The Back Door of Midnight

“Let’s get something to drink,” Zack said, steering me away from him.

  The guy next to the stalker whispered to his friend, then said aloud, “That’s got to be the old psycho’s niece. Look at the hair.”

  A nervous titter followed his “accidentally” loud remark.

  “Ignore him,” Zack said quietly.

  At that moment someone tapped me on my shoulder, and I turned around.

  “Hi, I’m Erika.” Without waiting for me to say hello, she slid between Zack and me, and, raising her arms, looped them around his neck. She kissed him on the mouth, lingering there longer than just-a-friend would. I watched the way her dark, silky hair fell straight down her long back until it brushed Zack’s hands. When she turned to face me, she leaned back against him, just enough that he would have to be aware of her hair, her shoulders, her butt, and whatever else those things made him think of. I stared at her, not because of the way she had moved in and kissed him, but because I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that three nights ago, while being invisible to her, with my body home in bed, I had looked at her face as closely as I was looking now.

  “I’m Erika Gill. It’s my birthday,” she said, as if I didn’t recognize her as the most important person there.

  “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Oh, it was Zack who invited you,” she replied. “He likes you. He really likes you.”

  I nodded, careful not to look at him and trying hard not to get mad. “I get along with just about everybody.”

  “He keeps talking about you, so I said, ‘Zack, just ask her, ask her.’”

  Erika, who was wearing heels to die for, was taller than I by six inches and had the body of a model. She made a show of leaning down to whisper to me. “He can’t take his eyes off of you.”

  I was ready to deny it, then got a better idea. Making a show of standing on my toes, I whispered back, “I know.”

  She stared down at me; I cheerfully smiled up her nose.

  “Why don’t you get her something to drink, Zack?” she said coolly, and moved on.

  “So what would you like?” Zack asked, his voice neutral, as if he had not seen or heard any of what had just transpired between me and Erika. Guys can be so weird.

  “Anything but spring water,” I told him. “I just saw a tray of crab balls heading out to the deck. Do you want me to catch a few?”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “The drink line is long. I’ll meet you back here.”

  I took my time getting to the waiter. It occurred to me that I might be spending the evening chasing down men with trays if I was to get myself free enough to eavesdrop.

  My first two efforts turned up nothing but a lot of useless info about who was dating or cheating on whom. When Zack and I were on the outside deck, which under other circumstances would have been terribly romantic, and I went after the third tray of hors d’oeuvres, Zack said to me, “You know, we’re getting dinner.”

  “I don’t usually eat this late,” I replied, and hurried off. Since there were plenty of girls willing to take my place with Zack, it wasn’t that hard to escape.

  For the last hour I had been secretly watching the stalker, who, when I had Zack by my side, was not as interested in me. I had just caught the look he had sent to a guy across the deck, the slight flick of the head, and the catlike way he moved toward a railing as if he didn’t want anyone to notice him, before he dropped out of sight—down a set of steps, I realized. A minute later the guy across the deck headed for the same stairs. Then I did. I had no idea what I was going to do if they turned and confronted me. Jump in the river, maybe.

  I took off my heels at the top of the wooden steps so they wouldn’t click. Halfway down to the first level, I was relieved to see there were people sitting on the lower deck, and beyond glass doors there was a dining room. My eyes swept the deck. I positioned myself behind a waiter’s station and looked more carefully a second time. The guys must have gone inside.

  The doors and windows on the first floor of the restaurant were closed, which meant I’d call attention to myself entering the dining room from the deck side. I walked to the end of the deck, climbed over the railing, and jumped three feet down to the lot below. After slipping my heels back on, I headed for the restaurant’s main entrance and followed a group of diners inside, a man and woman with little kids who kept poking each other. Standing behind them at the hostess desk, I saw my stalker and his friend in a booth against a wall. The wall was about four feet tall and decorated with bushel baskets and nets, orange crabs climbing all over them, which looked dumb because crabs are blue when they’re still able to move. But I was grateful for the decor, especially when I saw that a hallway to the restrooms ran behind that wall.

  “May I help you?” the suntanned hostess asked me.

  “Where is your ladies’ room?”

  She pointed to the hallway.

  “Thanks.”

  I hurried toward it, ducked inside, removed one of my earrings, then returned to the little hall. No one was watching, so I dropped the earring close to where I thought the booth was. There I knelt, ready to act as if I were searching for it if someone came by.

  Having gone to all that trouble, I discovered the stalker and his friend were talking about music. I was just about to give up when I heard one of them say to the other, “You’re so uptight. What’s wrong with you?”

  “She hasn’t found her cell phone.”

  “She hasn’t?” There was a long silence, then the same guy spoke again. “Well, it’s been a week. If the police or firefighters found it and figured out it was Erika’s, they’d have contacted her by now. It’s no big deal. . . . She pulled her SIM card, right?”

  “Wrong.”

  “She didn’t?!”

  “She didn’t know she dropped the phone.”

  The other guy swore.

  “I told Erika to delete every message in her account, but if the police have already gotten into it, we’re all going down together.”

  There was another silence.

  “Does she use a password?”

  “Yeah, but they can crack that.”

  “McManus?” The guy snickered. “Not likely.”

  “They sent the old man’s body to Baltimore. They probably sent everything they had.”

  “The video. She used her phone to take video of the fires and to shoot pictures of kids arriving.”

  At that moment an older woman started toward me. “Did you lose something, dear?”

  In response, I lifted up my shiny earring. When the woman moved on, I crawled a few feet past the booth, then stood up and headed toward the stairs.

  Friends shared phones, I thought; close friends shared passwords. Who would be the most likely person to know Erika’s—and how could I wheedle it out of him?

  fifteen

  “WHERE WERE YOU?” Zack asked. “I looked indoors and out. You just disappeared.”

  “The ladies’ room.” The only way for me to lie effectively was by telling the truth—at least, half a truth.

  “I thought you were chasing down scallops wrapped in bacon.” The laughter I’d seen earlier in his eyes had disappeared.

  “I couldn’t catch up with the tray. Looks like dinner is being served. I’m starved.”

  Zack’s frown told me he didn’t buy my excuses.

  Good. You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you, I thought, but it bothered me the way the light in his eyes had changed. We went through the buffet line silently, then sat with three other couples at a round table. I found myself talking to the girl and guy next to me and avoiding conversation with Zack. When I surveyed the room, I didn’t see the stalker or his friend.

  Dinner was begun with a toast by Mr. Gill. Waiters had scurried around filling champagne glasses with bubbly fruit juice, then he stood up and asked us to raise our glasses in honor of the most beautiful seventeen-year-old in the world, the most wonderful of daughters, the best friend any of us could ever have, et cetera, et cetera.

>   The girl next to me whispered, “I’m glad this is before dinner. I’d hate to puke,” which made me snort my sip of bubbly stuff, drawing an unreadable look from Zack. It may have been the longest toast and the longest dinner I have ever endured.

  Like a wedding reception, cake was going to be served much later. Erika invited us all to dance and told the guys that she expected one dance with each of them. Otherwise, it was a lot like any other event with music: girls dancing with girls, since the guys weren’t enthusiastic about it.

  “Want to go out on the deck?” Zack asked.

  “Okay.”

  We had almost reached the door when Erika caught up with us. “You owe me a dance, Zack. And because you tried to escape, you owe me several.”

  Zack smiled. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready now.”

  “I’ll be outside,” I said.

  Zack nodded and walked with Erika to the dance floor. It was a prime opportunity for me to float around and latch on to a conversation that would provide further information. But my feet stayed planted on the deck close to the doorway. I really didn’t want to, but like the other girls, I watched.

  Erika was a video tutorial on seductive dance. Lesson 1: When the song is fast and everyone’s jumping around, dance as if the music is slow; it makes you and the guy seem like you are in a romantic world all your own. Lesson 2: Take off your shoes; drop back your head to gaze into the guy’s eyes, making him feel taller and making your hair longer, so it hangs down your back and touches his fingers. Lesson 3: Loop your hands around his neck, pretending to be casual and easy, then use your fingertips to touch and tantalize. Lesson 4—

  “It was the ‘green tunnel’ that I got,” said a girl behind me.

  I turned my head and missed Lesson 4.

  “Erika makes the early clues impossible,” a guy replied. “‘Turn at the spring flower’? I didn’t even know there was a thing called a tulip tree.”

  Tulip poplar, I thought. The tree that marked the road that ran through Tilby’s Dream.

  “I didn’t either,” the girl admitted, “but my little brother calls tree-shaded streets ‘tunnels.’ When we got that clue, I could picture it. And then, when Erika sent out ‘Farmer’s dream—’”

  “Everyone got it then. This time, everyone beat the fire trucks.”

  The pair moved past me, through the door and toward the dance floor.

  I walked slowly to the edge of the deck and leaned on the wood railing, gazing out at the river, trying to piece things together. There was a game of riddles, starting with the more cryptic clues, hinting where the fire would be set. Maybe the point was to text the riddle’s answer to Erika, then get to the site in time to watch her set the fire. Even if Erika deleted the incriminating texts from her account, the experts could retrieve them as well as the video of the fire. I had the evidence the police needed but, unfortunately, not the information and explanations that I wanted.

  I really disliked Erika, but I had trouble imagining she knew that Uncle Will was in the trunk of the car. She was a party girl. Her goals in life were guys, clothes, and lots of attention. But she wouldn’t want the kind of attention you get with a corpse; and for her, an old man wouldn’t matter enough to bother with—unless he was seriously cramping her style. Maybe he had seen something and threatened to turn her in. Or maybe it was just bad luck that she had ended up with a charred body. Or maybe, someone who had an issue with Uncle Will and a real streak of violence had taken advantage of the situation. I wondered how many contacts were on Erika’s e-mail list. I wondered if Aunt Iris could “sense” that kind of stuff.

  “Thinking about taking a swim?”

  I turned quickly, then turned back, facing the river; I hadn’t heard Zack’s footsteps approaching from behind. “Not at night,” I said.

  “Why not? I love swimming at night.”

  “Dark water is scary. You can’t see what lies beneath its surface.”

  “But that’s what I like about it,” he replied. “It’s mysterious.”

  “And dangerous,” I told him. “Nothing changes as much as water.”

  “That’s my favorite thing about it.”

  “At night the harbor in Baltimore is beautiful with all the city and dock lights reflected in it, but the reflections keep you from seeing the water itself.”

  “If you are painting it, Anna, the reflections are the water.”

  I turned to him. “But if you fall in, they’re not.”

  He took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes; I felt as if I had slipped off a bank and was drowning in his gaze. I looked away.

  “Do you want to dance?” he asked softly.

  “It’s hot in there.”

  “Out here,” he suggested.

  “Most guys I know don’t like to dance.”

  “Most guys I know want to dance, if it’s with the right girl.”

  “Oops. Song’s over.” And it really was. But the music started again, with a slower beat.

  “Come on, Anna. Why do you make things so hard?”

  “Maybe you expect things to be too easy.”

  He laughed and put his arms loosely around my waist. “Come on.”

  I kept my heels on, and I looped my hands around his neck. I didn’t try Erika’s touch-and-tantalize strategy, partly because I didn’t think I could pull it off, mostly because just feeling his arms around me was enough touching and tantalizing.

  As we danced, Zack pulled me closer. I couldn’t see his face now. I thought—maybe I was wrong—I thought he spoke my name, as if he had said it silently but I heard it anyway. Then I felt his hand on the back of my neck. He leaned my head against his chest. I could hear his heart beating. In half a breath I could have raised my face to kiss him. I felt him lowering his head. In half a breath—

  I got a bucket of cold reality. Through the door to the dining room, I saw Erika standing next to the DJ, watching us, her arms crossed, a satisfied smile on her lips. Zack was on assignment.

  I pulled back. Zack stopped dancing. “What is it?” He gently touched my face, lifting my chin with just the backs of his fingers. I gazed into eyes the color of the creek at twilight. I don’t know what Zack saw in my gaze, but he quickly let go of my face and started dancing again, as if he were afraid to look any longer.

  He ought to be afraid, I thought. His conscience ought to be cowering in the basement of his brain. Faker!

  “Do you remember Monday night?” I asked.

  “Monday . . .”

  “Do you remember what you said?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Well, you were right.”

  “I was right?” he repeated. “About—?”

  “You can fake it with anyone.”

  He took a step back, staring at me as if I had just slapped him.

  I turned, headed for the dining room, and moved quickly through it, using the crowd to make it hard for Zack to catch up. I hurried down the staircase. When I got to the first floor, all I wanted to do was run to the bathroom and bawl. I stood still in the hallway that led to the ladies’ room and shut my eyes, trying to keep the tears from slipping out. I was such a sucker!

  “Are you all right? Are you all right?” a man asked.

  I opened my eyes. Mr. Gill.

  “You look very upset,” he said, his voice sympathetic.

  “I’m fine.”

  He kept staring at me. “I saw you hurrying across the dance floor. I feared that something was wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  He shook his head slightly. “You’re a friend of my daughter, but I don’t know your name.”

  At first I thought it was kindness—unwanted kindness—and I tried to think of a polite way to tell him to get lost. Then I realized why he was so concerned and why he had followed me down the stairs. He knew my name—the name I was born with—and I knew his old phone number. “Anna O’Neill Kirkpatrick,” I replied, and watched Elliot Gill swallow hard.
/>
  “I’m not really friends with Erika. I arrived in Wisteria just a few days ago. I came tonight with Zack, who lives next door to my great-aunt.”

  “Of course,” he said. “You came because of your uncle’s death.”

  I explained once again how I had been responding to Uncle Will’s invitation and didn’t learn he was dead until I arrived. Elliot Gill never took his eyes off me. The way he listened, his mouth moving as if he were anticipating my words, as if thirsty for whatever I had to say, made me wonder if I not only looked like my mother, but sounded like her.

  “Your aunt Iris,” he said, “how is she taking all this?”

  “The way anyone who knows her would expect. She still talks to Uncle Will.”

  “Crazy as a loon,” he remarked softly.

  “Maybe.”

  Mr. Gill raised a pale eyebrow. His eyes were gray, his hair a thin mix of gray and yellow combed across the large dome of his head. Erika must have gotten her dark beauty from her mother.

  He pointed to a booth, the one where the stalker and his friend had sat. “Why don’t we sit and chat?”

  I wanted to go home and cry my eyes out, but I pulled myself together. One of my reasons for coming to this stupid party was to ask him questions about my mother.

  As soon as I slid into the private, candlelit booth, I wished I had insisted on a table in the center of the room. It was the way he looked at me. I wanted to keep reminding him, I’m Anna! Anna!

  “You’re not staying with Iris, I hope?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You should stay with me,” he said. “We have an extra room next to Erika’s. You will be safe with me.”

  “Thank you, but I really like being with Aunt Iris.”

  “Are you aware of the degree to which Iris suffers from mental illness?”

  “I’ve never seen her medical records, but I have some idea.”

  “Over the years she has been in and out of hospitals. As you may or may not know, your mother’s life with Iris and William was extremely difficult.”

  “It would have been more difficult without them,” I replied, feeling the need to defend them. “It would have been hard for my mother to keep me and continue with school.”