Murder Scene

by Richard Montanari

  Standing next to the girls were two boys, doing the standard routines when boys are trying to impress girls – laughing a bit too hard, pushing each other, high-fiving and fist-bumping. A pair of banged-up skateboards leaned against the wall at their feet.

  Within seconds of noticing Detta walk into the store, all five of them drilled holes in her.

  Detta was bored to tears. These girls were bargain-basement versions of the kids who had annoyed the hell out of her in the city. They were so 2012.

  Detta stuck near the front of the store. She cruised the shelves and was pleasantly surprised to see some pretty cool items. They even had a small section of artisanal root beers.

  ‘Hey.’

  Detta turned around. It was the taller of the two boys. He was okay looking, but dressed like a slob.

  ‘My name’s Cody. How you doin’?’

  Detta gave him a non-committal half smile, cold as January.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  Deeper chill. The boy slouched back. More high fives.

  ‘What can I getcha?’

  The man behind the counter was older, in his sixties, mostly bald, with tassels of silver hair over his ears. It suited him. His eyes sparkled, and it made him look younger. She’d wondered if he was Uncle Joe, and his name tag confirmed it.

  ‘I’m just kind of looking.’

  As she said this, she heard the kids at the back mimic her and laugh. Uncle Joe shot a glance to the rear of the store, then looked back at Detta. ‘Don’t mind them,’ he said. ‘I was dealing with their mommies and daddies thirty years ago. They were pretty much standing in the same spot.’

  Detta smiled. Uncle Joe gestured to the barrels of wrapped candies. ‘Samples are always free here. If you want to try anything under the counter let me know. I make my own gelato and ice cream.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  In the end Detta bought two chocolate turtle tartlets. She wanted to buy a dozen, but she knew they would never make it home.

  The day had warmed a little more, so Detta took off her hoodie, rolled it into her backpack. She walked her bike to the corner facing the square, leaned it against a bench, sat down.

  The tartlets were to die for. Maybe this town wasn’t such a bad place after all.

  She turned her face to the sun.

  ‘Hey, girlie.’

  Detta spun around. The three girls were now standing on the corner just outside the entrance to the Subway. The two boys were leaning against an older model, rusted car on the other side of the street, smoking and looking at their cell phones.

  Detta said nothing.

  ‘I’m talking to you,’ Mohawk said. In one hand she had a half-eaten éclair. Like she needed it.

  Detta stood up and turned to face the girl fully, but still said nothing.

  ‘You deaf or something?’

  ‘I’m not deaf.’

  ‘Where you from?’

  Detta stood up and took the opportunity to look more closely at Mohawk. Her skin was greasy, uncared for. Her hair looked brittle, as if pieces of it had broken off.

  ‘I am so tired of hearing myself talk,’ Mohawk said.

  That makes two of us.

  ‘I asked where you’re from.’

  ‘The city,’ Detta finally said.

  ‘The city. Which one is that?’

  It looked like Detta would have to dignify this skank with a conversation, or they weren’t going to let her go.

  ‘New York.’

  ‘New York? Damn, girl. Here I always thought that New York was a fancy place. I thought girls knew how to dress there.’

  Detta squared herself in front of the girl. ‘Why do you talk like that?’

  The girl looked slapped. Apparently, kids around here didn’t talk to her this way, if they talked to her at all.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You talk like you think you’re some kind of thug. Are you a gangster or something?’

  The girl tried to stand tall, but Detta could see the embarrassment growing in her eyes. It was a moment all bullies dread; whether to step up or step back.

  ‘What did you say to me?’ the girl asked without any aggression or heat. It was as hollow a threat as Detta had ever heard.

  ‘Are we back to the deaf thing? I mean, isn’t this where we started? With you asking me if I was deaf? Want me to talk louder?’

  At this the three girls glanced over to the other side of the square, saw a police car waiting for the light. Mohawk looked back at Detta.

  ‘We’re not done,’ she said.

  ‘Bring it,’ Detta said.

  ‘Oh, I’ll bring it, bitch. You just watch your ass.’

  Detta stood up and gave her the once over, taking a long moment to scrutinize the considerable fat roll spilling over the top of the girl’s jeans.

  ‘Maybe I’ll watch your ass. It’s certainly big enough.’

  One of the zombie twins laughed, then quickly zipped it. They all walked quickly away.

  It was over.

  For now.

  The library was a small red brick building with a legend over the front door that read 1859.

  The lobby had that old-building smell. At least it was a clean smell. So many of the really old buildings in New York smelled like some kind of body function. This one smelled like leaves.

  The main room was straight ahead. At the center was a U-shaped checkout desk, staffed by a girl about Detta’s age.

  Detta looked for a while at the paperbacks, then turned to the large room to the left of the lobby. In there were tall stacks for Sociology, History, Accounting, Marketing, Economics.

  As she turned toward the lobby and the front door she saw a shadow on the carpeting. Someone was standing at the end of the aisle. Because the aisles were so narrow, her natural instinct was to choose another aisle to walk down. She didn’t really feel like playing the ‘excuse me’ game. But when she looked up her heart nearly stopped.

  There, at the end of the aisle, was a boy.

  He was staring at her.

  And he was beautiful.

  Detta found herself frozen in place. Her legs felt like concrete pillars.

  When she was able to move she turned to give a quick look behind her, just to be sure that the boy was still there.

  There was no one behind her.

  She walked up and down the aisles, a little too quickly to be checking out the titles, a little too slowly to be looking for someone. When she was certain the boy had left, or had been a mirage, she turned the corner in the YA section and saw him.

  He was thumbing through a book near the front doors to the library, his back to her. He was tall, maybe even six feet. His hair was a little long and shaggy. He had broad shoulders.

  Suddenly he turned around, looked right at her, and put the book on the table. He then went down the three steps, pushed open the door to the lobby, and was gone.

  When he disappeared from view Detta turned her attention to the table near the door, and the single book sitting among the neatly stacked flyers and brochures. Even from this far away she could see it was not a new book. There was no dust jacket.

  She had to know what it was.

  As nonchalantly as possible she glanced around the area, approached the table, took one of the flyers in hand, pretended to read it. It was something about a home repair resource center.

  She then picked up the book, and saw that there was something stuck in it, a bookmark of some sort. It was a white feather pressed between two pieces of waxed paper.

  When she fully opened the book her gaze went immediately to the top of the right-hand page.

  Handwritten there were three words – words she didn’t recognize – followed by a fourth, a proper name. The words were written in a beautiful script, in a very light pencil.

  Somehow, this beautiful stranger had been holding this book, and inside, on one of the pages, were written three foreign, exotic words.

  Mijn eeuwige liefde.

  Then there w
as that fourth word.

  Bernadette.

  41

  Detta spent the afternoon in her room at Red Oak, thinking about the boy, the library, the book.

  Had she imagined it? Had she imagined that the boy looked right at her? Had he wanted her to pick up the book and look inside on the page that had the white feather as a bookmark? The page where he had written her name?

  By four o’clock she was climbing the walls.

  She walked up the main street, window shopping but not really seeing things.

  She stopped in front of the Subway, caught her reflection in the window. She looked like a major frump. For her, orange was certainly not the new black. She looked like a tangelo with two chopsticks for legs.

  Before she could think about it, she turned her body toward the corner, toward the crosswalk, toward the other side of the street, toward the library.

  She walked into the building on eggshells, ready to dash to the door if she had to. She rounded the corner where the books on Psychology were shelved, glanced at the table where the boy had put the old book.

  It was gone.

  Why hadn’t she looked at the title?

  ‘Can I help you find something?’

  Detta spun around. The woman had a nametag that identified her as Jennifer. She was in her twenties, and wore a peach cardigan and beige slacks.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Are you looking for a particular book? A particular section?’

  ‘It’s an old book.’

  ‘How old are we talking about here? Harry Potter old?’

  ‘No,’ Detta said. ‘I’ve read those. Older than that even.’

  ‘Do you have a title? The author’s name, perhaps?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those books that’s so old it doesn’t even have a dust jacket. Like the Bible or something.’

  Jennifer laughed. ‘That would be one of the oldest. But I know what you mean. We have a section of classic fiction. We can start there. I’ll show you.’

  The classic fiction section of the library was four tall stacks of clothbound books.

  ‘Like the regular fiction section, these are shelved by “main entry”, that being the author’s last name,’ Jennifer said.

  ‘I know the title of the book has the word “house” in it. That’s about all I can remember.’

  Jennifer ran her fingers over the spines of the books, moving to the shelf with authors whose last name began with D. She pulled a book. ‘Might it have been this?’

  The book was called Bleak House by Charles Dickens. It was all wrong. This book was blue. The book she wanted was brown.

  ‘No,’ Detta said. ‘I don’t think this is the one.’ She handed the book back. Jennifer returned it to the shelf, continued to look.

  ‘This, perhaps?’

  House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Although the book was brown, it didn’t seem right.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘The one I’m looking for had a longer title.’

  Jennifer took a step back, thought for a moment. ‘This might be it,’ she said.

  When she removed the book from the shelf Detta’s heart began to race. While she didn’t know the title or the author, she knew the book itself had a long scratch on the front cover, a dented bottom right corner.

  The book was called The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

  ‘This is the one,’ Detta said,

  ‘Hawthorne is one of my favorites. Is this a school assignment?’

  ‘No. A friend of mine recommended it.’

  ‘It’s a wonderful book. Our only copy. It has some interesting twists, and even somewhat of a surprise ending. Quite modern in that respect.’

  ‘I like surprise endings,’ Detta said. This wasn’t entirely true. She liked surprise endings in movies and books, but not in life.

  After completing the process to get a library card, Detta checked out the book. When she left the library she rushed down the steps, her valuable cargo clutched tightly to her breast.

  There was an old stone wishing well in the town square with a bench next to it. When she reached the bench, she sat down, opened the book to the title page.

  The House of the Seven Gables: a Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

  She felt a chill flutter up her back. Firstly because he had read this. The second reason was because of that word: romance.

  You’re losing your data, Detta. Serious meltdown, girl.

  She knew what page the boy’s inscription to her was on. It was on here, on the left-hand side, facing page eighteen.

  She opened the book to the page.

  It was gone. The inscription was no longer there.

  Had she imagined it? Was she so whacked out on her meds that she was starting to hallucinate, to create boys who weren’t really there, and cryptic messages left for her in old library books?

  Then, before she closed the book she saw it.

  There were eraser crumbs in the crevice.

  She wasn’t crazy after all.

  Her name had been written in this book, then someone had erased it.

  ‘Hi,’ Detta said.

  ‘Hello again,’ Jennifer said.

  ‘I was wondering something.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘About that sign you have on the corkboard over there. The one by the door.’

  ‘Which sign?’

  ‘The one that says you’re looking for part-time help.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’d like to apply for the job.’

  42

  All three of the bedroom sets Will had purchased at auction needed refinishing. The oldest among them needed some repair as well, the mortise and tenon joints having worked themselves loose over the years. Will had conducted a Google search on how to repair such things and bookmarked it for later, hoping that somehow he would acquire some modicum of skill in this area before the furniture fell apart.

  He read and reread the instructions on the Zip Strip. It seemed easy enough. Dave was right.

  After it was all dry Will noticed a few areas that had not been completely stripped. He did a second coat, spot stripping these areas, specifically along the face of the footboard.

  An hour later he took a few steps back, checked on his work.

  It was coming together.

  The day had taken more out of him than he had thought. He’d taken a long, hot shower, his thoughts never far from what had happened at Wal-Mart.

  Will knew in his heart that Detta had not meant the things she said. In some ways the episode was a good thing. He would certainly counsel this to a patient, telling them that Bernadette was relinquishing her grief in the guise of anger. He had wanted and hoped for her to take steps like this, but he had not expected it to hurt so much.

  He sat at the small secretary desk in his room at Red Oak, the French doors open to the warm evening. He opened his laptop, navigated over to the Word document he’d started for notes on what was supposed to be his next book. He hadn’t a single idea. He thought about a follow-up to A Flicker of Madness, another book examining criminal psychosis in film, but he couldn’t seem to muster sufficient enthusiasm for the project.

  ‘Dad?’

  At first, Will thought the voice was coming from his laptop, that it was a streaming video ad that just started on a website.

  When he heard nothing after it – no music, no other voices – he turned around. Detta was standing in the doorway leading to her room. She wore the new robe he had bought for her. In her hands were two cups of cocoa.

  Will felt his breath catch in his throat.

  ‘Detta? What’s wrong?’

  She looked at the floor for a moment, then put the two cups down on the desk. She stood there, hands at her sides, looking small and lost and broken.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dad.’

  Then came the tears.

  Will stepped forward, unsure of what to do, afraid that if he made the wrong move they would lose this moment. He reach
ed out his arms. Detta stepped into them.

  They held each other for a long time.

  Neither of them knew how to say goodnight, how to go to bed, how to end this moment.

  Will told Detta about Reuben and Miriam Yoder, about Eli and the Historical Society, about Hale Hardware, about the auction. He told her about the bedroom sets, about how he had picked out their rooms at Godwin Hall. She seemed to come alive as he revealed all these things, to take a genuine interest.

  Detta shared with him that she had been to the square a few times, that she was starting to get a feel for the layout of Abbeville.

  They sat in silence for a while.

  ‘Do we get Amazon here?’ Detta asked.

  ‘Do you mean deliveries from UPS and FedEx?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Of course. No problem. They come here. I’ve seen the trucks. We’re getting mattresses delivered via UPS on Friday. For sure they come here.’

  ‘I’d like to order some stuff,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. We can just—’

  ‘But you don’t have to pay for it.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Will said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m going to get a job.’

  ‘That’s great, honey. Where?’

  ‘The library.’

  ‘The little library? The one on the square?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s just part time, and I’m a volunteer to start, but they said that if it works out I’ll get paid. It won’t be much, but it will be something.’

  ‘That is so cool.’

  ‘I’d like to buy some art supplies on Amazon. Some pads and pencils.’

  Will had to look away for a moment. He chose to look at his laptop, where he clicked over to the Amazon site. When he looked back he was, more or less, under control.

  He decided to just say it out loud.

  ‘I’m thinking we might move into Godwin Hall this week.’

  He waited for the worst news possible, news that his daughter didn’t want to make the move. She hadn’t even been inside yet.

  ‘This week?’

  ‘Yeah. Unless you want to stay here for a while. We could do that if you want to. We don’t have to move in. Whatever you want to do is okay with me.’

  ‘This week is good,’ Detta said. ‘I’ll be ready.’