Obsessed

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Randy Mazursky could have been posing. He sat in the Berwyn police station, and even the most casual observer would have known at a glance that he was in agony, that he was the victim of a tragedy. In a gray room Randy sat on a worn oak chair, his head in his hands. His ash-blond hair looked dirty and tumbled over his forehead. The khaki slacks he wore looked almost as rumpled as his oversize tweed sport coat.

Randy’s sobbing was soft, but had continuity.

Near Randy sat his parents. His father, a thin man dressed in denim coveralls and a blue shirt, studied his son with a dull expression, betraying no emotion. His hands were long, the fingers bone-thin, the palms flat. His hands trembled.

Randy’s mother sat on the other side of her son. She had tied a purple nylon scarf over her gray hair and worn a deep-purple cardigan sweater over a yellow cotton shift. She held a balled-up Kleenex, wet with tears and mucus. Her eyes were rimmed in red. She seemed to be trying to abate her sorrow, to comfort her son.

“Oh, baby…” she whimpered, placing her hand on his arm. Randy raised his head. “We don’t understand now. Maybe it’s never for us to understand why Maggie was taken from us. But you gotta believe it’s what the good Lord planned and one day…”

The woman’s voice droned on; there was no indication on her son’s face that he heard any of what she said. His eyes were vacant.

Randy Mazursky’s mind was uncluttered. There was only one thought and that one thought repeated: a litany. Maggie is dead… Maggie is dead. In spite of the repetition he was unable to make himself believe it. Surely Maggie would come into this barren room any second now explaining how it was all a mistake and wouldn’t he come home now? Or she, along with his parents and the detectives he had spoken to, would all join in and laugh at the macabre joke they had played on him. She couldn’t be dead. They were going to have a baby.

He scanned the room, seeing it for the first time. His parents stared at him, their eyes begging. What did they want from him?

“Son.” His mother’s voice was raspy. “Listen to me, we’ll go see Father Frank. He’ll still be up; let him talk to you.” His mother stood and Randy noticed her knees were knocking. He started to laugh.

The pain was apparent on his mother’s face.

“Please son. C’mon.” She tugged at Randy’s arm. He let her lift it and when she let go, the arm slumped back down to the arm of the chair, as if he were asleep.

His mother turned to his father. Her voice was tinged with bitterness. “Why don’t you do something for the boy, Papa? Why do you sit there like that? Our boy needs help. For God’s sake, help him.”

The old man stared at his wife as if she were a stranger. After a time his mother slumped back into her seat and began weeping.

Randy’s mind wandered back to his evening’s work at the ice cream parlor. Maybe if he went back there and started over again, the evening would have a different outcome. He would go upstairs to the apartment and the radio would be on. The corridor would be filled with the smell of supper cooking. Maggie’s footsteps on the kitchen linoleum. The small slap of the refrigerator door closing. He would place his key in the lock and all the muted sounds and smells would increase and he would know he was home. Maggie, wearing old jeans and a hooded red sweatshirt, would hurry in from the kitchen. Maybe he could go back.

Jarring: Maggie is dead. They were supposed to play volleyball the following night.

Randy stood and stretched. “I need to be by myself. I’m going to walk. Tell the detectives I’ll be home in a couple hours.”

His father nodded. His mother, panic already spreading over her features, said, “No, Randy. I don’t think that’s a good idea. You gotta stick around, in case they find out anything. You don’t wanna be alone, huh? At a time like this…Let me take you to see Father Frank.”

His father’s voice cut into the room. “Let the boy alone, Theresa, please. If he wants to be alone, for Christ’s sake, let him be.”

Randy glanced at the family tableau as he left the room. His worn mother standing above his father, staring. Her mouth was open. His father once more bowed his head. And his hands…Randy noticed the trembling.

* * * *

Pat Young had lived across from the two-flat at 2511 S. Oak Park Avenue for five years. She had watched the Mazurskys move in from the same window she watched from right now. She had been drawn to Randy’s wiry good looks and made certain to position herself at the window when he went to and came home from work.

Pat had plenty of time to do her watching. An employee of U.S. Steel in Joliet, she had been injured when she had fallen from an overhead crane.

Everyone had told her how lucky she was. She didn’t think a broken back and being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life was any kind of luck. But, she supposed, she was alive. And as long as she lived she would collect her disability checks from the mill. It was easy to get around her first-story studio, and when the soaps got too boring there was always her window.

Pat had been a studier of the neighbors’ comings and goings for over a year now. And the Mazurskys were by far the most interesting of her neighbors. They were so insufferably happy.

Pat took a certain glee in watching them. She wondered how two people could spend so much time together and remain happy. She decided it was all a facade; Pat watched with anticipation for the day when she would see some trouble. She wanted to see them as she knew they really were.

Today had held a special reward for all of Pat’s efforts. She had just finished her lunch of a sandwich and an hour of All My Children when she glanced out the window and saw a not at all unattractive young man following Maggie Mazursky up the stairs. Pat knew, because it was early afternoon, Randy would not be home from work for hours. She had had only a glimpse of the man, but she was certain he was a real looker. She had managed to notice the broad shoulders and the powerful physique, the curly brown hair, and even the handsome mustached face in the few seconds she had seen him.

Pat giggled as she thought about what must have been going on in the Mazurskys’ upstairs apartment. And she was determined to have another look at the man when he came out. Being crippled prevented a lot of things, but it didn’t stop her from fiercely admiring the opposite s*x. Her small apartment was crowded with issues of Playgirl and Cosmopolitan.

She had made sure to keep glancing toward the window as she watched General Hospital. In less than an hour the man emerged, and his behavior confirmed Pat’s suspicions. There was a great energy to the way he walked; he practically glowed. She grabbed her binoculars from the table alongside the window and focused them. She had the man in a much closer perspective now. She was not disappointed; he was much better-looking than she had hoped…and he was smiling.

Pat sat back, a smirk of satisfaction on her pale face. So the Mazurskys, the “happy couple” on the block, were not as happy as they seemed. Perhaps Maggie was even happier. Why shouldn’t she be? Pat would be, too, if she had two men who looked so good servicing her.

Bitterly, Pat thought perhaps she could have had the man who’d just left Maggie Mazursky. Could have had…once. Before the accident Pat had been twenty-three and the object of considerable lust among her coworkers. She had not minded the leers, the whispering when she walked by.

She no longer cared. Pat rarely left her apartment and her skin had taken on a whitish pallor; there was a dullness to her eyes, eyes that had once been green and vibrant. Her red hair, once long and wavy, was now cut by Pat herself. She snipped away in front of a mirror until all but a couple of inches clung close to her skull.

Who cared about looks anyway? There wasn’t much a man could do with a cripple, right?

Later that evening Pat’s glee turned to morbid fascination. Randy hadn’t returned home from work at his usual time, and Pat laughed aloud at the thought that maybe he had something going as well.

She had forgotten the Mazurskys when she heard the sirens. She clicked off the television and the table lamp by the window and wheeled herself close; her knees touched the wall. She watched, shrouded in darkness. Two heavyset men emerged from the building, carrying a stretcher. On the stretcher was a form covered by a white sheet. Pat swallowed hard as she saw Randy Mazursky, close to the stretcher, his tall body stooped. He was crying.

The red whirling light reflected off the pale brick of the Mazurskys’ building. Pat watched as Randy climbed into the back of the ambulance with what must have been Maggie.

Pat felt a mixture of emotions, fear and curiosity the most prominent.

Pat wheeled herself away from the scene. It was time for Jeopardy!

* * * *

Halfway into the show Pat heard a knock at her door. She was tempted not to answer, but the volume of the television was too loud and her lights too bright to ignore any visitor.

Wheeling herself to the door, Pat wondered who could be calling on her. As she opened the door she saw the familiar blue uniform of a Berwyn police officer. She took the young man in with a grin; he was good-looking: tall, broad-chested, slim-waisted, with brown eyes and black hair.

Pat took on an innocent expression. “Can I help you, officer? Is anything wrong?”

“I’m afraid so, ma’am. There’s been a murder in the apartment building across the street. Margaret Mazursky. Did you know her? Know who she was?”

Pat smiled up at him. “I’m sorry…no…I don’t get around much.” She gestured at her legs.

The officer looked sympathetic. “Well, we’re trying to get around to the neighborhood people, trying to see if they remember anything suspicious. Do you think you saw anyone leave the Mazurskys’ apartment today? Did you maybe see someone in the neighborhood you haven’t seen before?”

Pat shook her head. “No on both counts, officer. I saw nothing.”

“Are you sure, now? Sometimes we see things and don’t think anything of them. Maybe in a different light you’d remember.”

“No, officer, I don’t think so. You see, I haven’t been feeling well lately. I was asleep most of the day. And I’ve pretty much been watching TV the rest of the time. I’m sorry…I didn’t see a thing.”

The policeman scribbled something in a notebook. “Could I have your name, please?”

“Pat Young.”

“Thanks a lot, Ms. Young.”

He turned to leave. Pat called after him, “Officer, is it going to be safe around here?”

“Well, we’ll be having a lot more patrol cars in the area for a while. Try not to worry. We’ll be watching. And keep your doors locked.”

Pat closed the door. The TV volume seemed louder than she’d left it. She shut it off, annoyed with the electronic voices. “Shut up,” she whispered to the TV. “I have my own reasons for doing what I do.”

She conjured up an image: the handsome man stepping lightly from Maggie’s apartment building. He glowed.

She must find out who he was. Then Pat would see who was glowing. The disability checks from the mill seemed to get smaller and smaller with inflation eating into them. A nice little supplement could help out a lot.

After all, he was dressed perfectly. Clothes like that didn’t come from Kmart.

Pat wondered about his relationship to Maggie. Had she known him? Why had she let him in?

She didn’t know how, but Pat Young was determined to find out the handsome stranger’s identity.

And when she did, well, good-bye Berwyn.

* * * *

After hours of walking Berwyn’s orderly streets, Randy found himself in front of the building he and Maggie lived in. There were still police vehicles parked in front, and as he looked up, he saw lights and silhouetted forms moving in front of the windows. Every so often he saw a flash from a camera. Evidence technicians. Would they find anything? Randy wondered how there could be any clues; Maggie had no enemies.

He no longer felt that the building was home—it could never be that without Maggie. He glanced up at the February sky: black, stars glittering, a three quarter moon shining, lighting the winter-dull street with silvery light. Somehow Randy felt the earth should look different, in deference to his loss. But the wind overhead, the bare branches stretching into the night, the sound of cars whizzing by en route to more orderly and untouched lives surrounded him. Didn’t anyone care?

He glanced up at the windows once more. With the lights still burning, the apartment had the nerve to look warm, almost inviting. Randy rubbed his arms through the wool of his sport coat and realized he was cold. Even his own body betrayed his loss. He walked on, trying to get his blood to move once more, trying to ignore the cold.

* * * *

When he came back an hour later the apartment was dark and the official vehicles were gone. The street looked normal once more, as if nothing had happened.

Randy felt in his pockets for the front door key. Inside, it would be warm. If he couldn’t stand being in the apartment his mother would love it if he came home to her. Barring that, Chicago was filled with hotels, YMCAs.

Randy swallowed, took a breath, and made his way up the walk to the door. Barring all thought, he put one foot in front of the other going up the creaking, dark-stained wooden staircase.

Across their door was a sign that something had gone awry. A large yellow banner hung across it. Crime scene—ongoing investigation, do not enter. Randy thought the officers wouldn’t mind if he went inside, and he slid his key into the lock.

As he opened the door Scruggums pounced for his feet. Randy picked the cat up and sat down on the couch. The cat clawed at his tight embrace, but Randy needed something to hold on to.

The sobbing began. Dry and painful at first, Randy’s mouth opened in silent anguish, his eyes wide, his shoulders shaking with the force of his grief. When the tears began, the cat jumped from his lap. She gave him one curious look before she disappeared under a ladder-back chair in the dining room.

Randy stood and made his way around the empty apartment, turning on every light. The apartment filled with light, hummed with electricity. Randy stood in the kitchen, taking large quivering breaths as he sought to end his tears. As much as he tried to take in the plain surroundings of the kitchen, all he could see was Maggie, lying sprawled on the floor, her dark hair fanned out behind her as if arranged, the slight protrusion of her stomach, the white tinge of her skin. Every detail stayed with him in vivid color; he would never forget.

He glanced around the room, trying to force himself to see it for what it was: a room. It held nothing. As he glanced around he saw a glimmer near the refrigerator. At first his eyes swept by, seeing only the chrome of the refrigerator’s bottom. Quickly he realized there was more. He stepped to the refrigerator and knelt.

A silver lighter lay near the refrigerator. Randy grimaced as he picked it up, noticing that a dark brown blotch covered the lower portion of the fighter. The blotch had to be Maggie’s blood.

Randy scraped some of it away and revealed the initials J.D.M. engraved in script.

Randy filled with anger and his tears returned. He fell forward on the floor, clutching the lighter tightly in his hand. “I swear by God,” he whispered, “I’ll get you, J.D.M. I’ll get you if I have to die doing it.”

Randy curled into a ball, holding the lighter close. Near him rested the chalk outline of his wife’s body.

* * * *

Randy knew he could not stay in the apartment. He dialed his parents and they offered to pick him up. He said he would rather walk, and they let him.

The lighter was in his pocket as he locked the door behind him.