While I Disappear

by Edward Wright

  He wasn’t ready. Going inside, he removed the last piece of leftover ham from the icebox, fried it quickly in a skillet, then used the salty and fragrant grease to scramble a couple of eggs. He shook some hot sauce on the eggs, then sat on the sofa, plate balanced on his lap, and ate, chewing slowly.

  The winter light was fading outside, and the air became cold, carrying with it a hint of rain. When he finished eating, he closed the door against the weather and carried his plate into the kitchen, where he poured some Evan Williams into a glass and added a splash of water. Still putting off reading the last letter, he picked up the phone and dialed the number for the Anchor mission. The man who answered the phone went to get Quinn but returned moments later to say the preacher was unavailable.

  Quinn was dodging him for some reason. It may have been Horn’s insistent questions about Rose, or the newly sensitive subject of Jay Lombard. Or, as Quinn had put it in his alcoholic mumble, maybe he was simply tired of talking to Horn. But Horn still needed to talk to him.

  He suddenly thought of another approach. Soon he had Iris on the line and was explaining his idea. They spoke for several minutes until Horn was satisfied.

  “Just make sure it’s tomorrow,” he told her.

  “I will. Thank you for your help.”

  “How’s Clea?”

  “Fine. She’s over at a friend’s. They’re having a record party.”

  “Boys too?”

  “Of course boys too.”

  “How did she get there?”

  “One of the boys picked her up.”

  “He drives?”

  “John Ray.” She sounded impatient. “They’re both seniors. He has his driver’s license. Listen to yourself.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Just stop worrying about her.” Iris’ tone grew warmer. “She’s growing up just fine. Paul would have been proud of her. And you can be too.”

  “All right. Just tell her I said hello.”

  “I will.”

  “And tell her to stay away from boys till she’s twenty-one.”

  “Goodbye, John Ray.”

  Back in the front room, he settled back onto the sofa and switched on the table light.

  The envelope was addressed in pencil in a shaky, barely legible script. The thin paper of the envelope slit easily. Inside he found four sheets of ruled note paper with pencil writing, and he was puzzled to note that the letter began with the words written in a strong and clear hand.

  Dear Edith and Willis (Rose was obviously unaware of Edith Shockley’s death),

  Thank you for answering. You made it clear in your letter that you choose not to talk to me, and I will honor that wish. But I have to write this letter. There are words I must say, either in writing or aloud. I’m sure I will say them to others at some point, but I must say them to you first. If you return this unopened, I’ll understand. (In fact, I think I draw some comfort from that possibility. If I knew for sure you would read this, I’m not sure I could write everything I plan to write.) I only hope you will understand why I need to put this down on paper. As to whether I will have the courage to mail it, I’ll know that only when I’m finished.

  I killed your daughter. I—and someone else. There. It’s said. Whatever else I say to you, nothing else will be as hard. All that remains is to explain how and why, but these are just details next to the awfulness of those four words. I don’t intend to implicate anyone else. Each of us must carry our separate guilt. The only reason for this letter is to tell you what I did. As for an explanation, how do you explain the unspeakable? Perhaps God can do that; I can’t.

  It was New Year’s Eve, 1927. As I write this, it seems like a story from a history book or the kind of melodramatic film I once appeared in. But the time I’m describing was real. And exciting. I can’t begin to tell you how exciting it was to be a part of that world, to glitter in it, to be regarded as beautiful and talented, an ornament of that dazzling time.

  The party was in a home, a rich and grand place. The host was a colorful and somewhat dangerous man. I was his hostess that night, because I loved flirting with danger.

  I had known Tess casually—I lied to you when I said we were best friends. I thought that was something you may have wanted to hear. Around the time of the party, we had become, in my mind, enemies, or at least rivals. You see, I had been involved with another man, the director of my last film. I had thought we would eventually be married, but one night he told me that was impossible. He mentioned his wife. I had known about her, of course, but I knew there was more. Tess had had a small role in my latest film, and I had seen the two of them looking at each other, talking quietly. I had seen the look in his eyes when he had first become smitten with me, and it was easy to recognize the same look directed at another woman. In my imagination, he saw me now as wild and promiscuous, an opinion that was not wholly unjustified, and saw her as fresh and unspoiled. The fact that I was a leading actress and she a bit player was even more reason for my pride to feel injured.

  Rose’s handwriting began to loosen up, as if she were writing faster, more carelessly.

  After we rang in the new year, the party changed. The band was still playing in the living room, but the music was slower now. The sounds carried throughout the house. Our host had made sure there was cocaine. (As I write this, I wonder what you are beginning to think of me, of all of us. I suspect the life we lived then was nothing like yours. Can you understand any of it?)

  Some couples danced, but others went off to find secluded spots—in rooms or behind curtained alcoves by the windows on the staircase, where only animals could see. The guests were dressed in every way you could imagine. I wore a short beaded dress in dark blue. Many were in formal dress, some were in costume. One couple wore Roman togas. One attractive woman I knew was dressed like a man; she drew glances from both men and women. Another woman, an actress whose face I recognized but whose name I didn’t know, wandered up the stairs carrying a glass of champagne and wearing only high heels and a long strand of pearls.

  All this, the description, is to help you see things as they were. But I realize I have been putting off the hardest part.

  The words grew more scrawled, and Horn was having trouble reading some of them. This no longer seemed due to haste or nervousness. He now thought the letter was being written by someone who was growing more and more drunk.

  As hostess, I had taken a small bedroom for my own. I had a plan. Tess was somewhere in the house, and so was he. I wanted to show him her (words crossed out here)true nature. I was sure she had been with men, and if he could see how she behaved, she would no longer seem so virginal to him. I would (a word crossed out) make her dirty in front of him.

  I found Tess. Wearing my favorite perfume. Gave her a bottle when she admired it. Made me hate her all the more. Said she had never tried cocaine. Good. Cocaine and champagne—powerful effect on her. I got her undressed, and then I went looking for a man to join her. Didn’t take long. I did not even know him, but no matter. Just a nameless, red-faced man with a look that said he was ready for anything.

  I took him back to the room. Then I planned to get her lover to come and see my little play. But Tess understood. Fear and horror on her face. And understanding. She tried to run out. I caught her, so did the man. We wrestled with her.

  Then lights went out. I found out later someone had decided party would go better if house was dark. People lose inhibitions in dark, don’t you think? He had found fuse box in the basement…More words crossed out here, so energetically that the note paper was pierced and smudged. Rose had apparently broken the tip of her pencil.

  In the next line, and for the remainder of the letter, the penmanship was a messy scrawl, the letters exaggerated, the words slanting off precariously. She’s completely drunk now, Horn thought.

  Enough. ENOUGH. Why write more? Why describe more? You know who I am now. Writing this won’t bring her back. Read this or burn it. At least words are written now. If you read
them, you’ll hate me, as you should, but I hate myself enough for all of us.

  Rose

  The signature was barely legible. Horn put the letter with the others. He felt exhausted. A picture was taking shape, still blurred like the emerging image in a photographer’s darkroom. Against his will, he saw a Rose he didn’t know, someone involved in a young woman’s rape, driven by pettiness and spite. But key details were missing, most of all the identity of the man she referred to as “another.” Dexter Diggs was there that night, but he was clearly not the man Rose brought to the room. And how could Dex have been involved in any way in the attack on Tess? The man had been Horn’s mentor and friend for years. The thought that he could have played a role in a rape-murder made Horn feel sick.

  You won’t get anywhere on this now, he told himself, so don’t waste your time. He undressed quickly, fetched his accustomed blanket from a nearby chair, and settled into the sofa for the night.

  He slept fitfully for a few hours. Then he awoke suddenly and lay there, listening. The canyon, which at times seemed almost sleepy during the day, came alive after dark, and he had become used to all the sounds of the night. He strained his ears for the sounds, sorting them out one by one. A soft, low breeze carried ocean smells and ruffled the trees. A lone bird that should have been asleep called out lyrically. Half a mile off, a neighbor’s dog barked once. He could imagine other, fainter sounds, of rodents and insects digging in the earth, of coyote and deer stepping delicately through the dew-wet grass. But none of this had disturbed him.

  Then he heard it again. A sharp click of rock against rock. Something heavy stepping along the short gravel drive that linked the cabin to the roughly paved road. It could have been an animal, he thought, but animals usually don’t broadcast news of their passing. At least not more than once.

  He rolled out of bed and quickly pulled on pants, shoes, and undershirt in the dark, then fumbled along the wall by the door until he located the stout, gnarled stick he kept there. Grasping it, he quietly opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

  The cool night air hit him like a tonic. He inhaled deeply, looking around, his eyes already accustomed to the dark. The half-moon was riding high, and he could see reasonably well. Nothing stirred, and the sounds were the ones he already knew.

  He stood there for about three minutes, motionless and listening. Then, far back down the canyon road, he heard a car start up, engine rev briefly, and climb through its gears. Someone was leaving.

  Someone had been there, possibly getting the lay of the cabin and its surroundings. He suddenly felt very vulnerable. The feeling took him back to the war and made him angry—at whoever had inspired the fear and at himself for feeling it.

  Taking a flashlight from the kitchen alcove and a shovel from the tool shed outside, he made his way up the slope a couple of dozen yards until he came to three rocks laid in a seemingly haphazard pattern on the ground. There he dug down a foot, finally extracting a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He carried it into the cabin and unwrapped it on the low table by the sofa.

  The light from the table lamp glinted on the handgun. It was a working replica of a .45-caliber single-action Army Colt pistol, 1873 model. It had been the gun worn by Sierra Lane through countless B-Westerns, each plot offering little variation from the last. Since Sierra was a man of peace generally opposed to gunplay, the weapon usually rode comfortably in his worn leather holster through several reels. But then, driven to extraordinary measures by his adversaries’ evil ways, the cowboy would unholster the gun in the last reel and blaze his way loudly through an entire box of blanks until bodies littered the landscape.

  The gun Horn held, turning it slowly in the light, was a copy of a weapon with a proud history. Known as the Peacemaker, it was the handgun most associated with the American West, used by the cavalry in the Indian wars, by prospectors, by lawmen, and by outlaws. Wyatt Earp carried one, as did Bat Masterson and Pat Garrett.

  This one, however, was mostly a fraud, designed to simulate gunfire for the movie cameras. Only once had it been loaded with lead and fired in anger. That night up at the old estate, Horn had shot at a human target, feeling the unaccustomed kick of a real bullet, and downed a man with it. But it was not like the movies. None of what he felt that night had resembled heroism.

  Ever since then, as an ex-convict he had considered it too risky to keep the gun close by. But fear, his familiar enemy from the war, was back. And he needed the old Colt.

  Unwrapping the box of cartridges from the oilcloth, he loaded five shells into the cylinder, careful to leave vacant the chamber under the hammer. Then, laying the gun carefully on the floor beside the sofa, he turned out the light.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  His sleep was troubled by hazy, shifting images of people in evening dress, their faces obscured, going in and out of darkened rooms as an unseen band played a frenzied Charleston.

  In the morning, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and picked the bandage off his face. He found a network of freshly scabbed skin stretching from his brow to just above his right jaw, a collection of small, dark islands connected by delicate strands, as if a spider had spun a clumsy web the color of blood. But his cheek no longer throbbed.

  He shaved carefully and dressed, and before the sun had topped the far side of the canyon, he was back at work on the drainage ditch. Using a shovel and his bare hands, he dug out more of the mud and debris choking the shallow, concrete-lined canal.

  As he worked, he thought of Rose Galen and Dexter Diggs and what he now knew about them. He would have to confront Dex about it, demand answers, and it was not a job he wanted.

  Another idea was growing. Rose’s last letter said plainly that she was not solely responsible for Tess Shockley’s death. I—and someone else. Was she simply referring to the stranger she had invited to the bedroom? But Dex clearly had not been truthful with him, and a nagging doubt remained.

  And one more notion: If another person shared responsibility, what did this say about Horn’s theory that Rose’s death had been an act of revenge? He needed to consider another, equally chilling possibility: that Rose had been killed to keep the details of that night secret.

  After about twenty yards of progress, he came to a section of the ditch where mud from the last few heavy rains had overflowed on each side. Thick brush had concealed the spot from the road, so he had not noticed it until now. One more winter storm, it appeared, and the road could be washed out. He quickly saw the problem: During one of the storms, a heavy, fifteen-foot limb had broken off a nearby oak and fallen into the ditch, blocking the passage of water. The limb was now all but buried in dried mud, and debris had backed up for yards behind it.

  The shovel was useless, so Horn went to his tool shed for a hand saw and slowly began sawing off smaller branches. He needed to reduce the weight of the limb to the point where he could pry it out of the mud.

  The work was slow and exhausting. After an hour, he had piled his tarpaulin high with branches, mud, dead leaves, and other debris, but the main body of the limb was still stuck fast. Another storm could come any day, he knew. He needed to have the ditch cleared out soon.

  He paused for a sandwich and a bottle of High Life on the porch, then went back to work. After another hour, he dragged the heavy tarp down to the cabin and took a bath. Then he went to the telephone with the scrap of paper napkin. Coby picked up after one ring.

  “This is Horn.”

  “Well, hello. You decide to take me up on the grand tour?”

  “Not today. I just wanted to tell you something. Rose Galen said she wasn’t alone when the Shockley girl died. Somebody else was there, and that somebody was responsible too.”

  “And just how did you hear that?”

  Horn hesitated but could think of no reason to be evasive. “It’s in a letter she wrote to Tess’ father.”

  Coby was silent for a moment. “All right, then,” he said. “But so what?”

  “Don’t you see? I’ve had t
he idea that Rose was killed by somebody who was getting back at her for Tess. But if there was a second killer, and if this person is still alive….”

  “I get you.” Coby didn’t sound particularly interested.

  “Then anybody Rose talked to could be in trouble now. Anybody who knew what she knew.”

  “The father?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Horn said. “He never read the letter. He sent it to me unopened.”

  “That preacher?”

  “Yes. She told him something. Then there’s Madge, the woman at Rose’s rooming house. She and Rose would drink together, and sometimes people talk when they drink.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well….” Horn could hear Coby chewing on something, a match or a toothpick. “Thanks.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “Well, dammit, at least look in on Madge and Cassie at the rooming house, make sure they’re all right, tell them to be careful. Quinn too. Last time I saw him, he was passed out on his sofa, dead drunk, muttering about Jay Lombard. Anybody could have walked in on him.”

  “Don’t particularly like your tone of voice,” Coby said. “I appreciate the advice, though.” He hung up.

  Horn berated himself for losing his temper. Policemen, he knew, liked to be in control, disliked getting suggestions from civilians unless they were politely phrased. That respectful attitude of yours needs a little work, he told himself.

  He knew it was time to arrange to see Dexter Diggs, to confront him with some painful questions. He dialed the number. Evelyn answered and told him Dex was scouting locations for his next movie up in the Santa Clarita Valley and would not be back until the following evening. She sounded glad to hear from him. “When are you coming over to collect that dinner?” she asked him.

  “Soon, I hope,” he said. “I want to spend time with both of you. First, though, I need to talk to Dex about something, and I don’t want to bore you with it. I was wondering if I could stop by tomorrow night after dinner and see him for a few minutes.”