The Best new Horror 4

by Stephen Jones

  Patty also took notice of his build. Under the frayed and baggy prison uniform, she could see evidence of lean hard muscle, broad shoulders and narrow hips, and she wasn’t alone. Though the jury was admonished not to talk about the trial, the women took to terse accolades of Garrick’s appearance when on restroom breaks.

  She stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. She watched the clock. Three-fifteen. She fumed.

  At first, she had found staring at Garrick mildly distracting. She noticed how each member of the jury reacted to Garrick’s returning glance. Some of the men sat up straighter, the women squirmed, fussed with their hair, and sighed heavily. But Patty wasn’t about to be taken in by a pretty face. She’d just divorced Michael, who blamed his own fatal attractiveness for his numerous, flagrant, and painful indiscretions. She swore she would never allow a man’s sensuality, his appearance, the effect, to sway her again.

  Yet that afternoon, when the jury was filing out of the box, she let Garrick catch her eye. Just for a second, she felt the heat of his stare penetrate to the back of her head and down to her toes, making her swoon. Only when Garrick was turned away by the sheriff did she feel a release, the return of her composure. The incident bothered her still.

  She heard the thump of footsteps on the floor above, the flush of the toilet, the murmuring that followed, and the clack of a light switch. It would be quiet now, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep feeling so worked up. She pulled a half-filled fifth of Jack Daniels from the bar, and downed it. That, she thought, would speed the coming of dreams.

  Patty greeted the other jurors already seated around the long table in the poorly lit, cramped, windowless room. Ralph, a huge black man, a postal worker, eyed her up and down, then laughed with a jocular familiarity borne of the weeks they had all spent together.

  “That musta been some night you had last night, girl. You look like somethin’ the cat drug in.” He leaned back in his chair and pressed the “all here” button on the wall behind him.

  Melanie, a meek, dowdy housewife from Culver City, added, “You’re never late. You all right?”

  “Well, yes and no. I couldn’t sleep and tried this old remedy my grandfather used, only it didn’t do the trick for me.”

  The one person Patty hadn’t quite warmed up to, a care-worn lesbian bus driver named Dawn, crossed her heavy legs and snorted. “I know that remedy and a sleepless night and a hangover are not good company. What you needed was. . . .”

  The bailiff peeked in and announced the judge was ready for them. They filed out solemnly, took steno pads off their seats, and sat down.

  Patty flipped to her last entry. She found the doodles and sighed. The meaningless shapes of yesterday had a definite phallic quality to them today. Perhaps Dawn had been about to tell her she needed a lover to help her sleep. Sex. That was it. Maybe Dawn would have been right.

  Garrick sat stone-still at the defense table as the judge swept in, greeting those present, admonishing the jury, getting things up to date. So far, Garrick’s defense was airtight. His partner, Ken Stolte, had verified Garrick’s whereabouts during the twenty days Murphy was missing, his girlfriend Anita had testified he was with her the evening Marianne disappeared, and all of his character witnesses painted a pristine picture of a good man; honest, virtuous, hard-working, easy-going. It seemed a matter of Garrick’s and his friends’ words against some circumstantial evidence.

  Patty wanted to believe what she heard, but sensed there was a prevailing lack of sincerity in the testimonies.

  The bailiff escorted an attractive, athletic, college-aged blonde to the stand. The prosecution introduced Cindy Howard to the court and asked her to describe her relationship with the girl Garrick was accused of murdering. Howard was stiff, anxious with the eyes of the court on her. She avoided looking at Garrick, and fidgeted with a shredded tissue. She told them she had been Marianne’s roommate and that they’d worked together at the Big Deal, a burger joint near the college they both attended. They’d had separate friends and different interests and majors, yet they had been real close friends.

  Then the prosecutor asked if she was acquainted with the defendant.

  “I hardly knew him. He came into the restaurant where Marianne and I worked with his big friend, Ken, the guy he’s partners with. They usually sat in Marianne’s station.”

  The prosecutor stopped her, then routed her to the evening she last saw Marianne Murphy.

  “Yeah, right.” She sneered at Garrick for a moment then turned toward the jury. “Marianne had finally relented after months. Dave had been bothering her for a date a long time, but she thought he was too old for her. She chickened out that day when he came in for lunch and he began grabbing her and stuff, like he’d already slept with her, real familiar-like. She said she wanted to get out of there, so I lent her my car and told the manager Marianne was sick.” Howard hung her head. “That was the last time I saw her. I tried to get the police to look into it but they won’t do anything for forty-eight hours.”

  The prosecutor then asked her if she called her father.

  “Yes. My father is an insurance fraud investigator with lots of connections. He knew a private investigator who could help. That was on Friday. Sunday the guy was calling me down to the morgue to identify a body that might be Marianne’s. It wasn’t hers, but seeing a dead girl my age like that really scared me. I kept bothering the police department after that.”

  Patty was still holding onto her healthy skepticism. This roommate was an angry girl, but composed, sure, and honest. That’s what had been missing so far, truth. Patty looked at Cindy Howard and wondered how this girl could find the strength and audacity it took to take the stand like that and sneer in Garrick’s face.

  Cindy was asked what happened on the seventeenth of August.

  “My father called. Told me the police had who they thought was Marianne. I offered to identify her. That’s when they told me they were contacting her parents, and sending off to Arkansas for dental charts.” Cindy let one tear roll slowly down her cheek; so went her bullet-proof poise. “But they had found her.”

  Patty knew what Cindy wasn’t saying. She finally felt she could believe what she heard. Garrick had somehow intercepted Marianne that afternoon and made off with her. In the next ten days, he’d repeatedly raped her and eventually horribly murdered her. The probability gave Patty gooseflesh, yet it inexplicably jibed with her intuition. Patty wrote down the words.

  GARRICK KILLED MARIANNE MURPHY

  Then she glanced at him. He was staring at Cindy, his face a dark mask of simmering rage. Abruptly he turned and looked at Patty. It was as if he knew she was condemning him at that very moment. He frowned a little and held her stare for what seemed a very long while. Patty lost her sense of time, heard little else than the rustling of steno pages being turned beside her. She felt something like the rush of adrenaline one has when having just missed colliding with another car. That feeling mingled with a revulsion for what she thought him to be—and a surprising slow burn of desire.

  The judge’s gavel startled her. Garrick turned away. She let out her breath, feeling violated, unclean, as though he’d actually touched her. She would have to be more careful, though she knew what had occurred was just a silly manifestation of her boredom. Her resistance was faltering and this vulnerability disturbed her.

  Patty pushed the feelings aside as she walked from the courthouse to the garage. She chatted animatedly with her juror friends before climbing into her car. Once alone, she felt uncomfortably restless. She hurried home, stopping only to get a fast food meal before turning onto her street. As she sat in her car, she ate half her dinner, fooled with the radio and lit cigarettes that she left smoldering in the ashtray. When the claustrophobic quality of the car got to her, she ran upstairs. She went from room to room, switching on the radio, the television, her CD player. She finished her meal as she stood staring out at the Technicolor sunset over the distant coastline, the collection of sounds soothing her.
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br />   “God, what’s happening to me?” She looked down at her trembling hands. She reached for the phone and called the one friend she’d managed to salvage from the divorce. Michael, the bastard, had charmed away the bulk of the others.

  “Liz, it’s me, Patty. I’m going crazy with this jury thing. I figured I’d take ten days, do my duty, you know, get a vacation from work at the same time, then go back refreshed, with a new perspective. Hell, I can’t wait to get back to that dungeon at Valencia Studios. I’m yearning for the tedium, the overtime, the stress!”

  “So quit. They have alternates, don’t they? Just say you’re sick.”

  Patty looked up at her ceiling and watched a tiny spider wend its way down to her torchère lamp. “Well, I guess I am sick, aren’t I? Sick of the grind. Oh, God, I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”

  “You are a true schizoid, Patty. Half wants to stay, half wants to go. It’s like you, though, isn’t it? The ambivalence. Trust the part that wants to go. If I can’t sit still all day, I can’t imagine how you, the super human-doing, stands it.”

  “I can’t. If I don’t have something to do, a cigarette to smoke, coffee to sip, a nail to bite, I feel hysterical. But, I also feel compelled to sit this out. Besides, I am an alternate. The last three have already filled in for other jurors. If I go, and one other juror, they’ll have to retry Garrick, and I know the guy is guilty . . . oops. I’m not supposed to talk about the case. You think my phone’s tapped?”

  “God, now you’re paranoid too? Shit.”

  Patty lit a cigarette, dropping the match into the residue of sauce left in the styrofoam plate from her dinner. It hissed and sizzled. “Look, it makes me feel responsible, important. Since I divorced Michael, I haven’t felt like I matter anywhere. Even my family deserted me. It was as if I was the big loser because I dumped Mr Perfect.”

  “What Mr Perfect? The bastard prince? If you would tell your folks what an awful son-of-a-bitch he truly was, maybe they wouldn’t treat you like you’re nuts. Why keep the truth to yourself? Hell, I had to pry it out of you. What did you get out of keeping your misery to yourself, Saint Patty? Explain this to me.”

  “Hey, we’re getting off the point. I feel like I could make a difference on this jury.” Patty sighed heavily.

  “I feel for you, Patty. Look, as soon as you meet a new guy, you’ll forget this jury problem. It’s all the emptiness in your life. Wanna go to McGinty’s tonight? There are some truly great specimens there. . . .”

  “I’m not ready for anything.”

  “I’m not talking affair here, not a major relationship, just a night of fun. Hey, I’m single, but I’m never lonely. My nights aren’t empty.” A wink of an eye was implied by her tone.

  “I would rather be lonely.” Patty couldn’t explain it. The anxiety about not stopping for even a moment, for fear she might feel the loneliness, the pain. If there was another man, there would also be more pain. She was merely being self-protective.

  She made an excuse to cut the call short and hung up. She showered, got into bed, took out her book. The couple upstairs was arguing at the other end of the apartment. She fell quickly to sleep.

  She dreamed of the trip she’d taken with Michael to Palm Springs when the air conditioner in the van broke. She sat in the rear, the heat stifling, her hair matted to her head, stinking from not having bathed in two days. Her neck hurt where he’d tried to strangle her. Her wrists and ankles were raw under their rope bonds. Her breasts ached from his twisting them, poking them with sharp, hot things. Every bump the van hit, her private parts burned from the repeated violations, but she was happy to be alive.

  He spoke to her as the van took them further into the desert. He told her how she would love him even more when she saw the house with a pool they would be staying at. How could he think she could love him more? He had given her such pleasure once, in the beginning. She loathed what he was doing to her now. Why couldn’t he just be done with her? Let her go home. She wouldn’t tell anyone. She’d be too ashamed.

  The house was everything he had said it would be. He carried her in from the back yard, into the bedroom, and laid her down on the bed. The room was beautiful. The bedspread, curtains, and wallpaper were all the same fabric. She’d seen homes like this in magazines.

  From where he left her on the bed, she could see a sunken marble bathtub. She wriggled off the bed after he had gone, and hopped to the sink. With her teeth, she turned the faucet and slurped thirstily at the water, letting it run over her face.

  She heard his footsteps in the hallway. She tried to get back to the bed in a dream-slowness, but he caught her and tossed her into the tub. She cracked her head, biting her tongue. The coppery sweet taste of blood filled her mouth.

  He ran the water into the tub. Standing over her, he took off his shirt and jeans. When he was naked, he stroked himself, watching in the mirror. The water felt so good to her. She stared at it as it flowed over her.

  “Look at me!” he shouted.

  She obeyed him. He was so pretty. So perfectly built. And those blue eyes . . .

  He stepped into the tub with her, then pulled off her torn soiled clothes and bloody ropes. He caringly soaped her, washed her. He shampooed her hair and rinsed it. He held her for a moment, like their first night together, caressing her.

  That night had been romantic, exciting, scary. He’d gone to her apartment and lured her away to a motel near the ocean. She’d never been with a man before. Not like that. She apologized so many times for asking all those questions, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was so angry. She just wanted to know why the skin on his penis was so funny-looking. How did the strange skin disappear when he was hard? Were other men’s penises like his? So innocent. Besides it had felt fine. Really.

  He’d said she would pay for the questions, and she had. Now couldn’t he just let her go?

  He bent to kiss her. She felt the heat of his tongue on hers, the blood mingling with saliva. Then he struck her across the face. Again and again. Her lips swelled; blood ran down into the soapy water. She tried to hold up her arm to stop him.

  Patty jerked awake. Her hair was wet, her nightslip soaked with sweat, her heart racing. It was four-thirty in the morning. Trembling, she turned on the light. Her thoughts were jumbled; she felt drugged. She remembered the trip, the torture, Michael. . . . Wait. She’d never been to Palm Springs before. It hadn’t been Michael. It had been Garrick. She’d dreamed she’d been one of his victims!

  Patty lit a cigarette. She couldn’t stop shaking. She changed her bedclothes, showered, and stood shivering in the bathroom. Her breasts felt tender, ached as they had in the dream. Her vulva burned, too. A phantom pain. Like remembering having once broken a leg; a tiny echo of the pain. And she remembered the love-hate feelings.

  She was fine by the time she sat in the jury box later that morning. She stared at Garrick, willing him to look back, but he kept his eyes on the witness stand. It was as if he’d had his way with her and now. . . Patty dismissed the thought as crazy and turned her concentration to the trial.

  The witness was a maid for the Neidorff family of Palm Springs. The hair on Patty’s back and neck bristled. She straightened in her chair.

  The maid had come the day before the Neidorffs were to return from a month’s travel. She found the house had been lived in for some time, though no one was there when she arrived. It was a mess. The worst of it was the blood. In the Misses’ closet, behind her gowns, were the words scrawled in blood, “DG has me. Help me.” It looked as though Marianne had tried to write her name, but the letters M-A-R were all she could get down. Then the police photographs of the house were passed around. Patty tried not to look, to pass them on, but she couldn’t help noticing the matching fabric of the wallpaper, the bedspread, and the curtains.

  Too anxious to eat during her lunch break, Patty sat feeling lightheaded and nauseous. The sounds around her were loud and sharp. When the testimony resumed, Patty listened to it with a fierce tenacity
. She wanted to hear something that would make all that she’d dreamed the night before just a nightmare. But word after word confirmed her dream, moment to moment.

  The maid looked at Garrick as she was dismissed from the stand. Garrick made a strange face at her. She became visibly upset, moaned, and ran from the courtroom. Garrick’s eyes followed her until they caught Patty’s. She felt the conflicting feelings from the night before.

  That was when he parted his lips and soundlessly mouthed the words. They were unmistakable.

  “Sweet dreams.” He turned away, leaving her shaken.

  Patty wanted to scream, run in panic out into the corridor. But she couldn’t betray herself to the others. Explanations would have to be simpered out over embarrassed silences, then they would simply laugh at her, unbelieving. She looked around at the stoic faces of the jury. Even she didn’t know whether to believe what was happening. It was possible he had mouthed the words to someone else or they weren’t what she imagined them to be. Or all of this was nothing but a coincidence.

  The judge allowed a half hour recess while he handled other business. Patty gladly sprinted from her seat to the sanctuary of the garden outside the courthouse. She sat still, waiting for the beat of her heart to slow to a comforting rhythm. The sun warmed her as she began to relax.

  Lighting a cigarette, she stared at Dawn who was heading over to a young woman with a small boy beside her. The two spoke quietly for a few minutes, then broke into a loud argument. She couldn’t make out the subject, but when Dawn stomped away past where Patty sat, she had tears on her cheeks. Dawn’s emotion seemed so out of character to Patty. Dawn was so hard.