|
 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. |
