The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 (36 page)

Wind battered him while the waters clawed at his legs. While the flood receded as he reached the highest point on the island, the wind and rain redoubled their attack. He had to bend low, shuffling sideways, fearing that at any moment he could be ripped from the earth and sent sailing like his hat. Past the crest, the waters rose, swamping the sidewalks, reaching his waist.

When the terminal appeared through the driving rain, the scene stunned him. Out to the west, the inbound train stood stalled on the tracks. Steam poured from the engine’s swamped boiler. Lines were strung between the train and the station as men helped the women and children through chest-high waters to the terminal.

There would be no afternoon train, no escape from the island.

Wendell felt something bump against him.

It was the body of a young woman, floating facedown in the water.

The trip south to his mansion was an excursion through the nightmare landscapes of Hieronymus Bosch. Collapsed houses, a trolley abandoned on the street, dead animals, and in the midst of it all a plague of small toads, thousands of them, clinging to the debris in the water.

And more bodies.

He could no longer establish his alibi. But could anybody challenge it? He could say that when the train died, he left his compartment and headed directly home. He’d wait out the storm and catch the next train to Fort Worth.

Yet gnawing at his brain was the knowledge that he was a murderer. Tate was dead at his hand. He might insulate himself from charges, but he’d never escape that condemning knowledge.

He plowed through the water. Then he was dropping, lost in a crater scoured away by the waters, submerging him in the vile mixture. He fought for the surface, finally breaking into a twilight world, brightened only by lightning.

It was sweet relief when he trudged up the steps of his home. The waters outside had not yet reached within the house, thanks to the pilings it was built upon, like most of the houses in Galveston. Wendell found a lantern and lit it, using its light to climb to the second floor. He stripped to his skin in the upstairs bathroom, leaving his clothes in a sodden, stinking pile. They were ruined, fit only for burning. Only his pocket watch was salvageable.

After drying himself, Wendell went into his bedroom and dressed. He stretched out on his bed, meaning to rest for a minute. But after the trials of the day, Wendell was asleep when his head touched his pillow.

He looked up and saw Tate above him, his face smashed and bloody. Tate’s eyes glowed a hellish yellow as they gazed down at Wendell. In Tate’s hand was a poker. Wendell watched as it rose high above him, and then . . .

Wendell cried out, waving his arms to block the blow. His eyes popped open and Tate vanished.

Still, Wendell woke into a nightmare. The rain outside sounded like a million nails being driven into the walls. The room’s windows had imploded, allowing a tornado of wind to roar inside. The walls groaned and twisted as Wendell watched.

Grabbing the lantern, he ran to the upstairs landing. He couldn’t take in what he saw. The downstairs was submerged beneath black waters. Waves lapped at the top staircase steps.

Is this my fault? Is this storm mirroring my own loss of control?
Then the floor rose beneath Wendell’s feet, bucking him back into the bedroom. Again it heaved, and with a final shiver the house floated free of its pilings.

He fought his way through the lashing wind out of a window, grasping hold of the roof. The house jerked and twisted in the flood. Then his piece of roof ripped free of the house, swirling away in the waters. Looking back, Wendell saw his home crumple as if God’s hands were wadding it up like a piece of paper.

The only light came from lightning flashes. What he saw confounded him. He could have been in the middle of a storm-tossed ocean, except for a few houses still standing, with their second floors and widow’s walks rising above the waves.

“I’ve been a fool, Amelia,” he shouted, hardly hearing himself above the wind. “Why did I leave you? Why did I lie? I’m sorry. So sorry. But I—”

He never saw the shingle whipping through the air. It simply appeared embedded in his chest. Blood whelmed up around it. He tasted blood in his mouth.
Can’t breathe
. Then his body went limp and he fell backward off the raft.

So cold
, he thought as the waters covered his fading eyes.
So dark
.

Amelia looked up at the knock on the parlor door of the house she’d rented in Fort Worth. Arthur entered, followed by Donald Maret, both wearing grim expressions. The butler held a letter along with a small box.

“The report has come, Mrs. Asquith. I summoned Mr. Maret from his hotel so he could hear the news as well.”

She remembered when Arthur had told her on the train that “young Mr. Maret” was also a passenger, traveling on business to Fort Worth. Arthur had seen Donald in the dining car while getting a tray for Amelia. It seemed a lifetime had passed since that Saturday, yet it was only three weeks.

“Quite right, Arthur,” she said, taking the letter and box from him.

The first reports they’d heard placed the death toll at five hundred—a horrendous number but still a small fraction of Galveston’s population. But as time passed the number kept rising until it was unimaginable. Yesterday the paper said the final death toll would never be known but could be over ten thousand. With Arthur’s help, Amelia had dispatched a private detective to search for Wendell and Jamieson in the ruins of Galveston.

Amelia opened the envelope and withdrew the report, unfolding it carefully. She read it aloud:

Sept 25th, 1900

Houston, Tex.

My dear Mrs. Asquith,

Per your request, I traveled to Galveston. Train service is still restricted since the trestles have collapsed, but I found a man here with a sailing boat. He said he was from Virginia Point and had made it to Houston just before the hurricane. When we sailed past, we saw that Virginia Point had been wiped away.

Nothing remains of your home. Every structure south of Avenue N or east of 12th Street is gone. Destroyed buildings near the beach created a pile of debris. Pushed by the wind and waves, it plowed through everything in its path.

The authorities tried burying the victims at sea, but within two days the corpses washed back ashore. Instead they’re burning them. The toll was so enormous that the pyres still burn, filling the air with ash and the stench of charred flesh.

Jewelry or other possessions are often the only way to identify the dead. Amongst the recovered remains I found the watch you described. Your husband, Wendell, is listed among the dead. The other man you requested information on, Jamieson Maret, was severely wounded. He expired in the makeshift hospital here three days after the storm.

Please accept my condolences . . .

Laying down the letter, Amelia wiped a tear from her eye. Donald still stood beside Arthur, his head bowed. While Arthur maintained his stoic control, Amelia could see his eyes were full.

She opened the box. There was Wendell’s pocket watch, sitting on a bed of tissue paper. She stared at the dented cover; smelled the seawater in which it had been immersed.

Amelia stood up and held the box out to Arthur. “Please secure a graveyard plot and bury this watch there. Have them place a headstone above it with Wendell’s name and years. Also, send Elizabeth to me. I shall need black outfits.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Arthur said.

“I could never believe something like this could have happened,” Donald said as Arthur left the room, closing the door behind him.

Amelia looked at Donald. After a quick glance over his shoulder to confirm they were alone, Donald stepped toward her, smiling. Amelia fell forward against him, grateful at last to be enfolded in his loving embrace again.

FROM
Thuglit

1

We were at the Allens’ anniversary party, which I hated, and Hannah hated it too. It was not as though we didn’t like the Allens—Joe Allen, anyway, a big, fat, affable bear of a man—it was all just so tacky. I was of the opinion that notifying other people of one’s forthcoming birthday was vulgar enough (
Don’t forget my gift!
), but an anniversary always seemed like a private thing, a husband/wife thing, nothing to do with me or my debit card. Joe could buy his wife lunar real estate for all I cared, just leave me out of it. As far as I knew, Hannah felt much the same way.

But Joe insisted, and his wife made sure to send us their wish list by e-mail, so with twin engine grumbling we went and presented them with the Waterford vase they wanted. She cooed hungrily over the damn thing and he nodded with appreciation. There were a lot of people there. The gifts were piling up in the corner by the fireplace. Finally, after the inimitable Mrs. Allen opened their (her) last gift, the assemblage was freed to drink, drink, and be drunk. A trio of hulky guys whose guts were threatening the structural integrity of their shirts swarmed the keg. Hannah and I opted for the crappy boxed wine.

“Jesus,” she snarked in my ear, “what a disgrace.”

I sucked at a mouthful of supermarket zinfandel and nodded. That’s what husbands seemed to do best around here: nod. Even the troglodytes huddled around the keg were nodding like junkies while they took turns filling up red Solo cups.

“We’ve been married seven years,” Hannah hissed. “Way I see it, these people all owe us back pay.”

I laughed, felt some of the wine work its way up into my nasal cavity. Hannah
tsk
ed and went in search of a napkin as it dribbled from my nostrils. I felt a little stupid, and maybe more so when a woman in a powder-blue summer dress covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her giggles. Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I smiled at her and shrugged.
What are you gonna do?

The napkin flew to my face like a surface-to-air missile and Hannah, always the second mother to me, smeared it all over my face, her brow tightly knitting as though she were defusing a bomb. I took over from there, gently taking control of the napkin to prove that yes, I was wearing my big-boy pants today, but thanks for your assistance.

“What do you think?” she asked, her voice without a suggestion of tone.

“I think it’s a miracle I didn’t ruin this shirt.”

“No, I mean
her
. What do you think of her?”

My head jerked up, mouth hanging open. Hannah gestured with her chin—a nice, subtle chin, I’d always thought—at the blonde in the summer dress. I tried not to look at her again, but it was automatic, like the old “Made you look!” game kids play. Now she looked discomfited, perhaps a bit distressed. She dropped her eyes and disappeared into the throng of partygoers.

“I don’t know her,” I said. “Never saw her before. Friend of Katherine’s, I assume.”

“You
know
that’s not what I asked.”

“You asked me what I think. I don’t think anything, because I don’t know anything about that woman.”

That woman
. Appropriately disparaging, I thought. Clintonesque, as in
Oh
, that
woman
.

“You were looking at her. She tittered.”

“Tittered?”

“Tittered.”

“It’s a party. People are having a good time, Hannah. Don’t make such a—”

“Don’t you dare,”
she growled low, her lacquered nails digging into my arm. I winced, held my breath. This was getting ugly fast. Spiraling out of control. “Is she pretty? Did you like her ass? You could practically see it through that dress, you know.”

I knew, but I didn’t say I knew. I just made a straight, clenched line of my mouth and felt my stomach make a fist.

“It’s nothing,” I said at some length. “Nothing to worry about. I promise you that.”

Hannah’s lips spread apart to show her perfect, picket-fence teeth.

“I think we both know what your promises are worth,” she hissed at me.

That stung, but I kept silent. Because of course she was in the right. I had lied, and it only takes one to dissolve trust like a tab of Alka-Seltzer. Liars are like alcoholics: no matter how forthcoming and honest they are after the fact, they can never not be a liar again. It is a stigma, an ever-present black cloud that never gets burned up by the sun. The ex-drunks carry those chips around in their pockets, and I carried my guilt. Hannah never let me forget about that.

Joe came around then, a bottle of Mexican beer in his meaty hand and a toothy smile plastered across his face. Hannah immediately released my arm, assumed her role as the one everybody liked, the chipper optimist.

“Having a good time?” Joe barked.

“A
great
time, Joe,” my wife said. “Thanks so much for inviting us.”

“I don’t even know half these people—Katherine’s coworkers, ‘the girls from the office,’ you know.”

“Invite one and you have to invite them all,” she said pleasantly, cheerfully. “We move in packs.”

She winked. Joe chuckled, squeezed my shoulder. I was covering my arm with my hand, concealing the broken skin, a cluster of red half-moons where Hannah clutched me with her talons. The music fell silent and the murmur of a dozen overlapping conversations rose up to fill the hole when Katherine came bouncing over, seized Hannah by the wrist, and bellowed, “Come on, help me pick some more songs!”

Joe’s wife dragged mine across the room, Hannah’s eyes big and helpless. Neither of us really cared much for Katherine, though we maintained that dirty little secret discreetly. I felt a pang for my wife, having to deal with her, but dismissed it when Joe pulled me into a crushing sideways hug, sloshing his beer all over the floor.

“You guys are so awesome together,” he drawled, his tongue thick with the buzz. “We’re going to be like that, me and Kathy.”