Delusion

by Peter Abrahams

  Was this about therapy? Not now, Nell thought, and maybe never. The sound of footsteps came from above, workmen on the roof.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Yeller’s Autobody wrecker was just pulling away from the house when Nell drove into the circle. She caught a glimpse of Norah squeezed against Joe Don in the front seat, and fought off the temptation to keep going, follow them down Sandhill Way.

  The phone rang as she went inside.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Is Norah there?”

  “Ines?”

  “Yeah. Hi.”

  “Just missed her. You could try her cell.”

  “Is it working?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “I’ve left a few messages, that’s all,” said Ines.

  “And she hasn’t gotten back to you?”

  “No,” Ines said. “Mrs. Jarreau?”

  “You can call me Nell.”

  “Nell? How’s she doing?”

  Nell started to say something innocuous—all right, not bad—but stopped herself. “This is the second time you’ve asked me that,” she said.

  Ines was silent.

  “Both times in a way I find a bit alarming.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Nell said. “But if there’s something I should know, please tell me.”

  Silence.

  “What is it, Ines?”

  More silence.

  “Ines?”

  “Just…just tell her I called,” Ines said. “Bye.”

  “Wait,” said Nell.

  But Ines hung up. Nell checked the caller ID menu, found Ines’s number, called it right back. No answer.

  Nell went into the office, turned on the computer and started reading up on hypnotism, specifically the accuracy of hypnotically recovered memories, something she should have done before her visit to Dr. Pastore. Or maybe not: because twenty or thirty minutes later, she was no further ahead. The answer to the hypnosis question was that no one knew. That left her with the image she’d seen in Dr. Pastore’s office, a brown-eyed memory, persistent and unnerving.

  Nell rose. She felt disoriented, as though in some strange place instead of her own home. She went into the laundry room, took her bathing suit from the dryer and walked out to the pool.

  Nell swam. Lap by lap, her body took over. Her mind shut down, almost unaware of how well she was swimming, so smooth and easy, as if the water had been shot full of air and lost its resistance. The disoriented feeling ebbed away. She swam herself into a state of peace.

  It didn’t last. When the effortless period ended and she climbed out of the pool, she found Clay seated at the outdoor table a few yards away, very still, watching.

  “Hi,” she said, reaching for a towel. “How long have you been here?” She checked her watch: 12:30. He almost never came home in the middle of the day.

  “Where were you?” he said.

  She paused, the towel against her chest. “When?” she said.

  “You didn’t answer my calls.”

  She gestured toward the pool. “I’ve been swimming.”

  “For three hours?”

  “No.”

  “Then where were you?”

  “Clay, what is this? You’re interrogating me.”

  He didn’t say anything, just gazed at her; brown eyes, yes, but not at their softest: the professional look was back.

  “I was at the museum, if you must know,” Nell said. A lie that burst out on its own, and probably a stupid one: Hadn’t he once told her that good interrogators often knew the true answers to the questions they asked? Was it possible Dr. Pastore was some kind of informant? She rejected the thought; that way lay paranoia.

  “You were at the museum,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Nell, now locked into the lie.

  “Okay, Nell.” He turned and walked into the house. A few moments later she heard his car starting up out front.

  Nell sat at her desk. Was there any possible connection between Clay and Johnny? Johnny had never been in trouble with the law. A safe driver, uninterested in drugs, and hardly drank at all: he found excitement in other things. So: no connection, and therefore how to explain her hypnotically induced memory? Perhaps she’d entered paranoid territory before her visit to Dr. Pastore, drifting in deep and unaware, and paranoia had sketched out a memory of its own.

  The phone rang. It jolted her, as though electricity had jumped right out of the wire. Nell let it ring. The answering machine took the call.

  “Nell? Lee Ann here. Please give me a—”

  Nell picked up. “Hello?”

  “Screening your calls?” said Lee Ann.

  “Then why would I be talking to you?”

  “Whoa,” Lee Ann said. “You don’t sound like your usual self.”

  How could I? Nell managed to keep that thought to herself. “What’s up?” she said.

  “A few things,” said Lee Ann. “First, Sheriff Lanier cut Kiki Amayo loose.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The drug dealer he arrested in the Nappy Ferris murder. He’s a gangbanger, all right, but he alibied out.”

  “What does this mean?” Nappy, in his last moments, stirred in her mind, toppling over outside the cabin up in Stonewall County, the sound of his bourbon gurgling away.

  “It means the investigation’s wide open, according to the sheriff. Here’s a quote from him.” Nell heard Lee Ann flipping pages. “Asked about a possible connection between the Ferris murder and the DuPree case, Sheriff Lanier said, ‘Everything’s on the table.’”

  The handset was damp with Nell’s sweat.

  “Nell? Still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any comment?”

  “For the paper?”

  “Preferably.”

  “No.”

  “What about off the record?”

  “No.”

  “What if I told you that Nappy Ferris had a long history of dealing marijuana himself, mostly right out of his store?”

  Nell remembered Clay in the clearing: Ferris had two drug priors—one for possession, one for dealing, marijuana both times. “Didn’t we know that already?” she said.

  “In a way,” Lee Ann said. “I looked into those priors. They’re both over twenty years old.”

  “So?”

  “So my sources tell me he kept dealing out of the store all those years, right up until Bernardine.”

  “I don’t understand,” Nell said. “You’re saying he was killed because of drugs after all?”

  “Not really,” said Lee Ann. “Doesn’t mean that’s not what happened, of course. But what I find interesting is how Nappy kept his nose clean, at least in terms of the law.”

  “Meaning?”

  “This sideline of his. I’m not suggesting he was a big-time dealer. But it wasn’t a secret, not in Lower Town.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Fifteen years with the paper, Nell. What kind of a reporter would I be if I hadn’t cultivated Lower Town sources in all that time?”

  “I don’t know,” Nell said; kind of a stupid answer, especially since it was obvious that Lee Ann was a good reporter, and very clever; maybe clever enough to tape phone conversations. She felt Lee Ann was homing in on something, irresistible.

  “A lousy one is the answer,” Lee Ann said. “But what keeps snagging in my mind is this issue of how a borderline or maybe full-fledged alcoholic like Nappy Ferris managed to stay out of trouble while running an illegal second career.”

  “Maybe it caught up with him in the end.”

  “Maybe,” said Lee Ann. “Any guesses on who pulled the trigger?”

  “Of course not,” Nell said. “I don’t know anyone in that world.”

  “What world?”

  “The drug world.”

  Pause. “No offense,” Lee Ann said, “but I’m finding you a little obtuse right now.”

  “My apologies,” Nell said. The mouthpiece reflected her voice b
ack at her, hard and cold.

  “None necessary,” said Lee Ann. Another pause. “Everybody likes you.”

  “You told me that already,” Nell said. “The first time I believed you.”

  Lee Ann laughed. “There’s something I want to run by you. Any chance at all you’d be willing to meet with Alvin DuPree?”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Same hard, cold tone, but Nell was shaking.

  “I can’t speak for you, even though I think I know you a little bit,” Lee Ann said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if the answer’s yes.”

  “It’s no,” Nell said.

  “Don’t decide now,” said Lee Ann. “Sleep on it. I’d be there the whole time, if it’s the one-on-one aspect that’s worrying you. He’s still at the Ambassador Suites—I can swing by and get you anytime you say.”

  “No.”

  “No you don’t want me to be there or no to the whole thing?”

  “The whole thing,” Nell said.

  A tall bookcase stood in the family room. It had two big drawers at the bottom, both filled with letters, game programs, award certificates, report cards, souvenirs. Nell pawed through all that until she found what she was looking for: an old clipping from the Guardian, the caption headed Young Sharpshooters. She took the clipping to the window, examined it under bright light.

  The picture showed Clay and Duke, both in profile, aiming rifles at an unseen target. The caption read: Clay Jarreau and his friend Duke Bastien, both thirteen, shown competing in the Southern State Riflery Championships. Clay finished second. The winner, not shown, was Duke’s eleven-year-old brother, Kirk Bastien. Good job, boys! Did it mean anything? Probably not: What had Sheriff Lanier said? Just pointing out the level of shooting ability around these parts—kind of like at the Olympics.

  And what was she allowing herself to think? Clay couldn’t shoot anyone, not the way Nappy Ferris had been shot. He actually had killed a man once, but in the line of duty—he’d stepped into a shoot-out already in progress, saving the life of a convenience-store clerk and earning a commendation for heroism. So stop this right away.

  Nell told herself to stop but at the same time she went into their bedroom, opened the closet and checked his guns, locked in the rack: a Smith & Wesson revolver and a rifle. Nell found the caliber, stamped on the stock, the number she didn’t want to see: .30–06. She sniffed at the muzzle, smelled nothing. How long would gunpowder smell linger? She didn’t know. But what about all this dust on the barrel? Didn’t it prove that the rifle hadn’t been touched in months, maybe years?

  Nell wandered around the house, agitated again, as agitated as she’d been before the swim, or more. That oppressive feeling came down on her, as though she were in some alien place. Another swim? A crazy thought, but she came close to getting back in her bathing suit. Instead she got in her car, a minivan she’d had for years, and went for a long drive, headed nowhere particular. She ended up downtown, in the parking lot of the Ambassador Suites.

  “Mr. DuPree?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is”—somebody or other, name not quite catching in Pirate’s head—“at Southern State Bank and Trust. Your account has been credited with a deposit of four hundred thirty-two thousand seventy-one dollars and sixty-three cents.”

  “Oh.”

  “Minus a fifteen-dollar fee for wire transaction.”

  “What’s that?”

  The woman explained. Pirate stopped listening.

  “Anything else I can do for you today?” she said.

  “What’s it like out?” said Pirate.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You know, the weather.”

  “I think it’s nice.”

  Pirate hung up. He opened the curtains. Nice? Way too bright to be nice; for some reason he felt the brightness only in his non-eye. He opened a pack of Twizzlers and watched a minivan drive into the parking lot, down below.

  The phone rang a minute or two later.

  “Someone to see you, sir.”

  “Norah and Joe Don?” said Pirate. “Send ’em up.”

  “Um, no, sir, it’s just the one person.”

  “Who?”

  “One moment.” Muffle muffle. “She says her name is Nell.”

  “Don’t know any—” Hey! But he did! “Yeah, send her on up.”

  Muffle muffle. “Actually, sir, the lady says could you come down.”

  “Nope.”

  More muffle. “She’s on her way.”

  Pirate hung up, looked around. Should he tidy up? Not much to tidy: that was the cool thing about maid service. He got one of those Kahlúa bottles from the minibar, took a sip or two, thought for the first time in a while of the tiny weapon—maybe reminded by the tininess of the Kahlúa bottle. Funny, how the mind worked. Pirate went into the bedroom, raised the mattress. Yes, the tiny weapon, safe and sound. The tiny weapon wanted him to pick it up, but who was master? A very rich master! He let go of the mattress—thump—and moved to the desk, where his Bible lay. As he opened it to read that last part—Job’s final reward—he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, saw he wasn’t wearing the patch. Was that any way to receive a lady? Pirate was going back and forth on that question, fingering the gold tassel, when he heard a knock on the door. Just an ordinary knock, but it sounded in his head like a starter’s pistol.

  Starter’s pistol—like for the beginning of a race. He remembered that from his sophomore—and last—year of high school, when he and his buddies, now forgotten, had smoked weed under the stands by the cinder track. Funny, how the mind worked. He reached for the patch.

  CHAPTER 22

  Pirate opened the door. Yes, her: the tanned, in-shape one, older than Susannah but just as pretty in a softer way, and close up like this—she wore a skirt that came to the knees and a short-sleeved shirt buttoned up high—no doubt about her being strong-looking, for a woman.

  “Hi, there,” said Pirate.

  “Hello, Mr. DuPree,” she said. Her gaze went to his patch, then quickly away. Pirate got a kick out of that. “Thanks for agreeing to…thanks for seeing me.” She seemed nervous. Pirate got a kick out of that, too.

  “Seeing is believing,” he said. A joke: one of his very best, and so quick.

  She blinked. Her mouth—nice and soft—opened slightly, but she couldn’t come up with anything to say.

  “Nell, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on in, Nell,” Pirate said, stepping aside and making a broad gesture with his hand. “It’s a suite.”

  She entered, glanced around. Bedroom to the left, sitting room to the right. She turned right.

  “Take a seat,” Pirate said, indicating the sofa.

  “I won’t stay,” she said.

  “Take a seat anyway,” said Pirate.

  “Thank you.”

  She seemed polite, a nice and polite lady who’d fingered him for a crime he didn’t do. Only a test: yes! This visit, this being so close to her, was only a test of how at peace he really was. At that moment, Pirate was sure of something, had never been so sure of anything in all his life: he was going to pass with flying colors.

  “Care for a drink?” he said.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I only came to—”

  Pirate interrupted, talked over her—not in a rude way, but didn’t he have a right to—what was the expression? Set the tone? Yeah. He had a right to set the tone. “There’s Coke, OJ, Sprite and Kahlúa,” he said, opening the minibar, “plus liquor, beer and wine. Personally, I’m having Kahlúa.”

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” she said, sitting at one end of the sofa.

  “Too bad,” said Pirate. “I was going to propose a toast.” A toast: what a great idea, and coming to him out of the blue. His mind was in overdrive, cranking out shit like it hadn’t in…in years, twenty of them to be precise. It was starting to feel like the old days. He glanced over at the Bible, lying on the coffee table, and overcame a sudden urge to fondle the gold tassel.
/>   “In that case,” she said, looking embarrassed.

  “I’ll pour two,” said Pirate.

  “Not much for me.”

  “Just a dainty splash.”

  He handed her a glass. Their fingers touched. Her skin—the skin of the finger that had fingered him—felt hot. Was there a message in that? Pirate, not knowing, filed the fact away for some future use. And then came the perfect toast.

  “Peace,” he said, towering over her. They clinked glasses. She took a sip, her eyes shifting for a moment, as though she’d had some thought, or maybe didn’t like the taste. Pirate sat in a chair angled toward her, four or five feet away.

  She put down her glass, faced him. “I realize there’s nothing I can say to make up for what you’ve been through,” she said.

  “Say or do,” said Pirate.

  She flinched. That was nice. “You’re right,” she said. “Nothing I could say or do. But for my own sake, then, I want you to know how sorry I am and that I never meant to do you any harm.”

  Pirate took a slug of Kahlúa, settled things down inside. “Sorry I get,” he said. “Run that no-harm part by me one more time.”

  She nodded. A woman from another world, a finer one: Pirate could see that. And guess what. Norah had the same quality, Norah the daughter. This was getting interesting. What did Momma know? Probably nothing; in fact, unless Nell said something about Norah in the next minute or two, a sure thing. That made Norah one of those eight-hundred-pound gorillas in the room. Pirate tried to stop himself from rubbing his hands together, and almost did.

  “I meant harm for the real killer, of course,” Nell was saying. “But I made my identification in good faith.”

  “Faith?” Wasn’t he the expert in that area? Also, except for that fineness, he couldn’t see much resemblance between mother and daughter. Were they trying to pull something? Pirate was ready for that, ready for anything. He smiled a friendly, misleading smile.

  “Meaning,” she said, “I really thought the killer looked like you. I know now I made a terrible mistake.”

  “Looked like me how?” said Pirate.

  “Do those details matter now?” Nell said. “I’ve already admitted I was wrong.”