Phantom Prey

18

Alyssa Austin sat barefoot in a big black- leather easy chair with her feet pulled up under her, her legs folded to the right, thinking about Frank Willett. Davenport knew that the four murders were linked, but didn’t know that they were linked through Alyssa.

If Frank had killed Frances, she thought, he had essentially killed the other three as well, by destabilizing her mind. If he were convicted of one, or of all four, it’d make no difference under Minnesota law. There was no death penalty, but there was a minimum sentence for first- degree murder, of thirty years. He wouldn’t get out, in any case. Not until he was almost seventy.

The car, Loren whispered. “Go away,” Alyssa said. Loren had been flickering in the mirrors around the house, like a weak over- the- air signal on an old television. She’d fought it at first, but had then grown tired of fighting. Let him-or whatever brain cells were misfiring to produce him-do as he wished. At times, he acted as an effective foil for her thoughts.

“I can’t go away. You’re my only chance,” he said. His voice became louder, clearer, whenever she acknowledged him. “I’m having trouble holding myself together-but you need me. You need me to talk to. To plan. You need the Fairy, too.”

They’d begun referring to Alyssa’s shadow aspect as the Fairy, because that’s what Davenport called her. “Why would I need her?” Alyssa asked.

“Because she does some things better than you do,” Loren said. “She kills better than you-you can’t kill at all. She does it quite easily. She comprises aspects of your real personality that you’ve repressed over the years. She was there when you were swimming, and winning, but all that mushy New Age shit pushed her under.”

“We’re all done with the killing,” Alyssa said. Loren was fully formed now, a man all in black, speaking from the mirror above the antique chest where they kept the board games and playing cards. “Maybe, but maybe not,” Loren said. “You made a big mistake when you brought Davenport into the picture. Fairy and I had it under control.”

“You had nothing under control,” Alyssa snapped. “You murdered those people; as far as I know, they had nothing to do with Frances.”

“Of course they did,” Loren shot back. “A spirit on this side pointed at the photograph, and now, I have to assume, I know, that it must have been her spirit. Who else would care? Willett may have killed her, but the others were involved. It was all part of a conspiracy. If only you could let go completely, we might be able to set up a line with Frances, if she’s not already gone on the boat.”

“Oh, God, go away.” She waved him off with the back of her hand. “Wait, wait, wait. We need to talk about Fairy. You need to talk about Fairy,” he said. “You are Fairy. You can let her out. You can free her and then put her back; but she’s more than you are, and you need her. Especially now, with the police sniffing around. You’ve got that car to deal with. You can’t forget about the car, you can’t let it go. And you’ve still got Frank Willett to deal with-what are you going to do about him? Fairy can work that out."

"You want her out, because she’ll let you out of the mirror,” Alyssa said.

“That’s true. She will-you will. If you let her out, if you relate to her, then, I think after a time, you’d integrate. You’d be both Alyssa and Fairy, with no conflict- she’d almost be like a strong mood,” Loren said. “Alyssa: you need her.”

Alyssa rolled off the chair and walked into the kitchen, got a single serving can of V8 out of the refrigerator, poured it into a wineglass, added a sprinkling of black pepper. Loren was there, in the kitchen, but only in fragments, in wisps of movements seen in the reflective parts of cabinet knobs and chrome sink fixtures. She looked out the kitchen window at the lake: late afternoon, the sun in the west, and the ice was like a slab of lead. She carried the glass of juice back to the black chair and closed her eyes and sipped it, and thought:

She had to get rid of the car. She had to help Davenport get at Willett. “Let her out,” Loren said. “Let Fairy out."

"How?” No real problem: sit in the big chair, legs crossed, eyes closed, relax

Fairy flowed into her. “There you are,” Loren said. “Not entirely,” Fairy said. “Alyssa’s here, too.” Fairy reached out to the surface of the mirror, pulled him through. He was wearing black slacks, a black silk shirt with a dark sport coat, and pointed black Italianate shoes. He followed her to the easy chairs and took one, opposite her, as she curled into the chair.

“Ideas?” he asked. “The car’s a problem because it’s soaked in blood,” Fairy said. “We can’t sell it, we can’t abandon it-they could find a few of my hairs in there, or something, along with the blood. If they do the DNA, they’ll connect us.”

“So we have to burn it,” Loren said. “That’s my feeling. We’ve got gas out in the garage. If we splashed five or ten gallons of gas inside it, it would burn right down to the wheels. Alyssa looked it up on Google.”

Alyssa flowed back. “As soon as I read about burning it, I tried to figure out ways to do it. But there are all these stupid problems. Like, how do I get home without witnesses?”

How to get home without catching a ride, without a cabdriver? She could, she thought, drop the car someplace where it could sit for a day or two, without being noticed, then drive in, set it on fire, and drive away. Maybe that would obscure a taxi connection. But then, what about surveillance cameras wherever she left it? What if somebody noticed it had been parked for a long time, and then checked it. What if she bumped into somebody she knew?

“That sounds like Alyssa talking,” Loren said. “It is,” Alyssa said. Fairy came back, speaking to Alyssa: “You know, honey, there aren’t any guarantees-and you’re making this way too complicated. You think we’ve got to get the car far away from here, but we don’t. If something happens with the car and they can match us to it, then we’re finished, no matter where it is. If we burn it completely, and they can’t make an ID, then it doesn’t make any difference if we do it right down the street.”

Alyssa thought about that for a moment, then nodded, sipped the V8. “Okay. But I’d rather not burn it right down the street.”

“Of course not-but it doesn’t have to be in North Dakota, either. I say we move the car out of the hangar during the night, drive it onto one of the construction sites down by the river bridge- that’d mean we’d actually be in the car for only a couple of miles, which would reduce our chances of getting stopped for some reason. We park it, we set it on fire, right then, in the dark, and then we run. Simple, effective. Black jogging suit, scout the way in and out ahead of time, burn it.”

“In the dark?” Loren asked. “You don’t see a lot of women jogging down there. There are some rough people around there.”

“I’ll take Hunter’s switchblade. It’s still there in his bedstand, and I know how to use it,” Fairy said.

“Of course,” Alyssa said, and she actually smiled. “If the police get there too fast…” Loren began. “We use a fuse. Soak it in fuel oil and gas, ten feet long, under the car, light it and run,” Fairy said. “We’d be a hundred feet away before it got to the car. In a minute, we’d be three blocks, jogging. The police aren’t going to get there in a minute. From there, it’s probably three or four miles-we can jog home in half an hour.”

“A risk.” Alyssa snarled at them: “If you morons hadn’t gotten us into this, we wouldn’t have to take any risks. If some guy thinks he’d like to sneak a peek at Hunter’s hangar, sees that car, looks inside… we go to jail. My prints and Patty’s blood are all over it. Maybe blood from some of the others, now that I think about it. You weren’t all that careful.”

“We were a little carried away,” Loren said. “The revenge was so… tasty.”

Fairy: “So we have to do something. We can’t not do something. I’m in favor of the straight- ahead, burn it and run. No point fucking around with something subtle, that’d leave a trail.”

Alyssa: “You may be right.” Fairy: “Of course I’m right.” Loren: “What about Frank Willett?”

“I’ve got an idea on that,” Alyssa said. “The car not only has blood in it, it’s got the knife you used on Patty. We lift the knife out of there, clean off the handle so there are no fingerprints, but leave a little blood down where the blade goes into the handle. A few specks, stains. Then we put the knife in Frank’s house.”

“How do we get in?” Loren asked. Alyssa said, “I’ve still got a key to his house, if he hasn’t changed the locks since we were dating. I can’t believe he’s organized enough to do that,” she said. “We jog again. Watch until he’s out, I go in, I leave the knife, and then we figure out something that triggers Davenport to make a search.”

“We scare him. We get him to run away,” Fairy said. “We get Frank to make a break for it.”

Alyssa: “Not a bad idea. How do we do it?” Fairy: “I call him. I tell him that I heard that the cops were coming for him on the California dope warrant. I bet he’ll run. I bet he will.” Alyssa: “He’ll recognize my voice.” Loren, on the opposite chair, shook his head: “No, he won’t. You two don’t sound much alike. Fairy sounds younger, more perky, like a Valley girl. Her voice is pitched higher. You don’t sound much alike at all.”

“Really?” Alyssa said. “Really,” Loren said. “So. When do we do all this?” Alyssa looked at her watch: “Can’t do Frank until we’ve done the car. We’ve got just enough light to scout that right now."

"Then we could even do it tonight,” Fairy said.

They took the Benz, and Loren sat in the back, where he could watch Alyssa’s eyes through the rearview mirror. “I like the idea of tipping Frank so he runs,” he said, as they headed out the driveway. “But if you’re the only one that Davenport’s told about the warrant, then he’ll figure out that you’re the one who told Frank.”

Alyssa nodded. “Let me think about it."

"Gossip,” Fairy said a minute later. “What?” Alyssa asked. “You could talk to Gina. She’s the worst gossip on the staff, and she goes around to all the spas. You could tell her confidentially about Frank-ask if he’s been giving or selling dope to any of the customers. She’ll tell other people- it’ll be all over the place by the end of the day. Then, if Frank is tipped, it could be any of the staff members, clients, who knows?”

“Excellent,” Loren said. Alyssa said, grudgingly, “It’s an idea.” And a second later, “That would work.”

The river-bridge area wasn’t going to work for burning the car, they decided-the fire would be too visible to too many people on the highway; too many cell phones. It’d be reported within seconds. They gave it up after driving across the Wakota Bridge a couple of times, and instead began probing the area south of I- 494, along the Mississippi.

The South St. Paul airport, where the car was hidden in Hunter Austin’s hangar, sits on the top level of the Mississippi’s western valley wall. Down the hill east of the airport, Concord Street runs parallel to the river, and on the river side of the street, a complex of railroad- to truck freight terminals are jumbled along dead- end streets between the river and Concord.

“If somebody was planning to burn a car, this would be one place to do it,” Loren said, as they probed back into the complex of streets and warehouses. “You’d have to run less than a mile. You’d only be exposed for maybe ten minutes.”

“It’s better than I thought,” Alyssa admitted. “We do it like this: we drive the Benz to the hangar, leave it, drive the little car down here. Right behind that pallet yard, along the fence, where the fire would be hidden from the street by the warehouse. Touch the fire off, and we run straight down the road for what… maybe two hundred yards? We hook around that garage, cross Concord, and head up the hill to the airport. If we’re lucky, we’ll be across the street before anybody sees the fire.”

“Unless there are watchmen,” Loren said. “Watchmen would be inside, not out. I’ll look for lights… can’t be out here without lights. We can always revise at the last minute, drive around the block and come back, if we have to.”

“You could hurt yourself running in the dark."

"Not if I stay in the middle of the street. There are enough lights around that I should be okay.” They drove the route, and Loren pointed out a couple of potholes left over from winter. “If you step in one of those, you’ll sprain your ankle. You could break a leg.”

Alyssa looked back along the road. “They’re both on the left side. I’ll stay on the right.”

They followed the approach up the hill to the airport, and the road in. Access to the private hangar area was through a card- controlled electronic gate, no problem to a person on foot, who could simply duck under it. Again, there should be enough ambient light to work with.

“Can’t do it in the middle of the night, though,” Loren said. “If people see you running then, they will notice."

"So, nine o’clock."

"We’ve got the gas,” Fairy said. “Let’s do it tonight."

"What about the knife?” Loren asked. “Soon as we can-before Davenport has too much time to think about everything,” Alyssa said. “I asked his wife to get him to investigate because he’s smart. Now, I wish he was a little dumber.”

“Water under the bridge,” Loren said. “… but we could place it tonight,” Fairy said. “Frank always goes out at night; I doubt that would have changed."

"What if somebody sees us at his house?” Alyssa asked. “How many times did that happen when we were visiting?” Fairy asked. “One out of five?"

"Still happened once,” Alyssa said. “So, we check it out first. Go in the front door, one step to the left, key in the lock, we’re inside. Hide the knife, peek out the window for people on the sidewalk, listen at the door, and we’re out. If somebody should pop up by surprise, we go back, get the knife, and throw it in the river.”

“Okay. I’m just a little nervous."

"You’re about to pee in our pants,” Fairy said cheerfully. “Don’t do that. I can’t stand wet pants.”

Back at the house, Alyssa looked at the gas cans. The three identical red plastic containers were used to gas up Hunter’s home toys: the John Deere lawn tractor and a smaller Lawn- Boy trim mower, a heavy Toro snowblower, a Stihl chain saw, a weed whip, a leaf blower, the limb- trimmer. They had a yard service to do all of that work, and a plow guy to clear the driveway in the winter, but Hunter liked to putter, and he had enough money to putter with what he wanted.

There were probably ten gallons of gas in the three containers. She wouldn’t be able to bring the container back with her, so she’d have to leave it in the car. Would Helen notice that one of the gas cans was gone? No matter-Alyssa could go someplace far away and buy another, when she had time.

She filled one of the containers all the way, pouring from the other, then humped it over to the Benz. Damn thing was heavy. As she lifted it in, she thought, This is crazy.

“No, it’s not,” Fairy said. Fairy was popping up whenever she wished; at the same time, Alyssa no longer worried that she might take over. She now seemed more like a twin sister than an alien being. “It has to be done. It has to be,” Fairy continued. “If there’s one thing we can chicken out on, it’s putting the knife at Frank’s place. But we must obliterate any evidence that can be used against us. We have to get rid of the car.”

So Alyssa put the can in the trunk of the car, on top of a layer of newspapers, closed the trunk, and looked at her watch. Seven o’clock, and dark. “Might as well do it,” Fairy said. “Let’s go… Can I drive?”

A few last things to do. She found an old T- shirt, cut it into strips, made a ten- foot- long soft- cotton fuse, soaked it in gasoline, and put it in a Ziploc bag. She’d string it out when she got there, and the Ziploc bag would keep the odor of gas out of the Benz. Got a bottle of Windex, a role of paper towels, and a pair of yellow plastic kitchen gloves, and put them in the Benz. She’d clean up the Honda’s steering wheel and other plastic surfaces, just in case. And finally, she changed into a navy blue tracksuit and running shoes.

“I’d really like to fuck you,” Loren said from the bedroom mirror. “Turns my crank when I watch you getting dressed. “Don’t talk to me like that,” Alyssa said. She was cold, and frightened. Her life hung on what would happen in the next hour.

“He’s talking to me,” Fairy said. “Oh, God,” Alyssa groaned. “Listen, you know-maybe it’s time for me to drive,” Fairy said

“Like, right now. Totally.”

The hangar area was deserted, dark and cold, and moving the car, for the first five hundred yards, was not a problem. But outside the gate, after she turned down the hill, a cop car came around a corner and fell in behind her.

Fairy was sitting on a plastic sheet; and became so obsessively careful, so slow and purposeful with her turn lights, that she flashed on the possibility that he’d check to see if she were drunk. When she turned the corner at the bottom of the hill, on Concord, he followed after her, and stayed behind. When she turned left, off Concord, though, he went on, apparently never giving her a thought.

She exhaled, and touched her forehead, found cold sweat. Nothing ever goes as planned. Never.

Instead of driving directly to the site where she planned to burn the car, she did a couple of laps around the neighborhood, checking for police. And she said, “I can feel you there, Alyssa, you’re slowing me down.”

They had decided to burn the car against a chain- link fence, in a patch of weeds, behind a warehouse wall, where the view to the street would be blocked. If the fire was low enough, it might not be discovered for quite a while, she thought. Nothing was moving along her dirt road behind the place when she pulled in and killed the lights. She sat for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom, then slipped out of the car.

Cold. Colder than it felt in her driveway, or up at the airport. She shivered, looked around, couldn’t see much; security lights down the way. She could hear cars from over on Concord… but nothing else.

The gas can was there, on the backseat. After a last look, she reached in and tipped it upside down between the front and back seats. The gas poured onto the floorboards; she got the gas- soaked rag out of the Ziploc bag, stretched it out, ten feet; waited for the gurgling to stop in the back of the car, looked around one last time, stressed, jittery, got a matchbook from her pocket, stood back from the end of the fuse, dropped a match on it, and turned to run.

Match went out: no fire. Went back, lit another match-the thick odor of gasoline flowed around the car-and dropped the match again and started to run. Stopped, almost started back, when she saw the fire start, and then begin working down the fuse.

She ran. She was a hundred feet away when the car went up with a huge WHOOOMMP and she thought ohmigod and the fire climbed higher than the roof of the warehouse, a pyramid of smoke and flame probably visible for a mile around, and she dug in and ran, and ran, and crossed the street and ran up the hill and in the distance, heard the sirens…

Later, in the night. At Frank Willett’s house, a snug little ranch, with the incriminating knife in her pocket, she jogged along the street, away from her car, watching, watching, was about to turn in at the front door when she saw a woman walking toward her, on the other side of the street, carrying a grocery sack, and she went on by the house, turning her face away from the woman, jogging and thinking, Nothing ever goes as planned.

She jogged back, five minutes later, and this time, made the move.

And it went as planned… Why was that? she wondered.