The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 Read online

  Pitman hid his hot face in my neck. Said, shuddering like a horse tormented by flies: “This thing over in Star Lake, baby. It’s ugly.”

  Star Lake. Pitman’s old hometown. He had family there he kept his distance from. There’d been a murder/suicide in a cabin above Star Lake, detectives from the sheriffs office were investigating. Not from Pitman but from other sources I knew that a Star Lake man had strangled his wife and killed himself with some kind of firearm. I had not heard that any Pitmans were involved and was hoping this was so. Pitman had many blood relatives with names not known to me including some living on the Tuscarora Indian reservation.

  I had learned not to press Pitman on certain matters having to do with his job or any of his personal life in fact. He’d promised he would always tell me what I was required to know. He would not upset me with the things he saw that upset him. Or things a woman would not wish to know. Law enforcement officers have this way about them: they don’t answer questions, they ask. If you ask you see a steely light come into their eyes warning you to back off.

  Pitman was asking did I know what a garrote was, and I right away said no, no I did not know what a garrote was, though in fact I did, but I knew that Pitman would not wish his eighteen-year-old wife who had only graduated from high school a few months before to know such a thing. Pitman raised himself above me on his elbows peering into my face. He had horse-eyes that seemed just a little too large for his face, beautiful dark staring eyes showing a rim of white above the iris. They were eyes to express mirth, wonderment, rage. They were not eyes to make you feel comfortable. Pitman said, “A garrote is a thing used to strangle. It’s two things. It’s a thing like a cord or a scarf you wrap around somebody’s throat, and it’s a thing like a tick or a rod you twist that with. So you don’t have to touch the throat with your actual hands.”

  Pitman was touching my throat with his hands, though. His hands that were strong, and big. Circling my throat with his fingers and thumbs and squeezing. Not hard but hard enough.

  I laughed and pushed at him. I wasn’t going to be frightened by Pitman-teasing.

  I asked if that was how the woman at Star Lake was strangled, and Pitman ignored my question as if it had not been asked. He was leaning above me staring at me. I remembered how at the wedding ceremony he’d been watching me sidelong, and when he caught my eye he winked. Just between the two of us, a flame-flash of understanding. Like Pitman was thinking of that first secret between us, how he’d handcuffed me in the police cruiser on Hunter Road.

  How reckless Pitman had been! Risking all hell playing such a trick on a fourteen-year-old girl. Misusing his authority. Sexual harassment it would have been called if given a name. Except we’d been fated to meet, Pitman believed. That day or some other, in a town small as Au Sable Forks, we’d have met and fallen in love.

  Of course I’d never told my parents. It was the great secret of my girlhood as it marked the end of my girlhood. Never told anyone except my cousin Andrea but by that time I was seventeen, a senior in high school confounding my parents and teachers by deciding not to apply for college as I’d been planning and everyone was expecting of me.

  (Secretly) engaged to Pitman by then. (Secretly) making love with Pitman every chance I had.

  He was saying now, stumbling out the words as they came to him: “A garrote takes time. A garrote takes planning. Anybody who garrotes his victim, it’s ‘premeditated.’ There’s a sick purpose to it, Lucretia. You wouldn’t know.”

  Damn right, I wouldn’t know! I was trying not to panic pushing at Pitman’s hands, easing them from my throat. His big thumbs I grasped in both my hands as a child might. It wasn’t the first time Pitman had put his hands on me in a way to frighten me but it was the first time when we hadn’t been making love and it hadn’t seemed like an accident.

  Pitman said, “See, if you garrote somebody you can strangle her till she passes out, then you can revive her. You can strangle her till she passes out again, then you can revive her. You don’t exert any pressure with your own hands. Your own hands are spared. It’s a cruel method but effective. It’s the way Spaniards used to execute condemned prisoners. It’s rare, in the United States.”

  This was a long speech for Pitman. He was drunker than he’d seemed at first, and very tired. I knew not to let on any uneasiness I felt for that would offend Pitman who deemed himself my protector. I only laughed now, pulled his hands more firmly away from my throat and leaned up awkwardly to kiss him.

  “Mmmm, Pitman, come to bed. We both need to sleep.”

  I helped Pitman pull off more of his clothes. He was big and floppy like a fish. By the time I leaned over to switch out the lamp Pitman was asleep and snoring.

  It was that night the thought came to me for the first time: It’s a garrote I am in.

  ~ * ~

  “Such an ugly story! Those people.”

  My mother spoke with repugnance, disdain. Those people referred to people who got themselves killed, written up in local papers. People of a kind the Rayburns didn’t know.

  I was in my mother’s kitchen reading the Au Sable Weekly. For some reason our paper hadn’t been delivered. On the front page was an article about the murder/suicide in Star Lake fifteen miles to the east. The name was Burdock not Pitman. I resolved that I would not make inquiries whether the two might be related. It was my reasoning that mountain towns like Star Lake are so small and remote, inhabitants are likely to be related to one another more frequently than they are elsewhere. If Pitman was related to the wife-murderer/suicide Amos Burdock it wouldn’t be helpful for me to know.

  “I didn’t actually finish reading it.” Mom sat across from me, pushing a plate of something in my direction. It is a mother’s destiny always to seduce with home-baked cookies evocative of someone’s lost childhood but I would not eat, I would save my appetite for my own mealtimes with Pitman. “I suppose Pitman knows all about it. Is he ‘investigating’?”

  No mention of a garrote in the article. Only just the coroner ruled death of the female victim, the wife, by strangulation. It was secret information, evidently. Known to only a few individuals.

  “Pitman isn’t a detective, Mom. You know that. So, no.”

  ~ * ~

  Strangle, revive. Strangle, revive. The way Pitman had teased me on the Hunter Road. Scaring me, then seeming to relent. Then scaring me again. Really scaring me. And then relenting. Best keep it a secret between us, Lucretia.

  Daddy’s favorite music is opera. His favorite opera, Don Giovanni. Which I came to know by heart, listening to it all my life. The way Daddy took us to any production of any Shakespeare play within a fifty-mile radius and each summer for years to the Shakespeare Festival over in Stratford, Ontario.

  For Daddy, Don Giovanni and Shakespeare were rewards for the time he spent in the world “out there.” Dealing with men, customers, and employees. Dealing with building materials. Making money. Pitman seemed to think a lot of money. Your old man’s a millionaire, baby. Why you’re so stuck up. Hell, you got a right.

  When I’d wanted to rile Daddy up I would say the world isn’t Mozart and Shakespeare, the world is country-and-western music. The world is cable TV, Wal-Mart, People. I knew that I was right, Daddy’s face would redden. I was the bright schoolgirl, Daddy’s little girl, also something of a smart aleck, like Daddy himself. He’s a handsome man for an old guy in his fifties with a high, hard little belly that looks like a soccer ball under his shirt that’s usually a white starched cotton shirt. Prematurely white hair, trimmed by a barber every third Friday. Daddy would no more miss a Friday in the barber’s chair than he would miss his daily morning shower.

  I knew that I was right but Daddy never gave in.

  “Not so, Lucretia. The world is Don Giovanni, and the world is Shakespeare. Minus the beauty.”

  ~ * ~

  Not so, Daddy. The world is plenty beautiful. If you’re lucky in love.

  For a long time, I believed this. I think I did.

  ~
* ~

  Soon as I married Lucas Pitman, I had to know the man was vigilant.

  Through the day he’d call on his cell phone. Mostly from the cruiser. In his lowered sexy voice saying, “My little princess is never off my radar.” Asking where was I, what was I doing. What was I wearing. What was I thinking. Was I touching myself? Where?

  Pitman was proud of his little blond princess-wife. A rich man’s spoiled daughter he’d seduced, slept with while she was in high school, and married soon as she turned eighteen, thumbing her nose at her old man. Pitman was proud of how she adored him but he didn’t like other guys staring at her. Well, he did, sure he did, but not too obviously. It had to be a subtle thing. It could not be crude. Pitman had a temper, his own friends backed off from him when he’d been drinking and was quick to take offense.

  In these country places in the mountains where Pitman was known. Weekends he’d take me dancing, for a while after we were married as we’d done before we were married, and Pitman would dance like some stoned MTV kid, long legs, arms, feet as fast as my own, grabbing me and leaning me back in my high-heeled shoes, little T-shirt, and jeans tight so that the crease pinched me between the legs and Pitman could run his fingers along that crease quick and sly not minding who might be watching. Pitman the law enforcement officer out of uniform, wild to have a good time. Desperate to have a good time. He had a few cop friends, younger guys like himself. I was too young to realize that Pitman and his friends were not likely to be promoted very far up police ranks; I was too adoring of Pitman to guess that his superiors — even that Pitman had “superiors” — might not admire his brashness the way I did. His scorn was for desk work, computers, “investigating teams” that depended upon forensics lab reports and not action. He liked being in uniform, in the cruiser, and in perpetual motion. He liked the .45-caliber police service revolver visibly gleaming on his hip.

  Pitman was an Adirondack boy, he’d grown up with guns. In our honeymoon bungalow he kept his “arsenal”: two rifles, a Springfield double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun, several handguns. He’d wanted to teach me to shoot so that we could go hunting (white-tailed deer, pheasant) together, but I refused — “Why’d I want to kill some beautiful blameless creature?” Pitman winked, “Well hell, baby, somebody’s got to.” I had to love how Pitman took boyish pride in his Smith & Wesson .45-caliber revolver with “zebra wood” gun grip he’d acquired in a poker game. He took pride in his Winchester .30-caliber deer rifle with its long sleek blue-black barrel and maplewood handle he was obsessive about keeping polished the way, at our house, my Mom kept the good silverware polished; this was the firearm Pitman kept loaded and ready at all times, in case of intruders, break-ins. He’d showed me where the rifle was positioned on the closet shelf, how I was to take it up and hold it, how I was to shift the safety off in any time of danger but I was nervous backing off, laughing and fluttering my hands. No, no! Anybody was going to protect me, it had to be my husband.

  At our kitchen table while I prepared a sizzling frying-pan meal Pitman would drink Coors and listen to Neil Young, sometimes Dee Dee Ramone turned up high as he dismantled, cleaned, and oiled his long-barreled police service revolver with the tenderness you’d hope to see in a man bathing an infant. Pitman interpreted my fear of firearms as respect for him, and he liked that. Of all things Pitman required respect. The Pitmans and their numerous kin were not generally respected. They were feared and scorned in about equal measure. Pitman wished to be feared and respected in equal measure. Sure, he liked to laugh and have a good time but respect was more important. He knew of my father’s disdain for fishing, hunting, guns of any kind and had a way of alluding to “your esteemed father Mr. Everett who pays other guys to do his shooting for him” that was startling to me, like for an instant Pitman’s brain was sliced open and you could see the shrewdness inside, the class-hatred, anger. The next instant it was gone, Pitman liked to tease-taunt me in a way that was like sex, the prelude to sex. Telling me of the times he’d had to use his weapon. Drew his gun and aimed it as he’d been trained — and called out a warning — “Put your hands where I can see them! Put your hands where I can see them! Come forward slowly! Come forward slowly!” -— but he’d had no choice except to fire. Since being sworn in as a deputy sheriff he’d had to shoot and kill two men, and he’d wounded others. Not always alone but with his partner, or others. It was rare for a law enforcement officer to use his weapon alone. Did he have any regrets, hell no. He’d never been reprimanded for excessive force. The shootings had been investigated and cleared. On one occasion, Pitman was credited for saving the life of another deputy. He’d received citations. He never dreamt about these actual shootings but he dreamt about shooting. A lot.

  Pitman smiled his slow easy smile, telling me this. I felt my breath come short.

  It was a requirement of the St. Lawrence County sheriff that deputies were required to fire no less than two bullets at their target if they fired one.

  “Why is that? What if you change your mind?”

  “You don’t.”

  “But, if you’ve made a mistake ...”

  “You don’t make a mistake.”

  “A deputy never makes a mistake?”

  Pitman laughed at me. Those days, I never knew if I was pretending to be shocked by him or truly shocked. I saw that steely light come into his eyes. He leaned over and drew the revolver barrel along the side of my thigh, slowly. In a way that made me know he was quoting somebody he revered he said “A forty-five is not an equal opportunity employer. “

  ~ * ~

  The last time Pitman took me dancing.

  This hillbilly tavern out on Hammer Lake. We’d been married about three years. We’d go out with other couples, the guys were friends of Pitman’s. (My old high school friends, I rarely saw. They were away at college. When they came home to visit, I made excuses not to see them.) Still I was Pitman’s blond princess he loved to show off. Still I was in love with Pitman in terror of what it might mean if I was not. Old disco music blared on the jukebox. Music to make you laugh it’s so awful yet there’s the beat, the tawdry-glam-our beat, raw-sex beat, gets you on your feet dancing like the floor beneath you is burning hot, you can’t stop. I felt Pitman’s strong arms against my ribs and smelled his breath and oiled hair and it came over me like a sickness how I missed Daddy, I missed my mom and the house on Algonquin Avenue so bad.

  Sharp-eyed Pitman knew my every shift in mood.

  “Where’s your mind, baby? You look spaced out.”

  I was drunk. A few quick drinks made me drunk. And “I Will Survive” pounding on the jukebox.

  I laughed and hid my face against Pitman’s chest. Slid my arms around him and pressed so close against Pitman I heard his big heart beating like it was my own.

  ~ * ~

  It was after Pitman’s partner and close friend Reed Loomis died, Pitman began to drink mornings.

  This was early in April. Not long before the anonymous calls began.

  Was there some connection, yes I guess there must have been. I tried not to think what it was.

  Oh, I’d liked Reed Loomis! Everybody did. The friendliest man, a blunt porky face and buzz-cut hair, more resembled a high school sports coach than a sheriffs deputy. Loomis was six years older than Pitman and even bigger than Pitman; he’d asked him to be his son’s godfather and Pitman was deeply moved by the request. “Only time anybody’s going to hear ‘god’ and ‘Pitman’ in the same breath.”

  Pitman wasn’t the one to tell me, he could not utter these words, but Loomis had died of a fast-spreading pancreatic cancer. Pitman was stunned and distracted. Pitman looked like a man staring into a blinding light unable to shield his eyes. Muttering, “Can’t believe it. Reed is gone.” He’d been noticing how lately he was doing most of the driving in the cruiser because Loomis had a headache, trouble with his eyes, was feeling “weird,” one day Loomis’s legs give out in the parking lot and his white blood cell count is crazy, there’s a diagnosis, and a
few weeks later Loomis is dead.

  Abruptly one day Pitman ceased speaking of Loomis. If I brought up the subject, he chilled me out.

  Sometimes he tried to hide the morning drinking from me. Sometimes not.

  “It won’t bring Reed back, honey. What you’re doing to yourself.” (Did I say these words? These are words you say, believe me.) Pitman sneered like he was just discovering he’d married a mental defective. “This ain’t for Reed, baby. This is for me.”

  Sometimes hearing just the intake of my breath, Pitman reacted quick as an animal defending itself. Shoving me aside, hard. “Get away! Don’t touch.”

  And he’s out the door, and gone.

  It was a cold season, I wore long sleeves to hide the bruises.

  Scarves tied around my neck. Makeup layered on my thin pale face and lipstick so cheery you’d expect me to burst into song.