Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 633 & 634, October 1994

“And he stopped, because he thought you were a friend. And you shot him,” I said. “Just like that.”

“No, not just like that!” she snapped. “My God, do you think I wanted any of this! I have a life, my art is valued by a great many people. I couldn’t just throw it all away over a pig like Walter, or some sniveling little convict. So I did what I had to. To defend myself. And Audrey.”

“I guess I follow your logic, as far as it goes,” I said evenly. “I’m not sure Ray will find it much comfort. If he lives.”

“I said I regret that, and I do. The odd thing is, I think if I’d killed him outright, it wouldn’t trouble me as much as what happened.”

“Blinding him, you mean?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “To lose your sight. I swear to God, Mitch, I don’t see how men do it.”

“Do what?”

“Slaughter each other over nothing: politics or territory or religion. Bomb cities, maim children. How can they possibly live with themselves afterwards?”

“You seem to be doing all right.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I suppose I am. Pull in here.”

We’d arrived at her home. I parked beside the house. “We’re going to walk around back up to the studio,” she said. “You first. Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I need to think.”

She was lying. She’d decided my fate back on the road. I’d heard it in her voice. But she still had the gun. And obviously wasn’t afraid to use it. And I was still so exhausted it was all I could manage to climb the spiral staircase up to the deck.

She unlocked the studio, motioned me inside, then moved quickly around the room drawing the drapes. There was a portable phone on a table by the window. She picked it up.

“I’m going to lock you in,” she said quietly. “But I’ll be where I can see you. Just sit tight. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She backed out and closed the door. I heard the lock click shut. Heard her footsteps cross the deck. Then nothing.

Moving as quietly as I could, I frantically searched the studio, first for a weapon, then for the keys to my handcuffs. The weapon was easy, such as it was. I found a bag of golf clubs in a closet and grabbed a putter out of it. No match for a pistol, but better than nothing. But I couldn’t find the damned keys. There were chains and manacles everywhere, but no keys.

And then I saw the statue. Ashtoreth? Was that what she called it? But it wasn’t. This time I recognized it. It was Audrey. Young and beautiful and pregnant. And suddenly, everything that Megan had told me, and the things she hadn’t, crystallized. And I realized what would happen now.

I carefully lifted the comer of the blind and scanned the deck. It was empty. No one in sight. I used the club to smash open the French door and let myself out. I dropped to all fours, crawled to the railing, then carefully peered over the edge.

But there was no need for caution. Her sweat suit was folded neatly on the beach. The gun was lying on it. And Megan was nearly two hundred yards offshore, swimming steadily out toward... nothing. The nearest land was the Canadian shore, a hundred and fifty miles away.

“Megan!” I shouted.

She heard me and turned and faced me for a moment, treading water. Then she raised both hands in the air, her fists clenched. A salute? A goodbye? She turned and swam on.

I sprinted down the steps, smashed in her front door, and used the phone to call 911. Then I charged back to the beach, but...

There was nothing to see. Thunderclouds were rolling down from the north, roughing up a chop that was already a foot or so high. I didn’t need binoculars to know she was gone. There wasn’t even a ripple to show where she’d been. The bay stretched away, dark and empty. Black water, all the way to the horizon.

A helicopter picked up Ray Calderon the next day and flew him down to the U of M hospital. He was in surgery for nearly six hours. He’s going to live, and he may recover most of the vision in his right eye. I’ll go down to visit him in a few days. I hope he’ll be able to see me.

Megan left a letter behind which restated, more or less, what she’d told me, and Charlie accepted it at face value and closed the investigation. But we both know it wasn’t true. At least not all of it. Megan couldn’t have taken Jimmy’s body up into the hills in his rental car. She didn’t drive.

She may have been able to manage the short trip to the river, a child could do that much. But even if she’d been able to handle the difficult drive into the hills, the little Escort could never have made it over those trails.

Someone else took the body up there. And only one person could have. Audrey. In the van modified for her wheelchair that only she could drive.

Perhaps if Charlie’d checked her van, he would have found bloodstains in it. But he didn’t. Because it doesn’t matter now.

The night Megan disappeared Audrey had a stroke. Hannah says she’s just fading away, drifting into the murky depths of Alzheimer’s disease. Soon she’ll be in black water. Unable to find her way back.

I still have the Ashtoreth carving I took from Megan’s house. I meant to give it to Audrey. It’s hers by right. But in her present condition, I’m not sure how she’d react.

No. That’s only partly true.

The truth is, there’s something about this rude clay figure that haunts me. She’s rising from primordial waters, her belly is swollen and her breasts are full. Her eyes seem to meet mine, but they’re more implied than real. Her hands are upraised, fists clenched. In a victory salute of ultimate triumph. It was the gesture Megan Lundy made to me from the lake. A goodbye. And a final plea for understanding. Before she turned and swam away into forever.

The carving is deceptively crude, perhaps in homage to the countless Ashtoreth earth goddesses found in tombs all over the world. Or perhaps it’s simply unfinished. And now always will be.

The figure isn’t physically recognizable as Audrey, but I know it’s her. Free of her chair. And her body, and her years. Somehow Megan captured the image of her soul. A woman unchained.

And the truth is, I’m not sure now that I would give it to Audrey or anyone, even if I knew beyond a doubt that it was the right thing to do.

Because aside from my son, newborn, with afterbirth still matted in his hair, the goddess is simply the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

© 1994 by Neil Jillett

Originally from New Zealand, Neil Jillett has worked for the Melbourne, Australia newspaper The Age for most of his long career as a journalist. A wide range of assignments for the paper have taken him to many parts of the world, including the Soviet Union during the early days of Gorbachev’s regime, Mexico, and the Philippines. Mr. Jillett is currently the film and dance critic for The Age, and when time permits, he writes not only short stories but film scripts and novels. His 1989 novel Copycat was published by Collins, Australia...

“The Chinese adore children,” Mrs. Clayton said as they sat on the padang at sunset.

Helen, who had heard this many times in the past three months, silently amended the old woman’s generalisation: some Chinese, some children.

“Absolutely adore them,” Mrs. Clayton insisted. Without turning, she spoke to the man behind her. “Don’t you, Cookie?”

“Beg yours, mem?”

“You heard very well what I said, Cookie.” There was, Mrs. Clayton felt, just the right note of good-humoured exasperation in her voice. She was proud of her repertoire of laughs and other vocal inflections. “He likes to pretend he never listens to conversations,” she said to Helen. “That’s a legacy from Alec Preston. He was always accusing poor Cookie of eavesdropping. Wasn’t he, Cookie?”