The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

sofa she crouched on all but filled the cramped space, wedged between a pair of gray file cabinets and an old wooden desk, lumpish with disordered paperwork. This is Chandler's office? No trophies or civic awards. No pictures on the dingy green walls, no framed photographs on the desk. She noticed faded rectangles on the walls, however, as though things had been removed.

I'd better put this back up, just in case. Clambering onto the back of the sofa, she hooked the shade, lowered it partway. As she did so her glance settled on the empty street below. Only the gritty wind stirred.

The shade hung crookedly above an ugly orange sofa. Cheap-looking, it seemed to be the sort that folded down flat to form a kind of lumpy cot, and she noticed stains on the ugly fabric that seemed to radiate musty dampness.

Hell, it's freezing in here. I can practically see my breath. One of the cabinet drawers stood open and empty. She moved to the desk, feeling the thin carpet slide and crumble beneath her feet. Stacks of canceled checks had been strewn with old insurance documents and leases, and they mounded on the desk, cascading to the floor behind it. Examining papers at random, she lifted a sheet of torn notebook paper. Numbers covered it, columns of figures penciled so precisely they might have been typeset.

Wind clanked at the window, shifting dust. Strands of cobweb that threaded the ceiling waved like tentacles.

The middle desk drawer snarled open, empty save for a single frayed and wrinkled envelope. Even before she fumbled the flap open, her fingers had identified the contents as snapshots. She slid them into the open drawer, expecting to find photos of various properties.

She blinked. One hand covered her mouth.

Polaroids. Thirty or so. Yellowed. Images fuzzy and poorly lit. In some, the children wore T-shirts or socks, the brown sediment of the shadows seeming to engulf their pale bodies. But in others...

Many different children. Often bound. She blinked again. No. Not different children. The same three over and over, at different ages. In some, the little girl seemed scarcely more than an infant. In the last few, the biggest boy was already old enough to...

Stop shaking. She covered the photos with her hands. Get hold of yourself. Be a cop.

She forced herself to look at them again, this time slowly. Different rooms appeared in the backgrounds; nothing remarkable except that in several the predominant color seemed to be an unusual blue. She froze. In one, the corner of a mirror had captured the photographer himself. The flash obscured his face, but his chest could be made out through the glare, the body hair so thick he might have been covered with fur. Several shots of the little girl looked different from the others. She was photographed alone, deeply asleep. Or drugged.

With a start, she recognized the sofa on which the child lay as the one by the window. Fighting nausea, she flipped back to the last photograph. The oldest boy covered one of the other children, impossible to tell which one. The older one's body had already thickened into fat. She felt dizzy.

Evidence. Sickened, she slammed the drawer. I'll have to take them with me. But she wondered if she could even force herself to open that drawer again.

Wanting to put her fist through something, she looked about wildly.

Something hung above the file cabinets: rows of empty hooks studded the Peg-Board, each hook bearing a number on a bit of tape, all in that same perfect script. Glancing down at the strewn pages, she began to spread them. A three-digit number caught her eye, and she glanced up at the board. Yes. She sorted through more papers. The number repeated--a lease from four summers ago. An electric bill from last year. She pawed through more documents. Dozens of different addresses appeared over and over, sometimes with different units referenced, and a labeled hook corresponded to each number. An actual clue. She carried a handful of papers closer to the light of the window.

Face pressed to the scratchy fabric, the boy lay on the sofa, a blanket twisted around him like a cocoon. Even asleep, he tensed, listening for the droning hiss of her breath from the next room. Daylight bled in around the shade, and he shivered, his eyelids twitching.

The sound that had awakened him scratched in the air again. Kicking free, he stumbled up from the sofa, nearly tripping on the blanket as he shuffled into the bedroom. The floor felt like ice through his socks.

Even in the sealed room, some sunlight filtered in, and a streak of it touched her face. She twisted in hot, fitful sleep, her corn silk hair writhing on the pillow, coils of it igniting with the faint radiance. As he watched, she kept trying to twist over on her side, but cloth bandages bound her wrists to the headboard. Through painclenched lips, she groaned. Her eyes looked puffy. The dusty dimness played tricks--her lashes looked longer and darker, and rosy welts stood out angrily where she'd somehow managed to scratch her cheek. Or had he been hitting her last night? He couldn't remember, but he wished she wouldn't make him hurt her.

The pressure in his bladder demanded release, but he kept the bathroom door open so he could hear her if she stirred. After the splashing stopped, he listened again. Silence in the next room. Running water in the sink, he flinched from the sight of himself in the mirror--the puny arms, the hairless chest. His sweatpants hung loosely. Tensing his shoulders, he tried to bulge out his muscles, tried it a number of different ways, but still looked emaciated and pale as a worm, his ribs actually showing. Some stud, he thought, and wanted to laugh, but his eyes looked charred, dead, and he backed away from the mirror.

One of his socks had fallen past his ankle and flapped over his foot with every step. The bedroom rug felt rough through the cloth. He bent to stare at her, drawing in the faint warm smell of her soft neck.

Wrenching her head from side to side, she whined softly.

Thinking she might be cold, he returned to the living room. When he tugged at it, the thinner of the blankets scraped across the rough fabric of the couch. He wrapped it around his shivering shoulders, then found the one he'd kicked to the floor and padded back to the bed, carefully draping it over her. As he yanked a corner down, she murmured.

Dumping soiled clothing out of it, he dragged a wicker chair up alongside the bed and pulled the blanket tighter about himself. The wicker creaked while he curled into the chair to watch the slow heave of her breasts. One of his hands strayed toward her, but after a moment, drowsiness began to claim him.

XV

The sky had tarnished to the color of old silver.

Pardon me, sir, but is your homicidal son by any chance hiding in the attic? The imposing house seemed to glare down at her. Don't you think I should check, sir? She coasted the jeep into the driveway and just sat, gazing into the early twilight and wondering what she'd say to whomever answered her knock. And by any chance could you explain that weird office you keep in town? Yes, sir, I did break in. No, sir, I don't have a warrant. Or an attorney. Across the paved road, only one other home faced her. Farther down the lane, another house peeked above a slight rise. The lawns looked brown and dead, and a frozen unfriendliness seemed to emanate even from the height of the evergreen hedges.

When she cracked the jeep door, the chill washed in. Maybe I had better call the state cops. Gravel crunched underfoot as she started up the walk. Or at least wait to talk to Barry.

The lawn had grayed with frost in wide swathes, and close to the house, the corpses of flowers lay brown and rigid. Small pines bristled, and sharp yellow leaves flared among the curled rhododendrons that screened the porch.

Her shoes drummed up the stairs, and desiccated fronds rattled in a breeze. Along the wall, dead plants cleaved to clay pots, and yellowed circulars littered the porch floor.

The heavy drapes appeared tightly drawn. She checked her reflection in the glass of the storm door. So I look nervous. So what? She pressed the bell. Nothing happened. When she opened the outer door, a small avalanche of catalogs and circulars tumbled and slid. No one has been here in quite a while. She stacked them on the floor before trying the brass knocker. Finally, she pounded with her fist. And now? When she let go of it, the storm door hissed shut.