more like croaking. I did better the second time, but I got no response.

  I staggered around calling her name, fearing I’d run too fast on my adrenaline rampage; that she was too far away to hear me. Or worse, that she couldn’t respond.

&n
bsp; I was totally lost, not sure whether I was heading back or going in circles, never seeing a landmark to make me certain.

  The forest seemed unique everywhere I looked and yet exactly like hundreds of other parts I’d passed through.

  I tried to find traces of my passage: branches I’d broken, scuff marks in the dirt. But when I did see broken twigs or vines, I had no way of guessing whether I’d done it.

  I tried scanning the sky, but I didn’t know how to navigate by changing sun positions.

  Finally, I sat back down, forcing myself to catch my breath.

  I tried to reassure myself. “Pan” was really an Oxford-educated Welshman. When Arthur and I spoke to him, he’d seemed literate and restrained and perfectly gentlemanly, in his delusional way.

  But I wasn’t Syrinx, his long-lusted-after, perfect mate. And unless I’d misinterpreted him, Toni Nelson was.

  What if I didn’t find them? How would I tell the police without revealing my identity? How would I avoid putting Arthur at risk; in effect, putting him in prison forever?

  I started to panic. It would be far too late by then. I needed to find Toni now.

  I forced my knotting muscles to bear my weight. I tottered on, screaming her name.

  I could feel sweat or tears on my lips, taste it on my tongue as I called for her.

  I couldn’t stop: I’d abandoned her to a crazy man obsessed with the dryad he thought she was.

  I pushed on, barely able to keep upright, my throat raw from shouting Toni’s name.

  It was the middle of the hot afternoon before I gave up. I sat in the breezeless woods, smelling the warm duff and evergreens, insects buzzing around me, birds hopping and pecking and flying from limb to limb.

  It all looked so normal and benign. The great outdoors on a sunny, blue-sky day.

  Except that I had no idea where I was. And no idea what might be happening to Toni Nelson because I’d abandoned her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I wandered the woods, feeling desolate, unlucky, unworthy. I continued trying to console myself with Pan’s fine accent, his obvious education. But I couldn’t sustain optimism in the face of the worst possibility.

  I grew to feel jinxed, lost forever. How big could the forest be? I had trekked through oak and fir forest, shady redwoods, now hot chaparral.