New Title 1

by Carol Davis Luce

  "Winnie, schminnie, I don't know names," Klump said caustically. "The black one."

  "Oh." Blackie, Alex thought, feeling a heavy disappointment.

  "Your damn cat's been prowling around my bird feeder, stalking the birds. He appears, thank heavens, to be a stupid, clumsy bastard. But he could get lucky."

  Poor Blackie, Alex mused. Four years ago someone had taken two kittens for the "Big Ride.” She had found them, scrawny, half-starved, wandering along the ridge, mewing pathetically, and had taken them in. In all that time neither Blackie nor Winnie had stirred the community's ire. But now, two complaints in one morning—uncanny.

  Concerned about Winnie and still upset over the incident with Sloane the night before, Alex was in no mood for this pettiness. Seeing Klump pedaling up the driveway hadn't sweetened her disposition any either.

  "Your complaint is duly acknowledged. I'll file it along with the 'disturbing the peace' complaint of last night.”' She began to walk away.

  "I don't like your kind, Mrs. Carlson."

  Alex stopped, turned back around. "Oh? And what kind, am I, Miss Klump?"

  "I don't like cats either. I have a pellet gun and, by God I'll use it. I give you fair warning." Klump coasted down the driveway. Over her hunched shoulder, she shouted, "I give you fair warning, Mrs. Carlson. Bell that damn cat!"

  Several hours later, wearing white shorts and a tube top, Alex was stretched out on a lounge chair at Margie's. Indian summer had come to Nevada in October. The sun's rays warmed and relaxed her. The poolsweep was making soft, rhythmic sounds that lulled her. Margie, reclining in the shade of the patio, was not as considerate.

  "Okay, out with it.” She used her Nurse Ratchet tone, sweet yet commanding.

  "Whatever do you mean?" Alex said, sitting up to adjust the tube top. She avoided Margie's eyes.

  "I walk into your house to find you shredding rose petals with the subtlety and refinement of a lunatic. I doubt very much that the roses did something to piss you off, so that leaves the bearer of the roses. What happened?"

  "Nothing."

  "Alex?"

  "I already told you. Winnie's missing, and old lady Klump's on the rampage again. The yard guy was bitching about Blackie. Oh, yes, by the way, 'them monkeys of yours been climbing the apple tree again .. — she mimicked Hawkins —" 'One of them branches was near broke off.' Also the screen was off my window and —"

  "Did he lie to you? Was he married after all?"

  "I have no idea.”

  "Did he uh . . . get a little too friendly?"

  Alex turned to Margie, their eyes met and held; then Alex, articulating each word carefully, said, "He tried to rape me.”

  Margie sat up slowly. "Oh my God, Alex—no."

  "Yes."

  "Are you sure?"

  Alex buried her fingers in her hair and squeezed her palms against her temples. "Jesus, Margie.”

  "I'm sorry, honey." Margie came over to sit beside Alex. "Of course you're sure. It's just that—God, he seemed like such a nice guy. Handsome, suave .. . uh . . . uh . . . well, shit, a megamarvelous man.”

  "Yeah. I know what you mean."

  "Did you call the police?"

  Alex shook her head. "It was so . . . so . . . First it was scary. Then it was . . . degrading.”

  "That sonofabitch. You should've called the cops on him. What if he comes back and tries again?"

  Alex hesitated before saying, "I'll shoot him." She felt Margie staring at her. She turned her head to look her friend in the eye. "I'll shoot him.”

  They studied each other briefly; then Margie pressed a finger to the red skin of Alex's thigh. "C'mon, let's get you out of the sun. You're burning."

  After dinner Alex played a game of Scrabble with Junior and Stevie, and then, refusing the Meachams' offer to spend the night, she said her goodbyes and drove home.

  The sun had set. The magenta sky above the mountains graduated in hue to a deep Prussian blue. Clouds, looking like strips of gauze, glowed pink. Alex parked in front of the house. She called out Winnie's name several times before unlocking and opening the front door.

  "Blackie," she called, switching on the foyer light. "Hey, guy, if you've got to go, better get your scrawny tail out here."

  Blackie let out a mournful mew and dashed out of the bedroom. His short fur bristling up along his back, his tail fat and stiff like a black bottlebrush, he disappeared out the door into the night.

  It wasn't like Blackie to go out without greeting her. The hair rose on the nape of her neck. Her sunburned skin suddenly felt icy. She looked first through the open front door, then down the hallway to her room. Every nerve in her body tensed. Her muscles began to twitch like a handful of Mexican jumping beans. I shouldn't go in there, she reasoned, as she put one foot in front of the other, heading toward that room. She thought of the old horror movies she was hopelessly addicted to, and how she hated the part where the nosy heroine creeps silently down the dark passageway or cellar steps to certain doom — Todd used to say that anyone that stupid deserved to die. Then she was standing in the bedroom doorway.

  Alex fumbled for the wall switch and flipped it up. With the sound of her pulse beating in her ears, she gripped the doorframe and stared into a room of total chaos.

  Sweaters, underwear, shorts, and tops — torn or sprayed with black paint — hung over the edge of the drawers and littered the floor. On the queen-sized bed, which sat on a raised platform, lay the drawer from the night stand, its contents scattered across the quilted spread. The spread had been slashed repeatedly. Perfume bottles lay smashed on the floor at the base of the wall they had been hurled against. The room reeked of a hodgepodge of cloying scents.

  Alex's feet, independent of her brain, continued to move forward. Illustrations from her worktable in the studio alcove were cast haphazardly on the floor. Pencils, pens, and an assortment of art paraphernalia lay in a pool of black India ink. A rivulet of the indelible liquid had flowed to the edge of the table and then puddled on the ceramic tiles below.

  She began to back up. Out of the corner of her eyes, she detected a movement to her left. Fear gripped her like a cold, scaly hand on the back of her neck. She whipped her head in the direction of the movement and stared into wide, frightened eyes. A sharp cry leaped out of her mouth. It took her a moment to realize that the image-- hair fastened in a twisted knot atop the head, skin glowing—was a reflection of herself in the closet mirror. Alex's body sagged limply, then tensed again. Scrawled across the full length of the mirror, in what looked like blood, were the words: "the monsters are waiting.”

  Something so intense, so terrifying, flashed across her mind that she gasped. Oh God, no. No, it's not possible.

  Chapter 2

  She felt numb, drugged. She should call someone. Get help. Now of course, she told herself, was the time to call the police.

  Alex crossed the room to the telephone. The base of the phone lay on the bed; its coiled cord hung over the edge and out of sight. For the first time since entering the room she became aware of a muffled, consistent beeping coming from under the bed. She wondered how long that beeping tone would continue on a phone left off the hook. Several minutes? An hour? Indefinitely? She knelt cautiously and peered under the bed. The green glow of the receiver's night light met her eyes like a rescue beacon.

  Taking hold of the cord, she dragged it out from under the bed, pressed the button to silence the beepbeepbeep that seemed to be keeping perfect time with her heart, and dialed the police.

  "My house — broken into:" she croaked out.

  "Give me your name and address, and don't hang up until I terminate this call," a deadpan voice responded.

  After sputtering over the familiar information, Alex asked, "How long will it take someone to get here?"

  "Hold the line." Alex heard static, the dispatcher's voice talking to someone else, after what seemed like an eternity, "Two cars are responding now. They're in the neighborhood. Ma'am, is there anyone in the house with
you?"

  "No, I live alone."

  "Can you go to a neighbor and wait for the patrol cars?"

  "No, there are none close by."

  She heard the sirens in the distance.

  "I think they're coming now I can hear them." The sirens wailed, getting closer, coming up to the house. Through the open front door she could see red and blue lights swirling around and around, throwing an eerie glow over the outdoor landscape. Blue, then red passed alternately across Alex's body, making the veins in the back of her hand appear prominent and the pallor of her skin a sickly hue. Car doors slammed. She watched a uniformed policeman bound up the brick steps and halt in the doorway with a hand on his holstered revolver.

  "They're right out front,” Alex said to the dispatcher.

  "This call is now terminated."

  She hung up, rose from the bed, and hurried to meet the police. Halfway down the hallway, she slowed. The same policeman who had been out to the house the night before stood in the doorway. The one Greg had insulted. He stared at her silently.

  Another policeman came up behind him and leaned in toward her. "We got two officers checking out the grounds, ma'am. Are you all right?"

  "Yes:"

  "What happened?"

  "Somebody . . . or maybe several of them . . ." She waved a hand in the direction of the bedroom. “Come in, see for yourself."

  "Did you see anyone leaving the premises?"

  She shook her head.

  "Okay, we'll have a look," he said, removing the gun from his holster.

  The two officers checked through the house, one room at a time, starting with the master bedroom and then proceeding to the lower level. She followed behind them, not knowing what else to do, too nervous to just sit.

  "Hey, Adams — Gunther," someone shouted from upstairs. "Come check this out."

  The owner of the voice, standing on the deck that ran the length of the kitchen and dining room, waved an arm through the broken pane in the window over the double sink.

  "Watch out for the glass, it's everywhere," he said as Alex and the officers entered. There were shards of broken glass strewn about on the countertops, in the sink, on the tiled floor. "I don't know what to make of this. He'd have to be Tom Thumb, or a contortionist, to get through this hole."

  Alex bent to pick up a large piece of glass from the floor.

  "Please, ma'am, don't touch anything till the crime investigators have come and gone."

  Crime investigators? Lately Alex had been so busy preparing for her one-woman art show, she hadn't paid much attention to what crimes might be occurring right under her nose. Wasn't someone murdering women and dumping their bodies in the river? No, that was in another state, not Nevada. Nevada, she remembered grimly, had the two prison escapees. One of them had been serving time for murder, the other for rape and assault.

  With her heart pounding, Alex heard Officer Adams ask her to take a seat. She sat in the rocker, kicked off her sandals, pulled her feet up under her, and crossed her arms. Her skin felt hot and dry.

  "I'll just get a statement from you before Detective Holmes arrives," Adams said, taking a chair opposite her. "He'll ask you to repeat everything, I'm afraid."

  She nodded.

  Gunther stood in the middle of the room. As Alex spoke he looked on casually, smiling whenever her eyes met his. He acts amiable enough, she told herself, but it is obvious he doesn't like me. She was sure his animosity toward her had something to do with Greg and his gin-loosened tongue.

  The doorbell rang.

  "That's probably the sergeant. Gunther, you want to get the door?" Adams asked, but Gunther was already going down the stairs.

  Alex heard voices then footsteps on the parquet floor. These last became muffled on the carpeted stairway. Adams stood. She had a compelling urge to stand as well, but decided against it. Instead, she lowered her feet to the floor and turned her head to acknowledge the man whose face was just coming into view. Her eyes locked onto a pair of penetrating ice blue eyes.

  "Evening, Jus," Adams said.

  "Hello, Billy." The sergeant took several steps into the living room. He looked over at Alex.

  Alex realized she was staring at him. She lowered her eyes.

  "This is Mrs. Carlson's home," Adams explained. "Mrs. Carlson, Detective Holmes."

  "Hello," she said quietly.

  Holmes nodded, then turned to Adams again. “What have we got, Billy?"

  Alex studied the sergeant's face with an artist's eye. Interesting, she thought, but not heart stopping. So what was it about him that had given her that initial jolt? She got her answer when he glanced over at her. Of course—the eyes, cool and piercing and totally out of character with the rest of his face.

  "We're not sure yet," Adams was saying. "The only room disturbed was the master bedroom, that is aside from the kitchen where the perp broke out a window pane.”

  "Let's start there," Holmes said.

  Alex stared at the backs of the two policemen— one in uniform and one not— as they walked into the kitchen.

  Glass crunched under their feet on the kitchen floor.

  "I find it hard to believe that he entered through that small space," Adams said. "The glass at the bottom would've cut him up good. And everything else seems in order according to Mrs. Carlson's statement. She has a couple of TVs, an expensive stereo system, a video recorder/camera setup, silver flatware, even a coin collection . . . not touched."

  Feeling Gunther's eyes on her, Alex glanced over at him. He was standing stiffly in the middle of the room, arms folded at his chest. This time he failed to smile. She looked away.

  Adams and Holmes walked out of the kitchen. Holmes looked first to Alex, then to Gunther and again back to Alex.

  "Mrs. Carlson, do you have an idea what, if anything, is missing?"

  She shook her head, answered, "No."

  'Would you care to show me the room that was disturbed?" he said, adding, "Please.”

  The doorbell rang again as they stepped down into the foyer. Holmes stopped, turned to Adams, and said, "CSI. Let him in, and have him start on the deck and the area around the broken window." Turning to Alex, he asked, "Do you live alone?"

  "Yes."

  “We'll need her prints," Holmes said to Adams.

  Alex walked down the hall with Holmes behind her. She suddenly felt self-conscious in the tube top and shorts. Turning to stand sideways in the doorway, she said. "This is it."

  "Don't touch anything for the moment," he said. `Just look around and tell me if you notice anything missing."

  Alex stepped into the room. She felt his eyes on her. With a feeling of uneasiness, she surveyed the ruins of her bedroom.

  Her gaze fell on the deep gash along the top of the oak dresser and she quickly looked away, her stomach knotting painfully. Look at everything objectively, she told herself, as though it belongs to someone else.

  "The jewelry box is open." They both reached the dresser at the same time. Chains and beaded necklaces were hopelessly tangled and entwined around one another.

  "It looks like it's all here." She lifted up the whole mass of jewelry by one clasp. "There's nothing of value here, just costume jewelry. I keep my good stuff in this drawer." Alex reached for the handle of the small drawer. He stopped her by putting his hand on her arm.

  Lifting a gold pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, he inserted it through the handle loop and pulled. Nothing happened. "Do you have a key?"

  "It's under there." She pointed at the small lamp on the dresser. "Is it okay?"

  He nodded.

  She lifted the lamp, took the key, and opened the drawer. He allowed her to look through the contents of the two velvet boxes. Nothing, as far as she could tell, had been taken or even touched.

  "Go ahead and look in the other drawers — don't touch the wood."

  All of the drawers were pulled out to some extent. Not relishing the idea of sorting through her panties and bras with a strange man at her elbow, she
said, "There's just clothes— no valuables.”

  He shrugged and looked around. Spotting the studio, he started to move in that direction, only to stop and look down at the floor. Across the top of his shoe was the lacy strap of the beige demi bra he was standing on. He bent over, lifted his foot, picked up the bra, then dropped it into the open drawer. Without a word, he continued on to the alcove. Going down on one knee, he looked at the half-dozen drawings scattered over the floor without touching them. "Yours?"

  "Yes.”

  "You're very talented.”

  "Thanks.”

  "There's no need for you to check in here. I'll have CSI go over this area."

  CSI. She knew that stood for Crime Scene Investigators.

  He walked to the sliding door, pulled back the drapes, put the pen to a corner of the handle, and pushed. The door remained closed. "You were away when the break-in occurred?"

  Alex nodded.

  "And the house was locked?"

  "Yes."

  "Let's hope there's a print or two for Hank to get excited about.”

  "Hank?"

  "CSI. I was trying to give you a break from the technical jargon."

  "Stick with one or the other, you're confusing me."

  "You're beginning to get the picture.” A corner of his mouth turned up slightly.

  "Aren't you going to ask about this?" Alex pointed to the mirror with the printed words he had walked by without so much as a glance.

  "Did you think I hadn't noticed?"

  "I was beginning to wonder.”

  "What can you tell me about it? Do those words have a significant meaning to you?"

  She turned away. "No, none.” Her voice cracked strangely.

  Gunther appeared in the doorway. "Sergeant," his voice rattled Alex, making her jump.

  "Mayer and Cooly have gone. Adams is taping cardboard over the broken window. You want us to hang around when he's through?"

  "No,” Holmes said. "You two can head out. I'll take it from here."

  Gunther turned to leave.