Among the Lilies

by Daniel Mills

The stage-lights beat at the bald spot in his scalp. He wipes his sleeve cross his forehead.

  I ask, “You didn’t see her in the audience?”

  “I possessed no inkling of her presence whatsoever. Scout’s Honor.”

  “And she didn’t approach you afterward?”

  “Good heavens, child, why would she do that? Poor Fiona. She was not exactly a happy girl when I knew her. I should hardly think she’d wish to revisit that particular chapter of her past, do you? Good day.”

  It’s colder now. Sky like glass, no clouds, sun cutting shadows down the sidewalk. I unlock my car, slide into the seat. Start the engine and drive past Southwick.

  An old man crosses in front of me. He hurries along with coat zipped, collar up, but the light flashes from his glasses and I can see the sleeves of a white coat at his cuffs.

  The man I saw from the bike path. White-coated and drinking out of a Dixie cup. Seated in the window of a brick townhouse, the third window.

  He rounds the corner, goes into Southwick. I pull over by a dorm-building, where there’s students outside smoking, dressed in tall boots and little jackets.

  I take out my phone. Open up Maps, zoom to the North End. Find the bike path and follow it north past Leddy. I turn on Satellite imagery, swipe past roofs of condos and duplexes til I find a brick townhouse. Switch back to maps, street-names.

  Lakeshore Terrace.

  I park out of sight, approach on foot. Three doors up: I try the handle. Locked. A camera over the door, its red-light blinking. I ring the doorbell, wait, rap on the glass with my knuckles. I unlock Fiona’s phone and call the Abernathy Clinic. I hear a phone ringing inside but no one answers.

  Back to the car. I’m nearly there when I hear a door close behind me. Look back to see a young woman step out of Number 3. She is twenty or so, smallish and blonde. Wrapped in a wool sweater with a yellow scarf at her throat.

  She sees me, crosses the street. I go after her.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  She ignores me.

  “They wouldn’t let me in,” I say.

  She lowers head, keeps walking.

  “Please,” I say. “It could be important.”

  She wheels round to face me. Her hair is unwashed and she sounds angry, tired. Smells of old cigarettes, stale beer. “What do you want?”

  “I’m acting on behalf of a friend.”

  “So?”

  “You just came from the Abernathy Clinic, didn’t you?”

  Her expression unreadable. “They turned me away again. Said I wasn’t ready.”

  “Again? Were you here last Wednesday?”

  “I was. Friday too. Both times they sent me away.”

  I show her Fiona’s phone. The photo: Fiona, Mark, the sunset behind them.

  “Do you recognize her?”

  “She was here, yeah. Wednesday. She wanted to talk to me but the nurse made her leave. She knew about Salterton. She was the same as me, she said. I didn’t ask what she meant.”

  “Eugene Salterton? The music teacher?”

  She doesn’t look at me, won’t.

  “My professor,” she says. “He’s very—persuasive. I was stupid.”

  “He made your appointment for you?”

  “He did, but Abernathy turned me away. Today they wouldn’t even let me see him. The nurse sent me home. Come back in a week, she said.”

  We’re at the car. “Can I give you a ride anywhere?”

  “I’d rather walk, thanks. As long as the sun’s out.”

  “Won’t be too many more days like this.”

  “No,” she says. “There won’t.”

  I dial up Kate. Voicemail.

  “Call me,” I say. “Please.”

  Redstone Campus. Southwick Hall. The shadows lengthen: black lines, black paving. I park near Southwick with lights off, the engine idle.

  Full-on night when Salterton appears. He’s bundled against the cold with a briefcase under his arm. He passes the parking lot, descends the hill on foot.

  I kill the engine. Run to catch up then follow at a distance. His pace is brisk, long legs swinging shadows under the streetlights. He turns right off Prospect then right again into the driveway of a white Victorian with a fenced-in yard. He lifts the gate and steps to the door. Unlocks it, goes in. A light switches on, lamplight, yellow on the curtains.

  I linger by the fence, shelter in its shadow. Inside a piano is playing. The gate is open. Its hinges creak. I slip through it, then sideways along the fence, circling round to the back of the house. A basement window. I kneel, press my face to the glass.

  The room beyond is dusty and dim. I can just make out a sofa, a record player with LPs stacked alongside it. Sheet music, rolls of it fanned on the floor. A hand-vacuum. A length of rubber hose. A large fish-tank, empty.

  My phone vibrates. Kate.

  I scuttle from the house, make my escape while the piano plays.

  I pick up. “I wanted to ask you something,” I say.

  “Ask it, then.”

  “It’s about the Abernathy Clinic.”

  Silence. I lower the phone, glance at the screen. The call is active.

  Finally, she says, “Can you meet me?”

  “Where?”

  “God, I don’t know. Anywhere with a bar.”

  I meet her in a Bank Street brewpub, sit down across from her. Our booth is lit by votive lights, her hair black and immaculate, pale face reflected in the scotch glass she holds. She drains it, orders another. Sips from the second glass and tells me about the clinic.

  “Fi asked me to drive her. To wait for her there.”

  “This was in your third year?”

  “2003. Around the time she dropped out. Just before, actually.”

  “Salterton made her appointment?”

  “He said it was his ‘responsibility.’ Said he knew someone who would take care of it.”

  “Doctor Abernathy.”

  “I guess. I never met him. An old guy, she said.”

  “But you drove her to the North End?”

  “The North End?” she asks, surprised.

  “To the clinic.”

  The glass is at her lips. She shakes her head.

  “I went with her, yes, but the clinic was downtown. Not far from here, actually, in one of those office blocks off Church Street. I’m not sure I could find it again.”

  Her glass strikes the table. Empty.

  She says: “I remember the smell, though.”

  “You went inside.”

  “Only as far as the waiting room. The floors were white-tile, walls painted the same shade of white. There was no wallpaper, nothing hanging up. Everything was spotless, sterile, swept clean.”

  “And the smell?”

  “Fresh paint. Air freshener, antiseptic. But there was another smell too. Something earthy, bitter, burnt. I can’t describe it.”

  She looks down at the table. Her face disappears into her hair, its shadows, the flash of a fire-truck’s lights on the window behind her.

  “Fi rang the bell,” she says, “and a nurse came out. A big woman in purple scrubs. She seemed to be expecting us. She didn’t speak but motioned for Fi to follow her. I offered to go along with her, but Fi said it was okay. She’d be okay, she said, and so I let her go.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I waited. As long as I could stand it, anyway. The smell was making me sick so I left a note on the desk and went out. I wanted to clear my head, but it was raining, and the rain had that same dirty smell about it. After a while I went back inside.”

  “How long did you have to wait?”

  “Two hours. Maybe three. It took longer than I expected and Fi was alone when she came out. She was walking slowly. Shuffling, really. She was incoherent, mumbling to herself. The anesthetic, I guess. I took her by the arm and walked with her to the car.”

  She pauses. Fidgets with her napkin, tears it into strips.

  “When we got home, I turned on some music, that
weird old stuff she likes. Her jeans were wet so I helped her into the bathroom. I took off her sneakers, her pants, and she was laughing because of the drugs they’d given her. God knows she needed them.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She was bandaged up to her belly button. It was just supposed to be a minor procedure, no big deal, but this looked like real surgery. She was giggling to herself all the time I cleaned her up. She lowered her voice, whispered in my ear. ‘Complications,’ she said, and laughed and fell back against the toilet-seat. She laughed until she was crying. She cried for an hour before she fell asleep on the toilet. I shook her awake. Helped her back to the couch and covered her with a blanket. She slept through the day, most of the night. When she woke up she acted like everything was okay. I thought it was. We didn’t talk about it, though. Not for years.”

  “Until you told her to go to a doctor.”

  “That word. ‘Complications.’ I wondered.”

  “What happened last Tuesday?”

  “I asked about her appointment. She got angry. Blamed me for everything. I should have helped her, she said, should have taken her away from that place. She was right, too.”

  She stands up, shaky. The napkin balled and shredded in her hand. Two glasses before her, emptied of all but candlelight, red moons on their rims.

  “You said she went to the doctor, that everything was fine.”

  “That’s what she told Mark.”

  “It wasn’t, though, was it?”

  11 pm. No cats tonight, snow drifting down. Fine flakes like rain form clouds about the floodlights. The wind howls in the mouth of the Winooski.

  I make tea, carry the mug into the living room. Sit before the sliding door. Watch for the cats as snowfall accumulates, blows, drifts. My breath on the glass like mist. It joins with steam from my mug to blot out my reflection.

  Revisit the timeline.

  2003. F goes to Abernathy Clinic.

  Mon, 11/30. OB/GYN appointment. Lies to her husband afterward.

  Tues, 12/1, morning. Meeting with Kate. Their argument.

  Tues, 12/1, afternoon (?).Walks on the bike-path. Sees Abernathy?

  Wed, 12/2. 10:34 am. F calls the clinic. Goes there, talks to student.

  Thurs, 12/3. Salterton’s recital.

  Fri, 12/4. Warm night. Dinner with Mark.

  Tues, 12/8. Gone. I can’t wait any longer.

  Midnight. All quiet except for passing plows, the slush they drag behind them. I take down the phone book, flip to S. Salterton’s number is listed, his address in the Hill Section.

  He picks up. “I assume this is not a social call?”

  “You were sleeping with her.”

  “Was I?” He chuckles. “Call me an old Don Juan, but you really must be more specific when making such accusations.”

  “Fiona Peale. She was your student.”

  “Yes, and rather a brilliant pupil as well—as I believe I have said already. One does not necessarily follow from the other.”

  “You got her pregnant. Your friend Abernathy helped you to get rid of it. The procedure was supposed to be simple, but it didn’t go to plan.”

  “Oh, dear. This is getting much too sordid.”

  “Last week Fiona had an appointment with an OB. She found out just how badly Abernathy had botched it. He’s moved his clinic, but she happened to see him from the bike path. And she always knew where she could find you.”

  “Is this all by way of suggesting I was being—heaven help me!—blackmailed?”

  “She could have exposed you. Abernathy too.”

  He doesn’t reply, but I can hear the piano. Elgar, Dream Children. The first movement, Andante in G minor. I think of Salterton’s recital, the program I found online. Selections from Elgar. “You played that at your recital,” I say.

  “Naturally! It has long been a favorite of mine.”

  “Fiona was practicing it before she disappeared.”

  He stops playing. “Really? Now that is interesting. She had little time for Elgar when I was her teacher. Disliked him intensely, in fact, but only because she did not understand him. She was too young, you understand. Not even 21! What could she know of regret? Of guilt? And Elgar—not only English, but a Catholic! Well, you see what I mean.”

  “The sheet music was new. She’d hardly played it.”

  “Mm. I don’t follow, I’m afraid.”

  “She was at your recital. She heard you play it and then acquired a copy for herself.”

  “Yes, it’s possible, certainly. It’s a lovely piece, quite evocative, and she must be in her thirties now, yes? Old enough to find some meaning in it.”

  “What does it mean? Dream Children?”

  “An allusion,” he says, playing again but with one hand, picking out the theme. “Are you familiar with Charles Lamb? No, I rather thought not. He has an essay by that title. A reverie, he calls it, in which he imagines the children he never had. In the end he surfaces out of the dream to find himself in his ‘bachelor armchair’ with his poor, mad murderess of a sister beside him. Lamb was like me, you see. He never married. However, I like to believe he would have shared my appreciation for womanhood in its first and briefest manifestation.”

  “How many students were there? How many procedures did you and Abernathy arrange?”

  “Oh, dear. I don’t think I appreciate what you’re implying.”

  “Convince me I’m wrong, then.”

  “Of what possible benefit would that be to either of us? Your opinion of me is not exactly charitable, yes? You are unlikely to change your mind. Why, then, should I make what would almost surely amount to a futile effort?”

  “Because I intend to contact the police.”

  “The police? How exciting.” He switches to scales, both hands now, the low notes like heavy footfalls. “And if I were to suggest an alternative course of action? If you were to come to my house tomorrow morning—you do know it, yes? Yes, I supposed as much—I believe we may be able to settle the matter to our mutual satisfaction.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Oh, I don’t propose to pay you. Is that what you thought? Good Lord, no. For all of my failings, let it never be said that I am not a man of honor. But if you were to provide me with twenty minutes of your time, I feel certain I could show you where poor Fiona has gone.”

  “Make it tonight, then. If you’re so certain.”

  “Look outside, child. The snow! It’s positively deadly out there. And, in any case, I’m afraid it really must be tomorrow morning. Early. Shall we make it five o’clock?”

  I wake to the alarm clock, turn on the lights.

  Outside, the snow has drifted six inches high against the sliding door. The gray tom appears out of the snow, more white than gray, and the kitten beside him, red flecks in its whiskers. They sniff at the kibble without interest and curl up together by the heater. The gray tom cleans the kitten’s face, licks the blood from its whiskers and chops. They sleep.

  I go outside, start the car. Drive across town.

  Salterton’s house. I park and pass through the gate, trudging through new-fallen snow.

  The door swings open. Salterton. He’s dressed in a heavy coat, a furry bomber cap tugged down over his ears. “Ah, there you are. Splendid. Might I trouble you to join me in the garage?”

  He holds up his hands. Mittened. Empty.

  “You needn’t worry,” he says. “You are quite safe with me.”

  I follow. Back through the fence-gate then next door to a converted carriage house.

  He pulls up the garage door. Inside there’s a pickup truck with a tarp thrown over the bed, secured with nylon cord. Salterton approaches the driver’s side, climbs in. The engine starts. The heat vents rattle. His face appears in the wing-mirror.

  “My dear child,” he says. “We must be quick. Did I not say? Our time is short.”

  “What’s in the truck-bed?”

  “Let’s call it a surprise. You shall find out soon eno
ugh, I assure you.”

  “I’d rather look now.”

  “By all means,” he says. “If you absolutely insist.”

  “I do,” I say and lift the tarp.

  Sweet stench of rot. Black eyes in the dark. A deer carcass.

  “You needn’t pretend to be shocked,” Salterton says. “It is hunting season, yes? My friend Julian rather fancies himself a sportsman. Dr. Abernathy, as you know him.”

  I lower the tarp, re-knot the cords.

  Salterton says: “Haste, child! Haste.”

  I join him in the truck’s cabin. He backs out.

  Main Street to Battery then north along the lake. Past the old Catholic orphanage and left at the high school toward North Beach, a mile from Leddy, walking distance from the Karimis’.

  The gates are closed, padlocked for the season. Salterton dismounts from the cab, removes the lock with a key from his parka. He returns to the truck, and we nose forward, pushing through the gates. Salterton drives down to the beach, pulls up shy of the water. The sand is winter-hard, iced with the last night’s snowfall. He gets out, flashlight in hand. I step down. Lower my head to the wind as it rips at my face, my hands.

  Salterton opens the hatch, unknots the tarp. He wrestles with the doe’s corpse and drags it from the truck. It strikes the ground, heavy. Undressed, organs still intact. Salterton pants, hauls the carcass by its hind-legs to the water. I join him there, the waves at our boots.

  “My apologies for the smell,” he says, “but death is often a fragrant business. I do hope you are not too disquieted by Julian’s handiwork.”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  He stomps his feet, rubs his hands together.

  “For what?” I ask.

  “Why—for this.”

  First light. The lake catches its reflection, the color of it: blue-violet and gleaming with the ice that’s forming there. Salterton checks his watch, hands me the flashlight. He grabs the deer by the throat and splashes into the shallows, towing the body behind him.

  Out to the edge of the light. He’s waist-deep when the water heaves up, roiling, seething with white shapes like small hands, grasping fingers, teeth. They tear at the doe’s body, darkening the water to a black spume through which the pale bodies surface and plunge, feeding, white then red where the flashlight catches them.