The Last House on Needless Street(36)

I run out into the storm.

It’s still late afternoon but the cloud casts shadow over everything so it looks like dusk. Rain hits the puddles like bullets. The lot is filled with trucks and vans and I can’t see her anywhere. Then I do, at the far end of the lot, sitting in the warm-lit bubble of her small car. Her face is wet with rain, or she’s crying. She still has her driver’s side door open, as if even now she hasn’t quite decided to leave. She adjusts the blue thing around her neck, fumbles in her purse and finds Kleenex. She dries her face, and blows her nose. I am very moved by her poise and her courage. She stood up to life by coming out to meet me – life knocked her down, of course, because I didn’t show up – but look at her. She’s drying her face, about to pick herself up again. That’s the kind of person Olivia or Lauren could rely on. Those are the qualities I’m looking for in a friend. Someone who would be there for them, if I disappeared.

I bow my head into the billowing rain and go down the row of parked cars towards her.





Dee





‘You said you would help,’ Ted says.

‘What?’ It’s early on a Sunday morning, and Ted is on Dee’s doorstep. Her heart begins to pound, splashy and loud. In that moment she is convinced that he knows who she is and why she is here. Get a grip, Dee Dee, she tells herself. Nobody gets murdered on a grey Sunday morning. But they do, of course. She yawns to cover her fear, rubs the sleep from her eyes.

Ted shifts on his feet. His beard looks even thicker and redder than usual, skin whiter, eyes smaller and blearier. ‘You said if there was something I couldn’t do, uh, because of my arm, you would help out. Maybe you didn’t mean it.’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s this jar,’ he says. ‘I can’t open it.’

‘Hand it over.’ Dee turns the lid hard, and it yields quickly. Inside the empty jar is a note. It reads, in neat block letters, let’s go out for drinks.

‘Cute,’ she says. She keeps her face still while her mind races.

‘I mean as friends,’ he says quickly. ‘Tonight?’

‘Uh,’ she says.

‘Only, I go away a lot.’

‘Oh,’ Dee says.

‘I might be spending more time at my weekend place, soon.’

‘A cabin?’ Dee says.

‘Kind of.’

‘Up by the lake, I suppose.’ Her heart is pounding. ‘That’s a lovely spot.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t know it.’

‘Well, we’d better have that drink before you disappear.’

‘I’ll meet you at that bar off the 101,’ he says. ‘Seven p.m.?’

‘Sounds good,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you there.’

‘Cool,’ he says. ‘Great. Sayonara!’ He stumbles a little as he backs away from her, and almost falls, but he recovers just in time.

‘Well,’ she says as she comes into her living room. ‘I’ve got a date.’

The yellow-eyed cat lifts her head. She and Dee have a good understanding. Neither of them likes to be touched.

Dee says, ‘It has to be tonight, before he fixes the window.’ She wonders who she is trying to persuade. Get it done.

At 6.30 p.m., in the silvered near-dark, Dee is crouched in her living room by the shuttered window, watching Ted’s house. In this light everything has a velvet quality. The world looks mythical and interesting. She waits, legs cramping, as she hears the turning of three locks next door. The back door opens and closes. The locks turn again. Ted’s steps fade and she hears his truck start. She waits five minutes and then slides up the wall, muscles trembling. She goes quietly out of her back door and steps over the fence into Ted’s back yard. She is somewhat screened from the alley by the timothy and pampas grass that grows wild, here. But she had better hurry. She goes to Ted’s rear living-room window and takes the clawhammer from the pocket of her overalls. She pries the nails from the plywood that covers the window. They come out with little reluctant squeaks, but at last the sheet loosens and she pulls it free. The latch on this window has rusted through. She noticed it when she was in the house. He must have forgotten about it, after he boarded them up. She slides the sash upwards. Paint flakes scatter like snow or falling ash.

Let me in – let me in. But Dee is the ghost at the window now. She throws her leg over the sill. Inside, she is immediately filled with the sensation of being watched. She stands in the green living room, breathing the dust, and lets her eyes take in the dark. Ted’s house smells strongly of vegetable soup and old, used-up air. If sorrow had a scent, she thinks, this is what it would be like.

‘Here, kitty, kitty,’ she says softly. ‘Are you there, cat?’ Nothing stirs. She should take Ted’s cat with her when she goes, she thinks. This is no life for the poor thing. For a moment she catches the gleam of eyes, regarding her from the corner of the room, but it’s just streetlight reflecting off a dented silver box. It’s the only thing on the dusty mantel. There is a bare patch in the dust, as if a picture frame or something recently stood there.

She moves quickly; there isn’t a lot of time. Through the living room, kitchen. The freezer lies open, door propped against the wall. There is no basement that she can see. She lifts the rugs and looks underneath, treads the boards carefully, looking for a trap door.