Secrets and sins, p.11
Secrets and Sins, page 11
This letter does not need to be in evidence if you do not want it there. It is your privacy at risk here, not mine.
Fold it, put it in your pocket, and leave with it, if you will. Only you and I will know, and trust me, the cadaver I am now will not tell a soul.
Tobias A. Faraday
“Shit!” she yelled with a fist to the desk.
He did indeed know how to speak her language. He did indeed know how to mess with her because he identified what was truly important in her life. And yet, he made a point of not crossing lines, acquiring only information that anyone in Granton could discover by simply paying attention.
And he had not messed with Holly. Above all, that relieved her, and she suddenly allowed herself to feel what she had managed to hold back from the moment she saw Holly’s painting in the sitting room. Tears rose in her throat. While she would not and could not shed them at that juncture, merely acknowledging them eased a great burden.
And the ‘out’ he had given her—that one proved more difficult for her to grapple with. Yes, he had messed with her, but at the same time, he gave her a way to protect herself. And now—as much as she resisted, she was doing what Greeley told her not to do: She again peered into his cloudy eyes.
Interrupting that unsettling gaze, McCallister’s cell phone made its presence known. She answered it to hear the results of Kate’s foray into the literary world of T. A. Frederick. She said she spoke with the editor for American Orchidist Association Magazine and learned that Frederick had written four articles for them over the past years, all of which pertained to Tobias Faraday. The editor indicated that Faraday’s appeal came not so much for his vast knowledge but more for the myth behind him ... that most in the orchid community knew of him, but no one actually knew him. She said the editor had been most eager for Frederick’s last article, even to the point of helping him get it done, as he had told her that Faraday was dying,
“How did he know, Laura?” Kate asked, her voice near the begging stage. “Was he dying of something? Or did he know he was going to be murdered?”
McCallister told her she didn’t know, and that was not an untruth. She didn’t know, and speculation at that point, especially the audible kind, would not help her. Following him through his own denouement would—hopefully.
Kate gave McCallister the magazine editor’s name and phone number. McCallister wagered that one quick call would pinpoint who the middle-aged woman was that the neighbors had seen visiting the guesthouse. She assured Kate that if she learned anything newsworthy, she’d let her know. “Until then,” she said, “I’m afraid you’re back to slinking around looking for crumbs.”
She ended that call and could not help but speculate, or at least pose the question that required speculation. How did he know he was about to become a cadaver who could “not tell a soul”? She would need to leave his icy hands on her shoulders for a while longer, letting him steer her to where he was sure she needed to go.
She grabbed the Chalkline Mysteries magazine and flipped to page fifty-eight. “Sound Reasoning by T. A. Frederick,” that page began. She quickly flipped to the front cover, just to reaffirm the day of April 1979 and to fathom that Frederick’s existence suddenly spanned decades.
Eagerly, she began to read, only to be stopped by the text message tone on her phone. “Dinner 6:00? I love you. I miss you.” She looked to her watch, realizing that it was going on one-thirty. She thumbed, “Yes, 6. I love and miss you, too. Very much.” After sending it, she returned to “Sound Reasoning,” knowing that she could certainly use a dose of that.
Sound Reasoning by T. A. Frederick
Albert Regis lay on his bed, desperately pressing his hands over his ears to blot out the horrid sound.
He remembered waking the day prior; how different it had been. Summer vacation mornings afforded him the luxury of lingering in bed to plan his wide-open day. A ride to town on his bike? Begging the neighbor man to take him driving as his temps burned a hole in his back pocket? Maybe fishing. Maybe read a book. Maybe a swim in the pond. Maybe nothing but a boring movie on television. For a fifteen-year-old boy, the possibilities were endless, and Albert liked to ponder them all.
He squeezed his hands tighter to his head, but he still heard it. He flipped to his stomach and frantically brought his pillow over his head. Again, he pressed as hard as he could to keep the sound from getting inside him. The auditory invasion made him sick to his stomach; he wanted to vomit. In his mind, he saw his mouth become like a fire hose, propelling his acidic bile with immense pressure until it covered everything he disdained.
No one should have to hear this, he screamed inside, trying to make his inner voice louder than what reverberated outside his skull. But again, it was to no avail. He imagined tiny little fragments of sound marching up his body, running single-file to his ears and then into his defenseless brain—assembling, falling into line, gathering, congregating until there were enough of them to create one ghastly noise. He compressed his pillow tighter to his head.
And then there was silence.
He envisioned the boy wiping his sister’s spit off his mouth. Maybe he would smile at her as he stood to pull up his jeans. Maybe he would say, “See you tomorrow,” over the zipping sound he made. Whatever he did, Albert could only imagine with great disgust. But, what he did know for certain was that next, the boy would make his way to the bedroom window, slink down the trellis, and steal off out of sight.
And what was she doing in there now, the slut? Those imaginings he always refused to entertain.
She did this more times than he could count. As soon as he heard his parents close the front door to leave for work, he began the vigil. His ears would switch between car door slams and listening for feet on the trellis ... engines starting and feet on the trellis ... distant engine sound and feet on the trellis. When he could no longer hear his parents’ engines in the distance, he concentrated solely on the trellis. If he heard feet and hands clawing their way up, he’d wait for the horrid sound that was sure to follow, the sound no brother should have to hear. Then, he’d close his ears.
Sometimes it was a low-voiced boy. Sometimes it was a high-pitched boy. Sometimes it was the one who laughed. Sometimes, the silent one. She had a parade of them. Some mornings she was grand marshal. Some mornings no one marched to her beat. The inconsistency drove him mad. If no sound came within twenty minutes after his parents left, he knew it was safe.
Today was not safe.
He got up and crept down the hall, past her now-quiet room. He snuck into the bathroom and turned on the faucets in the shower until the water neared scalding. Then, as he had done on every other occasion, he burned the intrusive sound off his body. He’d visualize the tiny little fragments of sound that hadn’t made it to the assembly in time ... swirling at the drain, pulled into the vortex, banished.
With as much stealth, Albert exited the bathroom and tiptoed down the stairs. He walked into the kitchen, swiping the note his mother always left on the counter. The paper was divided into two columns. He owned half, his sister, the other. Chores for the day ran down the columns. Today he was expected to water the garden and straighten up the shed. She, on the other hand, was to dust the living room, mop the kitchen, and peel potatoes for dinner. Never did her column say, “Screw the boy du jour.”
Frequently he wondered what they’d think if they knew. Oftentimes, he wanted to tell them ... just to make the sound stop. A couple of times, he had even opened his mouth to do just that, but he stopped in panic before a word even had a chance to form. He was torn. As sickened as he was by her disregard for what was right, he did not want to lessen her in the eyes of his parents. He could hate her and love her at the same time. This confused him, but he hadn’t been able to stop it—no matter how hard he tried.
By telling, he also did not want to lessen himself in the eyes of his parents. Good boys didn’t think such things, much less say them aloud. If they didn’t believe him, if they didn’t see the dire necessity in ripping the trellis from the wall, they would think he was as twisted as the morning glory vines clinging to it. But, he knew he wasn’t twisted. He knew he could never be like her, that he would never be like her. He would never need to wipe someone’s spit off his mouth because he knew he could never do it without thinking of her.
He looked to the bottom of his mother’s note. “I love you. Mom,” it always read, and it always grabbed him by the scruff of the neck to ensure his silence.
He quietly grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and then collected the cereal, a spoon, and the milk carton. He ate as quickly as he could and then snuck back upstairs before she arose.
In his room, he threw on shorts, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. Then he went to his dresser. Although his door was closed, he scanned the room to make sure he was completely alone. He clutched the wooden cigar box his father had given him. Again, he looked around the room before removing the stacks of baseball cards that rested inside. After setting them safely on his dresser, his hand went into the box, pushed on the far corner to jimmy the felt-covered board, and withdrew the fake bottom. There was his secret, his sin: a single cigarette sat. He helped it make its way from the cigar box to the pocket of his T-shirt. He replaced the bottom and the baseball cards.
No longer concerned about rousing her, he sped out of the house and made a beeline for the shed.
He opened the shed’s door, assessing the extent of the work involved in straightening up. It didn’t seem that big a deal, so he quickly did what was expected of him. He put the garden tools in their proper places. He moved the gas can where it belonged by the lawnmower, and he closed the box of plant food that someone had left open. He brushed the potting soil off the workbench and then quickly gave the area a sweep.
With his work done in record time, he neared the bag of charcoal for his father’s grill. He grabbed the lighter and snuck out to the back of the shed. With his spine to the wall, he stretched out and retrieved the cigarette from his pocket. Knowing it had to last until he could swipe another from the neighbor man’s house, he took his time both lighting it and smoking it. The sensation of drawing in the smoke and holding the cigarette between his fingers made him feel manly, strong. Ofttimes he figured he could do just about anything with one clutched between his two fingers. He relaxed and let the morning’s stress float away in a whirl of white smoke.
Shattering the mood, she suddenly towered over him. As she leered down at him, she proclaimed, “I knew you were smoking! It took me a while to catch you, but now I have you. I’m telling.” She let out a wicked laugh.
“You can’t tell!” he yelled. “They’ll kill me.”
“Well, then,” she said, “maybe we can make a deal. All my chores for the rest of the summer.”
“Bull!” he spat back at her. “I’ve got worse things on you. If you tell on me, I’ll tell on you. What you do is a lot worse than having one stupid cigarette.” He glared into her smiling, arrogant face. “I know what you do in the morning after they leave. I can hear you, and it makes me sick. You make me sick.”
She just laughed. “Oh, listening to your little sister, are you? You pervert! You’re just jealous.”
“How could I possibly be jealous of that?” he challenged, clutching the bare remainder of his cigarette like a man. “They don’t care about you! They’re using you.”
“And what makes you think I’m not using them?” she countered. “Guys are all the same. A little yank in the right place, and they’ll do whatever I want.”
With a fire-red face, he defended, “I’m not like that! I’ll never be like that.”
“You’re right, dear brother. You’ll never be like that because you’ll never find anyone willing to yank.” She laughed manically, and it slowly turned into tiny little fragments of sound crawling on his body in search of his ears. She taunted, “You’ll just have to be happy with how Mommy and Daddy dote over their precious little boy. It’s all you’ll ever have.”
He moved his hands to cover his ears, dropping the spent cigarette butt as he did so. He squeezed his head until it felt as though it would burst, like an explosion of glass, each shard reflecting her laughing face and bouncing the sound back at him. He squeezed even harder and started rocking in place. “At least they love me! At least they love me!” he chanted.
* * * * *
She peeled the potatoes like a good girl. Her mother would be proud.
Nearly depleted, the ten-pound bag slumped next to the sink.
With each flick of her wrist, the peeler made a scraping sound, followed by a tiny little clink as the blade swung back into position. She concentrated on the clink. The scrape was easy to hear. The clink took discernment and a careful ear. But, the effort was well rewarded; it drowned out that horrid morning sound still echoing in her skull, floating there like whirls of black, black smoke.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and her mother shrieked, “What happened to the shed? It’s gone—it’s smoldering! What happened? Are you okay? Where is Albert?”
She screamed so loud that it made it difficult for her to concentrate on the clink. She needed the clink.
“Where is Albert?” her mother screamed.
Needing to shut her up so she could hear the clink, she said, “He’s out by the shed smoking.”
Scrape. Clink. Scrape. Clink...
“Holy shit!” McCallister gasped, flipping once more to the cover to see the date: April 1979.
Chapter 11
On any other occasion, McCallister would have enjoyed the story. She would have pondered the possibilities, thought about the characters, perhaps read it again in search of nuances. This occasion, this story, however, proved sorely different: a now-deceased man killed by his sister had penned a story decades ago about a tormented boy and his unstable sister. She realized it was fiction, and yet, the prophetic nature of it caused her mind to reason that the author, Frederick/Faraday, had probably written from a place of understanding. But, did it stem from an understanding he gleaned as he wrote it or from things he remembered from his childhood? She reasoned that it did not matter. It offered no further proof of what had happened in this house three days ago; it was merely a glimpse into the minds of two fictional characters. Motivations and fears—supportive of the conclusions, maybe, but still fiction, pure and not so simple.
Her eyes scanned the story again. She smiled to herself.
With the utmost confidence, McCallister ran her finger along the wooden cigar box on the desk. She wondered if Faraday’s father had really given it to him when he was young and if it truly had stowed his boyhood secrets. She would have bet her life that if it didn’t then, it did now.
She carefully removed the lid from the box, the strong scent of cigars rapidly expanding in the room. Imagining baseball cards instead of cigars, she removed the contents and placed them on the desk. Remembering what the fictional Albert had done, she inserted her hand, fiddled with the bottom corner, and pulled out the felt panel. She peered in to find one lone cigarette, a bright yellow and blue pack of baseball cards, and a folded sheet of paper. Oddly, she took the pack of baseball cards first, finding it unopened, ridges indicating that even the stick of bubble gum, albeit shattered, still resided within. She set it aside. The cigarette made her want her own, so she ignored it and instead grabbed the piece of paper.
Again, the first line read, “Detective Laura McCallister, I presume.” She acknowledged that he had begun both letters in the same way, obviously in case the prior one had landed in her pocket for a hasty trip out the door. He was keeping his word. He was respecting her lines. He was protecting her—needlessly, but that did not devalue his intent.
“These are my secrets and sins, at least the ones that matter at the moment,” the impeccable penmanship read.
T. A. Frederick: That name has been with me for many years, as you now know. I assure you it is not a separate part of my personality—no Jekyll and Hyde tale here. It is nothing more than a pseudonym. Speaking through someone else’s pen or tongue allowed me to say what I was too fearful to say on my own. I found it truly amazing just how freeing it was to ‘be’ him. By simply putting on a wig and a mustache, I could be more of who I am, or maybe who I was supposed to have been if I had not let fear take over when I was young. He was my spine, and for that I am grateful, despite how dishonoring it is for me to have to admit it now.
Albert Regis: He is simply a fictional character, and yet, any novice writer is told to write what he knows, and so I did. I know the sounds that tormented him. I know the fears and the disgust. I know the foreboding in the assertion that I would always be alone, loved only by Mother and Father. And I know what it is like to love my sister no matter how I tried not to, no matter how many reasons she gave me to feel the contrary.
Albert’s Sister: Again, she is simply a fictional character. She is a nameless one, because the name that belonged to her, I could not write, and yet, I could not bring myself to fictionalize it either. The sin of spinelessness again.
Throughout my entire life, Alex has proven to be my ultimate mystery, but sadly, that mystery remained unsolvable to me. I have never been able to figure her out; thus, I have never been able to save her from herself. She is not happy; she has never been happy. And yes, I sensed her hatred of me since I was a little boy, and yes, I have always believed that she was quite capable of killing me—if I ever crossed a certain line. I just never knew where that line was—until recently when I stumbled on it.
Everything I have researched about her lifelong behaviors says that something unspeakable must have happened to her as a child. I thought endlessly on this. I analyzed everyone we knew as children. I asked Alex in a hundred different subtle ways. If someone abused her, I do not know about it. Is it possible, Detective, for someone ‘simply’ to be born abusive and vindictive? I do not know. My sin here is that I failed her as a brother. For this, I am acutely sorry.
