A jolting sensation pummels him, and his heart feels like it stops.
The guitar strings have been severed. They dangle like limp tresses from the instrument’s neck.
Somebody broke in, emptied the milk, took the photo, and cut the guitar strings.
Adrian’s body goes taut as a sizzling sensation rips through him.
There was an intruder … in the cottage.
His eyes dart to the bookshelves, to his old Leitz microscope from medical school, then to the brass candlesticks on the console, something Mom gave him—all undisturbed. The flat-screen television sits on a credenza; the TV and microscope are what a burglar would take.
But someone was in the house. My place was violated … my possessions … my space was invaded.
But don’t burglars head to the bedroom for jewelry and hidden cash?
And that smell … vague, but detectable. Someone or something is upstairs.
Adrian moves to the staircase; he stops and sets his hand on the newel post. He sniffs and thinks there’s an odor.
Yes, something smells, and it’s rotten …
He begins the climb—slowly—moves up the first few steps.
Yes, there’s a stench—it’s stronger now. Definitely … something reeks.
He treads lightly and goes up a few steps, and the wooden planks creak.
As he nears the top of the staircase, the odor grows stronger.
Standing on the landing, he feels his pulse in his wrists.
The bedroom door is shut.
He never closes it—ever.
Frozen, he hears whooshing in his ears. He moves toward the door; the oak floorboards groan.
Adrian hears the night sounds of an old cottage: the water heater rumbles, a pipe in a wall knocks, and then comes a series of metallic clanks. Outside, crickets chirr, there’s the hoot of a night owl, the creaking of the red maple’s windblown branches in the autumn air.
At the door, his legs quiver. His tongue feels sandy.
An eddy of air whips against the cottage’s cedar shingles.
Ear pressed to the door, Adrian hears the thudding blood rush of his heart. My God, he thinks, he can actually feel the hairs on his neck standing.
He turns the doorknob slowly, silently.
He flings the door open and flips the light switch.
It hits him like a bitter cloud.
The bedroom air is putrid and reeks of decay. He tastes it on his tongue—caustic, repellent.
On the bed is the bloodied body of a large bird—a crow.
Its neck is wrung; its head angles grotesquely. The thing is ripped apart, mangled. Dried blood is streaked on the bedcover and pillow—clotted, congealed like currant jelly. Clawed feet poke up. The wings are torn, smeared with bloodied innards. Greenish-black iridescent feathers and quills are scattered everywhere, the tips crusted with blood and rotting flesh.
There’s a sudden movement. A feather tilts, sticks up—quivers.
Something white and glistening appears. It rolls; then it’s gone.
The smell of the carcass is so penetrating, it burns his throat.
Then he sees them.
Maggots—glistening white, segmented things—writhe wetly through the corpse and bore through its flesh. The dead thing pulses up and down, as though alive; it reminds Adrian of a beating heart. The bird is infested with maggots and rests in the broken rigor of a violent death.
Adrian turns, leaves, and slams the door shut.
He whips out his cell phone.
“Well, it wasn’t a burglary,” says Sergeant Ford. “I can say that, even though the photo’s missing.” Ford’s a military type—reminds Adrian of a marine drill instructor—has a slate-gray crew cut, is steep-jawed, steely eyed, and wears a tailored uniform to fit his wiry physique. Right out of Central Casting. His partner, Moore, a balding giant, must tip the scale at three hundred pounds—looks like he could wrestle in the WWE.
“You think it might’ve been kids playing a prank?” Adrian asks.
“Nope,” Ford says. “I’ve been a Simpson cop for fifteen years … seen plenty of teen mischief. They leave empty beer bottles and pizza boxes and toss the furniture.” Ford rubs his chin and shakes his head. “And they piss all over the place and take a dump … They leave a little souvenir for the homeowner.” Ford shakes his head. “But that bird? It’s a whole other thing, Doc.”
“I’ll smell it for a long time,” Moore says, his salami-sized hand rubbing his bulbous nose. The junior cop reminds Adrian of Shrek.
“Doc, you have any enemies?” Ford asks.
“No.” Adrian’s hands feel weak.
“Because this guy left you a message …”
Adrian nods. A pang of fear stabs his chest.
“What kind of message, Sarge?” Moore asks.
“Maybe this guy blames the doc for screwin’ up his life. Could be a warning …”
“That goddamned crow,” says Moore.
“By the way, that’s a raven,” corrects Ford. “They’re bigger’n crows. Not that it makes a helluva lot of difference. Though, maybe it does. Remember that poem ‘The Raven’? What is it the raven says … nevermore?”
“Nevermore?” Moore asks.
“Maybe I’m just overthinkin’ a nutcase,” says Ford. “It could just be some road kill he found. Or maybe the guy’s an outdoor type, killed it with a shotgun.”
A shotgun …
Adrian’s reminded of King’s Corner, the drive-by shooting.
Adrian? Do I know you?
I’ll be back …
Adrian smells the smoke, hears the sizzling wires, and sees the shattered glass.
“That bird’s been dead awhile,” Ford says. “It’s filled with maggots. He probably carried the thing in a plastic bag.”
“Son of a bitch,” says Moore.
“You sure nobody’s got it in for you, Doc?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Adrian says, as his thoughts scan colleagues, friends, and casual acquaintances—people past and present.
“Some patient who thinks you ruined his life?”
Adrian shakes his head.
“You have any arguments? Some jerk at a supermarket or a gas station … anything?”
He describes the incident on the Post Road.
“Look, Doc … maybe there’s some connection between the Post Road thing and this. Maybe you oughta talk with Chief Mulvaney over in Eastport. He’s got way more resources than we do. We’re a small town, only six thousand people.”
“Isn’t this out of his jurisdiction?”
“Not when you got run off the road. There could be a connection.”
“The chief’s a friend of mine,” Adrian says. “I called him about the Post Road thing.”
“What about the photo?” asks Moore.
“Mom and Dad … damned if I know,” says Ford. “And that milk carton … emptied out. It’s pretty strange.” At the door, he turns to Adrian. “Doc … I have a feeling someone’s got it in for you.”
Adrian feels a chill in his heart.
Nine
“A dead bird …?” Megan asks. “I can’t believe it.” Her voice is trembling. “Do you think it’s some angry patient, like the cop said?”
“Megan, I’ve gone through the hospital log … every case over the last year. There’re no unexpected bad outcomes. No threatened malpractice suits. There’s nothing.”
“What about people at work?”
“No problems. It’s a great team.”
“And the neighbors …?”
“The Gibsons? Elderly people with a home health aide. They can barely walk.”
“What about other neighbors?”
“There’s no other house for half a mile. And the cop said it wasn’t kids.”
“What’re you doing about the cottage?”
“I called a biohazard removal company. They practically sanitized the place. A new bed’s coming tomorrow. And a security company installed a motion detector in the cottag
e and a photoelectric beam at the driveway entrance. It’ll trigger a signal five hundred feet before anyone gets to the front door.”
“The driveway’s five hundred feet long?”
“It’s a gravel-covered roadway.”
“Adrian, it’s so isolated.”
“But it’s alarmed now. And Chief Mulvaney said he’d contact Hartford.”
“Adrian, we have to talk about something.”
He can feel the tension in her voice.
“What is it, Megan?”
“It’s too important to discuss on the phone. We’ll talk about it tomorrow night, when you’re here.”
Adrian watches Megan tuck Marlee into bed. The child’s milky-white skin reminds him of porcelain.
It’s really crazy, Adrian thinks, but in a few hours, he’ll be driving that sinuous road back to Simpson in the dark, listening to his Pink Floyd CD, The Dark Side of the Moon, and thinking of Megan: the redolence of her hair, the taste of her mouth—all a faint ghosting, a memory of desire. And he’ll spend the night alone.
Marlee stayed up later than usual to play checkers with Adrian. She’s a great kid—smart, too—caught on to the game in a flash and squealed with delight every time she cried “King me!”
With the bedcover up to her chin, she peers at Adrian through partly closed eyelids. She turns to Megan and says, “Mommy, can we go to the aquarium?”
“Of course, honey. That would be fun.”
“Can Adrian come too?” she asks in an audible whisper.
“Sure he can.”
“We can see the mermaids … especially Ariel.”
“It’s very hard to see the mermaids. You know they can’t be with humans.”
“And we can see Flounder the fish and Sebastian the crab.”
“Yes, we’ll see them there.”
“You know who Adrian looks like?” Marlee half whispers, glancing at him.
“Who, sweetie?”
“Eric the human prince.”
Adrian feels his face flush.
“And Ariel has red hair … just like you, Mommy.”
Adrian feels lightness in his chest as he and Megan move toward the door.
“Night, Mommy.”
“Good night, sweetie.”
“Night, Adrian.”
“Good night, Marlee.”
“I love you both,” she murmurs.
The light goes out.
A lump fills Adrian’s throat.
“She misses her father,” Adrian says in the living room.
“She has no memory of him.”
“She misses having a father.”
Megan nods, sits on the sofa, regards him somberly, and says, “Adrian. I need to tell you what happened with Conrad and me. I think it’s connected to the break-in.”
A chilled wave sluices through Adrian. Unease invades him, a disquiet he recognizes as a harbinger of trouble, even danger.
“It’s hard to talk about,” she says. She looks pasty, but a plum-colored flush creeps across her throat.
“Megan, you can tell me anything.”
“It’s so strange. I always thought it was awful that I didn’t know my real parents. Now Marlee asks about her father and all I can say is he’s gone.” She swallows hard, clasps her hands, and then says, “Adrian, I think he’s back.”
“Your ex? He’s back from Colorado?”
“Yes. And I’m scared to death.”
Adrian moves closer to hold her. His throat closes off. “You’ve never told me about him.”
“Things with Conrad changed after we were married. It was gradual, but he changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Adrian, the man went crazy.”
Ten
“I met Conrad when I was at Yale. I was out one evening with two girlfriends.”
Describing it, Megan recalls the Trumbull Roadhouse with its mix of bully-bikers and pretend cowboys. It was like a Western saloon right out of Unforgiven or Shane, but with a contemporary twist: an electrified band and a twangy country singer who murdered the songs. Actually, it was a bit karaoke, with couples swaying to corny, lovesick ballads blaring across the barnlike expanse. “It was music, energy, and hormones … fun for an evening, but not really my style.”
When Conrad approached her, the first thing Megan noticed were his ghostly looking eyes. He had a strong jaw, a straight, prominent nose, high cheekbones, and closely cropped blondish hair—almost a buzz cut—which fit with his etched features. He was big, well built, and looked very athletic, which she always liked in a man. He could have stepped right out of a rodeo ring smelling of horses and hemp.
“I’ve seen four guys talk with you,” he said. “And you haven’t danced with any of them.”
“They didn’t ask me.”
Megan noticed he wasn’t all tanked up, smelling of booze and filled with macho swagger, like the others.
“Well, I’m just asking if you’ll dance the next slow one with me.”
On the dance floor, he was light on his feet, which was surprising given his size. His shoulders were broad and sloping; she could feel the immense power in his arms.
“You don’t sound like you’re from Connecticut,” she said.
“I’m from Colorado … a town called Red Rock.”
He’d been living in New Haven in a rental apartment, working for a construction company. The housing boom was in high gear. He was making good money and living a freewheeling life.
“There was something endearing about him,” Megan says. “He was sort of a callow, country boy. There was something unpretentious and honest about him, which I’ve always liked. We danced a few slow numbers, and I realized I was not only attracted to him, but I felt almost motherly toward him.”
“They were right,” Conrad said when the music ended. “Those guys who came on to you.”
“Right about what?”
“You are beautiful.”
Blood rushed to her cheeks.
“In fact, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She knew then, he lacked the capacity for caprice.
“By the third date, we talked about our families,” Megan says. “That was when we made a very deep connection. Because it turned out that Conrad was adopted, too. He never knew his birth parents.”
“My mother told me when I was seven,” Conrad said. “My so-called father didn’t care. He never wanted me. I had lots of trouble with him.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He beat me every day. And he left when I was ten.”
“Well, what about your mother?”
“She died after I graduated from high school. It was cancer,” he said. “After that, I was on my own.”
“So,” Megan says. “We shared not only being adopted, but we were both orphaned early. When I think about it now, I know pity played a part in my feelings for Conrad. But he was very affectionate, and smart, too. I must tell you, Adrian, he was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met.
“He was a carpenter, but he learned to read architectural blueprints. He learned plumbing and electrical work—all on the job. He could memorize things in a flash, and was a whiz with a computer. Actually, he could do anything technical. His boss paid him to do all kinds of jobs—off the books—so he didn’t have to bring in licensed tradesmen. If Conrad had come from a different background, who knows what he’d have become?
“When we got married, I kept my name, Haggarty, which really bothered him. That’s when things started to go downhill. Erin saw it too.”
“Saw what?”
“Conrad’s jealousy. At first it was little things, like thinking other men were looking at me. If we were in a restaurant, he thought guys were staring at me. It got to the point where no man could look in my direction. He even threatened a few.
“Then he began showing up at the hospital, checking on me. He accused me of flirting. He once thought I looked at some guy in a shopping mall and the guy glanced back; Conrad
punched him out. He was arrested and sentenced to thirty days of community service.
“Then he began talking about having a baby. I thought maybe it was his way of proving that unlike his real father, he could keep a child, especially a son. You know, sort of rewrite history through his own child. Lots of people try to do that. And naively, I thought it might cement things.
“So I stopped taking the pill. But there was no pregnancy. Conrad thought my work was wearing me out and I wasn’t getting pregnant. He wanted me to quit, do private duty nursing … something less pressured. But he really wanted to keep me away from the hospital and doctors … actually, he was jealous of any man.
“I saw my gynecologist, and we went through the whole routine when couples’re trying to have a baby.”
“Oh, I know it well,” Adrian says.
“Yes, you know the nightmare. The ovulation test strips, the thermometer, sex on a schedule …”
“Uh-huh.”
“After a year, Conrad was just freaked out. He wanted me to get checked. I resented his assumption that I had a problem, but there was no harm in my seeing a fertility specialist.
“So I went for the tests—a blood workup, ultrasound, everything. I had no biological family, so there wasn’t a clue about whether there might be a problem. It turned out, I was completely normal.”
“And then …?”
“The specialist said that about forty percent of fertility problems are caused by a sperm defect. That it could be Conrad. We’d need a semen analysis. But I knew that would never happen with Conrad.”
“So what happened?”
“I never brought it up. We kept trying, but nothing happened. And then, many months later, my period was late. I bought an Early Pregnancy Test kit. And I was pregnant.” Megan shifts her weight on the sofa. Adrian notices her chin quivering.
“Conrad wanted a son … desperately. He began doting on me, like I was a ripening fruit. He insisted that I retire. He wouldn’t consider child care.”
Megan’s thoughts race back to the arguments.
But, Conrad, I can leave the baby with Erin.
Erin’s not his mother.
Love Gone Mad Page 7
