The Dead Place (13 page)

“I don’t like it,” she whispered, hoping that if she spoke quietly he wouldn’t be annoyed. He ignored her, finishing with her right foot. He clambered off the bed and stared down at her, moving about the room to view her from different angles.

“Perfect,” he said again, and he smiled as he reached out a hand to snake along her leg, moving up and up toward her crotch. She tried to pull away, but couldn’t.

“Damien, stop! It tickles!” She spoke without meaning to, her voice a whine, but he only laughed.

“Wait here.” He laughed at his own joke. As if Grace could go anywhere. She turned her head, lifting it from the pillow with an effort, but all she saw was his back as he left the room.

Her head flopped back on the pillow and she stared up at the high ceiling, tracing the molding with her eyes and trying to count the fine hairline cracks in the cream-colored plaster.

It struck her as weird that Damien had nothing really personal in the room, but he’d told her that his family also had homes in Connecticut and the Hamptons, so perhaps he didn’t stay here much.

Besides the bed, there was a heavy-looking, dark wood dresser adorned with a few family photos in silver frames—Damien, his mother and stepfather—and a mirror suspended above it. To the left was a wrought-iron candle stand with a large, unlit pillar on it. Directly across from the bed was a wooden bookcase filled with a collection of what looked like old law books and a few other things—a white conch shell, a plaster bust of some Roman-looking guy, a silver paperweight. Three photos framed in black hung to the left of the bed. They were black-and-white shots of what looked like water running over rocks.

Not that she could tell from the bed. She’d looked at them earlier, when he’d first shown her the room. From her current position, all she could see were gray blobs and squiggles.

She felt an itch far down her right leg and there was nothing she could do to scratch it. Pressing her leg against the sheets and twisting back and forth didn’t work. Another itch appeared on her right shoulder. The top of her head tickled. She could relieve none of them, could do nothing but twist in the rope, helpless. She wanted to call out to Damien, but he’d told her to be quiet.

Somewhere in the apartment, she heard the sound of a door closing. Panic set in. What would happen if the maid came back? He’d said it was her afternoon off, but what if she’d returned? Grace knew the door to this room stood open. What if the woman walked in and saw her?

She tugged futilely at the knots binding her wrists and tried to pull her legs up, rubbing her ankles raw against the rope in her attempt to get free, but nothing worked.

There were footsteps in the hall. She could hear them approaching, but couldn’t tell who they belonged to. What if it wasn’t the maid? What if it was one of his parents? He’d said they were in the Hamptons, but what if they’d returned early?

Grace couldn’t help the low keen that escaped from her. She wished she hadn’t come, wished she hadn’t agreed to this stupid idea. What was he thinking leaving her like this?

The footsteps were louder, slow and deliberate and coming toward her over that shiny wooden floor.

“Damien!” It burst from her, she couldn’t stop it. “Damien! Is that you?”

The footsteps sped up, and suddenly there was movement in the doorway and Damien came running in, and she was relieved, so relieved. Only, he glared at her and then his hand flashed forward, the slap coming so suddenly that she had no time to anticipate, and her head bounced to the side with the force of the blow.

She cried out and he yelled, “Shut up!”

Tears flooded her eyes and her cheek burned. Grace tugged at her hands, trying to get them free, and stared up at Damien, who looked wobbly.

“I did tell you to be quiet, Grace,” he said in a regretful voice. He reached out his hand and she flinched, but he merely stroked the cheek he’d struck, rubbing out the sting. “I told you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Untie me.” Her voice came out as a whimper, and he shook his head at her.

“You’re still talking, Grace.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

She saw the second slap coming, and moved her head so it was deflected and his fingers slid from her face to the pillow.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop right now.”

She was afraid suddenly, really afraid. There was no one in the apartment, only them. His parents were at their house in the Hamptons and it was the maid’s afternoon off. That’s why he’d done this, because nobody was here to see it.

A sob rose in her and another followed on its heels, and suddenly she couldn’t control it, sobbing and sobbing. Damien scrambled off her, untying the ropes with haste, cursing under his breath.

“Okay, okay, you’re free.”

She pulled her limbs toward each other, curling up in a ball for a moment before rolling to her side and reaching for her clothes.

Damien put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off.

“C’mon, Grace, it was just a game.” One part defensiveness, two parts coaxing. “C’mon, now, you knew it was a game.”

“You hit me.” She’d wanted that to come out strong, but instead she sounded pathetic, her nose stuffed, her voice wavering.

“Did I hurt you, baby?” He sounded surprised, regretful.

She ventured a look at him and he smiled at her. A sweet, wide smile that made what had happened seem like a misunderstanding.

“That’s right, look at me, it’s okay.” He stroked her hand and tugged gently on her wrist. She let him pull her to her feet, wrap her in an embrace. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he crooned, holding her naked against him. “It was just a game, baby, just a game.”

Bouquet Florists was on the first floor of an old brick building on Yates Street. Not a fashionable address, two blocks back and several long blocks down from the central business district, and not a fashionable shop, with its faded pink awning and peeling gilt letters on the window.

The store looked like it had been there for many, many years, and Kate wondered how Terrence Simnic kept it going. Perhaps it was just customer loyalty. It looked like the sort of shop that got only certain customers, widows who remembered their husbands bringing them Easter corsages from this shop thirty years ago, or poor college girls who hoped flowers would brighten up their dank apartments and couldn’t afford the nicer, bigger shop on Penton.

It could hardly be Terrence drawing customers. As Kate watched from her car across the street, she saw the dirty white van with faded letters pull up out front and her neighbor climb out.

He wore a hangdog expression and a gray cardigan that stretched across his large, muscular shoulders and hung open in front to reveal a green plaid shirt buttoned to the top.

He trudged up to the front door in his large work boots, looking around in a furtive way that made her slump down in her seat, anxious not to be seen. She’d parked the Volvo in the shade of a massive oak tree and tucked close to the fender of a big red SUV hoping not to be noticed.

He’d been late getting here. Afraid that he would notice her following him, Kate had waited until his van left the driveway before pulling out in the opposite direction, purposely taking a circuitous route to the shop. Not that it had been hard; she’d gotten briefly lost in a warren of back streets.

This was a section of Wickfield that looked like it had fallen on hard times. Slumlord student housing in the form of crumbling duplexes and flimsy-looking apartment buildings. A few single-family homes stood like lone flowers among the weeds, fresh paint and the struggle to keep their yards litter-free making them stand out. There were several cleaner multifamily units, too, obviously rehabbed by developers hoping to flip the neighborhood.

Relief at finding the shop gave way to surprise that the van was nowhere in sight. Where was he? While she’d waited, Kate sketched the shop in a small notebook she carried in her purse. A series of straight lines, except for the awning, which rippled and created shadows. She moved a charcoal pencil deftly over the page, lost in her work.

The sound of an old muffler had brought her out of it in time to see the van come chugging slowly around the corner. It had taken him forever to turn off the van and get out, but maybe it was because she was so nervous about his arrival. She sketched Terrence Simnic standing in front of the building, taking a few tries with the charcoal to get the expression on his face just right. Before she was done, he unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

As she pondered what to do next, a young woman came riding up the street on a bicycle and stopped in front of the shop. From a distance, she looked like she could be Lily Slocum’s sister, with her long, blond ponytail and slim build. As she locked the bike to a lamppost, Terrence appeared at the front door, switching the cardboard
CLOSED
sign over to
OPEN
.

Kate sketched her quickly as well, just because the young woman was there, and watched her enter the shop. Minutes passed. Kate fully expected to see the girl come out carrying flowers, but eight minutes later the bike was still locked to the lamppost.

Kate tapped her hand against the steering wheel. Come on—where was she? What could be taking that long? The longer she sat, the more certain Kate was that the girl was in danger. What if while she was sitting there, Terrence Simnic had approached the girl, asked her to see some flowers in the back of the shop?

He would tell her they’d just gotten a shipment of roses that she might like and then, while she was looking, he’d wrap one of those simian arms around her neck…

Kate got out of the car and started toward the shop. She acted on impulse, surprised to see her feet moving so quickly, but she couldn’t let someone else get hurt. She had nothing to defend herself with, much less the girl, only her cell phone and keys. She wrapped the key ring in her fist so the keys jutted out between her fingers.

As she crossed the street, the door to the shop suddenly opened and the girl came out wearing a pink apron and carrying a green bucket stuffed with deep yellow carnations. She set it down along the wall by the front door and went back in the shop, a bell jangling when the door opened.

Kate slowed. The young woman was an employee? That hadn’t occurred to her. The bell jangled again and the same girl came back out carrying a large plastic pot of purple mums. She set it down next to the carnations and vanished back inside.

It was too late to turn back. If Terrence could see Kate through these windows, he’d be sure to notice if she suddenly walked away. She kept moving forward, but she tucked her keys casually into the pocket of her black corduroy jacket.

The girl came back out with another pot of purple mums. She arranged the buckets one way, then another, standing back to survey her work with her hands on her hips.

“Hi,” she said in a cheerful voice as Kate approached.

“Hello.” Kate paused, pretending to admire the flowers. Her heart raced with leftover adrenaline. “How much are the carnations?”

“Four-fifty for a bouquet.” The girl plucked a rubber-banded bundle from the bucket and held it out, stems dripping in dots on the dusty concrete. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Kate took it from her and feigned interest in it, touching the soft petals, the weight of the woody stems heavy in her hands. “Have you worked here long?”

“Just a couple of weeks.” The girl shifted one pot of mums out of the shadow of the awning.

“You’re a student at Wickfield?”

The girl looked up at Kate. “Yeah, why?”

“No reason.” Kate tried a smile, but the girl’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you want those?” She nodded at the flowers in Kate’s hand.

“Sure.”

“You have to pay inside.”

Kate approached the door, knowing she was being watched. She’d forgotten the bell, and jumped as it jangled above her head. Feeling like an idiot, she stepped inside and the door closed smoothly behind her.

Color overwhelmed her. Flowers in every imaginable variety and hue filled the shop. They were standing in buckets, arranged in vases, and woven into wreathes. Their perfume was overpowering in the humid air.

Something reminded her of Terrence Simnic’s house, and Kate realized it was the gloom. Two old fluorescent light fixtures hung from the ceiling, and one of the bulbs was flickering.

Kate stepped around a jungle of hanging baskets and saw Terrence Simnic standing behind a counter. It was just like she’d pictured, only he was engrossed in arranging roses in a Styrofoam ring. He looked up as she approached, pruning shears in one large hand, a pink rose in the other.

“Hi.” She extended the bouquet of carnations.

“Good morning.” He met her eyes, but showed no sign of recognition. He moved slowly, setting down the shears and the rose, but when he reached under the counter, Kate panicked.

“I’m your neighbor, Kate Corbin,” she said, taking a step back.

“Yep.” He held up a piece of green tissue paper and wrapped it around the carnations. It reminded Kate of how she’d swaddled Grace as a baby.

He carried the bundle to the cash register. “That’ll be four-fifty.”

Was that all he was going to say? She dug in her purse for the money.

“Have you owned this shop a long time?”

“Over thirty years.” There was no inflection in his voice. She handed him a five-dollar bill and he rang it up without comment. When his large fingers dropped fifty cents into her palm, she felt revulsion.

“Do you always have college students working for you?”

“Why? Do you want a job?”

“No, um, I was just wondering.”

He stepped back over to his project, picking up the rose and pruning shears again. With sure fingers, he neatly snipped the stem off the rose and then cut a section of wire off a spool, inserted one end in the base of the flower, and stuck it into the foam ring.

Up close, Kate could tell it was a funeral wreath. Several more arrangements were propped against a stool behind him. One of them was a half circle of tightly packed white flowers. It looked like the arrangement placed around Lily Slocum’s head in the pseudo antique photo.

Kate swallowed and stepped back toward the door. “Well, good-bye.” He didn’t look up from his work.

Heart pounding, Kate took her flowers and walked swiftly out the door. She listened, feeling as if all her senses were on high alert, but there was silence behind her. Only afterwards did she think how odd it was that he hadn’t even offered a “Thank you” or “Come again.”

The girl was still outside, crouched alongside a pot of mums, picking off dead heads.

“Did you know Lily Slocum?” Kate asked without preamble. It was no good pretending; she couldn’t think of any subtle way to ask.

“No.” The girl stood up. “I mean, I knew who she was, but I didn’t know her.” She tossed the dead flowers in her hand. “Why?”

“Did she work at this store?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I’ve only been here a few weeks.” She looked at Kate with frank curiosity. “Are you related to her or something?”

“No.”

“So why are you asking about her?”

“I thought she disappeared around here.” The lie came to her and she went with it.

“I think it was on the other side of campus,” the girl said. “Is that why you were sitting there?” She nodded at Kate’s car. “I thought you were waiting for someone.”

Kate felt her face flush. If the girl had noticed her, then Terrence probably had, too.

“The owner’s my neighbor.” At least that was the truth, just not all of it.

“Mr. Simnic?”

Kate nodded and the girl seemed to accept this, though Kate thought it raised more questions. The owner’s my neighbor so I thought I’d stalk him. Or better yet, I think my neighbor’s a killer.

“Do you like working for him?” she asked. The girl shot her a strange look, and for one moment Kate thought she was going to divulge something.

“He’s okay,” the girl said instead. “He’s a little shy, but he’s not a bad guy.”

It didn’t seem like much of a recommendation, and the girl must have thought so, too, because she added, “I need the money.”

The bell jangled and both Kate and the girl flinched. Terrence Simnic stood in the doorway. “I need you inside, Josie,” he said to the girl. He stared at Kate without speaking, but held the door for the girl. She shot another look at Kate and scurried inside, sidling past his solid girth. The door closed with another ring of the bell and Kate was alone.

Before she identified as an artist, before Kate knew the word, she’d been adept at identifying patterns. Her parents used to tell the story of how, as a three-year-old, she’d helped her father when he got lost en route to a friend’s home by telling him to turn where there were four houses in a row with pointy roofs.

Before she could read, she arranged the cans in the kitchen cupboards by size and color, and could identify different foods by the patterns on their labels.

Beginning drawing classes taught budding artists to look at the world in a way that she’d always viewed it—to see everything reduced to shapes. Square, circle, triangle, oval. Within every portrait of a nude, every still life with fruit, was an arrangement of shapes. Draw the shapes and the portrait emerged from it. Beneath everything was some arrangement, some pattern.

She could see the pattern emerging behind Terrence Simnic and it was dark and disturbing. Only just like her childhood, she was the only one to see it.