Death Trance Read online

  Maddy spun her chair, and we continued down the path to the old house that was perched on the southernmost tip of land. She rolled herself a bit slower, and I set my hand on her shoulder, squeezed. Maybe I'd stay a long time. Maybe quit my job. She'd always wanted me, in her own words, to mooch off her.

  “I'm so glad you're here,” Maddy said. Then, as if she were reading my mind, “Promise me you'll stay as long as you can and then some?”

  “Promise,” I said. “They still don't know what happened. The police—they've been pretty good, I guess. But they've lost steam, run out of ideas.”

  “I told you not to worry. Solange is fixing us some lunch, and then we can go right up if you like.”

  “Sure,” I said, thinking it a rather ludicrous idea, but then what had we to lose?

  Maddy had told me that the island paths—the ones she'd had blacktopped—had initially been laid out by Frederick Olmsted of Central Park fame, and we pushed along, in and out of groves, up and down ridges and silky, sandy dunes, with the majestic Lake Michigan bursting in and out of view. Blam. Big sheet of blue blue water. Whoosh. A cool wall of greenery. Then, at last, of course, the biggest firework of all: the house, poised atop a hill to our right.

  “God, it's beautiful. All the work shows.”

  “Really? Oh, good, but it still needs paint.”

  “Hell, yes, it's all peeling.”

  It was a big Victorian job with a hint of Colonial thrown in, and had been built as a summer house for a Chicago brewer in 1893. Soaring high up to a green roof, it was white clapboard and had a many-columned veranda on three sides. Perched overlooking this freshwater sea, the place had some twenty-five rooms, and when Maddy had bought it two years ago from the heirs, who'd only drunk from and never replenished the initial fortune, it was a candidate for demolition. Not anymore.

  “The brush has been cut back and the windows fixed. You can't tell from here, I'm sure,” Maddy rattled on proudly, “but it's all been replumbed and rewired. Structurally, the place is perfect. New boilers, too. Three of them. And all winterized. Can you believe it, only the servants’ wing was fit for winter living. They used to have a caretaker that stayed all year long.”

  “You really going to stay here this winter?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. I don't know if I'll ever leave again.”

  I stared at the magnificent house—famous for the Gatsbyesque parties once attended by the likes of the Wrigleys, Maytags, Sears, the Marshall Fields, and other Chicago name-brand families—and was struck by a rare gust of sadness for Maddy. Yes, this was perfection. Her perfection. Every piece of furniture, I was sure, in its exact place. The asphalt paths that she'd learned every turn and twist of. Everything studied and absorbed. This was her world, one she'd created so that it would never offer any surprises. No unknown sidewalks. Unseen curbs. And no buses ever again. This was what she'd bought with all that money. A world she could control; in that regard, her money had served her fabulously well. But so confining. Like a big prison.

  “I'm happy here,” she said, sucking in a double-bunch of air. “I really am.”

  Then again, I thought, what had I found out there beyond this drop of land and beyond those waters, what had I found besides speeding tickets, endless dribble about which was the best, the most perfect garage door opener, and, of course, murder? I turned and stared at my Maddy, that face sculpted from wide cheekbones to small chin, those lips so thin, nose so fine, and I realized something. In her world of darkness and frustrated movement, she'd been forced to look elsewhere, seek different meanings, and had, I suspected, found something I probably never could.

  “Oh, and wait till you see the third floor,” she gushed. “That's where we'll do it. We'll open the doors to the widow's walk and… and take off.”

  “I hope I still remember how.”

  “Nonsense, Alex. When I was still practicing, none of my clients were as good a subject as you. You can go under hypnosis like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.

  Which was why I'd come to Maddy's. A big, deep trance that Maddy would direct and I would fall into. A big, deep trance that would maybe, hopefully, turn up what no one else had yet been able to: who had murdered Toni, my estranged college sweetheart, and why.

  Chapter 2

  Under Maddy's direction, the inside of the house had grown even more incredible, from the open staircase that circled upward to a ten-foot-wide Tiffany glass dome, to the billiard room decorated with musty moose and deer heads, to the dining room with its table for sixteen, not to mention, of course, the broad living room, which opened onto an unparalleled vista of Lake Michigan. Much of the original furniture was still in place—the billiard table, the dinner table, several couches—because, I supposed, they were so damned large. You needed a place of such exaggerated grandeur to fit pieces like those.

  “I could have had everything done at once,” said Maddy as we headed inside after our lunch of whitefish on the veranda. “But that would have spoiled the fun. All the mechanical things have been taken care of, and now I'm just doing it room by room. You know, most of the rooms haven't been wallpapered since before the Depression.”

  Not to mention the threadbare furniture or the torn curtains, the worn oriental carpets and more. Really, all of it.

  I judiciously said, “Obviously.”

  “But I like that.”

  Maddy wheeled herself along, leading the way back through the living room, the entry hall, around the billiard table, and toward the back wing. I nearly forgot that she was blind, for she knew exactly where she was at every moment. One creaking board told her she was leaving the living room, a small carpet told her she was entering the billiard room, and so on. She had markers just like seeing people, only she sensed them in a way I couldn't.

  “I like the smells,” she continued. “The history of smells, you know? The layers of them.”

  Yes, I did. The house had a fragrance of age unlike anything I'd experienced before. Upon entering, you were first struck with the sweetness of the light woodwork that ran everywhere, then the mustiness of the wallpaper. Perfumy as much as mildewy. Dusty, too, like talcum powder. But washed—always washed—with the freshness of the lake breezes.

  We headed through a rear door, into the back hall, and passed another staircase, one of two servants’ staircases, Maddy said, laughing. Once there had been a staff of seven to maintain the house and an army of gardeners for the grounds. As she spoke, my eyes drank it all in. Old wardrobes, rich walnut ones, relegated back here years ago, and now filled with dozens upon dozens of paint cans. Wouldn't those be treasures in an antique store? Then two extra sinks—for cleaning fish? Two extra refrigerators, also, old ones with coils atop them. Water coolers, too. Boots. Mops, brooms.

  “There's only one house rule,” warned Maddy. “The back of the house belongs totally to Alfred and Solange. The kitchen, the sitting room, the servants’ quarters—it's all off grounds to us. Please don't go farther than this hall. They're so good to me, I just want to make sure they have their privacy. I just want to keep them happy.”

  “Of course,” I replied, realizing this meant none of the exploring I'd done last time I was here.

  There was a clanging of pots from behind a cracked door.

  “Solange,” Maddy called into the kitchen, “we're going up. I don't know when we'll be down, but please don't disturb us. Perhaps a late dinner, all right?”

  “Surely,” replied a deep, sweet voice.

  We came to a double set of doors, and Maddy groped for the doorknob.

  “You're sure this thing is safe?” I asked.

  “Don't worry, I had the ropes replaced with cables.”

  The elevator. Added in 1910 when the master of the house lost the use of his legs, it was a huge wooden room, easily six by six, that moved up and down. It necessitated a huge tower affixed to the rear side of the house, ran all the way to the third floor, and was originally rope-operated. The old man had required two servants not just to wheel
him, but to hoist the ropes and pull him up and down.

  “Remember when you first came out here last year?” Maddy asked as we boarded and she lowered the two wooden gates. “The elevator had been used as a broom closet for almost forty years. But it's all been redone and brought up to code—I had it electrified so I could operate it on my own.”

  With a jolt, we were off, moving past leaded glass windows, next past the back hall of the second floor. Lifting off on the first part of our voyage.

  “We can just do a practice run today if you like,” said Maddy.

  “Let's just see.”

  Suddenly I was nervous. Was it hocus-pocus or would it work? Not to mention: Did I want to relive it all again?

  When it seemed as if we might be hurled out the top of the house, the thing finally jerked to a stop. I lifted the slatted wooden gates—the one inside the elevator and the one on the third floor to prevent anyone from tumbling down the open shaft—and Maddy wheeled herself out. I glanced about as we went down a small hall. On the left were two servants' rooms stuffed with old racks of old ballroom dresses, dressers, stacks of mirrors.

  “And look at this,” said Maddy, stopping by a barrel and scooping her hand in. “Old soap flakes.”

  “What did the former owners do, abandon all this?”

  “There's only so much shit you can lug through life.”

  “True.”

  Just as there was a servants’ living room off the kitchen on the first floor, there was another one up here. This one, though, was filled with the jetsam of generations of a wealthy family that had, according to Maddy, more or less fizzled out.

  “The family made their fortune in beer and lost it in alcoholism,” mused Maddy.

  I saw boxes packed with Venetian glass and crystal goblets. Chairs stacked three and four high. A wicker baby carriage, a brass child's bed, and piles of mouse-eaten mattresses. It was overwhelming, and depressing as much as it was amazing.

  Maddy wheeled her way through it all, knowing the path perfectly. Pushed herself on and up to a door, opened it, and led me into a huge gymlike space, the main part of the attic.

  “Oh, Maddy,” I exclaimed.

  Finally here was a place that was all hers. Maddy's. Here everything had been cleared out, the wooden floor painted white, the walls left bare wood. A huge, palatial space soaring some thirty feet to the peak, it occupied the entire front of this large house and was, oddly, the grandest space of all.

  Maddy gave herself a double-handed push and roared into the middle of the room, braked one side and spun, screaming all the while.

  “It's wonderful, isn't it?”

  Just a big space. How freeing. I hurried after her, turned, saw the dome that capped the stairwell, above it the twenty-by-twenty skylight that allowed a core of light to strike the dome and flood into the center of the house.

  “Come over here,” said Maddy, not having lost a bit of orientation in her spin. “Look.”

  She led the way past the only furniture, two leather recliners—I glanced to the side, saw an enormous stereo against a wall—to two huge French doors, which she swung open. She rolled out onto the widow's walk, a small balcony cut into the sloping roof, and a blast of lake air washed over her. I followed, stood beside her, felt the exhilaration. The warmth, the cool wind.

  “Oh, my God,” I muttered.

  Beneath us spread a sea of blue, rolling and soft. To the very left I saw a trim of dark emerald-green—the shore—and above… above a lighter blue. Sky blue. Fairy blue.

  “This is why I bought the house,” she said. “This perch.”

  “Yes.” And for the first time I really understood.

  “I come up here and feel the breeze and smell the air. I can sit here for hours. It's like flying.”

  “I feel like we're at the very top of the John Hancock Tower. Like we're standing outside on top of it.”

  She clutched my hand. “Absolutely, but away from everything at the same time.” She laughed. “I have some friends out East who can't understand why I'd want to live up here—they think Lake Michigan's horribly polluted.”

  We were silent for a moment, then she asked me for a remote control, which I fetched from inside and brought to her. Seconds later there was this music that soared. Part rock, part New Age. Gregorian, too. I heard chanting voices. I closed my eyes. Yes, this was flying.

  “Now for the fun stuff,” she said.

  “Fun? You think it's going to be fun?”

  “Well, not going through it all. We don't have to do that today if you don't want. But going under. There's magic here, Alex. On this island and up here. Just wait.” She turned. “Let's go back in. See the chairs? The one on the left is for you.”

  I knew she'd just bought it for me, suspected she'd had it special-delivered. A beautiful piece of furniture. Dark wood. Dark leather. It matched hers. I helped her out of the wheelchair and into her recliner, then went to mine.

  “There's a lever on the left. Find it?” she asked. “Just pull.”

  I did, and my feet rose and my head fell back. The southerly sun poured inside and over us, warming, energizing, and the lake breeze came in whirls, washing and cleansing us. In the distance I heard the crashing of waves.

  “Breathe in… out. In… out.”

  Hypnosis.

  “I'm a little afraid,” I said against the background of soothing music and rolling water.

  “Has your big sister ever done you wrong?”

  “No, but…”

  “Shh. Let's just get into it and we'll take it from there.”

  Before the accident that had left her paralyzed from the waist down, Maddy had been a very good shrink. She'd always been very insightful. Intuitive, too. And compassionate, of course. All of which was heightened, I was sure, by her lack of sight. She'd always had a full load of clients, and her practice was with a successful group of psychologists who had a suite in a high rise in the Loop, just off Michigan Avenue.

  “You're very good at this, Alex,” said Big Sister, soothingly. “I think you should be writing novels, not technical manuals. You have a wonderful imagination. That's why hypnosis comes to you so easily. I'm a good practitioner of it, but you… you can really take off.”

  “Baloney.”

  “Don't baloney me. I'm serious.”

  Maddy had first learned hypnosis, I knew, from one of her associates, a woman some ten or fifteen years older by the name of Alecia. She was the doyenne of it all and was infamous for her work with hypnosis. I'd met her and found her uptight, was sure her patients did, too. Speaking of which, Maddy had later told me how Alecia had married one of her clients, something that occasionally happened back then, but for which today licenses were revoked. She'd married a guy whom I'd seen over and over and over again on television. Commercials, that's all he did. That's what he'd become famous for. Maddy had further leaked that Alecia had helped this guy, this Will, come to terms with his own mother's murder. I asked if that meant solve it, and Maddy had simply and only said yes. Hot gossip there, I was sure. Shrink marrying her patient. Murder in the family. Sounded interesting.

  “In… out,” chanted Maddy. “Lie back and relax. Clear your mind. Breathe in… out.”

  But while Maddy had told me of her own work with hypnosis, I really didn't get involved with it until that asshole of a bus driver had run her over. I learned it then to help Maddy with the pain. She taught me how to help her go under, slip into trance, then escort her far from the excruciating pain and to a place of calm. A pure place that didn't hurt. And that's what I did. Eventually we both became quite good at it. We traveled well together, and we'd slip under, brother and sister, and disappear into trance. To the Alps skiing, where Maddy would use her creative powers and imagine the exhilaration of rocketing down a slope. To the Mediterranean coast swimming, all that sun, all that beach. Snorkeling in Jamaica, her legs kicking and propelling her. They were guided fantasies of a sort, and we'd had a blast.

  “I'm leading,” she sai
d. “This is your trance, but I'm leading.”

  “Just take it easy, okay?”

  “Absolutely. I won't push and we'll come back just as soon as you want.”

  Now we'd both go under, of course. That was the way it worked in hypnotherapy. The therapist would go into trance as he or she hypnotized the subject. In our case, the leader was the one who put the other one under, made sure it was a deep trance, and watched out for the other person, bringing the subject back to consciousness if anything was too disturbing.

  The music faded away. Yes, Maddy was directing, turning the volume down, preparing me for lift-off.

  “Okay, Alex,” she said. “I want you to keep your eyes open and at the same time roll your eyes up. Look up, look up as high as you can. That's: one.”

  I did as she commanded, and could feel the induction washing over me, beckoning to me. Stretching those brown eyes of mine up, I stared as high as I could. Up, up, up. To myself: one.

  “Now, keep your eyes up and breathe in. Breathe in deeply and hold that breath. Good. Hold it. Hold it and while you're keeping your eyes up, I want you to lower your eyelids. Go ahead, close them. Two,” she said with great emphasis.

  I felt it now. The beginning of the trance. It came that quickly, always starting at the base of my neck and creeping up the back of my head. A numbing sensation. Oh, all right, I thought. I've already made the decision to do this. I give. Chanted to myself: two.

  “Relax, Alex. Relax your eyes and let yourself fall… fall.” Then the pronouncement: “Now breathe and: three.”

  The first time I'd tried hypnosis I hadn't been able to do it. Nor the second or the third. I'd caught bits and pieces of a trance, had tastes of it, as if I were learning to ride a unicycle and was able to go only a foot or two at a shot, but it wasn't until the fourth attempt that I fell all the way. Tumbled into it. Completely. Wonderfully.

  “I'm not there yet,” I said. “I'm a little out of practice, you know.”

  “Just let yourself fall, collapse into darkness.”