Mulch Read online

  Did she detect a little self-satisfaction in the woman’s cool voice?

  “And, of course, I teach, and surely, teaching is the best part of it—I love the young people. So no one except my Ron would call me a raging success, but at least I’ve developed a fulfilling life. I’ve given myself a voice. I think you would be happier if you did that, too.”

  Louise searched her mind for a way to tell her neighbor how bad things really were with her. Finally she decided to tell her something that she had not even told her husband, for fear he would worry. “Nora, it’s not only the police and the press that are distracting. It’s that woman herself, the woman in the leaf bags. She appears to me in my dreams.”

  Louise was unprepared for the effect of these words. Nora swayed forward and with a trembling hand tamped out her cigarette in the ashtray. Then she moved warily back into the sofa pillows, as if trying to evade a ghostly presence hovering about the room. Louise realized that the calm-appearing Nora was just as much on edge as she was herself. But now all the pretenses were gone.

  “I sensed it,” said Nora, her pained eyes on Louise’s. “I sensed that the woman haunts you, too. I was trying desperately not to talk about it, to talk about anything but it. But now that I hear that you’re having nightmares like me …”

  “Almost every night.”

  “Oh, Louise, the plight of that woman horrifies me. I feel as if I have entered her consciousness—her, and all the women victims that I read about in the news each day. Beaten. Sometimes slaughtered. Left like dross.”

  Her voice dropped even lower, so that Louise had to lean toward her to hear her. “This woman’s murder has invaded my psyche, to the point that I sit in this house day after day, writing about it. Can you imagine what happened to her that night, or was it night? What kind of betrayal took place? How did he trap her to kill her? Was there a chase, and then he caught her? Or did he even have to pursue her: perhaps she simply tumbled willingly into his arms. And the saw: did he use a saw?”

  The eyes pleaded with Louise for understanding. “You see, don’t you, that I am obsessed?”

  Then abruptly she released Louise’s arm and shrank back into the cushions.

  Louise’s mouth was agape, her breathing unsteady. Nora was a tormented woman. And she had just opened a Pandora’s box of appalling images that Louise herself had kept carefully locked away.

  Yes, she fretted almost daily about the unsolved murder and dreamed about it at night. But with great effort, she had forbidden herself to humanize the murdered woman; being newly-moved to a new place, and unsettled in every other aspect of her life, it would have been the last straw. It would have reduced her to the state of the distraught woman sitting beside her on the couch. She looked over at Nora. Had she invited her here simply to spill out her own agony?

  Nora sat forward again, recovering a little, as if remembering she was the hostess for tea. “Forgive me, Louise. I see you don’t want to talk about it, and I can fully understand that. But you should be terribly cautious.”

  “And I am….”

  The poet shook her head slowly. “Oh no. I’m sure you think you are taking care, but there is something different about this murder. I feel it, rather than know it….” For a long moment, she stared out the big front windows. Louise, following her gaze, saw her own yard across the cul-de-sac, the house and studio obscured by the leafless trees, but still faintly visible. “It’s not all in my head: There are strange things going on about your house, didn’t you know? I am up late often and I’ve seen a figure about your place.” The slim hand came out again and clutched Louise’s hand, and the gray eyes locked on hers. “Oh, my dear, please tell Bill to take good care of you.”

  “But it could have just been a reporter hanging around—they are pests. When did you see this person?”

  “That’s it. I think it was even before the—the leaf bags were even opened. I would have called you, but it was so furtive—so fleeting…. Once, Sam Rosen even turned the lights on when I thought I saw him.” Nora rose restlessly from the couch and lit up another cigarette.

  Louise sat there, trying to remember that time period. She was fairly certain Sam, too, had seen or heard something. She shivered, though the room was warm.

  Nora suddenly looked tired and drawn, standing there like a figure out of a Greek tragedy. “I’m so, so sorry, Louise. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I shouldn’t have shared my private nightmares with you.” Her gaze dropped modestly, as if she were ashamed to reveal what she next was going to say. “I … have always had this terrible talent, or curse—some kind of ESP—that gives me forebodings of danger….” She stared at Louise.

  “Danger for whom?”

  Nora continued to look at her without answering, and Louise felt almost suffocated in the atmosphere of near-terror that filled the room. She felt her temperature suddenly rise, and a desperate need to flee. She put a hand on either side of her body, ready to heave herself out of the couch. Then she changed her mind, sat back, and smoothed her hands against the plush cushions. She forced her body to stay very still, waiting for this moment to end.

  She and Nora exchanged a long look. Then she took a deep, measured breath.

  Nora had terrified her, but only for a few moments. She had called on her strengths—her sanguine nature and her Midwestern common sense—to override what she now decided were Nora’s honest but neurotic fears about the strange death.

  A death that probably would have no further impact on any of their lives except for the residual nightmares.

  Nora watched Louise’s face closely. Then she lifted her chin a little. “I see you have no fear. You are probably right: You mustn’t pay attention to my wanderings. As Ron tells me, they’re the product of a fevered poetic imagination. Everything I’ve said mustn’t stop you. That poor woman is dead and gone, and you are alive. In the end, the very worst thing that can happen to you is centering your energies on all this, and not centering them on your work. You have something to say, and you must get back to work.”

  Louise left soon after, embracing Nora before she went. Worrying a little about this sensitive new friend, who spent each day across the street from her, brooding and writing on the subject of victimized women. With brow furrowed, she walked through the front yard, trying to leave the memory of the conversation behind her.

  Almost immediately, she was distracted by the fall outfits of Nora’s plants—the silken seed pods of the anemone, the spiky pods of the eryngium, and, since there had been no hard freeze yet, the still-blooming masses of some marigold species, with their spidery foliage, and inch-wide, single white blossoms with black button eyes, straying gracefully down a hilly garden that faced south. Nora’s psyche may have been haunted by dark fears, but she had a garden of pure delight.

  Once at the street, Louise started to hurry. She was practically running by the time she reached her own yard. She paused uncertainly at the front door. Yes, dinner could wait! She turned into the hut instead, where she flicked on the electric heat unit. Why bother with a wood fire?

  Nora was right about one thing: Time was precious. She sat, turned on the computer, and went to work.

  But her neighbor’s nightmares had made their imprint. She went back to the door and carefully shot the bolt before returning to her keyboard.

  14

  Getting Warmer

  A SOFT, DAMP NOVEMBER BREEZE BLEW through the woods as Chris and Janie made their way by the light of an almost full moon. It was a freakish fall night, as warm as if Indian summer had never departed. A good night for investigating.

  Janie was carrying her favorite stick, and Chris had acquired one by snapping a dead branch off a tree. “This way, we’re both armed,” he said with a smile. She smiled back, trying to shake an agonizing self-consciousness.

  Because of a break in the tall trees, a patch of moonlight lay on the path ahead of them. Chris grabbed Janie’s arm and stopped her. “Look, Janie, a little pool of moonlight. Let’s stand in it.” The
y moved into the magic spot. Then he pointed up to the nearly perfect circle of light above them. “And look up there. Isn’t that a neat moon? They say people are driven mad by a full moon.” He looked at her, his eyes shining, his blond hair unkempt. “Do you believe that could be true?”

  She threw back her long blond hair, cricked her neck, and squinted up at the moon. “Of course it’s true. Haven’t you ever seen The Wolf man?” Then she stepped out of the light and ran down the dark path. Chris ran until he caught up with her and then they both slowed down.

  “You’re not very scientific, are you?” he prodded. Janie felt very small; she knew he was a science whiz.

  He prattled on: “You don’t think that could be true, I bet. But cosmic things affect you. The moon affects the tides. You know that, don’t you? Why shouldn’t it have some effect on the mind? By the way, are you taking any science this year?”

  “Of course I am—biology. But I don’t know yet if I’m scientific. I think the right side of my brain is the dominant side.”

  “Hmm, right-hand side, huh? Didja ever read the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain? It shows you how you can use the right side of your brain and become artistic, even draw stuff.”

  “I’m trying to tell you that’s the kind of book I don’t have to read. The kind I have to read is about Einstein’s theory of relativity, or something.”

  Chris shrugged and beat his stick against the small shrub trees on the side of the path. “I can see we’ll never be in a science class together. I’m way ahead of you. But anyway we can get scientific about this investigation. Where’re we going, for instance?”

  “I wanted to come this way, because this is where the man scared me.”

  “What man scared you?”

  “We’re coming to it; that big place up there.”

  “Oh. That’s the Hoffmans’. He’s some big shot. No kids.”

  “He has a workshop in the backyard.”

  “Good for cutting up bodies!”

  “Oh yeah, I bet. It’s a really fancy house; he must have lots of money.”

  “Who says he killed for money?”

  “Who says he killed? I’m just telling you, I went up in his yard and peeked in his workshop and he didn’t like it. Then I dropped my stick and he threw it at me, only it missed and landed in the creek there.” She pointed to the small stream to the left of the path.

  “So what does he have to do with anything?”

  “Only that when I went back to get my stick the next day, he had pulled the shades down on the windows in that workshop—see it right there? The shades are still pulled down; they’re always pulled down now when I walk through here. I guess he didn’t like me messing around his yard.”

  “Well, put him on our list of suspicious persons. But we’re headed somewhere else, right? Where did you and your mother go to get those bags of leaves? And by the way”—Chris paused and looked carefully at Janie—“isn’t your mother a little odd, I mean, to go around and—”

  “No,” said Janie firmly. “I don’t want to hear that any more. She’s just an organic gardener. She can’t help it; she’s no worse than my great-grandmother, who had a farm in Illinois. She used to bury garbage in the garden and mulch like mad. You know about mulching, I suppose? But I swear: Otherwise, she’s pretty normal. Now she might get some little job writing gardening articles, but like your mom, that wouldn’t get her out of the house.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.” Chris threw back his head to get his long hair out of his face. “I think it’s very good for mothers to get out of the house.”

  “And as for my great-grandmother, know what happened to her? She’s old and in a wheelchair, but she still gives other people advice on gardening. They take her around from the Home to different places so she can give lectures.”

  “Your mom’s just like your great-grandmother.”

  “’Cept when Great Gram could still walk, she and my mom looked really funny together—like Mutt and Jeff. Great Gram is tiny, and Ma’s pretty tall.”

  He looked down at her. “So? You and I are a lot alike, and look how different we look.”

  She smiled. “Yeah—you’re ugly, and I’m beautiful.” Suddenly self-conscious, she added brusquely, “Let’s get going—it’s not far.”

  They walked to the end of the park in the woods and turned right onto Martha’s Lane. “It’s down at the end. Race you!” And she sprinted down the asphalt street. Chris followed and they were neck and neck. Then Chris surged ahead and out of sight.

  Janie slowed to a walk, and Chris trotted around in a circle and came back to walk in tandem again. “Which house?” he asked quietly.

  She pointed. “The one with all the bushes and trees in front.” They walked across the parkway in front of the house, the leaves crunching underfoot.

  “You picked up leaf bags right here?”

  “Right here,” said Janie, and pointed out the spot.

  “But the yard is still all filled with leaves. It’s a woodsy yard, just like ours. You don’t even rake them.”

  “They must have a lawn in the backyard that they raked,” said Janie.

  Chris looked at her, as if to gauge her mettle. “Want to go look?”

  “Okay.” Janie’s heart was thumping again.

  With care they walked up toward the house, past the shield of evergreens that hid the front door from the street.

  “Look at all those ads thrown on the front porch,” whispered Chris. “There’s nobody home here. Let’s go out back.” He led the way into the backyard. There was a large lawn strewn with leaves and beyond it a thick woods.

  They stood for an instant, taking it all in. Then Chris looked at Janie, another challenge in his gray eyes. “Nobody’s around. Let’s go peek in the house.”

  They made their way quietly across the yard and looked through a crack in the drawn curtains. Two table lamps threw dim light on the room. “It’s pretty,” whispered Janie, “all rose and white. It looks like nobody lives here.”

  “Maybe used to, but doesn’t any more,” whispered Chris. “This place is creepy.”

  Janie looked at him in alarm. “I think I’m getting scared.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you. C’mon.” He took her hand and they made their way back to the front yard and the street. “All I can say is, it doesn’t look like anyone raked leaves around here.”

  “It’s probably a new leaf fall.”

  “Leaf fall,” said Chris sarcastically, dropping her hand. “Where’d you get that expression?”

  “Trees have a succession of leaf falls. Oak leaves hold on later than other leaves. Look up there.” She stopped and pointed to a tree outlined in the moonlight. Colonies of silvery leaves still clung to the black branches. “See, they still have, oh, I’d say about ten percent of their leaves. They stay there all winter, through all the wind and snow and rain. Then they let go in spring.”

  “Huh, ‘let go in spring,’” said Chris, scuffing his tennis shoes against the asphalt. “‘Successive leaf falls.’ Who talks like that?”

  Janie gave him a smug smile. “My mother.” Then she took off with her long, thin legs and ran toward home.

  15

  Going Under

  “YOU’RE SURE YOU DON’T WANT ME TO GO with you or meet you there?”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  “Where is the office?”

  “Dupont Circle. I know just where it is. I applied for a job at a building not far from it.”

  “It’s not five minutes away from me, if you want me to come.”

  “What would you do? You can’t come with me. How can I be hypnotized with my husband holding my hand?”

  “It would really help things if you remember something.”

  “You mean they would get off your back, quit coming to your office to question you and making you feel like a criminal?”

  “Well. You’re crusty today.”

  “I guess I am. Maybe I’ll feel bet
ter when we see each other again tonight.”

  “Good-bye, dear.”

  “Good-bye. By the way, can we trade cars, please? I’d like to listen to my Miles Davis tape.”

  “Good idea. Will jazz get you in the mood to be hypnotized?”

  “I’ll let you know later.”

  “Okay. ’Bye, Louise.”

  It was cold again so she put on her full-length wool coat and dress boots and went out to his car. The white Camry. It started up at the turn of the key. Its still-new smell and plush interior gave her a shock, although she and Bill traveled in it frequently on weekends. Her six-year-old wagon, redolent with the smells of cow manure, was like a creature apart from this sleek one she drove today.

  It was a point of difference between her and Bill. He had to have his fancy car. Out of some leftover student rebellion—or was it from her minister, who constantly spoke against materialism like a prophet crying in the wilderness?—she disdained new possessions and favored the old. She knew one thing: No one would ever steal her car, while this white job would make a good candidate, especially if she parked it on the street in the rather questionable neighborhood in downtown Washington that was her destination.

  She turned on Miles Davis and let her mind ride free. Just as she feared, this was becoming another winter of her discontent.

  Bill was all settled in his job. Janie and faraway Martha were both snuggled in again with their schools and friends. She had tried, and tried again, and still no job. Her closest companion had been a sodden contractor who had occupied her life when they moved in. Now even he was gone. She refused to wimp out and become a volunteer again. Both in foreign service posts abroad and in their homes here in the States she had been the consummate volunteer—the one who set up children’s library reading programs, fund-raisers, whatever was needed most and was up her alley. No more; her next job was going to yield a paycheck. And she might have a job, if that garden book editor would only call her.

  In the meantime people thought of her as an unemployed housewife. Not only that—the unemployed housewife who had found the body parts in the mulch!