The Snow Garden

by Christopher Rice

  A faint echo blurred the edges of his words and her head rolled forward. He kept his grip, but where he ripped at her hair, she felt only slight tugs that sent diffuse tickles through her scalp.

  “Arrogant little fuck. Can you imagine his surprise when I told him I was Randall’s father? He laughed. He laughed and he told me Randall didn’t have anyone. I knew what he meant. Anyone but him. If only he hadn’t been packing, I might have never been so brave!”

  He dropped her. Wet snow clogged her nose. He rolled her over onto her back. Her eyes wanted to fall closed, but she managed to focus on him as he crouched over her, one hand cupping the back of her head. She tried to scream, but could only curl her mouth. Life had gone from her limbs. She didn’t realize Michael was stroking her bangs from her forehead until his fingers passed over her right eye.

  “Do you really think I killed Pamela Milford for a scarf? Or does that trite summation make it easier to ignore how badly Eric betrayed me? You know, he wrote me a letter afterward. Do you want to know what he told me? It was so poetic.”

  Her lips drifted shut.

  “Of course he didn’t have the courage to just ask me to forget him. He had to rely on some sloppy metaphor. The snow garden. That’s what he called it. A place for people incapable of moving forward, incapable of letting go of their pain. He said it was the snow-blanketed lawn you get stuck in when you decide not to use the sidewalk. And once you’re there, such memories freeze you, keeping you from the present and the future. How’s that for poetry?”

  His laugh sounded distant.

  “This is my snow garden! I make something of my memories.”

  Blackness fell over the terrace.

  For a brief, panicked second, Kathryn thought she had lost consciousness. Then, next to her, she saw the snow crunch under Michael’s shoes as he leaped to his feet.

  Downtown Manhattan turned Michael into a silhouette as he stepped through the deck door, drawing Kathryn’s pistol from his pocket. With his other hand, he slid the deck door shut behind him and threw the lock. Behind him, Kathryn lay prone across the snow.

  Michael walked around in the disorienting darkness, his feet splashing several steps across the floor, making sweeps with the pistol. Finally, he caught sight of Randall watching him, standing in shadow at the top of the spiral staircase, next to the fuse box he now controlled. Randall tightened his grip on the chandelier’s rotary crank, but Michael stood still.

  “Is she dead?” Randall called, his voice echoing on the vaulted ceiling. He didn’t want to hear, but knowing the truth, if Michael told it, would make this even easier. It would be fueled less by self-preservation than the hot fire of revenge.

  “Come down here and see for yourself.”

  Closer, you fuck, he thought. Three steps closer, “Jesse was running away,” he shouted down the stairs. “And me, I don’t really exist. Not on paper, at least. But what about her?”

  Michael kept still, the gun aimed at Randall’s shadow. “Do we really have to do this in the dark?”

  “Answer me and I’ll turn the fucking lights back on!” Randall roared.

  There was a flash of muzzle flare. Randall threw himself against the wall, slamming the fuse box shut with his back. The bullet hit the spiral staircase with a hollow ring. His hand still held the crank, and he peeled himself off the wall just in time to see Michael charging across the dining room toward the stairs.

  He yanked the crank forward with all his strength, tensed his arm, and drove it through its rotation. The chandelier twisted, bobbed, and then plummeted silently. Ceramic met marble in a bone-rattling crash. Michael’s arms flew out in front of him. A shattered tentacle pinned his legs to the floor.

  The resounding crash was followed by a silence punctuated by whistling wind.

  “Michael?”

  He was answered by throaty laughter. And a muzzle flare that lit the rafter and whistled into his chest.

  He hit the wall and then carpet.

  “I’m still here, Randall!” Michael howled.

  Randall brought one hand to the second heartbeat of throbbing blood in his chest. He pulled himself to his feet by the rail. The pain was too unreal to care about.

  “I’ll be right down!” he shouted. “Just let me turn the lights on first.”

  Randall flipped open the box and threw every fuse with the side of his palm.

  Spotlights shot to life on the terrace.

  Electricity hummed and then spat as it fought its way down to the chandelier, erupting in sparks from the tattered wire.

  Blue strobes lit Michael’s body—his chest reared up off the floor, fell, and jerked again. One arm shot out from under his body, the other jerked and splashed against the marble. Strands of lightbulbs flickered inside the shattered ceramic cavities.

  Randall watched. Michael’s body gave up before the chandelier did, and after several more minutes of surging, misdirected power, the penthouse returned to darkness.

  Sirens wailed in the street below.

  Randall sat cross-legged in the snow, holding Kathryn’s head to his bleeding chest. Light flakes filled the distance between him and Jesse’s blue-veined face peering out from his tomb of wax. Kathryn gave a pained groan, managing to gather a fistful of his crimson-stained T-shirt. He released the back of her neck and her face tilted toward his.

  “Kathryn?”

  Her lips parted, puffed, but nothing came out other than breath. He lifted one hand from under her to smooth the damp hair from her face, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  “You knew me, Kathryn,” he whispered.

  When their lips met, hers gave beneath the press of his, and the tip of her tongue slipped briefly inside his mouth. He held his mouth to hers for several seconds, wondering if it was the loss of blood that made his head spin and his vision blur. Slowly, he withdrew. It took him awhile to find the strength to let go of her, and when he did he took care to lay her on her back.

  At the edge of the terrace sat an empty stone platform exactly like the one on which Jesse had been mounted.

  Randall stepped up onto it and stared down at the view Michael had selected for him. Twenty-five stories below, fire trucks formed a parade down Second Avenue, police cars emerging from the side streets to fill the gaps between them. Tim Mathis’ Jeep Cherokee was stuck in the middle of the fray. For a brief, dizzying moment, Randall pondered staying, but then the wound in his chest came back to life, pulling him out of his daze and forcing him down off the platform where he would have met his death if Kathryn hadn’t come.

  Back inside, he risked one last glance over his back and saw the dance of blue and red lights crawling up the walls of the surrounding buildings, and Kathryn, sleeping in the snow with Jesse standing over her, his arms extended as if at any moment he might leap down from his perch to rescue her.

  EPILOGUE

  The Living Ones

  May 2005

  “KATHRYN?”

  Her eyes opened and shot to the clock on the nightstand, then to the sun beating against the window shade. Around its edges, slivers of light fell across the cardboard boxes alongside the bed. She groaned in protest and rolled over, her breasts pressing against the soft sweep of his chest. In response, his fingers did a cakewalk down her spine, igniting gooseflesh as they went.

  “Coffee,” he whispered into her ear. “And then you’ve got lunch in an hour,”

  Giving up on sleep, she lifted her head, staring up into his blue eyes, still hooded with sleep, laughing, she saw his peaked blond shock of pillow hair. She smoothed the Mohawk with one hand. He leaned over, lips grazing her cheek, nibbling a bit before he withdrew. “I don’t want to make you late for your date.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  “Who is it then?”

  “Old friend.”

  “How old?” he asked, trying not to sound curious. Trying to maintain his respect for the spaces in her life she silently designated as blank. She folded her arms around his back, pressing her head against his
chest, trying in vain to pull his weight onto hers. He gently slid free from her embrace and she shut her eyes against the pillow, listening to him get up, lightening the bed. His bare feet padded across the carpet, knee colliding with box. He cursed and she laughed.

  When she rolled onto her back, he was at the door to a walk-in closet, pulling on a T-shirt. “Black or with something?” he asked. “I know you need it. You and April set a new world record last night.”

  “ With tears or vodka tonics?”

  “Both.” He turned around and raised his eyebrows to ask what she wanted.

  Short and stocky, with his round, boyish face and soft features, Ken Farlan was the kind of man she never thought she would end up living with. But they had been together for the last two years of her college career. A New England boarding-school boy who’d ridden the silver chute of money and connections into Atherton, he gave frat boys a good name, and he had enough innocence not to know what he did to her when he wore nothing but a T-shirt.

  Tim returned his attention to the closet. “That’s what the Commencement Ball’s for, I guess. Crying and vodka.”

  “What else was I supposed to do?” Kathryn said. “You and your Neanderthal friends were too busy staging a Macarena revival.”

  “It’s called the chicken dance, but I’ll forgive you.”

  “Don’t you always.”

  Ken rounded the bed and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. She reached up to stroke his back, but before she could pull him down to the bed, he planted his palms firmly on the mattress on either side of her chest. “You and April were off in your own world. I didn’t want to interrupt.” He kissed her forehead. “I didn’t mean to neglect you.”

  She smiled and cupped his chin.

  The night before, with the McKinley Ballroom packed with graduates in evening gown, and black ties that loosened with each drink, April got up enough drunken courage to take Kathryn by the arm and lead her out onto the mostly empty terrace to give her a graduation gift. April watched intently as Kathryn tore open the manila envelope and tipped it: Sliding into her hand were two construction paper signs bearing the names of Randall Stone and Jesse Lowry. When Kathryn looked up, April’s eyes were bloodshot.

  “It’s stupid, I know. It was just right after I went out and took their signs ’cause I couldn’t stand the thought of some RA just coming and ripping them down, you know?” Once she noticed that Kathryn had been struck dumb, she added quickly, “I’m sorry. I mean ... I didn’t even think I was going to give them to you. Unless I got really drunk ...”

  April’s alcohol-loosened sobs left her trembling. Kathryn needed several seconds before she got her wits about her and managed to hug April.

  For Kathryn, the solitude that followed that night in the Bowery Tower, of holding in all the horror she had witnessed, had forced her to forget that Randall and Jesse had been known and grieved for by others.

  Once she found her breath, April managed, “It’s not like I was even their best friend. And it pissed me off afterward when everyone was pretending like they knew them just ’cause they’d been on the news. I didn’t know either of them as well as you did. But it’s like now that we’re all leaving, we’re leaving them forever. You know?”

  As he stood over the bed, Ken stared down at her, curious, absently brushing hair back from her forehead with one hand. “You gonna miss it?”

  “Atherton?” Kathryn asked. “Hell, no. We’ll be back here in a year anyway. Swigging weak drinks at some reunion while the Alumni Association tries to milk us for half our paychecks. Five whole dollars. Wow.”

  “That would be your paycheck, Ms. Guidance Counselor.”

  “That’s social worker to you, asshole,” she retorted with a drowsy smile.

  “I meant this place,” he said softly, shrugging at the room around them. “This was our first place. We have to tell our kids about it, right?”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find someplace worse in Seattle.”

  He laughed.

  She swung her legs to the floor and located her bra, dangling from the bedside lamp. “Nice aim,” she remarked.

  “We’re meeting your parents at eight.”

  In the closet, Ken pulled a pair of jeans up over his bare ass. “Ken!” she barked.

  “What?”

  “We graduated already. Enough free-balling.”

  “Most of the guys are doing it till the end of the week,” he whined.

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “You spoil all my fun,” he muttered as he left the room.

  She snapped the hook of her bra, started scanning the debris of yet-to-be-packed possessions on the floor. Dishes clattered in the kitchen. “Ken?”

  “Yeah?"

  He was back in the doorway.

  “It's Tim Mathis. The guy I’m meeting for lunch. That’s who it is.”

  Ken nodded. “The guy who drove you that night?”

  “Yeah.”

  She could sense his gratitude at being told and included. But the small moment allowed her to recognize how much she had left to tell him.

  “Coffee,” he repeated, shuffling into the kitchen.

  Jean Pierre’s was packed with recent graduates and their proud families. Parents debated ordering lunchtime bottles of champagne; younger siblings fidgeted and slid out of their chairs. Kathryn followed the hostess toward the wall of plate-glass windows. Sailboats cut white trails through the sun-speckled whitecaps. Across the bay, the shore was dotted with Tudor-style cottages, their windows revealed in anticipation of summer.

  Tim Mathis scrambled up from his chair when he saw her, pulling his napkin off his lap at the last moment. She slowed her steps, noticing the brown leather portfolio resting against the leg of his chair. Gone was the bicycle chain he always used to wear around his neck. His peroxide hair was now a dull shade of red-brown, brushed forward and free of gelled spikes. A rumpled oxford puffed beneath a lightweight blue blazer. Almost as formal as her pleated skirt and short-sleeved top.

  He took a step toward her, then stopped when he saw her extended hand, the only gesture she could offer to bridge the three years since they had last spoken to each other. “Congratulations,” he said with a too-broad smile, taking her palm.

  “Did you go to the ceremony yesterday?”

  “I took the train up just this morning.”

  As she sat down across from him, focusing all of her attention on her napkin, smoothing it over her lap with too much care. “You look great,” he said, his words finally drawing her eyes to his..

  She nodded as if she wasn’t so sure, and smiled.

  “So what’s next for you?”

  “Seattle. My boyfriend got a job there.”

  Tim arched his eyebrows. “What?” she asked. “You thought I’d never find one?”

  He forced a smile. The slight edge to her voice betrayed her suspicion that this was anything but a meeting of old friends. Tim, ever the reporter, had a mission, and when he didn’t rush to fill the gap in conversation, her suspicion was confirmed.

  “What does your boyfriend do?”

  “Investment analysis. I know. Don’t leap out of your chair.”

  “No. I remember. Those companies come on campus a couple months before graduation and recruit like hell.”

  “Not you, though,” she cut in. “I’ve been following you. I read your piece on New York’s Civil Union Law. Good stuff.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell my editors. They’d be happy to know we’ve expanded our demographic. Christ, take one look at our ad pages and you’d think the only ones who pick up a copy of Ideal are gay bon vivants with swollen bank accounts and no dependents.”

  She laughed appropriately and looked to the window. She was blinded by the sun. A good enough excuse to take her sunglasses out of her purse and hide her eyes from him. He clasped his water glass with both hands as she slid on her shades. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s bright...”

  Now a light shade of sepia, Tim nodded
. When he bent back in his chair and reached for the portfolio, she spoke. “Don’t bother, Tim. I’ve seen it. It’s not him.”

  Halfway to the portfolio, his arm stopped. It took him a second to settle back into his chair. “Maybe you could use a closer look.”

  “He had five minutes to get out of the building before it was flooded with firemen and half the NYPD. And he did. You don’t really think he stopped to change his outfit and dye his hair, do you?”

  “It was a big building,” Tim answered, his smile bright. “The surveillance camera image was taken three days later.”

  “Yeah, after half the country saw his picture on TV, you expect me to believe he waltzed into the middle of a bank, in full view of the camera, and no one spotted him. I don’t think so.”

  “Point taken,” Tim said to the tablecloth.

  The surrounding laughter seemed suddenly distant, and she shifted her gaze back to the window and the blue green expanse of the Atlantic visible at the mouth of the bay.

  “Listen,” Tim began. “I thought maybe we could talk about that night.”

  “You’re late,” she said as gently as she could. “It’s been over three years. Not to mention the fact that the police held me in New York for three weeks and I never heard a peep from you. Never mind when we’re both still students. Why now?”

  Absorbing her challenge, he sat back in his chair as he pondered whether or not to meet it.

  “You were copping to the murder of a homicidal maniac. Considering that the court of public opinion was in your favor, I didn’t think you were hurting for my moral support. But let me propose a toast. To Kathryn, who had the dubious distinction of adding death-by-chandelier to the roster of murders committed in self-defense.”

  When she laughed, his face told her it wasn’t the reaction he desired. He set his water glass back down onto the table and bent forward. “Come on, Kathryn.” His voice was soft but insistent. “Ben Collins, a.k.a. Randall Stone, is still at large. And thanks to you, he isn’t wanted for anything more than leaving the scene of a crime. You were the last person to see him. I thought after this long you might stop covering for him.”