tales for a dark and rainy night

TALES FOR A DARK AND RAINY NIGHT

A S HORT S TORY C OLLECT ION BY

MARJ OR IE DOR FM AN

This book is dedicated to my sister, Jane.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Anything Goes

Gemini Awry

The Last Artisan

The Last Covered Wagon

Within These Walls

Henry Al Dente

The Anderson Offering

Bury The Hatchet

A Gentle Man Born

Uncle Devereaux

The Costume Party

Death On Sea Sargasso

The Budslayer

George Washington’s Teeth

Murder In The Blood Bank

The Fungus Among Us

Light As A Feather

Unexpected Company

My Funny Valentine

One Bad Good Friday

Bobby And The Bogeyman

Let Us Prey

78

87

97

103

111

47

51

57

66

75

118

124

129

135

18

22

26

30

39

5

9

14

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Big Swing

Creepy Time Gal

The Mark Of Thanatos

Hunting Season

Something Out There

The First Wife

146

150

156

167

175

178

Anyth ing Goes

“ … In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something shocking. Now

Heaven Knows! Anything goes … ” — Cole Porter

The head stared at itself in the mirror. Late afternoon shadows danced across the smeared makeup covering the once beautiful features. Donna had been watching the head for some time, but it was only in this moment that she wondered if she hadn’t applied a bit too much rouge to her mother’s face. She stepped away in order to view her handiwork from a better perspective. No, everything was just fine. The thought made her smile.

Donna turned away from the head when she noticed the blood that had splattered and dried across her arms, jeans and tee shirt. Oddly, she hadn’t been aware of it before.

She hurried towards the small adjoining bathroom, almost knocking over a dish of halfeaten food lying on the edge of her mother’s vanity table, beside the head. She needed to start over and be fresh and clean for Alan. She showered and changed into a white satin slip, throwing the stained clothes into the gilded hamper.

She returned to the bedroom. Peering into the same mirror as the head amused her. Blood still dripped onto the vanity’s beveled glass top. She picked up the ivoryhandled brush and began to stroke her long, lustrous black hair. The bristles against her scalp made her feel all tingly inside, just like Alan did whenever he touched her in her secret places. A smile came to her lips with her next thought. She would pile her long hair up on top of her head so that Alan could take it down, pin by pin, until it fell free across her naked shoulders.

It didn’t matter now what Mama Sarah thought about her hair or her white slip or her choice of a husband or anything at all. Mama was just a severed head sitting in front

Tales For A Dark and Rainy Night / 5

of the mirror on the vanity table. Mama’s things were hers. She grabbed one of the silver combs and twisted her hair on top of her head. She pulled several wisps forward so that they would fall seductively in front of her ears.

A fly appeared and landed on the nose. Donna watched, fascinated as she fit the edges of the comb into place and snapped her mother’s sapphire earrings onto her alabaster lobes. The insect seemed to be licking up the blood. Was that possible? Or was it simply her imagination? Certainly the fly was buzzing excitedly all over the green and yellow room that always whispered of gardenias. That was Mama’s favorite scent. As she watched the fly land on the canary yellow drapes, she wondered if that scent would ever fade away.

This room with its high ceilings and textured wallpaper held many memories for

Donna. It was in here that Mama Sarah would read stories to her. In that Queen Anne chair in the corner she would often sit and watch her as she prepared for evenings on the town with her father. It was also in here where she spent many hours talking to the voices. When they were with her, she was Rapunzel, Snow White, maid Marion, Joan of

Arc and Lady Godiva.

The fly suddenly flew out the window and disappeared into the gray November sky.

Was it something I said?

she asked wistfully, standing by the open window despite the rush of cold air that filled the room.

And then she laughed so loudly from the deep sick hole inside herself that it surprised even her. She returned to the head and she said:

Mother, even you would have thought that was funny.


Her deep blue eyes followed the blood dripping along the edges of the vanity table and onto the carpet in a growing crimson pool. The steady drip fascinated her and it took all of her will power to look away from it. There wasn’t a lot of time. She had to finish packing and dressing so that she and Alan could cross the state line and marry. She would have to lie and tell them she was eighteen, but it didn’t matter. She could no longer tell the difference between a lie and the truth anyway.

She wet her lips and took one long last look at her reflection in the oval mirror.

Such a pretty girl, she was, just like Mama Sarah. But she couldn’t think about Mama anymore. She finished packing the suitcase she had started earlier in the day when her mother’s head was still attached to the body now buried in the tulip garden outside her window. Soon the head would join it, but now she was having too much fun with it to say goodbye.

Let’s see

, have I forgotten anything ? Lingerie, underwear, jeans, cotton tops, shorts, bathing suits. What else would anyone need for a two-week honeymoon in the

Tropics?

She had to sit on the suitcase in order to close and properly lock it. She blew out all the candles in the room and then scooped up the dress from the bed and carried it and the large suitcase into the bedroom down the hall where her lover waited.

“All ready,” she said pleasantly.

Alan was lying on his side in her mother’s bed. He rolled over, like an obedient dog, at the sound of her voice.

“Is…she…ah…is she?” he mumbled through the roll of sheets covering him.

“Yes,” she’s been dead for some time. Her voice hummed with impatience. “I did it without your help and now there’s nothing to stop us. We still have to bury the head though.”


Alan nodded his approval. She placed the dress over a chair and the suitcase on the floor beside it. She hurled herself onto the kingsize bed and into his waiting arms. He kissed her passionately and she, feeling his growing hardness against her, was aroused at once.

“There’s time,” she whispered, nibbling on his ear. He slid the straps of her slip gently off her shoulders. The silken fabric rustled softly as he slipped it over her head. He pushed her gently beneath him and the fire between them grew hotter, more intense.

“We have three hours to make the plane. Plenty of time,” she murmured, sticking her tongue deep within his eager mouth.

He opened her legs and felt her wetness. Her body surged with excitement as he thrust his member deep inside her. Like a tidal wave, he engulfed her and she gasped with pleasure.

“Oh, it’s so good!” she cried. “Nothing matters except that we are together.

Nothing!”

It was then as he lay on top of her that it happened. He complained of a sharp pain and clutched at his heart. After a single hideous gasp he was lying silently on top of her.

She screamed his name over and over, unable to budge the weight upon her.

“Oh, Alan! No, no, no!” she cried, managing to roll out from under him. She turned him over so he now lay face up beside her. Death’s new grayness was already stealing his once sharp good looks. She stroked his cheek and closed his eyes, tears streaming down her face. She lay there with him for a very long time.

“Tomorrow was to be our wedding day,” she cried. “How could you do this to me?” She sobbed bitterly, cradling the dead man in her arms. “Daddy, how could you?”

The Tome, vol. 2, 1989


Gemini Awry

The October wind whipped through the dying trees. Inside the great old townhouse Pia stared sadly at the face that seemed to be sleeping so peacefully beside her. Tia’s face.

Even though she had closed the eyes a while ago, their penetrating gaze was as vivid in her mind as it had always been. Nothing could erase the memory of those blue eyes, of their fine luster and their influence on her every thought, word and gesture. With a trembling flick of fingers she wiped a wisp of honey colored hair away from the high cold forehead so like her own.

The voice of the wind became bolder, more insistent. Its cold breath rattled against the old windows. Was it calling Tia’s name, mourning her passing? So it seemed to Pia as she listened to its wail, her eyes focusing on the big bay window that faced the cold and empty street. The sisters had been so close and so alike that even their thoughts seemed to flow from one shared mind, their deeds from the very same heart. Pia was overwhelmed at the thought that she could never speak to her again of their most intimate needs and desires. How could all that be turned off and forgotten after all these years, like lost water dripping down a leaky faucet?

Lovingly, she stroked the curly hair. She wept softly in the merciful dark for this end that would bring no new beginning, no release of pain or insights into the meaning of anything at all. Emptiness and desolation. That’s all there was now. Tia had been her life and now Tia was irrevocably dead. The tears rushed unchecked down her wrinkled cheek.

More than a part of her knew that they would never stop.

Where on earth were those EMS people? Surely they should have been here with an ambulance by now! They were always so good about being around when no one needed them. Just like the cops. And now after more than a half-hour they are still not


here! She exchanged one thought for another but there was nothing she could think about that didn’t make her desperate and so she cried some more.

It was almost fitting that death came in this room, even though the sofa where she had taken her last breath would never feel quite the same again. Even now Pia fidgeted against its soft silk covering as if it were sandpaper rubbing against an open wound. Tia had loved this elegant room with the high gold leaf ceiling that still served as the parlor it had been in the days when they were young and their parents were still alive. The stately townhouse that faced Grammercy Park had been the only home the two sisters had ever known.

Memories of a lifetime abounded, although there were never really any good ones. There were only those that weren’t as bad as others. Still they lingered like ghosts, trapped forever in the ether of the air and behind the tapestried walls. Pain. Joy. Laughter.

Tears. How had sixty years slipped by so quickly, so imperceptibly, like sand sifting through an hourglass?

Time. How much was left for her?

She dabbed nervously at her eyes with a

Kleenex. Straining her neck like a tortoise stretching from its shell, she turned toward the pillared fireplace in the far corner of the room in an effort to see the porcelain clock on its mantle. She could not have said why suddenly knowing what time it was could have altered anything about her present state. Anyway, it was a useless vagary. The hands of the clock were obscured by the darkness. She guessed it to be about 1 AM.

Oh, where, where was that damned ambulance? Her heart leapt with a new fear that invaded her brain and would not let go. Had she, in her emotional distress, given the

911 operator the wrong address? Was that why they weren’t here? But no, that man on the other end had heard her quite clearly. She remembered too that he had asked her to repeat the address one last time, just to be sure. Yes, there was no question about it. She definitely told him 35 Grammercy Park East and her name at least three times. That


couldn’t be it. What was it, though? Wasn’t this enough of an emergency to warrant quick action?

She couldn’t have said which was more painful; these thoughts or looking at Pia.

She turned her sad eyes once again to the big wide window in front of the sofa. For so many years this window had been their only link to the flow of life outside. A sudden rain, a baby’s cry, the honk of an impatient horn. These were all vicarious sights and sounds for the two outcasts who couldn’t bear the gaping stares and never quite subtle enough whispered asides that their presence always elicited. Inside, away from all of them, was always best. The others simply didn’t understand.

Not that there weren’t some kind people. Certainly there were. Mr. and Mrs.

Anthony who lived in the apartment above on the second floor. What would Tia and Pia have done without their help, especially after their parents died, in just the little things that most people never even think about asking others to do for them? They would be so saddened when they returned from their trip and learned about Tia.

There was a sudden tap at the window. Were the EMS people finally here?

In an instant she knew that they weren’t because the sound changed into a loud drumming which marked the start of a new rain. Outside, the Maple trees danced wildly in the wind, their long shadows brushing and scraping against the large window.

How Tia had loved the rain!

She would sit for hours in front of the window mesmerized by the rush of its fall, while Pia read to her in the muted glow of the Tiffany lamp. The Arabian Nights. Tales from King Arthur’s Court.

Those were her favorites and she never tired of hearing them. And in the vast collection of books that belonged to their father the two sisters found a world that accepted them and into which they could escape at a moment’s notice.

She was quite sure there was something above the rain now, something at the door. It was a knock. Yes, it was. A knock followed by a man’s heavy voice.


“Ms. Ingerson, are you in there? It’s the paramedics.”

“In here, sir,” she called, cringing where she sat as if expecting a blow.

They were here, they were everywhere, their tread heavy and important and imposing on the bare parquet floor. And then they were in the parlor and so was she. It was time. The deep steady voice filled her ears.

“Why are you sitting in the dark, Ms. Ingerson?”

“It’s all I know,” she said, her voice a frail thing.

“You’re shaking,” he said, coming close enough to reach over the sofa’s high back. He touched her arm with a strong steady hand. “Are you cold?”

“Not as cold as my sister,” she sobbed, thinking his words sounded like the rain pounding against the old window.

“Where is the body?” one medic asked gently.

“Over here, beside me” she said.

The two men walked around to the front of the sofa and one of them switched on a table lamp a few feet away. It took a moment for them to realize how unprepared they were for what lay before them. Still, one of them put a comforting arm around Pia’s trembling shoulders. She could not check the flow of tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You really should have told us, Ms. Ingerson. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”


“I just couldn’t,” she cried, stroking the dead form beside her that was joined to her hip. She took a deep breath.

“I know I’ll have to go with you now, gentlemen, but please do be careful. You see, I’m really quite attached to her!”

The Nocturnal Lyric, #7, 1989


The Last Artis an

King Minos and his trusted architect, Jato, descended the steep steps to the hidden royal tomb. The horses of the marauding army were dangerously near, their thundering hooves rupturing the stillness of the summer darkness. A full moon shone above but the men carried torches, for the path inside was as black as the deepest night. A strong breeze rustled the folds of their long dark robes. They stood for a brief moment outside the stone entrance that had been cleverly concealed to resemble a wall of rocks. The king sighed, for his heart had never been heavier in all his years of imperial rule.

“It’s time to face the gods of destiny,” he said sadly, as the two men squeezed inside the narrow opening one at a time. The door cracked back into place. “We can wait no longer, Jato. The Empire is lost.”

The older man nodded dutifully, for there was too much at stake to disagree with the king and arouse his suspicions.

“I must reward you before the armored soldiers find my treasure. Come.”

Jato followed cautiously behind.

They walked in silence, the torches’ wavering light casting grotesque shadows upon the dank walls lining the narrow corridor. They stopped when the flames from a thousand torches came into view. Soon, they too would flicker and die with the kingdom of Moria.

“You have made this great mausoleum, Jato. Your hands and your skill and your brains alone. You should always be proud.”


Jato smiled for it was true. He had been paid handsomely from the king’s own coffers for designing the royal burial chamber and treasury. It had come, however, at a tremendous cost. His workers had been sacrificed on its golden altar to insure their silence after Queen Nefra’s death a few years before. The populace had never known where she lay in eternal rest, for the king feared desecration of her grave. Theirs had not been a popular reign, but it was to be the last for the once mighty empire. Jato had been the only one besides the king entrusted with the tomb’s location and he had kept the secret well.

Everywhere was the glint of gold. So often Jato had seen and touched, but never in the presence of his king. It was he alone who maintained the tomb and the sacred torch fires that symbolized life’s renewal. He had also stolen a few precious gems from the jewel-encrusted shrine of the queen and the two ladies in waiting buried with her. But that had been a pittance compared to the wealth and generosity of a grateful king. He was sure that much more would be bestowed upon him now with the enemy so close at hand.

“Come this way,” said the king, leading Jato deeper into the antechamber where the golden casket that was to hold his own remains lay waiting. Jato beheld the mask of solid gold that was to cover his master’s royal face after death. On its crown hundreds of rubies and emeralds, the size of eggs, dazzled the eye.

“Who will put the mask upon you, sire, when the time has come?” he dared to ask.

“I will be the last to die,” answered the King, placing his torch in a crevice of the rock and nodding for Jato to do the same. He fingered the edges of his robe nervously.

“And die I must.”

For the first time Jato eyed his master’s beautiful emerald ring. He could not recall seeing it before and studied it carefully. The stone was exquisite and it gleamed


even in the darkness. His actions did not go unnoticed by the king, although he said nothing.

“But why must you die, sire?” asked Jato, feigning concern. “We can run across the mountains after they leave. They won’t find us here.”

King Minos looked away from the man whom he could no longer trust.

“A king must die with his people,” he said imperiously. “It is the will of the gods of destiny. There is no other way. Come closer, Jato.”

King Minos opened the royal casket that gleamed with all the brilliance of a second sun. It weighed more than three hundred pounds and was made of solid gold.

Encrusted with the precious jewels of an empire, it was a vision too painful for a man of greed, like Jato, to bear.

“I don’t believe even you knew about this,” said the king, removing a shiny pouch from somewhere inside the coffin. “These are some of the finest emeralds of the kingdom, the source of our wealth and our destruction. The marauders must not get them.

I give them to you, Jato for your trusted service.”

Jato rolled the large green stones out onto his trembling palm while the king fumbled with the folds of his robe.

“They are magnificent, sire,” he said, his grimace betraying his words. “I thank you.” He kneeled before his master.

“Sire, you are so generous.” It was another lie, easier than the first.


“Merely whet your appetite, old friend?” asked the king, his voice now edged in ice. He stepped behind Jato and withdrew a silver dagger from a pocket deep within his imperial robe.

“I know the truth, Jato. You cannot fool me. It is you who have betrayed the kingdom of Moria. Did the marauding pigs offer you a reward as well?”

“Sire, I…”

“Speak not, you traitor! As you desire, you shall die with the wealth of a kingdom and all of its secrets as well!”

King Minos grabbed Jato’s head, thrust it backward with his strong hands and slit the old man’s throat from ear to ear before he could take another breath. Blood splattered over his hands and dripped through his fingers. The body crumpled to the floor and the emeralds scattered. The enemy circled above. Soon, he knew, they would find the entrance to the tomb.

He looked at his ring, which was smeared with blood. He clicked open its center with one finger. Behind the beautiful emerald was a small compartment. It housed a powdered poison. Without another thought, the king stuffed it into his mouth and swallowed hard. A few tears of regret escaped from his sad, gray eyes.

Footsteps reverberated through the corridor leading to the antechamber. The marauders were here. In his last moments, the world was a blur. King Minos lay in his casket awaiting the judgement of the gods of destiny and praying that he would not have to face the armored invaders. They would steal his treasures and desecrate the tomb of his beloved, but they would never know his secrets. Forever they would remain buried deep within the proud heart of the mighty king and his last unfaithful artisan.


The Last Covered Wagon

Jeremiah Welch and his family awakened that September dawn all alone on the desolate prairie. They had crossed the Platte River and yesterday reached the South Pass. Now they were halfway to Oregon and the main wagon ramp across the plains and through the

Rocky Mountains. They had survived one thousand grueling miles, but he, Rachel and the children were too tired to celebrate. Five hundred miles and Fort Hall lay ahead, and this final leg of their journey through hostile Indian territory was by far the most perilous.

They were forced to leave the protection of the train because the broken wagon wheel had taken almost a full day to repair. Wagon-master, Seth Jacob, feared for their safety and offered to wait for them, but Jeremiah had urged the train onward. He had heard of a short cut across the plains and knew that Jacob would never have considered it.

It was every man for himself in this wild and broken country. There was little time for other things.

Thoughts of his youngest child mingled with the aroma of strong hot coffee.

Gretchen, aged six, had been sick during the night. She was quiet now, barely awake as she lay in her mother’s weary arms. The boy, Lukas, aged twelve and growing tall too fast for his breeches, arose from a bed and pillow composed of a sack of clothes.

Jeremiah smiled at the boy whose angular face and deep blue eyes were so like his own.

The sky was still and cloudless with all the promise of a beautiful day.

They plodded across an elbow of the hill and onto a grassy plain. At its end lay the short cut to Fort Hall indicated on the map Jeremiah had found under a large rock at the Platte River Valley Junction. The goal today was twelve miles; an average of two miles per hour. The dry, cool weather bolstered their morale and made it easier for the oxen. If only for today, they wouldn’t be drenched by rain, frozen with cold or scorched by heat.


Ponderosa pines lined the banks of the river for as far as the eye could see. Their shelter was alluring but false, for within their cool shadows lurked many hidden dangers.

Still, it was better than an open canyon where Pawnee eyes and ears saw and heard everything. Beside the Bible which sat alone in its own little pouch, the canvas pockets in the covered wagon held ammunition, a Colt revolver and a rifle, but the very last thing

Jeremiah Welch wanted to do was to use them.

Gretchen seemed much recovered by noon and ingested her first bit of food for the day when the Welch family stopped for lunch. Jeremiah was weary, but grateful for

Rachel’s hearty corn chowder and strong black coffee. Soon they were on their way again, pushing across the prairie. They had not planned to stop before nightfall, but about

4 PM something terrible happened. Two vultures flew across the sun and Jeremiah’s heart filled with a cold and deadly fear.

He stopped the wagon abruptly; his eyes transfixed some fifteen feet ahead where lay the bloated remains of a man and a horse. Beyond, a deep ravine intersected the lonely prairie. The stench of rotting flesh clung in the air, like a dreadful mist. Jeremiah gripped Rachel’s hand and nodded grimly before jumping onto the ground. He approached while his family looked on in horror. Within moments he stood before what was left of a young cavalry officer and his bay mare.

A blood-soaked canteen lay beside the dead young man. Discovering that it was half-filled with water, Jeremiah slipped the strap soundlessly over one shoulder. Every man for himself, he thought coldly and then instantly regretted his action. He could not bear to look and yet he could not look away from the two corpses so terribly riddled with arrows. A single shaft jutted from each of the soldier’s eye sockets. The stench lured

Jeremiah forward, like a hideous perfume, some ten feet ahead to the edge of the ravine.

And then he saw the poor, pitiful others. Below lay some forty men, women, children and horses, whose rotting corpses bled from a thousand wounds and whose eyes still held the terror of the last moment of life. There were soldiers among the dead and


some Indians as well, all heaped on top of one another like bloody logs gathered for a bonfire. Every nerve in his body keyed to its highest tension. Jeremiah placed a trembling hand over his heart and whispered a small prayer to the God that had never failed him.

Overwhelmed, he vomited.

Jeremiah could feel the eyes of his family boring through his back as they followed his every movement. He was helpless against the knowledge that this first encounter with death would age his children far beyond their tender years. He was mired in place, torn between thoughts of his own preservation and his heart’s desire to give all the dead a proper burial. But there was no time for sentiment on this unforgiving frontier.

After a few sobering minutes, he returned to the wagon and embraced his family. Soon they were on their way again and they did not stop until the sun set in the west.

When they did finally come to rest for the night Jeremiah knew that they were lost, even though he tried his best to hide his anxiety from Rachel and the children.

Finally, he broke down and confessed that the terrain simply did not resemble that which was indicated on the map. Either that short cut didn’t exist or somehow he had made a serious error. He cursed himself at either possibility. Rachel held his blistered hand. She was such a comfort to him. Always, he could feel the warmth of her dark eyes, her loving ways.

With the first cluster of night shadows came new fears for the Welch family, but then the oddest thing happened. The sudden blare of a bugle off to the east filled their ears. Jeremiah was startled and elated. “That means soldiers,” he told his family,

“probably many, camped somewhere nearby” We must follow the sounds and we will be saved! God has answered our prayers. We will get our bearings again! All will be well!”

“Praise the Lord!” cried Rachel.

“Praise the Lord!” echoed the children.


It was with a great sense of relief that Jeremiah turned the wagon in the direction of the bugle’s ongoing blare. The Welch family soon reached the swell of the prairie and stopped suddenly when their nostrils filled with the acrid smell of smoke. Jeremiah instructed the others to alight and they all walked together towards the circle of wavering light that suddenly came into view. The sounds were much closer now and they could hear voices, dim murmuring, within the deepening darkness. The night grew cold and a strong wind swept through the campsite. In the next instant, Jeremiah’s relief turned to overwhelming fear. It was too late to turn back from the moon that hides her true face behind dark clouds. Among the flickering shadows, silhouetted against the moon, stood a man in a headdress of many feathers holding a bugle to his Pawnee lips.


Within Th es e Wall s

I never see them when they arrive. I wait with the guard, Henry Thompson, at central control until they are frisked for weapons and their valuables are checked into individual lockers. Something about feet spread and hands up affects even the smuggest among them. When the tour is over, I watch them pass through the massive iron gate and down the stone walkway where the green bus takes them back to their dull, uninspiring lives.

They all bear the strides of people with somewhere to go and they move as fast as their judgmental feet will carry them.

I am not a gambling woman, but I would bet a week’s canteen money that they are all afraid they might catch something from us if they linger one more moment than they have to. They all look the same to me. They cannot hide their thoughts; their condemnation is locked into one collective set of eyes and faces. I say nothing, but deep inside I want to scream. For eighteen years my screams have died within these walls of stone.

Prison is a mental and physical universe where time melts into the stale air and peeling walls. No amount of sunlight can ever penetrate the gloom that hangs like a pall all over the place. Some days I remember clearly and others I don’t. Weeks and years blur into one dense and unforgiving blob, obliterating all but the feeling of having missed everything there is. Still, I know it was yesterday morning, Saturday to be precise, when one of the big men on the tour asked about HER. I almost gave it away, but almost doesn’t count, does it? I took a deep breath and bit my tongue, for I did not wish to alarm anyone. I am a model prisoner. That’s how I got this job guiding visitors around the parts of the old building with the square towers and round turrets that the state allows outsiders to see.


I was so tempted to tell the big man: “Yes, I know all about Lucinda Maye,” but instead I shook my head and told him that I did not know. Henry Thompson lingers behind the tour at all times and he would surely have told the warden if I had done otherwise. I do as I am told; I am no longer mistress of my will, if indeed, I ever was.

I try not to think about the fact that Henry has raped me several times over the years. More than a few of the corrections officers here are criminals themselves. The only difference between them and us is that they usually don’t get caught. I have learned to hide my true feelings, even manage to smile at the snake-in-the-grass. I tell my raging heart that one fine day when his back is turned I’ll get even, but not now.

Before visiting the cellblocks, everyone must pass through central control, a high, circular structure that comprises the nerve center of the prison. It provides optimum visual surveillance by acting as a hub from which all of the ten blocks, two for women and eight for men, can be accessed. The visitors follow me in silent procession. It’s always dark down here, no matter what time of day or night. We walk past the prisoners crowded into small cells, like maggots in rotting cheese. They gape and stare and follow our every move along the corridor with pocket mirrors. They undress the women with their eyes and Henry Thompson sees all and hears all.

While going through the block, no one has a gun or a key. All of the guards carry whistles around their necks and one blow sounds a signal of distress to all of the other guards. All weapons must be left behind a formidable iron gate to prevent prisoners from gaining possession of them. This happened once and two assistant deputies were killed in the process. That was the year I came to Briarwood Penitentiary, a million Mondays ago.

I try not to think about the wasted years and answer questions as calmly and respectfully as I can. Sometimes the visitors remind me of people I knew from that time before Ambrose and the murders and sometimes they don’t. The past can be a cruel and insistent adversary. The doctors tell me I must face mine, but hard as I try, the headaches come. I have heard that some of the other prisoners envy me because I have this weekend


job. I find it difficult to believe, but I have been told that it is so. My bed is a cement slab with a thin mattress, just like theirs. If they knew my pain, they would never want to walk, not even for a minute, in my shoes.

I function and have learned to cope with the sensation of being locked in with no way out. Freedom is like air; it’s something you never think about until you don’t have it.

I work hard for my privileges and I always look over my shoulder and sit with my back up against a wall. My instincts are as sharp as those of a jungle cat. Like a hungry shark in search of prey, I know all about how to swim and stab in the darkness. Sometimes, the aloneness presses hard against me and I pray that one day I might walk free with the sun at my back and the rain in my face. I don’t know if that can ever be, even though I hear whispers of work release and possible parole.

“A danger to society” are the words they use. Big words, just like the ones in the law library downstairs. But what do they really mean? Who is “society” anyway? Is it the people who come to visit once a week, shaking their heads, wringing their hands and feeling superior because they are not in prison? Is it the innocents like I was before

Ambrose and what happened to Mama, Papa, Jody and Emmanuel? Or is it all of the others out there, the judges and the lawyers and the juries who call us that? If you change what you call things, do you change what they are?

I don’t have the answers. I do what I do because I am what I am. I have learned not to question. It’s healthier that way. I have also learned not to answer sometimes for the same reason. Today there’s another group getting ready for another tour. I see already one woman who is going to give me trouble. She has that look, that “holier than thou and

I don’t want to get dirty so keep your distance” look. It’s in her eyes and in her swagger.

When it’s there, that’s how it is. There’s no mistaking some things.

“Is Lucinda Maye, that crazy hatchet killer in this place?” she asks between mastications on a wad of gum thick enough to choke an elephant.


And today my courage soars because Henry is busy chatting with one of the men.

I whisper, feeling some of the old rage return, just loud enough for her to hear:

“She’s here.”

The woman stands back because she has seen my eyes and suddenly knows my truth. Still, I repeat, triumphant so that she will never ask again as the iron gate closes behind us.

“She’s right here.”


Hen ry Al Den te

Prudence Smith peered out into the black square of night that was the bedroom window and allowed herself one well-earned moment of respite. She wiped her bloody hands against the soiled white apron that covered her cotton dress with short, quick movements.

Below lay Christopher Street in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village; hot, humid and bustling on this Saturday night in mid July. This place had been her home for all of her life, but it had become so busy, too busy in the last few years. Now it seemed like everyone in the world congregated below, either to shop in the charming bakeries and curio shops or to sip cappuccino at the crowded bistro tables. But Prudence had no time for any of that. There was too much to do and where, oh where was Stanley? Her quest for him had brought her to the window in the first place.

She and her brother had rented the downstairs apartment to Henry Desmond two months ago and everything had been just fine until last night. She had been so sure that

Henry wasn’t like all the others, but she had been wrong. Stanley would be mad because they would have to get rid of him and Stanley didn’t like to dirty his clothes. She pursed her lips, thinking of the family reputation that they had to uphold. She and Stanley ran a respectable brownstone. They were even written up in New York Magazine once. She tried to remember when that was, but soon gave up. Besides, Stanley could have told her in a second if she ever needed the exact date. He was good at things like that.

She sighed into the night. He wasn’t here. She couldn’t change that. She couldn’t make the smell of death seeping in from the kitchen go away either. Even Ripper, the family cat, wouldn’t enter the small bedroom where the portly Mr. Desmond lay temporarily in a sort of peace, but more in pieces. She had to find a way to transport him into the large bathroom where she could work easily and privately and the blood wouldn’t be that much of a problem. That’s why she needed Stanley. Now.


She tried to remember exactly how they had done it the last time, each little step they had taken along the way. The experience hadn’t been at all unpleasant, but she had blocked out the parts of it that reminded her of Mama. The inquiries and the men in blue who tracked across her nice clean carpet with their muddy shoes and their smelly cigarettes. She remembered them all right. Even now, two years later, the thought of how inconsiderate they had been made her furious. No respect for anyone else’s property. No respect at all.

But how could she do this without Stanley?

It just wasn’t right and yet, she couldn’t wait much longer. Nosy Mrs.Cheever might be back at any minute and what if someone called for Mr. Desmond and found him not at home? The trail would lead straight to their apartment and then she might have to “take care of” them as well. And that would only compound the problem because the stew pot simply wasn’t big enough.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Now was the time to act, or as Father used to say, for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

The house on Christopher Street had been Father’s house. And Mother’s too, of course. Had it really been ten years since his death? Had that much time really passed since she and Stanley had shown Father how very well they had learned by his example?

The hall mirror reflecting her gray hair and wrinkled face confirmed time’s cruel and relentless passage. She was tempted to consult with Father on the matter of Henry

Desmond, but decided against it. She and Stanley often spoke to his portrait that hung in the Living Room high above the sofa, but there just wasn’t enough time right now.

Besides, she knew that he would have approved. After all, it was he who taught them everything they knew.

Prudence wrapped the body in two heavy blankets and then shoved it off the bed and onto the floor. Ripper meowed at the sudden thud as he passed through the open hallway, but Prudence wasn’t worried about disturbing anyone else. Arthritis in her upper arms made it difficult to maneuver the body to the door. With all of her might she pushed with her feet and hands, shoving and sliding until the bathroom was just before her. There


was so much blood that it quickly saturated the blankets, leaving an ugly red trail as she pushed forward.

My floor! My beautiful floor, she wailed to herself. Oh, Stanley, where are you?

He would be angry because she did not wait for him, but the end did justify the means. He would, after all, share in the spoils. He was probably off somewhere with that new girl friend of his. Prudence didn’t like to think about things like that. In her heart she knew that he loved her best and that he wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Mr.

Desmond’s demise had been so unexpected and the only possible consequence to all of his suspicious questions.

The body fit into the bathtub only if the feet dangled over the side. Desmond had been a big man and she was lucky to have caught him by surprise while he napped on the sofa underneath the portrait of Father. She had spent most of the day cleaning up that mess. She left the body and entered the kitchen to begin the final preparations.

There were several knives that were used for these special occasions and they were kept in a special place in Mother’s old mahogany breakfront. In fact, they had been used on Mother herself a very long time ago. That memory was dim, but it was always on the verge of recall. The knives were never used for any other purpose. She and Stanley promised Father that they never would.

It took hours to cut through all the muscle and bone and Prudence was growing weary. She stepped out into the dark hall to check the time on the Grandfather clock.

Midnight. Stanley, please! Come home and help your sister! Father would be so displeased!

It was about five minutes later, just as she was adjusting the blade on the food processor that she heard the key turn in the lock.


He looked at her directly, knowingly.

“Prudence, how could you? Why didn’t you wait for me?” His dark, mad eyes turned to the large stewpot slowly boiling on the stove and then back to the food processor.

“So most of the work is done, eh?”

“Yes, Stanley. I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait. It was all very sudden. I’m just about ready though and you are just in time for the best part.”

She pointed to the heap of body parts lying on the long kitchen table and smiled.

“Look, Stanley,” she said, winking playfully at her older brother. “Let’s not waste any more time. Give me a hand, will you?”


The And erson Offering

Vangie’s newborn lay sleeping at her breast and yet this most beautiful moment in her life was about to erupt into the most terrible nightmare. How could she do what they asked?

How could she give them her precious baby?

Even as she counted the infant’s fingers and toes, her velvety eyes stalked the perimeters of the sterile hospital room. Near the doorway sat nurse Morgan whose sole purpose, according to Axel’s family, was to tend to her every wish. But Vangie understood the truth that came to roost on her conscience. The room was being privately patrolled and from its only window the snowy rims of treetops betrayed a height far too high to jump.

She resolved to give her baby a name even though the elders had advised her against it. Emily Anne. Who were they to tell her what to do with her baby anyway?

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly with the answer. The Andersons, that’s who. How could such a hideous tradition be connected to such an innocuous, all-American, applepie name? If only Axel had told her before they married or before she became pregnant.

Then she could have done something, perhaps made some other choice. Now there was no alternative except to honor the ritual of sacrifice passed down like family silver from one Anderson generation to another.

Today she and Emily would go home and she could think of nothing else except the promise she had made to The Dark One, and how she must break it, even if that meant leaving his grandchild, her loving and attentive husband of seven years. The clock on the wall told her that the elders would soon arrive with their doting, devouring eyes.

They would take her home and there would be much celebration and then it would happen at dawn on the first Sunday of the new month in that long dark room behind the little white door at the far end of the hall closet. One baby for each generation of prosperity. She bit at her fingers. She must stop this. What must she do to stop this?


In that instant Uncle Elsinore entered, carrying some beautifully wrapped flowers.

“The elders are waiting downstairs,” he whispered, placing the fragrant bouquet on the small table beside her bed.

“They’re lovely,” she said, managing a smile. “I’ll put them in the crystal vase you gave us as a wedding present just as soon as we get home.”

His smile was weak and his eyes avoided her gaze. It was awkward dealing with

Axel’s relatives. She barely knew them, having seen most of them only at formal gatherings over the course of their married life. But Elsinore was different; she liked him.

His soft manner had always appealed to her even though there was always something about his long, melancholy features and those eyes of his. But she stood alone among the

Andersons and she knew it; she could never trust any one of them with the plan that had been brewing in her mind since the day she was told the family’s darkest secret.

Not that they had meant to tell her. At least not then. If she hadn’t found that little white door behind the hidden panel of the closet she might have always thought that the faint scratching and tapping noises she had often heard in the middle of the night were either her over-active imagination or the sounds of an old house settling into itself. But that day she had been looking for something and the deeper she moved into the bowels of the closet the louder the sounds became. She leaned against the panel and her weight tripped a mechanism that slid it open. She had been afraid and called her husband. He rushed home with tearful explanations and nothing had been the same ever since.

Axel’s large frame suddenly filled the doorway. hand-crocheted blanket on the bed beside her. He bent over and kissed his wife’s forehead, but he ignored the sleeping baby at her breast.

“Everything’s taken care of. Are you ready, darling?” he asked, placing a pink,


Vangie sighed heavily.

“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, wrapping the baby snugly inside the blanket and wondering how its delicate pattern would look afterwards, all splattered with blood.

It was a cold January morning and the air was fresh and full with the promise of another snow. The scenic ride along the river was long and agonizing for Vangie, who barely listened to Axel’s mutterings that everything in the world would be just fine very soon. How could everything be fine if she had to relinquish her baby?

She wanted to scream, but forced herself to remain calm.

Axel must not know that she would not go through with this barbaric practice. He must not know anything until she and the baby were gone and it would be too late. She concentrated all her energy on escape. It was the last Wednesday in January and Sunday marked the first of the new month. She had until Saturday night to make her move.

On Thursday evening a party for all of the elders was scheduled at her house.

They would all be joined in the common purpose of sacrifice for they believed their prosperity depended on it and that The Dark One would reward them. It would be a time of distraction, food and drink, but the baby would be the center of attention. She and

Emily Anne would be missed too soon to get away then.

She thought about the window in her bedroom that led to the roof and down the backside of the house. But there was ice there from last week’s snow. It would be slippery and she was still a bit weak. She would have to be quick to get far enough away before anyone noticed. No, it was too risky .

Friday seemed better. She was sure that Axel wouldn’t be home before seven and even though Uncle Elsinore was due to stop by for dinner, she could be long gone before that. Vangie felt certain that she could find a way to get rid of Nurse Morgan, perhaps


with the enticement of a day’s pay without work. Yes, she decided, Friday would be the day that she would run for her baby’s life.

Where and how she would go presented a problem. Her car was in the shop and the new transmission would not be ready in time to serve her escape. The nearby airport was the first place they would look. She decided to use the train terminal instead. The face of her married sister in New Orleans flashed before her, but she knew that would prove to be too obvious a starting point. No, a place that Axel would never think of seemed best. Sara Grimes was an old college chum she had maintained correspondence with over the years. She currently lived as a divorced woman in Boston and Axel had never met her. Sara loomed as the best possibility.

Due to the fact that their savings and checking accounts were in both of their names, Vangie could not make a large withdrawal of cash without raising suspicion. In anticipation, she had stashed more than two thousand dollars from her household money and small withdrawals made over the last few months. That would hold them until she could establish a new identity.

Friday dawned snowy and cold and for Axel Anderson, unsuspecting. Vangie shared a cup of coffee with him before he left for work as she had a million mornings over the course of their married life. Everything had to seem normal, but her heart ached because she knew that she would miss him terribly. She hardened herself to the choice she had made between her husband’s love and their baby’s life.

It took a long time for her to pack. She avoided the hall closet that held the secret of the little white door even though there were things in there that she would have liked to take with her. She feared The Dark One might hear her or worse, come bolting out of the long dark room all fangs and sharp claws and fetid breath, despite the heavy crossbar secured across the door’s middle.


When Mrs. Morgan arrived, Vangie dismissed her with an extra day’s pay and the assurance that she was feeling fine. She then called the terminal requesting departures to

Boston. She decided it would be safer to call her friend, Sara Grimes, after she and Emily arrived. That way, there would be no way to trace the call. If Sara couldn’t put them up right away, she was prepared to stay in a hotel under an assumed name.

She couldn’t leave until after Axel’s afternoon call. She would not mention Mrs.

Morgan unless he asked specifically to speak with her. She vowed to keep her voice calm and cheerful, without the slightest hint of anxiety. She got an unexpected test when Uncle

Elsinore called to inquire what time she wanted him for dinner. She told him eight-thirty would be fine, not allowing herself to think how far away from this nightmare she and

Emily would be by then.

After Axel’s call she took a deep breath and called a local car service. It would take them a half-hour to reach her, but that would give her plenty of time to catch the four-fifteen to Boston and almost a three-hour edge on Axel. She left her bags by the front door and went upstairs to prepare the baby’s bunting, turning away once again from the hall closet and its little white door. She had nothing to fear from it anymore. She was beginning to calm down. Then the doorbell rang.

From an upstairs window she could see Uncle Elsinore’s station wagon parked in front of the driveway. She returned Emily to her crib and raced down the carpeted stairs.

Quickly, she shoved her suitcases under the two sections of the large sofa in the living room. She checked her reflection in the mirror by the door. Too pale. Calm down, she thought. Just calm down .

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Vangie, I just happened to be passing by. I was going to bring this tonight, but I thought it might be better if it cools in your own refrigerator. This French wine has such a delicate bouquet.”


He handed her the large bottle. She forced a smile. It was her favorite table wine.

How could such a considerate man be such a monster?

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “So sweet of you. I’ll put it away right now.”

“You look a little pale, dear. Say, how come that nurse didn’t answer the door?

Isn’t that why Axel pays her? You really should rest.”

She thought quickly, her heart racing wildly.

“Mrs. Morgan is really very helpful. Right now she’s out doing some shopping.”

He smiled, noticing the flowers he had brought her in the vase on the coffee table, but his brows suddenly furrowed when he saw the family shopping cart hanging behind the kitchen door.

“Without the cart?” he asked, his voice suddenly edged with some other emotion.

There was a long, breathless pause. Vangie shivered.

“I… only… needed a few things, Uncle. Prescriptions and such. I guess she didn’t feel she needed the cart.” She forced a smile but it was weak and she knew it.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he asked. “Do you have any on hand?”

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she couldn’t say no. She could only pray that he would leave before the cab arrived.

“You know that I always have plenty of coffee,” she said as pleasantly as she could muster. “I’ll bring you some. Make yourself comfortable, Uncle.”


She prepared a quick tray and it was all before him within a very few minutes.

She felt a sudden twinge of panic when she noticed that his right foot was just inches away from the handle of one of her suitcases that in her haste she hadn’t shoved all the way underneath the sofa. Immediately she seated herself beside him where she hoped she could push it back with her own foot before he noticed. But she wasn’t quick enough.

Unexpectedly, his foot moved and banged against it.

“What’s this?” he asked, bending down and pulling on the handle. “What’s a suitcase doing here?”

She flushed. And then he found the other one beside it. His faded eyes sharpened and his lips tightened into a cruel straight line.

“You’re leaving Axel, are you?”

“Yes,” she cried, tears streaming down her face. I can’t let you take my baby! I’m going and you can’t stop me! The cab will be here any minute!”

He stood over her; his face puffed with rage. Roughly, he pushed her back on the sofa as she tried to rise.

“You are not going anywhere! Sit down, Vangie.” His voice cracked like a whip.

“Yes I am,” she cried

.

“Sit down or I’ll hurt you!” And then he said in a tone that made her blood freeze:

“You can’t imagine how I can hurt you, Vangie.”

It was Elsinore who notified the others one by one, as she sat speechless on the sofa. They came quickly in their long black cloaks converging on the doorstep like a large


black cloud. Axel was the last to be called and when he arrived, she could not bear to look at the hurt in his eyes.

She could not hear their whispers, but she was bursting to justify her actions. Why couldn’t anyone understand that she had only wanted to save the baby? Was it a crime for a mother to protect her child? Elsinore stood over her, his ice-cold gaze locking with hers in deadly challenge. When the taxi arrived, he accompanied her outside and stood over her with his hot breath on her neck as she told the driver that she had changed her mind and would not need a ride.

It took them an hour to make up their minds. baby!”

“You must be punished,” said Axel. “The Dark One must be placated.”

“Take me!” she cried, without a moment’s hesitation. “Take me instead of the

Utter silence prevailed as the enormity of her demand fell upon them. They converged again; cloaks flowing like one black sea wave in the candle-lit corner of the living room now transformed into an altar.

A decision was reached as the hall clock struck five. They were ready for more than words as Axel’s prepared the sacrificial white robe and helped his wife slip into it.

The baby was brought to her side.

“Kiss her goodbye now,” said her husband in a voice dulled and thickened. “She will never know of her mother’s betrayal.”

Vangie kissed the top of her baby’s head and cried softly.

“I still love you,” he murmured as he kissed the nape of her neck, his tears flowing like drops of rain onto the yoke of the robe. But he lingered a moment too long


and the elders pulled him away. Vangie could hear his piteous sobs even after they closed the little white door that led to the long dark room at the end of the hall closet.


Bury The Hatch et

August the fourth was never an easy day for her and the passing of thirty-three others had done little to alter her perspective. At best, the years had coated its memory with a dim and fragile veneer. But like the outline of an old scar, some faint trace always remained in her heart and in her mind. On this August the fourth it was 1925 and she was sixty-seven years old.

Wasn’t it, couldn’t it, now be time to forget?

Yes, she thought, standing resolute in front of the library’s big bay window, the new kitten purring in her old arms. This room, with its high, white linen ceiling and brown wallpaper flourished with bright pink flowers was her favorite spot in the whole house. The heavy glass panes both kept her from and connected her to the flow of life that streamed below along elegant French Street in the “Hill” section of Fall River,

Massachusetts.

Here, with her many books she found some salvation, some escape from what became the most sensational murder trial of the century. But murder’s a small world and the pillared mahogany fireplace, whose mantle held the Oriental vase of beautiful yellow roses had a secret all its own, separate and apart from the house on Second Street and that ghastly day in the summer of 1892.

There was no clock here in the library and she wondered what time it was.

Judging from the night shadows she guessed it to be somewhere near midnight. She was good at that, for over the years she had learned to live as one of shadows, always on the verge of existence, but never really there. If she was to keep her promise to Emma, she would have to act very soon because outside the summer air was rustling with all the impatience of a coming storm. But then, she had waited all these years. Would one more night really matter?


A sudden crack of thunder and the splatter of rain against the glass distracted her.

She cried softly when the startled kitten scampered out of her grasp and onto the rose patterned rug. Still, the eyes that had learned so long ago never to give anything away were fixed on the window and the silent darkness of the garden below. They glared through the blurry glass, two blue, lonely orbs.

The rain, she thought. How it washes everything clean. But never the soul. It can never reach the soul.

Before the rain’s bold invasion, she had been mesmerized by the Maple trees as if they held the answer to that which was gnawing at her conscience. The trees were wonderful things; she could feel them always. They lined the stately entrance to the thirteen room mansion, lending a grace and beauty to the name she herself gave it;

Maplecroft. Behind its protective pillars she had lived for more than half of her sad and solitary life. More than a home, Maplecroft became her refuge from an unforgiving world and a sea of cruel, relentless whispers.

Lizzie Borden took an ax

And gave her mother forty whacks

And when she saw what she had done

She gave her father forty-one.

And was that voice that was now a part of the wind chanting that same horrible rhyme that had followed her all of her life? So it seemed as the storm increased in intensity, crashing through the leaves and branches of her beloved trees. Thunder shrieked through her ears and lightning stabbed, like a jagged, shiny knife, across the black sky. Beyond the million sounds of the rain she heard her name over and over.

Lizzie. Lizbeth. Lizzie.

But I don’t have to listen. It can’t touch me if I don’t really want it to.


“Emma,” she mouthed to the glass and the falling rain that now was as heavy as a curtain. It had been she who bought this lovely house for them both. But that was long ago, soon after the murders, when she and her sister, Emma were still good friends. The

Oriental vase on the fireplace mantle still held the beautiful roses she had brought just this past afternoon as a peace offering to Lizzie.

Emma’s essence had never really left Maplecroft. The echo of her voice, her laugh and her love for Lizzie still lingered on the dark stairs and in the hallways, as did the shadow of the unspeakable secret they shared. Always it loomed, large and evil, poisoning their barren, unproductive lives.

Rain. How many storms have I seen? The years. How have they passed so quickly, so unfruitfully?

She pushed a wisp of hair behind one ear. Now it was the color of snow, but once, when her world was new, it was deep auburn. That was when Fall River was the cotton manufacturing capital of the United States and her father, Andrew Borden, the richest man within its borders. There had been some laughter then when the city streets teemed with hungry immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe seeking jobs in the many mills. There had been some warmth. Now there was none.

Emma’s visit earlier today had been most significant, even though it had been prompted by the desire to sell some jointly owned property. Everything changed from just a business meeting when Emma posed a question Lizzie never thought she would dare ask, not after all these years.

“What did you do with it, Lizzie?”

“What did I do with what, Emma?”


Lizzie closed her eyes, but she couldn’t shut out Emma’s words any more than she could control the rattle of the rain. Even now, as she stood in the very teeth of the storm, she could see within her mind’s eye her older sister seated in the loveseat and she in the hardwood rocker, just as they had been in this very room earlier in the day.

“The hatchet,” Emma whispered, her black eyes meeting her sister’s and holding for a very long moment.

“It is here,” said Lizzie, almost smiling. “It has always been right here, ever since the day we moved from the house on Second Street.”

“At Maplecroft? Where? Tell me. Lizzie. I must know.”

“In this very room,” she said softly, “but I’m not at all sure that I want to tell you,

Emma. After all these years why does it matter anyway? I’m the one who paid, not you!”

Her mouth became tight and unyielding. She turned away from her sister and began to rock back and forth, almost violently.

“But I gave it to you…afterwards. Don’t you think…I…have…a right to know?”

Lizzie let out her breath suddenly, as if she had been holding it in for years. As the warm afternoon slid unnoticed into dusk they spoke for a long time.

“About a month before…we…it…happened I discovered a loose floorboard under that old stove in the barn. I told father about it and urged him to fix it. A white kitten got trapped underneath it. I happened to be in there looking for some wire that morning and heard it mewing.”

“Wasn’t that the same day Father came with that man from the mill and they took the old stove away?”


“Yes,” said Lizzie wistfully, a bit hesitant about continuing.

“Well, go on.”

For a few moments Lizzie was silent and then she rose from the rocker and walked over to the fireplace. She ran her fingers across the mantle’s wooden surface that bore the words from the Scottish poem that she loved so well; ‘In My Aun Countree.’ She removed a tiny key from a covered dish somewhere on the mantle near the Oriental vase of yellow roses and stood silently, deliberating.

“I kept it hidden there all during my trial and imprisonment wedged between the two parts of the broken floorboard until we moved here.”

“Won’t you please show it to me now, Lizzie? And then bury it forever with all of our arguments? Please, Lizzie! Please!”

Lizzie watched a petal fall from one of the yellow roses onto the mantle. Death, life, fading away; it all happened so quickly and too soon. Her face paled with decision and she slipped the small key into the lock that was so cleverly concealed to look as if it were part of the grain of wood. Emma was stunned, just as Lizzie knew she would be. In all of her years at Maplecroft Emma had never known about this secret hiding place.

Lizzie reached inside and pulled out a plain wooden box about 24 inches in length. A thick black ribbon secured its middle.

Emma did not, could not move from the love seat. Lizzie presented the box to her sister, placing it carefully in her lap as if it were an offering from some strange dark god.

“I haven’t touched it in thirty-three years, Emma. I really don’t think that I can touch it now.”


With trembling fingers, Emma removed the ribbon. Soundlessly, it slid onto the carpet beside her booted feet. The kitten pounced from its hiding place, biting and tossing the new toy with playful paws.

“Copper,” chided Lizzie. “Don’t do that!”

But the kitten was unable to resist the lure of the new toy and dragged the ribbon to a corner of the room, eyeing its mistress with a cool, saffron gaze.

“Well, okay,” she said, turning to face her sister.

Silently, Emma opened the box and removed the hatchet, holding its sharp edges up to the light. Her eyes were frozen on the blade that had ripped her father’s face to shreds as he slept in the parlor of his own home. It had been cleaned, of course. Lizzie had seen to that. But Emma knew as did Lizzie, that it would always be tarnished with the blood of Andrew and Abbey Borden. She suddenly threw it back into the box and slammed down the lid.

“Lizzie, oh, Lizzie,” she sobbed. “How could you have kept it here? I don’t understand. Why didn’t you bury it or destroy it?”

“Conscience, I suppose. Or maybe guilt. A way to remember, a way not to forget.

What better place, Emma, than in my favorite room behind my favorite poem?”

Emma did not reply. She remained with Lizzie until after dinner and made no further mention of the hatchet. But now she was gone and the void she had left behind was unfillable.

Perhaps we can be friends again. Perhaps now we can be.


Lizzie left the window and the rain wanting desperately to believe that they could be.

Emma, I shall bury it, storm or no storm. Not one more night will I live with it in this house!

She turned then to face the love seat whose soft pillows were still indented with

Emma’s shape and a new and nameless fear clutched at her heart. The wooden box, the hatchet and the ribbon were nowhere in sight.

“But where could they be?”

she cried to the tiny kitten sleeping in the corner of the room. “ I saw Emma put the hatchet back in the box! I saw her close the lid!”

she screamed to all the shadows moving towards her with malicious intention.

Frantically she searched everywhere in the huge room; looking over things, under things and throwing up carpeting and pillows. Madly, she ran to the fireplace and swept both her hands across the hollow, dark and empty cavity.

But it had been there! For thirty-three years it had been there!

The walls cried with her as helplessly, she pulled at the silver pile of hair on her head. She leaned over with one hand resting on the mantle’s edge. Tears flowed down her mottled cheeks. Whatever it was that made her look up to the mantle’s fine top changed her tears into mad hysteria. The Oriental vase that had held Emma’s flowers was empty!

She picked it up and hugged it to her breast.

I’m going mad! Mad! Mad! Mad! The flowers were there! I saw them! So was the hatchet!

She screamed into the rafters. Her heart was pounding furiously as she ran from the library to the adjoining bedroom.


Is this justice? Perhaps so. Just not time to bury thing s.

“Copper,” she whispered softly, stroking the kitten sleeping so peacefully on top of the lacy bedspread. “My faithful friend, my only friend.” she sobbed, undressing and slipping between the satin sheets.

They never found the hatchet! They never found it! That’s why I was acquitted.

And now I can’t find it either! Isn’t that funny? Oh, Emma, I can’t find it either!”

She took a deep breath, wondering if there ever would be a time to forget and be forgotten, to live without the haunting shadows. A tear fell on her lonely pillow at her next thought:

To forever bury the hatchet.


A Gen tl e Man B orn

J. T. Raymond eyed the young blonde woman carrying two bags of groceries from behind a large bloom of pink azalea, his large frame tingling with excitement. The hi-rise that was his new home loomed against the vernal sky, its grayness undiminished by the colorful shrubbery that scalloped the grounds. Spring was in the air, a time to enjoy the flavors and textures of life and cast away the garments of winter, all caution and inhibition.

But that was all for the world outside his skin. Inside, the urge to kill had returned and, as always, it would cling relentlessly with cruel sharp teeth. He would hear, see and smell nothing else until the blood washed all over him, bringing satiation and the only kind of peace he could ever know.

He fingered the outline of the leather sheath through the folds of his thin raincoat.

The long and shiny knife spoke a language beyond words. The surgical gloves were in the outside pocket. The young blonde woman approached the entrance. At last, he whispered to the part of him that knew what he wanted, what he needed. At last .

She leaned against the door and knocked impatiently on the glass with one slender hand. On her ring finger a ruby and diamond cluster of extraordinary beauty glittered like a thousand stars. The doorman looked up sharply from inside, alert to her need but momentarily preoccupied assisting an elderly gentleman. Heaving a sigh, she placed her packages on the stone walkway and reached inside a leather pouch for her keys.

Raymond came up behind her.

“Allow me, miss,” he said, in a manner as soft and polished as the sheen on his

Italian loafers. A faint smile rose to his lips as he inserted his own key into the lock. She


smiled back, revealing even white teeth. No fear . It worked every time, despite the warnings on the evening news about the killer of three women who stalked this East Side

Manhattan neighborhood. He had even mulled about with all the other curious passersby beside the yellow police tape cordoning off the last crime site on the next corner. He supposed he didn’t look like a killer, whatever that meant. He was too well dressed, too charming, too rich and handsome to evoke suspicion.

No one ever saw beyond his technical genius or the specialized line of computers he designed and manufactured. In the grandest of ironies, he had been instrumental in developing and formatting the National Crime Information Computer, which tracked the world’s most dangerous felons. Deep in the night that made him laugh. Just like the memory of their screams. His work kept him isolated and too remote from living to be a part of its pain. Women deserved whatever they got. They were so stupid, so trusting.

“Let me help you,” he said, scooping up one of her bags and inhaling the sweet scent of her perfume. The old doorman, his chore accomplished, returned dutifully to his post just as the two passed him in the lobby. J. T. Raymond never worried about witnesses. He had learned long ago how to change the way he was remembered. He could slip through any opening, fit in anywhere. He had known how to do that almost since he’d known anything at all.

“Thanks,” she said sweetly, her red lips taunting him as she reclaimed the bag and deposited both of them beside the long row of mailboxes. JT walked slowly across the lobby and pressed for the elevator, avoiding the doorman whom might have noticed that he did not live on that side of the building. But the elevator came too soon and he quickly sent it back. His plan wouldn’t work unless its arrival was precisely synchronized with hers. If someone else came by he would have to pick another time. At the moment, however, opportunity was a telephone and it was ringing just as loud and clear as a bell.

They stood for an awkward moment in front of the elevators and exchanged smiles; a world of dark things unsaid swirling in the air. He could feel the bulge growing


inside his pants as he closed his eyes for a split second and drenched his memory with the fragrance of her perfume. He knew it would haunt him afterwards, that whenever he would think of her that scent would always be there.

She threw all her mail except one envelope into a grocery bag, her lacquered fingers lingering over the bold black writing on its face. J. T. Raymond glanced at the beautiful ring and couldn’t decide whether or not he would claim it as a momento. He had stolen something from each of his victims. It angered him that neither the news nor the police ever mentioned that in their statements to the public. He deserved recognition. The elevator door opened, scattering all thoughts momentarily.

She wouldn’t really be missed

, he thought as the door closed. Hers was just an anonymous little New York life. She was as obvious as a neon light, a whore like all the others. She smiles and she tempts with a different face, but they’re all the same gaudy sirens under the veneer of makeup . All the same little whores .

“Are you new to the building?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.

Sara Milton’s the name.”

“I’m J.T,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitation, “Raymond.” It didn’t matter if she knew his identity because she wouldn’t be around to inform the police. “Yes, you could say that. I’ve been here about two months now.”

The elevator soared, the numbers on the black dial quickly rising. Two months and still her mind failed to make the connection. For as long as the killings have occurred . The last one had been just a week ago only a block away. He was happy she was stupid. A fair fight never appealed to his nature.

“I forgot to ask you what floor you wanted.”


“We passed mine,” he said quickly. “I forgot to push. It was four. That’s okay. I’ll just go down after you get off.”

“Sorry about that,” she said pleasantly.

But was she really? No woman was ever sorry. He had learned that very early in life. She wanted to talk to him, to be with him, to touch him. Just like the others. Just like his mother who used him as a toy in between her unbroken quests for a drink, a bed and a man. All women were as easily read as a deck of cards.

“Here’s where I get out,” she said a bit sadly as the elevator stopped on the tenth floor and the door opened. He was right about her wanting him; the desire was on her lips, in her eyes. He quickly slipped on the rubber gloves as she turned away from him.

She was about to leave when she turned toward him again and asked:

“What was your name again?”

He smiled a little colder this time, his dark eyes sharpening as he moved closer.

“JT It’s short for John Thompson,” he said, pulling her roughly to him and knocking the bags out of her hands. Groceries spilled everywhere onto the elevator floor and one gloved hand went over her mouth.

“But no one ever calls me John, Sara. It’s Jack,” he whispered as the steel door closed upon them.

“Call me Jack,” he said, his mad eyes gleaming as he pulled out the long and shiny knife.

“Jack the Ripper.”


Uncl e Devereaux

All of my life I have lived in the shadow of what he had done, and yet I never knew exactly what that was. I did know that he loved me and would never harm me. As a little girl I saw these things through a looking glass from which reflected only the purest truth.

One of my earliest memories goes back to a soft, sunny day when we were playing in the backyard of my parents’ home. I remember him pushing me on the swing and if I close my eyes, I can still see his beige cotton trousers with the cuffs that were always a bit too wide. I loved Uncle Devereaux. I love him still.

I was seven or eight years old when my mother’s only brother, escorted by two men in uniform, came to live with us. He carried one battered suitcase. I’ll never forget the neighbors’ stares and asides, which were more obvious than any words could ever have been. It had something to do with the way he looked, or at least that’s what I overheard my mother tell my father. But even I knew that they were afraid of Uncle

Devereaux because they had heard the rumors about where he had come from and why he had no family of his own. But no one at our house was afraid. He was my playmate and companion during that summer so long ago.

Neither my mother nor my father ever spoke about what he had done. That way, it was almost as if he didn’t do it, whatever it was. Almost, but not quite. I discovered part of the truth that very day those two men brought him to our home. I was listening behind the kitchen door, having returned unexpectedly from the yard where I had been playing.

“The doctors say he is…um…cured…of his, er…impulses,” one of them said.

“We can’t keep him anymore anyway. If not for you two, he would automatically have been transferred to the larger state facility.”


“He’s luckier than his victims were,” said the other man. They will never get a second chance to do anything.”

“I have to live with that all of my life,” cried Uncle Devereaux. And to my parents one of the men said:

“This is very generous of you people, very generous indeed.”

“We didn’t help him when he needed it and he’s our blood,” said Mother in a tone which meant the discussion was over.

“It will never happen again,” sobbed Uncle Devereaux. “I have no need to do it anymore. Really I don’t! I swear it!”

At this point I was discovered behind the door and the conversation ended. I didn’t know what to expect after what I had just heard, but I remember feeling so pleased to look upon his smiling face. I loved him instantly and knew that he loved me too. It was the moment of our bonding.

The summer passed quickly, day after glorious day sifting like sand through an hourglass. Soon I would have to return to school. That would change things, and I didn’t like change. I loved sitting in the rocker on the long screened porch and talking to Uncle

Devereaux with Prozie purring in my lap. The cat had been my whole world before Uncle came, but she loved him too now and didn’t seem to mind sharing my attention.

We talked about many things, but never that which brought the two men to our house and made the neighbors whisper. He once said that I reminded him of Sally and when I asked who that was, his eyes grew cold for a moment and he turned sharply away from me. Then, in an instant, they reverted to the soft warm blue that I had come to know and love so well. I never asked him about Sally again, but one afternoon, soon after the


incident, while Mother was peeling potatoes and Uncle was taking a nap, I asked her about Sally.

Her back arched and she abruptly stopped what she was doing.

“Who was who?” she asked, even though she had heard me quite clearly.

“Sally,” I repeated. “Uncle Devereaux said that I look like Sally. Who is she,

Mother?”

Her face reddened. I had never seen my mother so uncomfortable before. It made me almost afraid of her answer, but I was determined to get it. I simply had to know.

Without looking at me she said, “Sally was Uncle Devereaux’s own little girl.”

Something smashed, like a ton of bricks, in my brain.

“Where is she?” I managed.

Mother resumed peeling potatoes with gestures so mechanical they reminded me of a robot I’d seen on television.

“Go back on the porch, Dorie,” she said so harshly that it startled me. “I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

I obeyed my mother, but I couldn’t help feeling hurt. Why was she talking to me that way? And why wouldn’t she answer my question? She had never spoken to me like that before and I didn’t understand. A few hours later Uncle found me in the rocker on the porch and seated himself in the wicker chair beside me. In one hand he held a crystal wineglass that was filled almost to the top. I think that was the first time I really noticed how big he was. His huge hands overwhelmed the stem of the glass and his large frame


fidgeted, no matter how hard he tried to fold it comfortably into the chair. His long legs seemed to go on forever.

“Well, well,” he said, winking at me playfully. “Are you just about ready for dinner, my little pumpkin?”

“I guess so,” I said, patting Prozie’s amber head and secretly loving the private little nickname he had bestowed upon me.

“Good! I hope you’re hungry too,” he said excitedly, taking a long. Lingering sip of wine and swallowing delicately. “It’s something special. I prepared it myself. It’s cooking right now. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Smell that wonderful aroma!”

He was absolutely right. A mysterious redolence seeped through the kitchen and living room and out the window to the porch.

“It’s wonderful, Uncle. And different. What is it?”

I never got my answer because right about then Father came home and all three of us watched the sun descend over the rolling hills of our suburban community. A serenity I had never experienced before or since bloomed within the settling of dusk’s pinkish haze.

Father went inside and came out to the porch again carrying a drink of his own.

“To you, Dev,” he said. “Let’s make a toast.”

“To all our good health,” said Uncle. “Always.”

As if on cue, Mother came outside to call us in for dinner just as their glasses clinked together. We all followed immediately.


A centerpiece of yellow roses graced the long rectangular table. The white cloth was of the finest Irish linen as well as the matching place mats and napkins. Mother always set the table in a special way because for her each family meal was a unique family occasion. The television had been playing and just as we were about to sit down at the table, Father went to shut it off. He stopped midway, as did indeed all of us, to hear the startling broadcast announcing the disappearance of a local twelve-year-old child named Lawrence Davies.

“How terrible! I think I know the family,” said Mother. “They live a few miles up the road.”

“Ssh, my dear sister,” interrupted Uncle. “Please turn off that infernal machine!

It’s giving me a headache. Besides, I’m hungry and anxious to know how you feel about the special dish I have prepared tonight.”

“You’re right, Dev,” said Father. “No sense in thinking about unpleasantness. Life is certainly short enough.”

We were all wrapped in a strange silence until Mother brought the main course to the table. It smelled so good and looked so lovely in the large porcelain serving dish that had been in the family for many years. I’m sure it brought back memories to Uncle Dev because he smiled when he saw it.

“Let it be known that I prepared only the potatoes” said Mother. “This is all Uncle

Devereaux’s creation.”

Uncle smiled broadly.

“I’ll tell you all my secret one of these days, but right now just make me happy and taste it.”


It was the most delicious meat I had ever tasted. After dinner, we raved and raved.

Uncle loved the attention, although I don’t think that he would ever have admitted that.

The conversation shifted gently to the nation’s recession, the rise in prices and the general buying power of the American dollar. Uncle, Mother and Father were drinking wine. Too young to indulge, I sat in my seat, rolling a straw back and forth in my mouth.

“I wish we could have bought a new car this year,” said Father. “But quite frankly, we just couldn’t afford it.”

“How much do cars go for these days?” asked Uncle. “Maybe I could help. I have a little money put away. You two have been good to me. It’s the least I can do.”

“More than you can imagine, Dev,” Mother said kindly. “An arm and a leg, as they say,” she added laughingly.

And then Uncle Devereaux smiled at me and whispered:

“Maybe that can be arranged.”

( Avalon Rising, 1989)


The Cos tu me Party

It was the second Wednesday in October and for the last fifteen years that meant lunch at

Tavern-On-The-Green with Nora Devlin. This year I was in for a real surprise from my old college chum, even though I never expected any. Nora’s questions had always been as predictable as a blizzard and sometimes just as welcome. Usually, there were two: would

Hal and I be coming to her annual Halloween party and what costumes were we planning to wear? I could have also taken bets on our seating arrangement; it was always the same little table in the far corner of the dining room facing the trees. I was always grateful for the view of Central Park it offered which provided an alternate topic for conversation when the need arose, which it often did.

We had barely started eating when I sensed something different about my old friend. It took me a moment to realize what it was; she was avoiding my gaze. I guessed my recent divorce might have had something to do with it. Nora couldn’t deal with change; things like analysis and pap tests and divorce made her uncomfortable. My life style changes somehow threatened hers and made me an embarrassment to her. I was guessing, but I knew Nora and was sure that I was somewhere along the right track.

“Did you think I wasn’t coming this year, Nora?”

Her eyes met mine and abruptly turned away again. I reached over and stroked her very expensive chenille sleeve.

“Of course I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss your party for the world.”

She did not answer and something made me probe further.

“Is it because you don’t want me to come alone this year? Is that it?”


The reluctant nod over her endive salad told me that I had struck a minor chord.

“Well don’t worry. I won’t be.”

I winced at the thought of my chubby neighbor, Stanley Drake, who rather than stay home and cry because his wife had left him for a saxophone player, agreed to accompany me to Nora and Don’s party. Still I felt there was something unspoken lurking behind those pastel lips of hers. Suddenly she looked at me strangely, her long, wellmanicured fingers playing absently with a blonde curl at the nape of her neck.

“It’s more than that, Sara,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Don is bringing some new people from the office. And Ziggy Doyle is coming this year too. I’m, I’m— well— a little nervous about it.”

“Oh really! I would love to see Ziggy again. He was a good friend. I…”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” she said sharply. “You know that we’re always the same people and that makes our parties more like reunions, don’t you think? And,

Sara, you brought us together, Don and I. How could we not have you there?” Biting her lip and reaching into a mesh case for a cigarette, she added quickly:

“Of course, in your case, now it’s— it’s different, isn’t it?”

I told her she was being silly, that a party was a party and the more the merrier. I didn’t tell her that I had long regretted setting up that double date between her and my exhusband’s rich roommate and that I couldn’t stand Don. The truth was that I would never forgive him for the terrible practical joke he played on Ziggy Doyle that night so long ago. What he did always hung between us, like a smelly cloud.

Nora had been in the fraternity house that night. She saw Don set up the whole hazing fiasco which resulted in the death of one of the pledges, Ziggy’s younger brother,


Jonathan. I had been there too, but I never dared discuss the incident with her. When it came to dealing with life’s responsibilities, Nora was like an ostrich, preferring her head to remain buried in the sand.

Lunch was a lovely lingering affair, made even more so because Nora picked up the hefty tab. We parted as we always did, smiling and kissing the other’s cheek. I did love Nora in my own odd way and I knew my feelings were returned as much as they could be. I went home to my drab little life to which the upcoming party had ignited the most minor of sparks.

I didn’t think about meeting the ‘new’ people until the night of the party two weeks later. While slipping into my Scarlet O’Hara costume, I wondered who they might be. I could always deal with Don, even if that meant staying out of his way all evening, but I did hope to at least mingle with some other people. I was rather plump for a plantation belle, but Stanley was almost bearable as Rhett Butler. I must admit that we cut quite a figure alighting from the cab at the building’s grilled entrance on Central Park

West.

We entered the front office where the guard at the desk checked my name and

‘escort’ against the Devlin guest list. My last name was Dewitt. Neatly typed directly under it was Ziggy Doyle’s name as it was every year, even though he never came to any of the parties. Walking towards the elevator, we passed the carved oak paneling, ornate brass fixtures and carved love seats that ruled the overwhelmingly Victorian interior.

When we reached the elevator, three young men in costume appeared behind us. I turned to smile. One set of green eyes looked vaguely familiar, but a cold hand passed over my heart at the sight of the young man in the middle.

The two wild darting things that were his eyes haunted me almost as much as the grotesque network of wrinkles and scars that composed his mask. His garb suggested a hideous reptile; green scaly tights with an accommodating chest piece and tail. I could


see the edges of the mask where it met the flesh on his neck and the makeup had rendered the skin there withered and scaly and wrinkled as well.

“Don’t look at him,” Stanley whispered in my ear. “That’s what he wants you to do.”

But Stanley was wrong about that because as we all stepped inside the elevator, the young man abruptly turned away and kept his head to the wall for the entire ride. The other two men, a vampire and a silver knight, huddled beside him. The silver knight eyed me closely as I pushed the tenth floor button. I felt awkward with my voluminous crinolines in such a small space. We all rode in silence and no one was more grateful than

I when the door opened and we all spilled out into the corridor.

If I had harbored any hopes that Don Devlin had changed in the last year, I lost them as quickly as a bad lunch the moment I saw him.

“Put on a few pounds, didn’t you, Sara?” he asked, as if I never would have known otherwise.

I wanted to smack his insipid, preppy face, but I overcame the impulse, forced a smile and introduced him to Stanley Drake. Food and drink abounded amid the splendor and I admit I was a bit jealous, having barely five cents to my name after my horrendous divorce. I eked out a living as a freelance writer, while Nora reeked of another female alternative. Sometimes I wondered if that really was easier, if she hadn’t paid too dearly by marrying Don Devlin.

After everyone arrived and was settled, Nora announced as she did every year that there would be a contest for the best costume to be voted on by secret ballot at the midnight hour. The prize was the usual two hundred dollars. She was a mass of powdered fluff herself, as Madame DuBarry, or someone of that ilk. Her costumes were usually


expensive, rented period pieces, but she was always Nora, whether of the Middle Ages, gaslit London or the Renaissance.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the young man with the strange mask. Even as I mingled with my old college chums, I was always aware of where he was. His friends never left his side and more than once the silver knight turned in my direction and fixed his eyes upon me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere. I also noticed that Don became unusually nervous after returning from a short trip downstairs.

I joined Stanley on the large sofa where he had been eyeing the strange threesome as well. He agreed that Don appeared uncomfortable about something. He had also noticed that the three young men had not left that corner of the room near the large bookcase since the party began. I did feel that the strange young man was being kept away from the other guests by the vampire and the silver knight. I had a need to talk to

Nora about my observations and saw my chance when she passed by the sofa. I grabbed her arm just as she was placing some caviar onto a porcelain serving dish. I couldn’t help but notice that her hands were shaking.

“Nora, can I help you? Is everything okay? Don seems so upset and that young man in the mask over there—”

“You really must try this caviar, Sara. It’s the most expensive that Bloomingdale’s carries.” She walked away then, leaving me even more puzzled than before.

There was something else, there was always something else about the young man with the strange mask. I happened to turn my head in his direction at the same time he was raising his glass in some secret toast with his two friends and noticed for the first time that he was wearing one white glove. I wondered why.

I asked Stanley the time. It was near midnight. Don passed around index cards and pencils, requesting each guest to vote for the most original costume. Everyone was


allowed one vote for themselves and one for someone else. Then Nora collected all the cards and after a few minutes Don announced the winner as the ‘alien man,’ the very same gentleman in the strange mask. But he was nowhere in sight. I had seen him slip away into the kitchen moments before the announcement. It had been the first time that evening that he had left the company of his two friends. The silver knight watched me intently as I left the fanfare in the living room and made my way there.

I found him seated in front of the window in the small maid’s room off the kitchen. His head jerked slightly when I entered with my noisy crinolines, but otherwise he made no indication of pleasure or displeasure at my intrusion. I felt an immediate need to apologize.

“I’m sorry. I was staring at you all evening.”

He turned away from the glow of moonlight peeping through the window, his hideous face in profile.

“That’s alright, Madame. I assure you that I’m quite used to it.”

His words held a certain unexpected dignity. They threw me off balance.

“You’ve won the contest,” I said as cheerfully as I could muster. I wished he would turn around although I wasn’t at all sure that I could look at him closely. “Don’t you want the money? It’s waiting for you in the other room.”

“For me?” he asked so sadly that I was taken aback.

“Yes,” I managed. “For you.“

He sighed as if all the heaviness of the world were on his shoulders, stroking the edges of his white leather glove.


“The prize is really for Ziggy. This was all his idea.”

“Ziggy,” I stammered, my mouth dropping open. “Do you mean Ziggy Doyle?”

“None other. He’s here, you know. That’s why Don is so upset. He went down to send the doorman out for more ice and he saw Ziggy’s signature on the guest register.”

“Where, is he? I haven’t seen him for years. I would love to talk to him again.”

“He told me you were a friend. As you know, we all came in right behind you.

He’s the silver knight. His older brother William is the vampire. They wanted to see Don

Devlin squirm. It was about time he paid for what he did to Jonathan.”

“Who are you, I asked?”

“A friend of Ziggy’s. That’s all that matters.”

I moved closer, tears welling in my eyes.

“Why have you picked such a frightening mask to wear, sir? And why that white glove, if I may ask?”

He turned to me then and he spoke, but he still did not look at me.

“Ah, do you really want to know the answers to your questions? Be prepared for the truth, Madame. I warn you that it may not set you free, as the saying goes.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s almost time to take off my mask and show Don Devlin my real face. I’m afraid, Madame, that I have won nothing at all.”


“But you did,” I insisted.

“Mere illusion. Stand back, Madame.”

Something in his tone sent an icy finger up my spine.

“What are you going to do?”

“This is a mask,” he said rising from his chair,” but things are not what they seem.” He touched the white glove, hesitating. Then he took a deep breath and pulled it off his hand.

“This is real,” he said, stroking the scaly clawed thing with his one normal hand.

“And this, Madame,” he said, pointing to his mask, “does come off. Do you know what’s underneath? Can you even venture a guess?”

I was speechless and I couldn’t take my eyes off the monstrosity that was his left hand. I felt faint and steadied myself with one hand on the back of the chair he had been sitting in.

“I’ll spare you, then,” he said softly, “but I will tell you that this mask I wear was modeled from life.”

I looked at him dumbfounded. Suddenly our eyes locked in understanding and the walls of the room became very close. I felt myself slipping away into a dead faint as his final words echoed in my ear:

“You understand now, don’t you, Madame? Ah, yes, I know you do. That’s right.

This is indeed a mask, but it is an exact replica of my very own face!”


Death On S ea S argasso

My name is Serena Morris and I will never know why I was the only one to survive the terrible ordeal that claimed the lives of both of my associates. I know you need details,

Dr. Slater, and I will do my best to provide them. No, I don’t mind your taking notes. I have nothing to hide, but I do wish you would lock the door. I must insist that once I begin I do not wish to be interrupted. Now is also the time for you to call in anyone else whom you want to hear my story. I’ll go on until you tell me to stop, but I must warn you that I cannot bear to tell it twice.

You wave a finger at me. I assume that means we’ll be alone for this session.

Then I’ll begin. In mid June of 1988 we were three scientists on a sixty five foot boat some two hundred and fifty miles southeast of Bermuda. For us it was a time for study.

We all worked for the same chemical plant that was co-sponsoring with the National

Geographic Society a bio-geochemical investigation concerning the effects of industrial wastes (PCB) on marine life. Scientifically known as polychlorinated biphenyls, these compounds are used as electrical insulating fluids.

Our company, Megatron, manufactures these products for industrial use in transformers and condensers. These insoluble fluids enter the air through evaporation, especially when they’re burned with trash. Unfortunately, they solute into animal and plant fat. Our study concerned the effects of these compounds on marine life, especially in the Sargasso Sea where we received reports about textural and color alterations in the algae indigenous to that area.

Never very far from our minds was the recent disappearance of three of our fellow scientists, Martin Sturgis, Louis Downs and Paul Morgan. These men were the initiators of the study and there had been no trace of them for more than three weeks. I was engaged to Sam DeVane, the head bio-geochemist. John McBride was brilliant too. I’m


sorry, Doctor. I don’t mean to cry. It’s just that they were such vital people. Just give me a moment. I’ll get on with it. I know that I must.

The trouble started on the third day. A school of whales attacked our boat and sank it. We found ourselves adrift on a life raft in shark-infested waters. We drifted for days and then the water turned to the deep electric blue that marks the Sargasso. Here we feared that our raft would entangle itself within the sargassum (seaweed) that circle the sea in an endless current and grow in the millions of tons throughout the area. We also found tar balls on the algae, probably the result of oil slicks, which could have mired us in one fatal position.

The Sargasso Sea lies in the middle of The Bermuda Triangle. It’s really an oceanic desert with few fish. One of its many natural enigmas and an adjunct to our investigation via the National Geographic Society involved the effects of PCB on the

Anguilla Eel. This creature starts its life as an egg in the freezing depths of the Sargasso.

Then it metamorphoses into an ‘elver’ and migrates to fresh water. No one knows why it returns to the Sargasso to spawn.

We were lost in the middle of nowhere with no land in sight, a single flare and one tin of dried biscuits. The only drinkable water was that which I managed to salvage in a small tin during a storm that almost swept us all into the sea. The seawater was the saltiest in the world and deadly to human consumption. We were hungry, but terrified to even touch the seaweed, much less eat it. Before the storm we also drank our own urine.

Believe me, you’d do it too if the alternative was to die of thirst. Believe me, Doctor

Slater, you would.

Anyway, it was the day after the storm when we all saw it and held our breaths.

Through an eerie silvery mist the image loomed as clear as a steel engraving. It was a large cabin cruiser, not unlike the one that had been our own, standing grey and still in the middle of the ocean! Ironic, isn’t it, Doctor? Here is the mysterious section of the


world where ships have been known to disappear and I’m telling you about one that appeared! I know you must think I was hallucinating, but please humor me.

We pressed through the thick mist. As we reached the port side we all saw the name LADY MEGATRON painted in bold black letters across it. My comrades and I could not contain our excitement. We had found the boat belonging to our missing colleagues. In retrospect I wonder if it found us. After the initial surge of joy, my heart pounded with a new fear because I knew how extensively the Coast Guard had searched to no avail for both the boat and our friends.

We cried out, but there was no one to hear us. The deck was dark and desolate, but anything was a more welcome haven than the open sea. We managed to get on board by means of a davit from which clung the smashed remains of a lifeboat. John scrambled up first and then helped Sam and I aboard. The only sound I can remember above the beating of my own heart was the soft groan of the wood. Peering down into the hold, Sam yelled out the names of our friends one by one.

“Sturgis, Downs, Morgan, are you there? It’s Sam DeVane.”

The silence was as vast as the sea. I followed Sam and John down the steep steps, feeling as if I were entering a deep hole from which there would be no return. I was wondering if the others felt that way too when my train of thought was suddenly ruptured. It was Sam who touched it first and stopped short in the middle of the narrow stairwell.

“Blood!” he cried. “There’s blood on the railing!”

John touched it too, but I couldn’t. Nevertheless, a few drops splattered onto my shorts as I made my way down, swallowing over a lump in my throat. The hold was dank and dim, the only light emanating from a naked light bulb in the ceiling’s far corner. I heard a clock tick somewhere and there was again that ubiquitous moaning of the wood.


The sense of things unfinished lingered in the air. Time seemed to have held its very breath.

A coffee pot with its last brew stood on the small stove. Nearby, a bed was unmade; the pillow still indented where someone’s head had lain. But the case as well as the rest of the linen were splattered with blood. There were also blood spots along the floor leading to the other rooms.

The bathroom was the worst of all. The blood so covered the interior that we could not discern what color the walls had been painted. The sight forced all of us to think about what could had happened to our colleagues. Where were they? The smashed lifeboat indicated that they hadn’t gotten away. But where were their bodies? Had someone murdered them and thrown them overboard? What force could have overcome three experienced sailors well able to take care of themselves?

But there were no answers in the bathroom. We left there and made some quick decisions. John proceeded to starboard in the hopes that he could revitalize the controls and radio equipment while Sam and I searched the hold for the ship’s log. We found it lying on top of a desk in one of the smaller rooms.

The leather cover was blood soaked. I stood beside Sam as he leafed through the pages and I couldn’t help but shudder. The echo of the moaning wood magnified the silence. There were only a few entries and the last one was dated May the twentieth, the very day that we had lost contact with them. It noted clear weather and a location, which

Sam estimated, was where we had found her. Whatever happened had occurred right where we were; a fact I found far from comforting. The last words were written in a hurried, spidery scrawl.

“…I…fear…the…only place it could have come from is the bilge.”


In case you don’t know, Doctor, the bilge is a nautical term, which refers to the underwater body of the boat, specifically between the flat of the bottom and the vertical topsides. Whatever more was about to be written was interrupted, but the smudges on the page indicated that the book was closed so quickly that the ink hadn’t had a chance to dry.

In a drawer of that same desk we found a looseleaf book labeled

Observations/Control Group. Slightly off to the right in a dark corner sat a table that held a small lamp and some petri dishes. On the floor beside them was an electric heater. It was clear that the group had been experimenting with whatever lay in the dishes, exposing them to different temperatures and degrees of light and recording the results in the book. The growths bore some similarity to the algae of the area, but something about their appearance was terribly wrong. The spores, the mechanisms by which they reproduced, were blistered and scaly, resembling the texture of reptilian skin. Our eyes couldn’t have missed the two sentences written in red and underlined:

RATE OF GROWTH UNKNOWN.

ORIGIN OF LIFE FORCE UNKNOWN.

We told John, who was upset enough at not being able to force any life into the dead controls. Sam also tried but we all knew we were stuck. John had been an instructor of radio equipment in Vietnam. If he couldn’t do it, no one could.

I found two tins of dried biscuits, two flashlights and a flare in the crawlspace of a small pantry off the galley. A tiny refrigerator held five jars of bottled water. I counted them over and over, wondering how long we could last.

Meanwhile, to save our sanity and give ourselves the illusion of having some control over what was happening, we began to clean up the blood as best we could. If we had to stay there, we couldn’t look at the blood. For a little while it took our minds off food and water and salvation.


Each night we slept in two-hour shifts. At least one of us was awake at all times.

Whoever was on duty carried a flashlight and a flare with matches just in case a plane or a ship came into view. When it was my turn, I paced the deck endlessly, searching the skies through the darkness for some sign of life beside ourselves.

One night something about the water near the stern made me flash my beam upon it. I heard some odd hissing sounds where there should have been only silence. I flashed the beam everywhere, but could see nothing except the dark, undulating water.

The next morning Sam told John and I that we would starve to death if we didn’t consider eating the algae. He cautioned us, however, to avoid the seaweed that had turned yellowish brown and to boil it first on the stove. I lost no time in preparing a soup and one biscuit for each of us. That was all we ate each day along with one small cup of water until the biscuits ran out.

Our environment became an ever-changing enigma. The sea remained quite blue, but the water surrounding the boat was a deep charcoal gray. Also, each of us on our respective shifts had at some time heard that same strange hissing underneath the water near the stern, but could find nothing to explain it.

The bad things came thick and fast. One night I spotted some lights in the sky. I quickly lit the flare and shot it into the heavens. I was about to run and tell the others when something caught my eye in the streak of light ignited by the flare. I pulled out my flashlight and shot the beam into the water. A roundish object was bobbing up and down like a buoy, some five feet away along the side of the boat. Oddly, when I turned the beam outward it moved in and vice versa, almost as if it were playing tag with me. I should have turned the beam away then and there because nothing was the same afterwards.

I screamed so loudly at the sight of the severed head that I awakened Sam and

John. Within seconds they were by my side. Sam flashed the beam directly on the eyeless


face and identified what was left of Martin Sturgis. We all huddled on the cold deck, speechless and afraid. The head then floated away out of sight along with our hopes of a response from the flare.

We soon realized that the algae we were eating was the source rather than the product of the water’s contamination. That explained the change in its color. The PCBs were forcing the production of foreign acids that settled and flourished parasitically on the algae. The residue from these acids drifted into the water, discoloring it. It is odd that only I became ill, but it is that single fact which ultimately saved my life. Otherwise I would have been on deck standing near the others when it happened.

Sam had taken over my shift because I hadn’t been feeling well. Due to nausea and intense stomach pains, I could barely walk. Still, my heart surged with joy when he and John shook me awake that cold dawn and pointed overhead to the plane that had responded to our last flare. We all felt our ordeal was almost behind us.

I excused myself and headed towards the toilet down in the hold. I had almost reached the steps when the giant black shadow slithered over the railing and onto the deck with a dreadful thud. There was a scream buried somewhere deep in my throat as I watched the dark serpentine form coil and uncoil in the corner. A hissing escaped from the mouth and from its gleaming tail came a fire-like vapor. The teeth were long and sharp as razors. They glimmered in the morning sun.

It was the tail that swooped upon Sam and John, crushing them together like two pieces of meat in a sandwich. I heard their screams, their bones crunch. I saw their blood splatter everywhere. I saw too that its back was all scaly and blistered, just like the algae that was everywhere around us.

I knew I had to move and yet I couldn’t. The vomit swelled in my chest. My last vision on top deck was that of Sam being devoured by those terrible teeth. I prayed that


he was no longer alive. I wasn’t sure if the thing had eyes, but I did know that it knew I was there.

I ran down the steps as quickly as I could, unable to restrain the vomit that now flowed onto my clothes. I ran to the galley and the crawlspace in the pantry between the last layer of shelves and its bottom. I tried to squeeze in, but the space was too small. The hissing and labored breathing were close behind me. I wondered whether it had gills or lungs and how long it could live out of water as I raced towards the bathroom in the stern.

A wicker hamper stood by the door. I pulled it inside, locked the door, dumped all of the soiled linen onto the floor and jumped in. I pulled up the lid, vomited again and waited in the dark.

The loud hissing told me it was close by. Then there was a crash followed by the tinkle of shattering glass. I guessed it was the lamp that had been on the table near

Sturgis’s desk. If so, the creature was less than five feet away from the bathroom!

Suddenly something hit the door with a savage force. The impact shoved me and the hamper across to the opposite wall. I screamed and then there was no sound for what was probably a few moments but seemed like a very long time.

And then came the two gunshots. It was only then that I remembered the plane that had spotted us. I heard men’s’ voices. Shaking, I pulled off the hamper’s lid and scrambled out of my hiding place. I unlocked the splintered door only to fall into the arms of a uniformed stranger.

He was kind and strong and told me that I shouldn’t look at what lay outside the door. Even though I knew I was safe from those horrible teeth, I still had a need to turn around and look over my shoulder. The man in the uniform helped me up the narrow steps to the deck and into the waiting seaplane. My last view of the hold was the two other men heaving the creature’s remains with great difficulty into a large body bag. I was told as we pulled away that they would return to land via a backup plane the Coast

Guard had already dispatched.


The pilot told me that there was nothing left of Sam or John, but he didn’t need to.

I was there. I saw it all. He tried to ask some questions, but I was unable to respond. He did not insist. We rode most of the way to safety in what was for me a most grateful silence.

He brought me here to you, Dr, Slater, to this grand hospital and research facility.

I was told yesterday that the creature retained the same DNA and cellular structure as an

Anguilla Eel. It was a mutant that evolved from the pollutants that contaminated its spawning ground. Somehow it got trapped in the surface current of the seaweed. Ironic, isn’t it? The creature turned out to be a part of our project after all.

I understand that they were most amazed by its breathing apparatus. Apparently its gills were barely functional and in its evolution it developed a makeshift lung. The tail and tongue were stingers that emitted electrical currents that helped it to survive the entangling seaweed. As were those teeth. They don’t know why it became a carnivore. I guess it was just hungry. I’m grateful to know there was only one of them. That’s all I can say.

“You know, Dr. Slater, I feel kind of funny, like I’m choking. It’s so stuffy in here.

I— Why are you screaming? Is something wrong? My skin, it itches so, there’s so much noise and I must find— The door is locked, Doctor. You locked it yourself. Remember?

Will you stop screaming now? I ache for the sea as I wrap my tail around you and crush your bones. Your eyes tasted good, Dr. Slater. Very good. Wait. What’s that noise? I hear footsteps and keys jangling. Maybe now I’ll find some peace. Yes. Maybe now someone will direct me to the water and show me how to get home!”


The Budsl ayer

I suppose you could call this a confession. I’ve heard enough of them from others to know what they sound like. It’s certainly my own dirty little secret. Only the children know and they would be the last to tell. I live with the fear that some day one of them will expose me, but nothing worth having ever comes without a substantial risk. It would be better for everyone concerned if one of them found the courage to do so, because I will never stop on my own. Maybe some intervention would force me to change. At the very least, it would keep them away from me.

I need help. I am the first to admit that. I have confessed my crimes to my superiors twice in the past, but they cannot face the problem either. They send me away with empty words and the hope that their prayers and a change of environment will somehow alter my impulses. But it never does.

I never deliberately set out to hurt anyone. I don’t lurk in alleyways or stalk the city streets in search of victims. I don’t have to. They come to me with complete trust and confidence in the collar I wear and the words that I preach. I give them advise and comfort and then it all turns into something else. Before I can stop it, I find myself touching them and making them touch me. Deep inside something evil boils and tells me that they make me do it.

Children can be very seductive. I know that is a difficult concept to explain to parents and a vengeful public. Truthfully, I don’t remember when I didn’t have these feelings. As I sit and look out the casement window to the lawn below where the children are playing, I admit that I don’t know why I cannot stop hurting them. I look just like you. I went to college, bleed when I’m cut and had loving parents. I fear God and have served in the Armed Forces. I’ve never been to prison or on welfare. I could be your brother, husband, father, son or friend. And yet my terrible urges set me apart from you


and make me different. Why don’t you know me? Do I disgust you? THEN WHY, WHY

DON’T YOU STOP ME?

I have spent many hours sitting here in my favorite chair thinking about these very things. I have been good for months, that is, until today when Jason Meyers came by to talk to me. He sat here with me on my lap, crying about his problems at home. I soothed him and spoke so softly that he had to bend over to hear me when I asked him to touch me. He tried to pull away, but I held him fast. I directed his small hand to the spot of my ecstasy.

He begged me to let him stop, but I couldn’t. I don’t think he’ll tell his mother. I told him she would die if he did. And those fearful blue eyes believed that I had that power and he begged me not to make his Mommy away. I took some pictures too, and that’s something I never dared to do before. I made him pose many times before I let him go home. The worst part is that as I look through them now I cannot say that I am at all appalled. In fact, I’m thinking about trading them for some others I’ve seen. I will not stop unless you stop me. Do you understand?

I JUST CAN’T HELP MYSELF!

I hear a sudden rapping at my door. It is my secretary and I quickly shove the pictures into a drawer of my desk.

“Come in,” I say as calmly as I can to Mrs. Brice who has been with me for years and has no idea what a monster I am. She smiles her haggard, overworked smile and I hear her call my name respectfully from the threshold.

“Father Thayer,” she says, “Rabbi Saltzman is on the line. He wants to know if you will be attending the annual luncheon at The International Conference of Christians and Jews next month.”

Hmmm… I think. Rabbi Saltzman… Jack Saltzman. I saw some of his ‘work’ on the Internet. Now there’s a man who might appreciate those photos. As I pick up the


extension in my study and Mrs.Brice closes the heavy wooden door, I know that I will have a lot more than religious amity to talk to him about at the luncheon next month.


George Washington’s Teeth

“Lieutenant Ashley, please come in,” said Hiram Moss to the burly detective framing the doorway to his office. Ashley nodded and followed the trail of Moss’s well-manicured finger to the armchair on the reverse side of the antique rolltop desk. He folded his large frame into the leather chair. It creaked loudly, accentuating the early morning silence.

Outside, snow thick as fleece fell against the long casement windows. It was a snowy day in the nation’s capitol; snowy, stormy and dull and cold. Inside the Institute’s

Museum of History and Technology, however, things were far from dull. For curator,

Hiram Moss, that could never be the word used to describe the circumstances that had thrown Lieutenant Ashley once again into his neat little world.

“I know that’s a noisy chair, but it’s rather comfortable, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” replied Ashley, his gray eyes scanning the painted walls adorned with various plaques and awards. He sighed, opened his small notebook and removed a pen from his inside pocket. “Just like it was last week when I sat in it for the first time. But that was before Mr.Duncan’s er— situation.”

“I know,” said Moss, his small, dark eyes never actually meeting Ashley’s gaze.

“This entire matter is all so strange. In the five years I have been here, I’ve never encountered anything like this before. I just don’t know what to make of it. And poor Mr.

Duncan! My God, what can I say?”

The curator was accustomed to answers and none of his manuals or degrees or acquired knowledge could explain how five days before someone had decoded the elaborate alarm system and broken into one of the display cases, stealing the set of

George Washington’s teeth that it contained. To further deepen the mystery, nothing else


was stolen, despite the presence of several very valuable gems nearby. Not so much as a whimper was heard from the police dogs that patrolled the grounds every night. There were no fingerprints found anywhere near the scene, nor were there any signs of forced entry.

John Ashley and his men had thoroughly questioned all of the members of the

Museum’s work force, including James Duncan, who was the head of Security. No one saw or heard anything unusual. Ashley’s return to the scene was most embarrassing for both men, for as mysteriously as the set of teeth had vanished, so they had reappeared during the previous night.

Constructed of gold and hippo and elephant bone, the teeth were worn by George

Washington when he posed for the famous artist, Gilbert Stuart in 1795. Stuart had chided

Washington about the teeth, claiming they stretched and ruined both his mouth and the subsequent portrait. The incident kept them at a chilly distance for the remainder of both of their lives, but the resulting image was adopted on the dollar bill. On this anniversary of the great General’s birth, both the portrait on loan from the New York Historical

Society and the very uniform he wore while posing for the portrait were in the very same room as the display case containing the teeth.

“Tell me something, Mr. Moss, why is there always something odd about the air in a museum?”

Moss chuckled, despite the gravity of his mood.

“Like old things breathing, you mean? I don’t know, but are you familiar with the old theory about the ether in the air?”

Ashley’s gray eyes widened and he shook his head.


“The essence of all things. The Victorians believed that everything that ever lived retained its essence in the ether of the air.”

“No, I have never heard of such a thing.” said Ashley, removing a cigarette from a battered pack of Luckies that had heretofore been hidden. “I think you’re nuts, but do you mind if I smoke?”

“No,” said Moss in a tone that said otherwise, but he retrieved a glass ashtray from the bottom of a drawer and placed it dutifully before Ashley.

Ashley shrugged his broad shoulders. “What has the ether in the air got to do with those teeth and what happened to Mr. Duncan?”

“I’m not sure, but I do think it’s all connected somehow.”

“Let’s get started,” said Ashley, opening his notebook to an empty page.

Moss got up from his chair and began to pace the floor nervously.

“It’s like I told your people on the phone. At 6 AM James Duncan, the Head of

Security, telephoned my home in Silver Springs, Maryland.

“I’ll need to question him again,” said Ashley, blowing a plume of smoke into the air.

“He is heavily sedated, poor man. He’s resting in one of the back offices. I’ll take you there when we’ve finished.”

“It was time to remove the patrol dogs and set things up for the day. We were expecting many visitors despite the storm. There’s always a great deal of traffic at the museum on holidays. Anyway, Duncan told me that while he was inspecting the premises


he noticed that the teeth had been returned to their display case. He also told me that…well…”

“What, Moss? Speak up and please sit down! You’re making me nervous!”

“I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind, Lieutenant, but I won’t pace.”

The compromise registered a thin smile on Ashley’s lips.

“I couldn’t believe him at first. I mean, I don’t usually believe in… those things.”

After a long moment, he said:

“Apparently the dogs were not at all disturbed by what Duncan saw. They did not bark at all. He said it was a tall, chalky form behind the glass case where the teeth were kept. He said it…disappeared…into the wall. And wait, before you say anything, there’s more.”

Ashley put down his pen.

“The figure he saw was wearing a powdered wig and a military uniform.”

Ashley snorted loudly.

“I know. I felt the same way at first, but there is no other explanation. Duncan saw the ghost of George Washington!”

“I can’t write that in my report! They’ll laugh me out of the precinct!”

“There’s a lot more at stake here than a ghost, Lieutenant Ashley. That’s not even the strangest part.”


“Tell me more about Duncan.”

Moss gave him a brief history. Head of Museum Security for more than ten years, a former CIA employee, family man in his mid-fifties, two children and a most interesting pedigree. James Duncan was a direct descendant of Gilbert Stuart, the painter of Washington’s portrait!

“That is odd. Now I see where you’re going with that theory of yours.”

Moss started to say something and then thought better about it.

“Let’s go,” said Ashley, rising from the armchair. “It’s time to talk to Mr.Duncan.”

The two men walked briskly towards the back offices, Moss slightly in the lead.

The hall was vast and cold and the morning light played against the glass cases lining the long corridor, casting dark shadows. They were all blurs to Ashley who was in a hurry and to Moss who was immune to their presence. Their footsteps echoed loudly as they passed the display containing the top hat and gloves worn by Abraham Lincoln to Ford’s

Theatre on the last evening of his life. Another case contained John Wilkes Booth’s black leather boot, split up the side by Dr. Samuel Mudd in his efforts to set the leg broken in the actor’s infamous leap from the theatre balcony. Ghosts lurked everywhere, of madmen and of kings.

The echo of their footsteps were magnified by the absence of other sounds. At the end of the corridor they turned left, the right side leading to another wing of seemingly endless antiquities encased in glass. They walked in silence. Moss took several very deep breaths and said nothing.

The curator knocked gently on the last door in the line of offices. There was no answer. He knocked again, more firmly this time, and when there was still no response he turned the brass knob. It was locked from the inside.


“Mr. Duncan, are you in there?” he called through the door, cupping his hands across his cheeks. His voice echoed down the hall, but there was no answer.

“He was highly sedated. Maybe he’s still sleeping. Maybe—“

“Let me try,” said Ashley, rapping loudly on the door with one large hand.

Not the slightest feather of a sound came from behind the heavy wooden door.

The quiet was unearthly and it hung in the air, like an ugly black cloud.

“I’ll get the master key from my office,” said Moss. “You wait here.”

Ten minutes later, the door creaked open. Moss didn’t like the look of things.

Something was wrong. The lighting in the room was diffused and seemed to emanate from the walls instead of the fluorescent fixture above. Both men shivered from the chill that lingered in the room.

“Mr. Duncan,” called Moss. “Are you—”

“What is this?” asked Ashley, his tone sharp and alarmed as he removed something from around his thick neck.

“Oh, my God! It’s blood!” cried Moss, pointing to the ceiling. “Coming from up there somewhere.”

Both men watched in awe, as the stain became larger and larger. Within moments, blood was dripping down the walls, onto the venetian blinds and forming pools on the stark wooden floor. Both men managed a few steps forward and Moss called Duncan’s name once again.


What was left of James Duncan lay on a cot in the far corner of the room. His eyes were ripped from their sockets and dangling from his ruined face. His uniform was ripped to shreds. Teeth marks covered his entire body. Beside him on the floor lay a blood soaked, yellow legal pad.

“Call 911,” said Ashley, lifting the lifeless hand to feel for a pulse. It was then that he noticed the terrible teeth marks on Duncan’s hands. He bent down and picked up the yellow pad. The spidery scrawl was barely discernable over the blood splatter.

“Let’s wait outside,” said Moss finally. “I can’t look at him anymore. Besides, we’ll have to direct the paramedics.”

Ashley put an arm around Moss’s trembling shoulders.

“It’s too late for him now.”

“I know. What is that,” he asked, noticing the pad for the first time.

“It’s Duncan’s. He started to write something. To me it looks like “I can no longer…associate…myself…”

Moss adjusted his glasses and looked over Ashley’s forearm.

“The rest of the sentence isn’t clear, but don’t those last word look like ether in the air?”

Ashley didn’t answer and whatever he was thinking was cut short by resounding sirens. The two men walked slowly back to the museum’s entrance.

“He’s back there in the last office down the hall,” said Ashley to the two men in white, one of whom he recognized from the Forensics lab. “Take a left at the end of this corridor and follow to its end.”


“Lieutenant,” said Moss, “there’s something I have to show you. Can you come with me now before you return to the precinct? It’s important, I assure you.”

“Get used to my face. I’ll be here a while. I can’t leave until I talk to the guy from

Forensics anyway.”

Both men walked back along the corridor.

“When Duncan called me this morning he told me that when he first found the teeth they were lying on their side. He swore to me that when he tried to turn them right side up they clamped down on his hand! I saw the teeth marks with my own eyes!”

“I saw them too.”

They passed the large display case containing George Washington’s uniform.

Ashley stopped in front of it.

“Is this the uniform Duncan saw the ghost wearing?”

“Yes, and also the wig beside it on the wooden stand.”

“Where are the teeth? I assume that’s what you wanted me to see?”

“Right this way, Lieutenant.”

They were only a few feet from the display and yet both men could see that something about the air was different. It felt heavy, almost palpable. Moss looked away.

“What’s wrong, Moss?”

“I can’t look at them again.”


George Washington’s teeth sat proudly on a black velvet board. Only closer scrutiny revealed the pieces of cloth and the chunks of flesh clinging from both sides.

Once noticed, they could never be forgotten and both men would swear for the rest of their lives that the teeth seemed to smile at them, daring anyone to ever touch them again!

Dark Star, Third Anniversary Issue, Vol. 3, #1, 1988


Murd er In Th e Bl ood Bank

It all began one cold and dreary midnight early in the new year. The shift change in technical staff at the busy New York hospital had just occurred and Mrs. Maria Greer was settling in to her round of duties as late night supervisor of the Blood Bank. She had just returned to her desk from filling a request for two pints of A negative blood for the

Operating Room when a loud noise caught her attention. Following the direction of the sound and a trail of blood that led from the storage area, she found the crumpled body of

60 -year-old Thomas Borg lying beside a file cabinet in the Chief of Staff’s inner office.

Two storage units had been emptied of their contents, marking a strange culmination in a rash of ‘blood robberies’ in the last few months. Many bags of plasma, both from a recent blood drive and from the Blood Bank’s internal supply, had been reported missing to the hospital’s Chief of Staff, James Lundy, who was conducting his own investigation into the matter. Unexplained orders for all the blood emanated from the computer at the Blood Bank’s main desk, yet no one would claim responsibility for having typed them.

It was Mrs. Maria Greer who summoned Lieutenant Ross Hamlin of The

Homicide Squad to the bloody scene. Thomas Borg, custodian, had been stabbed repeatedly, but why the killer had transported his body from the storage room to Lundy’s office was a mystery. Surely it could only have been risky to move the corpse under the very noses of the blood bank staff. Hamlin surmised that the answer had to do with the fact that where the body had originally lain, it blocked access to the two storage units.

There was blood splatter all across the glass tops. He knew the killing had to be connected to the missing bags of plasma. But how?

An autopsy determined that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds inflicted by a pair of scissors stamped with the Blood Bank logo. The police found them next to a


pair of discarded surgical gloves and an empty cooler on the back stairway that led from

Lundy’s office down to the first floor lobby. Perhaps the killer had meant to drag the body there where it might remain out of sight for a while longer and then thought better of it.

In any case, hopes that latent fingerprints on the gloves, scissors or cooler might move the search for the killer along died quickly.

Hamlin and his crew of three men knew that the killer had to be a member of the technical staff as only they and the day and night supervisors had keys to the blood storage room. The killer had also unknowingly left something behind. A candy wrapped in silver foil with foreign writing on it was found under the dead man. Police surmised that it had fallen unnoticed, possibly out of a lab coat pocket, during the transport of the body to the place where they found it.

Andre LaFarge, friend and roommate of the recently separated Thomas Borg, was the first technician to be questioned. He had been able to provide one small piece to the puzzle, but exactly how important it was would remain to be seen. He told Hamlin that

Borg, who had worked for years at the same job, never varied his clean-up routine. He always mopped the storage room floor last because there was less traffic there at that time of night, which provided ample time for it to dry by morning. It was, without exception, always the very last thing he did before he put his things away and went home.

Hamlin knew from years of experience that people usually do what people usually do. There was so much more to detective work than clues, legwork and statements. One possible scenario was that Borg might have surprised his killer, who in turn might have been a newer addition to the technical staff not as yet familiar with the janitor’s routine.

Hamlin requested and received via James Lundy, Chief of Staff, all relevant personnel files and a small vacant office on the hospital’s second floor where he could centralize his investigation. The files revealed five new additions to the Blood Bank in the last three months; two technicians, Vladmyr and Elena Fosco, one aide, Samuel Davis, and two clerical workers, Flora Mann and Anne Stanley.


Flora Mann and Anne Stanley were immediately eliminated as they both worked the day shift. Samuel Davis worked from midnight to eight but had called in sick on the night of the murder. Two of the three new technicians had also been hired for the

‘graveyard shift,’ and Hamlin zeroed in on them as well as anyone else who had been on duty that fateful Tuesday night. He and his two detectives, Flanders and Moore, had a lot of work to do and not much time before the murder trail ran irrevocably cold. The first twenty-four hours were always the most critical in apprehending a killer. Memories, clues, energies and witnesses were known to fade considerably with each passing hour.

Andre La Farge was helpful in establishing Borg’s whereabouts shortly before the murder. He had been unusually busy that night, but he noticed Thomas Borg walking with a mop and pail towards the blood storage room at exactly 11:51 PM when he stopped to sip some water from a fountain near the Nurse’s Station. He was directly under a large wall clock and for that reason was positive about the time. When asked if he remembered seeing any of the other technicians near the storage area at that time he mentioned one or two names, but could not be certain whether he saw them before or after he noticed Borg approaching the storage room.

Hamlin probed further as they sat in the small private office on the hospital’s second floor. He discovered then that Borg had been newly separated from his wife of twenty years and that the two men had been good friends. Apparently Borg’s residence with LaFarge was only meant to be temporary until he could find a new place for himself.

He was positive that the last time he saw his friend he had been at the water fountain,

After that, he claimed he went straight home and to bed.

Before interrogating each worker, his or her personnel file had to be examined thoroughly. Hamlin did that himself, leaving his men free for more extensive field work.

His crew was quick and efficient, and already Flander’s keen eye for detail had identified the foreign writing on the candy wrapper found under Borg’s body as Romanian in origin.


The initial questioning of night supervisor, Maria Greer, had been cursory.

Hysterical after discovering the custodian’s body, her testimony was incomplete and needed to be clarified for the record. After studying her personnel file, Hamlin felt pressed to discuss something else with her as well, something that revealed a possible clue to the whereabouts of the illusive bags of plasma.

He could only have described Mrs.Greer’s manner as uncomfortable. She tensed as if suspecting a trap as she related her version of the evening’s events. She said she received a call shortly after coming on duty for an order of two pints of blood from the

Operating Room. She went to the blood storage area to retrieve them and then returned to her desk. She called for a messenger to deliver the blood, but unable to find one on duty, delivered them herself. She returned about ten minutes later, and that’s when she heard the loud noise. Knowing that no one was in James Lundy’s office, she went inside and that’s when she found the body.

“It sounded like a door slamming,” she said softly, “and the only one I know of is that door that leads out to the firestairs and down to the lobby.”

That placed the killer on the stairs and provided a thread, however slim, to the empty cooler, the scissors and the surgical gloves that she could have no way of knowing about. Hamlin sensed the time was not yet ripe for the question that loomed in his mind.

He stalled, picking another.

“Mrs. Greer, had you noticed anything unusual or out of place in the storage area that night?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” she said slowly, shifting her weight back and forth in the straight back chair, “I did notice that one of the plasma unit doors was not securely closed. The handle was sticking out at an angle when its supposed to be level with the glass. I was really annoyed about it because temperature changes corrupt the blood and everyone who works here knows that. I locked the door properly after


removing the two pints. I also saw Mr. Borg’s mop and pail just outside the door at that time. That’s all I know. Can I leave now, Lieutenant?”

Hamlin raised his head and smiled at the pretty woman, realizing not for the first time how much can be divined about a person from a face to face meeting.

“There’s just one more little thing I need to talk to you about.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her darting eyes revealing there could be no little thing anywhere, anytime.

“I see in the personnel files that your husband, Edward, used to work in the Blood

Bank as well. He was a technician here until just a few months ago. Isn’t that so?”

She stiffened. He had struck a nerve.

“Yes,” she answered softly.

“I also see that he’s out on disability. Do you take care of him?”

“I…yes…and a nurse,” she answered, hesitating.

“I took the liberty of checking his records as well. Your Chief of Staff, James

Lundy, informed me that your husband contracted a rare blood disease that requires frequent transfusions. Is…”

“I didn’t steal that blood!” she screamed, unable to contain herself any longer. “I swear I didn’t!”

“Mrs. Greer,” said Hamlin softly, “I never said that you did. Listen, why don’t you go now? I’ll call you if I need to speak with you again.”


The young woman was shaking as she left the office and was almost knocked over by Detective Martin Flanders, who burst through the door without knocking.

“I guess you got something,” said Hamlin, smiling at his assistant. “I know that look.”

The younger man with sandy hair smiled as he handed his written report to his boss.

“It’s a bullseye, boss. It’s about those two new technicians, that Fosco couple.

Moore and I both felt that Elena Fosco seemed very nervous when we questioned her the first time. We had the boys downtown check, and guess what they found? Not only have the Foscos worked together in more than eight hospitals in the tri-state area over the last three years, but blood was missing from all of those hospitals during the time of their employment!”

Hamlin smiled broadly and patted the young man on the back. “Great work!” he said. “Go back and see her again. Maybe she’s the weak link in this chain and she’ll crack under pressure.” And then he took a deep breath and he said:

“I don’t know what I would do without the two of you.”

An hour later, tall, lean Vladymir Fosco was in the office seated in the chair opposite Hamlin’s desk.

“You sent for me, sir?” His accent was heavy but his English flawless. “I already told your men everything I know yesterday.”

“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Fosco. I have Detective Flander’s report right here on my desk, but I still need to know where you were specifically at the time of the Borg murder.”


“You mean…an…alibi?” he asked, horrified as he tried unsuccessfully to fold his large frame into his seat. “I told your other man I was working. I…I…can’t remember every second exactly where I was!”

There was an edge to his voice, his tone. He was too quick to answer, too ill at ease with his own words.

“One of the technicians saw you near the blood storage area just before Mr.

Borg’s body was discovered.”

“I’m always there!” cried Fosco, shooting up from his seat. “It’s part of my job to cross-match blood samples.”

“Take it easy, Mr. Fosco, and please sit down. Can you tell me why you seem so threatened by my questions? You do understand that I have to ask them. It’s my job.” He looked directly into the dark, dark eyes.

Fosco was unable to meet the Hamlin’s gaze.

“I feel you’re accusing me,” he said finally.

“Of what, Mr. Fosco?”

There was an awkward silence and then Hamlin said:

“Your wife works in this hospital as well, doesn’t she?”

Slowly, Fosco nodded.

“One of my men is at your home right now questioning her. Do you and your wife usually work together?”


“Is there some law against that?” he asked, his mouth set in a sullen line. Still, he swallowed hard.

“No, of course not. But,” he added, “two working together does make a team, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean a ‘team’?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean. It’s clear that—”

The ringing of the telephone ruptured his sentence. The two men’s eyes locked and held during the entire conversation, but when Hamlin hung up a few minutes later, there was no disguising the gleam of triumph in his eyes.

“Your wife has just been taken into custody.”

“On what charge? I demand to know! She is ill. You don’t understand. She—”

The young man began to sob so violently that Hamlin was taken aback. Despite years of seasoning, people never ceased to surprise him.

“Calm down, Mr. Fosco, please. I’ll tell you all about it, even though you already know. Your wife permitted my men to inspect your refrigerator. She figured she had nothing to hide because she knew that you had stuffed the stolen blood in a large cooler in your cellar. She forgot about the single bag in your freezer tray with the hospital seal still on it!”

“You don’t understand,” he muttered, sobbing softly. “You just don’t understand.”

“Then she confessed to stealing the blood, with your help of course. Maybe she can’t testify against you, but it doesn’t matter. It was you who left that unit door open,


Mr. Fosco. You had just stolen some blood, but you had to get another cooler before you could return for more. You hid it in Lundy’s office, which you knew was empty. And

Borg caught you redhanded, didn’t he? And that’s when you killed him. While you were transporting the body, this fell out of your lab coat pocket!”

He threw the foiled square of candy with the Romanian writing into the young man’s lap.

“My men found a whole tray of these in a dish on your living room table.”

“I had to do it! He would have told. You don’t understand!”

“Enlighten me then. I’m listening.”

“In my country these things are…not…asked about. They…are…simply accepted.”

“What things, Mr. Fosco?”

“I’m saying that my wife needs the blood because she is a vampire.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Fosco, surely you can do better than that!”

“No, I can’t,” he said softly, bowing his curly head. “That’s the truth. I swear it.”

It was suddenly sad in the small gray room. Hamlin slipped a pair of handcuffs across unresisting wrists.

“You see, Lieutenant, it was all for her.” Tears streamed down his long, angular face. “But at least you have to give me credit for one thing.”


“What’s that,” asked Hamlin, signaling for security to take the prisoner outside.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen if she goes to prison, but at least for a little while I kept her off the streets!”


The Fun gus Amon g Us

It was on a quiet morning in July when the article in the local paper about the alarming growth of the field grass fungus known as St. Anthony’s Fire first caught her attention.

Before that, Mary Rose McGee had only dreamed of killing her despicable landlord, Mr.

Calhoun Lewis, because she had no idea how to go about such things. Hers was a carefully constructed life of loving care and church and only the most proper and noble causes. She was so absorbed in reading the article written by one of Connecticut’s most prominent scientists that she completely lost track of time, which almost never happened to the prim and precise retired elementary school teacher.

The author had researched the disease thoroughly; tracing its origins as far back as the Middle Ages, when countless people died terrible deaths from eating breads made from these grasses and grains. The maturity of this fungus was greatly influenced by temperature changes and the prolonged heat of the summer was a cause for much alarm.

The chief concern was that the fungus might get mixed up in animal food. For an animal lover such as Mary Rose, the thought of one of God’s creatures dying by respiratory and heart failure and the horrible sensation of its skin being roasted alive was too much to bear. For Calhoun Lewis to meet his maker that way was another story.

Many people in her small town might have considered the murder of such a scoundrel a downright public service. They might have considered it and even going so far as to formulate a plan of action, but carrying out the dastardly deed was another matter. Not that there would have been very much to miss about the cigar smoking, loudmouthed Calhoun Lewis with his penchant for young girls, drunken brawls and unabashed publicity. The quiet little old lady who never smoked or cursed, and tended her garden with the same devotion that she baked pies and cookies for the church bazaars and the children on Halloween could not have been more opposite. And yet within that most upstanding and law abiding mind thoughts of murder brazenly pranced.


In the last few weeks, Mr. Lewis came to visit twice and Mary Rose had been prepared. After all, one must always keep the beast in view. Each time he visited to discuss repossession of her home, she pretended she did not know about the highway the state planned to build within the next three years that would cut right across her property.

Instead, she presented him with some freshly brewed coffee and a home made pastry. In her mind this served two purposes. First, she hoped it would make him feel just a little guilty that she was being so nice to him. Secondly, it created a precedence. When she was ready to give him a tainted pastry, he would eat it without compunction.

She had fallen on hard times and he not only knew it but seemed to revel in it.

Mary Rose was far too honest to deny that she hadn’t been able to pay the rent for the last two months, but so much more than the truth was on the line. She couldn’t stretch her

Social Security and meager pension far enough to pay her debts since dear Henry passed on. Whatever savings they had amassed were all devoured in medical costs for the illness, which claimed his life five months before. She had tried all sorts of odd jobs to supplement her income, but nothing she did was enough to keep the proverbial wolf also known as Calhoun Alfred Lewis, away from her door.

And where would she go? She and her late husband had believed that the converted farm house that looked out on the lovely river had been one of Harriet

Tubman’s stops along the Underground Railroad, but she couldn’t prove it to the landmark commission and they couldn’t substantiate her claim. It was the only home

Mary Rose had known for more than thirty years. Every nook and cranny held a special memory of her dear, departed husband. How could she leave that behind? She knew that killing Lewis would only stall things. She had always tried to do as she had been taught; to face life like a brave little soldier. Calhoun Lewis had no heirs that she knew of and the state would in all likelihood purchase his property for the highway eventually. But it could take awhile before the estate was settled . In the interim, maybe there would be a way to keep the house.


On the next Sunday, which dawned, sunny and mild, she got up earlier than usual and drove the five miles southward to the tainted fields indicated in the article. She was quite alone, which was the way she wanted it. Ordinarily, Sunday was a day of rest and she would be preparing for an early mass at this hour, but killing Calhoun Lewis had taken precedence. She tried not to think about that as she recited a silent prayer. She wore gloves and took her time in selecting the ingredients for her lethal concoction, placing the contents in a heavy black garbage bag. She made sure to include some of the ergots

(shell-like formations) produced by the fungus which, according to the article, were the deadliest part of the disgusting growth.

Mr. Lewis always came on the first of the month to collect the rent. He had told her on his last visit that this time she would either have to pay him for the entire period she owed or make plans to leave. That last trip to the bank had been most difficult. She withdrew the amount needed but was forced to close her account. It was a waste of accrued interest to say the least, since Mary Rose knew that Calhoun Lewis would not live long enough to spend his blood money. Still, she had to make him believe that she was abiding by his rules. Otherwise, her plan would not work.

With hatred her only company on the night before the rent was due, Mary Rose baked her pastries with particular care. She wore surgical gloves and used one of her mother’s recipe and the finest flour and flavorings. When it was done, she had to admit that the four pastries were the most beautiful desserts that anyone could ever hope to serve at their table. She hummed her favorite melody, My Wild Irish Rose , while she cleaned the oven thoroughly.

Calhoun Lewis rang her doorbell at exactly 915 the next morning, with a bright smile on his fat, sullen face. Mary Rose was all ready with a tray of pastries and a pot of freshly brewed coffee, whose aroma wafted throughout the small house. The manila envelope with the money lay on a table in the foyer where he spied it immediately. Mary

Rose managed a smile of greeting, but it took all of her strength to do so. She watched


intently as he ripped open the envelope with his name printed upon it and counted each bill before shoving it all back into the envelope and venturing further into the house.

How dare he question her honesty! And didn’t he think that she could count?

Except for the slightest furrowing of her brow, she did not betray her feelings. His loud voice rang in her ears and very soon Mary Rose could no longer even pretend to smile.

The man was a bastard, a snake-in-the-grass, and a low-life coward who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air that she did!

Lewis blew the smoke from his Cuban cigar boldly into the air above their heads.

She tolerated its smelly curl, but when he turned not quite in time to reach the ashtray and some ash toppled onto her beautiful satinwood table, she shuddered violently.

His ashes on her grandmother’s table! What nerve! What unmitigated gall!

How many pastries, she wondered, as he bit into one right before her very eyes, would it take to stop him?

The cigar smoke mingled with whatever aftershave he shared with the lions at the zoo and lingered in her immaculate home behind the drapes and deep within the wallpaper. Would she ever be able to get rid of it?

Other questions popped in and out of her mind. What if someone had seen him come or leave her house carrying the pastries?

What if someone else consumed them?

She hadn’t really thought about that. He had no wife or children, but could he possibly have an innocent friend or two? Only time would tell.

Waiting for some word proved to be almost unbearable. She wondered if he had finished the pastry or if he waited until he got home. He ate out often. Maybe it would just sit in his car. Or maybe he would freeze them, she wailed to herself. Then this whole thing could take weeks. How many bites would kill, how many would make him sick? By the time the evening news came on, Mary Rose had exhausted all possibilities and had almost finished the bottle of champagne she had opened for this most special occasion.


The anchorman’s deep resonant voice floated through her ears. A cake fair on the local front. Even to her slightly tipsy brain, it seemed that a death should hold more priority, especially one concerning a man as prominent as Calhoun Alfred Lewis. But nowhere was anything said to indicate that her plan had worked. In fact, to her horror,

Calhoun Lewis’s very much alive face loomed before her in an interview with the same anchor man in connection with the current shift in real estate values!

She fell asleep terribly disappointed, only to awaken the next morning to the most pleasant of surprises. While her coffee was brewing, she turned on the radio. She almost dropped the percolator when the station, which only played the songs of her youth, broke for the local news.

“Calhoun Lewis,” came the voice, “real estate tycoon, died early this morning after his neighbors, awakened by his screams rushed him to St. Agnes’s Hospital where he expired at four AM. The cause of his death is unknown, pending an autopsy scheduled for later today.”

For the first time in months Mary Rose felt free. In the days that followed she awakened each dawn feeling calm and refreshed. Even if the police did discover the tainted pastries, there was no way that she could be tied to the crime. She was in the clear.

Free and clear.

One evening, about a week later, Mary Rose had a craving for an apple turnover, a specialty of hers, if she did say so herself. She had made many for the church bazaar last month and took home and froze those that had not been sold. She placed the pastry in a small baking dish and hummed softly to herself as she turned the oven on low.

After some twenty minutes, she opened the oven door and gasped aloud. Shelllike structures with long spidery tentacles were clinging to the immaculate walls of her oven and shooting off a milky white substance. The quivering tentacles spread along the sides of the oven and the edges of the tile and wall under the window closest to the stove.


In desperation, she poured a bottle of ammonia on the growth. A hissing sound followed and then, to her abject horror, the shells emitted more of the milky substance and more shells!

Mary Rose slammed the oven door and ran to the phone, only to drop it to the floor at the sight of another shell clinging to the base of the receiver. She hurried up the stairs. Two more shells greeted her on the banister and one of its tentacles brushed against her arm as she passed. Breathless and hysterical, she screamed again, running as fast as her old bones would carry her to the bedroom and the only other phone in the house.

It did no good. She had dropped the receiver and the phone was off the hook downstairs. She opened her window and screamed for help with all of her might. She edged her way down the stairs and waited on the small porch for the firemen to arrive.

The fungus was everywhere now, waiting and pressing all about. From the banister it had seeped upstairs and onto the carpeting. The kitchen door was a mass of shells and their disgusting offshoots.

She would have to fumigate the entire house and even then according to the exterminator, there weren’t any guarantees. All of the carpeting, most of the furniture and the oven would have to be replaced. Damages were estimated at two hundred seventyfive thousand dollars. She did get away with the murder of Calhoun Lewis, but for Mary

Rose McGee crime didn’t pay. In fact, it didn’t even break even. So it must be and thus be it ever just as long as the fungus continues to live among us!


Light As A Feath er

Thank you for coming to see me, Raymond. You must be wondering why I summoned you here on such short notice. Well, I have a specific reason in mind and you will soon understand. I want you to know the truth about what happened, but you must promise not to judge me too harshly. I will take that nod of your handsome head through this foul mesh to mean yes. I know there are great gaps in your knowledge. I would like to fill them in, if you will let me. As my loyal friend and lover, I feel you are entitled to know everything.

I’ll begin with the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend. That was two days before Suzanne’s murder. I was shopping at Macys. While I went to try on something in front of a mirror, I deliberately left my handbag on the floor nearby. Someone swiped it, of course. That sort of thing happens every day in New York. I told the police it contained much cash and a small handgun, which was registered to me. In reality, the bag was empty and the revolver was tucked safely under my pillow at home. No one saw anything, but everyone believed my story. I made quite a stink.

That Friday marked the end of a string of gloriously warm days and nights so cool that we didn’t even need the air conditioners. It was very hectic at the Fifth Avenue townhouse. My husband, Duncan, was due to return the following evening from a

European business trip and that coming Sunday the twins and their friend, Bibi Rogers, who was staying with us, were planning to return to Cornell for the fall semester. I really ruined things, didn’t I? I guess I did, but I couldn’t let Suzanne spoil everything I had worked for. I couldn’t just sit back and let her do that! Surely you can see my position.

Well, no one is really innocent here, not even you in your three-piece, pinstriped suit.

Well, when I heard about the robbery up the street the night before, it seemed almost too good to be true. Despite elaborate security systems, this had been one in a


series of break-ins and shootings that had occurred in our neighborhood over the summer.

That’s how I got the idea to make things look that way. Lyla, our live-in maid, set the stage that very morning as she expressed her fears over a story in the newspaper.

I cut a hole in the screen large enough for a hand to fit through and reach the knob. I used Duncan’s old pocketknife. It never occurred to me that one of the panes on the outer door was much closer to the knob and a much more logical choice for a thief in a hurry. That was one of the details that nailed me, as you know. I also didn’t figure that

Brutus’s not barking would work against me. I should have realized that meant the dog knew the intruder and sensed no danger. That big German Shepherd was the only witness and he slept through it all!

I climbed the stairs to the second floor. One hand stroked the flocked wallpaper that I had selected so lovingly in happier days, while the other tightened its grip on the

“stolen” revolver. I had picked that particular pattern because it reminded me of that hotel room in New Orleans. You know exactly which one I mean. Our time there was very precious to me. Don’t look away, Raymond. I cannot bear that now.

When I reached the last stair, it creaked suddenly. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath before stepping onto the landing. Here the smell of roses and freshly mown grass wafted through the screened window facing the garden below. Except for the monotonous ticking of the Grandfather clock in the downstairs hall, there wasn’t a sound anywhere. The darkness was so thick I could almost touch it. I listened intently and then slowly moved across the landing.

There were the doors to the twins’ bedrooms; each adjoined by a shared bathroom. I turned the knob to Suzanne’s room and gently pushed open the door. I entered, edging along the paisley wall. There was moonlight in the room and a soft wind billowed the lace curtains, casting dappled shadows against the far wall. Suzanne slept peacefully under the flowered coverlet, her blonde head turned towards the open window.


She always had a pretty face, but I knew that it wouldn’t be much longer. She smelled of a summer garden. The fragrance was everywhere, as constant as a heartbeat.

At all costs, she could not awaken. I couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing me. I approached her, lifting the hand that carried death. I took one of her lacy pillows and held it over the gun so that it would muffle the shot. I hesitated, but from somewhere deep inside found the courage to pull the trigger. Yes, Raymond, it does take courage to commit murder, even though I watch you smirk at my choice of words. I fired once, hitting her between the eyes. Blood splattered all over the wall and pretty coverlet.

Even after I killed her, I wasn’t finished. The murder had to look like a robbery gone awry, committed by the same burglars the police were already looking for. I had taken care of downstairs, but I had to fix things on the upper floors as well. I found an amethyst ring lying on a limoge tray on top of Suzanne’s dresser. I had given it to her for

Christmas last year. We were friends then. I grabbed it as well as the wallet from her handbag and stuffed them both into the pocket of my housecoat. I entered the bathroom that connected the two bedrooms and pulled on Nicole’s door. It was locked. Slipping quietly into the dark corridor, I considered my next move.

I moved slowly through the darkness and pulled on Nicole’s door from the outside. It was also locked which made me furious. How many times had I warned her about locking both doors in case of a fire or other such emergency? But then again,

Nicole never listened to me anyway. I headed toward the guestroom at the end of the hallway.

I had to steal something from Bibi as well. The unexpected opening of that door sent me racing in panic back to Suzanne’s room. Through a crack in the door, I could discern the sleeve of a nightgown and hear the hall bathroom door click softly closed.

Thank God for my hiding place! Otherwise, I might have had to… I won’t finish that sentence. You can guess what I was about to say.


I listened intently to the voices of the night. The toilet flushed and then, very soon after, footsteps plodded down the hall and a door closed. I feared that if I entered too soon

Bibi might still be awake. I couldn’t gamble on her seeing me. I told myself I would come back after I did Lyla’s room and before I returned to my own.

Lyla had a studio accessed by a half flight of deep stairs in the middle of the long hallway. It was always the darkest part of the house, even in the brazen light of day. The room was associated with the town house’s first owner, whose son had been stricken with typhoid fever. The room and its adjoining toilet were constructed both to hide the child from the authorities and to avoid further contagion. To no avail, the child died as well as his mother who nursed him. I avoided the room because there was always a haunted sadness about it. For our purposes, it served as a maid’s room.

I climbed the stairs and turned the knob. The door opened without the slightest sound. I saw Lyla’s sleeping form and could hear her heavy breathing. I walked toward the small table beside the kitchenette where I knew she kept her handbag. I stole her wallet and after shoving it into the other pocket of my housecoat, slipped outside almost as quickly as I had entered.

I descended the stairs and stood for a few moments in front of the guestroom. I wasn’t sure where Bibi kept her handbag and that meant I might be inside longer than I wanted to be. I weighed the risks and then entered quickly. I headed for the bureau in the corner of the room nearest the window. Suddenly there was a sound from the bed. My heart leapt with fear, and I turned just in time to see Bibi roll over in her sleep. I couldn’t find her bag, and after a few minutes I gave up and returned to my own bedroom.

I hid everything, the gun, my own wallet and a diamond ring, which I planned to declare stolen, inside a black leather pouch. I shoved that behind the broken wall of the old dumbwaiter that had once connected the kitchen to my room and then ups to the third floor. It had been broken for many years, and an old engraving always covered the square


opening. I simply hung it back in place. I doubt if even Duncan, who grew up in the house, remembered that it was there.

I was awake to meet the dawn, but I didn’t dare leave my room. I couldn’t be the one to “discover” the robbery or what was left of Suzanne. It was Lyla who would swear that I was awakened by her own very urgent knocking on my door. I ran downstairs with her, screaming about my missing wallet and diamond ring. I always kept it in a small dish on the bureau and it was gone. Viewing the destruction my own two little hands had wrought, my hysteria could have vied with the best contenders for the Academy Award!

It looked as if the burglars were about to take a heap of silver and then were frightened away from the scene, presumably by the unexpected killing of Suzanne.

Several very expensive serving pieces lay on the floor wrapped in a blanket. I had read that at the site of one of the other robberies the police had found a similar arrangement.

Also, for some unknown reason, these robbers did not usually steal televisions and VCRs.

Everything was riding on the police believing that the same robbers had struck again and this time with my stolen gun.

No one really knew what was missing until later because the whole household was disrupted when Nicole, entering her sister’s bedroom to retrieve a borrowed robe, discovered Suzanne’s body. Oddly, my own blood ran cold at the sound of her screams.

Somehow the police came and the neighbors knew. I was most concerned with how

Duncan would take the terrible news. I did love him in my own way, despite what you may think, Raymond. Suzanne was the apple of her father’s eye, and I wanted to somehow shield him from the pain. I also realized, however, that all of my energies had to be directed to keeping with my story when the police began asking their questions.

I need some water. My mouth feels so dry. This mesh is not wide enough to pass a cup through so forget about the fountain behind you. There’s another one over there, by the guard. I’ll signal and she’ll bring me some. As I was saying, the police were making me nervous with all of their comments about the screen, the lock not being jimmied and


the damn dog not barking. It was looking more and more like an inside job and less like a break-in with every inquiry they made. Oh, thank you, guard. This water is nice and cold.

Anyway, it was right about then that I started to lose my cool, that is, if I ever had it in the first place.

My worst fears began to materialize. The police focused on reconstructing the last day of Suzanne’s life. The coroner established the time of death between two and four

AM, which meant everyone’s time had to be accounted for. I told the police I had been home all evening and retired shortly after the girls came home. Nicole and Bibi told them it was about 11:30 when they returned from dinner with friends and I corroborated their story. I was certain of the time, I told them, because the Tonight Show had just come on the television. Nicole also told them that Suzanne had been unusually quiet that night.

Lyla had retired at her usual time, about ten PM. I had thought of everything, or so I imagined. I never could have expected what happened next.

After all, Raymond, how could I have known that my dear husband, Duncan, would open a can of worms that would ultimately lead me to these four walls? He gave the police a letter he had received from Suzanne on the day before his return to the States.

It was dated five days before the murder, and in it Suzanne indicated that she needed to speak with him as soon as possible about “a very urgent matter.” Everyone became defensive when they heard about it, each, I guess, wondering if “it” had anything to do with their specific actions. Now the motive for the killing in the eyes of the police shifted to the meaning behind this letter.

I’m going to bother that guard again. I would so like a cigarette. I’ve got some here, but I still need the guard, because I’m not allowed to carry matches. Thanks, ma’am. There’s nothing like a good old cig when you want one. Guess I’ll never give them up, but it doesn’t really matter now anyway. I won’t live long enough to die of lung cancer if the executioner gets his way. As I was saying, the investigation changed completely. Sifting through Suzanne’s personal effects, the police found an address book and in her desk an appointment pad with one unaccountable entry dated a week before


the murder. The name “Rex” was written and underlined with the time one PM scribbled next to it. Could it have been a luncheon date?

I sense a change in you, Raymond. Are you okay? Is the smoke from my cigarette bothering you? Or is it something else? Perhaps you have suddenly put all the pieces to this strange puzzle together? Well, my lover, I won’t keep you in the dark very much longer. We are almost at the end of my story.

Nicole told the police that she had never met the mysterious, older boyfriend whom Suzanne had dated so hot and heavily last year, but she had heard about him often enough. He was a married man, and eventually Suzanne broke off the affair. Somehow they had remained friends. Nicole had no idea where Suzanne might have met him that last time.

Is that a nervous cough? You shake your head. Very well. I’ll continue. No one else in the house knew anything about that last appointment either. The address book indicated a phone number, but it proved to be disconnected. The authorities sealed off her dorm room at Cornell, but a detailed search shed no new light on the case.

The real end came when Duncan hired that private investigator. He was very unhappy about the way the police were handling the case and he hoped this new and very expensive little man could pull up their slack. And his trail led directly to you, didn’t it,

Raymond? Or should I say indirectly? Well, I guess a girlfriend and the obscure middle name of Rexall are rather indirect, aren’t they? So I never was competing with your wife, was I? And I did so want you all to myself.

And so, dear Raymond, who does your girlfriend turn out to be? My own stepdaughter! How hurt I was and how angry at you! Very well. I will try to control myself and lower my voice. Suzanne threatened to tell Duncan about our affair. I hadn’t known about the letter, but my guess is that she wrote it after I refused to pay her. No one, do you hear me, no one threatens me! She threw that prenuptial in my face. I wasn’t


aware that she even knew about that! She claimed that her father would never forgive my adultery, especially with one of his closest friends, and that I would be left penniless in case of divorce. She was right about that. Sometimes people can be too smart though, can’t they?

And who could have imagined about that damn feather? I can see by your expression that you didn’t know about that either. You seem surprised. Well, so was I.

How could I have known that a feather from the pillow I used in the shooting stuck onto my housecoat and fell into the white carpeting in my own bedroom? I knew I was finished when they told me they had found that. Can you imagine? A single solitary feather?

I’m getting tired of talking. I’ve told you everything anyway. I’m glad I killed her.

She deserved it. Don’t tell me not to yell. Okay, you’re right. There’s no use getting all upset. It will only cut our visit short. Please don’t go just yet. I can tell by your eyes that you are ready to leave, but I promise I won’t rub off on you if you stay just one more minute. I have nothing, Raymond, and I don’t care about anything anymore.

Before you go, I have just one more thing to say to you. I love you. Does that surprise you? Well, I do. Don’t try and tell me you love me too. Please, just let me kiss you one more time, even though this mesh permits barely an inch of contact. How I long to feel your arms around me again! Your lips are warm as always. I rejoice in watching the mini-stake I made out of bits of wire from my bedsprings pierce your heart. Your last words are lost forever even though I am sure they are lies. I can breathe deeply now even as you slump forward and the guards lead me away. I will tell all who ask that you died with a nice gleam in your eyes.


Unexpected Company

The memories of that summer Saturday so long ago come unbidden. I was watching the rainfall from under the small porch of our two family home. I can still smell the perfume of the red roses blooming along the white picket fence, so vital and exquisite even when their petals were laden with rain. The sky was black and I was a twelve-year-old boy with nothing to do and all day to do it.

Mama was working an extra shift at George’s restaurant and Poppa was off to

Sheepshead Bay for a weekend fishing trip. Pounding my paddleball against the brick wall of the porch, I realized how much I missed my best friend and upstairs neighbor,

Danny Dorino, who was still away with his parents in their cabin in the Catskills.

Brooklyn was a special place back then, when the Dodgers played at Ebbots Field and chocolate egg creams cost a nickel. It was oppressively hot that summer of 1955 and the streets of the great metropolis were as deserted as a ghost town. Those brave residents remaining either broiled on the crowded beaches of Coney Island and Riis Park or languished quietly behind their airconditioned doors. My youth might have been misspent, but in my mind’s eye I’ve often returned to those days and the memories of my parents, Uncle Gray, Aunt Marie and Danny Dorino.

Looking out from the porch, the neighboring houses were jammed so close together that they all seemed like one continuous building. Yard space was as precious as diamonds; no one I knew had much of any beyond enough room to hang a clothesline.

My uncle Gray lived a few blocks away past the traffic light on Coney Island Avenue in the first brick building on the right hand side of the street. I knew the way by heart because my school was just a few yards away. I yearned to go and see him; something that never happened without him knowing beforehand.


When my Aunt Marie was alive, I used to stop by every day after school for milk and cookies. I would play with Pistol and Crystal, their two lovable Siamese cats, and listen to her stories about ‘The Old Country’ until it was time to meet my mother returning from her shift at the restaurant. I loved my Aunt Marie, but I was drawn to my father’s only brother, Gray even more. (His real name was Vincent, but no one ever called him that.) He had a special way with kids and always understood me. Maybe it had to do with setting boundaries. Mom and Pop were so strict and he was such a free spirit. I don’t really know.

I decided to pay him a visit, leaving my paddleball on the porch table and going inside to fetch my boots, yellow rain slicker and umbrella. I tried telephoning several times, but his line was busy. I hoped he wouldn’t be mad at me for coming unannounced as I traipsed through the rainy streets. The rows of two family homes became one gray wavering blur as I passed, headed for the intersection at Coney Island Avenue. I stood at the corner under the gnarled oak tree in front of St. Rose’s Church and waited impatiently for the light to change. I could feel my breath catching in my throat and when I saw the flash of green, I rushed across the street.

When I reached the building, I looked around for the Mercedes. Uncle Vinny always parked it in front of the house where it faced his kitchen window and he could always keep an eye on it. I never knew how he always managed to find the same parking spot but somehow he did. I didn’t realize back then how money talked and the dark things it could make some of us do.

The Mercedes was there, its silvery chassis shining brightly despite the heavy rain. I peered through the window on the driver’s side. The charcoal interior was spotless as usual. His apartment was something else; at least since Aunt Marie died. Looking back, I realize that Uncle Gray was a man of many contradictions. At twelve years of age

I could never claim such a mature perspective, but after that saturday part of my childhood died and I never looked at life or my Uncle Gray in quite the same way again.


I entered the small tiled mudroom from the unlocked street door and pushed the button on the intercom next to the brass plate that bore the name ‘Greyson’ in bold black letters. At first, there was no answer and I wondered why. I buzzed again and counted to sixty, my childhood tactic for dealing with time that never seemed to pass. Still there was no answer. The third time a voice came suddenly through, but I was as taken aback by its tone as if an unseen hand had struck me. It was nasty and shrill and foreign. I swallowed hard and yelled into the intercom.

“Uncle Gray, it’s me, Anthony. Please can I come up and see you?”

After a long moment, the buzzer released the inner door from its lock and with it went all my misgivings. I grabbed the brass handle and rushed inside as if I had but a second to act before he would change his mind. The door slammed behind me and I ran to the elevators at the far end of the vast lobby, unaware of the secrets behind closed doors that I was about to stumble upon.

The building dated back to the 1920s and a telltale deco elegance clung to the detailed patterning of the aged brick and its cold, sharp lines. The heavy mahogany furniture in the lobby whispered too of another softer time. Brass sconces dimly lit the way along paisley walls, past wistful fainting couches and marble-topped tables with clawed feet. The smell of onions wafted from under the door closest to the elevator. It was only then that I realized how hungry I was.

I stood outside the heavy wooden door, studying the decals on its face; The

Ditmas Park Men’s Club, The Polar Bears and The Masons. I had never noticed them before because they were all imprinted above my direct line of vision and also because my Uncle usually left the front door open after he buzzed me in, especially if he was working on some project in another part of the huge apartment. In hindsight, I should have thought it strange that the door was locked, but I didn’t. I began counting to sixty again, but before I reached ten the door burst open like a gust of wind.


“Uncle Gray, I tried to call but your line was busy.”

My eyes searched his and waited for an answer, but his chameleon gray orbs were far away. For a moment it seemed as if he had vanished in his mind somewhere.

“Come in, boy,” he said, pulling me inside and closing the door so quickly that the edges of my rain slicker almost got caught in the jamb. Embracing me roughly, he led me into the large kitchen where he helped me off with my coat and threw it into a laundry sink in the far corner. My boots and umbrella went in there as well. Aunt Marie used to wash fruit in that sink and it was always immaculate. But not today. Something dark made a ring around the porcelain edges. Without a word he led me into the airconditioned living room.

Uncle Gray was so different that day that I thought he was mad at me for coming over. When I asked him, he nodded his curly dark head slowly and told me that he was very happy to see me. But his eyes told me something else and I felt that each word took him further away from me, like a wave drifting out to sea.

The living room was large and spacious, as were all of the rooms in the apartment.

Uncle Gray always spoke of how small ones made him feel closed in. My Aunt Marie had kept everything in perfect order, but in the six months since her death the apartment took on the air of a place where someone had just moved in. Cardboard boxes loomed everywhere about and clothes and hangers of all sorts lay scattered over the backs of chairs and across tables.

On this day there seemed to be even more boxes lying around than usual. It’s not that I counted them, but it was just that the living room was more cluttered than I had ever seen it before. I asked him about it and he said:

“You caught me in the middle of one of my projects, Anthony.”


He winked at me and I smiled then, grateful for the playful spark of the Uncle

Gray I knew who now seemed to be emerging.

“Can I help you, Uncle Gray?”

“Not really son,” he said, giving me an unexpected hug. “Say, is that your stomach I hear growling?”

“Yes,” I confessed. “I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

“Well, we’ll have to fix that! I’m hungry too. How about some Italian sausage and manicotti? Got some left over from last night.”

“That sounds great! Thanks!”

To this day I don’t know why I didn’t follow him back into the kitchen. Instead, I remained for a few moments in the cool living room with its elegant moldings, tall windows and high ceilings. I played with the cats for a few minutes and then my eyes went everywhere about. They took in the entire room, but soon locked onto the large bookcase in the far corner by the window. Something was slightly out of line. I moved closer and soon realized that the carved bookcase of cherry wood was pulled away from the wall and extended into the room at an odd angle. I noticed too that most of the deep shelves, usually filled with books and Uncle’s collection of fine Dresden, were empty. I wondered why.

I was hesitant to look and yet I could not stop myself. I peeked around the edge where the bookcase protruded and discovered an opening about six feet high, four feet wide and five feet deep. A shiny, box-like structure stood inside. I kept mouthing the word, but it took my mind a few moments to register the meaning of ‘Frigidaire’ emblazoned in black script across its whitish middle. I soon realized it was a freezer but I could not fathom why it was in the living room hidden behind a bookcase.


I stepped inside and touched the cold metal handle. I had my hand around it and was about to pull it open when my Uncle called me into the kitchen. Reluctantly, I backed away and joined Uncle Gray, who was cutting up some tomatoes on a wooden board near the stove. The air was filled with the redolence of garlic and sweet sausage. Something told me not to say anything and even though I did not understand my inner voice, I obeyed. We talked about my parents and the anticipation and smell of the food distracted me.

“We’ll need a salad to go with that pasta,” he said. “Your mother will kill me if I don’t feed you right.”

I managed a smile.

“Uncle Gray,” I said dully, walking past him headed towards the bathroom I knew was right behind the kitchen, “I’ll be right back.”

He stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder.

“Use the one off my bedroom, kid.”

“Okay,” I answered, turning around and walking briskly to the apartment’s other end. Looking back, it should have struck me how odd that was for him to ask me to use a bathroom so far away when there was one less than four feet from where I was standing.

But I was twelve years old and in uncharted territory, even though the map looked familiar. The table was set when I returned a few minutes later.

I sat in the chair opposite my Uncle, which put me in a direct view of the bathroom door, which was closed, as it had been a few moments before. I noticed Pistol pushing it open with his paw, headed, I was sure, for the litter box that was kept in there.

We talked about school and how much he missed my Aunt Maria. There was a pinging


sound. He turned away from me then and got up to remove the manicotti from the oven.

It was in that instant that I caught a glimpse of the inside of the bathroom.

I could see the black and white tiles that always reminded me of a chessboard.

Green bath towels lying on the floor covered some of them. Little hammers began to pound in my head as I looked up at the partially open shower curtain. Something white and heavy was dangling, but it took my mind a moment or two to register the impact of what I saw. It was a shirtsleeve and a large hand whose bloodied fingers bore two sparkling rings. I screamed and Uncle Gray turned to face me.

“What’s the matter, Anthony?” he asked, his tone as cool as ice.

I pointed with a shaking finger at the bathroom. At that point, he pushed the door open, walked inside and pulled the curtain all the way back so swiftly that it frightened poor Pistol who came flying out of the bathroom. The bloodied remains of what were once two men were hanging right before my terrified eyes. The head of one was missing, the arms of the other.

“You worried about these two jerks, kid?”

He closed the curtain and then came back into the kitchen.

“Don’t you give it another thought, Anthony,” he said, dishing out the food and putting it on the table. Then he winked at me and said with a smile:

“Trust me, boy, they won’t be staying for dinner.”


My Funny Val en tine

A new rain fell on the cold dark city. Its constant tap against the mullioned windowpane made Vida feel at ease. With familiar sounds came the sense of all things flowing into place and the kind of peace known only to those who live in darkness. She ran her long fingers across the edges of the porcelain candlesticks. Finding no nicks, she was about to place them in the center of the dining room table when a sudden clap of thunder startled her.

The noise had also surprised her German Shepherd, Bruno, and she called softly to the agitated animal whose eyes served as her own.

“It’s all right, boy,” she said, caressing his fine, noble head. “It’s only thunder. It can’t hurt us.”

She felt a crease in the folds of the Irish linen tablecloth and momentarily placed the fragile candlesticks on the nearby windowsill. She straightened out the cloth, returned the sticks to the center of the square table and reached for the box of wooden matches she had left on the same windowsill. She lit the wicks and the smell of sulfur filled her nostrils. Walking the few steps to the china cabinet, she opened the doors and removed, one by one, the limoge dishes and crystal tumblers that had once belonged to her mother.

They were soft to the touch and made her think of other soft, satiny things, like the negligee she planned to change into later and the feel of the rose petals in the Oriental vase on top of the fireplace mantle.

Carefully, one by one, she placed the dishes and the tumblers on top of the lacy white tablemats. Her finest sterling silverware gleamed next to them. She felt confident that now everything was absolutely perfect for Valentine’s Eve dinner with the love of her life, Jonathan Scuro.


The one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s land mark Chelsea Hotel had been her home since her mother died, more than five years before. All the things she loved were here. The poetry collections of Elizabeth Barrettt Browning and Lord Byron were all bound in the finest leather. Although she could not have read them, for none were written in Braille, the poems were as much a part of her memory as every inch of space in her home. So too were the Dresden porcelain and cut glass pieces she had inherited. They lived in beauty just as Byron’s immortal words in the china closet by the window, where the rays of the sun made them shine even through the thick leaded glass.

The old hotel with its white porticos and ornate grillwork stood like a faded peacock between two worlds. Its presence hinted of another time, when hansom cabs glided along cobblestoned streets dimmed by the dull glow of gaslight. Here the spirits of

Thomas Wolfe, Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas were still lodged deep within the memory of the paneled walls. Here Vida had merely existed before meeting the man who made her feel like she was eighteen instead of forty-one. His gift on this day celebrating all lovers, an antique ebony walking stick with a silver handle, had cost her dearly and was wrapped and waiting in the hall closet.

The redolence of dinner wafted above the bat-wing doors leading to the kitchen and filled the small dining room. She had spent the whole day fussing, hoping this dinner would bring a sealing of commitments between herself and the man she had loved for three years. Time had passed quickly since her release from the hospital and the terrible blow to her head from a mugger’s cruel hand that had resulted in her permanent blindness. That day when she and Bruno had been returning from the grocery store and passed Jonathan on the street now seemed a century ago. The hour or so of magical conversation that followed cemented a friendship that blossomed into love.

Vida never asked too many questions or pressed for too many details. She was aware that there was really a great deal she did not know about the man who worked in a laboratory uptown and alluded to having been involved in several top secret

“experiments” for the government. It wasn’t that he kept things from her; whenever they


were together there were just always so many other more pleasant things to talk about. In her secret heart she felt his love. That was all that really mattered.

She knew he would be surprised about the walking stick and that she had perceived the recent trouble he was having walking. He had never told her. Her keen hearing had picked it up from his uneven tread. In fact, she could hear him now making his way down the hall, coming to her. The intercom buzzer sounded, and in a moment as fleeting as a ray of warmth from a winter sun, she wondered why. Everyone downstairs knew Jonathan and that he came to visit almost every day. Usually, they just waved him upstairs and didn’t even bother to announce his arrival.

Must be a new person at the desk, she thought, answering the buzzer with a

“thank you” as she moved closer to the door.

Bruno barked harshly at the sound of the bell, which he always did, but this time he did not stop even after the familiar giant shadow enveloped them both.

“It’s okay, boy,” she whispered to the dog, comforted by the feel of her lover’s arm strong and warm against her.

“How are you, darling?” he murmured in her ear.

“Just fine, now. Let me take your coat.”

“No, it’s a bit wet,” he said, slipping it off with some difficulty. “I’ll hang it in the shower stall. Hmmn…smells good. What’s for dinner?”

“We’re having a veal—” Her words were interrupted by Bruno’s sharp lunge between his mistress and her lover. He growled viciously, which would have alarmed

Vida even more if she could have seen that the usually gentle, even-tempered dog had also barred his teeth at Jonathan.


“He doesn’t like me, today, does he?” he said, carefully avoiding eye contact with the dog as Vida had always advised him to do.

“I wonder what’s wrong.” She bent down to stroke the animal’s head. “He knows you so well.”

“I was in the lab today,” he said quickly. “I spilled some chemicals on my lab coat. They went through to my clothes. Maybe that’s what he smells.” acute.”

“That’s odd though. I don’t smell anything at all and I my sense of smell is highly

An awkward moment of silence followed and they were both lost in the rush of their own thoughts. Vida lured the dog back into the living room and Jonathan made his way down the long hall to the bathroom where he slipped the collar of his wet trenchcoat over the big temperature dial in the shower stall. With his bad hand the way it was he could not have managed to put it on a hanger and even removing the small velvet box from one coat pocket and trying to place it in the one in his jacket became a difficult task.

It fell to the tiled floor twice and took a few moments for him to retrieve it. Finally he succeeded, but when he turned to leave the bathroom and join Vida, Bruno was once again before him, growling softly.

He walked slowly back to the living room with the dog at his heels. Vida directed the animal to the rug by the window.

“Darling, dinner’s almost ready. I hope you’re hungry.”

She could not see the smile that crossed his face any more than she could have known how heavy his heart was. There was so much to tell her tonight and no way to know where to begin. By the time they finished eating, the rain had stopped. Lying against him on the sofa, Vida felt complete happiness.


“I have something for you, darling,” she said, rising and rounding the coffee table.

Three steps to the right was the hall closet. Further down the hall, lay the bedroom and bath.

“Here you are!” she said sweetly, handing him the long, giftwrapped package.

Slowly and carefully he removed the bad hand from his pocket for he would need both to pull away the wrapping and ribbon as quickly as he could.

“Oh, what a beautiful cane!” he cried. “Thank you, darling, but how…did…you…know?”

She smiled warmly. pocket.

“I didn’t forget you either, Vida,” he said, reaching for the box in his jacket

Vida’s mind raced with anticipation.

The curve of the talons made it difficult for him to grasp the box. He used the other hand, although that one was rapidly changing as well, with nails an unhealthy blue and pus emerging from the cuticles.

“For you, darling,” he said, placing the box in her outstretched hand and pulling his own away as quickly as possible.

She fingered the box as if it were a wounded bird, gently caressing its edges before opening it. The one-carat diamond was all she could have hoped for and in this instant would have given anything to see. The stone was cold to her touch.

“I can feel it shining. I’m so happy. Oh, Jonathan, slip it on my finger!”


But that was impossible. With his next breath, two buttons popped from his cotton shirt. His chest was changing, expanding, and the dark hairs across it were growing thicker and darker and coarser by the moment. A fang darted suddenly from one side of his mouth as he leaned forward to kiss her.

“I love you,” she said.

“And I love you,” he cried.

But when the second fang popped from the other side of his mouth, he was so far out on a limb that he could no longer see the trunk of the tree. He added with what was left of his voice:

“But we really must talk. Now!”


One B ad Good Frid ay

The dancing shadows on the ceiling could no longer hold his attention and the merrymaking outside the window was giving him a headache. It was time for action and the young man with the moustache rose to the occasion. After loading the brass 44caliber single bullet derringer, he placed a percussion cap under its hammer and tucked it neatly in his shoulder holster. It would discharge a lead ball about one-half inch in diameter but could not be fired again without reloading. That was the reason for the knife, which lay in a sheath at his waistband, concealed within the folds of his long velvet riding jacket.

The young man with the moustache stood in front of the mirror. Sparkling eyes as black as coals caught his fine reflection for a very long minute. Then he closed the door to Room 228 and strutted down the two flights of stairs to the lobby of the National

Hotel. He smiled at some admiring fans milling by the gilded entrance, but tonight their warm accolades could not hold him. Out he went into the cold and misty night, never to return.

He made his way up the muddy street, passing the many trees and narrow brick front houses that lined Pennsylvania Avenue between E and F streets. He stopped in front of the Star Tavern. Removing a handkerchief from his outside pocket, he propped first one foot and then the other against a large brass spittoon and, in the muted glow of the streetlamp, wiped the mud from his fine leather boots. The smell of spring was in the air.

He could not help but inhale the heavy lilac perfume wafting from the shrubs blooming in wild profusion along the stone walls of the tavern’s entrance.

The barroom was dark and smoky; the luster of its wooden walls long dulled by cigar smoke that lingered in the air like an unpleasant cloud. He noticed the older man sitting at the far end of the long narrow bar, but chose a stool as far away from him as


possible and promptly sat down. The bartender at the opposite end of the counter was wiping a glass with a towel, but he stopped what he was doing as soon as he noticed the young man with the moustache. A few moments later, he placed a glass of Courvoissier in front of him.

“Thanks, Pete,” said the man with the moustache, taking a welcome swig.

“Only the best for our regulars,” said the bartender. “Even if you are one of the brave few in here tonight. What brings you?”

“A sense of loyalty I guess,” he said, smiling and shifting his weight on the stool.

It wasn’t the truth, but for now that would have to lay as hidden as the weapons concealed on his person. Very soon all would be revealed and that gave the young man a strange sense of peace. On this April night there was little that could jangle his spirits or mar his elation.

He turned his curly head toward the wall clock in the room’s far corner. He noted the time, a quarter after eight, and returned to a long lingering sip of brandy. Running the fingers of one hand through his dark hair, he realized he would have to settle for one drink tonight. He could have and often did down three or four without the barest flinch of an eyeball, but he couldn’t risk not being alert this evening. There was too much at stake.

“You seem tired, Pete,” he said. “Maybe you’re working too hard.”

The bartender smiled at the young man whose dark good looks drove women wild wherever he went. He had seen women follow him in and out of his saloon often enough and standing next to him only exaggerated his own bald and pale countenance. He replied to the young man with the moustache:


“I am tired, even though business has been terrible. Hopefully that play next door will liven things up. Easter week in here is as dead as a tomb. You of all people should know that.”

“Indeed I do” replied the young man with the moustache. “I know all about audiences. They are more fickle than any woman I’ve ever known.”

He downed the rest of his brandy in a single gulp and then asked:

“How about a cup of coffee?”

Time was passing quickly. His dark eyes caught his reflection in the long rectangular mirror that ran across the bar. It was fear that his handsome face would be permanently scarred that had kept him from fighting in the bitter conflict that had so profoundly affected his life and his politics. He ran one hand across the edges of his full moustache, revealing a tattoo with his initials on his left wrist and said:

“Make it strong coffee, will you, Pete?”

“Why not?” he replied. “You can handle it. In fact, I think that you can handle just about anything, especially if there’s an audience involved.”

Before the young man could answer, the man at the bar’s far end said:

“But you’ll never be the actor your father was! Now there was a real performer!”

Usually, such a comment would have hurled the young man with the moustache into the face of his tormentor, weapons drawn and teeth barred. But the only applause that mattered tonight was in the theatre of his own mind. The performance of his life was about to begin and once it did there would be no turning back. He turned to the speaker and said softly and simply:


“You’re entitled to your opinion, sir. After tonight, everyone will know who I am.”

The stranger said nothing more and returned to his drink. The young man shifted his thoughts to the matter at hand. He had left the others some two hours before. In these last few minutes he considered the strategy they had been so long in planning; the meeting at the Navy Yard Bridge, the escape via ferry and Port Tobacco to Southern

Maryland and then Virginia.

His next thought was interrupted by the applause that could now be heard through one of the tavern’s walls that adjoined the theatre. It marked the end of the play’s first act and the beginning of his own. It was time to go but he put it off a moment, not knowing why.

“You seem quiet this evening,” said the bartender. “You feeling okay?”

The young man looked up and smiled.

“I’m just fine, Pete. How much do I owe you?”

“Let me buy you a drink for old time’s sake, pretty boy” came the taunting voice from the bar’s other end.

“No, thank you sir. Perhaps some other time. I need to leave now.”

“Are you working tonight?” asked the bartender.

The young man with the moustache smiled wistfully at the bartender.

“In a way, Pete” he said, rising from his stool.


“Well, good luck then. Break a leg, JW!”

Break a leg indeed, thought the young man with the moustache as he headed next door to his destiny and Abraham Lincoln’s presidential box in the balcony at Ford’s

Theatre.

Break a leg indeed.


Bobby And Th e Bogeyman

“Yesterday upon the stair I saw a man who wasn’t there

I saw him there again today. I wish to hell he’d go away” — Gregor Kesler

“Mommy!” cried Bobby, tugging at his mother’s big white pillow. “Come quick! I’m scared!”

“What?” was the best thirty-five year old Nancy Rogers could muster with a voice swathed in the deepest sleep.

“The bogeyman, Mommy! He’s in my closet!”

“Ssh, Bobby,” she said softly, propping her auburn head against a big cloud of white satin. Her son’s voice reverberated like a wild drum in her ears. “There’s no one there, darling,” she said, stroking the child’s curly dark head. “Daddy and I checked under the bed and in the closet last night before you went to bed. Remember?”

The six-year-old nodded tearfully. “Yes, Mommy, but he came back. Tell him to go away!”

Mrs. Rogers reluctantly peeled off the layers of satin coverlet, careful not to rouse her sleeping husband, Jim, who had gotten even less sleep than she over this “bogeyman affair.” The clock radio on the end table seemed to shriek 4:02 AM in orange neon. A precious Sunday morning of sleep wasted on the bogeyman. She sighed heavily at the lesser joys of motherhood.


But Bobby was such a special little boy and had been conceived at great physical and emotional cost. A subsequent hysterectomy made him the only child Nancy Rogers would ever have. She and her husband, Jim, adored and doted on the precocious six-yearold. Still, in moments like these a few hours of sleep seemed an almost comparable commodity.

Outside, the rain tapped impatiently against the mullioned windows. It had been a wet winter, but as Jim said, it would bring a verdant spring. The thought almost made her smile. Always the optimist, he was . She on the other hand, couldn’t afford a shred of brightness in her thinking. She had to deal with a bogeyman lurking somewhere in her child’s bedroom.

“Okay, Bobby,” murmured Mother, her small feet striking the delicate rose pattern of carpet with a soft thud. “Let’s go see, but be quiet,” she whispered, placing a wellmanicured finger in front of her mouth. “We don’t want to wake Daddy.”

Two brass sconces bathed the long, narrow hallway in a soft pastel glow. Together mother and son walked under the twelve-foot ceiling and past the textured wallpaper down to Bobby’s room. The Rogers family had been happy in this charming Victorian home set off from the main highway by woods so deep that they almost hid the property from view. Everything about the old house and its trappings held the enchantment of another era, long faded into time. No one wanted to move again, even though the doctors had strongly advised this last upheaval for Bobby and everyone else.

“A new start,” they had said. “In a new neighborhood with a new school and new friends.”

But “it” was happening all over again. Or was it? Nancy Rogers always wondered how her son could see something so vividly that was never there. As a writer of children’s books, she understood the power of a child’s imagination, but the edges of his story were always so clean. The descriptions were so detailed and they never varied, no matter


whom the child was talking to. He always told of a large, hairy, man-like being with tangled hair, yellow teeth and long sharp talons. A fear niggled somewhere in her brain as they approached the small green door at the end of the hall.

The first thing she did was turn on the light. How odd that such a gesture often brings relief. It’s as if bad things can only happen in the dark. Her brown eyes went everywhere, but soon focussed on the closet in the far corner of the room, whose door was slightly ajar.

“He’s hiding in there, Mommy!” The child pointed to the closet. “He talked to me from in there!”

“What did he say?”

“He said you wouldn’t believe me. He said that Daddy was a stinking coward and deserved to die. What’s a coward, Mommy?”

“It’s…nothing,” she muttered, wondering how the child could find such words on his own. Perhaps from television. Sesame Street and Teletubbies? Not likely, but still…

She called inside the dark closet.

“Mr. Bogeyman, I am Bobby’s mother and I am ordering you come out and stop scaring my son.”

The child shrunk away, as if expecting a blow.

“He’s behind the wall, Mommy.”

“What wall?”


“The wall behind the closet. That’s where he hides.”

“Bobby, darling, please believe me. There’s no such thing as the bogeyman.”

“He’s in there, Mommy! And he is going to hurt all of…us. He told me so!”

“I do believe you think he’s in there, sweetheart”, she said, grabbing her son by the shoulders and hugging him, “but he isn’t. Look, I’ll knock on the wall. If he’s there, he’ll have to come out. Okay? Then will you go back to sleep?”

The child hesitated, then nodded fearfully.

Mrs. Rogers stepped inside the cedar closet and pulled a thin cord that illuminated the square patch of space. The child’s clothes and shoes and toys were exactly in place, except for one small, pink rubber ball that lay on the floor in a corner. She picked it up and placed it on the shelf with the other toys. But there was something very odd about the wall, now that she looked at it closely, something she was sure hadn’t been there before.

She swallowed hard.

Three panels weren’t exactly aligned with the edges of the back wall. Mr. Rogers, who was an architect, had built and designed the closet which had originally been a small foyer connecting the two bedrooms. She pushed on the panels. Nothing happened. She pushed again and it was then that she thought she heard a slight hissing sound emanating from the other side of the wall. herself than to her son.

“The bogeyman,” offered Bobby softly, cowering near the bed.

“What was that?” she cried, more loudly than she had intended and much more to


Mrs. Rogers told herself that the radiator under the window had emitted some steam and thereby caused the sound. Still, a new fear rose within her small body. Part of her wanted to rush into the other bedroom and rouse her husband, but she resisted and held her ground. She pushed one more time at the panels and this time something gave way about an inch and then snapped quickly back into place with a sharp thud.

Her heart began to pound. She knew her husband had sealed up the wall and she could not tell herself anything else. She turned to her son and signaled for him to come closer to her. The child hesitated. She stepped away from the closet and then Bobby took a step or two forward.

The child was only a few inches away from his mother when a blast of air slammed the door to the room shut and blew them both against the far wall.

“Hang on to me, Bobby,” cried Mrs. Rogers through the unholy tempest that surged through the room, throwing bedcovers, and furniture everywhere about. Wood splinters bursting forth from the closet followed a crashing sound. Toys, shoes, clothing and pieces of wood spilled all over the carpeted floor. After a minute, all was silent. Mrs.

Rogers looked towards the closed door leading to the hall and safety beyond. They edged closer and she grabbed for the glass knob. She pulled on it but it would not turn.

“Were going to get Daddy,” she whispered. “Just hang on to me. Everything will be alright.” She shivered at Bobby’s next statement.

“HE won’t let us go, Mommy.”

“Is everyone alright?” came a voice suddenly from the other side of the door. “My

God, what’s going on in there?”

“Oh, Jim! Thank God! No, we can’t get out! Open the door! Please help us!”


Jim Rogers pulled vigorously on the knob, but it would not turn. He threw his own weight against the door, but still it would not give way.

“Mommy, look!” cried Bobby, grabbing onto her nightgown with all of his might.

Mrs. Rogers turned from the door. A small pink rubber ball rolled from the bowels of the closet onto the floor in front of them. A laugh that scratched like broken glass filled the room followed by the words:

“Wanna play?”


Let Us Prey

“Tonight’s the night,” he whispered into the receiver of the gilded phone in the grand library, his small dark eyes peeled on the open doorway.

“That’s just great, Tony,” cooed Angela at the other end of the line.

And it would be because this job would make them both very rich. Usually, they worked together each step of the way, but Mrs. Hodge had met Angela several times and they couldn’t take the chance that she might be recognized.

“Listen, Angela, bring the car and wait for me outside the wrought iron gate behind that stand of oak of trees near the entrance. You can’t get too close to the house or you’ll set off the alarm system.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t give the old girl a bit more time? What if she changes her mind? There’s so much at stake.”

“I know,” he said, “but I’m sure she’s ripe. I’ve been watching her closely for a week now and I wouldn’t say so otherwise. By the way, has that man still been following you? Have you seen him again?”

“No,” she whispered. “I haven’t seen him, but I feel him. He’s around. I know he is.”

“We have to watch ourselves. He —”


At the sound of footsteps and rustling fabric he hung up abruptly, resuming his seat in the Queen Anne armchair barely a second before Mrs. Clarissa Smythe Hodge, heiress and goddess apparent, made her perfumed grand entrance.

“Albertina will bring us some tea and scones, shortly, Reverend Green,” she said, closing the paneled doors behind her and placing a large black attaché case on the floor by her chair. He said nothing, but his heart pounded at the thought that the cash was finally almost within his grasp.

“I’ll feel better after a snack. How about you?”

Reverend Green pasted his best smile on his face.

“Of course, Mrs. Hodge. Whatever you say.”

She sat down in the chair opposite him, her every movement a spectacle of wealth and privilege. The diamond brooch on her ample bosom gleamed like the rays from a dazzling sun.

“I do so much appreciate you helping me through this most difficult time. I don’t know what I would have done without you and The League of The Heavenly Altar.”

“Now, now that’s why I’m here. You do understand, Mrs. Hodge, that I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable about, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes of course,” she said, with an imperious wave of a well-manicured hand encrusted with sapphires and rubies. “But I have lived enough with my pain. I’m ready to join Serena. All of my affairs are in order. I do need to speak with her one more time, however, before…”

She bit at her upper lip with a sudden ferocity.


“Why don’t we do it right after our snack?” asked Anthony softly. “Will that make you happy?”

She nodded sadly and was about to say something when there was a heavy rap on the doors. Anthony noted not for the first time their beautiful stained glass panels and asked of his wealthy patron a question he wouldn’t have dared a month ago:

“Is that Tiffany glass, Mrs. Hodge?”

“I suppose,” she answered absently, calling for the young woman carrying the inlaid mahogany cart to enter. The sterling silver tea set did not escape the greedy eyes of

Anthony Harrison, alias Nick Morgan, alias Frank Patrick, alias Reverend Stanley Green.

Between that and his thoughts about the contents of the attaché case it was all he could do not to salivate.

“Have some tea, Reverend Green,” said Clarissa Hodge picking up the silver pitcher and pouring some of the redolent brown brew into an exquisite limoge teacup.

“Then we can set up for the last seance.” She indicated with a roll of her eyes the long table under the oil portrait of her daughter, Serena, which seemed to inhabit the air around where it hung at the far end of the splendid rosewood room.

“Fine, Mrs. Hodge,” he said, removing a scone that was still warm from a delicately wrapped basket and smiling at the young maid. It was then that he noticed the white satin pouch lying on the tray near the basket. He studied it carefully.

“Aren’t these wonderful, Reverend?” she asked, having already downed one scone and reaching for another. “I shall miss these. Albertina is a great cook. This recipe has always been her secret.” She laughed strangely and the younger woman blushed.


“We all have our secrets,” said Reverend Green, instantly sorry for saying the first thing that came into his mind. Was he slipping ? Surely even a child at his game would have realized the enormity of his error .

“Will that be all, Mrs. Hodge?”

“Yes, Albertina,” she said, smiling faintly at the sweet young woman in uniform.

“Thank you. The Reverend Green and I need to be alone now. You may leave the cart here.”

Albertina nodded and left, closing the magnificent stainglass doors behind her.

“Beautiful glass,” mumbled the reverend, breaking another of his own rules.

Never mention anything twice to a new mark . People remember and become suspicious.

He and Angela worked best the other way, like two deadly snakes striking in the dark without warning.

“I must speak with Serena. It cannot wait any longer.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hodge, but we have been talking to her for months now, haven’t we?”

“This time is different,” she said, looking away, but not in time to hide the tears that had fallen down her wrinkled cheek. Outside the big bay window lay the castle on the misty river that had once housed her wealthy forbears. She wiped her tears away with a shaking hand. “I must set the record straight now for all time. I must.”

“Let’s do it then,” said Reverend Green, only thinly disguising the edge of impatience that had slipped into his tone.


“It shouldn’t have ended the way it did. Between Serena and me, I mean.” She rose and walked with great dignity towards the table. Her long, crinkled skirt rustled with her movements.

“You don’t have to tell me everything, Mrs. Hodge,” trying to keep his eyes off the attaché case.

That was the truth because Angela DeCamp, who had been the personal bookkeeper of prominent television evangelist, William Vanderwhite, had done her research well. That was why the seances seemed so real. Reverend Green was pumping the old woman information Angela had gleaned both through ministry records and her personal acquaintance with Mrs. Hodge and Serena herself.

It was during her two-year association with the Vanderwhite Save All Souls ministry that Angela met and fell in love with defrocked minister Reverend Stanley

Green, AKA Anthony Harrison and others. Serena Hodge had been a neighbor, living in the same apartment complex in San Francisco. She was often under the influence of drugs and caused much trouble for those living around her. Angela befriended the young runaway, but as soon as she discovered who the girl’s mother was she and Anthony concocted a plan to dupe the young woman of her fortune.

Serena was introduced to and fell in love with the charming Reverend Green. The new lovers were to marry and she was to have a tragic accident a few months hence, but before they could put their plans into action, Serena died mysteriously while on a visit to her mother’s house.

“It’s time,” said Clarissa softly, folding a huge white sheet across the table and flattening the creases. She cast a sad eye to the marble fireplace whose mantle held an alabaster bust of Apollo and two Ming vases of exquisite artistry and design. Then she walked slowly to the window and closed the wooden shutters against the waning winter sun. The sharp, clacking sound reverberated through the huge room.


“We’ll need a white candle,” said Reverend Green.

“I know,” she said softly, opening the middle drawer of a nearby breakfront.

Within a few moments she placed a candle and a sterling holder in the middle of the long table. A despair pervaded her demeanor now and it almost held Reverend Green, despite his intentions.

“She’s in this room, Reverend, if she’s anywhere in the house. This is where she lived. This is where she died.”

“Really? In here? How did she die, Mrs. Hodge?”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“It.was…an accident, a terrible accident.”

“An accident?”

“Yes. We were right here by the fireplace. We had a big fight. She…” Her words broke in her throat and she stopped, unable to finish.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hodge. Shall we go ahead with the seance?”

“I feel her,” he said. “Her hair is flowing in the wind as she stands at the end of a long dark passage. She is waiting for you. Her hands are outstretched.”

The old woman’s mouth set in a tight line. She looked deeply into the Reverend’s dark eyes, her piercing blue gaze holding him from across the table.

“I know, Reverend. I feel her too.”


“She is happy about speaking with you again.”

“Tell her I will join her very soon.” She rose again and walked over to the teacart.

She returned with the attaché case and the white satin pouch, placing them both like an offering on the long white table. sincere.

“She’s ready now, that is, if you are,” said Reverend Green, trying to sound

It was sad now in the elegant, high ceilinged room. Clarissa eyed the candle’s wavering light with great intensity.

“I’m so sorry, Serena darling,” she said softly, turning her gaze once again to the fireplace. “I’m coming soon.”

“She says she forgives you,” said the Reverend, pretending to be in a deep trance.

“I don’t!” she cried. “I pushed her. She fell and hit her head against the fireplace mantle. I killed my baby! Don’t you see how I can’t forgive myself ever?”

Reverend Green’s head shot up in surprise, but he regained his composure quickly.

“Serena is lonely on this shore, but I feel no anger coming from her spirit. There is only love. there— ”

“Don’t lie to me anymore!” shrieked Clarissa, her body shaking as she pounded her fists on the table.

“Be careful, Mrs. Hodge. The candle. You’ll knock it over.”


She watched the silver holder wobble back and forth until it rested once again in place. And then she looked at Reverend Green in a way that sent a shiver up his spine.

“You think I’m like that candle, don’t you? Wobbly. Uncertain. Weak. Well, you’re wrong. Let’s stop right now, Reverend. I haven’t much more time.”

“But your daughter waits.”

“Reverend Green, I can’t bear any more. I want you to open this. Now.” She pushed the attaché case in front of him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to finish?”

“I almost have, Reverend.”

“I meant speaking with Serena.”

“I know what you meant and the answer is yes, I am quite sure.”

“I can’t leave her in limbo. Spirits— ”

“Yes, you can,” she said in a tone that would not be challenged. She shoved the white satin pouch into one of the pockets of her long skirt. The Reverend eyed her carefully.

“Okay,” he said, “but I’m really curious about that little white pouch. May I ask what’s in it?”

“That’s for me when this part is over.”

“What part? What do you mean?”


“Just open the case, Reverend. I know you’ve been anxious to do so.”

“Mrs. Hodge, I— ”

“I understand all about what money does to people, Reverend. Count it. Two hundred thousand dollars, just as I promised. It’s all there.”

He tried his best to appear hesitant, but there was a gleam in his eyes that he couldn’t control as he clicked open the case and feasted on the many bills stacked in neat little piles before him. He emptied all the stacks onto the table and began to count them, one bill at a time, praising Mrs. Hodge and the Lord profusely in the process. For a long moment he was lost in the fever of his own greed.

“It’s all for you, Reverend” said Clarissa, slowly reaching inside one of her skirt pockets. “Tell me, was it really worth it?”

“Worth it? What do you mean?” he asked, looking into the face of a small, black hand gun. His mouth dropped open in surprise.

“Mrs. Hodge, what is this? Put…it…down…please!” He made a move towards her.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, Reverend,” she said, cocking the trigger.

“The Great Redeemer has failed you, just as he did Serena. Or was it you and

Miss DeCamp who failed Serena, Reverend?”

He eyed the gun; she eyed him. He grew pale and silent. The game was over.

“My detective, John Thornton, first traced Serena from the San Francisco address.

When I found out that Angela DeCamp lived in the same apartment complex, I was


immediately suspicious. Then he picked up Angela’s trail again in Manhattan where, coincidentally she and a man named Anthony Harrison shared a residence. Serena had written to me about her new friends, Angela and Anthony. I knew you were calling

Angela, but I needed proof that Anthony Harrison and Mr. Green were one and the same person. And here it is,” she said, reaching into a skirt pocket and throwing a laminated driver’s license bearing the name of Anthony Harrison onto the table in front of him.

“Mrs. Hodge, this is all a terrible misunderstanding. Please let me explain.”

“Shut up. It’s too late for explanations,” she said, pulling the trigger and shooting him between the eyes. He was dead before his head hit the table, the bullet’s impact shattering the silence of the great room and splattering blood everywhere.

Clarissa rolled the body off the chair and onto the floor where it fell with a hideous thud. She threw the case and the stacks of money on top of him and left him there, dead eyes staring for all eternity at the gilded ceiling.

She stepped out into the deepening dark, and looked across the river to the castle beyond. Always it’s ruined beauty held her and touched her heart. A mist prevailed despite the cold and she shivered as she headed for the massive wrought iron gate. She needed no flashlight for she knew every square inch, every rock and every blade of grass on the estate she had lived on all of her adult life. She reached for the hidden alarm button, shut it off and effortlessly slipped through the opening. Heading downward, she crept slowly along the thick stand of Evergreens whose luxuriant growth hid her from the path leading out to the main road.

She held her breath as the steady beam of headlights suddenly came into view.

Above the silence she could hear the constant purr of the running motor. Holding tightly to the gun, she edged closer still. She stopped at the sight of Angela’s sharp profile behind the window on the driver’s side. Death lay a heartbeat away.


Clarissa aimed the gun and cocked the trigger. She tapped at the window, calling

Angela by name. There was a long, sharp scream and then two shots pierced the stillness of the night. The head slumped forward against the horn. The door on the driver’s side was locked. Entering through the passenger side, she pushed the body back against the seat.

She left the car and headed back to the house. Facing the river and the ghostly castle once again she breathed a sigh of relief. She climbed the steep stone steps for the very last time.

“Be patient, Serena,” she said to the all-consuming darkness. “I’ll be there soon.”

And she would be, just as soon as she could dissolve the contents of the white satin pouch into a glass of water.


The Bi g Swing

I have waited more than two years to see Edward Grayson hang by his neck until dead.

Two summers, two autumns, two springs and two winters have passed since the murders of my wife and brother and still my pain is as fresh as any new wound. Now that the day is here, it brings all the emptiness of a dream come true for a man with no dreams.

Disappointment comes as well as satisfaction, even if for no other reason than I cannot look forward to it anymore. No longer can I count the hours and the minutes and the seconds until the breath is slowly and painfully sucked from the monster's mind and body. The special brand of vengeance that flourishes with time's passage makes one less because it is all. It spreads like a malignancy, poisoning every waking thought, dominating every action and reaction. What he did could never be undone, what was about to be done to him in return would be swift and irrevocable, but, in truth, of only the mildest comfort.

It is cold for early April. I find it odd that I can even think of that as I stand in the early morning mist and take my place as the only mourner among the watchers. Beneath the waiting scaffold I hold my breath and I watch the attendants inspect the drop boards. I hear someone behind me whisper that its purpose is to insure their thickness of three inches each and thereby a quick and easy drop. That makes me unspeakably sad. I want

Edward Grayson to swing like a pendulum in unspeakable agony. I NEED him to suffer.

In silence I pray to my own special god. I am suddenly aware of something warm dripping down my cheek and in that instant I remember the cut I sustained while shaving barely an hour ago. With trembling fingers I touch my face. My life force is red and warm as it drips down my cheek. I cry softly to myself and the tears flow down my cheeks and mingle with the blood.


There was something about his name in all the town papers, his image in the courtroom and on the television that kept his humanity at bay. His crimes permanently demonized him as one with his deeds. Being a human being is not always the apex of evolution. No animal I ever heard of killed the way he did. Deep inside his lost soul I know there is a mother's child somewhere, but I cannot feel sorry for him in any way.

He who threw himself so vehemently on the mercy of the court showed none at all to his victims. He who screamed so loudly about how he did not want to die failed to give those he butchered for no reason at all, save the satiation of his own bloodlust, the very same option.

Yes, it has taken a very long time for justice to prevail. My anger is such, however, that I want even more. I yearn to see what glass will do to his skin. To watch him hanging by his private parts in front of a cheering crowd or his skull cracked like an egg and then stomped on would surely warm the insides of my heart. Dying more than once, preferably horribly, would have sufficed as well; once for my wife and again for my dear brother. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Dead he can’t kill again; dead he can’t shatter lives and destroy any more families. I am sorry about his broken childhood and his twisted hopes and crooked dreams. I am sorrier still for my own adulthood, stripped raw from the cruel and terrible loss of my loved ones. My world has become a dark abyss in which people die and the world does not. How will I tell my baby daughter that her mother, who was her entire universe, died for no reason? How will I explain to her that I am dead as well, even though I move and breathe? Are life and death really two different states of being?

The sky is dark and overcast. That bothers me. I want a beautiful day filled with sunshine and flowers and promise. With all my heart I wish for Edward Grayson to feel that he is missing something on the day of his descent into hell. The new raindrops fall on my face. They are only a little bit colder than the countless tears I have shed for my wife


and brother. The scaffold is as gray as the unforgiving sky and I am so close to it I can almost reach out and touch it.

The others around me are mostly press people. They flash their silver badges to other people wearing other silver badges and take their notes and do their jobs. It bothers me that they are even here, intruding on MY private grief and MY private need for vengeance. They have no right because they have not suffered from the blood on his hands. No one is more entitled than I in watching Edward Grayson's elimination from a world in which there can never be any place for him.

There he is now being led across the rainy yard. Shackled on his right to a man in prison uniform, on his left walking just a bit behind him is a priest offering him the hurried comfort of the 23rd psalm. The words rise and fall above the soft patter of the rain.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …

I will fear no evil

…

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me

… ”

A strange new pulse throbs in my neck and I can feel the tension inside me rising to near explosion. He is the evil and HE has comfort. He is not alone. Somehow, that's not as it should be. That's not how I want it! I cry again, surprised there are still tears left within me to shed.

Tall and thin and chalky white, I am surprised that he is not more frightening to look upon. His large dark eyes give his face a softness I do not want to see and I do not want him to have. He appears so hideously vulnerable. He held my family up at gunpoint, raped my wife, stole 25 dollars and left their bullet-riddled bodies on the side of the road for the vultures to devour. He swims inside those gray regulation pants and I wonder if that's supposed to make me feel sorry for him. Well, I do not. At all.


He swallows hard and lowers his head as he is led onto the scaffold. He stands on the top step and looks down. He appears nervous as the masked man places the noose around his neck, although he makes no attempt to look up. Even though I would wish for his last mortal vision to be my face, I like that. I want him to know shame and fear. His end will still be more humane than those of his victims.

He looks aside almost like an actor awaiting an unseen cue. It's all theater and the master manipulator seems to say: “It's your game, society. What would you have me do?

Do you want me to cry? Repent my sins? Beg for your mercy?” Now the layers of truth peel away as an onion and I truly know that there is not anything he could ever do that would quench my rage, not even his dying. He cannot face the crowd that has come to see him. I have heard of the judgment of the hanged; somewhere there is a poem written about it. Damn your eyes, all of you. Damn you all!

His body shakes as the masked man asks him if there are any last words. They come so faintly that I can barely hear them and then when I do, I cannot believe my ears.

All this time, all this waiting for him to squirm and sweat. There will be none of the sweetness of the stolen hour. With a look of glassy indifference, just as the hood is slipped over his face all he can think to ask before stepping into the black hole of eternity is:

“Is it…safe?”


Creepy Ti me Gal

It was almost midnight and the tavern was unusually busy. The young woman with the blonde hair and the man with the secret sat at opposite ends of the old oaken bar. She was alone, nursing a glass of white wine under the dim glow of a brass gasolier. A cigarette dangled from long, alabaster fingers and a beaded shawl draped her narrow shoulders.

Her dress was of the deepest scarlet, a satiny cocktail gown from another time and place.

Indeed, so was the tavern, whose dark wooden walls, old oil paintings and parlor stove nestled in a brick hearth all belied the modern cosmos that lay beyond its mahogany doors.

The velvety baritone of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” rang sweetly through the bar. It could be heard even over the clink of glasses, din of laughter and murmurs of conversation. The man with the secret watched the slim blonde girl very carefully, but she did not seem to notice him. When her head emerged from the shadows, it was barely discernable, seeming in an odd way to have been a part of them. Her light blue eyes saw everything and yet seemed to focus on nothing.

What was it about her? Could anyone have really said? Perhaps it had to do with her affect: she was there, yet she was completely detached from her surroundings. Her perch was almost one of voyeur, an ambivalent, vicarious eye not quite peeking into the lives of others. She had paid for her drink with a crinkled bill extracted from a small beaded purse on her lap. Other than the bartender collecting the money from the counter, no one else in the bar, except the man with the secret, seemed to notice her. Was she there for him alone, her presence altering something inexplicable that hung in the air?

The man with the secret moved closer when the stool next to the young blonde woman became vacant. He waved from a few feet away, but she, absently fingering the beaded edges of her shawl, was lost in a plume of smoke and shadows. Her head bobbed


in and out of view, and as her profile became more definable, the man with the secret realized that something about the cast of her features was familiar.

Unexpectedly, the young woman turned her head ever so slightly and smiled at the man with the secret. Her unusual shawl glittered even in the semi darkness. Quickly, the man signaled to the bartender to give her another drink.

“Beautiful shawl,” he said, daring to move his stool a few inches closer. “What’s it made of?”

“Special, secret things,” she replied mysteriously. “And thank you.” Nervously, she fingered the edges of the topic of discussion. “It’s been in my family for years. It belonged first to my grandmother and then to my mother.”

“It’s lovely,” he said, “And so are you, by the way. What’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Mary,” she said, perhaps a bit too quickly. “Mary Brophy. And thank you for the drink. What’s your name?”

“Dan Carlson,” he said, but that was just the name he was using. “My friends call me Dan. I am happy to meet you, Mary.” He extended his hand.

Hers was cold to the touch, but lovely and small. The man with the secret was excited.

“What brings you here?”

“Business,” she replied.

“At midnight? All dressed up like that? What kind of work do you do?”


She smiled. “There are all kinds of responsibilities, Mr. Carl— er, Dan, and sometimes many different aspects to them. I am merely fulfilling an obligation. And you?

What brings you to the tavern?”

And that was another odd thing about Miss Mary Brophy. Even though she had asked several questions, there was something in her tone that told the man with the secret she already knew the answers.

“I live here. Well, not in the tavern.” He smiled, trying to keep things light.

“Actually, I live right up the street. My law office keeps me pretty busy and I often work late. There’s no wife at home to worry about me anymore, and I usually stop by for a nightcap before I go home. Why do I feel that you already know that?” And then he added, “I’ve never seen you in here before. I would have remembered such a pretty face.”

She smiled and took another sip of wine. “I’ve never been in here before. And I won’t be again. This is my first and last time.”

“Don’t say that, Mary. You never know,” he said, finishing his cocktail with a sense of urgency he couldn’t explain. He offered to buy her another drink, but she declined. They spoke for a few minutes longer, but then she told him that even though she didn’t live that far away, it was time to go home. The man with the secret offered to drive her and she accepted.

He paid the bill and together they exited the smoky bar. Outside, the street lamp illuminated the shawl that draped her lovely shoulders. He examined it closely.

“Odd,” he said, “this shawl looks like it’s made of precious stones. It looks familiar too. And so do you in a way I can’t explain. I feel drawn to you, and I don’t know why.”


It was not common for the man with the secret to tell the truth. He hadn’t done so for a very long time and his past, like a monkey on his back, never left his waking life.

No one had ever known about that night so long ago. He had covered his tracks very well. He hadn’t meant to kill anyone; it was an accident. He hadn’t waited around the dark highway either. He had reasoned that there had been others nearby to get help.

Foremost, he had saved himself and avoided troublesome confrontation. The memory was unpleasant and didn’t make him very proud of himself. Part of him had always known that one simply didn’t get away with such things.

As they walked to the car, he asked her again about why she was so dressed up.

“Such a dress deserves a special occasion. There must be a reason you are wearing it tonight. Have you come from a ball or something like that?”

“Something like that,” she replied. “Tonight is a very special night indeed.”

He smiled at her, but a shiver passed up his spine. She had no fear of him at all, even though he was a stranger who would soon be alone in a car with her. Or was he?

“That’s nice. I’m glad I can be some small part of a celebration for you. Why is tonight so special?”

“When it’s time, you will know.” to enter, but he was uncomfortable. Mary said that she lived on the outskirts of town. As they drove, she sat quietly, staring out into the starry night. Suddenly, she told him to stop the car.

The man with the secret smiled again as he opened the passenger door for the lady

“But there’s nothing here, he said. No houses, nothing but trees and that cemetery over the hill…”


“I know what’s here.” She turned to face him and whispered, “And so does my mother.”

He reached for her, but she pulled away from his grasp. “Who are you really,

Mary. I have to know. I…”

“You do know.”

She slid out the door, wrapped her shawl tightly around her and stepped out into the night. As she proceeded down the highway, the man with the secret called out to her, but she didn’t respond. After a moment or two, he followed with the car, but at the next bend in the road, she disappeared from sight.

He came upon the huge wrought iron doors of the cemetery. Grabbing a flashlight from his glove compartment, he got out of the car and was soon inside. As if in a trance, he walked up the dark path leading to the rows and rows of tombstones.

“Mary,” he called, his voice echoing in the night stillness. The small beam of light illuminated his path. “Mary, how could you be here?”

Something suddenly caught his eye over to the left. Slowly, he approached. And then he saw it draped over the stone, shimmering even in the darkness. He touched the lovely beaded shawl. It was still warm. He read the words on the stone.

“Brophy, Mary, beloved daughter, sister, friend.” And the dates. “Date of death,

September 4.” Today was September 4. Ten years had passed. Ten Septembers, ten…

The tears came from a well deep inside him and once they did, he could not stop them. He knelt beside the grave, clutching the shawl. The next morning a policeman, who had been summoned anonymously to the scene, found the shawl draped over the tombstone. Someone had noticed the abandoned car with the headlights still on and the


door on the driver’s side still ajar. The early morning rain fell on the grave of Mary

Brophy and her tortured spirit, free at last.


The Mark Of Th anatos

“Darling, what’s the matter,” asked Madeleine, the early morning sun seeping into the bedroom and dancing over his clothes hanging on a chair.

“Nothing,” said Seamus, turning on his side and wishing it were so.

“Please tell me,” she said, her dark head falling against him.

“There’s nothing anyone can do, he said solemnly. “It’s back, that’s all.”

“What are you talking about? What’s back?”

He sighed heavily, turned towards her and pointed to the ugly black and blue mark on his upper left arm.

And then he told her that which had haunted him since he was twenty-one years old. It was then, while studying for the priesthood, that the mysterious mark made its first appearance. He soon learned that it was no ordinary bruise. That was after it had grown darker during the course of that terrible day when his twelve-year-old brother, Brian died suddenly. The day after his death it completely disappeared.

“But surely that was a coincidence,” said Madeleine. His shaking head told her no.

The mark, he told her, had returned when he was twenty-seven, this time preceding the death of his grandfather. The first thing that he noticed was that it occupied the very same spot on the same arm. Also, as before, it was circular and flecked with spots of black and blue and yellow. It faded away just like the last time, a few hours after


the death occurred. Then there were three other times the mark appeared over the course of the years, each time in the same spot on the same arm and followed quickly by the death of a family member.

“But Seamus, surely there must be something we can do?”

He sighed and kissed her dark forehead. How he loved her! More than the church, more than anything. He did not know how to make her understand that this was a dubious gift that brought neither peace nor resolution. He could only brace himself with the knowledge that someone in his family was going to die. This time there was no need for guesswork; his ailing mother was the only one left.

“There’s nothing to be done,” he said, rising from the bed he had been sharing secretly with her for more than a year. The thought of leaving the priesthood had, heretofore, loomed large in his mind, now all things seemed less urgent in the shadow of the mark’s reappearance.

“Madeleine, I love you,” he said, zipping up his pants. It was always so very difficult to leave her. “I’ll call you later.”

She slipped an arm around his tall lean frame and kissed him passionately, arousing in him as always the fire that had lived between them since their meeting two years ago. She had come to the church for comfort as a widow with two children to raise.

From the moment their eyes had met, he understood that which was buried inside him and could no longer bear not be free. He lived tortured with his love for many months until one day it all exploded into an irrevocable ecstasy.

Seamus left her apartment on Carmine Street and headed north, towards the church of The Holy Redeemer. The March winds gusted strong and unforgiving on this

Holy Thursday morning. In the twelve years he had run the parish, he had come to terms with the blend of scripture and moral integrity that was his own Catholicism. Although


deeply rooted in the tenacious grasping that only the Irish could comprehend, it was also gently tempered with kindness and tolerance for all human kind.

He turned the corner, passing the fruit stands and coffee houses that were so much a part of New York’s “Little Italy.” His church stood in the middle of the next block, its structure and connecting rectory a unique blend of alternate layers of brick and smooth stone. A large marble statue of Christ graced the small yard. Sand-colored tones rendered a Moorish cast to the building’s design, and its beautiful dome was an intricate combination of stained glass and mosaic tiles.

His hands were red and cracked with cold. He had forgotten his gloves last night before going to visit Madeleine. Quickly, he inserted the large key into the lock on the massive wooden doors, carved so beautifully with saintly images. He sighed heavily, trying not to think about the mark. He would have to tell his mother today that it had returned, but there were many other things on his agenda as well.

“Why was I chosen for this?”

He instantly regretted his bitterness.

There would be many people attending Mass on this holy day. People came from all over to hear him, as his sermons were enjoyable and rich with universal meaning. His great sense of humor and theatrical presence were not always encouraged by his more pompous peers, but his attitude had melted away many segregating barriers. Seamus encouraged neighborhood as much as Catholic attendance to his sermons. Through his membership in the Neighborhood Association, he had made many friends of all faiths and welcomed them all into his church.

It was with a heavy heart that he approached the purple altar glowing so beautifully before him. Gently, he covered the chalice containing the sacred wafer with a white veil, knowing in a way he had never known anything before that he would never be able to resolve his crisis of faith. Like a broken cup, the crack would always be there and never be the same again.


“And this white veil, Seamus. White. Pure. How dare you even touch it!”

He bit at his upper lip, resolved to concentrate on this Mass which he particularly loved. The darkness it demanded, symbolizing the grief over the death of Christ, rendered the feeling of being in the deepest heart of all souls. Lovingly, he polished the brass crucifix the choir would later suspend against the black background of the Sanctuary.

This ritual transcended cold, superficial doctrines. Written edicts had their place in religion, but it was this human demonstration of love, which up until today had so deeply bonded Seamus with his God. The holy altar gleamed with all the splendor of a king’s robe. He lit the six candles in the golden candelabra that sat upon it, one by one. Their wavering light cast chiaroscuro shadows across his troubled, handsome face.

Everything was ready now for the Mass, even though Seamus knew that he would not be performing it. The mark on his arm took precedence over the day’s planned activities. He was sure that his colleague, Father Cavanaugh would serve well in his stead and he would call him just as soon as he got to his office. He made his way past the narrow mahogany pews and the beautiful stainedglass windows to the back of the church.

The warm wooden room had been his private office for more than twelve years; it was his harbor, his refuge from pain.

Father Cavanaugh was happy to oblige and Seamus assured him he would be back in time for the evening mass. And then he reached behind the books on the wooden shelf above his rolltop desk. Not even his trusted secretary, Mrs. Thompson, knew that he kept a bottle of Scotch whiskey there. He liked it that way. He poured a shot into a rock glass he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. His large swivel chair offered him no comfort today. In the past, while working late, he had often fallen asleep in it, but that was not to be on this morning. He felt as if he were seated on a row of molten pinheads. He could not sit still and he could not stand without pacing back and forth, like a caged animal at the zoo.


Whiskey never offered enough of an escape. Nothing could make him not hurt this morning. He could not sever his affair with Madeleine and it could not go on without some resolution very much longer.

“I love you, Madeleine,” he whispered, finishing the shot of whiskey and placing the empty glass on his desk.

For a moment he let his mind wander to the many things they had shared, to the only peace he had ever known. He could never return to the emptiness that was his life before he met her. Impulsively, he dialed her number. He let the phone ring until the answering machine kicked in. He hung up without leaving a message and quickly dialed his mother’s home.

Talking to Fiona Mulcahy was no easy task; even on a day when she was not so angry with the god that took all of her children save one, and wracked her body with the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. But they loved each other well and Seamus knew that he would never forgive himself if he didn’t say goodbye today. Tomorrow would be too late.

There was a sudden knock on the door just as he was hanging up the phone.

“Come in,” said Seamus as pleasantly as he could muster to Anne Thompson.

“Good morning, Father”, she said sweetly, placing the morning mail on his desk as she always did. He realized that she noticed the glass and the whiskey bottle. He was embarrassed but it was too late to do anything about it. Her face reddened, but she said nothing.

It was Anne Thompson who took care of most things for Seamus. She reminded him of his many appointments and ran his office smoothly and efficiently. She was a deeply religious woman and he couldn’t help but notice the displeasure on her gentle face when he informed her that he could not attend the luncheon this afternoon with The


Board of Trustees of Catholic Charities, that she would have to cancel for him, with apologies of course. Father Cavanaugh replacing him for the morning mass seemed almost too much for her to bear, but she nodded obediently and returned to her own desk just outside his study.

In the morning mail were two bills and a letter from Anna Silverman, a kindly woman he had met last month at the Neighborhood Association. She thanked him for his help in a project for the elderly and he made a note to call her upon his return.

Seamus donned his overcoat and gave signed checks for the two bills to Mrs.

Thompson. He told her he would be back, if anyone inquired, in time for the 6 PM Mass.

He bid her good day and was about to open the heavy door when he felt the tug of the handle from the other side. Father Cavanaugh smiled pleasantly at his colleague and they shook hands and exchanged a few snatches of conversation. Seamus thought he looked so much older, that his usually sparkling gray eyes seemed so tired and lusterless. He sighed heavily as he stepped into the street. After today, he knew, he would probably age a few years himself.

He walked to the corner, the cold air assailing his senses. He pulled the mohair muffler knitted so lovingly by one of his parishioners, up over his ears and walked the three long blocks to the subway. The winds buffeted the folds of his woolen coat and churned the branches of the barren trees that loomed above, like ashen skeletons. The subway steps were lined with litter, a fact which always bothered him, although less today than usual. During the thirty-minute ride to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, he considered telling his mother about his crisis of faith and about Madeleine. When he arrived at the house of his childhood, however, he had not yet made up his mind about it.

The two-story structure was still that same green color it had been in his youth.

“The color of Erin,” she had often said. He sighed heavily, climbed the stone steps and rang the bell. She unlocked the door quickly, her broad smile fading when she looked into the eyes of her only remaining child.


“What’s wrong, Seamus?”

The words would not come and so he kissed her on the cheek, the familiar scent of roses filling his nostrils. For a second, he forgot how very cold it was. Always, he knew, he would associate the fragrance of roses with his mother. Only now, the rose is fading, choking on its own thorns.

“Mother, I must talk to you,” he said solemnly, entering the clean, spartan interior that he knew so well. He could feel the eyes that were so like his own boring through him as he turned to remove his coat and place it on a nearby chair.

“It’s that mark again, isn’t it?” she cried, shaking her gray head. “I should have known. I couldn’t understand the urgency, why you had to see me today.”

It was difficult for him not to look away as she ran her bony fingers over the mark she had seen four times before. He held back the tears when she said so softly that he could barely hear her:

“I’ve seen enough, Seamus. Please cover it up.”

The memories that Fiona Mulcahy needed to share so desperately with her son now seemed to flow endlessly. He knew all the stories by heart, but listened dutifully, as if for the first time about the plight of his ancestors, who abandoned their beloved Erin after the Potato Famine of 1848. He, as well as all of his siblings, had been weaned on these family tales for as far back as Seamus could remember. Even now, in his mind’s eye, he could still see his grandfather seated before the fireplace recounting them to all the children.

They shared old photographs and time passed quickly. They spoke of her meager estate, the house he would inherit and probably sell. The stipend she received from the insurance company for an old injury would cease with her death.


“Mother,” he said, after she had finished speaking and he always recognized the gesture of placing her hands in her lap that indicated she was, “I want to tell you something.”

She peered deeply into her son’s eyes.

“I’m in love with a woman,” he said softly. “I don’t know what to do.”

She smiled wistfully.

“Son, these matters of the heart are difficult. I’m not really so surprised. But you must make up your own mind because it is only you who live with your decision.”

“Mother, I want to marry her.”

“Life is short,” she said, kissing his tenderly on the cheek. “Too short not to do whatever makes you happy.”

And then she asked him to leave quite suddenly.

“Mother, please let me stay with you,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.

Tears streamed down her old face.

“No, son, it would be better for me to be alone. There’s not much time.”

He hugged her tightly.

“Remember, son, that I will always love you and that whenever you look up at the sky, that’s how clear your conscience should be.”


“I promise, Mother,” he said, his voice cracking. “I promise.”

It was even colder than before and the sky was black and overcast with the promise of rain.

“There must be ten umbrellas in the rectory. Why didn’t I think to bring one?”

Passing a phone booth inside the train station, he stopped to telephone Mrs.

Thompson to assure her that he would be back in time for the 6 PM mass. Madeleine had telephoned twice and immediately he dialed her number. Over the grinding roar of the trains he waited for her to pick up the phone. His heart leapt with joy when he heard her voice.

“Madeleine, will you marry me?” he cried into the phone.

“Oh, yes,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.

“This evening will be my last Mass. I’m leaving the priesthood.”

She cried softly into the phone. “Seamus, I love you so. How, what happened with your mother?”

“We said goodbye. I will see you this evening after the Mass. I will resign tomorrow morning.”

He boarded the almost empty train with a sense of peace he had never felt before.

It was an off hour; 4:30 and most passengers were headed away from Manhattan, not towards it. He took a seat at the furthest end of the drafty, littered car. Two women with small children and an elderly gentleman were seated on his left. Directly opposite Seamus sat a small, bespectacled older lady. Gray wisps of hair escaped from the folds of her pink


mohair muffler and her eyes were two black pools that sparkled. She nodded respectfully to Seamus, acknowledging the kinship of a shared religion.

Seamus removed a miniature Bible from his coat pocket and scanned a few solacing passages. Always, he carried a Bible with him and that probably would never change, priesthood or no priesthood. He lost himself in his reading. The Book of

Revelations; for some reason he had chosen that. He became so absorbed that not even the noisy clacking of the train distracted him.

Just after the train made its last stop in Brooklyn at DeKalb Avenue before crossing the Manhattan Bridge, Seamus looked up from his reading. The same old woman was still sitting opposite him and now three young men were also in the car, huddled together at its other end. After the doors closed and the train was about to cross the bridge, all three youths rose from their seats and approached the old woman. They flashed a switchblade in front of her frightened face and demanded money.

“Leave her alone and go away,” said Seamus sharply.

One of the youths turned and knocked the Bible out of his hands.

“Leave her alone I said.” Seamus rose and faced the young man.

The train was chugging across the bridge, revealing a gritty skyline of factories and gray rooftops.

“Ha!” said the youth, now brandishing his knife towards Seamus. “You gonna stop us, Daddy? You gonna try?”

The old woman sat stiff with fear. The young man’s eyes were dark and cruel. He pounced on the old woman and wrenched her purse from her grasp. The other two youths slapped and kicked her viciously. Her screams were lost to the deafening clacking of the


train as it rocked back and forth between the steel girders of the bridge. Seamus grabbed the knife away from taller youth and shoved him against the door of the train. But one of the other boys holding another knife plunged it deeply into Seamus’s back.

It all happened so quickly, almost within the intake of a breath. One moment he was tall and vibrant and in the next he lay crumpled in a pool of blood on the cold, littered floor of the train. The youths fled to the other cars of the train while the old woman sat frozen in her seat.

“Help” she managed from somewhere. “Help!”

Her eyes filled with tears, she finally rose in considerable pain, removed her muffler and placed it gently under his head. She squatted on the floor and held his graying hand.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”

Empty beer cans rolled all around them; discarded newspapers and food wrappers splattered his blood everywhere.

“I will fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff…”

There were snatches of sight and thought, of Mother and of Madeleine, but he could no longer focus on the blurs they became. His life force drained as blood oozed from the sides of his once so handsome mouth. The light above him wavered softly in his last earthly vision, like the candles in his beloved church. And then it faded, like a fleeting dream, along with the disappearing mark on his upper left arm.


Hunting S eason

All Eddie Bostic ever wanted was a little action and he usually found it if he waited long enough on this dark street corner. This Labor Day weekend in the Big Apple promised some very profitable results in the way of tourists not paying attention to their open wallets or their surroundings. That fact alone made this hunting time rarely a waste. For the King of the Predators, it was merely an investment against future gains.

He lived by the code of the streets and a work ethic that was, strangely, almost as principled as those of his victims. It had its boundaries, all clearly defined by the street thugs who scavenged the periphery of the various territories. This stretch, along Eighth

Avenue between 46 th

and 50 th

Streets, was his turf and his alone. None of the others, and there had been many over the years who had tried to muscle in on his action, even questioned it anymore. He had earned his reputation as that dark stranger parents warned their children about, the psychopath for whom womens’ bodies were vinyl purses, to be stolen, ripped apart at the seams and then disposed of.

When the police were after him, which could happen to anyone with a record once in a while, he would slither uptown where he came from. Here he would lay low at his favorite Pool Hall or one of his other local haunts. There they asked him no questions and he told them no lies, but he always returned to his favorite corner, which he considered home. Here he preyed on vulnerable tourists, hookers and addicts who had not yet learned to fear him. It wasn’t fair, because rarely were any of his victims ever given a second chance.

He hadn’t had a score all weekend, although he had to admit that he hadn’t really put his best foot forward until today. He lit a cigarette and blew a curl of smoke into the rancid, humid air. Something about the smell made him think of Willie the Loan Shark and the money he owed him and how mean he could get.


“Just a little while longer, Willie. Just a little bit more.”

The young blonde woman appeared suddenly at the pay phone on the opposite corner, some thirty feet away. His heart pounded with excitement. He eyed her carefully from his hiding place, fascinated by her lips in animated conversation.

“Such pretty lips. I’d like to rip them off her face.”

Easy enough to do. He had done it before.

Bostic was a tall, thin man with shoulders not quite as large as the chip he carried on them. His jaw was jagged, his nose long and straight. His eyes were dark and cruel and they were very busy now, intent on long blonde hair. He felt inside his jacket pocket.

Gently, his dirty fingers stroked the plastic handle of the army knife. Soon he would wash them well. In her blood.

Bostic resolved very early in life the issue of stalking a prey or becoming one.

The streets of Spanish Harlem had proffered no easy lessons, whether taught by the hoodlums and the drug peddlers or the woman everyone said was his mother. But at least he had known who she was. That was more than he could have said about the string of men he called ‘Daddy’ in those misspent years of his youth. Maybe then there had been some conscience, some feeling for other people, the germ of a soul. Now there was none.

The shadows of the day were quickly closing into night. He tossed his cigarette into the littered gutter, watching it roll back and forth, like a lost firefly, until it slipped into a sewer grate. Still, one jackal eye never left the cloth handles of the tote bag that rested on the blonde woman’s shoulders. She was foraging through the pockets of her beige trenchcoat. He knew this meant more conversation, but that didn’t matter. A profitable hunting season required a little patience.


He smiled a dirty smile and removed a plastic comb from his back pocket. He shoved it through his greasy black hair with quick, uneven strokes. He wanted to look his best. This one was special, very special indeed. He studied his hands. They had killed quite a few people; a fact which neither annoyed nor pleased him. Such is life in the jungle during Hunting Season.

Certainly, he was not a man without accomplishment. The gold ring on the third finger of his right hand made him swell with pride. A serpent it was, with large emerald eyes. He had worked hard for the ring, stalking its former owner for almost two days.

That was a few weeks ago and the last time he had used the knife. In the jungle, one grew hungry often.

The air on the corner reeked of rotting food, traffic smoke and urine, but Bostic didn’t mind. He was, after all, in his element. The neon marquees with their flashing images of half-naked women and tarnished love for sale could not bait him this evening; not when the real thing was so close at hand and had just hung up the receiver. He was careful to remain hidden until he observed which direction she would pursue. Little rules, but important during Hunting Season.

The young blonde woman walked north along Eighth Avenue and Bostic tagged carefully behind. Her brisk steady pace was exhilarating. Her high heels clacking against the pavement lured him onward, for their sound was unique and now belonged to him alone. The surrounding street activity held no interest for her, or at least so it seemed.

Hardened hookers and foul-smelling winos swirled past and staggered in and out of her path. She continued up the street, undaunted. Bostic remained about twenty feet behind, carefully following another maxim of the season of the hunt: Never follow your prey too closely.

But where was she going? He did not like the idea that it might be to meet a boyfriend, but she was certainly pretty enough to have her pick. Her features were small


and delicate, like a face chiseled on an old cameo. He shivered with lust. How he would enjoy her last moments on earth!

The light changed from amber to red and the young woman stopped at the corner.

Unexpectedly, she turned around and saw Bostic quite clearly. When their eyes briefly met, he avoided her gaze, immediately altering his focus to the changing traffic light. And that was another little rule of the season: Never underestimate the power of surprise.

She placed her tote bag between her legs and removed her coat, slipping it over one slim arm. Then she picked up the bag and pushed the handles over the same shoulder it had rested on before. His eyes feasted on her small body, which was a hunk of meat sizzling on a skewer, waiting to be devoured. The more he thought about it, the bigger the bulge behind his zipper grew.

His mind flashed to the other times. They had all been real pieces of cake except for that last woman. There had been no regrets as she had led him on and asked for it, like all women did. Still, for a small woman, her strength had been surprising. She had not been much bigger than this blonde one, who had crossed the street and was now on the next corner near a fenced parking lot. She flicked the wrist of her free arm to check the time, and Bostic noticed her watch and the nice sparkling diamond on one finger. Even from a bit away, he was pretty sure that the watch was gold and the stone was a good one.

He would take those too. Maybe he would give them to Willie and then they would be even. He chuckled at his next thought about the proverbial gold watch of the other work ethic, the one being celebrated tomorrow, Labor Day.

It was dark in the Big Apple. The young woman made her way at a steady pace past the rows of seamy Irish bars. Bostic wished there were fewer people around and prayed to his own private demon that she would turn onto one of the side streets where it was dark and it would be so easy. He cursed loudly and spat on the pavement when she entered a bar on the next corner.


“She’s mine,” he screamed through the dirty glass at the man she sat down next to at the long narrow bar. “She’s mine!”

Bostic never learned to lose well and at forty-two he wasn’t about to start. He would have her, even if he had to kill him too.

Clouds of cigarette smoke swirled above the heads of those seated along the wooden bar. Bostic took a seat opposite, but as close to the couple as he dared. Frank

Sinatra’s plaintive cry echoed through the smoke and peeling walls of the tavern. “Ever since this world began, there is nothing sadder than a long lost loser, looking for the gal that got away…”

The record was scratched and that made Bostic angry, just like everyone around him made him angry. They were all in his way, ruining his good time. He glanced around and gave everyone a terrible look, but no one noticed. Opposite his target, was seated an older, bald man who was totally immersed in a newspaper. Bostic’s well-seasoned eyes were so keen that he could see the bits of froth sailing on his wide moustache. To the left, there were two young women, whose loud, discordant laughter gave Bostic a headache.

Their lips were too red to live and hindered him from eavesdropping effectively. Still, a few snatches of conversation reached his ears as he nursed a watery 7&7.

This was the man with whom she had been on the phone. He strained his ears to hear above the clanging and the laughter and Frank Sinatra. Just one stool closer would give him his edge; then he would be able to hear almost everything. He chanced it, gingerly slipping onto the next stool and shoving his cocktail napkin in front of him on the bar. No one seemed to see or care. He heard the man say her name.

Laura. Laura. Laura. Be mine!

“…Good riddance, goodbye. Every trick of hers you’re onto, but fools will be fools, and where’s she gone to…?”


Although Bostic was no stranger to the bars along this stretch, he never drank very much. With it always came the possible loss of control, which no predator could afford. He was like a cockroach crawling in and out of the woodwork, always seeking new and vulnerable prey.

It was beginning to look as if he would have to kill them both and he was not at all comfortable with that. Fair odds weren’t his style, and from what he could see through the smoky haze, the man looked bigger than he. The bartender approached his empty glass. Almost an hour had elapsed. He had no choice but to order another drink. The older man who had been seated at Laura’s left was now gone. The two young women remained, becoming even louder as they drank themselves into oblivion.

When, when were they going to leave?

Twenty more minutes passed before the sound of bar stools scraping against the sawdust covered floor brought music to Bostic’s ears. Excitement rushed, like a waterfall, through his veins. Moments like these were glorious and Bostic lived for them. Still, he told himself to calm down, that he didn’t have her yet and that one anxious gesture, one wrong move, could alert them before he was ready. And that would never do during

Hunting Season. Your prey should never know how hungry you are.

He could not resist a sideward glance as the man helped her with her trench coat.

Those breasts that were his jiggled as she moved. Was she teasing him? He bit at his fingers as his tall rival kissed her on one cheek. It was looking bad, like he would be taking her home. Had it been he who had given her that ring?

But how strange the vagaries of the season! The tall man turned and walked south, while she proceeded north. Alone. Bostic slipped a twenty-dollar bill on the greasy counter. Tonight he could be a sport. He slithered into the deepening night, walking swiftly for she had a bit of a head start.


She turned the corner at West 51 st

Street and headed west towards the river. Bostic lagged behind, knowing that beyond Ninth Avenue with its Spanish bodegas and decaying brownstones there were few places to hide, except for a few alleyways scattered along the dimly lit streets. Could his luck really be this good?

She just passed an alleyway, some fifteen feet ahead. Bostic quickened his pace and darted inside, waiting there until she reached the corner. Then he emerged again; quite sure she had no idea she was being followed. The hunt was on and he could smell the meat roasting on a bloody spit.

He grew bolder, closing in on the tail after she passed Tenth Avenue. The street was deserted except for a few passing trucks and cars. She was walking beside a large vacant lot and Bostic couldn’t help but smile. He couldn’t have picked a better spot to dump her body when he was through. He accidentally stepped on a beer can and silently cursed his carelessness. He had forgotten one of his own important axioms: Always consider the dimensions of the hunting grounds.

With all the agility of a jungle cat, he leapt into the alleyway on his right, merging with the shifting shadows of the night. He leaned against the dark stone walls, breathing heavily and biting at his fingers. Had she seen him?

Her head had turned slightly at the crunching sound, but that had been the only reaction. Her high heels continued to clack against the pavement without the slightest alteration in pace. The lot would be no good now. She was too far away. But there was always the river straight ahead and that was even better. She might never even be found!

But where the hell was she going?

There was only that one tenement up ahead on the right beside the lamppost and then there was nothing except the river. There wasn’t any place else for her to go. Bostic knew that it was now or never. He reached inside his pocket for the knife, although he did not open it. Up ahead, something dropped, hitting the cracked pavement with a clinking sound. Keys. She had dropped her keys. And when she bent down to retrieve them, Bostic moved in for the kill.


Suddenly, the young woman turned and scrambled to her feet. Bostic snapped open the knife, its long blade gleaming in the dull glow of the streetlamp.

“Stay away from me,” she said, in a voice that was remarkably even and controlled. “Don’t come any closer. You’ll be sorry if you do.”

Bostic laughed aloud. This one had guts, real guts . He took one step forward and with the sudden rising movement of a hand that never left the pocket of her trenchcoat, she shot him clean and sweet, right between the eyes. The shot shattered the silence of the deserted street. Bostic hadn’t even seen her equalizer, so small and shiny and black.

Indeed, he hadn’t had even enough time to change the smug expression on his face. He was dead before his body crumbled onto the sidewalk, beside the streetlamp.

Blood oozed from the opening between his eyes and the young woman stood over him for a long moment. And then a smile found its way to her painted lips. Stepping over what was left of the King of the Predators, it changed into a loud, triumphant laugh. And wasn’t she the Queen, removing the gold serpent from his still warm finger? And to the victor belong the spoils. Another axiom of Hunting Season.

She tossed the ring up and down in her hand and turned to face the stone steps of the tenement. How much, she wondered, would the local fence give her for it? Together with the money she picked from the pocket of the old man who had been seated next to her at the bar, would it be enough for a well-earned vacation? If it was, maybe she would treat her favorite “two story man” and take him along. Her body tingled, like a school girl, as she opened the heavy wooden door and walked up the steep stairs. Soon there would be a better apartment and better times. Her laughter resounded throughout the hunting ground, where things being as they are today, Hunting Season is, above all, an equal opportunity employer.


Somethin g Ou t Th ere

I stand strong and large beneath the Evergreens, whose giant shadows hide my frightful face. Through my tangled hair, I feel the cool rush of the autumn wind as it sweeps across these dappled hills. Clouds above promise asylum within their misty, white folds, but I cannot go where they beckon. I am not free like the birds soaring above, whose songs echo sweetly in my ears.

I am a fugitive within my own world. I and my kind come from a forgotten time when the rivers and the mountains and the clouds and the trees were new. My elders whispered of another earth that was warm and green before the glaciers split the continents and turned everything gray with death. All living things crossed a giant land bridge that collapsed of its own weight and fell into the Bering Sea. I cry hot and salty tears for all that was and can never be again.

I watch the Darning Needle circle through the opening between the mighty trees. I follow it to the field of yellow-hooded blossoms. Their color makes me think of sunlight, although I rarely venture out of the soundless depths of the woods until darkness has settled over the land. When I do, I am careful to remain as one with changing shadows of the night. I am grateful for them as they bring me freedom to move and hide among the sage that here grows taller than the tallest man.

In the distance I see the blue face of the rippling water. I can hear the joyless laughter of the Loons as they prepare to migrate to their secret North. Unlike them, I have no place to go, no wings to take me to other worlds. It is they, however, who have taught me that the secret of all hearts is to be a part of things. I know this to be the purest truth, for I and my kind are not and can never be.


No one must see me, for I frighten those that do. I find peace wading through the blue waters of The Great Creator, where there are no screams of fear and revulsion at the sight of me. Once, drawn by a natural curiosity, I wandered too close to a lighted window.

A woman inside saw me and fainted dead away. I cry for those who deem me ugly and my tears could fill the night that will soon swallow my voice.

I watch the sun descend behind the purple clouds and realize that this is the first sunset I have ever seen from outside the forest. It is the hunters and their shiny guns who have driven me away from my home. I have seen the hatred and cruelty in their eyes through the long and tangled shadows of the night. It is because of their carelessness with fire that I can no longer find the leaves and bark and berries and fruit that have sustained I and my young for as long as I can remember. I must venture into these valleys to find nourishment for my family, despite the danger.

I leave the smoking, ruined wood with a heavy heart. I also leave the other creatures of the forest, whose cycles of life and death have taught me many things. I live on the fringe of a violent and harmonious universe and I, like all of its other creations, have learned to live in a kind of balance with both aspects. I listen to the earth and move along the forest floor only when the wind stirs the leaves. I can read the message of The

Great Spirit flowing in the voice of the wind and hear the truth that sings through the falling rain.

My ears warn of other movement upon the blue water beyond the busy Loons. A soft, uncertain splashing, as of something that does not know its way. Oars. Running through the water. My heart pounds with fear. I gather my young and seek the shelter of the great trees lining the riverbanks just in time to hide from the approaching canoe. I see the two men with their long beards and brightly-colored shirts and their cameras attached to sacks on their backs. Always the cameras. Always the guns. Theirs is a daily arrogance.

They do not see me; they never do. Occasionally, one of them finds my tracks in the snow. But they never find ME. I am so close that they could easily do so if they knew


how to look with the special eyes of the hunted, the tormented. These two men I have seen before. It is they who have altered my world so terribly. I saw them laughing into the wavering light of their campfire before it went out of control. They are laughing now. The sound slices my heart, like a bright and shiny knife.

The pain is like a living thing inside me, but my nature is not a vengeful one.

Soon my anger will wane, as is the way of all wounds. There are smaller, even more terrible truths. It is man who is the dangerous savage among us; man and not I. Yet it is I who must pay a price for my diversity, for the fact that they have not studied my kind under glass, even though I have been in this unforgiving world far longer than they.

The fading light of another day tells me it is now safe to return to the open field.

The hunters are gone. I shall gather some food and then return to the forest, despite the ruin, and try to make the best of things. I know now in a way I have never known anything before that I can never remain in the field of the hunter, so close to his home and hearth.

I draw the growing darkness deep into my lungs, comforted because I know it will give everything a new life. I am guided by the cold stare of the moon within whose light I see hope for me. I cannot say as much about mankind to whom I am the something out there deep within the shadows that he must find. Indeed, I am the something out there that now lies hidden in the darkness that belongs to all places. I am

BIGFOOT.

The Nocturnal Lyric, #8, 1989


The First Wif e

It was almost midnight when James Harland approached the carved oaken doors to the old church. He turned to look over his shoulder one last time. He was sure someone was following him, but saw only the dark, empty street and a few passing cars. He came to see Father Cahane, although he was sure that the priest was unaware that he knew his name. James Harland always took the time and trouble to find out such things; sometimes they came in handy. Every Wednesday night for the last month he came and each time he felt someone unseen had followed him. He might have admitted that his guilt could be causing this fixation, for he had, especially lately, a great deal of that to contend with.

That was what brought him to the old church right around the corner from his

Wall Street office, today as well as all those other times. Beth. His first wife. How cruel he had been to her; how terrible and cruel. And now she was gone and he was sorry. She had given him her very soul and he had taken things more important than money: dignity, integrity, vitality and personal esteem. He had also cheated and beaten her, too many times to count. He was a bastard and he knew it. He took and he took and gave nothing in return for her devotion. He could be as sorry as he wanted to be, but a part of him knew that he couldn’t change that any more than he could change the color of his blue eyes.

It was so cold for early October, the kind of chill that seeps through bones and spirits and lingers in the air. Autumn in New York could be very mild and pleasant, but not this year. Nothing this year had gone the way he had planned; neither his risky investments on margin nor his second marriage to one of Beth’s former friends. He closed the heavy door quickly and entered the warm sanctuary flanked by candles and dark, wooden pews. As he made his way to the golden altar bedecked with flowers, he knelt and crossed himself. As he rose, a soft clicking sound made him turn around, and he saw an old woman approaching the pew nearest the door. She wore a heavy knitted shawl and her silvery hair was tied back in a bun. She was quickly lost in prayer and oblivious to his presence, grasping a rosary in one hand. James thought that he might have seen her before. He couldn’t remember when; it didn’t matter.


He headed towards the night confession booth in the small room off to the side of the golden altar, passing the wall niches holding the statues of so many saintly figures.

Their eyes followed him as he moved, and he felt grateful to be closing them out as he stepped inside the booth and sat on the bench. It was a bit small for his large frame and he was uncomfortable, but it would have to do. He drew the black curtain that closed off the booth symbolically from outside eyes, and cleared his throat. He knew of no other church in the area that maintained a night confessional from midnight until 2 AM. It was also convenient, being so close to his office where he often spent his evenings. He could never get the courage to confess during the day. Something about its cold light made him feel naked and vulnerable with no place to hide. He cleared his throat again, a bit louder this time, taking a moment or two to organize his thoughts, which were often jumbled things, tumbling and defensive. His need to confess was overwhelming and all consuming; an amazing condition for a man who had previously never had much conscience and even less soul.

The small wooden door slid open from the other side to reveal a meshed screen and James knew that the Father was now ready to hear him. He checked his watch nervously, although he knew very well what time it was. He swallowed hard, and told himself that everything would be fine; it always was. Still, for some reason tonight he could not begin. His words were like wads of gum in his mouth.

“Take your time,” said the Father kindly. “I am here. When was your last confession?”

James Harland began to cry, unexpectedly. Through the iron mesh, he could hear the priest’s heavy breathing and prayerful murmuring.

“God forgives all things, my son. Lift your burden. I am here.”

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he began mechanically, as he always did every Wednesday at 12 midnight. “My last confession was last week. I have cheated my


business partner, lied, stolen and beaten my ex wife until she left me. I’ve also cheated on my second wife who was a friend of my first wife’s. I am a bad man, Father. A bad man.”

“Say five Hail Marys and five Hail Fathers and remember that God…oh…”

A long silence followed and then a soft thud and some strange rustling noises.

James Harland was confused. What was happening? What?

“Father Cahane, are you still there? Are you well? You stopped talking. I wondered…”

“Hello, James,” came a familiar voice as the black drape flew open. Beth loomed large in her shawl and silver wig, hovering with a blood splattered butcher knife poised above her head.

“How nice to see you, dear,” she said, plunging the knife into his chest before he could utter a single word. The silver wig fell off her auburn head and onto the bloodsplattered floor.

Stepping over the body of her former husband, Beth picked up the wig and threw it over what was left of James Harland. She then moved to the other side and threw her rosary over the crumpled remains of Father Cahane, her sacrificial lamb. She hadn’t wanted to kill him, but there was no other way.

“Forgive me father,” she shrieked to the gilded ceiling “for I have sinned.” She wrapped her shawl tightly around her small frame. Her mad laughter rang through the empty nave. The heavy oaken doors made that same clicking sound as she unlocked them and disappeared forever into the cold, dark street.


tales for a dark and rainy night

TALES FOR A DARK AND RAINY NIGHT

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