“Yes.” Beth looked too hurried to besurprised. “Call if anything. No, sit, Lids, I’ll let myself out.” She shookagain with Kerri, moved to go, then at the door turned back to Liddy. “Telleverything, Lids. Including that couple fighting across the street.”
She set the slide bolt to snap shut behindher, and left.
Liddy stared at the door after it closed. Kerristudied her features; watched her confused gaze move from the door to one of thearched windows fronting a small forest and a high-powered telescope.
“That’s odd,” Liddy said. “I don’t remembertelling Beth that.”
“What?”
It seemed so long ago; now it came rushing back.
“When we first moved in, Paul started to spenda lot of time staring through that telescope. I’m not sure if it bothered me,but soon after I couldn’t sleep, and went to look through it around two in themorning, and saw a couple fighting. First they were having wild, crazy sex, thenhalf an hour later they were arguing furiously.”
Kerri frowned, nodded.
“He hit her, hit her bad. I told Paul thenext morning and he said it wasn’t our business.”
“Shut you down, huh?”
“He just said couples fight, happens allthe time. He was rushing to work. I should have…God, what could I have done?” Liddyhated how lame that sounded; looked guiltily toward the telescope. “The girl wasblond. Looked for a second like that sketch I’d made of Sasha, I wasn’t sure.”
Kerri was on her feet. “Show me whichapartment?”
Liddy did. Adjusted the telescope, lookedthrough it, found the fighting couple’s window and stepped back. “The shade’sbeen pulled since that night,” she said as Kerri fiddled with the eyepiece andlooked in. Liddy watched her, then peered left down the street; breathed in,plunged. “Yesterday evening I saw or thought I saw the same girl. Her face wasbruised and up close I was sure she was Sasha Perry - she even wore a Winniethe Pooh stud in her right ear. I called to her, and she ran.”
Kerri looked at Liddy as if she hadn’theard right. The features she saw were clearly embarrassed, unsure.
“Where was this?” Kerri said evenly, goingback to the ‘scope, squinting into it.
“On Mercer, heading south toward me. Actuallybrushed my shoulder as she passed – which is when I called to her, said hername out loud. She got scared, ran back to Prince and disappeared in the crowdin front of that building you’re looking at.”
Kerry straightened; scribbled in hernotebook. Liddy turned from her, sent her gaze back across the long room to theclosed front door.
“It’s the damnedest thing,” she said almostpainfully, sounding as if she were talking to herself. “I have no memory of tellingBeth about that fighting couple. How could she know?”
Again Kerri looked at her, eyebrows raised,her silence prodding.
Liddy threw up both hands. “Well, mymemory’s been in the crapper. It’ll probably come back at some odd moment, likeall the rest of the horrible stuff that’s been happening.”
“Like what? Tell me from the beginning.Your sketch of Sasha.”
“You’ll call the men in the white coats.”
“No way. From the beginning, please. Ifyou’ve already told me, tell me again. Show me.”
Out came the plastic bottle to spray theplants. Liddy showed how the mist formed – only now it was just mist against adarkening sky, not the weeping, begging young woman’s face of that firstapparition. “Imagination, right? Cruel tricks of a damaged mind?” she said,leading the way to the bathroom and the shower stall, describing how the same tearful,begging face had appeared on the steamed-up glass. “That was half an hourbefore I saw, or thought I saw, Sasha running from me.”
Liddy leaned back out to the living roomand pointed. “Then she appeared to me last night at three in the morning, hangingdead from that column. I screamed. Paul came running and said nothing wasthere. I guess I was sleepwalking. That’s why I didn’t call you. I woke up convincedI’d really lost my mind.”
40
Oh boy.
Kerri remembered Hank Kubic going on aboutShakespeare and Dostoyevsky and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Ask her if she’sbeen sleepwalking. Seeing dead people.
She stepped out of the bathroom and staredat the white, cast iron column. The light outside had grown darker. She asked,“Your husband was sleeping when you saw this?”
“Yes.” Liddy eased past her, went aroundturning on lamps. “And the place was locked tight with the security system on.Paul always checks.”
Kerri got out her phone and approached thecolumn. To Liddy’s surprise she photographed it from all angles, high, low, andthen the ceiling. It was white smoothness up there. “Did you notice what therope was hanging from?” she asked, looking up. Most of the cases in Hank’s reportwere very specific describing their hallucinations, down to the merest invisibledetail.
Liddy came; pointed to where Charlie Bass’shanging beam was now plastered over, and shrugged. “So she was hanging from nothing,a beam that isn’t there any more. See? Time to call the funny farm.”
Kerri had made a mental list of Liddy’sresponses. Imagination, right? Cruel tricks of a damaged mind. I saw, orthought I saw Sasha. Time to call the funny farm, the men in white coats. Iwoke up convinced I’d lost my mind.
Then Hank Kubic waving his steak knife flashed.“’Is this a dagger I see before me?’ Poor Mac really thought hesaw it! Both he and his missus saw terror that wasn’t there and couldn’t be persuadedotherwise.”
Kerri thought while she moved and tookpictures; asked questions whose answers seemed to follow the same pattern.
Liddy made sad jokes about her state. She wasjust beaten down, there was no aggression or defensiveness to her. Kerri had plowedthrough Hank’s case files and more similar stuff. Lots of clinical gibberish butshe did see the big picture…and still listened to her gut. She was kneeling at thebase of the white column, holding her phone and looking up, when somethingoccurred. “How did you know where Charlie’s hanging beam was?”
“Saw it,” Liddy said, watching her. “WhenBeth first showed us the loft.”
“Oh right, she was your agent?”
“Yes.”
“When did you first see the apartment?”
“August ninth. It was a Sunday.”
That prompted a smile as Kerri rose. “Seethat? Nothing wrong with your
