Songs of the Dead Read online

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I was dreaming.” He thinks as quickly as he can. He says, “I was dreaming you were gone. I’ve missed you so much. I was dreaming you were . . . you were kidnapped.” Dumb, he thinks. Why did he say that?

  “I was? By who?”

  Be smart, Jack. “It’s horrible. You were kidnapped and you were happy because you didn’t want to come back to me. You wanted to stay with the other man, the man who took you away.” He searches her face, thinks he sees a flicker of recognition, realizes he’s succeeded in shifting the focus off himself.

  She leans toward him, puts her free hand around his shoulders, hugs him. “I don’t want anyone else.”

  He hugs her back. She kisses his cheek, his chin, his lips. She pulls slightly away, starts to unbutton his pajamas. He helps her remove his clothes, helps her into bed, and rolls on top of her, the whole time glad his wife is no longer asking questions, and the whole time hoping Missy doesn’t make a sound.

  Afterwards, and after Colleen has fallen asleep, Jack gets up. The whole time he thought not of his wife, of course, but of Missy, wondering what he would say and what he would do if she woke up and moaned. Twice he thought she did, but each time he was wrong. He made sure things with Colleen were loud and they were quick. He was glad Colleen was tired and fell asleep almost instantly.

  He goes downstairs. Missy still breathes. He dare not wake her. He dare not leave her. When he was inside his wife he figured out what he would do. He puts a tarp down in the bathroom. Then he quickly kills Missy and carries her to the tarp, wraps her up. He picks up the plastic he’d laid down to protect against bloodstains, urine, and feces, folds it, puts it in with the body. He shuts the door. He can’t come up with a reason to barricade the door, so he’ll just have to get up when Colleen does and steer her away. He goes upstairs, into the garage, looks at the floor, sees the spots. He goes back into the kitchen, picks a steak knife from a drawer, holds it in his right hand, and touches it to the third finger of his left. He goes to cut himself, but just can’t do it. No matter how he tries he can’t force himself. He doesn’t want the pain. Thinking about his own blood he almost passes out. So instead he puts away the knife, puts water and a little bleach on a rag, and cleans the spots on the floor. Finally done, he goes back to bed. He tells himself to awaken if he hears Colleen stir, then like Colleen, falls asleep almost immediately.

  Jack awakens with a start. It’s still dark. He can’t keep the body in the house. He wouldn’t be able to survive the morning making small talk with Colleen, each moment fearing she might go downstairs, go into the bathroom. What would she do? Would she scream? Would she look at Jack with disgust? Would she call the police? Jack knows he couldn’t kill her. Or at least he doesn’t think he could kill her. What would he do if she picked up the phone? He’d rip it from the wall. Then what? He’d cuff her down, hold her till she calmed, and then he would explain it to her. He would explain it to her fifty times if he had to, explain it to her till she understood. And he knows she would understand. Maybe it would even draw them closer.

  He stops. He thinks about it. Maybe he should leave the body there, let her find it. That would force the issue. No more hiding. He could explain it to her and she would understand.

  No. It’s not worth the chance. What if she doesn’t understand? He would lose her. The risk is too great.

  He slowly lifts off the covers, slides his feet out and onto the floor, sits upright, stands, waits, listens. There’s no change in Colleen’s breathing. He makes his way to a dresser, soundlessly opens a drawer, pulls out a pair of sweats. Then to the closet, where on the left side he finds an old t-shirt. He carries them from the room, shuts the bedroom door without latching it, turns on the hall light, changes, and takes his pajamas to the laundry room to put into a partially full basket. He listens again.

  Nothing.

  He goes to the front door, puts on an old pair of shoes. He’s not wearing socks or underwear, but there’s nothing he can do about that. Then to the garage, where he opens the rear of the truck. He goes to the kitchen, grabs his keys, puts them in his pocket. After that it’s down the stairs and into the bathroom. He lifts her. Now’s the hard part. He walks back up the stairs, listens carefully, goes back down, picks up the body and carries it step by slow, heavy step up the stairs. By the top, his arms and lower back ache. He carries her to the garage, puts her in the back of the truck, softly closes the rear. He unhitches the automatic garage door opener, opens the door manually, gets partway in the truck, puts it in neutral, and rolls the truck down the driveway and into the street, where finally he starts it.

  He doesn’t know where to take her. He can’t take her to the quarry, to where he grabbed Nika, or to any of the places he dumped the others who came before: they’re all too far away. He needs to get back home as quickly as possible: he has no idea how to explain his absence should Colleen awaken.

  He decides to drive to the park near the river beneath the interstate. He twists through paved roads to get there, never rolling through stop signs, never speeding. He finds the park, turns in.

  From here on the roads are dirt. If he sees anyone, he’ll obviously go elsewhere. Nothing. He finds a secluded spot, stops, turns off the domelight, grabs the maglight from the glovebox, gets out, walks to the back. He can’t leave her here: the dirt holds perfect impressions of his tires and footprints. He looks around, sees a very small road off to the side.

  Not knowing what else to do he gets back in, starts the truck, turns it into the road. Thick underbrush fills in either side. He wonders if there’s a turnaround.

  And then the road ends. Jack laughs out loud. Perfect. He’s on a ledge over the river. He couldn’t have planned this better, so long as the water is deep enough to carry her away. No one will know where she was dumped, which means no one will know where to search for tire tracks. He gets out, walks to the overlook, shines the light down. It’s about ten feet. He can’t tell how deep the water is, but it will have to do.

  Back to the truck. He pulls out the tarp, carries the load to the edge, sets it on the ground, stands on one end of the tarp, and pushes the body over. The tarp unwinds as the body rolls down the steep slope until the body spins free and into the water with a splash.

  God is good. Already the body drifts into the main current, floating feet first, hair trailing behind, spread like a fan.

  This was the perfect place, Jack thinks as he drives back home. I’ll have to use this place again and again.

  He turns off the engine, coasts up the driveway and into the garage, stops, puts the truck in gear, and engages the emergency brake. He gets out, shuts the garage door, reconnects it. Then he goes to the door to the house, opens it, listens. Nothing. Back at the rear of the truck, he takes off his shoes and clothes, puts them in the back with the bloody tarp that had been Missy’s shroud. He’ll get rid of them soon. He covers them with another tarp to keep Colleen from casually observing them.

  Naked, he goes in to the house, into the laundry room. He quietly washes his hands, puts on his pajamas, and heads to the bedroom. The door is still shut, still not latched. He turns off all the lights, softly opens the door, and creeps inside.

  Colleen still breathes heavily. He makes it to the bed, starts to get in.

  She stirs, says sleepily, “Where’d you go?”

  He keeps his voice from showing fear: “I used the toilet.”

  She gives a moan of sleepy understanding.

  “You were right,” he says.

  “Yes?” Still very sleepy.

  “I left the basement light on. I turned it off. It’s all taken care of now.”

  “That’s nice.”

  He crawls in, spoons behind her, and soon she is back asleep.

  The next morning, over breakfast, Colleen asks Jack about him leaving on the lights overnight, something she’s never known him to do. He says he was tired. She understands. She can see this inside her head. She sees Jack sitting downstairs—doing wha
t, it never occurs to her to wonder—growing more tired by the moment until he staggers upstairs under the weight, not of a dead woman—for why would this possibly occur to her?—but of fatigue, and simply forgets to turn off the lights.

  Sheepishly she mentions hearing someone downstairs, hearing someone breathing. He responds by telling her how grateful and happy he is that she drove all the way late at night just to be with him. He’s sure that’s what caused her to hear that: it was fatigue and the lingering echo inside her head of tires on asphalt, of the engine’s hum. It’s an interesting and common phenomenon, he says, almost like hearing the wind or the ocean in a seashell, or your ears ringing after a loud noise: if you drive long enough, your ears play tricks on you. Mentally she puts herself again in that position, and the sound she hears no longer resembles human breathing at all, no longer resembles anything but tires, a car, her own fatigue. Jack’s right, as he so often is.

  She almost doesn’t want to ask him about the blood in the garage, but her curiosity is up, and he has been so very wonderful and so very wise about the other two, explaining them in ways that make so much sense, that she goes ahead and asks.

  He says, “I’m not sure what you mean. Will you show me?”

  They go to the garage, where after a few moments she says, pointing, “I would have sworn they were there, and there, and there.”

  He looks at her lovingly. “You were so tired.”

  “And your truck,” she says. “I remember it being about a foot farther forward. I had to walk around it.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve been with you all morning, and I don’t think the truck drove itself.” He pauses, then says, “Maybe the bleeding, breathing ghost took the truck out for a spin.”

  “Maybe,” she says, laughing with him at her own silliness.

  She sees herself the night before, getting out of her car, sees herself walking across a pristine floor, sees herself not stepping around the truck. Everything Jack says feels so right. She almost makes a joke about the truck being driven not by a ghost, but by Jack’s secret lover, but at the last moment she doesn’t, because she wants to be sensitive to his unfounded suspicions about her. She doesn’t want to make him feel bad.

  They go back inside, finish breakfast.

  It isn’t until hours later that she remembers the feathery stain on the doorjamb. She goes to look. When she sees it’s still there, she does not question everything Jack said that morning—which, after all, had made so much sense—but instead begins to remember that she has seen this stain for days, for weeks, for months, and for the longest time she has been meaning to clean it up.

  She does. For as old as that stain is, she’s surprised at how easily it comes off.

  seven teen

  more miracles

  In March, 1943, Hitler made another visit to the Eastern Front, this to discuss the Kursk offensive. Security was extremely tight. Men with submachine guns were everywhere. Some of the security squads, however, were under the command of Georg Freiherr von Boeselager, the pentathlete who had joined the resistance. The squad chosen to line the path where Hitler was to walk to and from the meeting place was made up of members of the resistance. They were to shoot Hitler as he walked back to his car.

  Hitler took a different route to his vehicle.

  Another assassination attempt took place that same day. During lunch Lieutenant-Colonel Henning von Tresckow, center of the resistance on the Eastern Front, asked Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was going to be on the same plane as Hitler, to take a package to Colonel Stief. This sort of favor was routine. This sort of package was not: unbeknownst to Brandt, it contained a live bomb.

  The bomb consisted of two pairs of British “clams”: adhesive explosives the size of very small books, yet powerful enough to penetrate a one inch steel plate or twist a railway line.

  Shortly before the plane took off, Tresckow’s assistant, Lieutenant Fabian von Schlabrendorff, surreptitiously used a key to press through the wrapping and break the acid capsule, which began the timer. He then handed the package to Brandt, who got on the plane.

  The fuse was set to detonate in thirty minutes.

  Several hours later Hitler landed in Prussia.

  The conspirators faced a problem: they needed to retrieve the package before its delivery to Stief, who knew nothing of the plot. Tresckow called Brandt and told him to hold on to the package: the wrong one had been sent. Schlabrendorff then flew to Prussia and exchanged the package for one containing a gift for Stief. When he was alone, Schlabrendorff opened the package. The fuse had functioned perfectly, eating through the wire and releasing the striker onto the detonator. The striker had struck precisely as it was supposed to. The detonator had gone off: it was burnt and black. But the explosive had not ignited.

  Another attempt was made eight days later. Each year during March, the Nazis held a “Heroes Memorial Day” in a large hall, during which Hitler would give a speech (in which he could state that victory was now assured over bolshevism, capitalism, Asiatic barbarians, criminal warmongers, Churchill, and the Jews), watch a guard battalion parade by, listen to the national anthem, speak very briefly with war-wounded, and inspect captured materials.

  The potential assassin this time was Colonel Freiherr von Gersdorff, chief of the Intelligence section organizing the materials captured from the Russians. When Tresckow asked him to make a bomb attack on Hitler, the recently-widowed Gersdorff assented after being reassured that if the attempt succeeded, the plotters would not stop at Hitler, but overthrow the entire Nazi government.

  Gersdorff’s first option was to plant a bomb to go off during Hitler’s speech, much as had Georg Elser. He rejected this option because he only had access to small bombs (and couldn’t hide a big bomb, anyway), and the venue was very large, meaning the shock of the explosion would dissipate too much to guarantee a kill. Further, he had only a vague notion of Hitler’s timetable, which would make setting a fuse impossible.

  This meant the attack would have to be made during Hitler’s inspection of Gersdorff’s exhibit. It also meant the attack would of necessity involve Gersdorff’s suicide.

  Gersdorff and Tresckow faced more difficulties. At this point they had access to plenty of explosives, but not to appropriate fuses. Most of the fuses had delays of up to thirty minutes, and of course it would not be possible to set the fuse, then try to chat up Hitler for a half an hour. They had access to a fair number of German pioneer explosives with very short fuses, but these fuses had to be activated by an extremely conspicuous pulling motion. Even a hint of this movement and Gersdorff would be shot, Hitler whisked away. Another possibility would be for Gersdorff to use a German hand grenade, with its four-and-a-half second fuse, but this fuse made a distinctive hissing sound which would similarly get Gersdorff shot to no avail.

  He decided on ten-minute fuses attached to clams, one in each pocket of his greatcoat. He was able to smuggle them in on the day of the speech. Because he did not know how long Hitler would talk, he kept his hands in his pockets, but didn’t start the fuses until Hitler approached his exhibit. Then, Gersdorff gave the Hitler salute with his right arm, and with his left hand still in his pocket set off that fuse. The explosion would, he thought, set off the clam in his other pocket as well.

  They entered the exhibit. There were a few other people with Hitler—Göring, Keitel, Dönitz, Himmler, aides, and bodyguards—all of whom were fair game to be blown up. But at the last moment Hitler asked Field Marshall von Bock to come along with them. This concerned Gersdorff, because Bock was a member of the resistance, yet did not know about this assassination attempt.

  Gersdorff decided to go ahead with it. Now, he merely had to stay next to Hitler for the final ten minutes of their lives. This would not be a problem, since this was precisely his duty: to explain the various pieces of equipment.

  In contrast to all previous years, Hitler literally ran through the exhibit hall. He would not listen to a word Gersdorff said. Not even Göring—ac
ting innocently—was able to get Hitler to slow down. Hitler was out of the room in less than three minutes, surprising even the radio announcers, who were unprepared for his quick return.

  All that Gersdorff could do was excuse himself into the lavatory and remove the fuse. He never made another attempt on Hitler’s life.

  eight teen

  the land

  I wake up. Allison lies next to me. A cat presses against my other side.

  Allison says, “Did you have any dreams?”

  I smile. “I did, as I drifted awake. A wonderful half dream, half memory.”

  “What about?”

  “You.”

  “That’s nice.” She presses toward me, tighter even than the cat. “Tell me.”

  “Do you remember that time we made love next to a cemetery?”

  She says, “I. . . .”

  “That’s what the dream was about. It was so beautiful. That was one of my favorite times ever.”

  Part of me feels her slightly stiffen, but the rest of me doesn’t quite notice.

  I continue, “Remember, we found that mossy space at the edge of some trees? Do you remember how soft that moss was?”

  “Derrick.”

  “And it was a little bit cold and windy and we put down our coats so we could lie on them?”

  “Derrick.”

  “The dream was so wonderful. I wish I could fall back in it. Or maybe we can just make something similar happen now.

  “Stop. Please stop.”

  I do. “What’s wrong?”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “What do you mean, it wasn’t you?”

  “That was someone else.”

  “No, I see you so clearly. I can see your face and your breasts and the goosebumps on your belly and on your hips, and I can see where we join together. . . .”

  “Why are you giving me those images? I don’t want them. I tell you it wasn’t me.”