“Back in line,” Marshall called to the paired students, and we scampered (or hobbled) back into place.
“Kiotske!” We came to attention. “Rai!” We bowed. “Class dismissed!”
“My favorite words,” Carlton murmured to Janet, who laughed-too much for such a feeble joke, I thought.
Marshall came up to me and said very quietly, “I’ll pick you up at your house,” which answered all my questions.
I sat on the floor to pull on my shoes. After I tied them, it was an effort to get up smoothly, but it was also a point of pride. Carlton was sitting in one of the folding chairs that lined the room, his head cocked. He was looking at me as if he was examining a suspect hundred-dollar bill.
“Good night,” I said briefly.
“Good night,” he answered, and bent to tie his sneakers, a scowl on his handsome face.
I shrugged and went through the double doors, passing Marshall’s office and waving to him. He was looking at employee time sheets. The main room was empty except for Stephanie Miller, one of Marshall’s hired hands who teaches some of the aerobic classes. Stephanie was running the big industrial vacuum cleaner over the worn green carpet. I gave her a casual nod and passed through the front door and over to my Skylark, one of four cars left in the parking lot. There was something on the hood of my car.
I wouldn’t let myself stop, but I slowed down to get a better look. It was a… doll?
Then I was standing a foot away and I dropped my gym bag. It was a doll, a Ken doll.
The eye had been defaced with red nail polish. It was fresh. I could smell it from where I stood. It had been used to create artistic drops of blood down the doll’s face. Someone had made the doll look as if it had been shot in the left eye, the eye I had hit when I shot Nap.
I remembered exactly how it had looked, the sound the man had made, the way he’d hit the floor. He hadn’t looked anything like a Ken doll…
“What’s wrong?” Carlton asked. “Car trouble?”
I was glad to be dragged back from the edge of the nightmare. I stood back so Carlton could see.
“Was this on your car?”
“Yes. I left the car locked, so someone put it on the hood.”
I shivered at the malignancy of the “gift.”
“What’s up?” Marshall asked. He’d just locked the front doors of the gym. Across the parking lot, Stephanie got in her car and pulled out to go home.
I pointed to the doll. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.
“Oh, Lily, I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.
“I get the feeling there’s something about this I don’t know?” Carlton asked.
I puffed out my cheeks with a gust of air. I was so tired. “I guess I ought to take this by the police station,” I said.
“Lily, let it wait until tomorrow,” Marshall said. “Go on home now. I’ll see you in a little while.”
“No. I want to get rid of it. I’ll call you when I get home.”
“Lily, do you want me to go to the police station with you?” Carlton asked.
I’d had almost forgotten Carlton was still there. I found myself feeling the unaccustomed emotions of warmth and gratitude toward my neighbor.
“That’s very kind of you,” I said stiffly, wishing I could sound more gracious. “But I think I better go by myself. Thank you for offering.”
“Okay. If you need me, call me.” Carlton hobbled over to his Audi and went home, doubtless anticipating a hot bath and a welcoming bed.
I watched him go because I didn’t want to turn to meet Marshall’s eyes.
“I’m wondering,” I said, still looking into the night, “whether you have a secret admirer-someone who could find out my history and leave these little gifts for me, someone who could kill a rat and leave it on Thea’s table.”
“So, it’s scaring you off, and we should forget about us?” Marshall leaped to the thought. He was upset and angry.
Well, I’m not exactly happy, either, I fumed to myself.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to see me tonight?”
“I don’t know. No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’ve been looking forward to it as much as you have.” I raised my hands, palms upward, in a gesture of frustration. “But this is bad, isn’t it? To think someone’s watching me? Sneaking around with things like this?” I waved my hand toward the doll. “Thinking about what to do to me next?”
“So you’ll let that person make your life even more miserable?”
I swung around to face Marshall so suddenly that his shoulders tensed. I had so many thoughts, it was a struggle as to which one would be voiced first. “I think I gave that up a good many years ago,” I said. I was stiff with fury, felt like hurting him. “And while I looked forward to screwing you tonight, missing it would not make me miserable.”
“I wanted to sleep with you, too,” Marshall said, equally angry now. “But I also wanted just to be with you. Just talk to you. Have a normal conversation with you-if that’s possible.”
I struck, aiming for his diaphragm. Like a senseless person who didn’t want teeth anymore, I told myself later. Quicker than I could block with my left arm, Marshall’s hand shot out and gripped the wrist of my striking right arm when my knuckles were within an inch of his abdomen. His other hand had formed the knife, and was starting for my neck. For a long moment, we stared at each other, eyes wide and angry, before coming to our senses. His hand relaxed and he placed his fingers gently against my throat, feeling my pulse racing. My fist uncurled and fell to my side.
“Almost got you,” I said, embarrassed to find my voice was shaking.
“Almost,” he admitted. “But you would’ve been down first.”
“Not so,” I argued. “The diaphragm blow would’ve doubled you over and you would’ve missed my neck.”
“But the blow would’ve landed somewhere,” he argued back, “and the force would have knocked you backward. Admittedly, after you had already hit me…” His voice trailed off and we looked at each other sheepishly.
“Maybe,” I said, “I’m not the only person who has trouble carrying on a ‘normal’ conversation?”
“You’re right. This is probably pretty weird.”
Very carefully, as though we were covered with thorns, we eased into each other’s arms.
“Relax,” whispered Marshall. “Your neck muscles are like wires.”
I tentatively laid my head on his shoulder. I turned my mouth into his neck. “What I’m going to do,” I said gently, “is take the doll to the police department, tell them where I found it, and go home. When I get there, I’ll call you. You’ll come get me. We’ll eat at your place, and then we’ll do good things together.”
His hand massaged my neck. “I can’t get you to reverse the order?”
“I’ll see you soon,” I promised, then slid from his arms and got in the car, stowing the grotesque doll on the seat beside me. I drove to the police department, which is housed in a former drugstore a couple of blocks from the center of town. There was only one police car in the parking lot, a dark blue city of Shakespeare car with a big number 3 on the side.
Tom David Meiklejohn was sitting inside, his feet propped up on a desk. He had an RC Cola in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Tom David, whom I know by sight, is good-looking in what I think of as a honky-tonk way. He has short, curly hair, bright, mean eyes flanking a sharp nose, and thin lips, and he dresses western on his days off. He’d been sleeping with Deedra around last Christmas, and during that month or two I’d seen him go in and out of the Garden Apartments regularly.
Tom David had been married at the time to a woman as hard-edged as he was, or so one travel agent had told another as I was cleaning their office. A few months later, I had seen the Meiklejohns’ divorce notice in the local paper.
Now, Tom David, whom I’d observed patrolling many times during my night prowls, was slowly looking me up and down, making a show of trying to figure out my all-white outfit.
“Going to a pajama party?” he asked.
So much for courtesy to the public he serves, I reflected, though I’d anticipated as much. Not every policeman was a Claude Friedrich. Friedrich might make mistakes, but he didn’t mind admitting them.
“This was left on my car outside of Body Time,” I said briefly, and deposited the doll on the desk in front of his
