SUMMER of FEAR

by T. Jefferson Parker

  About my daughter, I could only feel sickness, guilt, and remorse.

  Later that night, as I lay alone in my bed, exhausted but unable to sleep, my thoughts began to drift toward Isabella, sleeping alone in her contraption-heavy bed at the hospital. I began to make a mental list of all I could do to prepare the house for her arrival. I was thankful that we had had the wheelchair lift installed when we did—loud and obnoxious as it was—because she would be needing it all the more in the coming days. I resolved to get fresh flowers for every room in the house and to wash all the windows inside and out, because sunlight was a constant delight to Isabella Monroe.

  When the phone rang at 3:00 A.M., I was sure of the caller.

  "You made it," I said.

  "I boarded three minutes after talking to you. I was sorry to have missed all the activity. But maybe the good Los Angeles police found another nigger to beat up and the night wasn't a total waste for them."

  "Where are you?"

  "Sh-sh-sh-sh. Your intercept will tell you that. In a land far away. I'm done in Orange County for now. Tell your r-r- readers that. Then tell them I'll come back whenever I'm ready. It was a terrible thing you did, making them believe I am William Ing. And to have forced that pathetic Mary Ing to identify m-m- my voice. If the people had understood my mission, they would have supported me."

  "I doubt it."

  "You underestimate the intelligence and power of the white man and woman."

  There was static on the line and a background sound suggesting hollowness and human activity. I wondered whether he was calling from an airport.

  "We know who you really are," I said.

  "You don't even know what I used to be," he said. "You are like street sweepers. You find the garbage only when it fall:

  "What do you want?"

  "How is Isabella?"

  "We don't talk about Isabella. Parish took down Wald and Grace for Alice Fultz."

  After a moment of silence, the Eye laughed again, that serpentine escape of breath. "I'll miss Orange County. In your article about our farewell conversation, tell all our friends and readers that the Midnight Eye will return when he is most needed. The cleansing will continue."

  "I've got a message for you, too. I'm not writing any more about you. You want to talk, call someone else. You're not news here anymore, Ing. Have a nice life, and die soon."

  With this, I hung up. I called Carfax.

  "New York City," he said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "JFK airport."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I brought Isabella home two days later, on Monday, the twelfth of July. Through a home-health-care network, I arranged—at an affordable rate—for a live-in nurse to be with us for one week. Her name was Dee. She was a very tall, big-boned woman with the round, smooth face of an infant and huge, gentle hands. It was difficult to tell how old she was, and I did not ask. Her hair was straight and honey-colored and she wore it back in a ponytail. She must have weighed well over 180 pounds.

  Isabella slept most of the time. Our conversations were short; the trauma of what had happened overtook her often and without warning. We sat on the deck and looked at the canyon. Isabella was happy to see Our Lady—the formation of the supine woman with the lights of the city showing up from her middle—and even laughed when Black Death perched on a power pole and turned his unbecoming pink head our way.

  Izzy ate heartily the meals prepared by Dee, who turned out to be a very good cook. Dee would never join us at the table, however; she took her meals in the guest room and left Izzy and me all the privacy we needed. But when it was time for Izzy's bath or nap or medication, Dee took over with a quiet proprietary air and dismissed me with a shy smile. It was obvious that Dee was investing more in Isabella than the simple reality of X hours for Y dollars. Isabella was hers, if only for week, and Dee was not about to let one bit of her concern go unapplied.

  During the first day following the arrests of Wald and Grace Martin, Parish kept me informed by phone of the status of the questioning. After nearly a full day of separate, high-pressure, relentless interrogation, Martin's entire team of detectives had gotten nothing from Grace or Wald except slightly elaborate versions of what Wald had told me that night at Amber's: that he had followed Grace there and together they had found Alice body. They were both professing innocence and extreme outrage at what was being done to them.

  With almost twenty-four hours having passed since the detention, only twenty-four more remained before either charges were brought or Grace and Erik were released. I was astonished to find Parish actually considering that possibility. An unsteadness had crept into his voice as that first day lingered on without results, and by late that night he was openly doubtful that either Grace or Wald would contradict each other, much less confess, I asked him for the tenth time to let me see her.

  "No. We need to do more than just place them there he said. "They've rehearsed the story well. No chinks, yet. I'M trying to pry Grace away, let her believe he's selling her out. No go. They anticipated that. I managed two search warrants for the weapon, but we both know they won't find it. I got the judge to give us the porno stuff and any clothing that will match up with the fibers Chet has in the lab."

  "Those fibers could just as well be from our clothes, Martin."

  "Yeah. I may have a trump card in that box of evidence I collected myself. Chain of custody is going to be a problem. Winters is uh... fairly furious with some of my... activities. I'll keep you posted."

  "Let me see Grace."

  "Not while this is going on. It just wouldn't be a good idea."

  "She might talk to me."

  "For the first time in her life? She's acting more like she'd spit in your face."

  "Time is short, Martin."

  He considered for a moment. "Tomorrow afternoon, if we haven't made any progress."

  "What did the airlines tell you on the Eye?"

  "He traveled Continental under the name of Mike Eis. Tall guy, smooth-shaven, scars on his face. Cash only."

  "And?"

  "The trail went stone-cold at JFK."

  By noon the next day, Parish had made no progress at all with Grace and Wald. Peter Haight was feverishly trying to build charges against Wald for statutory rape, and one against Grace for breaking and entering, but these were thin shadows of the actual events that had occurred at their hands, and we all knew that shortly after midnight we would either have to spring them or charge them on shaky evidence. Chet Singer was doing legitimate workups on Martin's bootlegged evidence.

  Parish let me into the interrogation room at slightly aft 3:00 P.M. Grace was dressed in her street clothes still, and she was not handcuffed. Parish and two lumpish deputies waited outside the closed door, watching, I knew, through the window that to us inside was nothing more than a mirror.

  Grace looked exhausted and offered me little more than expression of tired recognition.

  "Russell."

  "Hi, Grace."

  "Have you come to ask about my last meal?"

  "It's not that bad."

  She said nothing. She remained seated, hands on her lap and her long legs crossed beneath the table. She looked at the mirror, gave whoever was watching a little wave, then sighing deeply and rested her arms on the table in front of her.

  "I'm tired."

  "They working you over pretty good?"

  She nodded. "It's just the hours. They can sleep and work in shifts. I have to sit here and look at my ex-stepfather's cowlike face. Sorry, Marty," she called toward the mirror. "It's a cute face, too. I mean, I always liked cows. I got some cow napkin holders at home. Somewhere."

  "How long were you and Wald together?"

  "I was thirteen when he was seeing Mom. It started then. You know, I've told them all about that. I might not have been a consenting adult, but I was consenting. I grew up fast. So what?" She yawned.

  "Did it start as a way to get back at Amber?"

  Grace nodded.

  "Who hatched th
e idea of getting rid of her?"

  "We never had that idea, Russell. That's what I've been saying for a day and a half now."

  I sighed myself then, partly out of frustration, partly out knowledge of the pain that I was certainly causing my girl. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

  "Make them let me go."

  "They think you killed Alice. They're not going to let you go until you tell them what really went down."

  "In that case, Russell, what on earth could you do for

  me?"

  "I've been thinking about that."

  "And?"

  "Could I just offer some thoughts?"

  "Offer away."

  "It seems to me that the hatred you felt for your mother was... well founded. There were bad times, lots of misunderstanding, jealousy, competition. Amber admits as much."

  "Large of her."

  "And what I think happened was that Erik manipulated you with that. Did you know they found the netsuke you and Amber fought over so long, in Erik's house? They also found some phone records that establish communication with the two men who burned your feet. Amber didn't hire them. Wald did. It took him years to feed your fears but only a few months to twist your mind to the point where you were scared enough to commit a murder. He used you, girl."

  She looked at me rather blankly then, and I fully realized the despair of her heart and the fatigue of her body. "I actually loved him."

  "I understand that. Some things about Erik can be loved."

  "You're not so dumb, after all."

  "It doesn't take a genius to see a girl can fall in love with a guy. Handsome. Smart. Mommy's castoff."

  "Gad," she said quietly. "Love."

  "Yeah."

  She breathed deeply and leveled her beautiful eyes on me. I wanted only one thing more than to put my arms around her, and that one thing was to hear her acknowledge the truth

  "You know, the first time we talked about it... it was kind of a joke. A perfect-crime fantasy. It was fun to... speculate. But then when Mom started getting the men after me and threatening me, it all of a sudden started sounding reasonable. It kind of takes you over. Like, if you talk about something enough, plan it enough, you pretty much have to go through with it some point. It... gets real. And I was so afraid."

  Oh, how I understood the insane logic of that statement! Had I passed it down to Grace through my genes, this compulsion to make the imagination real, to act upon thoughts so that thoughts became acts? Was there perhaps in Grace, as myself, some weakness of the faculties dividing impulse from action?

  "I know. Can I tell you a true story?"

  "Sure, Russ."

  "About three weeks after Izzy was diagnosed, I got real drunk and went out to the hillside with my revolver. I wasn’t sure why. I sat down and looked down at the house, the light of the city. I prayed to God that He'd make the nightmare stop, that He'd cradle Isabella in His healing arms. I offered Him my soul instead. Then I emptied all the cartridges but one from the cylinder, closed it and spun it and put it to my head. If He let me live, it was my sign that He was with us. If not, it was simple trading of one life for another. A stupid idea, right? But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, and the more actual that gun became. I had gone that far, and I had to follow through. At the last second, I lowered the gun, pointed it at the hillside, and pulled the trigger. My hand jerked and the sound blasted into my ears. I had my answer then, at least to my own satisfaction: Go home, get sober, take care of your wife, and don't fuck with the Lord anymore. That's as deep as my faith ever got. I didn't even think another prayer until that night we went out swimming in the ocean."

  Grace betrayed no emotion to me, but something about her exhaustion seemed to deepen even more. Then, a wry smile came to her lips. "I'm sorry for all that's happened to you and Isabella. I wish there was something I could do to make it better."

  "There is."

  She waited.

  "Tell these men what happened. And understand that Erik will do everything he can to make you take this fall alone."

  Grace drew a deep breath.

  I could only imagine the silence behind our one-way mirror. Grace eyed the thing, then returned her gaze to me. Her eyes were moist.

  "Would you do one more thing?" I asked.

  "Why not?"

  "Call me Dad, or Pop, or anything but Russell."

  She smiled very weakly. "I would accept a hug now, Pops."

  That Tuesday evening, I picked up my mail and headed directly into town to do the grocery shopping. In the market parking lot, I fanned through the letters, bills, and catalogs—you might imagine how Izzy, confined to a wheelchair, loved those catalogs— and found to my great dismay a postcard canceled in New York City, July 10. The picture on the front was of the Flatiron building, New York's first "skyscraper," and where my editor works. On the back was the following, in an almost illegible scrawl:

  Dear Russell—New York a lovely city with so many...possibilities!

  Aren't your publishers in this building? Am flossing regularly and considering minor cleansing action, but it would take an army of crusaders such as myself to dent this cesspool of humanity. Miss OC. Cuddles, ME.

  My scalp actually crawling in the heat, I set the card carefully the glove compartment of the car, knowing that the Eye had wiped it clear of fingerprints. But it would never hurt to try. The people in Documents—Handwriting Analysis, to be specific would be more than happy to have it.

  As I walked the familiar aisles of our grocery store, a deep, if fragile, sense of contentment began to come over me. I shopped with Isabella in mind, picking out all the things she loved to eat. Few things can soothe a troubled soul like the simple act of loving another person. Every bag of produce, can or jar, I touched with the knowledge that it was for Isabella, and that if I could not stem the sickness in her head, I might at least comfort her body with the fruits of my labor. There were other blessings to be counted: the Journal checks had begun to come in, Nell, my agent, had gotten a modest offer for the Midnight Eye book and I accepted it—while both my publishers and realized that the end of that book was far from being written; I had witnessed the beginnings of surrender in my daughter stopped by the health-food store for some tea that Isabella especially liked.

  Then I loaded the groceries into the car and walked down to the beach to watch the sunset. It was an odd hour, because the dry, searing heat of the last week was getting ready to break. Far out over the horizon, a bank of moist dark clouds hovered and as the sun dipped into them, its bottom flattened and the cloud tops seemed to ignite. When the sun had fallen fully behind the bank, it glowed there, softly, like an orange wrapped tissue, and sent angled bars of light down onto the ocean, few minutes later, it emerged beneath the cloud bank and touched the water. As it sank, the clouds caught fire from below and soon the whole western sky was a blanket of black and orange patchwork settling over a flame-touched sea. I took a deep drink from my flask.

  I began to see more clearly the tasks that lay ahead. Isabella would require more and more care, and there would be victories as well as defeats. I hoped that what joys we could find together would mitigate the agonies; I prayed that through it all we would keep our love alive; that if it was the desire of the heavens to kill her here on earth, we could still manage a laugh, a smile, a touch. My feelings of just a few weeks ago, of wanting so badly to escape, had diminished. The tug of the whiskey was still there, but it was a tug—not an irresistible yank. I felt slower as I sat there on the boardwalk bench, more able to occupy the moment. Amber had given me something in her desperately sweet surrender: She had broken the bonds of my own making, allowing me to grasp the heart of an obsession and understand that once possessed so fully, an object of desire can no longer hold such a tidal sway. Did I want Amber again? Oh, yes. One cannot eradicate genetic imperatives. But I no longer believed that she, or the secret life that went with her, was an antidote to the actual one I would now begin to live. As I looked out over t
he darkening water, it occurred to me that the core of a life is not what one will lose but what one will fight to keep.

  And I realized one more thing as I sat there, which was this: I would never truly lose Isabella. Because some people never shine, no matter how much they are given and others will shine forever, no matter how much from them is taken away. Isabella was a light. Shine on, my dearest wife!

  The car phone rang as I was heading out Laguna Canyon Roe

  "Hello, Russell."

  I felt my scalp tighten and a cool sweat moving from my palms to the steering wheel.

  "I told you not to call."

  "That was rude. I just wanted to ask you one more thing .In your article about my departure, will you remark that queers of either sex will not be safe when I come back? I didn't mean to discriminate against them, but I couldn't remember if I'd been specific."

  "You can't come back. Everyone knows your face. Everyone knows your name. It's just a matter of time before the New York cops come to your door. Then it's back to California for long trial, a couple of appeals, plenty of prison time, and the gas chamber. Winters offered me a front-row seat for that, I’ll be there." "Sh-sh-sh. You cutups! I wish there was a way for me show you how important this last article is. Just because I've left the county doesn't mean I don't care. I want to be remembered accurately. Remember to be accurate, Russell. You have professional codes to live up to."

  With this, he hung up. I dialed the Sheriff's Department immediately and got Carfax.

  "It was a Brooklyn number," he said, the excitement clear in his voice. "We've got the address. He's meat."

  Back home, arms loaded with grocery bags, I managed to let myself in the front door. I had just kicked it shut behind me when I turned and saw Dee lying on the stairway with a bullet hole in the middle of her back and a streamlet of blood dripping down the steps.