WIDOW

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  Charlene stood at the wire gate waving. “Don't worry,” she called. “You're going to be all right now. No one's going to hurt you anymore, sweetie, you gotta believe that. Remember, okay, what I said, about being fine and getting well and making a new start . . .“

  Her chatter followed the patient and the doctor until more doors were opened and closed against her.

  ~*~

  Dr Shawn sat beside Kay Mandel on the sofa in his office. He wanted nothing to appear threatening, nothing adversarial. “Hello. Didn't they call you Kay? I'm your doctor, Kay, and I've been waiting a long time for us to be able to talk together.”

  “Yes. Kay. Ka . . . Katherine. That woman. She called me Shadow. I don't know why.”

  “Hmm.” The doctor waited for the questions. There should be questions she needed answering. He had taken more interest in her case than any other in his career. Not often did he find himself challenged by a patient. There were so many he simply could not help, so many the state had to write off. They were so far gone that they had to be maintained, chemical dependents, and shunted aside in order to care for the patients who might still have a chance. He had always held out hope for Kay Mandel despite her year-long catatonic state. She was relatively young, no history of past mental problems, and he felt the trauma she had undergone might eventually let go of her. As today it had.

  Now to step carefully, to take it slowly, to give her every chance of recovery. He might save this one, return her to society—if not whole, then enough so to function and to find some kind of life beyond institution walls. Even doctors needed an occasional triumph. It had been some time since he could count anything he had done as victorious in the Marion State Mental Facility. It wasn't the sort of place where success was assured. And it was for that reason he stayed, despite the low pay and the lack of stature a psychiatrist was afforded on the staff. He had to make a difference.

  “Where am I?”

  Shawn smiled at her. He said as gently as he could, “Marion State. Austin, Texas. You were transferred here from Houston immediately after . . .”

  “But why? Isn't Marion a . . . it's a . . .”

  “State mental hospital, yes. It is.”

  “Have I been crazy?”

  He noticed her use of the past tense. It buoyed him even though it was not yet true that her psychosis had been put behind her. “You were traumatized, Kay. Do you remember what happened?”

  She frowned, shook her head. Her long black hair moved slightly, her bangs fell loose across her forehead. He thought she could still be an exceptionally pretty woman with a proper diet, a little sun.

  She asked, “Where's Scott? The boys? Have they been here to see me? Did I do something wrong?”

  Her voice was squeaky and high. Shawn needed to back up, let her discover the past in her own time, at her own pace. “I'm so glad you're able to talk about things with me now, Kay. It's been almost a year. Next month, I think, makes it a year. And you haven't spoken to anyone until now. How do you feel? We're here to help you, you understand that, don't you?”

  “But why am I here? Why didn't I speak before, can you tell me that? I don't remember . . . anything. God, my throat hurts. Can I have a glass of water?”

  Shawn went to the adjoining bathroom and ran a glass of water from the sink. While she drank he said cautiously, “That's all right, you don't want to rush it. Your memory will return eventually. You have a lot to catch up on. The important thing is that you're no longer catatonic. You were in a trancelike state caused by a traumatic event. It will take a while to sort it all out. I want you to take it easy. Don't be surprised if there are missing blocks of time, they'll come back to you more easily if you don't try too hard.” He was glad she wasn't insisting on knowing about her husband and children. It was much too soon for revelations.

  She set the glass on the table and lifted her hands in front of her face, puzzled. She turned them back and forth, peering finally at the fiercely bitten nails. There were raw sores and dark scabs along the nail rims where she had ripped them off completely. Only last week, he had given the order to remove the bandages. Her hands looked pretty sorry still.

  “Who did this?” she asked. “It hurts.”

  “You did it, Kay. You were just . . . worried. Your hands will heal.”

  “I couldn't have done this. I've always had long beautiful fingernails. I always polished them with clear nail polish because Scott didn't like . . .” She paused in mid-sentence and let her hands fall into her lap. Her gaze took on a faraway look. It was the hundred-yard stare that he was used to seeing during months of silence. Shawn waited, hoping she could not yet see behind the curtain of memory to that night when she lost all she owned in the world. Had she had any family at all to come visit her, he thought she might have come out of shock sooner. It was infinitely sad that she was left alone, everyone in her life now dead. Most of Marion's patients had someone who cared, but Kay Mandel had no one.

  Except Charlene. It was a good sign when one patient took on the responsibility for another. He did not hold out any expectations that Charlene Brewster would ever be fully well again, but it was encouraging that she seemed to care so much for the lost waif who had wandered into the open ward a year ago.

  While he waited he watched Kay Mandel's face for a change in expression. The big round white clock on the wall ticked off minutes and still she did not respond again to his voice. He sighed, helped her stand, led her to the ward bed, asked the nurse to watch over her closely. When he hurried down the hall to a meeting with other staff members, he wanted to be able to tell them Kay Mandel had spontaneously exited catatonia, that she was well on her way to recovery, but the truth was she might not be. She might not speak again for another year. He just didn't know.

  ~*~

  Charlene sat beside Shadow's bed soothing her with a torrent of words. “So see, I get everybody's story who comes in here, and then if they get shock treatment and they forget, well, I can tell them their life stories, give them back the past. I figure that's the least I can do, maybe what I was meant to do being here and all, can't get out, except now and then, you know, but they picked me up that time on the streets down in Houston, said I was carrying a duck around in my arms and talking to God and stuff, but hey, I'm better off here where it's safe, you know, where I know these people won't slit my throat, or mug me, they'll just hassle me with their stories so I can remember for them and, like I say, I don't mind that, I figure that's my job, since I don't have a real job, I might as well do what I can. They don't give me electroshock “cause I don't get violent, see, so I got this good memory, honey, the best, it's like photo. . . uh . . . graphic, kind of, and. . .”

  On and on, a cascade, a typhoon of words and words and words that flooded Shadow's brain and kept her from thinking at all.

  She had not slipped back into the gray world. She was biding her time until the dark came and she could be alone, away from Charlene's battering voice, though she understood that the woman cared for her and was merely trying to help. It was the relentlessness that bothered her, though she would rather bite off her tongue than say anything to stop Charlene's recital. She had the idea that already she had done something or seen something that stopped people, stopped them in their tracks, horrified them so badly they never moved again, ever, and she would not chance doing it again. She didn't know whether Charlene needed all those words or not, but it seemed that she did, and it would not be Kay who interrupted the lava flow.

  Finally the day waned and the darkness crept over the sills of the wired windows. Charlene hardly drew breath, but dinner time came, and she wandered away, never giving the words a break, swamping the other women with them as she joined in line for the cafeteria. “Betty put down your bag of stuff, we're going to eat. Marta, that's a mighty fine smile you got on your face, you got a secret we don't know? Hey, Shere, wanna play a game of checkers later?”

  Kay was left alone on the bed, the place empty, and the night coming on. Lights flickered t
o life in the nurses' station, wheels rattled carts down some far hallway, voices drifted and died.

  Scott liked clear nail polish. He made fun of her red nails that time and she, feeling ashamed for not somehow guessing his preferences, sponged off the scarlet polish and threw away the bottle of Revlon Watermelon Red.

  Where was Scott now?

  She knew.

  Sounds told her. Big sounds. Blasting sounds. Sounds that boomed and ricocheted in her brain.

  She reached for the place where the sounds came from. It was in her home. Not here in this place of women who spoke too much, who made repetitive hand motions, who had not had their hair done in ages; in this place where a doctor was interested in her—a kind doctor with gentle eyes—but careful, too, treating her as he would a fragile bit of glassware he might drop.

  In her home. The sounds.

  In the closet. The gun.

  On her knees holding . . .

  She shut her eyes and the tears came again, so many, so heavy that she couldn't think for them. She felt her fear rolling into a burning ball, scorching her lids, lying bundled and hot behind her eyes. Her chest heaved with the pain of it. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. She tucked her chin down and clenched her teeth and still the tears wet the pillow.

  They were dead. Her family was dead. Scott took her children and he took himself.

  What could she do? What could she have done? How was she going to live?

  Damn him, damn him to hell forever. He had taken her perfect life and torn it apart. It was gone now, ripped from her. There had been no mercy in it. No salvation. No life left behind for her.

  The nurse came and gave her an injection. She swam toward blackness with both arms flailing to get her there. She would die from her memories if it were not for the hope of a chemical oblivion.

  Two

  He watched her for weeks from the shadowy interior of his parked car. She worked the late shift at Laguna Liquor Mart.

  That she was to be his victim was a happenstance. He had entered the store to buy a bottle of Chivas Regal to take with him to the beach in Galveston. To drink alone. To get drunk. There had been six serial murders within a year in Houston, none of them committed by him. He knew the modus operandi thanks to the thoroughness of the two Houston newspapers and television camera teams. Beheading with a sharp knife and, recently, since the killer was stepping up the viciousness of the attacks, a severing of the body limbs, taking them away from the scene of the crime. But knowing the method and what was expected of him so that he might copy the killer did not provide a likely victim or a fail-safe plan to get away with murder. Therefore, the Chivas.

  He took the bottle from a display shelf and walked to the counter. There she was. Waiting to ring up the order, smiling her pretty Hispanic smile, totaling his purchase on the cash register, handing him the change.

  He took in the white blouse she wore, the size of her breasts, the sweep of hair from the sides of her face, held back with a metal barrette at the top of her head. Loose, curly tendrils trailed close to her ears, whispering past silver-shell earrings that seemed molded and pressed into finely shaped earlobes. Small, delicate hands, the color of creamy coffee, lifted the bottle and set it gently into a brown paper bag. She wore three rings. A plain silver band on her right hand, a gold ring with a yellow stone, and a gold nugget ring on her left. One of her front teeth was turned slightly so that it hooked her top lip when she smiled. Her lower lip was full and, without lipstick, red as cranberry. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Lively, courteous, conscientious. She was his.

  He could not explain, were he asked, how he knew it must be her. These things just came to him. The timing was right. He felt pressed to find someone. All the victims thus far had been around her age, pretty like her, dark complexioned, working class. One of the other six had also been Hispanic. Perfect.

  Hurrying out to his car after that first meeting, gleeful and no longer requiring the quart of alcohol, he drove off the parking lot and across the street to a closed-strip shopping center. He backed into a space in front of Pilgrim's Dry Cleaning and waited. He could see the front of the Liquor Mart, and was not so far away he could not recognize the cashier.

  He followed her home. He came back late the next night to the liquor store. And as many nights as he could afterward. Memorizing her walk, which shoulder she carried her purse on, how long it took her to unlock the car door when she left after closing.

  She was always alone. She always parked her car at the right end of the building in the last slot, or if it was unavailable, as close to the store front as possible. She came to work five days a week at four in the afternoon and stayed until closing at midnight. The manager locked up and left an hour later.

  He obsessed about the clerk, wondering who lived with her. There were two other cars in the drive at her house when she returned home between midnight and one each working night. An old Caddy with a busted left taillight, and a cherry-red Chevy truck with a black tool box mounted below the back window. She might have a boyfriend. She might have two. He fantasized a ménage à trois.

  He wondered what kind of lingerie she wore, what she slept in, who her friends were. He imagined her life and, imagining, fell in love with her. You could not kill what you did not love.

  Tonight was the night. He knew her as well as he was going to at this distance. At twelve midnight he parked in front of the dry-cleaning store. He watched the front of the Laguna Liquor Mart, his pulse hammering in his throat, his palms beginning to sweat. He wore navy slacks and a matching short-sleeved shirt. Nothing memorable or outstanding.

  It was a warm April night and he could feel the sweat crawling down from his temples like worms wiggling from out of his hair. Madly chirping crickets made a racket in his ears. He supposed they were down in the drainage ditch that bordered the shopping strip. Making passionate love. Performing acrobatics. Singing arias. Some damn noisy thing.

  He couldn't see the stars for the city lights, but the moon was quartered, high up in the sky, a bitter lemon-peel yellow.

  Time to go. Minutes ticked by. Time to go and he was paralyzed. It never failed. When it was important that he make the first move, he stalled, worrying incessantly over minor details. What if someone accompanied her to the car tonight? What if the manager left just as she did? What if a squad car cruised by to check the place? He had to be ready to turn aside suspicion if anything unexpected occurred.

  He forced himself to open the car door and step out, eyes focused on the Laguna Liquor Mart. She was coming. He could see her moving purposefully down a long aisle through the store to the double glass entry doors.

  Hurry. Hurry now.

  He crossed the street between passing cars, face turned from the oncoming headlights. Entering the parking lot, he kept the wide-blade hunting knife in his fist at the side of his thigh, out of sight. He walked casually toward the lighted store. All business, no hint of delay now he was in motion. Every molecule dancing with anticipation.

  He was still three car-parking spaces away from his destination—her car—when she came from the store, slinging the black leather bag over her shoulder, car keys in hand. She stepped off the curb into the drive-by lane, and crossed it. She hadn't raised her head yet, hadn't seen him. She almost always fiddled with the key ring, shaking it around until she found the key that would unlock her car. He made it through the three spaces. He circled the rear of her dirt-brown Nissan Maxima just as she found the ignition key and looked up, noticing she was not alone.

  Her steps never halted, but they slowed, and she frowned at him. Her shoulders went back, her head tensed. A protective hand gripped her shoulder purse.

  He smiled. “Hey, you closed already?”

  She nodded, angling a little away from him, still making for the Maxima's door. “Yes, I'm sorry.” She wasn't looking at him now, her mistake. She wanted to ignore him, pretend he wasn't there. He took the opportunity to move in even closer.

 
She wanted into her car, locked and safe, of course she did. He knew all her thoughts, all of them.

  “Damn,” he said. “And they wanted another twelve-pack of Miller Lite back at the party. I thought y'all stayed open all night.” Friendly. Non-threatening. Just a party kind of guy.

  She had the key in the door lock, but was having trouble. She didn't want to present her back to him, and standing the way she was, trying to keep him in sight from the corner of her eyes, she wasn't able to turn the key quickly enough. “We're closed,” she said. Then she swore softly and the key turned and the little latch inside the Maxima shot up with an audible click.

  Her hand went for the door latch. His hand went for her mouth. He held her against his chest, tight, the knife point around front, pressed dangerously into her left breast. If she moved, the blade would cut into pliant flesh.

  “Easy . . . easy. Get in and crawl over the gear shift.”

  She hadn't struggled except for a second. He could feel her heart pumping against the knuckles of his knife hand. He could feel the round softness of her breast and the hot place just below it where her ribs began. “Open the door. Get in and climb over to the passenger side like I asked. Don't scream. I'll kill you if you scream.”