The Coach House (25 page)

The strong smell of the damp earth penetrated her nostrils. She closed her eyes, trying to get up enough strength to move on.

Marie inched her way on her belly toward the alley. Too far to the left and the prickly branches scraped her face. Too far to the right, and she had to contend with the rough surface of the concrete foundation. She stopped to rest every few feet.

When she reached the end of the house, twenty feet of open yard stood between her and the garage. She listened for voices or footsteps or any noise at all, but the only sound she heard was from an occasional car going by the front of the house.

The angered muscles in her stomach clenched until they burned. She raised herself up into a crouched position, caught ten more seconds of silence, and then, like a soldier looking for the safety of a bunker, bolted toward the garage, flinging herself in between the evergreen trees and the side of the garage. She stood there, pinned against the wooden structure, trying to repel the pungent odor of the pine needles.

She wiggled her way to the end of the garage and peered out into the alley. Her car was no more than fifty feet away. Her purse was on the front seat, but she couldn’t remember if she had locked her car door, and her keys were somewhere on the kitchen floor.

It was hard to think rationally while she cowered in the bushes like a scared rabbit, her knees barely strong enough to hold up her weight. It made sense to her to hightail it out of there immediately, but she didn’t want to leave without her purse and keys.

Amid crises, try to find normalcy, and you’ll survive.
She tried to remember who told her that once. She closed her eyes and hoped it would empower her to find the normalcy in what she was doing right now.

She crept toward her car, put her hand on the door handle, and pressed down.
Thank God.
She grabbed her purse and slipped back into the shadows of their garage. She thought about running to a neighbor’s house for help, but didn’t know anyone that well, not as well as Richard did.

Marie pictured the police station on Clark Street, but if that was where Brian Murphy from across the street worked, it would clearly be the end for her. In her current thinking, they were one in the same, Richard and dirty cops.

Cursing herself for not leaving him sooner, she desperately wanted to get back in the house for her keys and all her things still in the pantry, but the only way to do that would be to confront Richard or wait until he left the house and then break in. She was too afraid to confront him.

I can’t wait around here. He could find me missing any minute and come looking.

A door slammed, and she instinctively bolted into the alley and started walking. The sun was low in the sky and, coupled with the heavy rain clouds and dense fog, it provided for low visibility.

A large shadowy image came toward her. She stooped down and pretended to tie her shoe, her head bent down, but her eyes fully aware of what was going on around her. The seconds dragged. Marie heaved an audible sigh as the car drove by without stopping. She continued toward Southport Avenue. A dog barked from somewhere close, causing her heart to beat even faster.

When she was just a few yards from Southport, she heard him bellow her name. “MARIE!” The silence in the neighborhood left in the wake of his roar was deafening. She turned right on to Southport. She pictured him standing on their front porch, not more than a hundred yards away. She felt his eyes on her back, right through the houses and trees. She made another right into the alley behind the houses on the opposite side of the street from theirs.

Then she crossed Clark Street and entered Graceland Cemetery.

Marie was somewhat familiar with the cemetery grounds with its distinct sections of graves, each section surrounded by dense woods. It measured at least a mile on each side. She used to insist she and Richard cross the street when they walked by it, especially at night. But not this night. This night it would be her refuge.

She was at the south end of the grounds, in the middle of hundreds of graves, the only light provided by some of the taller surrounding buildings. She walked briskly toward the center of the grounds where the woods cut in, trying not to trip on any of the flat grave markers.

By the time she reached the thickest section of trees, the atmosphere was damp and dark. The wet vine-choked floor of the woods was uneven and covered in debris. With no path to follow, she stumbled every few steps, her legs seemingly having a mind of their own. The thorny shrubs that tore at her ankles left behind a striped pattern of razor-thin tears on her skin.

Her throat was as dry as parchment, making it difficult to swallow. She wasn’t sure if the pain in her stomach was due to fear or an injury caused by her fall down the stairs. She hoped it was fear. Constantly looking over her shoulder as she snaked her way through the brush, her thoughts concentrated on where Richard might be and what he might do to her if he found her.

She was making fairly good progress when her feet got tangled up in some fallen branches, causing her to trip. Sprawled out on the floor of the woods like a wet dishrag, she lay face down for several seconds. The earth was cold and wet against her cheek, and she could taste the decayed debris that saturated the soil. She strained her ears for sounds, but the woods offered little more than an eerie silence.

Weary but determined, Marie pulled herself up, brushed herself off, and continued. She stopped every hundred feet or so to rest, her world collapsing a little more with each step. Her mind wandered. By Monday, her co-workers would be wondering where she was. And if Martin needed her before then, he would surely call the house.
What would Richard say to them?

Marie’s confounded mind kept racing back to the fact that, except for some cash, she had nothing with her. Nothing on her well-thought-out list. Nothing she needed to make a rational departure.

She kept moving until she reached Irving Park Road, the major street that separated the small south end of the cemetery grounds from the rest. The traffic was light, and she was certain she could dash across it without incident. Her only concern was that Richard may be out looking for her.

Marie leaned up against a tree while she observed the traffic. There were times when no car drove by for what may have been a full minute, enough time for her to get to the other side. She inched closer to the street and looked both ways.
Just go.

The woods on the other side of the road were thicker and more difficult to maneuver. She had walked a couple hundred feet into the woods toward its perimeter when she saw faint lights filtering through the trees. She smiled at the sight of the homes, homes whose deep backyards butted up against the dense foliage of the woods. The houses were spaced far apart, each on at least an acre of land, the sparser versions of the woods that extended into their backyards providing ample places for a game of hide and seek or annoying obstacles for mowing the lawn, depending on one’s age and point of view.

She walked along the eastern boundary of the woods, careful not to allow herself to be seen by anyone who happened to be looking out their back window. Her pace slowed down to a slow walk, until even that was not feasible.

A fallen log provided a place for her to sit. She put her head in her hands, and losing all self-control, she cried, releasing deep soul-searching sobs that she needed to get out of her system if she was to go on.
What am I doing? Where am I going? And what am I going to do when I get there?
She pulled herself up off the log and continued walking.

Aside from the sounds of her own movement, it was deathly quiet in the woods. The thick branches above sheltered her from the rain that had just begun to fall. The cool saturated air penetrated her skin, right through her trench coat.

She felt the gash on her head constricting, the pulsating blood underneath it pushing from the other side. It was almost eight-thirty, two and a half hours since she had been shoved down the stairs. But it felt much longer.

When she came upon a huge fallen tree, she would either have to climb over it or go around it. Not having the strength to do either, she sat down in front of it, curled her knees up into her chest, and buried her head in her crossed arms. She asked God for help and hoped He wouldn’t hold it against her that she had waited until she was in dire trouble to make contact with Him.

She reenacted in her head the scene that had taken place at her house. She tried to remember exactly what she heard when she approached the living room.
Something about money. Twenty big ones.
She distinctly remembered someone mentioning Fiefield, the hospital in Milwaukee where Richard was spending so much of his time. It was Fiefield’s money someone had said.

Cops, mobsters, a large amount of money, and Fiefield…and Richard.
She knew very little about organized crime, just what she read in the papers. It sounded like extortion. She wished she had read the newspaper articles more closely now.
Or maybe not.
She was aware of what happened to people who “knew too much.”

The sound of an owl high above made her jump. She straightened her stiff body to a standing position and walked closer to the houses. There had to be someone in one of them who could help her in such a way that the police, Richard, or any of his sleaze-ball friends wouldn’t find out. But which one?

She bent the seedling trees out of her way and stepped high over shrubs to get around the fallen tree. She continued walking, looking at the houses, wondering whose door she should knock on. Her stomach emitted an occasional growl either out of anguish or hunger.

Marie crept closer to the edge of the woods where there was scant light emanating from the houses. It was close to nine o’clock. She found a stump and plopped herself down. She watched the houses as lights were turned on and off, probably mothers getting their children ready for bed or husbands sitting down to read the evening paper.

She looked right and then left. The same kind of activity was going on in each house as far as she could see.

It took her a few minutes to realize no lights were going on and off inside the house directly in front of her. The longer she looked at it, the more lifeless it seemed. She slid down the tree stump, rested her back against it, and then pulled her feet up under her body like an Indian scout. Her eyes stayed focused on the house. Desperate people do desperate things, Richard had once told her. She hadn’t been able to relate to that statement at the time, but she did now.

She closed her eyes and watched the watery patterns of color float around the inside of her eyelids. The harder and deeper she concentrated on them, the more mesmerizing they became. She squeezed her eyes even tighter and looked for signs to guide her in some direction. But none came.

The vocal owl interrupted her thoughts again. She looked at the row of houses with lights. If she squinted, the flickering looked like fire flies… except for the house directly in front of her. She played the “what’s their story” game in her head.
Away visiting relatives? Abandoned? Electric turned off due to nonpayment? On vacation?
The possible scenarios were endless.

“What!” she blurted out. The white tail of a frightened deer vanished into the darkness of the woods. “Good grief,” she sighed and then laughed at herself. She focused on a small window at the back of the unlit house. It was low enough for someone to crawl into.

As she pulled herself up from the ground, the pains shot through her battered body so hard that it took several short jerky moves until she could stand completely straight. She looked to her left where the woods appeared to stretch on forever. She looked to her right, toward home. When she looked straight ahead, the choice became easy.

Slipping alongside the garage with slow, stealthy strides, Marie approached the dark house and focused on the window. She crept up the decaying wooden stairs with noiseless steps, tiptoed across the porch, and then waited for a noise, any noise. Her back up against the house, she looked at the low moon shining through the branches of the trees.
I can do this.

She knocked on the door and then immediately wished she had given that more thought.
What will I do if somebody answers? Ask for help? Run? Say, “Excuse me, Madam. I must have the wrong house?”

A whole minute passed while she stood at the door in anticipation. A second minute passed.

The world around her was still. Marie’s chest tightened with each shallow breath she took of the cool evening air. She put her hand on the doorknob and let the cold metal tingle her fingers before she gave it a turn. Her heart pounded absurdly fast. The doorknob didn’t budge left or right.

She moved away from the door, toward the window, and picked up a clay pot from the corner of the porch. To her dismay, a screen blocked access to the glass. She looked around for something to pry off the screen. Finding nothing, she put the pot down and tried to pry the screen off with her hands, but she couldn’t get her fingers in between it and the window frame. She struggled with the screen. When the rotting mesh eventually gave way, she was able to bend the flimsy frame of the screen in such a way that it popped out.

Pot back in hand, Marie pressed her nose up against the window and discovered it was a kitchen. The small table and counters were bare. There were no dishes in the sink or in the dish drainer. One of the upper cabinet doors dangled crookedly from one hinge exposing an empty cabinet. On the wall opposite from the window was an open doorway leading somewhere.