The Riverhouse (40 page)
Authors: G. Norman Lippert
“Earl?” he said in a stage whisper. “Come on, Earl. You asleep, old buddy?”
Earl didn’t move. The pillows were humped up at the top of the bed, hiding Earl’s head in thick shadow. Shane moved closer, reaching out to nudge the old man. He hated to do it, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Shane, no,” Christiana whispered from behind him. “Don’t wake him, OK? Leave him be.”
Shane touched the shape on the bed. He felt the figure under the covers, found Earl’s elbow. He nudged it gently.
“Shane, quit it, come on,” Christiana whispered, touching his shoulder. “Let him rest—”
She stopped as Shane’s nudging altered the disarray of the bed’s pillows. One of them leaned over and flopped aside, taking away the shadow that had hidden Earl’s head. Instantly, Shane wished it hadn’t done that. He wished that that shadow had remained. What it revealed was too sudden, too awful, too utterly unexpected. Earl was lying on his back in bed, but his face was gone. In its place was a huge, blocky shape, shiny and awkward and oddly geometric. Shane blinked at it, refusing to see it for what it was. All the blood fell out of his face and he swayed on his feet.
It was an iron, the kind Shane had seen in any number of laundry rooms, perched on the ends of any number of ironing boards. It’s dull, flat bottom stared at Shane, shining in the blue television light, dotted with tear-drop shaped holes. The pointed end was buried in Earl’s mouth, breaking his dentures, splitting his thin lips. The top half of his face had completely collapsed under the weight of the bludgeon. Blood welled out of Earl’s mouth and the ruined remains of his face, black and wet, pooling in his ears and between the pillows. One pale blue eye peeked out of the gore, staring calmly up into the corner.
Shane tried to call out for help, but all he seemed able to produce was a series of breathy exhales. He backed up, retreating from the horrible sight, and bumped into Christiana.
“Don’t look,” he managed to rasp. “Turn around and go back. Don’t loo—”
Behind him, Christiana screamed. The sound of it broke Shane’s paralysis. He spun around, reaching for her, trying to block her view, but she wasn’t looking at the bloody mess of Earl’s face. She was looking to the side, toward the dark corner next to the door they had entered by. She clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling her own shriek. Shane turned, following her gaze.
Stambaugh sat on a small upholstered chair in the corner. He was bent forward, his shoulders hunched and his arms hanging between his knees, dangling and trembling, his bloody fingers flexing on nothing. His head bobbed upright as if on a string, wobbling obscenely, and his face was a mask of black glee. He chuffed laughter. It came out in rattling wheezes, and Shane recognized the sound he had heard when he’d called from the living room.
“Not
this
time!” Stambaugh cackled merrily, his voice high and tremulous. “Not
this
tiiiime!”
Christiana stumbled away, turning to bolt out of the bedroom, throwing the door wide as she went, but Shane couldn’t move. Stambaugh grinned and giggled madly, his thin hair spraying from his head in white tufts, his eyes glittering, dancing in the darkness. He watched Shane closely as he cackled, as if the two of them were sharing the moment.
As if they were sharing some sort of delicious, mutual secret.
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time Shane steered his truck back up the gravel drive to the cottage. Christiana sat next to him and looked out the passenger’s window, her face blank, her arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself. Shane was worried about her, about both of them. It had been a long night, a bizarre and terrible night, the kind that forms a pivot upon which the rest of one’s life turns.
It had been like pandemonium in slow motion. Christiana’s scream had alerted most of the retirement home’s east wing that something terrible had happened. By the time Shane had followed her out into the antiseptic brightness of the corridor, people had begun to move cautiously out of their doorways, blinking owlishly behind thick glasses, leaning on canes, wearing nightdresses and robes. Most of them had been women, white haired and stooped, but with bright, alert eyes.
Shane knew from his mother’s career as a retirement home nurse that old men were a rarity in such places. Men just didn’t live as long as their female counterparts. Earl had probably been fairly popular among the women congregating in the doorways. For most of them, sex was probably merely a quaint memory, but some things never got old, and being desired by a potential mate was surely one of them. Shane had seen it in the eyes of the woman across the hall from Earl’s apartment. She’d apparently ignored Christiana, who stood some distance away, her back pressed to the wall with one hand over her mouth, breathing quickly. Instead, the old woman had looked up at Shane as he came out of Earl’s door, her face merely politely inquisitive.
“Did something happen to Mr. Kichenbauer?”
Shane had stared at her, not quite hearing her, his thoughts racing, stumbling over each other. She’d looked into his eyes and pressed her lips together knowledgeably. She’d nodded. “Bad, was it?” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Heart attack? Stroke? No, don’t tell me. Come into my room and we’ll call the desk, tell them that poor Mr. Kirchenbauer finally graduated.”
Shane had startled and blinked at the old woman. She’d been short, with huge pink curlers in her hair. Her face was lined but soft and plump, her cheeks red enough that Shane had fleetingly wondered if she’d been wearing rouge. “Wh-What did you say?” he’d stammered.
“You’ve had a shock,” she’d replied, taking Shane’s elbow. “It’ll be all right. You get used to it after awhile. I said we should call the front desk and tell them poor Mr. Kichenbauer’s gone on. They’ll know what to do. Bring your lady friend inside, why don’t you.”
The orderlies had come first, pushing a gurney, watched avidly by the still-living in their open doorways, their eyes flat, almost hypnotized. Shane thought morbidly that they looked like ghosts waiting to happen. He tried to explain to the orderlies, but they weren’t really listening.
“He didn’t just
die
,” Shane had finally rasped, pulling the head orderly aside. “He was killed. And the murderer is still
in
there.”
The head orderly’s name had been Manny according to the tag on his chest. He’d looked aside at his partner, one eyebrow slightly raised. He had then patted Shane on the shoulder, almost heartily, as if to say
thanks for the heads-up, champ
. He and his partner had entered Earl’s room then, rolling the gurney between them, one at either end.
A few minutes went by and the gurney had been rolled back out again, this time with a figure strapped onto it. It was Stambaugh. He’d still been giggling, his head lolling back and forth, a line of drool glistening on the side of his jaw. The orderlies looked decidedly paler.
“Wait here,” Manny had said to Shane, his face hard under his sweaty forehead. Manny’s partner, a much younger man with a red crew-cut, had been chewing his lips, his chin tucked toward his chest, as if struggling not to vomit.
Shane had waited. Christiana sat in the old woman’s apartment across the hall, staring unseeingly at the television. CSI Miami had been on. Shane had seen it flashing silently in the dimness. The old woman’s name was Mary Ellen. She had offered Christiana some tea, which she had accepted but merely held without drinking.
The police had arrived shortly thereafter. Shane had had time to worry that maybe
he’d
be charged with Earl’s murder. If this had been an episode of CSI Miami, that’s surely what would have happened. After all, who would believe that the crazy old man with the scarecrow arms and toothless giggle was capable of such a thing? How could Stambaugh have even lifted the clothing iron, much less driven it home with enough force to collapse Earl’s facial bones, shattering them like a chunk of old pottery?
Perhaps if Christiana hadn’t been there things might have been different, but she’d corroborated everything Shane told the police. She’d spoken with a sort of surreal coolness that almost looked like boredom. Shane had known it wasn’t boredom, though. It was the serene calm of someone who, on many dark occasions, had mentally practiced telling her horrible story to the police, knowing that they may or may not believe her, knowing that everything rested on her composure. Randy had been dead for barely a month, but in that moment Shane could see that his effects still lingered. Probably they always would.
The police were polite, businesslike, and very thorough. Shane and Christiana had sat in the cafeteria with a middle-aged detective named Weekes, who’d worn a navy blue polo shirt stretched over his gut and drunk coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. He’d tapped a notebook with a small pencil, rereading his notes, grunting to himself.
“Awful thing to see,” he’d said. “Sometimes the mind just cracks. The two of them used to know each other, I hear. Back before Mr. Stambaugh’s dementia got the better of him. Used to be friends. I had a mother-in-law who got the Alzheimer’s pretty bad. You know what the real ugliness of it is? It isn’t like the Alzheimer’s takes the brain away. It’s that it just scrambles it all up, mixes everything together so that it’s all still there, but you just can’t get to the parts you need when you need them. Memories just pop up willy-nilly, and they seem like they’re brand new, like they’re happening right then and there.
“That’s probably what happened tonight. Mr. Stambaugh probably remembered something from God knows how long ago, some old fistfight or gambling debt or argument, or whatnot. Maybe it even involved Mr. Kirchenbauer, who knows? And Mr. Stambaugh just went off and acted on that memory, like he was sleepwalking or something. A shame. An awful thing to see.”
There had been a lot more questions, a lot of which seemed not to have anything to do with the events of the night. Weekes had asked about Shane’s relationship with Earl, as well as with Christiana. Shane had had to tell the detective about his recent history—his divorce and the death of his wife, how he’d ended up living on the outskirts of Bastion Falls, what he did for a living, and on and on. Shane tried to answer patiently, although he couldn’t imagine how any of it had to do with Earl’s death. Weekes seemed sheepish about asking his questions, but he asked them anyway, jotting short notes on his little notepad and nodding. Finally, he asked the one question that Shane had been dreading.
“So what brought you out to see Mr. Kirchenbauer tonight, Mr. Bellamy?” the detective had asked, leaning back in his chair and sticking his little pencil behind his ear, as if Shane’s answers from here on out were officially off the record.
“I wanted to introduce him to Christiana, I guess. And… I just thought maybe I should check on him. You know, guys Earl’s age…” Shane’s voice trailed off. Weekes stared at him and Shane resisted the urge to just keep on talking. After several seconds Weekes nodded.
“Yeah, by the time you get to be Mr. Kirchenbauer’s age, every day is a gift, isn’t it? You and he were close, then?”
Shane shrugged. “We hadn’t really known each other long enough to be very close. He used to take care of the cottage I live in now. He told me stories about how the place was built, and what it was like back in his day. He and his grandson, Brian, they stopped in at my place.”
“Lots of times, or just the once?”
“Just the once,” Shane answered, avoiding Weekes’ eyes.
“And that was enough to get you thinking you should come down and check on him? On the night he happens to get murdered in his bed?”
Shane glanced up at Weekes again. “Yeah. It did. I was thinking about him, thinking how I’d like to introduce him to Christiana. He once said that the cottage needed a woman’s touch. Christiana’s been there an awful lot lately, so I thought—” He stopped and shook his head, his face heating. “You think I have something to do with it, then? With Earl’s death?”
Weekes held up both hands, palms out. “Not at all. For one thing, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, if it was you who’d decided to do the poor old guy in, you’d probably not have brought your lovely friend here along for the ride. And if she
was
an accomplice, it’d be pretty stupid of you both to hang around afterward, answering all of my questions. Unless, of course, you’re both evil geniuses, and frankly, I think the evil genius is pretty much an invention of the comic books. In my experience, most criminals are pretty stupid. So no, I don’t think you’re involved in what happened here tonight. I just think it’s curious, that’s all.” He cocked his head and looked closely at Shane. “Don’t you?”
Shane nodded slowly. “Yeah. It’s pretty curious.”
Weekes sighed. “These things happen,” he said, standing up and stuffing his notepad into the pocket of his khakis. “Inklings. Little visions, stuff like that. Take my brother for instance. Lives in Arizona, but somehow I always know when he’s gonna call me. I just start thinking about him out of the blue, start thinking I should give him a holler, and the next thing I know, bang, the phone rings and it’s him. What do you say to stuff like that?”
Shane shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
“Still,” Weekes said, studying Shane and Christiana in turn. “If either of you think of anything else, anything you might have forgotten to mention, or just something that didn’t seem important at the time, you’ll give me a call, right? I’m at the city building most of the time. Just ask for me direct. All right?”
Both Shane and Christiana had nodded, but Shane knew he wouldn’t be calling Detective Weekes. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any more information to give to Weekes, it was simply that the man wouldn’t believe him if he did.
Before calling it a night, Weekes had told Shane a little of what he’d learned from the retirement home staff. According to them, Stambaugh hadn’t taken a step out of his wheelchair in nearly a decade. This night, however, he had apparently traversed the entire length of the facility, from one wing to the other, entirely on foot and unseen by any of the second-shift workers. He’d stopped in at the laundry room along the way, collecting the iron and leaving behind a small puddle of urine. Normally, the laundry room door was always locked. As yet, no one knew how Stambaugh had gained entry. Shane thought he did know, even if he didn’t say so. He thought that Stambaugh had tottered right up to the laundry room door and that the door had simply opened for him, unlocking and easing back on its pneumatic arm as if pushed open by an invisible hotel doorman. Stambaugh had probably giggled as he’d walked through it, heading right for the iron, peeing a little as he went, like an excited dog. Maybe that wasn’t exactly how it had happened, but after tonight, Shane was beginning to feel spookily confident of such little visions—such “inklings”, as Detective Weekes had called them.
As Shane parked the truck and flicked off the headlights, Christiana slid over on the bench seat, moving next to him. Shane thought at first, wildly, that she was trying to snuggle with him, like kids parked at Inspiration Point. He glanced at her and saw that she was merely getting out of the truck on his side, staying near him in the darkness. He didn’t blame her.
“Sorry,” he said lamely as they stepped up onto the porch. “What an awful night.” He shook his head, turning back to her.
“I just want to know one thing,” she said, moving very close but not looking into his eyes. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder and leaned against him. It was more a weary gesture than a romantic one. “Just one thing. How did you know?”
Shane drew a long, deep breath. He didn’t know where to begin to answer that question, and yet he didn’t want to lie. Not to her, and not tonight. “I knew because I saw it. I sensed it. I knew because… because I drew it.”
She pulled her head away from his shoulder and looked up at him, her brow low and serious. He shook his head at her tiredly.
“I’ll tell you everything. But not tonight. When it’s daylight again, OK? Until then, I just can’t. I don’t have it in me.”
She considered this, and then nodded slightly. She embraced him on the porch again, putting her arms around his neck and allowing him to support her. He did so, easily, marveling at how slight she was. A minute later, she let him go. Her hand found his and she led him inside, closing and locking the front door behind her.
Together, they walked to the bedroom. There were no words as she began to undress him.
It was remarkably quiet in the cottage, and Shane could hear her breathing. It was a nice sound, a living sound. Tonight, those were just the kinds of sounds he needed. He listened, soaking in the moment. It felt odd, almost surreal, and yet somehow, it felt absolutely right. The horrors of the night needed some sort of balm, something to dull them and wash them off.
It wouldn’t last, Shane knew, but maybe it didn’t need to. When he closed his eyes, he still saw the gruesome mess of Earl’s head, the black pulp and single staring blue eye, the invading perversity of the iron shining dully. So instead, Shane kept his eyes open. He allowed his gaze to move over Christiana in the dimness of the bedroom, concentrated on the way the moonlight played over her skin as he revealed it. He tried to memorize the sound of her clothing slipping away from her, and the sensation of her body pressed against him for the first time, skin to skin, both warm and cool, soft and firm.
Nothing they did could completely deny the horrors of the night, but it did succeed in pushing those horrors back a little, at least for the moment, at a point when those horrors would otherwise have been at their most potent and harrowing. He went to her like a shipwreck survivor thrashing to shore, burying himself in the vitality of her embrace, and she came to him in the same way.