Bill Pronzini - The Hidden

The sweat on him had dried and even under the blanket he was shivery cold. When he was sure his legs would support him, he got up slowly and made his way to the draped windows. The baseboard heater under them made ticking sounds when he turned it up full. So the power was still on, something of a surprise given the way the storm was raging. But it would go out sooner or later. Damn well be sure of that.

Back on the couch, huddled under the blanket. And the brief scene from yesterday afternoon, when he’d come back inside with the load of wood, replayed again in his memory.

“I want a divorce.”

“… Jesus, you don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it. I can’t live like this anymore.”

“Like what?”

“Like strangers. You keeping things from me, hiding from me. Two people can’t live together without communicating.”

“Swear to God, it’s not intentional. I don’t mean to shut you out—”

“But you do. Sins of omission, Jay.”

“I love you, you know that—”

“It’s not enough! Once, yes, but not anymore. There’s just too much distance between us. And I don’t see any way to bring us back together.”

He’d tried to tell her then, to rip that one glued down page right out of the Macklin book. The words were all there, a huge glob of them in his throat, choking him. He’d hacked up some of them, a disjointed, fumbling few, but it was too late, he’d waited too long. She didn’t want to listen; clapped her hands over her ears and got up and walked out of the room.

If he’d gone after her, tried again … but he hadn’t. Too late. Nothing he said now would change her mind.

She was dead serious about the divorce, the way she’d acted the rest of the day proved that. Avoiding him for the most part—reading in the bedroom or staring out the oceanfront windows or into the fire while Vivaldi or, worse, Saint-Saëns throbbed gloomily out of the boom box, not answering or responding in monosyllables when he spoke to her. Drinking too much, eating nothing. And then saying in a flat, distant voice that she didn’t want to sleep with him and going to bed early, shutting the bedroom door after her, maybe locking it for all he knew.

He kept telling himself to talk to her anyway, get it all said—keeping everything bottled up at a crisis point like this was senseless, self-destructive, an indication of some sort of dementia. Telling himself it might, it just might, make a difference after all. But he didn’t believe it. The feeling of hopelessness was oppressively strong.

Maybe part of it was the environment here, the close confines of the cottage, the nasty weather. Maybe the familiar atmosphere at home would make it easier to talk, give him a chance to change her mind.

He didn’t believe that, either.

He’d already lost her. Just as he’d lost baseball and the ability to have children and Macklin’s Grotto and the Conray job and everything else that mattered in his life. It didn’t make any difference anymore whether or not he got past this lunatic compulsion to keep things locked up inside. Too late. When she’d said, “I want a divorce,” it had been the marriage’s death knell.

Shelby stayed in the bedroom most of the morning—sleeping, or maybe just avoiding him. How did she feel after yesterday? Happy, sad, relieved? Or as depressed as he was?

He drank two cups of strong black coffee, forced himself to swallow half a glass of grapefruit juice and part of a container of yogurt. Washed and dried the dishes. Tidied up the front room, using the fireplace brush to clean ashes and soot and flecks of bark off the hearthstones. You don’t have to be maid as well as cook . The hell he didn’t. What else had he been good for the past six months? What else was he good for now?

Wrapped in his raincoat, he made a couple of struggling trips through the gale to replenish the firewood supply. The storm was already among the worst he’d encountered; the wind gusts must be forty or fifty miles per hour, shaking the cottage like a dog shakes a bone, bending the trees low to the ground and sending twigs and needles and small torn branches skittering across the lawn and side patio. The rain was like a whipping bead curtain, thick strands of it blown inland at an undulant slant that was almost horizontal. Huge waves lashed the shoreline, gouting up clouds of white; the ocean’s surface was like foam-flecked water boiling in a cauldron.

When he came in with the second carrier of firewood, Shelby was in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee. Still in her bathrobe, hair uncombed, her face pinched and baggy-eyed. She hadn’t slept any better than he had.

He said tentatively, “I can make you some breakfast.”

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat something …”

“Later.”

He’d left the drapes closed over the windows; Shelby opened them, then folded herself into one of the facing chairs and stared out at the rain-distorted view.

Tell her, he thought as he unloaded the carrier into the wood box. Go ahead, do it now. But it was a dull thought, without resolve. The sense of fatalism overwhelmed him again and he said nothing. It was as if he were trying to fight his way out of restraints, a goddamn mental straightjacket that had his will bound and helpless.

Long day ahead. Long, long day.

At one thirty the power went out.

They knew it immediately because Shelby had switched on the floor lamp next to her chair. As soon as the bulb went dark, she said, “Perfect. Just perfect.” The baseboard heater made one last pinging noise, like a death rattle. “Perfect,” she said again, and stood to close the drapes while Macklin got a fire going.

Shelby poured her first glass of wine a little after two o’clock. Sure sign of how troubled she was; she seldom started drinking so early in the day. But he didn’t say anything to her about it. There was nothing to say and even if there had been, it wouldn’t have made any difference. She hadn’t spoken to him since the power outage; it was as if he weren’t even there.

Misery loves company. Where had he heard that recently? Oh, right, from Paula Decker on Sunday night. Well, it was bullshit. Misery didn’t love company; misery wanted to be alone, curled up in some dark corner with a blanket over its head.

Paula Decker. And Gene Decker, suddenly dead, another victim of the Coastline Killer. He’d never known a victim of violence before, random or otherwise. Only met the wine salesman once and hadn’t liked him, but still a human being he’d had brief contact with just a few nights ago. Nobody deserved to die the way Decker had, with a psycho’s bullet in his brain. Frightening and unsettling, when that kind of random lunacy touched your life like this.

He wondered again how Paula was taking the news. It couldn’t be an easy thing to deal with, no matter how she’d felt about her husband. As bad as things were for Shelby and him right now, Paula was a lot worse off. Claire Lomax, too. Always somebody worse off than you are.

Yeah, he thought, but you don’t have to live their lives. The only life you have to live, the only visceral misery you have to face, is your own.

Three o’clock.

The storm was massive now, roaring and rampaging like the dream creature, assaulting everything in its path. Hurricanes were unheard of on the California coast, but this was what Macklin imagined the beginnings of one must be like. They were probably safe enough forted up in here, but there was no certainty of it; when one of the stronger wind gusts slammed into the cottage, the walls and windows shimmied from the impact.

As early as it was, most of the daylight was already gone. A thin puddinglike gloom had settled around them, relieved somewhat by the firelight and the rows of candles Shelby had set out. But all the flames flickered and wobbled, creating restive shadows; both cold air and dampness had seeped in past the weatherstripping on windows and doors and lingered despite the fire’s heat. The atmosphere was oppressive. As if he and Shelby were the only two silent mourners in a storm-battered funeral home.