She Wore Mourning

by P. D. Workman

  “I… I don’t know when I was awake and when I was asleep. I was dreaming about a fire, having a nightmare. I don’t know when I woke up. I don’t know how much of it was a dream and how much was real.”

  “How long was your girlfriend there?”

  “Just a few minutes. I was tired… she didn’t stay.”

  “Did she want to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you walk her out? Lock the door behind her?”

  “No. I was already falling asleep… she saw herself out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I didn’t walk her out. I was too tired.”

  “Are you sure she left?”

  Zachary felt the cold through his blanket. He was starting to shiver. Another night out in the cold, nearly killed under suspicious circumstances. He thought of Kenzie in his dream. How she knew something. She knew who it was that was trying to kill him. She was helping them. Had he heard her leave the apartment? Or had she merely walked out of the room and waited until she was sure he was asleep? She was the one he told everything to. She was the one who knew about the fire when he was ten. She could have put something in his drink at the Four-Leaf Clover to make him sleep more soundly.

  He won’t wake up. He’ll never know.

  “I… I’m sure she did,” he protested, but he knew they could hear the doubt in his voice. That they knew very well he wasn’t sure. He could never be sure. He’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t walked her out. Locked the bolt behind her.

  “Mr. Goldman,” the policeman said.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you the same Mr. Goldman who was in an accident a few weeks ago? In a car? Brake lines cut?”

  Zachary swallowed. He took in a deep breath. Too sudden; he started coughing and had a hard time getting back under control again.

  “Yes. That was me.”

  “Who is trying to kill you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This girlfriend. Was she with you before the car accident?”

  “She was in the accident with me,” Zachary said, sure it proved Kenzie’s innocence. “She couldn’t have been the one who did it. We both could have died.”

  “Maybe that was the plan. For the two of you to die together.”

  “No… I don’t even know her that well. We’ve only gone out a few times.”

  “Uh-huh. Is there someone else who has motive to kill you?”

  “I… the other officers who questioned me after the car accident… they have the details about the cases I was working on… I’m a private detective. I’ve been getting threatening notes.”

  “I’d say this goes well beyond threatening notes.”

  Zachary nodded. He put the oxygen mask over his mouth, both to breathe the warmer air that didn’t tear at his throat, and to hide behind it, so he didn’t have to speak while he was sorting out his thoughts.

  “Anyone else we should be aware of?”

  He breathed the warm air, not wanting to answer the question.

  “Mr. Goldman?”

  “My ex-wife was here tonight too.”

  “You have an ex-wife? Any reason she might be upset with you? Other than being jealous that you were seeing someone else?”

  “She wasn’t jealous of Kenzie… but she was pretty mad. She hit me,” Zachary touched the cheek that she had slapped. “And she said… that it was my fault that she got cancer.”

  The policeman’s brows furrowed. “And how was it your fault that she got cancer? It’s not usually something contagious.”

  “Because… dealing with me made her stressed. She got cancer because her body’s defenses were down… or something. I don’t know. Does it have to make sense?”

  “When do they?” the fire chief intoned, rolling his eyes. “I’ve got three exes, and there’s no point in trying to reason with them. I’m probably lucky none of them have tried to kill me.”

  Zachary rubbed at one of the scorch marks on his pants, seeing whether it would come off, or whether the fabric itself was burned.

  “She knows… that I would normally take a Xanax and go to sleep after a panic attack. She told Kenzie so.”

  “So, she had good reason to think you would sleep through just about anything,” the cop observed.

  “Yeah.” Zachary rubbed some more. He was going to have to get new clothes. Not just to replace the ones that he was wearing, but everything. None of the clothes that were in his apartment were going to be salvageable. If they hadn’t burned, they would be smoke damaged. “But I don’t think it was Bridget. I really… I don’t think she would do that. I know she wasn’t there when the brakes were cut. She was on the other side of the city.”

  “Or so she told you.”

  “No…” He bit his lip and looked at the policeman. “I had a tracker on her car. I know she was on the other side of town.”

  The cop gave no indication he intended to arrest Zachary for stalking or any other crime.

  “With an ex like that, I’d track her too.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Zachary was again back at the hospital. After being checked out, he wasn’t admitted. He went to the waiting room to sleep in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. He didn’t have anywhere to go, or any way to get there. At least the waiting room was warm. He was around people, so, hopefully, he was safe from whatever psycho was determined to kill him.

  He slept fitfully off and on. More off than on. Eventually, he figured it was late enough in the morning he could call Kenzie. He begged the use of one of the nursing station phones to do so. He was again without a phone of his own, or a wallet, or any other possessions. All he had were the clothes on his back, smelling strongly of smoke and not enough to protect him from the elements.

  There was no answer on Kenzie’s cell phone, or on her line at the medical examiner’s office. He continued to call throughout the morning, growing hungry and crabby and at a complete loss as to what to do next.

  Finally, almost at noon, she answered her cellphone.

  “Kenzie! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”

  “So I see. I don’t recognize the number you’re calling from, though.” Her voice was cool. Almost frigid. Zachary’s heart sank.

  “I’m calling from the hospital.”

  “Oh. What is it this time?”

  He didn’t understand her attitude. Wasn’t she even the least bit concerned? “Well… it looks like whoever cut my brake lines isn’t done. Someone started a fire in my apartment last night.”

  “Oh, did they? Why would anyone do that?”

  He tried to figure out whether she was putting on a show for someone who might be listening in on the conversation. Did she not care about the second attempt on his life?

  “Kenzie? They tried to kill me. Again!”

  “I heard you.”

  Zachary waited for a few beats, trying to analyze her tone. He tried to picture her in front of him to figure out why she was behaving the way she was.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did I do something?”

  He didn’t need to wait for her answer for it to click in. He should have expected it. He should have known that she, too, would abandon him.

  “I took Bridget’s advice and took my car to the shop.”

  He swallowed. “Oh.”

  “You’ve been tracking me, too.”

  “It’s not like that…”

  “I can understand why you would track Bridget. It makes sense in theory. If you wanted to avoid her, you had to know where she was. But why would you be tracking me? Explain that one.”

  Zachary concentrated on breathing. He sat down in the chair beside the nursing station, unable to keep his feet. He breathed through his mouth.

  “I’m waiting,” Kenzie prompted. “Or are you out of excuses now? I’m starting to think maybe there’s something to what Bridget’s been trying to say. You’re not a well person, Zachary. There’s something very wrong with you.”

  “I… I wasn�
�t stalking you. I wasn’t doing anything sinister or creepy. I just…”

  “You just what?” she snapped.

  “I have… anxiety. You found that out. There’s more to it than just panic attacks. I get… worried about people I have relationships with. I want to know… that you’re okay. I know it’s sick. You’re right. I get scared, and I want to check on you. Just to make sure…”

  “To make sure that I’m not seeing anyone else? That I’m not sneaking around behind your back? You don’t own me, Zachary. We haven’t even talked about dating exclusively. We’ve just had a few casual dinners together. That doesn’t make me your girlfriend, and it doesn’t give you the right to follow me around and monitor what I’m doing.”

  “No. I know that. That’s not what I was doing. It didn’t have anything to do with whether you were seeing anyone else.”

  “The hell it didn’t!”

  He was taken aback by her vehemence. He sat there in shocked silence. The nurse’s eyes slid over to him, trying to analyze how much longer he would be. Trying to understand his conversation from the one side that she could hear.

  “I’m sorry, Kenzie.”

  “You think that makes everything okay?”

  “No. It’s wrong. It was an invasion of your privacy. I was just being… a jerk. A stupid, dysfunctional jerk. I couldn’t help—” He stopped and corrected himself. “I could help it. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have just put up with the anxiety. Not like it would kill me.”

  She sniffled, and he realized she was crying.

  He had made Kenzie cry.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I did, but—I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “You’re a really sweet guy, Zachary. I can’t understand how you could do something like this. You act like this great guy, all put together, a great catch, but inside, you’re like… a little boy… like that little, lost boy who tried to do something nice and accidentally burned the house down.”

  There was a lump in Zachary’s throat. “I don’t tell that story to anyone. Especially not someone I’m just dating. I don’t think I told any of it to Bridget until we’d been married for a year. Even then… no more than I had to.”

  He thought of the would-be killer lighting candles to start the fire. Was it someone who hadn’t known his horror for candles and fire? Who thought that Zachary having a few Christmas candles lit would be perfectly natural? Or was it someone who knew him, who knew his story and wanted not just to kill him, but to do it in the most terrifying way?

  “I’m glad you told me. Because if you hadn’t, I don’t think I could even begin to understand how you could do something so stupid as to track me electronically.”

  Zachary just waited.

  “That doesn’t make it okay, Zachary. It just makes it a bit easier for me to understand why you’re so scared of losing the people you love.”

  Zachary swallowed and nodded, trying to make a noise of agreement.

  “You really should be in therapy.”

  “I have been… but it doesn’t make these feelings go away.”

  “But maybe if you understood them a bit better. Maybe if they gave you some strategies to manage your anxiety…”

  “Maybe I need to find someone new. A new therapist. Maybe if I was seeing someone every couple of weeks…”

  “Yeah. I think you should try.”

  Zachary sighed. “I’m monopolizing this nurse’s phone. I should probably go.”

  “Oh. You’re at the hospital.” She had thawed and now sounded a little concerned about him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a way to get home?”

  “No… but I don’t have a home to go to, so that doesn’t matter.”

  She was silent at first, not immediately jumping in to offer him a ride. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t figured anything out. I guess I need to get back to my building, see if I can get in or if anything is salvageable. But then… I haven’t got a clue. Maybe a homeless shelter.”

  “Why don’t you get a cab and a hotel room? You’ll maybe have to live out of a suitcase for a while, but…”

  “I don’t have any money. No credit cards, no ID. It was all in my apartment. The only thing I’ve got is the clothes I’m wearing, and those are pretty ripe.”

  She sighed. “I’ve got to work. I’ve already missed a couple of hours getting my car looked at. I hadn’t arranged for anyone to cover my shift. You’re going to have to figure things out on your own for now. Call me tonight when I’m off… let me know how you’re doing. What you managed to get set up. Okay?”

  Zachary swallowed. “Okay.”

  He had told himself that he didn’t expect her to drop everything to pick him up. But it turned out he had. He’d been lying to himself. He needed someone to help him; then he could figure out what to do about getting his identification reissued and finding a place to live. Someone’s couch to sleep on for a few nights. When he hung up after the discussion with Kenzie, he put his head in his hands, trying to sort out what to do next.

  “What can I get you?” the nurse asked. “Coffee?”

  He rubbed his palms into his eyes, trying to soothe the deep ache behind them. “That would be really good,” he admitted.

  “You just stay there for a minute, I’ll get you one from the staff room.”

  He did as she said. Not that he had the energy to do anything else. He gazed out the wall of windows behind the emergency room chairs. Snow was starting to fall in big, white flakes.

  Christmas snow. Magical snow.

  Just another reminder that he was again homeless. He didn’t even have a coat to keep him warm on the street. What had changed in the decades since he was ten years old, trying to do something to bring his parents and his family back together? He had ended up in hospital then too. More burns on his body than he had this time. A throat swollen and burned by the smoke and the burning air. It was the same thing all over again.

  “Here you go,” the nurse said compassionately, setting a ceramic coffee cup down beside Zachary. She also set down a napkin with a chocolate glazed donut on it. “You’re in luck; there was a meeting this morning with leftover food.”

  Zachary took a sip of the hot coffee and picked up the sticky confection. “You’re a lifesaver, Nurse Nancy,” he told her, looking at her name tag. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

  “I gather,” she nodded to the phone, admitting to the fact that she had eavesdropped on his call. As if she could avoid it, sitting right there two feet away from him. “Sounds like you’re in pretty dire straits. You get something in your stomach, and then we’ll see what else we can do for you.”

  Nurse Nancy and the coworkers she roped into helping Zachary had found a coat that fit him in the lost and found. “People leave them draped over the chairs and get into their cars without realizing they’ve left them behind,” Nancy said. “And when they try to figure it out, they probably don’t even think about the hospital. You should see the amount of stuff we get through here.”

  Zachary nodded politely. It was strange to pull on someone else’s clothes, something that didn’t quite fit to his skin and that carried someone else’s scent. He was grateful for it. He couldn’t even go outside without that little kindness. Several people had donated a few dollars so that he wasn’t totally destitute and could at least call a cab or buy a sandwich if he were desperate.

  Zachary thanked them profusely. They were lifesavers.

  Though the hospital was not close to his apartment, he determined to walk back to it. It was something to occupy him while he waited for Kenzie to get off of work and wouldn’t cost him any of his meager cash supply.

  While the coat was warm enough that he was sweating after a few blocks’ brisk walk, he didn’t have any gloves, and his fingers turned numb not long into his journey. He swung his hands and clapped them together and pulled them into his sleeves. Eventually, he sett
led on pulling one at a time in under his coat and clamping it under his armpit until it thawed out. Then he would put it back out his sleeve and pull the other one in, repeating the process on the other side.

  It took several hours to walk back to his apartment, as he had expected. When he got there, he found yellow caution tape blocking off all except for the front door to the building, with a police guard there to talk to anyone who wanted access to the building. He stepped forward and looked Zachary up and down, blocking the way.

  “Sorry sir, the building is closed.”

  “I need to see how bad the damage is. If anything of mine can be recovered.”

  The cop opened his mouth to argue and repeat the stricture that the building was closed.

  “I don’t have my phone or my wallet. I can’t get a hotel without a credit card. I have nowhere to go. I need access to my apartment to see if anything is salvageable.”

  “Which apartment?”

  “Number 3C.”

  The cop shook his head again. “That’s where the fire broke out. You can’t have any access to it.”

  “Please. I need to at least see it. I need to know how bad it is. Should I start on getting my ID reissued, or will I be able to get it back? Can you tell me that?”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “Could you go up there with me? That way you can make sure I don’t touch anything, but I can see if I’ll be able to save anything, or whether it’s all gone.”

  “I don’t have clearance to do that.”

  “Maybe you could get permission. Is there someone you could call? Explain the situation?”

  The cop just looked at him. Zachary spread his arms wide.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have any identification, phone, or money. I don’t have anywhere to sleep. I don’t have a car. Can you explain that to someone? Help me out, here.”

  “I can’t let you have access to anything in the apartment.”

  “I understand that. I won’t touch or take anything. Just look to see it there’s anything that didn’t burn.”

  The man gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let me see if I can get ahold of someone.”