Dan Simmons - A Winter Haunting

“Mr. Stewart,” Presser said, obviously ignoring everything Dale had just said, “would you please read this?” He opened a thin file folder and slid a printout across the desk to Dale.

Dale first noticed the black-and-white photo of Michelle Staffney in the left column. The AP article was dated a little less than two years earlier.

HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER CHARGED WITH DOUBLE MURDER

Hollywood producer Ken Curtis was arraigned today in Los Angeles Superior Court for the January 23rd shooting murder of his wife, actress Mica Stouffer, and her alleged lover, Diane Villanova. Ms. Stouffer, the screen name for Michelle Staffney Curtis, had been separated from her husband for three months but was still involved in what friends called “a stormy relationship” with the producer. Curtis pleaded not guilty today and it is expected that his attorney, Martin Shapiro, will invoke the insanity defense. “Ken was obviously not in control of his faculties at the time,” Shapiro told reporters.

Curtis is known primarily as the producer of the successful Die Free films starring Val Kilmer. Mica Stouffer, a member of SAG for thirty-one years, had done bit parts for most of that time. Diane Villanova, with whom Ms. Stouffer was living for two months prior to the fatal shooting, was a screenwriter with such credits as Fourth Dimension and All the Pretty Birds Come Home to Roost.

Both Stouffer and Villanova were pronounced dead on the scene at Ms. Villanova’s Bel Air apartment last January 23 after neighbors called the police about—

Dale quit reading and set the piece of paper on the desk. “This has got to be a mistake,” he said thickly. “A joke of some kind. . .”

Deputy Presser removed two more pages from the file, slick old-fashioned thermal fax pages this time, and slid them across to Dale. “Can you identify either of these women, Mr. Stewart?”

They were morgue photographs. The first photograph was of Michelle—mouth open, eyes almost closed, but with a slit of white showing from beneath the heavy eyelids. She was on her back and topless to the waist, her perfect, pale augmented breasts flattened by gravity and the photographer’s flash. There were two perfectly rounded bullet holes at the top of her left breast and another—with a wider entrance wound—just below her throat. Another bullet hole was centered in a bruised discoloration in the center of her forehead.

“Michelle Staffney,” said Dale. His throat was so thick that he could hardly speak. He looked at the second photograph. “Christ,” he said.

“Curtis used a knife on her after he shot her,” said Deputy Presser.

“The hair and shape of the face looks like Diane. . . like the woman I met with Michelle. . . but. . . I don’t know.” He handed the photos back to Presser. “Look, your sheriff saw me with Michelle—with this woman.”

Presser just stared. “And when did you say that you first saw these two women in Oak Hill, Mr. Stewart?”

“I thought. . . I mean I saw them about six or seven weeks ago. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I think. . .” Dale stopped and shook his head. “Could I have a drink of water, Deputy Presser?”

“Larry!” shouted Presser. When the other deputy appeared, Presser sent him to the water cooler.

Dale’s hand was shaking fiercely as he lifted the little paper cup to drink. He was stalling for time, and he knew that Presser knew it. The deputy had paused the tape recorder, but now he started it again.

“Is this woman from the news reports—Mica Stouffer, aka Michelle Staffney—the same woman that you say was attacked by dogs and carried off at the McBride farm last night, Mr. Stewart?”

“Yes,” said Dale.

There was a long silence broken only by the tape hiss.

“Mr. Stewart, are you on any sort of medication?”

“Medication?” Dale had to stop and think a minute. “Yes, I am.”

“What kind is it, sir?”

“Ah. . . Prozac and flurazepam and doxepin. One’s an antidepressant. . .” As if the entire world doesn’t know that, thought Dale. “. . . and the others are to help me sleep.”

“Are these medications prescribed by a psychiatrist?” asked Deputy Presser.

Is it any of your goddamned business ? thought Dale. He said, “Yes. They’re prescribed by a psychiatrist in Montana where I live.”

“And have you been taking them regularly?”

No , thought Dale. When was the last time he took his meds? Sometime before Thanksgiving? He could not remember. “I’ve missed some,” said Dale. “But I only take the doxepin and flurazepam to sleep and it was about time to wean myself from the Prozac anyway.”

“Did your psychiatrist say to do that?”

Dale hesitated.

“Are you on any psychoactive or psychotropic drugs, Mr. Stewart? Any medications for schizophrenia or similar disturbances?”

“ No ,” Dale said, more stridently than he should have. “No.” At this point in a movie, Dale would be screaming, Look, I’m not crazy! , but the truth was that this had hit him like a sledgehammer and he suspected that perhaps he was coming unhinged. Unless he was dreaming this encounter with the deputy, then some other memory was false. The photograph of Michelle, dead, cold on a Los Angeles morgue slab, had been real enough. Perhaps Michelle has a twin sister. . .

Right, Dale mentally answers himself. Has a twin sister who comes back to Elm Haven with this Diane Villanova person’s twin sister, and then passes herself off as Michelle Staffney for no reason. . . Dale shook his aching head. He remembered the Staffney family from when he had lived in Elm Haven forty years ago. Michelle had no sisters.

“Mr. Stewart?”

Dale looked up. He realized that he had been cradling his head, perhaps muttering to himself. “My head hurts,” he said.

Deputy Presser nodded. The tape recorder was still running. “Do you want to change the statement you made to us about the dogs attacking you and Miz Michelle Staffney?”

Still rubbing his head, Dale asked, “What’s the penalty for false reporting, Deputy?”

Presser shrugged, but punched the PAUSE button on the recorder. “Depends on the circumstances, Mr. Stewart. Tell you the truth, this situation’s mostly been inconvenience, it being Christmas Eve when you called for help, what with only four people on duty last night and you tying up three of them and all. But as far as I can see, no real harm’s been done yet. And you obviously did injure your head last night, Mr. Stewart. That can cause some funny reactions sometimes. Do you remember how you hurt your head?”

The hellhounds knocked me against the door while they were ripping Michelle apart and dragging her into the dark , thought Dale. Aloud, he said, “I’m not sure now. I know how crazy this sounds, Deputy.”

Presser started the recorder again. “Do you wish to change any of your statement, Mr. Stewart?”

Dale rubbed his scalp again, feeling the stitches there and also feeling the pain and throbbing just under the bone of the skull. He wondered if he had suffered a concussion. “I’ve been depressed, Deputy Presser. My doctor—Dr. Charles Hall in Missoula—prescribed Prozac and some sleeping medication, but I’ve been busy and—upset—in recent weeks and forgot to take it. I admit that I haven’t been sleeping much. I’m not sure how I hurt my head last night and Michelle. . . well, I can’t explain that, except to say that things have been a bit confused for me the last few months.” Suddenly he looked up at the deputy. “She brought a ham.”

“Pardon me?” said Presser.

“Michelle brought a ham. We ate it yesterday. And some wine. Two bottles. Red. That’s something physical. We can check that. Maybe some other woman who. . . anyway, we can check the ham and the wine.”