She Wore Mourning

by P. D. Workman

  “I need to talk to Isabella,” he said. “She isn’t with you, is she?”

  “No. She should be home. Maybe she is just painting and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “It’s important that I talk to her. Can you call her and see if she’ll answer you? She wouldn’t ignore your call, would she?”

  “Don’t count on it,” Molly laughed. “When she gets into a work, she could be on another planet. She wouldn’t know if a tornado blasted through the house.”

  “Can you try?”

  “Sure, I guess. What’s this about?”

  “I need to talk to her about Spencer. About whether he’s ever had a particular set of symptoms.”

  “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  “I don’t think this is something that Spencer would want to discuss with me, but he may have mentioned it to Isabella.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time in that house. I could probably tell you anything you’re wondering about.”

  Zachary didn’t think Spencer would have told his mother-in-law about having thoughts that were so repugnant to him. It was a long shot that he would even have shared them with Isabella.

  “I just wondered about intrusive thoughts,” he said lightly. “If you would please call Isabella and see if she’ll answer… I really need to meet with her to get her thoughts.”

  Molly sighed. “I’ll do what I can, but if she’s lost in a painting, one of us will probably have to go over to the house to get any response out of her.”

  But Molly couldn’t get a response from Isabella. She wasn’t too worried but did want to check it out and make sure Isabella was okay. “I think she’s been getting better, since the hospital. They finally got her to take some meds that seem to be helping. If she’ll keep taking them. Sometimes… suicidal behaviors can be hard to spot.”

  Zachary made an effort not to laugh aloud at that. In his experience, very few people even knew what to look for. Depression didn’t always look like depression.

  He called Kenzie to see if she could pick him up to take him to the house. Kenzie yawned in his ear. “Yeah, I was already thinking of clocking out early today,” she said. “I don’t know why I’ve been so tired the last few days. Fighting a bug, I guess.” There was a pause. “It’s three-thirty now. Let me finish up, and I’ll pick you up at four.”

  “Thanks,” Zachary tried to put all the appreciation he could into his voice. “I know it’s a pain in the neck. Hopefully, I’ll have a new car and be able to drive soon. Once everything goes through.”

  “Yeah. Then hopefully you can avoid getting yourself killed.”

  She said it flippantly, but he hoped she was right. He’d had enough of threats and near-death experiences. If Kenzie were right, and the case that he was supposed to drop was the Bond case, then he needed to take care in his approach. Walking up to Spencer’s door might not be the best approach.

  Kenzie picked him up in good time, and they met Molly outside the house.

  “Do you have a key?” Zachary asked. “I’m not sure ringing the doorbell is particularly safe.”

  She frowned at him, shaking her head. “How is ringing the doorbell not safe?” she challenged. “You think you’re going to get electrocuted?”

  “No,” Zachary said lamely, as they walked up the sidewalk. He dropped his voice so that Molly wouldn’t hear as she marched up the sidewalk ahead of them. “More likely stabbed in the eye.”

  Kenzie glared at him. “That’s not funny.”

  “No.”

  Molly rang the doorbell. When there was no answer after a few tries, she called both Isabella’s and Spencer’s cell phones, but couldn’t get ahold of either one of them. She looked at Zachary.

  “I don’t know where they could be. They didn’t say that they were going on vacation or running any errands. They both like their routines, and this is where they always are in the afternoon.”

  “You don’t have a key?”

  Molly finally produced one. “I never use it. One of them is always here…”

  “She gave it to you in case of emergencies, right? And I think this is an emergency.”

  “Just because they’re not answering the door, that doesn’t mean that it’s an emergency,” Molly disagreed. She fit the key into the lock and turned it. “You don’t think that she’s done something, do you?”

  “You said she’d been doing better.”

  “She has. I’m… just not sure…” Molly picked up the pace and hurried as quickly as she could without losing her poise. They reached the studio right behind her. It was empty.

  “Where is she?”

  “Maybe she’s sick. In bed. Or in the shower.” Kenzie rattled off a few possibilities.

  Molly looked suddenly drawn and gray, sick with worry. “She would have told me if she was sick…”

  Zachary led the way toward the master bedroom, and Molly and Kenzie followed. It was obvious that she wasn’t in the bedroom either. The bed was neatly made. It hadn’t been touched since Spencer had stretched the sheets taut that morning.

  But there was something different. There was an easel set up in front of the window on a carpet of newspapers, the sunlight streaming from outside. Zachary walked around it to see what painting Isabella had been working on. The canvas was untouched.

  The three of them stood there, looking around at the rest of the room. Looking for anything that was out of place or might give an indication of where Isabella might have gone.

  It all looked as it had last time Zachary had been there, other than the easel. Spencer’s side of the closet neat and orderly. Isabella’s side looking like a bomb had gone off. Just as it had the day of Declan’s disappearance, Spencer’s light summer jacket hung in a prominent position.

  Spencer wouldn’t go out without his jacket. That was what Isabella had said. Of course, it was winter, and he would be wearing a heavier coat at those temperatures.

  His blue jacket.

  The one that had hung in his closet to give him an alibi the day of the murder.

  When Zachary had visited the house the first time, that blue jacket had been hanging on a peg at the front door. It didn’t belong in the bedroom closet. That was why it stood out in Isabella’s memory.

  She hadn’t been able to paint the color blue since Declan drowned.

  “The blue coat,” Zachary said, pointing to it. “He’s copying the day that Declan drowned. He had put the coat there so that Isabella would think he was home, but he wasn’t. He is the one who took Declan from the back yard.” Zachary looked at his watch. “Declan disappeared from the house around four o’clock and died at about five.”

  “What do you mean he’s copying the day of the crime?” Molly demanded. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because it worked the first time, and because he’s obsessive. If it worked the first time, then he has to copy every detail for it to work again.”

  “To work again? Declan is dead. Are you saying he’s having some kind of breakdown?”

  Zachary stared at her. How could she not understand what was going on?

  But Kenzie had figured it out. She grabbed Zachary by the arm.

  “We’d better find them,” she said urgently.

  Zachary nodded. He and Kenzie led the way back out of the house. Out the back door. They followed the fresh prints in the snow. Molly followed behind, murmuring in confusion that she still didn’t understand what was going on.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The snow made it difficult to move quickly to the pond. The sun was already dipping below the horizon. Zachary’s heart raced as they followed the trail in the snow to the little pond. It was frozen over. Spencer was in the middle, working at breaking a hole in the ice with a hatchet. Isabella lay beside him, half-sitting and half-reclined.

  “Izzy!” Molly shouted out, finally getting an inkling of the danger her daughter was in.

  Kenzie prevented her from dashing out onto the ice. “It’s not safe,” she warned. “We don’t
know how thin the ice is. You could all go into the freezing water.”

  Molly froze, her eyes wide, wanting to rescue her daughter, but unable to do anything.

  “Stay back!” Spencer ordered, looking up from his work.

  “How’s it going, Spencer?” Zachary asked casually, as if they had just run into each other by coincidence on the street.

  “Just stay back and leave me alone. I have to do this.”

  “I talked to Dr. Snowdon.”

  “So what?”

  “I learned some things from him that I didn’t know before. About how some people with OCD have intrusive thoughts. They are afraid to go to anyone for help.”

  Spencer continued to hack away at the ice, enlarging the hole he had started.

  “I didn’t know that before. About how some people have thoughts about harming their loved ones. When they wouldn’t ever do anything like that.”

  “I can’t deal with it anymore,” Spencer said. “I can’t shut them off. The only way to get rid of the thoughts is to get rid of the triggers.” He shook his head, his voice breaking. “I love my family. I can’t… I can’t keep seeing them like that.”

  “There are other ways they can help you. There are medications. Therapies. You never talked to Dr. Snowdon about your thoughts, did you? You never gave him the opportunity to tell you that it was treatable. That there were things that he could do to help you. You don’t have to fight this alone, Spencer. There are people who will help.”

  “They can’t do anything,” Spencer disagreed. “I’ve already tried everything else. I know the way my brain works. This is the only way to get rid of the thoughts.”

  Zachary could see Kenzie out the corner of his eye, working away on her phone, using her own body and Molly’s to shelter the glow of the screen from Spencer as she called or texted for help.

  “You’re a pretty smart guy, Spencer,” Zachary said in an upbeat tone. “You really thought things through and planned this out, didn’t you? You knew that Isabella would be distracted from watching Declan. You knew that the cough medicine would knock Declan out. Keep him from fighting back or waking up while you… took care of him. You fooled Isabella. You did leave the house without your summer jacket. You left it hanging there for her to see. In the bedroom, not at the front door where it belonged. You wanted her to believe that you were still in the house. She knew that you couldn’t leave without the coat.”

  “I can leave without the jacket,” Spencer offered. “I just don’t like to. It’s comfortable. I know what temperatures it is good for. I always wear it… but I don’t have to. Even when I have a compulsion, I still have willpower. I can resist for a while… until it becomes too uncomfortable.”

  “But her unconscious mind picked up on what her conscious mind didn’t. The color blue. It was wrong. It shouldn’t have been in the bedroom; it should have been at the front door. Did you know that was why she couldn’t paint the color blue anymore?”

  “I didn’t know for sure.”

  Zachary could hear the ice creaking as Spencer moved closer to Isabella. He grabbed her arms and dragged her toward the hole. Zachary was holding his breath, waiting for it all to collapse. In his mind, he was playing out what they would do. They would save Isabella first. He would lie down on the ice to spread his body weight across as wide an area as possible. They would need rope. Maybe his coat. He could take off his coat to stretch out to Isabella. If she were able to grab it.

  She was murmuring to herself and didn’t seem to have any desire to move away from Spencer. He must have drugged her just like he had drugged Declan. Zachary watched Isabella, trying to hear what it was she was saying. Did she have any idea what danger she was in? What was going on?

  “Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

  Zachary breathed out, his chest hurting. “Of course, you were the one sending me threats,” he observed, still trying to keep Spencer talking. Trying to keep him engaged and occupied. “But you never said which case it was I was supposed to drop.”

  Spencer looked up at him for a minute, frowning. “I thought you would know.”

  “Not if you don’t tell me, amigo.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is this your first attempt on Isabella’s life?” Zachary asked. “Or had you tried that before too?”

  “She tried to commit suicide before.”

  “But was it really suicide? Or did you have a hand in that as well?”

  “She was depressed. She felt guilty about Declan.” Spencer shook his head. “I don’t know why when she wasn’t the one who did it. I had to live with the reality of what I had done to turn off those awful thoughts.”

  “You didn’t encourage those feelings in Isabella? Maybe give her a couple of nudges toward suicide? You were posting mother and child pictures on her Facebook.”

  Spencer looked away. “Encouraging someone to commit suicide is against the law,” he said. “I never did that, but I might have… manipulated her environment.”

  He wouldn’t encourage his wife to commit suicide because that was against the law, but he would kill her himself. It made no sense to Zachary.

  But in Spencer’s mind, it did. With his disordered thinking, it was the best he could do.

  “You had me fooled. I thought it was Isabella who had killed Declan.”

  “Isabella? I told you she would never do that.”

  “You can’t always tell what someone is capable of doing.”

  Spencer looked at Isabella lying on the ice. “I know. There’s no way she could have done anything to hurt Declan. She loved him… like a mother. It was different for her. She didn’t have those thoughts. Those visions.”

  “You would have gotten away with it. The police didn’t find anything suspicious.”

  “And then you had to come along. Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?”

  “I was just doing my job.”

  “They said that you were paralyzed after the car accident, and I thought I was safe. But they were wrong. That car accident should have killed you. The fire should have killed you. None of that worked. The only thing that worked was this.” Spencer gestured to the pond and his wife. “I hit on the magic combination the first time, and I didn’t even know how lucky I was. Isabella didn’t die. You didn’t die. Only Declan.”

  Zachary glanced at Kenzie, trying to get some idea from her as to when help would arrive. She made a wry face and gave a slight shrug with one shoulder. Who knows?

  “I get it,” Zachary said. “I know you think no one else can understand, but I get it.”

  “How could you?”

  “I have… thoughts… too. I have had since I was ten years old.” Zachary swallowed hard. “I’ve never told anyone.”

  Spencer stopped chopping the ice and looked across the pond at him. “What thoughts do you have?” he asked. In the failing light, his eyes were just hollows. He looked skeletal.

  “I think that people are going to leave me. My wife. Anyone I’m dating. My wife did leave me… and I still think about her all the time. I want to know who she’s seeing, what she’s doing. I put a tracking device on her car so that I could know where she was all the time.”

  Spencer was standing there looking at him. He had stopped digging the hole and moving around, for the moment.

  “I put trackers on other people too,” Zachary said, glancing at Kenzie and grimacing. “Sometimes… people I hardly even know. It started with work, with people I was surveilling, but I couldn’t stop with that. I had to know where everyone was. Everyone in my life. I stalk them by GPS. I check social media to see what they’re doing all day long. I profile anyone they might be dating or spending too much time with…”

  “That makes sense,” Spencer said. “But the thoughts I have…” He looked at his wife and shook his head. “You can’t imagine how horrible they are.”

  “You need to get help. There are things they can do to help. There are other ways.”

  “No… th
e only way to stop the thoughts is to remove the trigger. That’s the only thing that has ever worked for me.” Spencer looked down at Isabella with a groan. He grabbed her leg and tugged her toward the hole in the ice.

  “Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand,” Isabella repeated.

  Zachary stepped out onto the ice.

  “Zachary, no,” Kenzie protested in a whisper.

  “I have to do something.”

  As he started to slide his feet across the ice, gingerly feeling his way along and listening for the sounds of cracking, he saw red flashing lights coming through the trees. The police were finally there, but Spencer was tugging Isabella those last few inches toward the hole, and the ice he was standing on could break and dump them both into the water at any time.

  “Did you ever go ice skating as a kid?” Zachary asked, trying to distract Spencer and fill the silence. “I never had skates, but we used to go out on the pond, like this, sliding across it in our shoes.” He was almost within reach of Isabella, which was both bad and good. He was now adding his own weight to the sheet of ice. “I used to love winter then. Sliding on the ice, building snowmen, Christmas…”

  He’d almost forgotten that. Almost forgotten that he had ever loved Christmas. Like any other child. It had been a magical time of year. Not because of presents, because they rarely got anything worth mentioning. Not like some of his friends who got new toys, the latest games, the most popular movies, even new clothes, but because it was the season of peace and love. He could remember sitting in the living room with his mother, drowsy, staring up into the fully-decorated, lit-up Christmas tree. She told him stories and sang parts of Christmas hymns, and he felt the magic of the season.

  “Come on, Spencer. Let’s get you help.”

  Isabella started to slide into the hole in the ice feet-first. Peacefully, without a sound, just like Spencer had planned. Zachary threw himself down on the ice, sliding the rest of the way on his belly. He grabbed her coat and her arm and kept her from sliding the rest of the way in. The ice crackled under his body.