The Wedding Ring

by Terry Wright

        An icy wind off Nantucket Sound blew into Smitty’s Saloon as Fred pushed through the door in his usual angry mood.  His coat smelled of fish and his brown boots made squeaky sounds on the wood-planked floor as he approached the bar.

        Rita, a busty bartender with two missing front teeth, looked up from the tap she was working for another patron.  “God damn it, Fred—no trouble tonight—yah hear.”

        “Screw you, bitch.”  He took his regular seat.  “Give me a beer.”

        Nobody around here liked Fred much.  A ruffian and a troublemaker, he was just plain mean.  Quick with a knife, his temper was just as sharp.  Another grueling day at the cannery had done nothing to lighten his demeanor.  And like every night, an awful thirst burned in his throat and he aimed to relieve it.

        Scowling, Rita slid him a mug.  “You behave yourself, yah hear.”

       "Creager had it comin’,” Fred spat and took a swig of beer.  “The bastard shouldn’t have stuck his fat nose into my business.”

        “And you shouldn’t be beating that boy of yours,” Rita replied.

        “The kid deserved it.”

        Rita leaned on the bar.  “So tell me, Fred—why haven’t we seen Sarah about lately?  You done the same to her?”

        Fred showed Rita a fist.  “Keep talkin’, bitch.  You’ll get some of this, too.”

        “You don’t scare me, Fred Regar.”

        “I swear you should’ve been born a man.”  He cackled and went back to drinking his beer.

        Suddenly, a nauseating smell, like rotting fish carcasses, assailed his nostrils.  Swallowing bile, he felt a pressure on his chest, a presence, someone’s staring eyes.  Quickly glancing at the man now sitting next to him, he realized he hadn’t seen the stranger before, a wiry old man with long gray hair, a dusty cowboy hat, and a long coat caked with grime.  His ashen face bore prickly stubble, and his steel gray eyes looked cold as death.  “What are you lookin’ at?”

        The old man didn’t flinch, just fiddled with a gold ring that spun loosely around his bony finger.

        “I’m talkin’ to you, faggot!”

        Turning on his barstool slightly, “Name’s Justin Graves—from Deckers,” the old man said in a raspy voice.  “But you can call me Justice.”

        Fred stiffened, looked him up and down.  “Justin Graves, huh?  I knew a homicide detective by that name once, a Texas Ranger some twenty years ago, if I remember right.”

        “You do.”

        “You’re not tellin’ me you’re him?”

        “I am.”

        Fred frowned.  The homicide detective looked like a walking dead man, not at all the way Fred remembered him.  “You should see a doctor—you’re not lookin’ so good.”

        “Never felt better.”

        “So what brings you to the cape?”

        Leaning forward, the old man whispered.  “Laura.”

        Fred's chest tightened. “That was a long time ago.”

        “And she’s still dead.”

        “It’s not my fault she married that murderin’ bastard,” Fred growled.

        “He didn’t do it.”

        “You sure as hell fried him for killin’ her.”

        “But now I know the truth.”

        “You don’t know anything, old man.”

        Justin examined the ring on his finger. “I’ve talked to her.”

        “How much have you been drinkin’?”

         “She told me what you said—just before you cut her throat.”

        “She’s dead.  You talked to nobody.”

        Justin glared at Fred.  “This one’s for pinky.  Isn’t that how it went?”

        Fred jerked his eyes away.  How could Justice have known that?  Laura was the only one who knew about pinky, how he’d get all excited and how she’d make him wait.  “After we’re married,” she’d said.  Pinky didn’t want to wait.  Neither did Fred.  Justice couldn’t have known about their private affairs.  After taking a fitful swallow of beer, Fred said, “I don’t believe you, old man.”

        “Do you believe she didn’t like you much?”

        Fred showed teeth. “We were perfect for each other.”

        “But she married another man.  Must’ve made you furious.”

        “I got over it.”

        “Hardly.  You’re still angry, Fred.  You even beat your wife and kid.”

        “What are you gettin’ at?”

        “Laura wants justice.”

        “You had nothin’ on me back then, yah got nothin’ now.”

        “Ah—but things are different.”

        “There’s still no evidence.”

        Justin stretched, joints cracking.  “There are other ways.”

          “What makes you so sure?”

        “Laura told me what happened that night.”

        “Talkin’ to dead people, Graves?  You’re not well.”

        “We can do that, you know.”

        “What?”

        “Two weeks ago I had a run in with a gang of drug dealers.  Got myself killed.”

        “Now I know you’re drunk.”

        “They shot me three times—right through the heart.”  Justin opened the dusty flap of his coat, the stench now overpowering.

        Gagging, Fred looked at Graves’ chest and drew back, aghast.  Three white-rimmed bullet holes punctured gray and dried flesh.  He could see inside the ghoul’s hollow ribcage.  “That’s disgusting!”  Fred threw down half his beer, hoping he wouldn’t puke.

        “I ran into Laura shortly after that.  She was distraught, unable to find her husband in the afterlife.  As you know, Charles was innocent, just like he’d proclaimed right up to the time they threw the switch.”

        “He got what he deserved for stealing my girl.”

        “I promised her I’d get them back together.”

        “Good luck.”  Fred gulped beer.

        “I suppose you think you got away with murder.”

       “Well, didn’t I?”

       “There’s no such thing.”  Removing the gold ring from his finger, Justice set it in his upturned bony palm.  “Charles asked me to give you this.”

        Fred snatched the ring and threw it across the room.  “Like hell he did.”

        “Laura gave it to him when they were married.  He was wearing it when we buried him.”

        “So now you’re a grave robber?”

        “Charles gave it to me.”

        “How’s that possible?”

        “He wants you to have it.”

        “I don’t want it.”

        “When the ring is back on his finger, Laura will be his for eternity.”

       “You’re loony, Justice.”

       “Am I?”

        A droning sound began to fill the bar, getting louder and louder.  Fred covered his ears and slowly turned his eyes to the ring, which was lying on the floor, glowing like a hot coal.  Then a sharp burning sensation shot up his arm.  He quickly checked his fingertips.  They were blistering where he’d touched the ring.  He grabbed the cold beer mug for relief.  “JUSTICE!”

        The old man was gone. And the ring, too.

        “Where’d he go?” Fred asked Rita.

        “Who?”

        “The old man.”

        “Why don’t you go home?  You’re looking a little pale.”

        Fred glanced at his fingertips again.  They were fine.  He must’ve imagined the whole thing.  “Give me another beer.”

        After several more rounds, Fred staggered out of Smitty’s, ducked against the cold wind, and headed for home in his usual foul mood.  Tonight he was really steamed. His run in with Justin Graves, imagined or not, had ruined a perfectly rotten day.  Fred was angry enough to beat the crap out of his wife and kid. 

        He never loved Sarah, never loved Laura, either.  Not really.  He just wanted to have control.  But the old man was right about one thing—Fred had never gotten over what she’d done to him: took away his control, dumped him for another man.  Laura deserved to die and he’d kill her again if he had to do it over.

        As he did every night, Fred cut down the alley behind Mason Street and went past the redbrick rectory of Saint Mothers. His shadow, cast from a streetlight, loomed across the side of the church like an apparition stalking the night. 

        On the corner, he noticed a lighted window in the old O’Shaughnessy place, which had been boarded up for years after the old couple had died.  But sometime since yesterday, someone must’ve bought the rundown house, incredibly fixed it all up with a new roof, new paint, a white picket fence and blooming flowerbeds in the dead of winter. 

        In his drunken state, he thought he was seeing things.

         Then he caught a motion in the window.  In spite of the wind knifing through his coat, he stopped abruptly to watch a young woman brushing her hair, a mere silhouette on the shade, but a striking image he’d not expected to encounter.  His fingertips started tingling and he felt suddenly dizzy.  Something compelled him to take a closer look.  Staying in the shadows, he worked his way toward the house, ducking behind a fence out of view from the street.  Stooping below O’Shaughnessy’s glowing window, he peeked over the sill.  What he saw through a crack in the shade took his breath away.  

        Laura!

        She hadn’t aged a day, her long golden hair swaying to the strokes of her brush.  He could see her blue eyes in the vanity mirror, and every line of her face, still magnificently beautiful.  Under a silky negligee, her plump breasts rose and fell with each breath.  A wedding gown hung from the closet door; a veil lay on the bedcovers as if thrown off in a hurry. 

       He suddenly felt hot.

        Looking back to the street, he saw a crowd of people gathered around the church, laughing and singing.  But it wasn’t Saint Mothers; it was a little white church with a bell chiming in the steeple.  Shiny old cars glistened under streetlights.  The cold wind became a warm breeze and the briny smell of seawater was suddenly replaced by the familiar scent of desert sage.  A dog barked and children skipped by.  Down the street, a lighted Farris wheel turned brilliantly and carnival music filled the air. Everything seemed so familiar.

        Déjà vu hit him like a board. What the hell? How'd he get back to Deckers? 

        Looking down at his clothes, he no longer wore that fishy-smelling coat and those brown boots, but a t-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, instead.  And on his finger, he saw the gold wedding ring that Justice had tried to give him earlier.  How the hell did it get on his finger?  How long had it been there?  In panic, he tried to pull it off, but it wouldn’t budge.

        A noise came from above.  Startled, he looked up and saw Laura opening the window and lifting the shade, probably to let in the breeze.  He ducked.  The sound of running water and a noisy pipe came to him now, the shower where Charles was preparing for his wedding night with Fred’s girl.  That uncontrollable rage filled him again.

        Laura sat at her vanity, brushing her hair, bright and cheery eyes glowing back at her from the mirror.  Her skin smelled of lilac from the bubble bath she’d taken. After slipping away from the wedding reception, Charles had carried her over the threshold of their new house.  Now, she was preparing to give herself to her husband on their first night together. In a way, she wished Charles would hurry and finish his shower.  But then again, she cherished this time she had alone with her thoughts on this most wonderful night of her life.

        Finished, she went to the window and pulled it open.  Texas desert air flowed in along with the joyous sounds of celebration.  She glanced out at the small town of Deckers.  Everyone knew about her wedding to Charles.

        And everyone had been relieved when she’d dumped that troublemaker, Fred Regar.  Oh—he was a charmer in the beginning.  But once he had her love, he became a control freak—a raving jealous idiot who’d embarrassed her on more than one occasion.  That was six months ago.  Now she was free of him and starting a new life with Charles.

        She turned off the light and lay in shadowy darkness, waiting for her husband.

        A tree branch, swaying in the breeze, scratched against the side of the house as she lay there listening for the shower to stop running and that annoying pipe to stop rattling.  Then she heard a creak, which sounded like that loose board in the hallway floor.  Her stomach clutched.  How could that be?  Charles was in the shower.  Someone else was in the house.  My God!

        Suddenly he leaped on her, a big man reeking of beer.  He covered her mouth with one hand and ripped off her nightgown with the other.  She couldn’t get air to scream.  Clutching his wrist, she tried to wrench his hand from her mouth as she flexed her thigh muscles keeping her knees together and his probing fingers out.  But he was too strong and somehow managed to force her legs apart. She struggled, tried to cry out, but the sound of running water and that damn rattling pipe overpowered her faint appeals for help.

         Her mind spun in terror.  CHARLIE! HELP ME!

         As the intruder penetrated her private place roughly, she saw his face.  Fred Regar!  YOU BASTARD!

         With his vile piece of flesh inside her, he pushed harder and faster, his eyes growing wider, his nostrils flaring.  He humped her without love or kindness.  She couldn’t believe this was happening on her wedding night.

         CHARLIE! HELP ME!!!

        “Ah! Ah! Ah!” 

         Fred’s hardness exploded inside her.  She wanted to vomit.  Then she felt the cold steel of a knife on her throat.

        “This one’s for pinky,” he said and slashed.

         Laura tried to scream in pain, but her air only hissed from the gash across her throat.  She knew her wedding night had been completely spoiled.

         CHARLIE!

         The pain and terror faded to black.

        Fred leaped from the blood-soaked sheets, pulled up his shorts, and set the knife on the bed where Charlie would pick it up when he discovered Laura’s body—just like last time.  Fred was going to get away with it again.  He was sure of it.

        Heading toward the open window to flee, his nostrils suddenly revolted as a horrible smell of decayed fish began to permeate the shadowy bedroom.  He stopped dead in his tracks when he felt a pressure on his chest. “Justice?”

        “Ah, Fred,” came a raspy voice. “Up to your old tricks, I see.” 

        “What are you doin’ here?”  Fred could hardly stand the stench of the ghoul who must’ve been hidden somewhere in the shadows.

        The shower water suddenly stopped running; the pipe stopped rattling.  Fred jerked his eyes to the bathroom door.  If Charles saw him, he would be able to identify him as Laura’s killer.  He had to get out—now—like last time.  But this time the window slammed closed all by itself.  He grabbed the latch. It wouldn’t release. “Let me out!”

        “You know I can’t do that,” said Justin.

        “What have you done?”

        “A little belated detective work.”

        Whistling came from the bathroom.

        “You set me up, you bastard!”

         “What’s that, dear?” Charles said.  “Are you ready?”

        Fred backed up to the wall.  “He’ll see me!”

        “I know.”

        Charles seemed playful. “I’ll be finished in a minute.”

          More whistling.

        Fred lunged for the bedroom door.  It slammed shut as if by a sudden gust of wind.  He grabbed the doorknob, pulled on it frantically, his bloody hands slipping off.  He tried again but the door refused to open.  Though he knew his fingerprints would be all over the place, he didn’t care.  Panic raced through his mind.  He had to get away.  “Damn you, Justice!”

        “You’re the one who’s damned,” the ghoulish detective said calmly.

        Sirens wailed. Flashing emergency lights outside now illuminated the bedroom walls.  Fred dashed to the window again.  He still couldn’t get it open.  Fear gripped him.  He was trapped.

        Police busted in.  “Hands on your head.”  Several officers jumped Fred, threw him to the floor, wrenched his arms behind him and slapped on the cuffs.  Someone turned on a light. The bathroom door swung open. Charles stepped out, towel around his waist, hair shiny and slicked back.  

         Terror pumped through Charles’ veins when he saw his new bride lying limp on the bed in a bloody pool.  “Laura! My God!”  Rushing to her side, his hand landed on the bloody knife he hadn’t seen lying next to her.  His mind in total chaos, he picked up the knife without thinking, stared at in horror, and then dropped it as if it were a hot rock.  “Laura!”  He shook her.  She didn’t respond.

        A lamp fell over as Police scuffled with a man on the floor.  Fred Regar. He was covered with blood.  Laura’s blood. Charles jumped from the bed.  “God damn it, Fred!  What have you done?”

        Fred went into a rage.  “Screw you, Charles.  Now you can’t have her either.”

        “Hold him down,” a police sergeant ordered his men.

        “Let me go!” Fred hollered. The stench in the room became overwhelming.  From the shadows, Justin snapped his fingers.  Charles flinched as if awakened from a trance.  Laura sat up on the bed, wide eyed, trembling as if she’d just awoke from a bad dream.  She floated to Charlie and threw her arms around his neck.  “Thank God you’re here.  I was so afraid.”

        “It’s over now,” Charles said.  “I’ve finally found you.”

        “Don’t ever let me go, Charlie.”

        Fred started shouting.  “Look at that—look at that!  She’s not dead.”

        “He’s drunk,” an officer said as they pulled Fred to his feet.

        Paramedics attended to Laura, performing CPR on a body that only they could see.  It looked to Fred like they were trying to revive thin air.  “What kind of joke is this?” he shouted.

        “She better not die,” the sergeant snarled.

        “But there’s nobody on the bed.”

        “Get him outta here!”

        “Wait! You guys are makin’ a mistake!”

        The paramedics stood, heads bowed.  “She’s dead.”

        “Are you all totally crazy?” Fred yelled.  “She’s not dead.  She’s standing right there, next to her husband.  Are you blind?  Don’t you see them?”

        “He’s hallucinating,” an officer said.

        Pulling a sheet over the corpse, a medic asked, “Who was she?”

        “Laura Singleton,” the sergeant replied.  “She just moved into town today. Someone called us about seeing a prowler at her window.  We got here as fast as we could.”

      “Why would anyone want to live in a dump like this?”

       “She was going to fix it up.”

        “What are you talkin’ about?” Fred spat, still struggling with the officers.  “She already fixed it up.”

        “This place is a mess,” the sergeant said. 

        “What do you mean…it’s…it’s a…mess?”  As if an ungodly transformation had taken place right before his eyes, Fred saw cracked and water-stained walls, a flickering ceiling light, and a vanity mirror covered with a thick layer of dust.  The window had been boarded up; a cold wind now whistled through broken panes of glass.  He suddenly became aware of his fishy smelling coat and his brown boots.  Panic raced through him. “JUSTICE!”

        The ghoul stepped out of the shadows, his gray eyes on Fred.  “Looks like Charles has found Laura—and you’re going to hell... very soon.”

        “Bullshit!  There’s no Laura Singleton.  She’s just an illusion you concocted to set me up.”

        “You catch on real quick.”

        “You can’t get away with this, Justice!”

        “Shut up!” the police sergeant yelled at Fred.

        “You guys got this all wrong,” Fred shouted to the sergeant.  “She’s not real!  You only think there’s a dead body on the bed.  It’s Justice, I tell you.  He’s playing with your minds.  She’s a figment of your imagination!”

        “Get him out of here!”

        “Wait, don’t you see?  Justin Graves wants you to think I killed Laura Baker in Deckers twenty years ago.  He’s staged this whole thing.”

        “Hold up, men,” the sergeant said and gave Fred a quizzical look.  “Justin Graves, you say?”

        “You know him?”

         “He’s the Texas Ranger who got killed a couple weeks back.”

         “That’s him.  He’s standing right there—look—in the corner, for Christ’s sake.”

         The sergeant glared at Fred.  “You must be drunker than I thought.  There’s nobody there.”

        “Of course he’s there?  Are you blind?  Can’t you smell him?  And Laura Baker is standing right in front of him with her arms around her husband.  She’s not dead, I tell yah!  Let me go!”

        “He must be crazy,” someone said.

        “I am not.  Look—I even have the wedding ring on my finger, the one she gave her husband.”

        The sergeant inspected Fred’s hands shackled behind him.  “Get this lunatic outta here.  What’s he take us for—idiots?  Book him.  Murder One.”

        “What?”

        “There’s no ring on your finger and there’s no Justin Graves in this bedroom.”

         “What happened to the ring?”

         The ghoul shrugged.

        “JUSTICE!”

         As officers shoved Fred toward the door, the sergeant added, “And find out what happened to Laura Baker in Deckers.  We might have a serial killer on our hands.”

         “No! You can’t do this to me!”

        The sergeant sneered.  “Save it for the judge.”

        “Bastards!”

         They dragged Fred outside and tossed him into a squad car, still cursing.

A cold wind whipped down Mason Street as Justin stood under the streetlight and stared at the boarded-up and weed-infested O’Shaughnessy place.  He rather liked the briny smell of the night air.  The trial was over. Fred Regar had been convicted on all counts.  His wife and son never shed a tear.

Next to Justin, Laura and Charles appeared, cuddling.  “You finally got him,” she said.  “Justice got his man.”

“I’m sorry I had to put you through that again—but it was the only way.”

“It was horrible.  Why didn’t you tell me you were going to bring us back to that night?”

“Would you have agreed to this charade knowing what Fred was going to do to you?”

Laura shuddered.

“Justice doesn’t come easily, but thanks to you, Fred Regar was sentenced to death.  Now, the truth about Laura Baker is known to all, and Charles—your name has been cleared.”

“Thanks,” he said, examining the wedding ring on his finger, finally back where it belonged.  “If not for you, Fred would have gotten away with murder.”

Justin shook his head.  “There’s no such thing.”

“Now we can rest in peace,” Laura said, hugging her husband.  “Together for eternity.”

“What are you going to do?” Charles asked the dead detective.

“There are more tormented souls seeking justice—and other criminals like Fred Regar.”

“I suppose you’ll be paying them a visit, too.”

“All in good time,” said Justin.

With a gust of wind, the ghoul was gone.