The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 Read online

  She crawled up to the top of the bed and settled back into the pillows. "I'll be fine," she said. "I think I'm just going to go on to sleep. I'm tired." She smiled at him. Her skin was fair and her cheeks were flushed and pink. Her hair fell over her eyebrows and spread out behind her on the pillow.

  Gerald backed out the door. "Okay, then," he said. "Good night, then." He pulled the door to behind him.

  The next day he woke at seven and got dressed. He cracked the door into Audi's room and peeked inside. She lay asleep, under the covers, except for one leg, a long fleshy leg that hung out and down to the floor, bare and pink. Dolores's pants were on the floor beside the bed. Gerald looked at Audi's skin as she shifted in her sleep. He shook his head and shut the door.

  At the office, for the first time in weeks, he found himself compelled to write. He took his latest attempt at a memoir out of the drawer and read the first page. The writing was pedestrian, dull. The scene was a boring one, a school play, from ages ago, from third grade. He folded the pages in half and threw them in the garbage and slid a fresh sheet into the typewriter. He began to write, this time starting the story with Dolores's death. He wrote with fire, the words crackling like lightning across the page. He saw himself rolling over to the empty part of the bed, relishing the space, nuzzling into the pillow as the sun made its way through the windows. Then rising late, stumbling downstairs, where Dolores's hair was splayed across the table, her hands dangling limp and straight down at her sides, milk dripping slowly onto the tile.

  And then came Audi, a ball of fire in the empty house. He put the paper away and headed home.

  She was there when he got back. She was on the couch in another outfit of his wife's, an old sweatsuit. She had cooked popcorn and was cuddled up under the blankets, watching TV.

  "Enjoying yourself?" Gerald said.

  "You know it."

  He sat down beside her. She scooted closer. She took a pillow from the end of the couch and set it in his lap, laid her head on top of it, and turned on her side to keep her eyes on the TV. She was watching a music video.

  "What did you do today?" Gerald asked her.

  "This," she said. "All day. Bummed around. It was great." She laughed. It was the first time he'd heard her laugh, a tinkling wind-chime sort of sound that started in her chest and bounced its way across her tongue. It put tingles in Gerald's spine. "How about you?" she said.

  "I did some writing."

  "What about?"

  "About you."

  She turned over on her back and looked up at him. "You're writing about me?"

  "Yup." He watched the TV. The band was playing in a warehouse. He could feel her eyes on him, cold and intense.

  "You better write me exciting. I don't want to be a boring character."

  "You're not."

  "And I better be pretty," she said. Then she turned back to the TV.

  She stayed with him. He went to his office and wrote, and came home and talked to her about his day. He spent all day looking forward to his time on the couch with her, to the feeling of the weight of her head on his lap, the feeling of her breath so near his face.

  He stayed home on Christmas Day. He was cooking biscuits when she came downstairs, slow and sleepy-eyed.

  "Merry Christmas," Gerald said.

  She sat down at the table and yawned. "Don't say Merry Christmas," she said. "It sounds so commercial."

  "What do you want me to say?"

  "How about Happy Christmas, like you say for every other holiday?"

  "Fine, Happy Christmas. Honey or jelly? On your biscuits."

  "Honey."

  "Good choice." He put the biscuits in the oven and took the honey from the cabinet and set it on the table in front of her. "They'll take a few minutes to cook."

  "I got you a Christmas present," she said. She looked at the table and wrung her hands. "I'm not sure if you'll like it."

  "What is it?"

  "You promise you'll like it? Or at least say you'll like it?"

  "I promise I'll at least say I like it."

  "Smart-ass," she said. She ran upstairs and came back down with a brown paper bag and handed it to Gerald. She sat back at the table and waited.

  Gerald opened the bag. There was a picture frame inside. He pulled it out. Inside the frame was the piece of paper that he'd left for her in his wallet, the side with the audacious bit on it. She'd taken colored pencils and traced over all the creases from where she'd crumpled the paper up; then she'd colored the sections all different colors. It looked like the dry, cracked ground in the desert would look if someone attacked it with a paintbrush. The word audacious was traced in brilliant red. The colors were amplified behind the glass of the frame. Gerald turned it between his fingers.

  "You like it?" Audi said.

  "I love it," Gerald said. He propped it up on the table in front of him.

  "You promise?"

  "I love it." He looked at her. She was blushing, her face turned away from him. "I didn't get you anything," he said. "I can get you something."

  "You don't have to," she said. "You've done plenty."

  They spent the entire day on the couch, watching the Christmas shows--Rudolph, Frosty, Island of Misfit Toys--until it got dark outside and the snow started to fall. Gerald went upstairs and got into bed. He closed his eyes.

  He didn't know how long he had been asleep when Audi came in. He felt her as soon as she came into the room. Gerald watched her. She was wearing a T-shirt and panties. She tiptoed across the carpet to the side of the bed, then she pulled the covers back a bit and slid under them. She cuddled up close beside him, put one of her bare legs across his. Her legs felt smooth and soft. She pulled Gerald's arm up above his head and put her head on his chest, wrapped her arm across his stomach. Gerald felt her hair on his chin. He felt her eyelashes on his chest. His muscles tensed.

  "You've been really sweet to me, Gerald," she said.

  He let his arm drop slowly. He brought it around her and pulled her close to him. She wrapped her leg around him and squeezed back.

  "I could fall in love with you," she said.

  "No, you can't," he whispered. He breathed in her hair; she smelled of honey and apples and skin. Then he kissed her on the top of her head. She looked up at him, her eyes dark points in the dark room. She inched forward and kissed him on the mouth, twice, feather soft. Then she laid her head back on his chest and fell asleep. Gerald stared at the ceiling and listened to her breathing.

  He woke up and the sun was bright on her face. He shook her. She stirred and batted her eyes and looked at him.

  "Hey," she said.

  "Get up," he said. "I want to take you somewhere. Late Christmas present."

  She rolled off him onto her back, bunched the covers up over her face. "I'm still sleepy," she said, her eyes peeking out above the bedspread.

  "You want me to make you some breakfast?"

  "Make me some more biscuits," she said. "Just do it quietly." She grinned at him, then she flopped over in the bed and covered her head with the pillow.

  Gerald walked downstairs and looked in the refrigerator. He was out of milk. He put on his boots and his coat and his hat and walked outside. The air was crisp and stung his nostrils. The sun glinted off the icicles that hung from the eaves of his house.

  He put his hands in his pockets and walked up the street to the market. The electric doors slid open and bathed him in warmth and fluorescence. He smiled at the cashier and walked to the back and took a carton of milk from the shelf. He turned it over in his hand, checked the expiration date. He looked at the back of the carton, where they put the announcements about missing children. Audi's picture was printed in smudged ink beneath the nutrition information.

  Gerald stared at it. Her eyes looked back at him from the cold cardboard. Nikki Tyler, age sixteen, runaway, missing for a year. Height. Weight. Parents' number and address. Her parents live just forty-five minutes outside the city, less than an hour from Gerald's house.

>   He put the carton on the shelf and chose a different one, one with a picture of a little black boy on the back, and bought it and took it home.

  Audi was on the couch watching The Price Is Right."Took you long enough," she said. She had the blankets tented around her, just her head sticking out, her eyes intent on the TV. Her nose was small in profile, her lips thin and pink. She turned to him, smiled. "You miss me?"

  Gerald shifted the milk from one hand to the other. "Terribly," he said.

  He cooked the biscuits, and they ate some in front of the TV; then they packed a lunch and got in the car and headed north on the interstate. The roads were empty. The new snow was flat all around them, mostly smooth, but whipped by the wind in some places until it looked like peaked meringue. The sky was deep blue and far away. Audi pressed her nose against the window as they drove.

  "Where are we going?" she said.

  "Ultima Thule," Gerald said.

  "What?"

  "End of the earth."

  They pulled into a parking lot beside a huge frozen lake. Gerald got out of the car and opened the trunk and took out a blanket and their food. They set off toward the lake. Gerald stepped gently off the sand and onto the ice; it held firm.

  "Careful," he said. He took Audi's hand in his. They walked across the ice, their footprints sitting deep in the powdery snow.

  "It's like walking on the moon," she said, her hand tight in his, warm, her eyes scanning the blue horizon. Her feet were soft on the ice.

  A hundred yards offshore, Gerald spread out the blanket and sat down. He handed Audi a sandwich. They ate and looked out over the lake. The ice was cracked and shattered not far from where they sat, and beyond that there were huge gaps with water in between them. Silvery blue and white floes were broken off and drifting beyond, spaced farther and farther out toward the blue horizon.

  "I used to take my wife here," Gerald said. "She liked it. She said it was like the world was trying to stay together, but it was too much. The pull of whatever's outside the world was too much, and it made the earth just break apart and float away."

  "That's very pretty," Audi said.

  "She said when we were here, she felt like we were sitting on the very edge."

  Audi nodded and chewed her sandwich. She took Gerald's hand in hers and held it in her lap and squeezed it tight. The air was still and cold. Water birds cackled at the edge of the lake. The ice cracked and groaned.

  "Audi," Gerald said, "what are you going to do?" He watched the birds as they pecked around in the snow. He felt Audi looking at him.

  "What do you mean?" she said.

  "I mean, with yourself?" He felt her put her other hand on his, closing his rough hand in her fists. "Don't you miss your parents?"

  "They were mean to me, Gerald."

  "Were they really? Is that why you left?"

  She squeezed his hands. "I'm not going to lie to you," she said. They watched the ice float out over the deep water.

  They headed home as the sun started to go down. The sky was cloudless and clean; the sun turned the horizon a bright yellow-orange as the light reflected off the snow and the ice. Audi leaned back in the passenger seat and shut her eyes.

  "I'm stopping up here at this rest area," Gerald said.

  Audi mumbled something, her voice heavy with sleep.

  "You got to pee?"

  She shook her head. Gerald pulled off the interstate and into a parking place at the rest area. He left the engine on, with the heater running. He used the restroom and came outside and stood in the cold, watching his breath form clouds in front of his face. In the parking lot a family rearranged the contents of their van.

  Gerald shook his right leg, then his left. They felt stiff from the drive. He took some long steps around the rest area. He wandered over to the drink machines and bought a Coke. He opened it and took a sip and walked back to the kiosk with the map and the advertisements. He looked over the ads for car insurance and get-rich-quick jobs. In the top right corner were six pieces of paper with pictures of people on them, fliers advertising missing children, the rest-area equivalent of the back of a milk carton. Audi's was in the middle. He read her parents' address again, looked back at the car in the parking lot. The headlights were on and steam was easing out from under the hood. In the woods behind, the snow lay heavy on the limbs of the trees. The branches crackled with ice.

  ***

  Audi slept in the passenger seat. Her mouth was open slightly and her right temple leaned against the window. She had her legs tucked into her chest and her arms pulled inside the sleeves of her shirt. Gerald turned the heater up and looked out the window. The dark in front of him grew brighter as the inky night slid past, and then the city rose up glowing and hard in front of them. He left the interstate and headed into the neighborhood.

  Gerald drove slowly, scanning the dark houses for the address. The houses were small and weathered; the streets were lined with ghostly bare trees. The wind picked up outside and tossed snowflakes off the ground and into the air. It ripped and whistled around the car. Audi woke up. She yawned and scratched her nose, looking around. She stared out the window.

  "What are we doing here?" she said.

  Gerald didn't say anything. He turned the brights on to see through the swirling snow.

  "Gerald. Where are we going?" Audi was glaring at him, her eyes piercing neat holes in the side of his head.

  "I'm taking you home," Gerald said.

  "I don't live around here."

  "I'm taking you back to your parents, Nikki."

  Audi sat up straight in the chair. "You son of a bitch," she said. "You knew? How long have you known?"

  "Only a little while--"

  "Have you been planning this? Is this your trick? Your trick to get me back to my parents?" She climbed onto her knees in the seat, one hand on the dashboard, the other on the headrest, and put her face close to Gerald's, yelling at him. "They rewarding you or something? Are you some sort of bounty hunter?"

  "I only found out today," Gerald said. He stopped at a stop sign and looked at her. "I just found out."

  "I don't want to go back. I told you they were mean to me."

  "I know."

  "They were awful! They never let me do anything. They wouldn't let me see my boyfriend. They locked me in my room. They locked me up, Gerald!" She was raving, her breath hot on Gerald's ear. "They were so mean. I told you they were mean."

  Gerald sighed. "I know, Audi, but you've told me a lot of stuff."

  "You son of a bitch."

  "I just want to do what's best for you," he said. He started to pull forward.

  "Stop the car," Audi said.

  "What--"

  "Stop the car!" She yelled it right in his ear. Gerald stopped and Audi sat back down in the seat. She looked out the windshield. The wind rocked the car and the snow made wispy patterns in the dark air. "Who the hell are you to say what's best for me?" she said.

  Gerald sat quietly for a moment. The engine vibrated; snow melted on the hood. The air from the heater felt fusty and warm on his face. "I don't know. I don't know."

  She didn't look at him. She stared down at her shoes. After a while she said, "You don't want to keep me?"

  She was so small in the chair. She had her knees pulled into her shirt again.

  "You know I can't, Nikki," Gerald said.

  She turned to him. Her eyes were wet pieces of coal. "Stop calling me that," she said. She opened the door and the cold swirled through the car. She got out and zipped her jacket tight around her and slammed the door behind her. She walked up the street.

  Gerald reached across the center console and struggled to roll the window down. "Nikki," he yelled after her. "Nikki, hang on. Audi! Audi." He checked the intersection and put the car in gear and swung around the corner after her. She was hurrying along the edge of the street, her feet tromping through the matted snow along the gutter. Her head tucked tight between her shoulders, hands deep in her pockets.

  Gera
ld slowed beside her. "Audi, come on," he said.

  She walked faster. The wind was high and the snow blew like a white sandstorm through the darkness. Street lamps lined the road, casting cold yellow pools of light on the asphalt. Audi walked through one; Gerald saw the snow stuck in her dark hair. She looked up at him, her eyes black, so black and cold. She began to run, cutting across a lawn, ducking between two houses.

  Gerald got out of the car. The wind hit him and blew his coat open, blasting his chest, the cold stealing his breath. He ran a few steps. His legs were stiff from the drive, stiff from the cold, stiff from seventy-four years of life. Audi was just visible at the dark edge of an anonymous backyard. Gerald called out to her again. He stepped out of the light of the street lamp and into the hard winter dirt in front of the house. He stumbled, put his hand out to catch himself. His old heart pounded in the cage in his chest. When he looked up again, Audi was gone, disappeared into the dark, into the wind and the cold.

  When Gerald got home, the house was empty and quiet. Upstairs Dolores's clothes, the ones that Audi had worn, were scattered across the floor. The bed was unmade. He left it all there. In the kitchen the remains of the biscuits sat in the sink. His Christmas present, Audi's artwork, audacious, lay on the kitchen table. He picked it up and carried it into the living room and propped it on the TV.

  He looked at his gift. The colors were still vibrant and glowing beneath the glass. The lines were fine but dark where Audi had traced. He pictured her small fingers, spending hours meticulously following the paths already set into the paper. Her lines followed those paths, the ones that split out in a thousand directions, one way leading to three more, each of those three leading to three new ones, on and on, the paths circling each other and spreading out and falling together again, a patchwork of possibilities spread across the once-blank field of the paper.

  He had thought of the other possibilities, of course, all the other paths. The other lives that he might have lived had always hidden somewhere in his subconscious, specters of other Geralds in other worlds where things were not the same. Worlds where he did other jobs, lived in other cities, married other women. Worlds where Dolores wasn't dead, worlds where he'd never even met her. All the different paths, and now these new ones: he catches Audi out there in the snowy night, before she disappears into shadow, and she sobs into his chest, and they get back into the car. They go on living together, but for how long and for what purpose and under what pretense, he doesn't know. Or maybe he adopts her, but that one could never be. Her parents would keep looking for her. They'd never allow it.