This Case Is Gonna Kill Me (17 page)

On the screen a Hunter shambled after a teen couple. Its face was a pale oval, and its only definable feature was a strange, red mouth. How it breathed or saw was a mystery. The worm-like digits that passed for fingers stiffened into claws and thrust into the boy’s chest. Then Susan snapped off the television.

“Justin, you know better than to show a Hunter movie in a vampire’s household.”

“Ah, Susan,” came multiple cries in tones of consternation.

“It’s just a movie,” Justin said, but he climbed to his feet and ejected the DVD. It was one of Roger Corman’s low budget efforts from the early seventies. The lurid title
HUNTER HORROR
splashed across the front of the case.

It was an interesting irony that while vampires had bred or created Hunters to do God knows what, even vampires couldn’t stand to have them around. According to various sources, they stank like rotting meat, and their blind gaze was disturbing even to their makers. It turned out they were the source of all the walking-dead legends that permeated human cultures. Only vampires with their mesmerizing powers could fully control Hunters, and a special class of vampire enforcers handled the creatures.

Of course, I’d never actually seen one except in the movies—and there were a lot of movies. Once the Powers went public, Hollywood had dumped zombies and taken up Hunters, because there was a great story associated with them. Supposedly they were bred to smell and kill an unknown predator that had the ability to destroy the Powers. All of them.

Susan confiscated the DVD, and we continued down the hall to my old bedroom. It offered a view across the manicured and colorful garden, past the hedge, and off toward the small barn. For a moment I remembered the horses that had filled my ten years with Meredith—Suncloud, Delila, and Miss Patti.

A new girl’s treasurers had replaced mine on top of the bookcases. In place of my giant collection of Breyer plastic horses, the new occupant had dainty china and inlaid boxes. On the walls were posters of the latest crop of teen heartthrobs, none of whom I recognized, and I suddenly felt very old. But it was still my room, and the memories hung in it like cobwebs.

“Dinner is at seven thirty, and Meredith would like to have sherry with you in the library at seven.”

“I’ll get changed.” Because of course you dressed for dinner in a vampire’s house.

Meredith was flipping through the
Wall Street Journal
when I entered. He held a glass whose contents were too red and too viscous to be anything but blood. I wondered if he was still buying from a local cuppery, or if he had decided to use his meal hosts for cocktails as well.

I braced myself for the inevitable conversation about IMG. Instead he asked, “What do you think of the Santa Fe Opera? Worth a trip all that way?”

I had to reset my brain. “Uh … yes. It’s a beautiful setting with world-class singers. They always do very innovative stagings at Santa Fe,” I offered, and Meredith made a face. Clearly not a selling point. “And Santa Fe is a cool little town. It feels … European.”

“Ah, interesting.”

“But why Santa Fe in August?” I asked.

“Steven Ogden is reprising his role as Tonio in
The Daughter of the Regiment,
and I’d like to hear him sing again.”

“Are you going all star-struck opera groupie again?” I asked.

He pretended to bristle. “Show some respect, young lady. And yes, I am. Ogden is a sensation. The finest voice I’ve heard in many lifetimes. I’ve been following him from opera house to opera house for the past year.”

“Are you going to Make him?”

“It would be a shame for the world to lose that voice. Breath is the essence of singing. We have to force ourselves to emulate breathing. His voice would never be the same. Maybe I’ll wait until he makes a lot more recordings.…”

IMG never came up once during the evening, and for the first time in a long time I slept without nightmares.

*   *   *

The next morning I stood on the deck of the ferry. There was only the tiniest amount of roll, and I caught it in my knees and swayed softly with the motion. I sniffed the salt air, watched the gulls swooping like feathered sky writers, and ignored the people jabbering on their cell phones.

Up ahead, the buildings in Newport looked like LEGO toys. I wondered which member of my family would meet me. I prayed it wasn’t going to be my mother. Eventually the buildings stopped looking like sets in Munchkinland, the big diesel engines roared and strained, and the ferry bumped to rest against the pier.

I grabbed up my overnight bag and computer case then headed down the gangplank and into the building. None of my family was there. I wove past the Starbucks and the sandwich shop, and my stomach gave a growl. I hoped dinner wasn’t going to be late.

Out in the parking lot the door on a Corvette Stingray flew open, and Charlie waved at me. It looked like my brother had received the obligatory going-off-to-college car gift.

My dad was a mass of contradictions. He was a fifty-something, sober businessman who loved to gamble—never for large amounts, but all games of chance fascinated him. And he loved fast cars. They were always
American
fast cars, and he told his fellow members in the Chamber of Commerce and at the country club that he was buying them for his children. The statement was always followed with an eye roll that said how silly he found the whole thing. Maybe his colleagues were fooled and never knew how much he enjoyed test driving sports cars before making his recommendations. I was pretty sure he drove my car when I wasn’t around. He was getting a lot of use out of it now.

I got my first car when I returned home from Meredith’s, and I still had it. Daddy had offered me a choice between a Ford Mustang and a Corvette Stingray. I’d opted for the Mustang because of the whole horsey thing. I also thought the Stingray was very much a “boy’s car,” and back then I was in my girly phase.

It looked like Charlie had opted for the “boy’s car.” It worked for him because he took after our tall mother, being damn near six feet tall. I took after Dad, who lied and said he was five foot eight. I put him closer to five-six on a tall day. I also lied, saying I was five foot two. Charlie took after Mom in other ways too. While I had inherited dad’s blue-black hair, Charlie’s was a dark brown thanks to the mixture with my mom’s red hair.

Charlie grabbed my case, dumped it into the trunk, held the passenger door for me, and then took us out of the parking lot like we were starting at the Indianapolis 500.

“You are so going to get a ticket,” I said as we hit the Centerdale Bypass doing about sixty.

“Am I making you nervous?”

“No. I just think you’re stupid to speed while you’re still in town.”

“Oh, okay.” He lifted his foot off the gas, and we slowed to within five miles of the actual speed limit as we turned onto Highway 44. Charlie glanced over at me. “You look okay.”

“Meaning what?”

“You were kind of a basket case when we talked,” he said.

“It’s been a few weeks, and I’ve had other things to occupy my mind,” I said. “How did you like Europe?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

“I loved it. I want to go to school over there.”

That surprised me. “Oh. Where would you go, and what would you study?”

“I don’t really care where. Maybe not Germany. I didn’t like Germany all that much. Switzerland, France, Italy.” He gulped in a breath, and his hands convulsed briefly on the steering wheel. “I’d like to study architecture. The buildings were just amazing. And not just the old stuff. In Paris they’ve done an amazing job of placing modern buildings next to eighteenth-century chateaus, and it
works.
The modern buildings sort of suggest some of the old styles, and—” He broke off as if embarrassed by his passion. “Well, blah blah.” He fell silent.

“Wow. I did not see that coming.” He gave me a pained and worried look. “What? You know Mom thinks you walk on water, and Daddy always supports any educational goal.”

“I also know he really wants me to take over the business,” Charlie said.

“True, but he’s always supported us,” I repeated in my most reassuring tone.

“Yeah, but you did what he wanted. You always have.”

You’re my good girl, Lennie. You’ll make me proud.
Spoken to an eight-year-old. Repeated over and over through the years. Most recently a few weeks ago. Had it all been about him? About making me a mirror for his ambitions? It was a horrible, grating thought that left me feeling like my skin had been peeled away.

Had I picked this life because I wanted it, or because Daddy had pushed me into it? Had there been other dreams? Yes. To ride professionally. Go to the Olympics. But those other goals had been dismissed with a smile. I was an Ellery. An Ellery had been one of the first Federal Court judges. He had signed the Declaration of Independence. Being a mere horse trainer was the equivalent of failure. I felt like a pawn. My father had sent me away because it helped his business. He insisted I aim for a White-Fang firm. Why? For access? The thoughts were so devastating that I didn’t hear another word Charlie said to me. I just kept worrying at this revelation, trying to find some other interpretation of my father’s behavior.

We turned off the highway and headed for the family home on the western edge of the Pascoag Reservoir. It was the usual New England affair: two stories, white siding, blue shutters, pitched shingle roof. Our dad’s Lincoln Continental was parked in the driveway behind our mother’s Volt.

It was time. I had to prepare myself to face my father. Charlie pulled up next to the other cars and hit the garage door opener. I forced a smile. “The Corvette rates the garage?”

“Of course. Do you think Dad would let rain, snow, or sun hit this precious artifact of American engineering?” Charlie asked.

*   *   *

We came out of the garage into the kitchen, and I smelled shrimp and gazpacho. Saliva filled my mouth. Our mother was preparing cocktail sauce, and the pungent bite of horseradish tickled my nostrils. She left what she was doing and enfolded me in a perfumed embrace. Her dangling bracelets caught in my hair, and her trailing Turkish scarf, which she wore like a shawl, nearly smothered me. People have described my mother’s fashion sense as an explosion in a UNICEF store—cruel but accurate.

We finally untangled, and I helped myself to a glass of lemonade from the fridge. It was hot and muggy, and there were some promising-looking clouds off to the east. Maybe a thunderstorm would blow away the oppressive heat and humidity. I have this weird kink—I love violent weather. Wind, rain, snow, thunder, and lightning—I think they’re all great.

“
Are
you hungry?” my mother asked. “Because
it’s
an hour
to
dinner.”

“I’d accept a snack,” I said, knowing that’s where she was going.

I helped her pull out a round of brie, some crackers and grapes, and an open bottle of white wine. I finished off the lemonade and switched to alcohol. It was a Vouvray, light and fruity, but still complex and not sweet. I sat on a stool at the large central island in the kitchen, nibbling and sipping wine while my mother rattled on about the trip, making every story about her. It was as if Charlie hadn’t even been along. It was one of the many things I hated about my mother—people were just props in the play of her life. We’d gotten to the couple she had met in Paris, and how she and Charlie were invited to visit their home in Provence, and she rather thought the husband fancied her,
“But of course absolutely nothing happened, darling, don’t look so shocked.”

I actually wasn’t looking shocked, more bemused. My mother has always fancied that every man she meets is fascinated, enchanted, and enthralled by her. Nothing could be further from the truth, but none of us have the heart to break this to her, least of all my father.

He and Charlie entered the kitchen at that moment. Daddy smelled of mown grass, sweat, and gasoline. “The backyard is tamed,” he said as he gave my mother a kiss on the cheek. “So we can sit on the deck for dinner, admire the lake, and you won’t be offended by the shaggy grass.”

“Thank you, you are a
dear
.”

“A smelly dear. I’m going to grab a shower. Save me a glass of wine,” he said with a wink to me.

I saluted him with my glass. “No promises.”

Charlie poured himself a glass, and we munched and sipped wine until Daddy returned. He hefted the bottle, inspected it, then went to his small wine cellar in the basement and returned with another bottle.

The cork released with a satisfying
pop
, and Daddy topped off our glasses. He held up his and saluted me with it.

“You look good,” he said. “I knew you could handle this. Get back to work.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as
good,
but I am back to work.”

“But things are better now?” he asked, and he gave me a concerned look. “You’re not thinking about quitting any longer, right?”

I wanted to shriek at him,
Stop reminding me of what happened. Let me have my time away. Like Meredith did.

But I didn’t say that. Instead I just shook my head. I needed to say something to keep the conversation going, and I didn’t want that conversation to be about the office, so I pivoted to Charlie. “Okay, which country had the prettiest girls?”

He leaned back and tugged at his upper lip like an art connoisseur considering a wall of Monets. “The French girls are chic, but man, there are a lot of cigarettes and piercings, and the short-cropped hair thing kind of got old. The Scandinavian girls are all six feet tall. The German girls, at least the ones I met, were into heavy political conversations, which dropped their pretty quotient way down.” He paused, then said, “I’ve got to give it to the Italians. I loved the way they talked with their hands. And I loved the language. It’s like water running over rocks.”

Our father stared at Charlie. “My son, you reveal hidden depths.”

“I actually think it’s fairly clichéd,” I said. Charlie threw me the bird.

“Charles Grantham Ellery!” Mother yelped.