My eyes find the digital clock on the dresser, almost willing the numbers to flip as daybreak approaches. I’m thinking of the rented trailer I’ll need to haul the packed boxes to New Jersey, where I’ll find it, how long it will take me to load up, when to collect Charlie, how long to put Baxter behind us. Then I hear it.
No warning, no vibrating cell phone, just a crunch from the living room that I recognize instantly. Someone’s using a pry bar on the front door. The hair on my head literally rises, and my heart kicks into overdrive. Did Mom fall asleep? Did they spot her in that driveway? And where’s my gun? For a second, I forget where I put it, although it’s lying in my lap. Then I happen to glance at the dresser, and my eyes settle on a framed photo of Charlie sitting at table with a baby’s bib, pink, tied around her neck.
Move, move, move. I’m on my feet, easing the shade up and the window open, sliding over the sill. My thoughts have slowed, and I pick up the plan worked out earlier. I close the window behind me and step to my left so that I can’t be seen from inside the bedroom. The little Czech .32 is in my hand, my finger already through the trigger guard as I quickly review the basic strategy: circle to the front, come up behind the intruder, pull the trigger.
I raise the pistol, extend the barrel forward, and turn the corner of the house to find myself facing a man twenty feet away. He’s walking toward me, but we both stop in mid-stride. Then we stare at each other for several seconds while a rage boils up inside me. Here’s another one, another Bradley Grieg, another Connor Schmidt, another childhood demon come to life. His hand moves toward his belt as I pull the trigger once, then again, then again, then again.
The moon is still high enough to reveal a little color when the bullets rip into his chest. I watch him look down at the blood, his eyes wide, before I pull the trigger one more time. The shot crashes into his forehead, and he drops backward, his head slamming into the grass.
The man on the ground’s not moving. He’s not moving and he’s not Augie and he’s not the intruder ripping at my front door. Instinctively, like a small nocturnal animal caught in a sudden light, I dash for the safety of the woods, for the deep shadows. Fear drives my feet, but they’re not fast enough. The gunshots—two quick explosions, then a third—buzz past my right ear like enraged hornets. They emit a distinct snap as they tear by, the sound vaguely regretful. I’m not about to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves. I enter the woodlot on a path that Charlie and I have walked many times, then veer into the deepest shadows.
Bullets follow me, but my luck holds. The ground is a tangle of roots and vines that snatch at my ankles, tripping me before I cover ten feet. I fall on my face and taste blood from a cut lip, but I hold on to the gun, my hand locked on the grip. I can’t see the man I assume to be Augie Barboza, but I place him on the lawn when he fires three more shots. They cut through leaves and brush ten or fifteen feet to my right, then slam into a trunk. The solid thuds motivate me, and I begin to crawl deeper into the woods, ignoring the low branches that claw at my body, the rocks digging into my knees.
Augie stops shooting, and I assume he can’t see me. I don’t know if he’ll follow me into the woods, but I’m sure he won’t turn tail and desert his injured partner. My strategy is obvious either way. All I need do is remain hidden for another five minutes, ten at most, until the cops arrive. We have neighbors to the east. Surely they’ve already dialed 911.
Unlike Augie, I know where I’m going, and I continue to crawl until I reach one of the footpaths running through the woodlot. By this time I can see well enough to mark a pair of half-rotted stumps. They’re all that remain of timber harvested generations ago, but they lock me in. The path runs a short distance toward the back of the lot before intersecting with a path that extends in a half circle to the edge of a blackberry patch. Here the bushes stand higher than my head. Here the darkness is near absolute.
Long tendrils reach for me as I start down an impossibly narrow path. I keep my hands before my face to ward off thorns that dig into my arms. Nevertheless, I’m calm, mostly because Augie has no idea where I am. He proves this by firing off a pair of shots that fail to connect with anything close to me.
I finally reach the end of the path. My backyard’s in front of me, but I don’t intend to expose myself or confront Augie. I’m assuming that time is still on my side, and I expect to hear approaching sirens any second. The upstairs windows of the house next door are lit. But it’s not to be.
Augie stands on the lawn, close to the back of the house. He’s not facing me or the woods. He’s looking over his shoulder at my mother. Mom’s standing thirty feet away. She’s holding the shotgun, pointing it in Augie’s direction.
Augie manages a grimace probably meant to approximate a smile as he slowly raises his hands without dropping his gun. He’s not fooling me, and I can’t imagine him fooling Mom. Yet she simply stands there, frozen, and I know Augie’s working up his courage. He’s not going to surrender, no way. He’s going to make the first move, and I know he’ll take her out even if she manages to pull the trigger.
Suddenly I’m aware of the gun in my hand, my little .32, and I’m wishing I’d taken it to a gun range, that I’d practiced for hours on end. Augie’s forty or fifty feet away. I need to hit him in the head to stop him. The odds against pulling that off are massive.
“Evenin’, Celia.”
“Put down the gun.”
“Gotta admit, girl, you did a hell of a job, you and your daughter. Had me completely fooled. Connor, too.”
“Put down the gun.”
“But you were always hell on wheels. Never knew you to take a backward step.”
“Put the gun down, Augie. Else I’m gonna pull this trigger.”
“Now, Celia . . .”
I can’t let it go any further. I have to do something, have to act, even if the best I can offer is a distraction. I pull the trigger four times, fast. Augie’s face registers the shock even as the barrel of his gun turns in my direction. Again, I fire, the only effect a broken window far to the right of where Augie stands. Then Mom finally pulls the Remington’s trigger, the roar of the shotgun drowning out time itself. I can’t see the buckshot as it rips across the space between Augie and Mom, but the loose shirt Augie’s wearing jumps as though hit by a sudden gust of wind. Then the blood, black in the moonlight, begins to run from the side of Augie’s face and neck. His blue shirt darkens, and he puts his hand to his side before raising his eyes to meet mine. He seems confused. This isn’t how it’s supposed to end, two women refusing to submit, two women standing firm. His mouth opens for a moment before he falls forward, his weapon dropping from his hand. Only then do I hear the onrushing sirens.
My attention finally turns to Mom. She likely forgot to brace the shotgun against her hip. It’s lying ten feet away, and she’s sitting on the grass, a lopsided grin dominating her face.
“Time to assume the position, daughter,” she tells me.
When she drops to the ground, face-first, stretching her arms before her, fingers splayed, I get it. The cops are responding to a report of shots fired, and they’ll be jumpy. I step onto the lawn, drop my .32, and take a few more steps before I join Mom on the lawn. Submissive at last.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX ONE WEEK LATER
GIT
Charlie’s sitting in Delia’s lap at the kitchen table. Calling her Aunt Delia. I don’t know where Charlie picked up the aunt part, and I’m not in a hurry to inquire. Charlie’s wearing Delia’s gold badge—proudly, of course—while I’m reduced to standing by the stove, tending the scrambled eggs, watching the toaster, cutting an orange into quarters. I don’t mind, not at all. I’m still . . . adjusting? Beyond that, Delia seems genuinely fond of Charlie, and maybe fond of me as well. Delia’s pretty much openly gay, so maybe that’s part of it. But there’s something genuine about the woman that I find attractive. She seems to love her life, and to be living it easily.
Augie and his gangster pal (Little Ricky, according to Deli
a) are both dead. They deserved what they got, no question. And what they got was justified. No question, either. Not from Mariola or the state police unit that processed the scene or the coroner at an inquest that took place yesterday.
So that part of it, the legal part, is over and done with, a closed book. But not the other part, the notoriety. Notoriety as in notorious. I’m the girl in the hat who followed Bradley Grieg into Cabin 909. At best a slut tearing off a piece of ass. And at worst? At worst, I lured Bradley there to be murdered by Carl Schmidt. I’m not surprised by the speculation, because so many of the facts are unavailable to the virtuous citizens of Baxter. They don’t know that Bradley was by himself when he checked into the Skyview, or that Bradley and I hadn’t even met prior to that night, or that I didn’t know Carl Schmidt’s name before Bradley was killed. Connor’s, either.
“When folks don’t have the facts at hand, they make facts up to fill the gaps.” That’s what Zack told me as we made our goodbyes last night. “As long as the stories they tell are half-assed logical, they believe ’em. The only arguments are over the details.”
“Like, is Bridget O’Rourke a slut, or did she get paid? Is she a pig or a full-blown whore?”
“Yeah, just like that.”
Zack spoke gently, and I could sense his regret. He’d offered me a job earlier, as his “second-in-command.” Two weeks ago I would have jumped at the chance. But I can’t have Charlie grow up as the daughter of a notorious woman. When I refused, Zack passed me an envelope—a “bonus.” I didn’t count the money until I got home. Eight thousand dollars. Enough now, with Mom’s three thousand, to complete nursing school if I keep working. A bachelor of science next? Every credential includes a financial bonus. As an RN with a college degree, I’d start at eighty thousand a year. Without overtime.
“We’re gonna go up a mountain,” Charlie tells Delia.
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. A real one. Not like Mount Jackson. Mom says Mount Jackson is only a hill.”
“How high is this mountain? Is it the biggest mountain in the world? Can you see China from the top?”
Wrong question. Charlie lives part-time in an alternate universe called Map World. She can locate the capital of Cambodia on her tablet in under a minute.
“No, silly,” Charlie declares. “China is on the other side of the Earth.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Delia gives my little girl a hug. “But you’re still gonna go to the top of a mountain, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Charlie looks at me. “Right, Mommy?”
“Right.”
After I wrap things up with Delia, Mom, Charlie, and I are taking off for New Jersey. Our itinerary includes a stop at a small resort, Vista View House, in the Appalachian Mountains near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. We’re not talking about the Alps here. The elevation’s only a bit over two thousand feet. But Charlie’s lived all her life on the midwestern flatlands. The prospect of a real mountain has captured her imagination and hopefully taken her mind off the craziness. When she asked me to explain the violence, I told her that bad men came to hurt me and Grandma. I expected an endless series of whys, but she left it at that. At least for now.
The news about the Nissan factory helped as well. It broke two days after the shootings, and I’m pretty sure Delia leaked it. I know she’s on my side, like I know she’ll always put her job ahead of her emotions. But even if she wasn’t the leaker, the news has electrified Baxter . The Baxter Bugle published a banner headline: NISSAN TO CONSTRUCT NEW PLANT IN BAXTER. It ran from one side of the first page to the other. Speculation followed, about the number of workers the plant’s construction would employ, about the number of workers who would have permanent jobs once the plant begins operations, about new housing needed to accommodate all those workers, about new businesses attracted by workers with money in their pockets.
Of course, the slut-nurse wasn’t totally forgotten in the excitement, but at least the reporters stopped hanging around my house.
“Eat up, honey, we’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”
Charlie picks up her fork. “Thank you, Mommy.”
“You’re welcome.”
Already impatient, I lead Delia into the backyard. “Whatever you have to say, Lieutenant, say it quick. I don’t have time for games.”
Delia’s not impressed, though I sense respect in her attitude. I fought back, and that counts for something in her world.
“Okay. You’re off the hook as far as the homicides go. Self-defense is self-defense, and I don’t see evidence arising to challenge that classification. And maybe you’ll get lucky again. Maybe the Schmidts will cut a deal and plead guilty. But even if they do, Connor will probably test the system by challenging the evidence. Was it legally seized? Did we have probable cause? Was it entrapment? If that should happen, Git, you’ll have to testify. Now, I could keep you here, even hold you as a material witness, but that’s not happening. You go in peace. God knows you’ve earned it. But I’m asking you to settle down where I can find you. One phone call, okay? No games.”
“Understood, Lieutenant.”
“I’m glad to hear that, because I know you’ll be placed under oath and asked questions you’d rather not answer. Like, did you steal money—which we both know you didn’t—from Bradley Grieg? Like, why did you say you did when you didn’t? Remember, you made some damaging admissions to Connor, and I have them on tape. And then there’s the part about you claiming that Bradley told you to leave the motel room because he expected Connor to show up. Talk about a wild card.”
Now I’m smiling. “Are you giving me reasons to run, Lieutenant?”
“Nope. I’m giving you time to prepare.” She returns my smile and extends her hand. “You’ve been lucky so far, and maybe you’ll be lucky again. Our district attorney’s under pressure to deal with the Schmidts as soon as possible. The city fathers don’t want a show trial drawing attention to our drug problems. They’ll cut deals if there are deals to cut.”
“And what about you, Delia? Now that it’s over, now that the pressure’s off, what’s in it for you?”
Delia’s chocolate-brown eyes narrow as her mouth opens into a broad smile. “Well, after I leave you this morning, I’m heading off to watch my son play baseball.”
“Your son?”
“Danny. I sent him to baseball camp for a couple of weeks, and he must’ve impressed the coaches. They invited him to play in a summer league. He’ll be traveling all over the state.”
Her pride in her son is obvious, and I know she’s feeling the way I feel when Charlie sounds her way through some difficult paragraph in Watership Down.
“Long-term,” she continues, “this city has a drug problem that needs to be addressed. Before Nissan begins to hire.”
“You really think you can stop drug use in Baxter? It’s anywhere and everywhere. And anything your heart desires.”
“Can’t argue the point, but according to our dear mayor, Nissan drug tests new hires. And they’ll bring in outside workers if they have to. That’ll leave the folk living here with the same nothing they have now. I’m not a magician, Git, but I don’t plan to just sit around and hope for the best. You know, it’s funny . . . You’ve lived here all your life and you can’t wait to get away. I’m only here for a couple of years and I’ve become a booster. Anyway, good luck to you and your family. I wish you well.”
For a moment, an eyeblink really, I think we’re about to hug. But then Delia thrusts her hand out and we shake instead.
“You don’t mind,” she says, “I’ll say goodbye to Charlie.”
“Good idea, and don’t forget to collect your badge on the way out.”
Two hours later we’re cruising east on I-80. Charlie’s strapped into her car seat and sound asleep. Mom’s beside me. We haven’t really spoken about what happened, most likely because Mom had fallen asleep in the car and almost got me killed. I can still hear the bullets passing my head, the angry buzz, the little snap. But I’m
not expecting an apology—that’s not my mother’s way—and when she finally begins to speak, I don’t get one.
“This here is about somethin’ I witnessed a long time ago. When I was about Charlie’s age, I had a best friend named Sandy who lived just down the road. She—” Mom stops as suddenly as she’d started, her eyes darting to a cornfield alongside the highway. “Funny, how things stick with ya. You’d think I’d be over it, but I ain’t and never will be. Anyway, I was at Sandy’s one afternoon, playin’ with her new puppy, when her mom and dad got into a fight. They was both drunk, screaming at each other and throwin’ punches. This was nothin’ new to me and Sandy, and we was tryin’ to ignore the show.” She pauses again, this time for almost a minute while she stares out the window. “All right, I’m gonna make this short because it don’t bear talkin’ about. Or even thinkin’ about. So, it got to the point where Sandy’s momma couldn’t take it no more. She ran into the house and come out with a rifle, a .30-30, and started firin’ away at her husband. Didn’t hit him, though. Nope, hit her daughter instead. I was standin’ a few feet away, and I seen the blood when the bullet come out through Sandy’s back. A pink haze that followed her to the ground like it was chasin’ her.”
“Look, Mom—”
“No, let me finish, daughter.” She continues when I nod. “Sandy’s mom and dad started screamin’, the both of them, standin’ over their daughter, lookin’ down like they was scared to touch her. I think she was dead right then, but she surely was by the time an ambulance showed up. And me, I stayed still as a statue, Git, like my feet was nailed to the ground. Didn’t say nothin’ and probably didn’t think nothin’, not until later when your granny come to bring me home. Then I started shakin’ so bad that Mom thought I was havin’ a fit. And it continued that way, on and off, for months. And even now it comes back time to time, like I can’t bury it deep enough.”
“And that’s the way it’ll happen to me? Little Ricky and Augie popping up out of nowhere?”
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