Tom Piccirilli - The Fever Kill

He walked over and sat on her bed. It was a basic psychological ploy. You made yourself at home, showed them that you were there to stay, that what was theirs was now yours. He shifted the pillows behind him and lit a cigarette.

Sarah Burke stared at him with a kind of grudging respect.

Surrendering she said, "Where do you want me to start?"

"You know where."

"I suppose I do."

He waited, and time drifted quaintly in the house. The screen door slammed and the other needy occupants took advantage of the state of New Hampshire's and Sinclair Mayridge's good graces and settled in for the night. Doors opened and shut around the home. Toilets flushed, a shower went on.

Finally he had to prod her by saying, "With the upset."

"I've had a few. Haven't you?"

"Yes. Talk about the first one that counted."

She let out a cackle. It went on and on as the bones in her small body grated against one another. He could vividly picture her throwing back her head and letting that noise go on for another half minute before leaping out of the chair and diving through the window. Crease got ready to tackle her if need be.

But instead the laughter ended as abruptly as if she'd been strangled. "Who are you?"

"Tell me about the broken love affair."

"I've had a few of those too."

"No," Crease said. "I don't think you have."

"You're right, I'm too ugly. Hardly any man would ever have me."

"Just tell about the one who mattered. The one that meant everything to you."

What was inside her began to move closer to the surface. He could almost see it there in the black depths, rising, fighting to break free.

"What was his name, Sarah?"

That's all it took. The legs stopped swinging. She untwisted a little, and groaned from somewhere in the center of her chest as if awakening from a long sleep. The unfolding of her body became the unfurling of her past.

She drew her fingers through her hair and brushed it back across her head, and the witchy lady became just another battered woman who looked twenty years older than she was. He had arrested her many times. Under Tucco's tutelage he had created many variations of her.

She said, "Daniel. Daniel Purvis. He was a gambler."

"Ah."

"He couldn't help himself. It was a sickness. It had nothing to do with money, but with the excitement, the rush it gave him. He'd ride his truck on empty to see how much farther it would go. He'd pass a gas station and get a wild thrill that he'd made it that far, and then he'd still keep going, and pass another, and another. He always ended up stuck on the side of the road. Always. You ever meet anybody like that?"

Everybody had, whether they knew it or not. "Yes."

"Daniel was the only one who ever showed any interest. I was never pretty. Men made me feel ashamed. But not Daniel. He held me. He talked to me. He made me happy. Whispered my name. Can you understand that?"

"Yes."

She had a few psychological ploys of her own. Throwing it back in Crease's lap, so he sympathized. Maybe she'd picked it up off her psychiatrists on the mental wards.

"My family didn't approve. They tried to wedge themselves between us. My brother hated Daniel. He kept telling me to wait for someone better, a man who would truly love me. He always stressed the truth of love, but never understood what that meant. The truth of love is that you accept what's wrong and ugly and stupid and tainted in your lover. Sam is a very foolish and naive man. Ultimately, that's the reason why Vera left him." She glanced over at Crease and said, "May I have a cigarette?"

He got off the bed and offered her the pack. She stared at it in disgust. "Are those menthol?"

"All the store had left."

"Take it away."

He reseated himself and waited for her to get back into the rhythm of telling her story. It only took a minute.

"But Daniel couldn't control himself. His gambling grew worse. He couldn't stay away from the casinos. He played poker with strangers. No matter how much he had, he always owed more. He got into trouble. He was beaten once, not so badly. Then he was beaten again, much worse." She started speaking in speedy, clipped sentences devoid of any emotion, exactly as her brother had done. "Men were going to kill him. I begged my parents for money and they refused. Yes, they refused me. I knew my brother would deny me as well. Daniel couldn't hold off those brutes any longer. So you know what they did? I'll tell you. They tied him to the bumper of his pickup truck and drove it into a cement retaining wall. They crushed his right leg. The doctors had to amputate. He told the police nothing. I cared for him as best I could after that, while he recuperated, playing cards on his hospital bed. But all that mattered was money then. Every knock on the door, every phone call. Everything had become about money, no longer merely the thrill. There was nothing else."

He didn't want to tell her that it was that way for most people all of the time, so he just nodded.

"And still he owed the men who had taken his leg. That wasn't payment. I thought it would be enough payment in itself, the taking of his leg, but no, I was wrong. It didn't count, you see? It didn't cover a dime of debt, his blood and muscle and bone. His becoming a cripple. He still owed."

That was standard too. You didn't let the guy off after you broke his arm, cut off his thumb, or burned his house down. That was just the interest, you still had to pay the principal.

"What was his game at the casino? Craps?"

"Blackjack and roulette."

Daniel Purvis really was a sucker.

"So let me guess," Crease said. "He was in a fifteen thousand dollar hole."

"Ten."

That surprised Crease. Ten g's usually wasn't enough to get the legbreakers out breaking legs. Then again, in Vermont, who knew. It was a spooky place compared to New York.

It also proved that Sarah Burke wasn't just trying to get the beau out of debt. She'd gotten greedy along the way. Another five grand to give them a head start someplace else, and her brother paying for it. Or maybe it was a show of love to Purvis, giving him the extra five g's as a gift. An extra pop to the addict, fill him full of bliss.

The rest of the house was silent now. Moonlight slashed into the room through the two inches of window pane Crease had uncovered when pulling up the shade. The slice of silver collapsed across the feeble, diseased yellow of the lamp. Shadows clung to the woman like cobwebs.

They sat there like that for a while, facing each other with their separate burdens which had somehow overlapped. Crease knew she was working up to it, to the act that had put her here as an escape from herself.

The mattress was soft and smelled faintly of some kind of citrus detergent, reminding him of Reb's bed.

"It was Daniel's idea," Sarah Burke said. "And of course I didn't argue. I didn't mind, not really. I hated my brother too much by then. I didn't put up any kind of resistance. The suggestion made sense, and even if it hadn't, I wouldn't have cared. I'd have done anything for him. That's the truth of love." She shifted in her seat and her bones rubbed against each other inside her like dry kindling. Crease had seen crack addicts under piles of garbage who looked healthier. He wondered how much longer she could possibly live. "How did it go down?"

"As easy as warm apple pie. I gathered Mary up in my arms, and Daniel called my brother Sam and demanded the ransom. Fifteen thousand dollars. I knew he had it on hand, in the bank if not in his store safe. I never thought he would call the police and endanger her that way. I thought he would follow our simple set of rules. In fact, at the time, I believed he'd know right off that it was me, and finally realize how much Daniel meant to me. You see, I thought he would give me the money out of understanding and kindness. That he would finally acknowledge how much I loved Daniel. That he would give it to us as a favor. A wedding gift. Mary hardly entered the matter at all. I cared deeply for her, or thought I did, up until that point, you see?"