Redemption Lake

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  The tuxedo jacket and shirt were gone. His white T-shirt, too.

  He turned on the flashlight and checked the corners of the trunk.

  Shit. Radhauser must have taken them when Matt wasn’t looking. No, his Mustang didn’t have an automatic trunk release inside. And the keys had never left Matt’s pocket.

  Then it dawned on him—his mother had asked about the shirt and jacket. She already had his shoes and tuxedo pants. With her key to his Mustang, she’d probably taken them out of the trunk while he sat on the porch steps. Now she’d see the blood. And he’d have a shitload of questions to answer.

  Matt shuddered, then pushed that worry aside. Right now, he had to make certain his cufflinks weren’t in Crystal’s bedroom. Or in the living room where she’d taken them off.

  He flipped off the flashlight. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to a lone, pajama-clad walker at 5:30am in a neighborhood as spooked as this one must be. After closing the trunk as quietly as he could, he started to walk, praying the police car and Radhauser’s Bronco would be gone.

  Five minutes later, he circled around the empty house and stood on Crystal’s back deck. He reached above the door and found the putty knife. Thirty seconds later, he lifted the latch, replaced the knife, and stepped inside the kitchen. A gnat flew around his ear and he swatted at it. Predawn light fell in through the sliding glass door and pooled on the floor. He turned on the flashlight.

  He stood very still, waiting for his eyes to adjust, then crept down the hallway, pointing the flashlight at the floor. As he passed the bathroom, still cordoned off with yellow tape, he paused and flashed the light inside. The bathtub was still filled with bloody water, though the level had dropped much lower now that Crystal’s body had been removed. Blood still spattered the tile walls surrounding the tub. The puddle on the floor had congealed into something thick and dark, like motor oil.

  Before tonight, he’d seen only one dead person. He hadn’t known the patterns blood could leave on white tiles. Or how the skin turned a grayish color when most of the blood had been drained from the body.

  By the time he’d seen Justin, someone had closed his eyes. Until tonight, Matt hadn’t understood how the absence of life left a person’s eyes as dull as stone.

  He turned and hurried down the hallway and into the living room. The blinds were closed, but he couldn’t remember if Crystal had closed them or Radhauser. He glanced at the leather recliner where he’d dropped his shirt, but saw nothing. He shined the flashlight along the woodwork and under the tables. He stared at the candles, remembering the way Crystal’s skin had glowed in their light. He quickly moved the flashlight over the surface of the sofa, then reached behind the cushions—found some loose change and a couple of popcorn kernels, but no cufflinks.

  He checked the leather recliner again, pushing his hands deep into the space between the back and seat cushions. When he found nothing, he slipped down the hallway and into Crystal’s bedroom, careful to keep the flashlight beamed at the floor. On his hands and knees, he searched under the bed and the chair. He ran his fingers along the baseboard and the edges of her dresser, reached behind it as far as he could on both sides. He found nothing except dust and some spider webs with dead insects caught inside them. He sat on the floor for another moment. If he’d left his cufflinks inside Crystal’s house, Radhauser had already found them.

  Matt headed back down the hallway.

  The kitchen light came on.

  He flipped off the flashlight, ducked into Travis’s bedroom and flattened himself against the wall behind the partially open door. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.

  Footsteps shuffled on the linoleum, and then were muffled by the carpet in the hallway.

  He held his breath. Fear pricked his skin. A thousand tiny hairs stood upright on his arms, offering their useless protection. Dammit. How stupid of him to leave the sliding glass door unlocked.

  “Is anyone here?” It was a man’s voice, but not Radhauser. Matt smelled sweat and cigar smoke. Through the crack between the door hinges, he saw the man was older, wearing house slippers and a raincoat over his pajamas. He carried a tire iron in his right hand. He must be one of Crystal’s neighbors. Matt shifted away from the crack, hoping the man couldn’t see him.

  Ten seconds felt like an hour.

  The swishing sound of slippers on the carpet passed by Travis’s door and stopped in front of the bathroom. The man flipped on the light. “Holy shit. Holy mother of Jesus.” The man began to breathe in short gasps.

  For a moment, Matt worried the old man would have a heart attack.

  The man turned and hurried back down the hallway. Again, Matt held his breath, listening to the slap of slippers against the kitchen floor. The lights went off and the sliding door slammed shut.

  Matt exhaled a long stream of air, leaned his back against the wall and considered his options. The man might go home and call the police. If Radhauser had returned to the Catalina Sheriff’s Station, he could be back here in ten minutes.

  Matt wanted to run, but couldn’t risk being seen or a tire iron bludgeoning his skull as he stepped onto the deck. Five minutes. He’d wait five minutes, then carefully slip out the back door and head for the desert wash where he and Travis used to build their fires. He could follow it to the road where he’d parked his Mustang.

  The curtains in Travis’s room were thin, and the rising sun cast a golden light over everything inside. As Matt’s eyes adjusted, he saw the framed posters of Nolan Ryan and Mike Schmidt, Travis’s heroes, and the watercolor print of a little boy walking along the railroad tracks tossing a baseball into the air. A bulletin board with pictures and articles Travis had cut from the paper—most of them about Ryan and Schmidt. A neatly-made bed stood beside a bookshelf that held trophies, framed honor society certificates and his collection of paperback books. For as long as Matt could remember, Travis had made his bed without being told. Something Matt could barely imagine.

  In the corner, beside the closet, the Nolan Ryan autographed, JSA certified, Rawlings Big Stick was propped against the wall. Matt looked away, determined not to remember the autumn day six years ago when he’d given it to Travis. But there it was, a home movie, unwinding behind his eyes.

  It had been three months since Justin’s death. The monsoons had come and gone, leaving the cactus pears plump, the branches of the ocotillo still leafy and green.

  Travis and Matt wore their swim trunks and sat outside at the picnic table beside the pool. They ate potato chips and the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Matt’s mother made for them and stared at the empty space where Justin should be seated. The roses were in their second blooming, perfuming the air around them like the funeral parlor where they’d stood awkwardly, side-by-side, in front of Justin’s open casket. Travis had leaned forward and placed his Nolan Ryan autographed baseball into the coffin.

  Matt pushed the bag of potato chips aside. “I’ll be right back.” He hurried into his bedroom, picked up the bat his uncle had given him, and walked back outside. In the bright sunlight, little flecks of salt from the chips glistened on Travis’s chest.

  Matt held up the bat. “Justin would want you to have this.”

  Travis took it, ran his hands along the smooth wooden surface, admired Ryan’s signature for a moment before handing it back.

  “Nolan Ryan was his hero, too,” Matt insisted. “And besides, baseball isn’t my sport. Not anymore.” After what he’d done to Justin, it didn’t seem right for Matt to play a sport his cousin had loved so much.

  Travis stood, brushed the salt from his bare chest, picked up the bat and assumed his stance, taking a few hard and level swings. “But he was your cousin. It should stay with you.”

  Matt thought about all the stuff that had stayed with him the last three months, all the words not said after Justin died because it hurt too much to say them. He couldn’t remember a good moment in his life that hadn’t included Justin. And suddenly the mere mention of his name seemed to
cast a dark spell on everything. “I don’t want it,” he said, then burst into tears.

  Travis carefully placed the bat on the picnic table and sat beside Matt on the bench, draping his arm across Matt’s shoulders. They stayed like that for what seemed like a long time.

  “The whole jumping from the cliff thing was my idea,” Matt finally said, his voice breaking. “Justin said he was scared and didn’t want to do it. I shoved him.”

  Travis moved a little closer and tightened his grip on Matt’s shoulder.

  It was the first time Matt had said those words out loud to anyone. And the relief had been as big as the Grand Canyon.

  Matt shook his head to clear the memory and looked around. Nothing in Travis’s bedroom had changed since they were boys. And it felt wrong. Matt wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. The room should be different now.

  It should be a man’s room.

  Chapter Eleven

  In his bare feet, Loren Garrison paced the length of his family room, again and again. He wanted Matt to come home, wanted to know his son was all right. Ever since his ex-wife’s call, he hadn’t been able to stop the hammer blows of guilt and remorse. Crystal was dead. In his mind, he saw her sitting in the bleachers with Karina, head thrown back, the sound of her laughter ringing through the dusty air—back when Matt, Justin, and Travis had played baseball together.

  Loren thought of Crystal now, her empty body probably inside a drawer in the morgue. She’d been so young, a little more than half Loren’s age. He shuddered, felt colder than he had in years.

  He turned up the thermostat, made a pot of coffee, and reviewed the facts as he knew them. Travis must have come home from his dance, found his mother dead and called Matt.

  Loren understood Matt’s need to be there for Travis. But that didn’t stop his anxiety about his son. He was still a boy, not equipped to cope with another death. It had taken two years of counseling before Matt could even whisper Justin’s name. And clearly, he still wasn’t over it.

  Loren tried to convince himself both Matt and Travis would be all right. But his worry remained beside him waiting as the coffee slowly dripped into the glass pot—a sound as loud as a drum in the dark and quiet house. Before he knew it, he was crying for Crystal and for Travis. There was no one home to see him so he just let the tears fall. Eventually, he blew his nose, wiped his face with a napkin, then poured himself a cup of coffee. He sat in the rocker and lit his pipe.

  He never cried, not even when his parents had died. He’d choked up when Bryce pulled Justin from the lake, but no tears had actually fallen. Maybe this was another sign of his aging.

  It was 6:30am. He’d been awake since the phone call, thinking about Crystal and obsessing over his life, over the many mistakes he’d made.

  Loren shook his aching head. He’d really messed things up this time.

  When he heard the sound of tires on gravel, he picked up a philosophy journal and pretended to read. He waited while Matt took off his shoes and tiptoed in his bare feet through the brick archway into the family room. He wore only a T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, rolled up at the ankles.

  Loren set the journal on the mahogany lamp stand beside his chair.

  Matt’s face was drawn, his eyes red-rimmed.

  “Your mother called. She told me what happened. I’ve been so worried about you.”

  Matt wiped his hands on the pajama bottoms. His gaze skimmed Loren’s face, then flicked away. “The police wanted to talk to us. They asked a lot of questions and—”

  Loren’s pulse quickened. “What kind of questions?”

  “The usual, I guess. But I’m not okay.” Matt’s voice was curt and flat. “How could I be okay?”

  Loren stood and took a step towards him, lifted his arms, then let them fall back at his sides. “Dumb question, huh?” He wanted to feel connected to his son again, to do what he could to help. “I need to ask you something.”

  Matt planted his gaze on the fireplace. “I’m pretty tired of questions.”

  Something wasn’t right. There was a terrible squeezing under Loren’s breastbone. “Did you know Crystal was dead when you asked me if I thought she was the type of person who’d commit suicide?”

  Matt looked at him and shook his head. “No way.”

  But Loren saw it—the flash of a lie, that brief sidestep of eye contact.

  “How could I?” Matt continued. “Travis called me after he got home from his dance. After you went to bed.”

  “Where is Travis now?”

  “When I left, he was asleep at Mom and Nate’s house. I guess you know they cancelled the honeymoon.”

  “They didn’t have to do that. Travis is always welcome here.”

  “I think he needs to be with Mom.”

  Loren swallowed. His throat was tight, and once again his eyes filled with sudden tears. He hooked an arm around his son’s neck, wedging Matt’s head against his shoulder. God, how he loved this kid. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  Matt drew away. “I need to pack some things. I’ll be staying with Travis for a while.”

  Despite the obvious truth of what Matt had said, Loren wasn’t ready to let him go. “Do the police have any idea what made her do it? Did she leave a note or anything?”

  “They’re investigating it like a homicide. Until they’re sure.”

  “A homicide? Why would they think that?” Loren careened toward the fireplace, thrust out his right hand to support himself. The bricks were rough against his palm.

  Matt closed his eyes. “I don’t know. For Christ sakes, I wasn’t there.” He shook his head, again and again.

  There was something final and forbidding in the gesture, as if he’d seen things he never wanted to see or talk about again, and Loren had the sudden urge to shield his son. He wanted to give him something to look forward to after this nightmare ended. Something that might get the currents of conversation and connection moving between them again.

  “I thought it might be good for us to get away before you head off to college. After your finals. How about a trip to Europe? We could see some theater in London.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized how insensitive they might sound.

  An odd look crossed Matt’s face—one Loren couldn’t identify—then it was gone.

  Matt took a step back. “Travis’s mother is dead. They found her with her hair all whacked off in a bathtub of blood, and you…you want to go to the theater?”

  Loren missed a beat. “I’m sorry, son. I merely wanted—”

  “The police want us to stay in town,” Matt said. “All this shit coming down. It’s too much.” He turned and walked away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Matt intended to pack his textbooks, a couple of poetry books, his journal, his Walkman, a few CDs and some clothes, but instead he flopped down on his bed, buried his head in his pillow and finally slept.

  Later Sunday morning, as the arrows of sunlight pierced through his bedroom windows, Matt rolled onto his stomach, crimped the pillow tight around his throbbing head. Behind his closed eyes, Crystal’s face emerged in candlelight and the soft skin of her breasts pressed against him.

  He threw the pillow onto the floor and bolted upright in bed. Perspiration beaded his forehead. He wiped his wet face with his T-shirt. Grief, as much as guilt, wracked his brain and haunted his sleep. The skin on his chest, belly and butt still felt hot, as if it had been branded with her fingertips everywhere she’d touched him. Picturing Crystal dead was like trying to visualize the ocean dried up, or the Catalina Mountains flattened. He couldn’t imagine Travis’s life without his mother anymore than he could imagine a night sky without the moon and stars.

  Finally, unable to take it any longer, he checked the clock. It was 9:30 a.m. The unopened letter from his mom lay on the bed beside him. Hoping it would distract him from his thoughts of Crystal, Matt tore off the top of the envelope and read.

  Dear Matt,

  I’m sorry I’ve
disappointed you. I had no right to expect you to be happy about something that changed your life so drastically. I never wanted to do anything that would cause you pain. I love Nate, but that doesn’t take anything away from my love for you or from the feelings I once had for your father. All I can do now is hope the love we share will win and eventually heal us all. Mom

  His hand trembled. He stared at the way she’d underlined the word Mom, as if trying to reclaim her role. It seemed to Matt this note had been written in a time of innocence, when he’d still been a stupid boy angry with her for moving out and falling in love with someone else.

  He picked up the phone and dialed his mother. “Did I wake you?”

  “No, honey. Nate took Kelsey and Bryce to brunch, then to the airport. Where are you? I didn’t hear you leave.”

  He told her he couldn’t sleep, decided to pick up some of his things and had fallen asleep on his bed.

  “Travis is out cold,” she said. “I don’t expect to see him before noon.”

  Good. Travis would never know he’d left before dawn. “I’ll be there later. And Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For…I don’t know. I guess for just being there.”

  He tucked the letter into his bookcase headboard, padded across to the window and opened the shutters. A thick spring morning pressed against the glass as he stared into the fenced play yard with its tree house and rusted swing set. Scenes from endless childhood hours, picnics in the tree house with Sedona, fighting over matchbox cars and Lincoln logs. The time they’d discovered a Gila monster, a large and venomous lizard, and thought it was a dinosaur flashed before his eyes. He’d been a dick to her last night. He needed to apologize.

  Sedona’s door was closed. Matt softly tapped out their Sousa march.

  “It’s unlocked,” she said.

  He opened the door. She sat on her canopy bed, reading the song lyrics to Dépêche Mode’s Personal Jesus. She wore a yellow, sleeveless nightgown with rubber ducks floating along the hem. One of her bare feet rested on top of the other.