The Fates

by Thomas Tessier

  ‘Never mind the cream.’

  ‘Never mind the cream?’ Hal sounded outraged. ‘You know I always come too fast. Come on, let go.’

  ‘Damn you.’ Lynn released him. That Hal could be so coldblooded and erect at the same time always amazed her. She watched him hop across the floor, open the jar of Slo Fun and calmly begin to apply the pasty white unguent.

  ‘Oooh,’ he said.

  ‘I should have made an appointment.’

  ‘You’re not helping matters, Lynn.’

  ‘Does that?’

  ‘Wait and see.’ Hal spun around, more eager than ever, presenting a large shiny white sight that Lynn was careful not to smile at. ‘Vait und zee.’ He began to crawl towards his wife.

  Lynn grabbed a handful of paperbacks from the floor and threw them at Hal. ‘Stay away, you robot.’ Hal ignored the books, snarling and advancing. ‘I said stay away.’ Lynn backed toward the French-style doors that opened out onto their small balcony. From the side table by Hal’s easy chair she picked up a Readers Digest volume of condensed novels and hurled it forcefully at her approaching husband, but he knocked it aside and jumped for her. Lynn stepped further back but Hal caught one of her ankles, pulling her to the floor. He half-stood and began dragging her across the carpet. Lynn moaned and whimpered audibly, responding more to the part now. Hal rolled her over onto her stomach and sat on her ass, pinning her arms beneath his knees. With one hand he gently grabbed her chin and pulled her head slightly up and back on her neck, holding her there. With the other hand he picked up the vibrator, deftly switched it on and forced it into Lynn’s mouth. It clattered against her teeth. She resisted it at first but quickly accepted the humming, plastic phallus. Only then did he stretch out, force her legs apart and enter her from behind.

  He came within thirty seconds, setting off a chain of curses directed at the not-so-Slo Fun, but he kept on pumping for another minute. Then he was so soft it was impossible to stay in her, and anyhow Lynn’s cries had subsided. They rolled a few inches apart and Hal switched off the vibrator.

  ‘You’re so big,’ Lynn said in her little-girl voice, pressing the side of her face against his chest. Hal smiled down at her but said nothing. His heart still boomed. Too goddamn fast, but fun, he thought. In a few minutes Lynn’s even breathing told him she had dozed off, and he shut his own eyes.

  Hal had nearly fallen asleep himself when the bright light filled the room. He started to open his eyes, but a coherent thought never formed in his mind. They were lifted from the shag carpet in a rush. Everything in the room seemed to be moving. A modular, stainless steel vase crushed in the back half of Hal’s skull.

  Lynn didn’t even wake from her slumber. She was thrown against one corner of the mantel over their non-functional fireplace. One of her carotid arteries was tom open and she died instantly.

  It was over in seconds.

  *

  ‘Nice apartment,’ Ned Hanley said, looking around cheerfully and almost making a point of ignoring the bodies on the floor. ‘What do you think — four hundred a month?’

  ‘Not much damage done,’ Sturdevent remarked. ‘Not much damage at all. Compared to the other one.’

  ‘I’d say three to four hundred. Look at this place. Nice furniture, nice layout. If he was a student and she worked in the bank, how the hell could they afford it?’ Hanley swept the palm of one hand across an expanse of wall ‘Jesus, even the wallpaper is like a rug. Feel that.’

  Sturdevent knelt beside the body of Lynn Richter. ‘Nice-looking girl. Husband’s a little pudgy, but they were a nice-looking couple.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Hanley sneered, poking through the magazines on the floor.

  ‘But it doesn’t seem to fit in with Donner.’

  ‘Look at all this stuff,’ Hanley said, prodding the litter. ‘I didn’t know you needed so much equipment to get laid.’

  ‘Fun and games,’ Sturdevent said evenly.

  ‘Yeah, shit.’ Hanley sounded disgusted.

  ‘Heritage House Apartments,’ Sturdevent said to himself, rising. Hanley seemed to resent the people living here. He nosed around like a voyeur getting a glimpse of some previously forbidden territory. But Sturdevent felt only tired and heartsick. Not so much for the dead couple before him, but because their deaths meant trouble, big trouble. There would be trouble with the newspapers, trouble with Town Hall. And, worst of all, more trouble from whoever or whatever was causing all this death and destruction.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Hanley said, coming across the room to where Sturdevent stood.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘This looks to me like murder. Plain and simple.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Sturdevent said drily. ‘What else is new?’

  ‘No, I mean, you can’t blame this on a freak wind.’ Sturdevent looked at him sharply, anger in his eyes, but Hanley continued. ‘Look, there’s stuff ripped and broken and scattered around, but not like the last time. Not nearly as bad as the last time.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The Chief glanced at his watch. ‘Where are those guys anyhow? They should be here by now, going over everything.’ He didn’t want to admit that he agreed with Hanley. This did look like nothing more than a nasty, dirty little double murder. And that threw the Donner case into question again. It’s not going to… die down, he thought.

  ‘They’ll be here,’ Hanley said evenly. ‘Have you thought about putting up roadblocks?’

  ‘For who?’ Sturdevent’s anger brimmed. Only yesterday he welcomed suggestions. Now they were an unwanted intrusion. ‘We don’t know who we’re looking for? It’s too damn late, anyhow.’

  ‘I suppose so. If you ask me, these people got up to some kinky stuff. Regularly, from the looks of it. Maybe with other couples or another person. Threesomes are quite popular, I hear.’

  ‘Yeah, where’d you hear that?’

  ‘Time Magazine,’ Hanley shot back quickly.

  ‘A sex killing.’ Sturdevent snorted. It didn’t seem likely. Nothing seemed likely. What the hell was going on in this town? ‘Check the kitchen and bathroom for dope.’

  ‘I already did, before you arrived. Nothing. Nothing disturbed in the other rooms, either. I don’t know if anything’s missing, but I wouldn’t bet on a robbery that got out of hand. Not in the circumstances.’

  Sturdevent decided he didn’t want to listen to any more of Hanley’s talk. Hanley seemed almost happy that this double murder had taken place. Maybe he thinks that if things get bad enough in this town I’ll be relieved of my position. Unsolved: rampant vandalism, three deaths. Hanley would love it. Not that he could do any better at figuring it all out. Screw him, the Mayor, the newspaper. And yet I’m the one on the spot It’s between me and this — person or persons unknown. Or thing. This isn’t a big-city police force; they’ll look to me, not to my juniors. They don’t shake up the ranks in a small town. Just roll a head, get another one.

  ‘I want everything on these two people by eleven-thirty tomorrow morning, Ned.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Everything. I mean it. I want to know more about these people than they knew about themselves.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t care if you have to take Dingus off parking tickets. Use everybody you need and don’t sleep on it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Hanley said, mildly surprised. Dingus was the dumbest man in three counties. After twelve years on the force he still had trouble filling out parking tickets correctly. He would go into a restaurant and order Soup-in-a-Basket, so the story went. Sturdevent’s feeling desperate, Hanley thought.

  ‘I’m going.’ Sturdevent started for the door.

  ‘Home?’

  Sturdevent didn’t answer. Let Hanley wonder about it. A police chief shouldn’t hang around like any other cop. That’s part of the trouble, being too much one of the boys. It didn’t pay, not with someone like Hanley.

  In the hallway outside the Richters’ apartment, a small crowd of people had gathered. Corwin stood near the do
or, talking to the caretaker, jotting down notes. The other people, residents of Heritage House, clustered a few yards away. Sturdevent took Corwin aside for a moment.

  ‘You get anything yet?’ the Chief asked quietly.

  ‘Nothing that sounds very helpful, Chief.’

  ‘Hunh, figures.’

  ‘Everybody seemed to like the Richters and —’

  ‘Keep on it.’ Sturdevent walked toward the exit.

  ‘Chief?’

  Someone placed a hand on Sturdevent’s arm. It was Martin Lasker. Sturdevent continued walking.

  ‘Chief, any chance I can get in the apartment for a look around?’

  ‘Nope. Nobody gets in there unless they’re on official police business.’ Sturdevent punched the heat-sensitive elevator call-button. He had to hit it a second time before it connected.

  ‘Mind if I ask you a few questions about it?’

  Sturdevent looked at the reporter. Lasker had his portable cassette. The reels were spinning slowly. The Chief turned to the elevator, waiting impatiently for it to arrive. Expensive place like this should have fast lifts.

  ‘You want me to turn this off?’ Lasker pushed a button on the recorder and shoved the microphone in his jacket pocket. ‘It’s off, Chief.’

  The elevator rumbled open and both men stepped inside.

  ‘What’d you want to go and run that damn editorial for the other day?’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Lasker answered, trying to recover from the unexpected jab, but sounding only defensive. ‘I have to tell Phipps everything I’m working on — that’s just routine. I didn’t even have enough for him to okay a news story, but he went and wrote that leader. It surprised me too, Chief, honest.’

  ‘You got a lot to learn about the newspaper business, Martin. About business, period.’

  ‘Well —’

  ‘For one thing you got me and a lot of other folks annoyed, for no good reason. For another thing, you let that guy steal your story, even if it wasn’t ready yet. He got in with it first.’

  Lasker grimaced as they emerged from the elevator in the ground-floor lobby. Maybe Sturdevent was right, but there were two dead people up on the fourth floor and that was what Lasker wanted to talk about now. More people stood around in the lobby and on the front walk. Lasker waited until they were alone again in the parking lot around back.

  ‘What happened upstairs?’

  ‘Two people were killed, but I’m sure you know that already, Martin.’

  ‘The same way Donner died?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ Lasker was startled.

  ‘No, not at all like the Donner case, Martin.’ The Chief made a point of speaking Lasker’s first name clearly and firmly, like a father lecturing a child.

  ‘Well, how did they die?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait for the official report, Martin, same as me.’ Sturdevent got into his car and switched on the ignition.

  ‘Mind if I ride with you, Chief?’

  ‘I’m going the other way, Martin. Sorry.’

  Sturdevent began to back out of his parking space.

  ‘Hang on, Chief, I’m not going anywhere special. Which way are you heading?’

  The police car roared off. Lasker watched it disappear from sight, and then he started walking back to the apartment building. He was annoyed with Sturdevent, but even more annoyed with himself.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lasker had just finished typing out his short report on the deaths at Heritage House Apartments. He read through it quickly, making occasional corrections in pencil. Eight paragraphs that said very little: the bare police statement, a few details about who the Richters were and what they did, a couple of comments from neighbours, and not much else. Tony Baker had taken a good photograph of the scene in the corridor outside the Richters’ apartment It showed policeman Corwin looking harassed, which was perhaps a bit unfair, but it would make a nice front-page splash.

  Lasker picked up his three sheets of yellow copy-paper and took them into Phipps’ office.

  The editor was considering various possible headlines; five or six candidates were printed in block letters on scraps of proof paper on his desk.

  ‘Thanks, Marty,’ Phipps said, taking Lasker’s copy. ‘I’ll finish this up if it needs anything. You can head for home now.’

  ‘I’ll stay, if you think you’ll need me.’

  ‘That’s okay. Get some sleep. I’ll want you camping on the front step of the police department tomorrow morning, and you’ve already had a long day today.’ Phipps rearranged the headlines on his desk.

  ‘I like that one,’ Lasker said, placing a finger on the headline which struck him as being least sensational.

  Phipps grunted.

  ‘Okay, good night.’

  ‘Night, Marty.’

  Lasker strolled lazily back to his desk. He did feel tired, now that he thought about it. It always amazed him how Phipps, who was getting on in years, had so much energy and stamina. He remained at the office to put the paper to bed almost every night, even when the most exciting news was nothing more than a rainstorm washing out some garden fete. And he was generous — Phipps might completely rewrite some of the copy Lasker handed in, but he wouldn’t touch the by-line. That editorial seemed to be a strange quirk, but Lasker was inclined to believe that Phipps knew what he was doing. A good old country newspaperman. The kind Lasker thought he would like to become.

  ‘Marty!’

  Lasker had just picked up his jacket when he heard the familiar voice call his name. He turned and saw Dave Lutz standing in the doorway of the newsroom. He looked out of breath.

  ‘Hi,’ Lasker said, walking over to him. ‘What are you doing here. It’s — almost eleven.’

  ‘I tried your place, and then took a chance I’d find you here.’

  ‘You just did. I’m leaving.’

  ‘Good. Now,’ Lutz was still catching his breath. Sweat dripped down his face.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve seen them.’

  ‘What? Who?’ But Lasker was immediately sure he knew what Lutz was talking about.

  ‘Three figures, whatever they are. They looked like they were on fire, a whitish glow. Like ghosts, but fiery. Come on, I want to take you back and see if they’re still there.’

  ‘Where?’ the reporter asked, following Lutz who was already out the door and on his way down the stairs.

  ‘Out in the meadows, where they’re planning to build that new airport’

  ‘What were you doing out there?’ They had reached Lutz’s beat-up old Volvo. ‘That’s out in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘I know,’ Lutz. ‘I was taking Sandy home. You don’t know what I gave up to come and find you.’

  ‘Sandy who?’

  ‘You don’t know her. Nice girl. This was less than an hour ago. We must have been only about a quarter of a mile away from them. They were very bright and just walking around in the field. Very slowly, like a kind of ghostly procession. Christ, I never saw anything like it. I’m a believer now, though I’m not sure in what.’ The words tumbled out of Lutz’s mouth.

  ‘You saw them in a field?’ Lasker felt stupid and slow. The heat, even at this hour of the night, was a shock after the air-conditioned office. He was also distracted by the idea that Lutz might actually be involved with one of his students — something he said he would never do.

  ‘Yeah, meadow, field. There were trees around, toward the far end, near where they were. Yeah, it was at the edge of the meadow.’

  ‘Tell me again what they looked like to you.’

  ‘Like a hole had opened up in the ground and these three things beamed out arid started moving around. Bright. Like a fire flickering and sparking in a breeze. We watched them for, oh, I don’t know, fifteen minutes maybe. Then I dropped Sandy off home and came looking for you. Let me tell you, that’s friendship.’

  ‘You think they were ghosts?’

  ‘Shit, I don’t know what they we
re.’ Lutz pulled a half bottle of vodka out of the glove compartment, unscrewed the cap using his teeth and took a large gulp. ‘Try this,’ he said, passing the container to Lasker.

  ‘Thanks,’ the reporter said dubiously.

  ‘They weren’t ordinary people, that’s for sure,’ Lutz went on. ‘And they weren’t the Ku Klux Klan either.’

  Lasker thought about it. He didn’t believe in ghosts but he didn’t disbelieve either — like Marge Calder, he realised. He knew Lutz to be completely reliable, even when he had been drinking.

  ‘I called Bondarevsky today, hoping he might have seen his swamp-fire again, but he said no.’

  ‘Who’s Bondarevsky?’

  ‘The guy whose cow got killed. Remember? I told you about it.’

  ‘Students are supposed to remember, man. Us teachers keep trying to forget.’

  The car bounced along a back road now, rattling and grinding at every little dip and bend. The rush of air was refreshing.

  ‘This is like the Hardy boys,’ Lutz said with a grin.

  ‘You’re going to destroy this car,’ Lasker replied, bracing his feet and holding firmly onto the door.

  ‘It already has a hundred and twenty-three thousand miles on the clock. What more do you want?’

  ‘To get there alive.’

  ‘What were you doing at the office so late anyway?’

  Lasker quickly told his friend about the events at Heritage House. Lutz said nothing throughout, but Lasker could see that the teacher’s eyes were wide and alert in the pale glow of the dash-board lights. Lasker omitted the short, unhappy conversation he had had with Sturdevent.

  ‘God, it sounds more and more sinister,’ Lutz said when Lasker had finished.

  ‘Yeah, but apparently it wasn’t as messy as the other guy, Donner. They’re talking about it as a straightforward sex murder, if there is such a thing.’

  ‘We’re almost there now.’

  The country road ribboned out onto a broad, flat plain. Somewhere out there, Lasker thought, they’re going to stick up an airport. A small regional airport, mostly to handle cargo. But it’d be big enough to take some jets, and there was already talk of a passenger shuttle-service to New York and Boston. In a few years there will be nothing but concrete over all this — of course, a highway will have to swing through. What good is an airport without easy access to a highway? The thought of it all made Martin Lasker even more depressed as he looked out the car window across the expanse of open earth.