Hush

8

THE HOUSE SMELLED both musty and lemony at the same time-it was likely that the cleaning lady Lake had kept on through the summer had dusted every surface but never cracked open a window. Lake set the cooler down on the kitchen table and went back to the car for her duffel bag and the cat.

“Okay, Smokey, here you go,” she said, unzipping the front of the carrying case. “Freedom…country air.” The cat crept cautiously out into the kitchen, reacquainting himself with the space. For a minute he just slunk around the room, peering and sniffing, and then, with a sudden burst of bravado, pushed through the pet flap in the side door of the kitchen and disappeared. She’d been nervous when they’d first experimented with letting Smokey go outside, but there’d never been any problems, other than the occasional dead mouse or bird he triumphantly brought back with him.

After unpacking the cooler and wrenching open a few first-floor windows, Lake prowled through the rooms, taking stock. Though the house had come fairly cheap, it had wonderful bones and had cleaned up beautifully. To the left of the center hall was a long, wide living room with a fireplace. On the other side were a small library and a dining room. The kitchen was at the back, and though not huge, it had what real estate agents like to call “country charm.” Flowing from it was a tiny den with a TV. Her favorite part of the house was the screened porch that ran along the back. Whenever she read or just daydreamed in one of the black wicker rockers out there, it brought her instantly back to her grandmother’s house in central Pennsylvania.

It had been four whole months since she’d last been at the house. Though she’d been avoiding coming up here because she feared her grief was still too raw, it wasn’t sadness that she experienced today. It was discomfort. The house felt foreign to her, as if she were in a dream and everything that should be familiar was slightly off, out of place. Give it a few minutes, she told herself. You love this place and it’s just going to take time to feel at home here again.

She poured a glass of water from the tap in the kitchen sink. There was a small purple stain in the porcelain sink. What was it from, she wondered. Blueberries? She couldn’t even remember now.

With the glass still in hand, she carried her duffel bag upstairs. The stairs creaked and groaned, disturbed by the sudden weight. When she neared the entrance to the master bedroom she felt a pit begin to form in her stomach. It was this room, far more than her bedroom in New York, that she associated with the death of her marriage. Because it was here, on weekends, that she and Jack most often had sex-and it was here where he had first shrugged her hand away.

She stepped into the room. As she saw the bed, with its pale-blue spread, she caught her breath. It made her think not of Jack but of Keaton. She could see his butchered body all over again, lying in the bloodied sheets.

Why did I come here? she felt like screaming as she stood frozen in place.

She needed a plan, she told herself, something to keep her from going crazy. She turned around and walked across the hall to the guest room. This will be my room now, she decided as she laid her duffel bag on the wooden luggage rack. She would organize the room and later tackle the garden. And next it would be time for dinner and then for bed. When she felt calmer tomorrow, she would work on the presentation.

After changing the bedding in the guest room and dragging in some of her possessions, she put on shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of wilted gardening gloves. As she stepped onto the porch, the phone rang, making her jump. It can’t be the police, she thought, scolding herself for being so skittish. They had no idea she was here-unless of course they talked to Maggie.

She let out a small sigh of relief when she heard Molly’s voice on the other end of the line.

“So I’m sitting here on pins and needles,” Molly said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“You don’t sound as if you’re on pins and needles,” Lake said. “You sound as if you’re in a car.”

“I’m just driving up to the fish market on Ninth Avenue. I’m doing a dinner tomorrow night. So tell me about Jack’s little visit. What was that all about?”

“He claimed he needed to get some papers-but it seemed odd to me.”

“Odd how?”

“Like he was looking for an excuse to come by.”

“Like he wants to get back together?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Actually, no. How did he act toward you?”

“Molly, you can’t be serious. The guy just filed for full custody. That’s hardly a strategy for wooing me back.”

“Guys rarely behave logically when it comes to women.”

“Trust me, that’s not it. Here’s what I think-that his coming by for the papers was a ruse so he could snoop around the apartment to see what I’ve been up to.”

“You mean, like he’s trying to find incriminating evidence?”

“Maybe. God, I don’t know. He’s like a complete stranger to me now and it’s impossible to read him.”

“What if he did want to get back together? Would you?”

A month ago she might have answered yes, but she realized now that Jack’s custody bid had burned off the last feelings of love she felt for him.

“No. Not in a million years.”

“Okay, then. So tell me about the murder. The Post said the cops don’t have a clue who did it. Is that true?”

Lake wished she didn’t have to talk about Keaton.

“I have no idea. The police interviewed everyone at the clinic, but it’s not like they’re letting us in on anything.”

For a brief moment, she ached to confess everything to Molly. By coming clean she could ask for guidance, and potentially soothe the twisted, tortured feelings inside her. Yet she couldn’t. Her friendship with Molly was still relatively new, and she didn’t know if she could totally trust her. She also couldn’t put Molly at risk legally.

“Are you upset about it?” Molly asked. “It must be so weird for you.”

“Uh-yeah, the staff seems fairly freaked out by it.”

“But what about you personally? The guy was getting pretty flirty with you. It must be upsetting.”

“It’s not like I knew him,” Lake said, hearing the defensiveness in her voice. “And would you please drop the ‘He was getting flirty with you’ stuff. That’s the last thing I need going around.”

“You’re not a suspect, are you?”

“No-of course not. But the situation is a mess.”

Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to get off the phone. Talking to Molly was churning everything up again.

“Look, I better get going,” Lake said abruptly. “There’s stuff I need to do while I’m up here.”

“Are you okay up there by yourself? You’re not scared, are you?”

God, she thought, this is going from bad to worse.

“No, I’m fine. I’ve stayed up here many times without Jack. I mean, the kids have always been with me, but I’ve never felt unsafe.”

“And Smokey’s an attack cat, right? I’m sure he’ll protect you if necessary.”

“The only thing he’s interested in right now is taking down some poor little sparrow. I should go. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”

As soon as she hung up, she regretted how curt she’d sounded at the end, but the conversation had been vexing. She wondered if there was any chance the police would contact her friends as part of the investigation. In her imagination she heard Molly describing to Detective Hull how she’d suggested Lake engage in eye sex with Keaton. Wouldn’t that be great?

For the next couple of hours she worked in the garden out back, digging up weeds, dividing a few plants here and there. At one point Smokey appeared and slid his body along her bare calves. She realized that touch of his silky black fur was the only comfort she’d experienced in the past two days.

“Are you happy to be back here, Smokey?” she asked him.

He let out a soft meow and then slunk away, snaking through a row of deadheaded foxgloves.

She went back to the weeds, trying to focus, but her mind kept coming back to Keaton and the police. Would it make any sense, she wondered, to contact a criminal lawyer to see what advice they would offer her under the protection of client confidentiality? But weren’t lawyers obligated to report a crime-and hadn’t she committed one by not going to the police?

The sun was getting low in the sky. She returned to the house and showered in the guest bath. If they just catch the killer everything will be okay, she thought as she scrubbed at her dirty nails. And it won’t matter who Keaton had been in bed with that night. She glanced at her watch through the ribbons of water. It was almost six. The house had satellite TV and she would be able to catch the local news in New York. Maybe there would be some kind of update. After throwing on a robe, she hurried downstairs and turned on the TV in the little den.

A four-car collision on the Tappan Zee Bridge was the top story, but the Keaton murder was next. The anchors went live to a young redheaded reporter outside the apartment building on Crosby. Lake grimaced at the familiar sight.

“It’s been over two days since prominent fertility doctor Mark Keaton was found brutally murdered in his SoHo loft,” the reporter announced, “but police still haven’t made an arrest. There are no known suspects at this time.”

Before the story even ended, Lake regretted turning it on. She told herself that the kids needed her tomorrow, that she had to find a way to seem normal for them. She leaned back against the loveseat, closed her eyes, and tried to drive Keaton and Hull and McCarty all from her mind.

Later, after getting dressed, she dragged the grill from the small garage next to the house and set it up in the backyard. She lit the coals and waited for the flames to die down. The smell of the burning briquettes usually brought Smokey running, but he was obviously too busy to be bothered. Lake let her eyes wander toward the far end of the yard, to the western sky above the maple trees. The sun had set and the sky was the smooth, milky-blue color you find on the inside of a scallop shell. On nights like these, she and Jack and the kids used to sit in the backyard and watch the stars and fireflies come out one by one. Her heart ached from the memory of it.

When the coals were ready, she laid the steak on the grill. Next she sliced tomatoes and set a place for herself at the table on the porch. There had been many times when she’d sat alone at that table-times when Jack had stayed in the city working and the kids had gone to bed-and the loner part of her had relished it. But tonight the solitude held no appeal.

She had been a fool to come here alone, she realized, especially because it was mainly to spite Jack. And how could she have thought that being alone in the country would make her feel less rattled? At least in the city she would have had the option of grabbing lunch with Molly or going to a movie. There was no way, she decided, she was staying here Saturday night. Once she was finished with the parents’ day activities, she would come back, pick up Smokey, and drive straight back to the city.

She ate her steak and salad with a glass of wine, tasting none of it. After clearing the table, she chopped up a piece of steak for Smokey and left it on a small plate on the floor of the porch with the screened door propped open.

“Here, Smokey,” she called out into the now utter blackness of the yard. “Come on now.”

He’d always had an instinct about when leftovers were being served, and she expected to see him dart through the darkness at any second. But he didn’t come, even after she called twice more.

She went inside and poured herself another glass of wine and returned to her chair on the porch. The crickets and katydids had begun to chirp in a loud, cacophonous concert. Still no sign of Smokey. That damn cat, she thought. His refusal to return was probably payback for having been denied the country for so long.

By the time she had finished her wine, her annoyance had morphed into worry. It had been four hours since she’d laid eyes on Smokey in the garden, she realized, and he had never before stayed away this long, even when he was being obnoxious. Was he lost? Or, worse, injured? She let out a jagged sigh. She had no choice but to search for him.

After digging out a flashlight from a kitchen drawer, she started out across her backyard, training the light first toward the trees in the rear, and then into the black hedge that formed the border between her house and Yvon and David’s. The night was moonless but stars twinkled across the sky.

“Come on, Smokey, come on,” she called in irritation.

She listened, hoping for a meow, but none came. From the street behind her yard, she heard a car door slam and a motor turn over. After the car drove away it was only the crickets and katydids again.

Great, she thought. This is the last thing I need.

She passed through a small break in the hedge into David and Yvon’s yard, letting the beam of light dance over the lawn. Nothing but rows of coneflowers and black-eyed Susans. From there she cut through into Jean Oran’s yard, and then into the Perrys’. A small light came on suddenly, one attached to the Perry house. She realized it was triggered by a motion sensor.

She had never felt anything ominous about the darkness up here before, but she didn’t like it now-especially with all her neighbors gone. She was about to turn and head back when she heard a rustling in the bushes at the far end of the Perrys’ yard. She whirled around and pointed the beam of light down there. There was another rustle, loud enough to make her think it was being caused by something bigger than a cat. She held her breath. A raccoon suddenly lumbered out of the bushes, making her jump. Quickly she retraced her steps back to her house.

“I’m going to shoot you, Smokey,” she muttered to herself, but she was really worried now. There was the possibility the cat had been hit by a car. After grabbing her keys, she headed out to the driveway. She drove up the street and circled the green several times, looking back and forth. She also drove along the side street that ran behind her house, and then the one behind that. There was no sign of the cat, no sign of anyone for that matter-though in several houses she could see the blue light of a TV pulsing through a window. A half hour later she let herself back in the side door of her kitchen, praying Smokey had returned. But he hadn’t. It felt like everything was starting to crash down on her.

At the kitchen table she held her hands over her eyes and tried to come up with a strategy. If the cat hadn’t returned by morning, she would drive around before she left for the camp, maybe even stick up a few signs. If she still didn’t find him, she would have to come back after the parents’ day activities and resume her search.

Please, please be okay, Smokey, she pleaded half out loud.

She locked up for the night and poured a glass of milk to take to bed with her. Before she went upstairs, she glanced at one of the kitchen windows, its screen the only barrier between her and the outdoors. They’d always left the ground floor windows open at night, but now the idea made her uneasy. One by one she lowered and locked them. As she shoved the final one closed, she heard the haunting call of a whip-poor-will, a sound that on any other night would have filled her with joy. Tonight it only intensified her misery.

Upstairs she changed into a cotton nightgown and crawled into her new bed. She’d brought a novel up with her, but her eyes kept sliding over the words. Every minute or so she’d set the book down and lean forward, listening, hoping for the sound of Smokey coming through the pet flap. Just once she caught a noise from outside-riffs of laughter from what she thought must be adolescent boys. At midnight she went back downstairs again, thinking Smokey may have slunk in, guilty as sin, but there was no sign of him.

And then, just before one, as she was turning out her bedside light, she heard Smokey meow from the floor below. In utter relief, she slipped out of bed, flicked on the hall light, and rushed downstairs.

The meowing seemed to be coming from the kitchen and it had a plaintive feel, as if signaling distress. It became more frantic-sounding, almost growing to a screech. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard the cat dart into the living room. Great, she thought. He’s dragged a half-dead animal in with him and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Come here, Smokey,” she called out as she stepped closer. The hall light only spilled into the entrance of the room, and she couldn’t see him. It was silent for a few seconds, but then the cat let out a wail from the far end of the room. Lake fumbled with the switch on a table lamp and when the light came on, she searched the space with her eyes. There was no sign of him.

“Smokey, what’s the matter?” she said, taking tentative steps down the length of the room.

Without warning, the cat sprang out from behind an armchair, and Lake’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. In the dim light she could see that the fur on his body was now a different color-a pale gray instead of black. As he wedged himself into a corner, though, she was horrified to see that it wasn’t fur she was looking at-but skin. Except for his head, tail, and legs, the hair on his body was gone.