Death Trance

by R. D. Zimmerman

  I circled the open staircase, looked over the railing and into the entrance hall below—they'd left one light on—then up at the dark Tiffany dome that hovered way above the third floor. I counted the bedrooms—one, two, three, four, five, and six, including the master bedroom. All of them branching out from this upstairs landing, all of them spacious, all of them actually much larger than my living room back home.

  My bedroom was in front, the only one with a light on, and I saw my bags carefully laid out, a crystal carafe of water put by the bed, the bed itself turned down. I stopped at the threshold. Yes, I was tired, but I wasn't ready for sleep. Not yet. My mind was still whirling. While my body was obviously here, another part of me was still in Minneapolis, back there in April with Toni. I was jet-lagged, or rather trance-lagged, and my body had come back to Madeline's island faster than my aura or my karma. Part of me was still strung out between Minneapolis and Lake Michigan, my thoughts dusting the skies.

  I turned around, went down the stairs, through the front hall, and out the front door. The porch, broad and painted gray, wrapped around the west side and the front of the house, and I followed it, breathed in the fresh air, which was moist and cool. I could hear the waves crashing below, could see the stars in that navy blue-black sky. I went up to the front, leaned against one of the columns, and stared at a rocky beach straight in front and the lake beyond. There was a bit of a moon, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see blackish clumps of trees, the beach, a short dock. How was all of this going to come together, Toni's death and what I knew? How was I going to solve what the police had not been able to? Did we have any chance at—

  “You shouldn't be out here.”

  I jumped, turned around, saw a thick black figure, a face that blended in with the night. “God, Alfred, you scared me.”

  “The dogs run free at night, so you shouldn't be out here without letting me know.”

  “Oh.”

  He just stood there, both thuglike and schoolmarmish.

  I was about to make small talk, realized it was pointless, that it was obvious what he wanted, so I took a last whiff of fresh air, stretched.

  “Well, I guess I've had enough.”

  As soon as I moved, so did he, holding the front door open, ushering me inside as if indeed I were the delinquent, untrustworthy pupil. He then stepped in behind me and carefully locked the door.

  “Good night, Alfred,” I called as I started up the stairs.

  “‘Night,” he said, and disappeared into the billiard room, where there was another door leading into the back of the house.

  Well, so much for an evening stroll, I thought as I climbed up the stairs. Locked in. Lights out. It was odd, this house. A prison in a way, for I was beginning to feel less like a guest and more like a captive.

  With the exception of my footsteps on the carpeted runner, it was perfectly quiet as I headed up the stairs and retreated to my room. No, I realized, that wasn't quite right. As I reached the second-floor landing, I could hear a voice, not two, but one. It was my sister's. It grew louder, and it was obvious she was angry, shouting at someone and going on and on, which didn't make any sense because Maddy never got riled, never lost it like that. She was the one in control. So what was she doing? Could she possibly be getting furious at Solange? For what? I stood quite still on the edge of an oriental rug, stared at the closed door of the master bedroom. I should have been able to see light seeping out the bottom, but it was black. Did that mean Solange wasn't in there? But if it wasn't her, then who was it? Could there possibly be someone else here on the island and in this house that I didn't know about?

  Very clearly I heard Maddy shout, “God damn you!”

  I shivered. This wasn't my sister, at least not a part of her I'd ever, ever seen, known, or even suspected. Then something slammed. A door? Slowly and quietly I edged closer. Inside I could hear my rock-solid sister crying not just little waves of sniffles but loud, deep sobs. Jesus Christ, what had happened? I took another step, listened in shock to Maddy's outburst. And then she shrieked, and the next instant I heard some glass object strike a wall or the floor and shatter into tinkling pieces.

  I went up to the door, pounded, and asked, “Maddy? Maddy, are you all right?”

  No response, nothing. Even the sobs were immediately corked.

  “Maddy?”

  I twisted the door handle, pushed open the door, took a half step into the dark room. I scanned the black space before me, but couldn't tell if she was straight ahead by the bow windows, to the right by the bed, or perhaps to the left in the bathroom.

  “I heard a noise. Are you all right?” I asked.

  There was some sniffling to the right, I glanced over, saw a glint of metal. So she was over there at the desk by her bed, still in her wheelchair.

  “I'm fine,” she said, voice trembling. “I'm sorry, did… did I wake you?”

  “No. Who were you talking to?”

  “No one.”

  “But I heard you,” I pressed, looking toward her office door, seeing that it was shut. Was someone back there? “And I heard something slam.”

  “Alex, please—”

  “What is it, Maddy? What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Maddy, is someone else here in the house?”

  “What?” Then quickly she added, “No. No, I was on the phone.”

  “Oh,” I replied, though I wasn't sure I believed her. “Who was it?”

  She didn't reply, and I stood there in the darkness, realized she wouldn't turn on a light because she didn't want me to see her teary and puffy-eyed. Wasn't right for her big-sister, insightful-shrink image. And I of course couldn't turn on the lights because I had no idea where the fucking lights were; I was as blind in her world as she was in mine.

  “Maddy, who were you talking to?”

  “It was nothing, no one.” Then realizing she had to do better, she mumbled, “It was just my broker… he made a horrendous mistake.” Pause. “He was supposed to sell something and he didn't, and now I'm out a lot of money, something like… like six hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You were talking to him now, at this time of night?” I asked, thinking that she might have lost that much—it was a good story, she couldn't have made it up so fast—but not today, more likely last week.

  “Alex,” she said as condescendingly as possible, ‘‘when you have an account of over forty million, your broker will wash your underwear for you at four o'clock in the morning.”

  Get off it, I thought. Maddy never talked like that, not to me or anyone else. She was bullshitting me, trying to sidetrack me onto a different subject, keep me away from the real issue. Yesterday or even this morning I would have believed her. But not now. Earlier this evening I'd learned that Maddy had been friends with Toni and her lover, Laura. Close friends by her own admission, yet Maddy hadn't said a damn thing about it for fear of transgressing some boundary. Or some such thing.

  Some such thing as? My mind danced, looped arm to arm, from idea to idea, possibility to possibility, and on down the line, each thought more awful than the next. This outburst of hers had nothing to do with her millions. Maddy didn't care that much about all those dollars. No, standing there in the dark, seeing the outline of my blind sister in that wheelchair, I kept circling and coming back to Toni and sensing that of course this had to do with her murder. Of course there was more that Maddy knew about Toni and perhaps about Liz as well. After all, Maddy had been friendly with Toni for at least six years, been in regular contact with her, in a way knew her better than I, so perhaps there was another angle to this whole thing that I was missing. Maybe Maddy knew that Toni had been involved in something. Or maybe Maddy knew of some scandalous aspect of Liz's life.

  Shit. This was driving me crazy. The very idea of Toni, Laura, Maddy, and possibly even Liz all getting together made me twist inside with paranoia. Those four women gathering without the one link that tied them together: me. What had they talked about? What had they d
one? Something, anything, nothing? Still, there was the strong chance that Maddy had learned something at Liz's funeral. Toni could have taken Maddy aside, revealed some angle, some fact, some possibility that I was never privy to. So, if Maddy really had been on the phone just now, who could she have been talking to? Toni's surviving partner, Laura? Could Maddy be in touch with her? I hadn't been able to contact her, but perhaps it was simply that Laura hadn't wanted to talk to me, Toni's old boyfriend.

  I stood there steaming with speculation, wondering if there was indeed anyone else on this island. Maddy wasn't going to brush me off so easily. Not anymore. She surely knew that now, could tell as much.

  And so she laughed slightly, said, “I've never gotten mad at him like that—Steve, my broker, I mean. I'm just exhausted. I'll have to call him in the morning and apologize for hanging up on him.”

  “Yes, you will,” I said, wanting to nail her on this one.

  “I'm sorry I bothered you.” Her voice was high and sweet. Very, very Audrey Hepburnish, as if there couldn't possibly be a problem in this God-forsaken world because after all there was still Tiffany's. “Now you go off to bed and get some rest. I'll see you in the morning.”

  “Are you sure you're all right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Do you need help getting into bed?”

  “No, I'm going to just sit here a bit longer.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning, thinking again, bullshit.

  “Good night.”

  I gave up, said nothing more as I left her world of darkness because I knew there was something she wasn't telling me, and I knew I wouldn't get it out of her. Either she'd continue to deny any problem or at best admit that there was something but that she wouldn't tell me because—how had she put it?—she didn't want to skew my trance. Pollute it, that was it. And once Maddy decided upon something, there was no swaying her. Of that I was still absolutely sure. Such resolve. My granite sister.

  So I left without saying anything because I was so pissed and I knew that if I opened my mouth I wouldn't be able to shut it, the string of demands and questions would come gushing out, and she'd gun them down, one right after the other. I pulled Maddy's bedroom door shut behind me, but didn't move. No, I thought. She'll be listening. She could discern things through hearing that I missed like a dumb clod, so I stood in place, yet kept pacing, marching to make it sound like, yes, I was and always would be the dutiful little brother. I'll do as you say. I'll go to my room. I'll go to sleep. I'll believe your every goddamned word.

  That's what she must have thought, anyway. That I'd left her alone and to her business, because a minute, perhaps two, later—I'd stopped pacing by then, stood there just outside her door absolutely silent—I heard her pick up the phone again. She bleeped in a bunch of numbers, and then she was talking, demanding, ordering. I couldn't hear anything besides a forceful yes, yes, yes, no. Now! Nothing more could I discern, except that she didn't make just one phone call. But two. Three. To whom? Steve the broker? Very doubtful. Laura? Quite possibly.

  There might have been more calls, but I left after the third, in the end shamed by my spying. I stripped off all my clothes and crawled into bed, but I couldn't shed my thoughts and fears so easily, and I drowned in an ugly sleep.

  Oh, shit, Maddy, what is it? What do you know that I don't?

  Chapter 23

  I woke up the next morning feeling like I'd been out with a bunch of Russians and had drunk too many of those godawful koktaili, a bizarre combination of one-third cognac, one-third vodka, and one-third champagne; no olive, just a bloated prune. My limbs ached and my head felt thick and dull. I lay in bed, eyes open, body not moving, realizing only now how much energy I'd expended in trance yesterday. How drained I was this morning, and how much I didn't want to go through the rest of it.

  But I had to. I knew that. I lay there, my thick curly hair buried into that feathery pillow, and a few minutes later I repeated the trick that I'd learned the first time I visited Maddy out here: I reached over and pressed a button on the wall. While I'd felt embarrassed before, amused, too, this time I was praying it worked. And it did. About five minutes later there was a gentle rap on my door and Solange stepped in, carrying a bamboo tray.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  I smiled, managed to push myself up, prop a pillow behind my back, and Solange set the tray of coffee, juice, and muffin on my lap. There'd been a newspaper last time. None now, which meant either they were having difficulty with delivery out here—likely—or Maddy didn't want me distracted—more likely.

  I cleared my throat, said in a toady voice, “Thank you.”

  As Solange went over to the three large windows and pulled back the curtains, she said, “Alfred and I will be leaving shortly, if that's all right.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We'll be back in the morning. Is there anything you need before we leave?”

  “No.” I thought better of it, imagined taking a walk. “The dogs—what about them? Could Alfred pen them up somewhere?”

  “They're already in the kennel, watered and fed, too. Would you let them out tonight, after dark?”

  “Sure. Is my sister up?”

  “Oh, yes. For hours. She's in her office, says she has about another hour's worth of work and asks not to be disturbed.”

  Absolutely, I thought. This is Madeline's island and Sister rules it. All commands to be obeyed.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  ”A little after eleven.”

  “My God…” I'd thought maybe nine at the latest.

  Solange left and I downed my first cup of coffee in bed, the second while I stood in the shower. I had trouble getting dressed; putting on a sock seemed a real chore. As I stood at the windows buttoning my blue shirt, I stared out at the rocky point out front, then heard an engine. I leaned over, looked toward the eastern side of the island, saw Solange and Alfred motoring away from the boat house, and felt a stab of regret. No, don't leave us. Don't leave me here. I don't want to go through this. Take me away.

  I wandered the house for at least an hour, shot a game of pool in the billiard room, ate two more muffins in the kitchen, then went back upstairs, passed through my sister's bedroom, and went to a heavy sliding door in one corner. I tapped once, didn't wait for a reply, then stepped into what had once been called the hay-fever room—apparently the owner had retreated here during his attacks—and was now Maddy's office. She wasn't at either of the two computers, not at her quote machine or the fax, either, but beyond all that high-tech gadgetry, lying on a Victorian fainting couch.

  “Hi,” I said. “It's after one.”

  She lifted a hand from the red upholstery, motioned for me to stop, and I did, knowing what she was doing. A trance. She was under. Self-hypnosis was undoubtedly her best and most rewarding escape, and I watched her chest rise up and down, her body begin to move, and then seconds later she rolled her head toward me.

  “How'd you sleep?” she asked.

  “As they say in Russian, like the dead.”

  “I bet. Age regressions are exhausting. It's all that channeling, it really burns you out.”

  “Were you just under?”

  Maddy pushed herself up, then lifted and pushed her legs down to the floor. “Yep. I was just reliving some old memories… you know, seeing colors again and going for a walk. It sounds morose, maybe, but it really helps me from feeling so trapped inside myself.”

  I could understand that, appreciate it, yet I wondered exactly what old memories she'd chosen to revisit. Anything connected to her outburst last night?

  “Shall we go up and get back to work?” she asked, her voice light.

  “Okay.”

  “You don't sound too eager.”

  This was weird. I studied her, didn't get it. Why was she being so normal, why was she completely skipping over last night, pretending as if I hadn't heard or seen a thing?

  “Maddy, what was that all about last night?”

&nb
sp; “Alex, please, I just got all relaxed. Do I have to go into that now?”

  “But—”

  “I told you it had to do with my broker,” she snapped.

  Okay, I thought. If that was how she wanted to play, I was just going to have to sneak the truth out of her. I went over, helped her into her wheelchair, was struck by how readily she was now accepting my help.

  I asked, “Do you think this is going to work, that we'll actually discover who killed Toni?”

  “Sure. They say we only use ten percent of our minds, but I know hypnosis enables you to use more than that. Maybe it's only another two percent. Maybe it's twenty. I don't know, but I have a lot of faith in it, and yes, I do think you're going to get that answer.”

  “Do you already know who killed her?” I bluntly asked.

  “Alex, I can't give you the truth, I can only help you find it.”

  I groaned at her response, I groaned as I lifted her into her wheelchair. Maddy the blind, paraplegic Zen master. Why was she going to make me work for the answer when I sensed she could just as easily hand it to me?

  “Don't worry,” she said, reaching for the edge of a desk, getting her bearings, then starting to wheel herself out. Her voice rose to that higher pitch, the fake one, and she added, “Everything's going to be all right.”

  My point exactly, I thought as we headed back up to the third floor and, I hoped, the final trance. We both wanted everything to work out, we both wanted to wrap this all up nice and neatly, but there were no guarantees, never had been. After witnessing Toni's murder, I knew that only too well.

  Chapter 24

  Neither Toni nor I slept very well the night of Chris's murder. As I lay in my bed, I kept thinking I heard someone fiddling with the locks, and when I closed my eyes, there wasn't darkness but Chris's face, her hideous final one. And all that blood. I'd seen only two dead bodies in my life, one at a funeral, the other being pulled from a terrible car wreck. Those were bad enough, but this was real, someone I had met. Was it also going to take months, perhaps years, to forget what I'd seen in Chris's apartment?