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 Death's Domain
Chapter One:
Deathless in Oak Park
A paw bapped her nose. Gripped by her dream, Cassidy
McCabe burrowed deeper into the covers. Starshine, not easily
discouraged, dug her way under the blankets, touched her damp nose to
Cassidy's forehead, and purred louder.
Swimming upward from the depths of an unnerving nocturnal
vision, Cassidy dragged herself into a sitting position and blinked
groggily at the calico cat. Starshine moved to the end of the bed
to stare pointedly into the hall. The clock on the bureau said
eight A.M., and the pillow to Cassidy's right was empty.
"If Zach's up, I know you're not starving, no matter how much
you insist that you are."
She felt edgy and disoriented, a residue from her
dream. Staring into space, she tried to recapture it. A
multitude of chalky-faced high school girls in flouncy white dresses
standing on a rolling green meadow, all gazing east. Although it
seemed as if she were observing from a distance, she knew that she was
really somewhere among them, indistinguishable on the outside but
emotionally set apart, the other girls hating her.
You've had this dream before.
When? What brings it up?
Anniversaries you don't want to remember. Days that
hearken back to bad things from the past.
She looked through her north window at gnarly bare branches
against a pale blue sky. November. The only unpleasant
anniversaries she could think of were the wedding and divorce dates
from her first marriage, and neither of those had taken place in the
eleventh month of the year.
Thoughts of the bad old times caused her to shift her gaze to
the photo montage on the wall opposite the bed, her eyes fastening on a
picture taken at the backyard reception for her second marriage.
The print showed Cassidy in the middle, Zach and his teenaged son on
either side. A talisman. A reminder that the past is
the past and the present -- this week at least -- is golden. She
decided everything was fine, she had nothing to worry about, the dream
was irrelevant.
"Oh well," she said to the cat, now pouncing on her
blanket-covered toes. "Just goes to show that the unconscious
really isn't infallible, much as I like to delude myself to the
contrary."
The phone rang but she let the answering machine on her desk
take it, the sound turned down so she couldn't hear the caller.
Starshine succeeded in penetrating the blanket and digging
her fangs into Cassidy's big toe. "Ouch!" She jerked her
foot away. "Okay, you win. You can have a second breakfast."
Dressing in jeans and a purple sweatshirt, she went into the
bathroom to brush her cinnamon-colored hair, thick curls straggling
around her neck and shoulders. Why didn't you get your hair
cut two weeks ago, when you first thought of it? And why don't
you own a single barrette or clip or scrunchie so you could get this
mess off your neck? You're so inept with hair, you wouldn't know
how to use those things if you had them. Your girl training was
obviously deficient.
Perhaps she should get rid of all her hair, go bald like
Michael Jordon. Trying to picture the results, all she could
envision was a light bulb.
Besides, you'd have to shave it every day, and daily is
definitely not your strong point. Sometimes getting herself
into the shower on a once- every-twenty-four-hour basis was almost more
than she could manage.
Heading down the stairs, she caught a whiff of toast and
coffee in the living room, evidence that Zach had eaten earlier.
On her way past the dining room table, she picked up a note and carried
it into the kitchen, its scuffed cabinets, worn-out countertops, and
curling-seam linoleum in dire need of rehabbing. She leaned
against the sink to read the brief message.
CASS,
LEFT EARLY TO WRITE UP LAST NIGHT'S SHOOTING. SHOULD BE DONE BY
AFTERNOON. LET'S GO TO THE DESERT CAFÉ FOR DINNER. LOVE, ZACH.
He didn't usually work on Saturdays, but he'd received a call
late the previous night with news of an alderman's murder and had
decided to go into the Post this morning to write the story.
Starshine nipped her knee, a reminder that food should always
come first. As Cassidy spooned wet smelly glop into the cat bowl
on the counter, the calico jumped up to bury her face in it.
Starting fresh coffee, Cassidy stared through the window at
sunlight washing over her neighbor's backyard, then glanced into the
kitchen window directly opposite hers where Dorothy Stein presided over
a gang of adopted teenagers, no two with quite the same racial
background.
While the coffeemaker gurgled, she mentally reviewed her
day. Two clients, starting at noon: Joanne, whom she'd been
seeing six months to discuss her affair with a married man, and Troy,
who'd been coming a little longer to work on his lack of success with
women.
She looked out the window again. The unseasonably mild
weather beckoned to her, made her want to work outdoors so she could
look up into the clear blue sky, feel the warmth of the sun on her
face. You could wash your office windows inside and
out. Give Zach a major shock. Make your clients think
they'd walked into the wrong place when they saw all that sparkling
glass.
The odds of you carrying soapy water up a ladder are about
as great as Dr. Laura acquiring empathy.
Cassidy marveled at how bright the light seemed even so early
in the day. Bet it's warm enough you could drink coffee on
the porch one last time. Porch-sitting in November was a
rarity.
She filled her mug, then spoke to the cat, who sat on the
counter washing her face, a dainty triangle with one black ear, one
orange ear, and a small pink nose. "You want to go outside?
There might even be a fly left for you to eat." Flies appeared to
be as much of a treat for Starshine as peanut butter cups were for
Cassidy.
Running ahead of Cassidy through the house and out onto the
enclosed porch -- its row of dirty windows facing west -- the calico
disappeared through the one they routinely left open for her. The
air felt brisk. The wind chimes jangled from the eaves.
Cassidy picked up the Register from the top step, then glanced
at the yard next door, where Dorothy's husband and three dark-skinned
kids were raking crinkly brown leaves from their lawn out to a huge
mound at the curb.
She smiled to herself. You are such a slug.
Here they are doing physical labor, and your plan for the morning is to
bask in this great air and read the Oak Park paper.
Even though Zach worked for the Post, she disapproved
of the media on principle and refused to look at any part of the paper
other than the cartoons, which she collected, and the stories written
by her husband. But she enjoyed keeping abreast of village
controversies through the local weekly. So what's the issue
of the week? Racial balance in the schools? The gay
festival? Library staff changes? Oak Parkers could get
up in arms about almost anything.
As she settled on the wicker couch's old floral cushion, the
date at the top of the paper caught her eye. November
fourth. The words seemed to jiggle something loose from deep down
in her unconscious, bringing back that edgy feeling from her dream.
Did something bad happen on November four? Or
is it just your imagination going berserk, trying to concoct something
out of nothing, dredging up a wisp of bad memory because the past few
months have been so trouble-free you've exceeded your tolerance for
peaceful, orderly existence.
She flipped through the front section, sipped coffee,
breathed in the earthy smells of damp ground and decaying leaves.
Gazing out at the street, she noticed that even though the parkway elms
were bare, the smaller maples still held a thatch of bright
yellow. Village always looks so serene. Easy to forget
your back door window was broken just two months ago. Yeah, but
that could happen anywhere and it seemed like the guy didn't even come
inside.
Returning to the porch, Starshine jumped onto her window
ledge and said mrup. Cassidy moved on to sports, then
obituaries. These were sections she seldom opened, but her mug
wasn't empty yet and she didn't want to give up the outside air.
She turned another page and stopped abruptly, eyes glued to a
grainy photo of a face identical to hers. A narrow face with deep
set eyes, high cheekbones, and pointed chin, curly shoulder-length hair
nestling around it. She felt a tingling in her scalp. Her
chest tightened.
There was her name, CASSIDY MCCABE, in big bold letters
centered above the brief obituary. How could the paper make a
mistake like that? Mixing me up with somebody else. And why
a picture? No photos with any of the others.
November fourth. What happened on November
fourth? Oh no, oh no! This is not something you ever want
to remember.
She skimmed the two short paragraphs.
CASSIDY
MCCABE, 24, DIED NOV. 4 IN AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT. SHE WAS A
GRADUATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHAMPAIGN.
SHE
IS SURVIVED BY HER MOTHER AND FATHER, MR. AND MRS. DONALD SEGEL, HER
SISTER ELAINE AND BROTHER PETER. FUNERAL SERVICES TOOK PLACE NOV. 9 AT
FOSTER-HARRIS FUNERAL HOME.
It doesn't say she had a .12 blood alcohol level. Or
that she could have gone home safely in a taxi if her friend hadn't
forced her to leave. Or that what happened turned out in the long
run to be irrelevant, nothing to have hysterics over, no reason at all
for a vibrant young woman to die.
The voice in her head faded out. Her surroundings
became less real, as if she were floating overhead watching her
zombie-self stare out at the street. She saw Starshine leap down
from the window ledge, prance over to the wicker couch, jump up on the
seat, and bump her head against the figure sitting there. The
zombie person let the newspaper slide to the floor, reached out to
scratch behind the cat's ear. But Cassidy, observing from above,
could feel neither the movement of the hands nor the sensation of skin
against fur.
The cat climbed into her lap, kneaded her chest, seemed to be
trying to pull her back, but she stubbornly remained outside, not
wanting to remember. When the zombie person didn't respond,
Starshine left through her window again.
Some time later a gray Nissan pulled up in front of the
house. Oh shit! Don't want him here. He
won't let you stay a zombie. Zach, dark-haired,
wide-shouldered, moved rapidly toward the porch, coming inside to stand
over her.
"You've seen it."
If you go back, you'll have to remember. You'll have
to tell him.
Her zombie-self continued staring at the street.
Sitting next to her, Zach took both her hands in his.
"Cass, look at me."
You might as well give up. He's not going away.
The overhead observer slid back inside Cassidy's skin.
A deep shudder ran through her. She sighed heavily, blinked, then
gazed into Zach's troubled blue-gray eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I saw the picture, read the obituary, then just sort of went
off somewhere. And wherever it was I went, I really wanted to
stay there." She grimaced. "For an instant, I didn't even
want to see you." She laid her hand on his arm.
"But now that I've regained my senses, I'm really glad you're
here." She felt a rush of affection for her husband, who had come
running to the rescue the minute he learned something was wrong.
He folded the paper so the fake obituary faced outward.
"You have any idea what this is about?"
You have to tell him.
Not yet.
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