Possession (46 page)

If she left a note, then Sam would be O.K. They would let him go, and he would forgive her. But she couldn't leave a note. Everyone would know about her. Even when she was dead, she couldn't bear to have them know.

She chose her garments for her own pleasure—if not for pleasure, because pleasure seemed an excessive word, then to her own liking. White. All white. A light cotton skirt that she had not worn for years, and a blouse, long-sleeved and

full of lace at the neck. The shoes were her wedding shoes, retrieved from the furthest corner of her closet, and still

with a grain of rice clinging to one outdated, pointed toe. A 'e rushing to meet no bridegroom.

She wanted something of Danny's, some last garment that had belonged to him, and she found a silk scarf, white

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too, a gift from her mother that he had worn once to be polite. She twisted it around her and found that it covered the place where she could not fasten the skirt at her waist. She thought she had caught the faintest wafting of Danny's odor when she shook the scarf out.

Joanne had not looked directly at her own face in a mirror since Elizabeth had driven her carefully home from the hospital. She gazed at her image and saw a strange woman with pale lips and lost, faded eyes, such sallow, yellowish skin. She touched her cheek in wonder, and traced the sunken places beneath her eyes.

She brought herself back—the self that she remembered —with an application of liquid foundation, Brace under her eyes, and heavy dusting of Indian Earth blusher. And because it was part of an old ritual, she sprayed her throat and wrists with cologne.

When she was ready, she left the house without looking back. The wind was blowing off the river and she could smell the water the moment she shut the back door behind her.

She looked up at the sound of a heavy footfall and saw them coming toward her. The woman and Sam and Captain Moutscher and the other man that she didn't recognize.

And knew she was trapped. The terror rushed back in as if her body was a shell surrounding a vacuum.

They were staring at her, not surprised, but only curious, perhaps, to find her dressed and coiffed and smelling of roses and on her way to nowhere.

4O

"Could we go inside, Mrs. Lindstrom?" Moutscher broke the silence, and Sam saw that Moutscher's hand reaching out to touch Joanne made her shrink back in something very close to panic. "What?"

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"I asked if we could go inside—where we could talk. We're sorry to interrupt you, but something has come up. You look very nice. Were you expecting someone?"

"No ... no one." She made no move to welcome them in, only stared beyond them toward the river path.

"Then you have a little time for us?"

"My mother isn't home."

Nina's voice cut in, washed of its imperious edge, and Sam breathed more easily. "We know that, Joanne. If you like, you could call your mother and have her come home. We could wait for that—"

"No!" Joanne moved away from the door and held her arm out in an odd wooden motion, seeming to indicate they could enter. Sam ducked his head at the back door and stepped into the kitchen, and wished instantly that they had chosen some other place for the confrontation that must come. He had been welcome here and was not now. The room was the same still, and he saw ghosts sitting in the empty chairs. He was relieved when Joanne led them into the living room; they had never sat in the "parlor" together. Only at the long kitchen table where Joanne had laughed at them, and with them, and fed them, and rarely spoken beyond her gentle counterpoint to their voices. She seemed to be aware of his presence in the group, although she had not yet looked directly at him. He could not tell if she was frightened of him or ashamed to face him. She looked like herself now and yet unlike the Joanne he remembered, more uncertain and somehow disjointed. He studied her covertly, this tired, thin girl in white, tried to superimpose the image upon that of the wild brown woman on the mountain and could not.

"... coffee?" Joanne's voice was so slight that the ticking clock overrode it. "Would you all like coffee?"

"No thank you," Nina answered. "We've all just had coffee." And enlightenment and a lot of discussion on how you lied and how they can trap you, Joanne. Joanne looked at Sam, startled, as if she had read his mind. He looked away.

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"Does having Mr. Clinton here upset you, Mrs. Lind-strom?" Malloy asked.

Joanne looked at the prosecutor. "I—I didn't want to see him anymore. Excuse me, but I don't know who you are."

"I'm sorry. My name is Martin Malloy. I'm the chief criminal deputy prosecutor from Chelan County. You might say I was your attorney."

"Is this something official?" Joanne started to rise from her chair, as if to take flight, saw that her way was barred, and sat down again.

"I need to know if this is official."

"Not really official, Mrs. Lindstrom," Malloy said smoothly. "It's in the nature of a conference—all interested parties meeting by mutual agreement. Is that all right with you?"

"I don't know."

"You would—(Nina caught the word would instead of will and smiled faintly at Malloy's gaffe)—have to see Mr. Clinton at the trial. A defendant has the right to confront his accuser. That's the law. We all thought it might be easier—talking here in your own home."

"I don't understand." Joanne sat stiffly, her ankles crossed neatly, but her twisting hands in her lap betrayed her. "I thought I would just go to the trial. . . and testify."

"Are you afraid of Sam?" Nina asked bluntly. "Is this room too small?

Is he too close to you?"

"No."

"But you were afraid of him before? You were afraid for your life, as I understand your charges?"

Joanne looked toward Sam and made a half-nodding, half-shaking movement with her head.

"Ms. Armitage," Malloy interrupted. "I think—and Captain Moutscher agrees—that we should go at this in some kind of order. I'll speak with Mrs. Lindstrom, go over her statement with her, and then, if you like, you can ask questions. And Mrs. Lindstrom, of course, you may ask questions whenever you like. Would you be comfortable with that procedure?"

Joanne nodded. "Then you're on my side, Mr. Malloy?"

Malloy had the grace to flush as he nodded. "Technically,

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yes. I represent the state, and you are the state's prime witness."

"And Miss Armitage is on Sam's side?"

"She represents Mr. Clinton, yes." Malloy reached into his sleek attache case and pulled forth Joanne Lindstrom's statement. "We'll begin at the beginning, as they say, Mrs. Lindstrom."

Don't smile like that, you slippery bastard, Sam looked away from Malloy out over the fields beyond the window, down to the poplars bending in the wind. He did not want to see Joanne's face. He was no innocent sitting in on this massacre; he had agreed to it—to keep himself out of prison. He accepted that, and the guilt that went with it, but he hoped the questioning would not be protracted—that the kill would be quick.

"Mrs. Lindstrom, you stated that you and your husband—Daniel—arrived in Stehekin in September. What date was that?"

"I'm not sure. It was right before Labor Day, 1979."

"You mean 1981, don't you?"

"Yes. 1981."

"Was it on September 4—let's see here, the Friday before Labor Day?"

"Yes."

"And how did you happen to meet Duane Demich?"

"Duane?"

"Yes."

"Duane came into our camp one night. I think the first night—no, it might have been the second night. It was dark, and he sort of loomed up out of the woods and he said a bear had tried to get him, or he'd seen a bear, or something like that. He was a policeman . .."

"He was what?"

"He told Danny he was a policeman in Oregon, and they kind of sat there and talked about people they knew and things like that."

"Why didn't you mention that when Captain Moutscher talked to you before?"

"He didn't ask about that. And Duane wasn't really a 349

policeman. I don't know why he said that. It might have been a joke."

"How did you feel about him? Had you ever seen him before that night?"

Sam listened closely, but kept his head averted.

"Duane? No. I'd never seen him before."

"He was never in Natchitat?"

"Oh no, Mr. Malloy. He hadn't ever been to Natchitat— he told me that."

"How did you feel when he walked into your camp? Were you glad to see him?"

"Danny liked him."

Sam suppressed a groan.

"Danny liked him. How did you feel?"

"... he made me dizzy."

"I don't understand."

"He was a red man."

"A red man. I'm sorry. You'll have to explain that to me. Do you mean you thought he was an Indian?"

"He was awfully large. Very, very tall and big, and everything about him seemed to glow or burn or something. It's hard to say—but I was af... startled. His hair was red and his skin and eyes were red in the firelight. I guess at first, I thought he wasn't real—or something like that."

"But he was real?"

"Yes."

"And he camped with you that night?"

"No. He camped someplace down by the lake, and he was gone in the morning."

"Were you disappointed?"

"What? No. I was glad. I was relieved."

"Why?"

"Because we went up there to be alone, and he was a stranger."

"But he came back again?"

"He came back in the morning. He said there was a grizzly bear on the trail, and that he needed Danny to help him do something—get rid of it, or scare it away, maybe kill it. I don't know."

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"You say Duane Demich was a big man. And strong. Were there other trails he could have taken?"

"I don't know. There were trails, I think—but I never knew where I was. He seemed to be very upset."

"Did Mr. Demich have any weapons?"

"He had a rifle, and a pistol, or a revolver, or something like that—something you hold in your hand. And he had a knife in a leather holder."

"But he was afraid of the grizzly bear?"

"He seemed to be."

"What did your husband do?"

Joanne bent her head and stared at her hands.

"Do you want a drink of water?" Nina asked.

"No. I'm all right. I'm trying to remember how it was. I have—kind of cloudy places. It gets black, like black smoke in front of my eyes."

"What did your husband do?" Malloy's voice was a drone, no inflection, no insistence.

"Danny went with him. They pushed me up in a tree. They wouldn't let me go."

"What happened while you were in the tree?"

"The birds came."

"What birds?"

"Little women birds. They waited with me, and it seems as though they talked to me. No. That sounds wrong, doesn't it? I'm sorry—it's not clear. I was very frightened."

"How long were you in the tree?" 'I don't know."

"What happened to your husband and Duane Demich while you were in the tree?"

"I don't know."

"You told Captain Moutscher you saw them fighting with a bear—with a grizzly bear."

"No^. .. Did I? I can't remember."

Sam's head came up at that, and Moutscher stood up and

'rode to the window, turning his back on them. Nina seemed perfectly calm.

"Do you remember anything about the bear?" Malloy Probed. 351

"Duane said it was awful. He said it was the most horrible thing that he had ever seen. He tried to kill it. I think maybe he did kill it. No, something was following us so—so it must have been alive, but there were terrible scratches on his arm when he came back."

"So you remember telling Captain Moutscher about the bear?"

"I must have. I must have forgotten." She bowed her head and stared at her shoes, lined the toes up and waited. The room was too quiet. Her hands flew to her ears. "Ohhh .. . Danny screamed. Somebody screamed."

Nina struck a match and everyone in the room but Joanne looked at her.

Malloy tried another tack. "Why did you tell Captain Moutscher that you saw the bear?"

"I must have. I wouldn't have said that if I hadn't seen it; I just can't remember it now. It's so hard to explain how you can get clouds in your head like this. You try and try to clear them away so you can see, but—"

"O.K. Let's leave that behind for a moment. What happened later? Did someone get you out of the tree? Did someone come back for you?"

"He saved me."

"Who saved you?"

"Duane. Duane came back and saved me." There was something odd in the way she spoke; she lapsed into a kind of sing-song. "I would have died. I would have died if he hadn't saved me."

Moutscher turned around and stared at Joanne, shaking his head faintly.

"How long after you heard the screaming? When did he come back?"

"I don't know. I can see the part where he was in the tree with me. He held me tight so I couldn't fall. I bit his hand."

"You what?"

"I bit his hand. I don't know why, but I left teeth marks in his hand, and it made him sick. But he didn't blame me. He forgave me."

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"How did you get out of the tree?"

The clock in the corner chimed four times, and then another in the kitchen answered. When they stopped, the silence in the room seemed heavier.

"Joanne." Malloy tapped her knee lightly to get her attention. "How did you get out of the tree?"

"I don't know. The next thing I can remember is being in a meadow—with a rock. I was holding a rock over my head and—"

"Why? What were you doing?"

"I can't remember."

"A little rock? A big rock?"

"A big rock to smash—"

"What? Were you using it as a weapon—or to cook— or—"

"To smash his eyes."

Nina looked across at Malloy, but he would not meet her eyes. His voice was softer when he spoke to Joanne again.

"Joanne, were you afraid of Duane Demich? Did he attack you?"

"Attack me?"

"Did he—interfere with you sexually?"

"NO!"

"Nothing like that. You're sure?"

"I was married to Danny. I wouldn't let anyone—any man—do that to me."