Fear the Darkness: A Thriller Page 21

  I ignored her question, and she followed me into the bathroom she was using, where I looked under the sink and into the medicine cabinet without finding anything. I took off the lid of the water tank in back of the toilet, but there was no plastic bag taped to the inside. Where else might she go where she wouldn’t worry about me finding something?

  The kitchen. That took a little more time because I had to go through a dozen or so cabinets. Maybe it was hidden there because as Gemma-Kate cooked more, I went less and less into the pantry and the cabinet where we kept the spices.

  Gemma-Kate followed me, watching, but not asking any more questions once I failed to answer her first one.

  Spices. I took the little containers out, opened them one at a time, and sniffed. Coriander, oregano, cayenne pepper that made me sneeze. Everything looked and smelled like what I would imagine.

  “Where is it?” I finally asked. “Did you mix it in with this stuff? Did you powder it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gemma-Kate said, doing what I took to be a good impression of bewilderment. “I swear I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  I was holding a large plastic jar of dried parsley, and I slammed it on the counter. As I did my hand knocked a ceramic dinner plate onto the tile floor, where it broke into a half-dozen pieces. That made me madder. I picked up one of the larger pieces and turned to Gemma-Kate, who looked at it as if it was a weapon, and looked at me as if I was the one who was crazy.

  And that kind of pissed me off.

  Apparently the noise of my searching in the kitchen had roused Carlo, who was looking at the ceramic shard in my hand along with Gemma-Kate. Poor Carlo, he had never witnessed my uncontrollable fury before. He came over to calm me down but he didn’t have a chance. I sum this up because it’s too embarrassing to recount what I really said when I let it all out: By the time I was finished, I had accused Gemma-Kate of purposely poisoning my dog. Then I accused her of purposely killing Frank Ganim as some kind of deadly game. Then I accused her of trying to kill me though I hadn’t figured out how or why.

  Boy, nothing quiets a room quite like blaming someone for murder. Carlo gasped, not having had the benefit of all my suspicions to this point. Gemma-Kate gasped, too, a very convincing gasp after she saw how well Carlo’s worked. More realistically, the blood drained from her face. I finally had her on the ropes.

  Do I sound like I was acting nutso? Dish of crazy with a sprinkle of paranoia? Well, here’s the scoop—at some point in the days preceding that one I had crossed over the edge and had gone, as Mallory might put it, not so quietly mad.

  Gemma-Kate regained some composure, left the room, and came back with her cell phone so we would see she was calling—

  “Don’t you dare bother your father about this,” I said, instantly wondering what repercussions my outburst might have. Gemma-Kate was totally aware of those repercussions and was counting on them.

  When Todd answered she spoke calmly, with no hysterics, but with the little-girl voice that she used to great effect when she needed it.

  “Daddy, Aunt Brigid’s tweaking. I think she’s on meth.”

  I was powerless to do anything except stand there and listen to her side of the conversation. The only alternative I could see was to grab the phone away from her, and that would only support her accusations that I’d gone bonkers. I put the broken piece of ceramic on the counter without making a sound, in case Todd asked if I was holding something that could be used as a weapon.

  “Her dog ate a poison toad and got sick … No … Yes … She says I did it.” She listened, and when she wasn’t listening spoke mechanically. “Uh-huh … Not so much … Daddy … No … Okay, the dog licked it a little. It was an accident.” She listened. “The dog’s in the hospital … No … He’s not going to die. He’s fine.” She listened. “I hid it because I knew Aunt Brigid would go all berserk and blame me for poisoning her dog. And she is … That’s why … She’s even accusing me of poisoning her.” She had the presence of mind to not mention Frank Ganim. Then she listened. “I didn’t do anything and I’m in the middle of a shitstorm here … Sorry. Can you talk to her?”

  Gemma-Kate put the phone down faceup on the counter in front of me. From this point Todd would be able to hear anything I said. Then she took her upper lip between her front teeth and smiled. In retrospect it could have been one of those nervous smiles, but I still wanted to connect that smile to my knee.

  I’m not the only one in my family who does anger. Except for Gemma-Kate and my mother, all of us do anger pretty good. We learned it from watching Dad. Dad was the sort of father who, when he heard you scraped your knee, yelled at you. “Were you running?” he would yell, as if running was a third-degree felony. If we confessed to running, he would nod, satisfied with another successful interrogation. The greatest challenge in our childhood wasn’t avoiding bloody knees but hiding the scabs from him.

  Not realizing that the phone had been resting on the counter for a moment, when I picked it up and pressed it to my ear Todd was already into his harangue. Plus with a three-hour time difference there was little doubt that he was fueled by at least the second of his Johnnie Walkers. In one fairly continuous scream it went something like this:

  “—unt, I ask you for a simple favor like when was the last time I ever asked you to do anything for me but no I’m the one who’s left to deal with our fuckin’ parents and a dying wife God rest her soul and a teenager who never had a real childhood while trying to hold down my fuckin’ job and do you have any thought for anybody but yourself there you are living the retired life with a new husband out in Arizona you’ve both probably got great pensions but me no I just got word that the state has cut our fuckin’ pensions in half because of the economy and there’s no fuckin’ way they’re going to give it back now that they took it from me even if the economy improves I had enough put away to send GK to school out there as long as she could use you to establish Arizona residency and now this what’s this about GK poisoning you I never heard such fuckin’ bullshit you should get some help you’re the one who needs help you crazy bitch we always said Dad Ariel everybody that you were the craziest one in the family you crazy bitch.”

  At that he seemed to have spent himself.

  I’m the person who fights the bad guys. I’m the superhero on the side of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. And here I’m being screamed at by my little brother in a family squabble the likes of which I hadn’t seen since I was sixteen and Mom found my birth control pills. How did I get into this position? And why wasn’t I reacting in kind?

  I should have been riled. I should have gone berserk, too, and destroyed something else breakable. And yet I found Todd’s anger had an interesting effect. Without responding to him I looked at Gemma-Kate with her icy demeanor. I looked at Carlo with his the-world-should-be-reasonable attitude. And it felt kind of good, strangely calming actually, when I felt Todd’s anger match or surpass mine. Plus getting beat up by an air bag a couple hours before might have had a lulling effect.

  Now, you might not be able to tell from all this that Todd and I are actually close. He’s come to my defense on many occasions, and once even stood between me and Dad. And nobody knew what it was like working in law enforcement better than I, the taut nerves. Added to that the fact that the wife he had nursed for more than seventeen years had just died, and maybe a little guilt over not being the best father, I could understand where he was coming from. So while I didn’t apologize to Todd for what I had said to Gemma-Kate, or everything I suspected, I defused him as best I could, assured him I wasn’t going to renege on our deal to allow her to claim Arizona residency. I didn’t add unless she went to prison. With a final parting shot about how crazy I was, he hung up on me without saying good-bye.

  I was spent, sucked into a blackness of depression with Gemma-Kate at the source. I felt my face go hot in a way it hadn’t in years, but that was happening more and more often since Gemma-Kate had c
ome to live with us.

  Carlo recovered first and took the phone from my hand. Until he did that I didn’t realize I was still holding it. He said to Gemma-Kate, “Please give me a moment alone with my wife.” She obediently went outside (she always seemed to do what Carlo asked) and sat next to the St. Francis statue.

  Carlo watched Gemma-Kate from the window for a moment and then turned to me. Now he’d heard for himself the kind of person Gemma-Kate actually was, I thought. So I didn’t expect his tone of voice when he said, “What is wrong with you?”

  “Didn’t you hear what she said? Did you hear her admit to poisoning our dog? And, and, I’ve been seeing and hearing things and I think she caused it.”

  “I was here, I heard what I heard. And the person I’m concerned about right now is you. I just had to hear from your friend that you might be seriously ill. Now I’m hearing that you think you’ve been poisoned. What’s this about seeing and hearing things?”

  “She cooks,” I said, and heard how lame an accusation it sounded.

  “You think she’s poisoning our food?” He held up his hands palms outward like he was trying to keep a mountain lion at bay. “Honey, I’m not saying I know better than you, but wouldn’t there be an easier way? We both eat, we all eat what she cooks,” Carlo said. “Gemma-Kate and I appear to be fine. And it’s beginning to occur to me that you’re probably wise not to go to the police with your suspicions about her involvement at the church.”

  I glanced at the broken plate on the kitchen counter and thought about breaking more, but that would have only solidified my status as a crazy woman in Carlo’s eyes. I reminded myself he hadn’t put in for this gig, having two shrieking harpies in his home. Actually, amend that, I was the only harpy shrieking. I backed off, wondering if maybe it wasn’t poison after all that was causing all my symptoms, the anxiety and the stomach upset. Maybe that was Parkinson’s along with the cramped handwriting and odd walk. Hallucinations? Could it be that?

  So instead of breaking plates I bent over at the waist with my arms wrapped over myself, trying to press the anxiety out of my gut. I could even hear the slur in my own voice when I said, “I admit I don’t know what’s wrong with me. All I know is that it feels like my bones are crawling around inside my body and it’s all I can do to keep them from jumping out of my own skin. I can’t sleep at night.”

  Without a beat Carlo relented. He wrapped his arms around me wrapping my arms around myself as if he wanted to help hold me in. I felt soft and weak and hated myself for feeling it but couldn’t help accepting his comfort. When I had stopped trembling so much, he disengaged and held me at arm’s length to take a look at me. He repeated, “Honey, I’d do anything for you, pack Gemma-Kate back to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow and damn her father. But I always consider myself a reasonable man, so I think it through before I take any action that might hurt people or cause you regret. Anxiety doesn’t seem like any kind of poison. You didn’t call a specialist yet, did you?”

  I was still feeling a little tense, and I got defensive when he said “specialist,” as if he meant “psychiatrist.” “Do you think I’m paranoid?”

  “No, more of a neurologist,” Carlo said. “So far I don’t know what I think.” He let go of me, opened the back door, and stepped into the yard. He called out, “Gemma-Kate, put on some shoes with socks, not those sandals. We’re going out.”

  “Where?” she called back.

  “To look at some petroglyphs. You and I.”

  “Where are petroglyphs?” I asked.

  He pointed to the Catalinas. “Right about there. It’s probably a half-hour walk from here.”

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “To get her out of the way so you can get yourself together.” He kissed me gently but without sentiment on my bruised mouth. “Or am I one of your suspects now?”

  Of course not. It occurred to me that there was still so much I didn’t know about Carlo. He knew the worst about me. Did I know the worst about him? I shook off that thought, the paranoia again.

  Gemma-Kate came back into the house and went off to her room to get her shoes while Carlo explained. “Maybe she’ll talk to me. It’s the best thing I can think of and I’m going with it,” he said. “Then you’re next.”

  While Carlo went off to get his own hiking boots on, Gemma-Kate came back and stood in front of me. I saw a different person from the one who like a child had skipped along the sidewalk when she first arrived. This was Gemma-Kate when she felt attacked, and when the charming little girl didn’t serve her purpose anymore. Now her voice was as flat as her eyes.

  “Have you ever read Nietzsche? No, probably not.” As if she felt more in control, knowing something I did not, Gemma-Kate’s voice got stronger. “There’s something called the death drive. That’s what they call the nihilistic inclination to destroy. It’s that feeling when you’re holding a kitchen knife and for a second you wonder what it would feel like to stick it into someone. Do you know that feeling? Or when you’re standing on a high place and you get the urge to jump. These urges are not extraordinary, though some people have them more than others. They want to die. Or they want someone else to die. Maybe right now you wish I were dead.”

  Still amazed that this person could have eluded me while living in my house, “What the hell are you talking about?” was all I could say.

  “You think I don’t know what you’re thinking. I do. You’re thinking I’m one of those psychopathic kids like in the movies. I’m not. I’ve got an IQ of one hundred and forty-five and I’ve been listening to Dad and Grandpa talk about you since I was four. I’m no sicker than you are. You really think you and I are that different?”

  In no hurry to press me for an answer, if indeed she wanted one, Gemma-Kate licked her finger and bent to pick up a small shard of pottery from the plate I broke. She tossed it into the trash and turned back to me. “I know, Aunt Brigid. Let’s talk about the number of people we’ve killed in cold blood. You go first.”

  “Okay, you, let’s get going,” Carlo said to her, having come into the room without hearing what she had just said to me. “And Brigid, we’ve got to pull ourselves together here. We’re supposed to be the grown-ups.” He turned to go, then turned back. “You look quite pale. We won’t be gone long. Are you sure you’ll be all right here for a while?”

  I nodded, still too stunned to speak, and that was a good thing because no matter what ever happened with Gemma-Kate I couldn’t tell Carlo what she just said because I feared it was a little too true.

  They left. I watched the Pug position herself at the door in the hopes they had gone to fetch her mate. It was only then that I realized I was rooted to the same spot I had been standing in while Todd reamed me a new asshole. I felt a muscle at the surface of my abdomen spasm like a bad running stitch. I rubbed at the spot until the cramp eased. It took some will and deliberation, but I finally managed to take a step, and then another, until I ended up in our bedroom, sitting on the bed, opening the drawer of my nightstand where I kept something that could kill.

  Forty–two

  I got out my FBI special and the box I kept it in, a wooden hinged job with a foam insert carved out for the gun. When I first married Carlo I had hidden the weapon in back of some broken computer equipment in a cabinet attached to my desk. Once we got to know each other a bit better he understood why I felt better having it beside me at night, and was not adverse to its presence in my nightstand next to the lubrication gel.

  The box of shells was in a Victoria’s Secret gift box that had contained perfume from a Christmas present. I pocketed the shells with hands that didn’t used to tremble so.

  The gun itself was already loaded. I wondered for a moment whether that was wise with Gemma-Kate around, the image of using it to frighten her out of her controlled smugness was so vivid, but I wouldn’t decide just now.

  I took Carlo’s Volvo.

  The Pima Pistol Club is a convenient three miles south of our house, but a torturous three mi
les it is. Like a mini mountain road it snakes between carved-out chunks of hill, and rattles your teeth over a washboard surface more rutted than not. I wanted to speed but would have been thrown against the roof of the car, so I kept it below thirty miles an hour, still jouncing.

  The owner, a lean cowboy who I only knew by the name of Roger and the sticker ONE DAY AT A TIME that was stuck onto his service counter, greeted me at the window when I gave him my membership card.

  “Hey, Brigid. Your husband tune you up?” he said, with what some guys still thought was humor. Just because he’s sober doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole.

  I wondered what the nameless woman at the shelter was doing today. Whether she’d gone home. “Had a run in with an air bag, air bag won,” I muttered, not having the inclination just now to deliver my “Battered Women Jokes Aren’t Really Funny” lecture.

  “I bet you could have taken it in the second round,” Roger said.

  I indulged in one small glare as I signed the check-in sheet, then walked down the concrete pavement to one of the narrow cages, wood and chicken wire, with a small wooden shelf where I put the gun, and beside it, the box of shells. The cold range light was flashing, so there was no shooting from the several other members, all male. In front of my station there was already a target set up, a metal plate hanging loosely from a frame, that someone had neglected to bring back when they were done. Far in the distance was a dirt embankment that surrounded the range on three sides in case you missed the target.

  A buzzard circled over the range. I tracked it with my weapon but didn’t fire. It’s a felony to shoot a bird of prey. I was in enough trouble with killing the saguaro.