She looked down and saw the gun at my side and her eyes bugged out.
“Whoa. I guess you don’t like visitors.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “There’s been some stuff going on.”
I slipped the Glock inside my jacket pocket. She took a step closer and I backed inside the room. Harriet said, “Could I come in? Just for a few minutes?”
But she was already in.
“I don’t want to bother you. Your wife and daughter, I mean. If you’re—”
“They went to school,” I said. “What brings you down—”
She lunged, the glint of a blade coming at my chest. I leapt back, flung my arm up too late, felt the hot sting, the point prick just below my throat. The knife arm jabbing, the left hand clutching at me, my jacket, my shirt. I scrambled backwards, hit the wall, spun to my right, the knife in my left upper arm, stuck right in.
I shouted, sidestepped, Harriet following close like we were dancing. The knife stayed in my arm—white-hot pain, a black grip—and she lost her hold on it, and I backpedaled down the hall as she grabbed for the knife, missed, grabbed, missed.
She was strong, quick, her jaw clenched and her eyes intense, fixed on the knife. I tried to get my gun out but the jacket was swinging behind me like a cape, and then she had the handle and yanked it out and away from me. I shouted in pain as she fell two steps back.
Lunged again.
I had hold of the gun in my pocket but the butt caught. I whirled like a bullfighter, went for her knife hand with my left. She slashed up and I felt the blade slice my palm, the hand going hot and numb.
I screamed and she charged at me, tried to pin me to the wall with her left arm, the right going back to thrust. Another burn in my chest, Harriet pulling back for another jab. I let go of the gun, locked my right arm around her left, spun hard, and flung her against the wall. She hit hard, her head snapping back, and I bulled forward, got inside the knife arm, jammed my forearm against her neck. She was slashing at my back, my side, and I felt the blade slicing above my belt, more burning, and I pushed hard with my forearm, bulled forward, legs scrabbling on the floor, slipping on my blood.
I stayed with her as she slashed, got my left elbow up and jammed it into her face. Blood spurted from her nose and I pressed her to the wall, felt her shifting her grip on the knife, trying to stab, not slice, get the knife in deep.
For Barrett, the heart. For me, kidneys, spleen.
“Drop it,” I said, hollering into her face, and I let off her neck, took a half-step back, grabbed for her knife hand and missed.
Pulled my arm back just out of reach of a slash, and leaned in to kick her hard in the shin, jumped on her instep. She howled and it turned into a shriek, and I jammed my forearm back across her throat, pressed her into the wall like she’d go through it.
She got another jab in, stuck me in the butt. Her mouth gaped and her eyes bulged. The knife arm waved, the blade scraping my bare back at my waist. I pressed her throat harder, said, “Drop it,” but she didn’t. I kept pressing, shouting again and again, and she was gagging.
And her right arm went limp.
The knife fell to the floor.
I glanced down, kicked it down the hall. Let off on her throat and she fell back against the wall, gasping and coughing. I shoved her sideways to the floor, rolled her onto her back.
Harriet was breathing hard, chest heaving. Blood was running from her nose, down her cheek. I picked up the knife. It had a long narrow symmetrical blade, made for stabbing. The grip was leather, slippery with blood, hers and mine.
I bent to the bottom drawer and took out a roll of duct tape, stuck Harriet’s knife in with the plastic bags and aluminum foil. Took a knife from the block and ripped the sleeve of my shirt open. The cut in my upper arm was a two-inch gap showing pink inner flesh like raw tuna. I tore a length of tape off, wrapped it around my bicep and over the cut.
My palm was bleeding, dripping horror-movie splotches onto the counter. I wiped my hand with a kitchen towel, tore off another length of tape, and wrapped my palm. My fingers were stiffening and my thumb was numb. I took the gun from my pocket, put it in my left hand. Taped it in place, my finger inside the trigger guard.
Harriet had stopped coughing and had turned over, was on all fours. I walked toward her, and she staggered to her feet. I put my right arm around her neck and dragged her to the kitchen. Yanked a chair out and shoved her down into it. Slapped her on the side of the head hard enough to stun her, then quickly stooped to wrap her in tape at the waist, around and around the chair.
She was shaking her head and saying, “She started it. She did.”
“And we’re going to end it, Harriet,” I said. “End it right here.”
All of my cuts burned. I grimaced, went to the sink and poured her a glass of water. Plunked it down on the table in front of her. Went back to the counter for a box of tissues. I plunked those in front of her, too. I moved to the chair opposite her and sat, my taped gun hand on the table.
She pulled a tissue out and pressed it to her nose. Looked at it and it was crimson. I took my phone from my pocket, tapped it once, then again to open the recorder. Hit the red button and put the phone at the center of the table.
“The police,” she said, her voice husky, larynx bruised. “Aren’t you going to call them?”
“No police,” I said. “This is an interview. Start talking.”
She looked at me.
“Go to hell,” she said.
“Not going anywhere,” I said. “You aren’t either.”
38
k
We sat face-to-face, silent except for her ragged breathing.
The graph on my phone recorder was flat, like a monitor hooked up to a dead person.
“Why Lindy?”
She pressed her lips shut.
“Why Barrett?”
No response.
“His DNA will be on the knife,” I said. “I don’t care how much you tried to wash it. Leather grip was a mistake.”
I waited, then said, “You’ll get fifty, minimum. Nikki and Shane will be collecting Social Security.”
Her lips parted, then closed.
“Think of this as your chance to sway public opinion, maybe influence a jury.”
She looked at me, trying to adjust to this new reality.
“It was for them, wasn’t it?” I said. “The cars, the trips, the clothes. None of it was for you, was it?”
I could see something building, and then it burst through.
“Of course it wasn’t for me,” Harriet snapped, like she was insulted. “It was all for them.”
“So they could have the life you never had.”
“They deserve it. Not their fault their mother married a piece of crap.”
“So it started small. And then things just got out of your control. Is that right?”
Harriet looked at the bloody tissue again. Balled it up and placed it on the table and took another one.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I really didn’t,” she said. “You know me. I help people. It’s what I do.”
I didn’t know her. I wondered if I truly knew anyone.
The graph on the recorder was flat-lined. Harriet looked at it and said, “I had no choice. Lindy. She was going to bring the whole place down. I could tell, the way she looked around, the way she asked questions. ‘Who pays for these workers? Do you pay their Social Security? What systems do you have in place?’ ”
She looked at me and her mouth formed a sneer.
“Systems. I don’t have systems. I just find the money to feed these people. To put them up so they don’t freeze to death. Walk a few miles in my shoes, you know? Alcoholics and drug addicts and people who are mentally ill and people who are all three. And I’m all they have, between freezing to death or drinking
themselves to death or sleeping in the gutter. Miss H. will help them out.”
She crumpled the red-splotched tissue and put it on the table in front of her. Her nose was crusted with coagulating blood.
“How much, Harriet?” I said.
She wiped her eyes, folded the tissue into a square and wiped her eyes again.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What, you think I kept track?”
“A lot?” I said.
Harriet nodded.
“I was going to pay it back.”
She looked at me for a reaction. I gave her none.
“What was the first time?”
“A couple of hundred. Nikki wanted to go on this school trip to Boston. Museums and two nights in a hotel. My sister told her no, it wasn’t in the budget. Telling that poor girl she’d have to stay home while all of her friends went. That’s just wrong.”
“I suppose it is,” I said.
“Because then they all know she’s the poor kid, she doesn’t belong. And they talk down to her. Stop inviting her to things. I know, believe me. Because I was the poor kid. I told you about that. And I wasn’t going to let that happen to my Nikki. Not to Shane either.”
“The cars,” I said. “The clothes. The spending money. Trips to Florida, Disney World.”
“They needed me. It was like the clients. They didn’t have anybody else.”
“A hundred thousand?”
Harriet dabbed at her nose, didn’t answer. I waited.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”
“And Lindy Hines was going to see it, plain as day. Skimming the donations; is that how you did it? Had to be more than bake sales and donation jars.”
She hid behind the tissue.
“You’re very smart, Harriet,” I said. “What did you come up with?”
The recorder twitched away. My gun hand throbbed. I couldn’t feel my trigger finger. She looked at the gun and I lifted it off the table, pointed it in her direction.
“Don’t even think of it.”
“Do you have the safety on?” Harriet said. “It’s making me nervous.”
“Glocks don’t have safeties,” I said.
I let that hang, said, “My finger is twitchy. From the cut.”
She looked at the gun, then at me.
“People work around the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas are wicked busy months. Then I lay them off in February.”
“But keep paying them,” I said. “And the money goes into an account that you control.”
“I mean, I wasn’t taking donations,” Harriet said. “A lot of it’s from grants.”
I nodded.
“Teak,” I said.
She took a breath, looked around the room. When she looked back I was still staring at her.
“He was always talking about vanquishing evil,” I said. “What did you do? Give him an assignment?”
“I just told him about this evil thing that might happen.”
“That was all it took?”
She shrugged.
“It was like his comic-book life was coming true, I guess,” she said.
“What was the elixir? I’m thinking meth. Mix it with juice? Put it in a silver chalice?”
She looked at me. I lifted the gun.
“I won’t shoot you in the head. I’ll start with your hands.”
She swallowed, looked away from me as she said, “It was warm cider. A water bottle.”
“Where did you get the meth?”
Harriet shrugged.
“Our clientele, lots of ways.”
I considered it. Teak’s family. Recliners and a new TV.
“He never killed anybody before, not to make Hakata come to life,” I said. “I’m thinking it took more than the meth.”
I waited a beat and said, “How much?”
Harriet tried to look puzzled. “How much what?”
“How much did you pay him?”
She looked at me more closely. “What did he tell you?”
I didn’t answer. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“This is the way I see it, Harriet. It was an emergency. Teak was on the fence about taking Lindy out, the galactic warrior idea not quite doing it. You had to give him more motivation. Send money home, Teak. Be a hero. And vanquish some evil at the same time.”
Harriet looked at me, lips pursed.
“Ten grand? Twenty?”
I lifted the gun and aimed it at her elbow, let the barrel make a small circle. Harriet looked at it, then back at me.
“Ten up front. Ten when it was done. Ten when he gets out.”
“Insanity plea,” I said.
“If he isn’t nuts, who is?” Harriet said.
“The money will kill that angle. You go down, he goes down.”
She looked pensive, mulling it over, then looked at me and said, “Okay, then. Just shoot me. Kill me right now. Self-defense.”
I considered it. “What? You have a life insurance policy that pays out to the kids? But if you sit in jail for forty years, they get jack?”
“Do it, Mr. McMorrow. Just end it. Please.”
I shook my head. She took a long, resigned breath.
And dove across the table for the gun. I yanked it back, one of her hands on the barrel. She twisted my wrist, had the gun pointed at her cheek, was digging into the tape to get her finger on the trigger. I punched her hand and she hung on and I twisted her arm, slammed it on the table. She squirmed loose.
Her finger was digging in, she had the trigger guard. I pulled her arm toward me and the gun trained on my belly, her finger still picking through the tape. I raised her arm and slammed it back down on the table, elbow first.
She gasped. Her hand went slack. I shoved her back into the chair, pointed the gun at her face.
She was panting. The blood had started to run from her nose again.
“Okay, Harriet,” I said. “Here’s the deal. You tell me about Barrett, I’ll give you the gun.”
She looked startled.
“Really?”
“I’ll leave the gun outside. One round in the magazine. I’ll go for a ride down the road and back. I have another gun in the truck.”
She brightened.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Sure. You want to die, fine. Beats sitting in a cell for fifty years.”
She almost smiled. Settled back into the chair. The recorder was still on.
“Well, okay. Barrett. He was the same. Asking me what his mother had found out. Said he was going to look through the boxes himself. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“A slippery slope,” I said. “What did it feel like to kill somebody? Yourself, I mean.”
She looked away, like she was trying to remember.
“I thought it would be, like, way harder, but it was just like meat, like when I was working at the slaughterhouse. Same fat and muscle and stringy stuff.”
“Barrett Hines wasn’t a chicken,” I said.
“I know. I’m just saying, the knife, it just went right in.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He just looked at me, very surprised, and then there was blood. He reached down and felt it, then tried to grab the knife. But it was too late. He fell down and then he took a few breaths and then he just stopped.”
“Breathing.”
“Right. He just went still. Like on television. That was good. I didn’t want him to suffer or anything. His mom didn’t suffer. Somebody said she was dead before she hit the floor.”
She smiled at me hopefully, like this showed she wasn’t such a bad person after all.
“Third time wasn’t a charm,” I said.
“No, you moved faster.”
“Should have parked out fron
t,” I said. “Come in and gotten settled, waited until I turned my back to make you tea or something.”
“Right. Well, too late now. A lot of things are like that. If you knew then what you know now.”
Harriet looked at me, mustered a weird smile, and said, “Can I do it now?”
I picked up the phone, turned off the recorder.
“I changed my mind,” I said, tapped the numbers.
9-1-1.
39
k
There were the usual sirens and flashing lights, Prosperity Volunteer Rescue first on the scene, and in fifteen minutes the driveway and road filled up. The low point of the next hour was Roxanne and Sophie rolling up to the scene, Roxanne running wide-eyed into the house, breaking into tears when she saw me safe, talking to a deputy at the table.
“I tried to call,” I said.
“My phone died,” she said.
“I’m sorry. Tell Sophie I’m fine.”
Roxanne turned and hurried back out.
The local paramedics sliced the tape off my hand, a woman named Richie I’d seen at the store saying I needed to get the palm stitched up. She said they’d probably use glue on the cut on my arm, that they’d transport me to the hospital in Belfast. I said I needed to wait.
It was an hour before Tingley and Bates rolled up. Harriet was somewhere outside, I figured, cuffed in the back of a cruiser. They came to me first, Bates sitting at the table so she could take notes, Tingley standing at the counter. I told them the story. The knock at the door, Harriet there, the knife coming out, the facts that emerged.
“All this to be the favorite aunt?” Tingley said.
“Everybody wants to be loved by somebody,” I said.
They took Harriet to jail, probably for life. I went to the hospital in an ambulance, and only had to stay two hours. Roxanne left Sophie with Mary and Clair and picked me up at the entrance to the ER. She hugged me in the car and it hurt my arm. I winced, but only inwardly.
I turned in the passenger seat of the Subaru, with its broken window, and held her right hand with mine. She squeezed my hand hard and held on, not wiping the tears that trickled down her cheeks. We were five miles out of town before she spoke.
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