The Pandora Effect

by Olivia Darnell

  “Hey, buds, what’s up?” a familiar voice made Louis freeze as he prepared to lean on the doorbell for the third time. He recognized the voice of Police Chief Danny Lovell. He’d forgotten that the man lived just across the street from Maureen. Everyone stood looking at the chief who was standing near the curb looking back at them. He was dressed in cut-offs and a tank top holding a meat fork in one hand and a beer in the other. Louis and Sam turned to face the man speechless.

  “Chief!” Louis found his voice. “How’re you doing?”

  The man’s weak blue eyes fell on the pistol at Sam’s waist.

  “What the hell is going on here, Sergeant?” He asked and walked across the grass toward them.

  “There’s been an accident here,” Sam said smoothly.

  “Oh, yeah?” Lovell eyed the banker suspiciously. He had been across the street in his backyard bar-be-queing some steaks. “What kind of accident?”

  “Well...” Sam glanced around and everyone moved closer to them. He noticed some more people from the neighborhood had somehow managed to join the crowd. “I was trying to call her and she was supposed to be here and when she didn’t answer... well, we thought we’d all come over and check it out. Now, she won’t answer the door.”

  “Maybe she’s not here,” Lovell suggested in dismay at the lame story. He took a swallow of his beer.

  “She really won’t answer the door, Chief,” Louis told him.

  “Bullshit!” Lovell muttered and pushed past them to knock on the door with his free hand. The door swung in silently.

  “Maureen?!” Chief Lovell shouted into the dim interior. “It’s me. Dan Lovell!”

  There was no movement and no answer from within. He turned back to look at Sam and Louis and found a crowd pressing against him. Sam had pulled the pistol from the holster.

  “Dammit, Sam!” The chief frowned at him. “Give me that thing!”

  Sam handed over the gun reluctantly. The Chief gave his beer and meat fork over to Mike.

  “Get back! All of you!” The chief barked at them. “Sam, you and Louis come with me. The rest of you stay back. We can’t have a mob in there if something really is wrong.”

  Several more of the neighbors had moseyed over to stand gawking from the sidewalks and curb.

  “Hey Jerry!” Someone shouted out at the street. “Go get your daddy! Somethin’s happenin’ down here. A murder or somethin’!”

  “A murder!” Someone else shrieked. The situation was worsening by the second.

  Lovell groaned and then stepped cautiously into the house.

  The three men entered the house very carefully. Except for the noise coming from the street behind them, there was absolute silence. The living room was dark, drapes closed. Louis could hear himself breathing and his heart pounded in his ears. Mike and Tyler really had him spooked. If he didn’t have another heart attack now, he’d know he was truly cured. Sam was right on his heels. He hated that they were unarmed.

  Lovell stopped by the sofa and picked up the pillow to show it to them. A mass of dark red, almost purple blood stains soiled the white cloth. Louis swallowed hard and Sam made a strangled noise. Louis stopped by the fireplace and picked up a poker to hold it gingerly like a baseball bat. It was better than nothing. Lovell motioned for them to check the bedrooms while he went into the kitchen. They crept down the hallway glued together.

  A bag lay overturned on the table with candles and silk flowers spilled onto the glass tabletop. Lovell picked up the bag and spilled the rest of the contents on the floor.

  “Damn!” He mumbled. It was pretty obvious to him that Maureen was not home. He could see through her kitchen door that her car was not in the garage. Lovell let out a sigh of relief and pushed Sam's automatic into one of his ripped pockets. He let go of the gun and felt it falling as the flimsy fabric gave way. He grabbed for the gun and shrieked as a round exploded from the barrel. The bullet ricocheted from the concrete and linoleum floor up through the tabletop sending a shower of glass into the air and fragments mixed with flowers and candles cascaded to the floor. The chief retreated into the living room.

  Louis had been checking out Maureen’s darkened bedroom when the gun went off. He spun around and saw someone standing behind him holding up a club of some kind. He swung the poker at the figure and effectively destroyed Maureen’s mirror over her dresser. It had been his own reflection. He stood looking at the mess in shock before he peeked around the side of the door into the hall. Sam streaked down the hall toward the living room and ran directly into Louis as he stepped out of the bedroom. They went down in a tangle on the floor. Lovell crept from the living room and looked down the hall to see the two shadowy figures struggling on the floor. He jumped up with the pistol and shouted “Freeze!” Louis got up still clutching the poker and looked at the chief bewildered. He held up his hands and the hair trigger pistol went off again. The bullet slammed into the wall beside his head.

  “Shit!” He shrieked and fell back to the floor on top of Sam who cowered with his arms over his head. Sam was yelling something incomprehensible. They could hear sirens outside. Someone had apparently called the police and the paramedics.

  “Louis?” Lovell stood looking down at him.

  “Shit!” Louis cursed and pushed himself up and grabbed hold of Sam to pull him up.

  “Damn!” Lovell said softly.

  “Freeze!” Another voice shouted at them. Two more officers rushed onto the scene with their weapons drawn.

  The chief turned with the gun in his hand and two more bullets ripped through Maureen Fitzgerald’s walls. One them took out an antique wall sconce sending glass and all three of the would-be heroes back to the floor in a heap.

  “Chief?” A timid voice called down the hallway. “Is that you?”

  Back in the living room they checked themselves out and found no serious injuries. The Chief was beside himself with frustration and remorse at what had happened, but there was the matter of the blood on the sofa. Just cause. Reasonable suspicion.

  “My God,” Sam said quietly after perusing the sight carefully. “He’s killed her! He’s killed her and he’s taken her body somewhere! That’s why her car is not here!”

  Sam bolted from the house and ran for his car. Louis tried to catch him, but it was too late.

  “Who?!” Lovell shouted and looked at his officers who all shrugged in unison. “Who’s killed who?” The crime scene, if there had been a crime, was irreparably destroyed by their blunderings. The smell of burning meat reached his nose when he stepped outside. Ruefully, he remembered his steaks on the grill.

  Chapter Thirty-One:.

  Police Chief Lovell was unprepared for the sight that met his eyes outside in Maureen’s yard. A milling mob of people watched him expectantly. He could already hear the headline news on the TV. ‘Local Police Chief’s Keystone Cops bungle investigation into murder of local woman. Killer goes free.’ All right, he had a mess to straighten out and fast. His head spun from the six pack of Miller he had already consumed and the terrifying experience inside the house had given him a giant headache.

  “OK. Let’s break it up, people!” He shouted. “This is police business. I want all of you go home... Now!” He looked around and everyone began to murmur and talk to each other, but none made a move to disperse. “If you don’t leave the crime scene, I’m going to have my officers begin to issue give citations!”

  Lovell turned back to the two alarmed officers standing behind him and looked at Louis for help. The crowd began to leave reluctantly muttering the words 'crime scene' and 'murder' over and over.

  Louis waved to Tyler and Mike turned up the Chief’s beer forgetting why he was holding it and then looked at the meat fork in confusion. “I’ll see you boys later. Julia, go on home now!" Louis tried to defuse his own situation before Mike started telling his tales to the Chief.

  Julia shook her head, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Louis?” Julia called to him from the edge of the drive.<
br />
  “Aren’t you on sick leave?” Lovell asked and frowned at Louis. He could hear his wife screeching and calling him home from his own backyard where his sixteen dollar steaks were probably on fire by now.

  “Yes sir,” Louis shrugged and felt his face reddening.

  “Get your wife and get out of here.” The Chief glared at him. “I’ll call you later. GO HOME!”

  Two more police officers arrived and the Chief starting giving them instructions to set up the crime scene perimeter. The neighbors began to shuffle off. Cars and trucks started up as the spectators continued to leave reluctantly.

  “Good God,” Lovell murmured to himself as he stepped back inside the house. It would take hours to straighten everything out. He ordered one of the officers to call the station and the county sheriff’s department for a forensic team and to put out an APB on Sam Morris Junior and Maureen Fitzgerald. At least he still held the man’s pistol in his hand.

  Maureen turned down the street a block from her house and stopped in the middle of the road. She had gone to the grocery store to pick up the steaks she planned to cook for Sam’s dinner. The street in front of her house was jammed with people and cars and trucks and police cruisers and ambulances. She backed quickly down the street and headed back to town. What on Earth was happening now? A fire truck passed her with its siren warbling, she cringed, wondering whose house was on fire. This was a mess! She didn’t know where to go or what to do. She glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. Well, it looked like their dinner would be even later than she had expected. She needed time to think. She took another turn and headed south on the highway.

  There were two of the wine coolers still sitting in the floor on the passenger’s side. She reached over to grab one and opened it up thinking what Perry would have said about drinking and driving. Where was Sam? Had he been at the dam? Who in the world had beaten Perry up in the public restroom? It didn’t make sense at all. She turned up the cooler and then turned back down a side street to skirt the jam. She would go over to Sam’s house and see if he was home.

  Angelica put the finishing touches on the elaborate tray of cheese, crackers and raspberry jam. They would have linguine with tomatoes and artichoke hearts and seafood, avocado and hearts of palm salad. For dessert they would have mousse filled chocolate hearts. She checked the wine to see if it was chilling properly. A bottle of Inniskillin 1998 Icewine for the dessert and a bottle of Niebaum Coppola Syrah, Diamond Series to go with the dinner. She had learned something about them from the internet, but knew her knowledge would never compare with Perry’s. He knew them all by heart, but she had given it a good effort. She picked up the card she had made off the Internet, folded it, opened it up to sign it and then took it to the living room to put it beneath the flowers on the coffee table. It had a hand-copied poem written by Olivia Darnell that had somehow touched a poignant chord in her that she had not known she had possessed. It was lonely, but beautiful and she felt it reminded her of Peregrin somehow. The front of the card had a misty, water color painting that resembled the view of the mountain he had so often spoken of in China where the Chinese gods supposedly lived. Inside the text read:

  Love's Whispers

  Love's whispers call to me

  I hear them all around

  But when I try to listen

  They flee without a sound.

  My memories are confusion

  My life an empty shell

  My thoughts entangled emptiness

  Yet whispers still prevail.

  I long to see your eyes

  To gaze upon your face

  To let you fill the void

  Of this lonely place.

  Lend to me your memories

  Listen for me with your ears

  For mine are stopped with coldness

  Practiced over the years.

  She wondered if the poem was too sentimental and if it really conveyed the message she wanted to send or was something he might want to read. He loved to read. He read everything. Surely it would suffice. She went quietly to the bedroom door and looked to see if he were still sleeping. It would soon be time to wake him and she hoped that he would have had time to heal sufficiently. Certainly, he would have made a good start. By midnight, he would most likely be completely recovered.

  The clock in the living room chimed seven o’clock. Angelica went to draw her bath and poured some of the fragrant bubble bath he had used under the running water. It must have been something he liked or he wouldn’t have taken a bath in it. These things were so very strange to her. She would wake him after her bath and allow him to take one too. In fact, she would prepare the tub for him. The romantic hints web page had mentioned this was a good thing for the men to do for their ladies. She didn’t see why it wouldn’t work in reverse.

  Maureen found no one at home at Sam’s house. His car was gone, but the front door was open. She tip-toed into the house and looked around. She did not know what she was looking for. There were muddy looking dark spots on the carpet in the living room and brownish-red spots here and there that looked like blood or wine spills. She had never seen his opulent home in such a mess. The kitchen was wrecked. A half-empty pot of chicken and dumplings was in the refrigerator. So his mother had been over to cook for him. The woman might have at least cleaned up.

  In the bedroom, she found one of the Pandora Boxes sitting on the black-lacquered bedside table. She frowned. What was he doing with one of them? She reached toward it, but drew her hand back unwilling to touch it. She knew better. If it had something in it, she didn’t want to risk bringing something on herself. There were bloodied towels in the bathroom and the bed was mussed up as if someone had slept on top of the comforter.

  She went back to the kitchen and looked at the clock and then fixed herself a glass of tea from the pitcher in the refrigerator and began to clean up the mess his mother had left from her dumpling making. She would wait for Sam for another thirty minutes and then go home. Hopefully, whatever was going on with her neighbors would be over by then. She felt uneasy about the blood-stained towels and carpet and wondered where Sam was again and if perhaps she should venture a call to his mother in spite of their mutual disliking for one another. Sam could be hurt if he was the one who attacked Perry, then he might be in even worse condition.

  Sam cruised past the Aliger’s place for the third time. The red Mercedes was gone. He couldn’t imagine where Perry might have taken his car or where he might have taken Maureen or her car. He was half crazy with worry about her. He contemplated ringing the door bell and asking the man’s wife where he was, but she might call the police if he showed up in such an agitated condition at her door. He could see the lights upstairs and occasional glimpses of Mrs. Aliger in the kitchen window.

  He would wait for the man to come home and confront him. He glanced at his watch. Seven-thirty. He pulled the Lincoln into the empty space at the far end of the building and parked close to the dumpsters, turning off the engine and killing the lights. He got out of the car and crossed the yard to the pecan grove. He found a spot to sit on an old stump where he could see the stairs leading up to the apartment and waited.

  “Perry?” Angelica called through the bathroom door. “Are you all right? It’s almost eight o’clock.”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” he lied and pushed himself up gingerly in the bubbly water and reached for the towel. He couldn’t believe she was still looking forward to their dinner date. What had he created? She seemed obsessed with her newly found topic of study. He didn’t know if he could ‘keep’ the date properly. He felt awful. This last beating had been worse than anything he had yet suffered in this form. He dried himself carefully and inspected the lingering traces of his wounds. The bruises were fading, but there were deeper injuries on his back and his stomach was very tender where Billy had punched him. All in all, he looked pretty well. Only a small bruise lingered on his right jaw. And there was a purple streak above his eye. He went to the bedroom to find a clean outfit laid on
the bed for him. Light brown slacks he’d never seen before and a burnt orange pullover shirt. Matching socks and she had cleaned his shoes for him. How nice! He thought she must have done a lot of reading sometime during the afternoon. He put on the clothes and went down the hallway to the living room.

  The lights were dim. Candles burned around the room in strategic locations. Classical music played softly on the stereo in the corner. A large bouquet of fresh flowers sat in the middle of the coffee table with a folded piece of laser print paper leaning against it. Fat, satin-covered pillows were on the floor around the table. He remembered that they would be sitting on the floor. He lowered himself to sit on one of the pillows and let go a short groan when his knee popped. That had never happened before. Sounds came from the kitchen where Angelica was preparing to bring in... the dinner.

  Perry’s mind was everywhere except on this dinner. His body ached and various pains cropped up here and there as he leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. He could have slept another two or maybe three hours. Angelica came in with an ice bucket and bottle of wine. She plunked a sparkling crystal wine goblet in front of him and poured him a glass of the Niebaum. It had a pleasant fruity smell like blackberries, but he winced at the sight of the alcoholic drink remembering what had caused him to be caught off guard by Billy Johnson earlier on. He smiled at her and picked up the glass to hold it under his nose. The craving for alcohol returned with a vengeance. He turned up the glass and drained it to her shock.

  “That was good,” he told her and felt the pleasantly warm feeling spreading from his stomach to his neck. It was oddly comforting. “I hope you brought up a bottle for yourself.”

  Angelica said nothing, but went back to the kitchen to bring back the cheese tray. She set it on the table and then sat on a pillow next to him. He poured her a glass of wine and another for himself. Things were looking up.