A Winter Haunting

TWENTY-TWO

DURINGtheir last months together, before and after the late-spring blizzard that had snowed them in at the ranch, Clare and Dale had spoken—at first via banter but then more seriously—about being together. Clare had been accepted into an elite medieval studies graduate program at Princeton and would be leaving in July to meet some of the other anointed scholars there and prepare for the coming years. In June, Dale heard himself offer to join her there so that they could be together.

“I’ll finish the fall semester, take that sabbatical I’ve been putting off, and head your way.”

“What would you do there?” asked Clare. “Around Princeton?”

“Maybe they need a lit teacher. Some nontenure-track guy to teach freshman comp.”

Clare said nothing, but her silence showed her skepticism.

“Seriously,” said Dale, “what am I going to do here in Missoula without you? I’d be like Marley’s ghost hanging around someplace that’s dead to me.”

“Isn’t it the ghost who’s supposed to be dead?” said Clare. “Not the place?”

“Whatever,” said Dale. “Actually, I’ve always thought that it was the ghost who was vital and the place that died. That’s why ghosts can be seen—they’re more real than the thin, faded version of the place. You know, like Lincoln’s ghost in the White House.”

“Interesting,” said Clare. They were cleaning out the stables at the ranch, and now she paused to rest on a pitchfork. “You’re serious? About coming east?”

“Absolutely,” said Dale. He realized even as he said it that he had not been serious, not up to that moment, but that now the plan meant more to him than anything else in the world. At the same instant, he felt the relationship between them swing as if on the hinge of his intentions; up to that moment he had been the locus, his hometown, his university, his classes that she was auditing, his family here in Missoula to be dealt with—but now he would be the guest, she the focus of action and attention. As if acknowledging this further, Dale said, “What I’ll really do is write my serious novel and learn how to be a good house husband while you’re at the library studying The Song of Roland or whatever the hell it is. When you come home in the wee hours, I’ll have a hot meal waiting and give you a back rub when we go to bed.”

Clare had looked up at him then, almost startled, with something like alarm visible in her eyes in the instant before she looked back toward the horses. Perhaps, Dale thought, it had been the use of the word husband. Whatever the reason, her glance had given him the first solid foreboding of their final breakup just three months in the future.

As if denying the possibility of that, he had stepped forward then, pushed her pitchfork away, and hugged her tightly, feeling her soft breasts through the denim workshirt. If there was a second or two of awkwardness on her part, it fled as soon as she returned the hug and raised her face for a kiss. One of the horses—Mab’s roan, probably—showed jealousy by kicking the stall gate.

Someone was knocking on the door.

Dale struggled awake, registered that he was lying on the daybed in Mr. McBride’s study still fully clothed and that his head still hurt like a sonofabitch, and then the pounding resumed. He looked at his watch. 9:15A.M. —they had promised to have people here for the search at first light. “Goddamnit to hell,” muttered Dale.

Groaning, rubbing his whiskered cheeks, he went out to let Deputy Taylor in.

“Where are they?” asked Dale as the heavyset deputy stepped into the kitchen, swinging his arms to get warm and eyeing the empty coffeemaker. Taylor had obviously also just been awakened.

“You’re supposed to come with me,” said the deputy, nodding toward his idling car outside.

“What are you talking about? Deputy Presser said he’d bring some people at first light for the search and. . .”

“I got a radio call. You’re supposed to come with me right now.”

“To the sheriff’s office?” asked Dale. “Have they found Michelle?” Dale’s skin went cold then with the absolute certainty that they had found her body.

Deputy Taylor shook his head, although Dale couldn’t guess which part of the question he was answering. Hopefully both parts. “You gotta come now,” the deputy said, pulling Dale’s peacoat from the hook.

“Do I have time to grab a quick shower and change my clothes?”

“I don’t think so,” said the chubby deputy, holding out the peacoat.

“Am I under arrest? Do I have to ride in the back of your car?”

The question seemed to surprise the deputy. For a few seconds he could only blink. Then he said, “Uh-uh,” but without conviction.

“In that case,” said Dale, “I’m going to go brush my teeth. That’s non-negotiable.”

Dale rode up front, in silence. The clouds were low and leaden this Christmas morning, and it was beginning to snow with that slow steadiness that often meant a real accumulation. Dale was surprised when Taylor turned into Elm Haven rather than taking the road to Oak Hill, but he knew where they were headed as soon as the car turned north on Broad Avenue.

The old Staffney house and barn looked in bad shape in the dim light, paint missing, the barn leaning, all the windows dark. The only vehicle in the driveway was another Sheriff’s Department car. Deputy Presser came out from around the back of the house as Taylor led Dale down the driveway.

“Michelle?” said Dale. The cold hand closed around his heart again. If she had driven here, injured, it was possible she could have died here in the house that she and that Diane woman had been renovating. But the deputies said yesterday that the house was empty. And her truck’s not here.

Deputy Presser shook his head and led them up onto the back porch. He used a key to let them in the back door.

“Don’t you need a warrant for this?” asked Dale, following Presser into the cold kitchen. The place smelled of mildew and rat droppings.

“The Staffneys don’t own it any more,” said Presser, sliding his hands back in his jacket pockets. It was colder in the kitchen than outside. “The bank over in Princeville has had the paper on this place since Dr. Staffney’s wife died in the home a few years ago.”

“But Michelle said. . .” began Dale and stopped. He realized that the kitchen was not just empty, it was abandoned. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling, exposing the bare ribs of lathing, and cabinet doors had long since been ripped off. Dust and droppings and chunks of plaster lay everywhere on the counters. Sections of the tile floor had been torn up and other sections destroyed by a leak from the ceiling. The ancient stove had been pulled out of place, with parts of it missing. There was no refrigerator. Pipes and gas valves and plumbing had been disconnected. The sink itself was filled with broken glass and mold, as if someone had broken bottles in there and left it many years before.

“I don’t understand,” said Dale. “Michelle said that she and her friend had been working on the place, bringing it up to snuff so that she could sell it.”

“Yes,” said Deputy Presser. “That’s what you told us last night.” He gestured for Deputy Taylor to hand him the long flashlight, flicked it on, and nodded for Dale to follow him down the hall into the other rooms.

Dale stopped in shock at the end of the stale-smelling, plaster-cluttered hallway. What had been a downstairs bathroom to the right showed a toilet ripped out of the floor, broken ceramic in the shattered sink, and an empty spot where an old claw-footed bathtub might once have crouched. The dining room and living room were worse.

The broad wooden boards in both rooms had been torn out, leaving only the upright edges of obviously rotted two-by-fours with a black drop to the unlighted basement visible between them. Even if the three men could have tiptoed successfully across the old support beams, there was nowhere to go; the once-grand staircase to the second floor was completely gone. Someone had long since torn out and scavenged all of the stairs, banisters, newel posts, and fixtures. Above the huge hole to the basement where the stairway once rose, the ceiling had collapsed. Dale could see all the way through the hole to the broken second-floor ceilings and even through the water-damaged roof to the low clouds. It looked to Dale like photos from London during the Blitz, some buzz-bombed tenement in Soho. Snow blew down the ruined shaft and disappeared into the basement, white flecks being absorbed by absolute black.

“She said that she and the Diane woman were fixing it up. . .” he began again and then stopped. I dropped Michelle off here after I saved her from the black dogs at the schoolyard that night. She went inside. I told the deputies this.

Dale fell silent and just watched the two men watching him. “You knew this in the middle of the night at the hospital when you were taking my statement over and over,” he said.

Deputy Presser nodded. “We knew that no one has lived here or stayed here in the past ten years. We know more now. Go with Deputy Taylor in his car.” Presser turned on his heel and clomped out of the dead building.

Dale had imagined the sheriff’s office to be in the tall old courthouse on Oak Hill’s central square, but it turned out to be in a low, 1960s-modern brick building a block from the courthouse. There were a few offices with venetian blinds closed, an artificial Christmas tree with one string of colored lights blinking on the dispatcher/receptionist’s counter, and enough cubicles for four or five deputies. Presser had Dale walk back to the furthest cubicle, where two glass walls met. The view was across the street to Gold’s Deluxe Bowling Center. The building was boarded and closed.

Well,thought Dale as the deputy waved him to an empty chair, at least they haven’t booked and fingerprinted me yet.

“Deputy,” he began, “I swear I don’t understand. Michelle told me that she and the other woman were living in that house when I met her. . . saw her here in Oak Hill for the first time a few weeks ago. That’s where she had me drop her off the night she called me about the dogs by the school. The sheriff can verify that. . .”

Presser held up one hand in the same motion he had used to silence Deputy Reiss. Dale shut up.

“Mr. Stewart,” said Deputy Presser, “I need to tell you about your rights. The sheriff has called me—he’s going to be back late tomorrow or early the next day—and he wants to talk to you, but he’s authorized me to carry out this interview. You have the right to remain silent. . .”

“Oh, Jesus,” said Dale. “Am I a suspect?”

“Let’s say that you need to know your rights right now,” said the deputy. “You’ve probably heard this a million times on TV, but I’ve got to do it. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. . .”

“Christ,” repeated Dale. He felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of him again. His headache throbbed. “So I’m a suspect in Michelle’s disappearance.”

“No, you’re not,” said Presser. “Anything you do say can be held against you in a court of law. Now, would you like to call an attorney, Mr. Stewart?”

“No,” Dale said dully, knowing that he was being a fool and not caring.

“I’m going to turn on this tape recorder, Mr. Stewart. Are you aware of it and do you agree to me taping this interview?”

“Yes.” It was an old-fashioned reel-to-reel recorder, and Dale could see the reels turning, the brown tape sliding through its gate as Presser spoke into the microphone, giving the date and time of the interview, giving Dale’s full name and his own, and positioning the microphone on the desk. Both the deputy’s voice and his own sounded very distant to Dale. “If I’m not a suspect in Michelle’s disappearance, what am I being read my rights for? What other crime has been committed?”

“I’ll ask the questions during this interview,” Deputy Presser said flatly. “But I will tell you that it’s against the law to file a false report alleging that a crime or kidnapping or violent incident has occurred when it has not.”

Dale felt like laughing. “Oh, a violent incident has happened all right, Deputy. And Michelle Staffney is out there somewhere, possibly dying, because we’re wasting time here with you interviewing me. That’s the crime.”

“Mr. Stewart,” Presser said, obviously ignoring everything Dale had just said, “would you please read this?” He opened a thin file folder and slid a printout across the desk to Dale.

Dale first noticed the black-and-white photo of Michelle Staffney in the left column. The AP article was dated a little less than two years earlier.

HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER CHARGED WITH DOUBLE MURDER

Hollywood producer Ken Curtis was arraigned today in Los Angeles Superior Court for the January 23rd shooting murder of his wife, actress Mica Stouffer, and her alleged lover, Diane Villanova. Ms. Stouffer, the screen name for Michelle Staffney Curtis, had been separated from her husband for three months but was still involved in what friends called “a stormy relationship” with the producer. Curtis pleaded not guilty today and it is expected that his attorney, Martin Shapiro, will invoke the insanity defense. “Ken was obviously not in control of his faculties at the time,” Shapiro told reporters.

Curtis is known primarily as the producer of the successful Die Free films starring Val Kilmer. Mica Stouffer, a member of SAG for thirty-one years, had done bit parts for most of that time. Diane Villanova, with whom Ms. Stouffer was living for two months prior to the fatal shooting, was a screenwriter with such credits as Fourth Dimension and All the Pretty Birds Come Home to Roost.

Both Stouffer and Villanova were pronounced dead on the scene at Ms. Villanova’s Bel Air apartment last January 23 after neighbors called the police about—

Dale quit reading and set the piece of paper on the desk. “This has got to be a mistake,” he said thickly. “A joke of some kind. . .”

Deputy Presser removed two more pages from the file, slick old-fashioned thermal fax pages this time, and slid them across to Dale. “Can you identify either of these women, Mr. Stewart?”

They were morgue photographs. The first photograph was of Michelle—mouth open, eyes almost closed, but with a slit of white showing from beneath the heavy eyelids. She was on her back and topless to the waist, her perfect, pale augmented breasts flattened by gravity and the photographer’s flash. There were two perfectly rounded bullet holes at the top of her left breast and another—with a wider entrance wound—just below her throat. Another bullet hole was centered in a bruised discoloration in the center of her forehead.

“Michelle Staffney,” said Dale. His throat was so thick that he could hardly speak. He looked at the second photograph. “Christ,” he said.

“Curtis used a knife on her after he shot her,” said Deputy Presser.

“The hair and shape of the face looks like Diane. . . like the woman I met with Michelle. . . but. . . I don’t know.” He handed the photos back to Presser. “Look, your sheriff saw me with Michelle—with this woman.”

Presser just stared. “And when did you say that you first saw these two women in Oak Hill, Mr. Stewart?”

“I thought. . . I mean I saw them about six or seven weeks ago. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I think. . .” Dale stopped and shook his head. “Could I have a drink of water, Deputy Presser?”

“Larry!” shouted Presser. When the other deputy appeared, Presser sent him to the water cooler.

Dale’s hand was shaking fiercely as he lifted the little paper cup to drink. He was stalling for time, and he knew that Presser knew it. The deputy had paused the tape recorder, but now he started it again.

“Is this woman from the news reports—Mica Stouffer, aka Michelle Staffney—the same woman that you say was attacked by dogs and carried off at the McBride farm last night, Mr. Stewart?”

“Yes,” said Dale.

There was a long silence broken only by the tape hiss.

“Mr. Stewart, are you on any sort of medication?”

“Medication?” Dale had to stop and think a minute. “Yes, I am.”

“What kind is it, sir?”

“Ah. . . Prozac and flurazepam and doxepin. One’s an antidepressant. . .” As if the entire world doesn’t know that, thought Dale. “. . . and the others are to help me sleep.”

“Are these medications prescribed by a psychiatrist?” asked Deputy Presser.

Is it any of your goddamned business? thought Dale. He said, “Yes. They’re prescribed by a psychiatrist in Montana where I live.”

“And have you been taking them regularly?”

No, thought Dale. When was the last time he took his meds? Sometime before Thanksgiving? He could not remember. “I’ve missed some,” said Dale. “But I only take the doxepin and flurazepam to sleep and it was about time to wean myself from the Prozac anyway.”

“Did your psychiatrist say to do that?”

Dale hesitated.

“Are you on any psychoactive or psychotropic drugs, Mr. Stewart? Any medications for schizophrenia or similar disturbances?”

“No,” Dale said, more stridently than he should have. “No.” At this point in a movie, Dale would be screaming, Look, I’m not crazy!, but the truth was that this had hit him like a sledgehammer and he suspected that perhaps he was coming unhinged. Unless he was dreaming this encounter with the deputy, then some other memory was false. The photograph of Michelle, dead, cold on a Los Angeles morgue slab, had been real enough. Perhaps Michelle has a twin sister. . .

Right, Dale mentally answers himself. Has a twin sister who comes back to Elm Haven with this Diane Villanova person’s twin sister, and then passes herself off as Michelle Staffney for no reason. . . Dale shook his aching head. He remembered the Staffney family from when he had lived in Elm Haven forty years ago. Michelle had no sisters.

“Mr. Stewart?”

Dale looked up. He realized that he had been cradling his head, perhaps muttering to himself. “My head hurts,” he said.

Deputy Presser nodded. The tape recorder was still running. “Do you want to change the statement you made to us about the dogs attacking you and Miz Michelle Staffney?”

Still rubbing his head, Dale asked, “What’s the penalty for false reporting, Deputy?”

Presser shrugged, but punched the PAUSE button on the recorder. “Depends on the circumstances, Mr. Stewart. Tell you the truth, this situation’s mostly been inconvenience, it being Christmas Eve when you called for help, what with only four people on duty last night and you tying up three of them and all. But as far as I can see, no real harm’s been done yet. And you obviously did injure your head last night, Mr. Stewart. That can cause some funny reactions sometimes. Do you remember how you hurt your head?”

The hellhounds knocked me against the door while they were ripping Michelle apart and dragging her into the dark, thought Dale. Aloud, he said, “I’m not sure now. I know how crazy this sounds, Deputy.”

Presser started the recorder again. “Do you wish to change any of your statement, Mr. Stewart?”

Dale rubbed his scalp again, feeling the stitches there and also feeling the pain and throbbing just under the bone of the skull. He wondered if he had suffered a concussion. “I’ve been depressed, Deputy Presser. My doctor—Dr. Charles Hall in Missoula—prescribed Prozac and some sleeping medication, but I’ve been busy and—upset—in recent weeks and forgot to take it. I admit that I haven’t been sleeping much. I’m not sure how I hurt my head last night and Michelle. . . well, I can’t explain that, except to say that things have been a bit confused for me the last few months.” Suddenly he looked up at the deputy. “She brought a ham.”

“Pardon me?” said Presser.

“Michelle brought a ham. We ate it yesterday. And some wine. Two bottles. Red. That’s something physical. We can check that. Maybe some other woman who. . . anyway, we can check the ham and the wine.”

“Yes,” said Presser. “I have Deputy Reiss out doing that today. We found a receipt in the Corner Pantry bag in your kitchen. Deputy Reiss is going to talk to Ruthie over at the Corner Pantry and then visit the few liquor stores in the county.”

“You searched my kitchen?” Dale said stupidly.

“You gave us permission last night to search the house,” Deputy Presser said stiffly.

“Yeah.” Dale lifted the small cup to drink some more water, found it empty, crumpled the cup, and tossed it into a wastebasket. “Am I under arrest, Deputy?”

Presser shut off the recorder and shook his head. “I mentioned that the sheriff wants to talk to you tomorrow or the next day. We could keep you here until then. . .” Presser made a vague gesture toward the far wall, behind which Dale guessed there were jail cells. “But you might as well wait at your farm.”

Dale nodded and winced at the pain. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me my shotgun back. The black dogs might be real, you know.”

“Deputy Taylor’ll drive you back to the farm,” said Presser, ignoring Dale’s question about the over-and-under. “Don’t go anywhere without letting us know. Don’t even think about leaving the county. But there’s one thing I think you should do, Mr. Stewart.”

Dale waited.

“Call this Dr. Hall,” said Presser.