Generation Loss (23 page)

When
I was raped, I ran into one of those Furies. Over the years, I became one
myself.

But
if there is an opposite to whatever I am, it—he—was lying there in front of me.
As I stared at him I realized that what I had first sensed outside the motel
room, that black roil of damage ... it had nothing to do with Gryffin Haselton,
nothing at all. He’d looked at me, and Id seen a glimpse of myself in his eyes.
My own rage and fear had come back at me like bullets bouncing from a wall.

Nothing
else.

I
shot the last four frames. I steadied the camera on the edge of the desk so
that my shaking hands wouldn't ruin the exposure. Even so, I knew the images
would be blurred. Like when you're outside shooting the moon without a
tripod—no matter how hard you try to remain still, you move, and the moon
moves, and the earth moves. And the camera captures everything.

Now,
in Gryffin's room, very little seemed to be moving: but I knew the photos would
show differently. They would show how everything changes, a fraction of a
second at a time.
Death is the eidos of that Photograph,
Roland Barthes
wrote, but not even death is static like a picture is. If you look at a corpse
long enough, you see things move beneath the skin, as real and liquid as the
blood in your own veins.

Now
I saw a sleeping man, motionless. Four frames. When I was done, I rewound the
film inside the camera then removed the roll. I needed to hide it.

Gryffin
might find it in a drawer, or under the mattress. I saw the turtle shell on the
windowsill and remembered what I'd found in the room above the Island Store. I
picked up the shell, pressed my finger against the bit of carapace that formed
a trap door where the turtle's head had once retracted. It moved to reveal an
opening big enough for the roll of film.

I
slid it inside then shook the shell. The film didn't move; it was wedged tight.
I put the shell back on the windowsill, turned and watched Gryffin sleep.

Our
gaze changes all that it falls upon
.
. .

I never
wanted my gaze to change him.

But,
of course, it already had. I blew out the candle, removed my boots and leather
jacket, wrapped my camera in the jacket and set it on the floor.

Then
I pulled the blanket back and slipped beneath the covers. Gryffin made a small
questioning sound and shifted onto his side.

"It's
me," I whispered. "I'm cold."

"What?"
He mumbled and turned toward me. "Huh?"

"Cass.
There's no heat in my room. I'm freezing."

I
could see him frown. Then he shut his eyes.

"Whatever,"
he said, and put his arms around me. "Just go to sleep."

Gradually
the cold ebbed from my body; gradually the room grew light. I listened to the
humming in my head and the sound of Gryffin's breathing.

Finally
I slept. It wasn't exactly the sleep of the just. But for those few hours, it
was enough.

Part
Two

SHADOW
POINT

17

“Get
up.”

I
buried my face in the pillow and groaned.

"Get
up!'
The voice came again, louder. The bed shook. It was a moment before
I realized this was because someone had kicked it, another moment before I
figured out the someone was Gryffin. I rolled onto my back and stared up at
him, blinking in the morning light.

"What?"

"My
mother." He was fully dressed but looked terrible: unshaven, eyes
bloodshot, his face knotted with grief. "You have to get up. My mother's
dead."

"What?"
I sat up and felt as though someone had jabbed a steel rebar through my skull.
"Oh
shit!'

"For
God's sake." He lowered himself onto the bed. "Something happened,
she fell or something. She—"

He
covered his face with his hands and began to shake.

"Your
mother?" I didn't have to mime shock as memory overwhelmed me, her pallid
skin, the pinprick froth of red on her lips. "Gryffin . . ."

He
didn't look up. I touched his shoulder. "I'm sorry," I whispered, so
softly I wasn't sure he heard me. He turned, and I leaned against him. His
entire body shuddered as I stroked his arm.

At
last he pulled away. He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. "It's
terrible." His voice was raw. I wondered how long he'd been awake. "I
heard the dogs in there whining. She—it looks like she fell. By that goddamn
woodstove, she never even uses it—"

He
choked and got unsteadily to his feet. "You better get dressed and come
downstairs. The sheriff's on his way over."

"What?"

But
he was gone.

I
got up and dressed. I have as many words for "hangover" as an Inuit
has for snow. None of them did justice to how I felt. I tried to make myself
look presentable. I hadn't imagined I could feel any worse, but the thought of
being questioned by a cop pushed me close to panic. I popped another Adderall
and hoped it would kick in before the sheriff arrived.

I
went downstairs. The door to Aphrodite's room was shut.

I
found Gryffin in the kitchen. The deerhounds loped across the room to greet me,
whining. I looked at Gryffin.

He
sat staring out the window. It was overcast—high, swift-moving clouds but no
fog, just an endless expanse of steely water and sky. A raven pecked at
something on the gravel beach. On the horizon hung a ragged black shadow. Tolba
Island.

"There's
coffee," he said at last. He gestured toward the pot but didn't look at
me. I poured myself some then sat by the woodstove. After a minute, he turned.

"I
went up to let the dogs out. Usually they come downstairs if she's not awake.
It looks like she hit her head on the woodstove." His voice cracked, and
he took a gulp of coffee. "I—I guess she was drunk and she tripped. I
mean, every time I come here, I think I'm going to find something like this.
And now . . ."

He
squeezed his eyes shut. "God. Do you remember what time it was when we
came in? Was it around midnight?"

"Yeah,
something like that."

"And
you didn't see her, did you? Before you—before you came in to get warm."

"No."
I cupped my hands around my mug.

Tears
fell onto his shirt. He rubbed his eyes. One of the dogs turned and raced
toward the mudroom and began to bark. The others followed, yelping. Gryffin ran
a hand across his face.

"That'll
be him." He went to get the door.

I
waited in the kitchen. I thought of when Christine had died, and how the fact
that we hadn't gotten along or even recently spoken just made it worse. Any
chance of making things right was gone.

I
pushed the thought away, tried not to think about what lay on the floor
upstairs. I heard the door open. The dogs' barking rose to a frantic crescendo
then diminished. There was the sound of male voices, a rumble of sympathy.
Gryffin walked back into the room, trailed by a uniformed policeman and Everett
Moss. Moss looked at me in surprise.

"I
forgot you had company," he said to Gryffin. "Well, I just needed to
escort the sheriff over here. Marine Patrol will take over, I guess, when you
need to get back. And other arrangements—"

He
shook his head. "I guess State Office'll deal with that. I'm sorry for
your loss, Gryffin. Let me know if I can do anything to help."

He
left. Gryffin restlessly smoothed back his hair. He looked young and
vulnerable. Frightened.

"I'm
so sorry about all this, Gryffin," said the sheriff. He nodded at me.
"I'm John Stone, Paswegas County Sheriff."

He
was short, gray-blond hair, slight paunch, a worn face with a kindly
expression. The kind of cop who, after retirement, becomes a school bus driver
and remembers everyone's birthday.

"I
know this isn't the ideal time to ask you questions," he said, "but
I'll have to do that."

He
took out a notebook and a pen, set a camera on the table. Go ahead," said
Gryffin.

"It
shouldn't take too long. I was coming over anyway to question you about Merrill
Libby's girl. Which I'll have to get to after this."

He
sighed. "The dispatcher's already called in about your mother. They're
sending down someone from Machias, but it'll be a little while before he gets
here. So I'll try to finish this up as fast as I can."

"Who's
coming from Machias?" asked Gryffin.

"Criminal
investigator. Homicide. I'm sorry, but this is all routine, Gryffin. What you
have here is what we call an unattended death. So we have to do this. I'm real
sorry. I'll start with you, then your friend."

He
sat at the table and began filling out a form. I took a seat and drank my
coffee, trying to stay calm as he went down his list: Who was there, Where did
Gryffin find the body, What time. Had her doctor been notified.

"Any
sign of forced entry?"

"No."

"Purse
missing? Any money missing? Any valuables?"

"No.
No. No."

"Keys
gone?"

"Sheriff,
I have never seen a set of keys in this house."

John
Stone leaned back. "Well, you know, yesterday Tyler Rawlins had a set of
keys disappeared down at the Island Store. So these things do happen." He
glanced at his clipboard again. "You said you were here last night."

"Yes."

"Did
you see your mother?"

"No.
Not since sometime in the afternoon."

"Do
you usually see her?"

"No.
Usually she takes the dogs out, she's gone most of the day. We're not close. I
was just here on business. You know she drinks, Sheriff."

The
sheriff gave a brief nod. "But you were here last night?"

"No.
We went to Ray Provenzano's for dinner."

"Your
mother with you?"

"No.
Just me and her—" Gryffin indicated me. "You can check with
Ray."

"Okay,
I will. What about when you got home? You do anything? Go right to bed?"

"Yes."

"Your
bedrooms upstairs? Did you hear anything unusual? Before you went to bed. Or
later. Did you look into your mother's room?"

"No.
I don't come up here much. I—"

He
stopped. John Stone wrote down something then asked, "Were you by
yourself? When you went to bed?"

For
the first time Gryffin hesitated. "No." His face reddened. "I
was… she was with me."

He pointed
at me. John Stone sucked at his upper lip, made another mark on his sheet.
"Okay. Anything else you can think of? Anything out of the ordinary? Those
dogs—"

He
looked out to where the deerhounds ran along the rocky beach. "Did they
bark?"

"No."
As quickly as he'd blushed, Gryffin paled. "Excuse me, I'm not feeling
well. I—"

He
bolted from the room. John Stone drew a long breath then looked at me.
"Boy, I really hate this. Now I have to do the same with you."

He
put a new sheet onto his clipboard. "Can you spell your name,
please."

A
flicker of panic went through me. But as the minutes passed I felt more
confident. The Adderall kicked in with its laboratory glow of invincibility,
and I had to remind myself that this was police procedure and not a job interview.
The dogs chased a seagull on the beach. John Stone's radio crackled. He checked
it, turned to me again.

"So,
why'd you come here?" He sounded genuinely curious.

"To
interview Aphrodite Kamestos. For a magazine."

"That's
right, she was supposed to be famous at some point, wasn't she. I never knew
her." He frowned. "You knew her, then?"

"No.
Not personally, not before I came here yesterday. Someone set it up—an editor.
At the magazine."

"What
about Gryffin? You know him? He a friend?"

"No.
I never met him. Not before yesterday."

"What
about Mrs. Kamestos? She seem sick to you? Anything out of the ordinary?"

"I
never met her before yesterday. She seemed fine, I guess. She
seemed...drunk."

"So
I gather. They'll do a toxicology report, we'll see what that says." He
made another mark on his clipboard and put down his pen. I guess that'll do it.
Unless you can think of anything else?"

I
shook my head.

"Don't
you go far, now," Stone went on. "I still have to question you about
this other thing. That girl from the motel you stayed at the other night. But I
got to finish this matter here first."

A
shadow fell across the table. I looked up to see Gryffin. His hair was wet,
he'd shaved and changed into a white oxford-cloth shirt and corduroys, a brown
jacket.

"You
finished?" He slid into the chair next to mine.