Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  “No worries, Helena. Every system on the CURDS1 was checked out by Kinshasa’s registered CURDS maintenance crew, which Mr. Butz also supervised. I’m really surprised he didn’t tell you.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Why would he tell us the plane systems had been endangered? I was still stunned by what he’d done. “By all means, put in that commendation, Miss Chiff.”

  “And do let me know how it turns out with your mother. Are you sure she hasn’t let her battery run out?”

  I’d been so shocked by the saboteur story I’d forgotten why I’d called in the first place. Worry set in again. “She has two power packs and backup USB cords, so I doubt that. Thanks, Miss Chiff.”

  I disconnected with Miss Chiff and stared out the window. We were above the clouds, and by now above the Atlantic. There was really nothing to look at, which was okay because I wasn’t seeing anything anyway.

  One by one, the first wave of clean people came out of the showers and I let the others go first. The twins, Badger and Roxy were in before Billings finally came out, still toweling his head. He’d kept the beard, but trimmed it and shaved the moustache. I would be surprised if it lasted. He’d come out of my womb with a razor and a can of shaving cream. His hair was thick and grew fast and he’d never been able to tolerate it, especially in the summer. I got up and knocked on the cockpit door, letting Dinny know there was a shower open for her. She has a small room next to the cat alcove and went in for a change of clothes, thanked me, asked me if I was sure, assured me they’d gotten the new flight plan taken care of, and went to clean up. I wanted to douse myself as much as the next person, but this was the price coordinators had to pay. It wouldn’t have felt right if I’d gone in anything other than last. Badger was the first of the second wave to emerge and I was finally able to wash the jungle out of my hair. Twice.

  It was last in last out. Even Dinny was back in the cockpit by the time I came out. I had also managed to talk down my tension. There were plenty of reasons for Mom to be out of touch that weren’t serious and I was even beginning to worry a little about the over-reaction fallout when it turned out to be nothing. I took my seat and T.B. was on my lap before I even had one, climbing up on my shoulders and snuggling my head as if I’d used catnip shampoo. I scratched him behind the ears, then picked up my phone and tried Mom again. Still nothing. So I dialed Butte.

  “I tried too,” Billings said from behind me. “Cell, land line, Dad, no one is answering.” He took the seat across the aisle. His phone was still in his hand, but the screen was dark. I filled him in on what Roxy had found out and the travel plans. “Can we go faster?”

  “You want to play a game to pass the time? Do you have any that are not naked?”

  He glanced at the upper deck, mostly ignoring my question. Served me right. There was no way to lighten the mood. “I’ll get my Kindle. I can stare at that the whole ride and no one will be able to tell the difference.”

  I went back to looking out the window, listening to my hair dry. About an hour later we adjourned to the upper deck, where Dinny served whitefish fillets with dinner rolls and fruit cocktail, and Badger took statements while we ate. Sadistically, she brought out tapioca pudding for dessert which strongly resembled the mealworm paste we’d been forced to eat. Badger mimed throwing it at the wall, laughed good-naturedly, and ate it with his fingers.

  Miss Chiff’s travel arrangements went off exactly as planned. The CURDS1 landed at Dulles at 5:17 a.m. local time. Leaving all our CURDS equipment behind other than our personal ID, Billings and I parted from the team at the baggage claim. They went off to find transportation to Miss Chiff’s office while we hurried through the terminal, checking a map to see where Concourse Z was located, which we followed all the way to the end. There were only four gates curving around the end of the concourse, but there was also a little extension that seemed to be some kind of maintenance or storage. I knocked lightly on the unmarked door and a man in his mid-sixties opened it. We showed our CURDS badges. He wore the uniform of a U.S. Air Force Major General with two stars on each epaulet. He opened the door only wide enough to let us inside and closed it behind us. “Follow me.”

  He led us out a side door to a small transport plane that looked like it was last used to drop paratroopers into Viet Nam. “Don’t worry,” he said when Billings took a step back. “All the important parts are shiny and new. We use this plane for pilot training and tourist trips. Get in.”

  He was all business, didn’t bother with introductions or niceties. He climbed in with us and moved immediately to the front of the plane. The cockpit was not closed off from the rest of the plane. There were several seats facing into the plane mounted on each wall. We picked the nearest two and strapped in. We could hear the pilot talking over his radio but I didn’t understand the technical lingo. As he spoke he flicked switches and turned knobs. A few minutes later we began to taxi toward a small, shorter runway and then we were in the air.

  About three hours later the flight began to get bumpy. “Don’t worry, folks,” the pilot called back to us. “A little turbulence. We,re flying in just ahead of a thunderstorm, but I’ll get you there just fine.”

  “Thank you!” I called back, exchanging a worried look with Billings. Despite the pilot’s assurances, I was worrying a bit as the plane bobbed and bucked. But it turned out to be needless. The pilot was top notch and landed at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in a pouring rain with seeming ease. He saluted us, handed us a couple of Air Force surplus ponchos to put on, and opened the door.

  It was coming down in sheets. I was so glad I’d showered on the plane, and my hair was actually nicely poofy, but here I went, jumping down to the ground where it was immediately soaked and plastered to my head worse than it had ever been in the Congo. We caught a taxi just the other side of the terminal and I gave them my mother’s address. The last leg of our journey seemed the longest, with the rain causing slow traffic and brief but annoying jams that played on the tight strings of my nerves as our destination grew ever closer. The taxi’s windshield wipers ticked an allegro beat like a metronome on speed. My heartbeat kept up with the wipers, and my fingers drummed on the molded armrest in harmony.

  Finally, the taxi arrived in front of my mother’s house, which didn’t help my panic because a police squad car was parked at the curb. I left Billings to settle up with the cab driver. There was no siren and no flashing lights, but as I approached a uniformed female officer emerged from the passenger side and into the pouring rain. She motioned for her partner to stay behind the wheel. No sense in both of them getting wet. “Helena Montana?” she asked, shouting to be heard.

  “Yes.” I steeled myself for hearing that they’d found my mother dead or unconscious.

  The officer held up a hand palm outward, but I wasn’t going to let her stop me from going in. “She’s not there. Officer Dolores Chang.” She held out her hand and I gave it a quick shake. “Director Chiff alerted us that there was a problem and we were assigned to assist you. We’ve searched the house. No evidence of forced entry, no traces of blood, and no apparent damage indicating a struggle.”

  I thanked her, but said I’d prefer to see for myself and I hurried into the house. Mom’s living room has low pile blue carpeting and a say something couch with huge blue carnations all over it. Her Smart TV was on a cart against one wall in front of the couch, and an oversize early American end table held a yellow ginger jar lamp and a cordless phone on its base. Her crochet bag was on the other end of the couch and some random skeins of various sizes spilled out of it. A family picture from happier times hung on the wall. I looked to be about eight and I was sitting on my bicycle with my Dad holding onto the seat behind me. The place smelled of her flowery face powder and Bengay. The large picture window in the front wall swirled and dripped with rain. Lightning flashed, making the world outside look like a photographic negative, and in the distance I heard the deep rumble of thunder. Despite the rain, the door remained open as Billings followed us in. We did
n’t expect to be there long. We just didn’t know where we’d be going next. I walked quickly through the single story bungalow, coming to the same conclusions the officers had. Unlike most homes, Mom still had a landline and an answering machine, which was currently flashing. I pushed PLAY.

  The automated voice gave the day and time stamp then played back a message from Billings. “Hey, Gram, where are you? Did you lose your cell phone? Remember, last time it was in the deli drawer in the fridge. And once you said you found it the medicine cabinet. Give Mom a call when you find it, okay? Love you.”

  Then it played back my message. After that the time stamp jumped back almost six hours. The third message came through in a clearly electronically modified voice that was probably male. “We have Shirley. If you want to see her again come to Peaceful Willows Cemetery, the Eternal Spring section. We need to talk about your civic duty.” He said the last two words as if they left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Are those graves still open?” Billings asked before I could.

  Officer Chang nodded. “Cemetery workers are on strike. They want a twenty percent raise. Families of the exhumed are having a fit, but the city won’t do that. Union is holding out. The pressure is immense, but they are trying to bargain it down to something reasonable.” She led us back out into the rain and told us to get in the back seat. Billings closed and locked the door to the house, looking a little uncomfortable about it. “Peaceful Willows,” the officer told her partner as we buckled ourselves in. She left the sliding window between the seats open as we drove away through the downpour.

  “I understand your mother is on the Krochedy jury. That seems to be what this is about. I wish I had more information for you, but the trial is ongoing. They aren’t releasing much to the public.”

  “I understand,” Billings answered for me. He squeezed my hand.

  We drove in mostly a tense silence to the cemetery. Peaceful Willows is never really closed, but the strike was keeping workers away and the rain was keeping everyone else away so it was pretty much deserted as we slowed to a crawl at the gate and inched forward along the cemetery path. It curved around several large areas filled with a variety of headstones. We passed the chapel and two large mausoleums before we came to Eternal Spring. Two men were standing around near my Dad’s and my Aunt’s open graves. The tarps had been removed and were lying in a clump behind the headstones. Other graves across an aisle were still tarped, with rain pooling in them and weighing them down in the middle. Even though their backs were towards us, I recognized one of the men.

  The driving officer parked the car along the shoulder, and Officer Chang unbuckled her seatbelt, preparing to accompany us to the gravesite. “Wait,” I said. “Let us try to handle it.” The man on the left was Butte. I was sure of it. The man on the right I didn’t know. Both were in quilted vinyl jackets with hoods up, their hands shoved into the pockets for warmth. “I think this is just some stupid power play.”

  Chang ducked her head, peering out at the storm, but didn’t buckle herself back in. “You got it. I’ll be watching for the first sign of trouble. Wave if you need me.”

  Billings and I emerged back into the rain. The ponchos we’d gotten from the pilot kept us mostly dry, but they were thin and the rain was cold. “Let’s get this done and get out of here,” I told Billings. “It’s your Dad up to his old tricks again.”

  As we approached from behind, I heard Butte say, “I think that’s enough. Get her out.”

  “Not yet,” said the other man.

  “She’ll cooperate. Trust me.”

  They were peering down into my father’s open grave. “Who’ll cooperate?” I asked, shouting over the noise of the rain.

  Butte jumped as he turned. “Helena, get out of here! This isn’t about you.” His hands came out of the pockets and went to my arms, trying to hold me back.

  I leaned forward to look into the grave. Mom was huddling there, her arms crossed, absolutely drenched to the bone. She was visibly shivering. “Mom! Butte, what the hell are you doing? Get her out of there! She’ll get pneumonia.” The excavated graves were deeper than usual. In addition to the extra depth for the cement vault which had been removed, crews had dug a couple more feet to check for bodies or artifacts. It was at least eight feet to the bottom, possibly nine.

  “Back off, lady.” The other guy continued to keep his hands in his pockets. He was shivering, too, but he didn’t seem to care.

  Billings was already on his stomach at the edge of the hole, reaching a hand out to his grandmother. She reached back, clawing at the muddy side of the grave.

  “Stop!” The stranger rushed over to grab at Billings’ shoulder, turning him over and delivering a punch to Billings’ chin. Between the rain and the mud it didn’t land well and didn’t faze him. Billings got his footing and tried to punch back.

  The two assumed boxing stances and I turned to my ex-husband. “Help me get her out.” While Billings and the stranger rolled in the mud, Butte and I went to our stomachs at the edge and reached for Mom. She jumped and stretched out her arms, finally connecting with Butte, who strained to lift her.

  There was a bright blast of lightning and a loud crack that faded away slowly, rolling over and over like a busy bowling alley. I had the horrible thought that with the ground this wet if the lightning hit surface anywhere near we would all fry.

  Butte raised Mom enough by one arm that I could finally reach her other one. Between the two of us we got Mom out of the grave. “Where’s Shirley?” I asked her.

  “They never had Shirley,” she admitted. As soon as she had her footing, she placed the flat of her hand against Butte’s chest and shoved him backwards. “You pushed me!”

  He inched around my father’s grave, putting his hands up in surrender. “I tried to stop him!”

  “Try harder!” Following her own advice, she gave him an extra hard shove and he toppled backwards into Aunt Hazel’s neighboring grave. He landed with a slurp of mud.

  “Get me outa here!” He called. I could see his hands scratching at the side, but nowhere near the top, bringing more mud down on his own feet.

  Mom turned to me, her teeth chattering as the rain poured down on us both. “He said he was going to help me rescue Shirley and when we got here he pushed me into the grave! He p-pushed me!”

  “She’s lying!” Butte called out. I elected to leave him there a while. “Mom,” I pointed over to the waiting police car. “Go get in the car. I’ll be right there. We’ll take you home.”

  Shivering, her arms wrapped around herself once again, she ran awkwardly toward the car. I saw Chang get out to hold the door for her, wrapping her in a police blanket as she ducked inside. The interior car light showed me her profile as she huddled in the back seat.

  I turned to see Billings suddenly backing away from the stranger, who was now holding a pistol pointed at him. Dripping, Billings knew the open grave was behind him and he held his ground, or rather, puddle. We had no weapons. The stranger’s back was toward the car. Chang would not be able to see how the situation had changed, but I wasn’t prepared to give her the signal and have her rush in, either. It might actually start him firing, and there was a long cartridge hanging from the clip. “Who are you?”

  Here’s the thing about bad guys. They have egos. While it’s true I didn’t know who he was, voicing that fact was going to irk him. They all think they are world famous. The stand-off continued through another round of lightning and thunder. They were a little farther apart, indicating that the storm was starting to move away, perhaps.

  “Junior! Get me out of here!” screeched Butte from Aunt Hazel’s grave. He moved to the far end, under the headstone, looking for a handhold, trying to see what was going on up top, then backed away. The rain had come down faster than the ground could absorb so it was even looser close to the surface than down below. Trying to climb up ran the risk of bringing the headstone down on top of him and it had to weigh hundreds of pounds. Butte continued to grumble and
complain as he looked for purchase that wasn’t there.

  Junior? I tried to catch my breath as my brain made rapid connections. This would be Charles Krochedy II, colloquially referred to around here as Junior. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He didn’t answer me, and to be honest at that moment I didn’t care what his motivations were anyway. I had no weapons, which meant the tactic here was de-escalation. I had to get the gun away from him, and I was out in the open, with no time to find something to throw at him. He would shoot me as soon as I reached for anything. “Look, Junior,” I said, feeling raindrops sliding over my eyes and lips, “I don’t care what you’re doing. But it’s over now. Mom’s safe. Whatever your plan was, it’s not going to happen. Those cops over there, they’re watching me. If I signal them, they come over and arrest you. But they haven’t seen the gun. They don’t have to know about the gun.”

  “What?” Billings evidently didn’t agree with what I was saying.

  I gave him a look and nodded my head to one side. “You can help your father get out, if you want. I’ll handle this.”

  He glanced over at Butte, the drowned meerkat, trying to peer over the edge of the hole and shrugged. “Na. Go ahead.”

  “Junior, give me the gun. If they see it I’ll tell them it’s mine and I forgot I had it. It’s close enough to CURDS issue they won’t know the difference.” The truth was it was vastly different from CURDS issue, but it was true the police officers wouldn’t know that, at least not at first glance. “You have attempted murder here, that’s all. It can easily be bargained down to reckless endangerment. But only if you give me the gun and surrender yourself.” I was pulling the legal stuff out of my ass, but it was probably close to accurate. “You tell them who hired you to do it, you can maybe get off entirely. But you have no cards to play if you use the gun.”

  I took a good look at Junior. He didn’t appear to be much older than Billings and I honestly didn’t like the idea of him spending decades in prison. He had the misfortune to be born a Krochedy, but he didn’t have to live like one. Butte, on the other hand, was old enough to know better and it was his own freaking mother-in-law. He could rot in Aunt Hazel’s grave for all I cared. “Billings will back me up. Heck, my mother will back me up. I’m sure she will.” My teeth were starting to chatter, too and I hoped I was still intelligible. I thought about how refreshing the rain had felt in the jungle, but that whole adventure seemed years away as well as seven thousand miles.