Understory

by Lisa J. Lickel

  Kenny raised his head now and then as they hunched on their way back to Thomas’s trailer.

  Mrs. Ramirez’s first name was Ginger. She wasn’t Mexican. She was very white skinned, a little fat, and had short red hair and lots of freckles. Thomas looked a lot like her, but had black hair like his dad, who was Mexican, but also American. Thomas got very mad if anyone tried to make fun of him, or called him alien, or anything.

  Mrs. Ramirez came outside when they got close, wearing her old brown sweater instead of a coat even though it was very cold, and told Thomas to go inside. Then she leaned down and whispered to Kenny. “You have to wait before you go over to Grenthem’s, Kenny. I didn’t tell the cops nothing when they came, okay? But your mama is sick.”

  “Thomas said she woke up and that she was screaming.”

  Mrs. Ramirez brushed the hair on his forehead, reaching under the hood of Thomas’s old coat. “I don’t know what you got into, but I don’t trust your uncle. He was here too, but he’s gone now.” She shivered and shoved her hands under her armpits. “You go on inside. I got a cell phone Thomas has from his father. You can talk to your mama on that.”

  Mrs. Ramirez was also very nice and hugged Kenny after she told both of them to hang up their coats. She opened up a box of chocolate sandwich cookies and told them to sit at the table, because she didn’t want crumbs anywhere else. “We’re going to use your cell phone, Thomas. This is a very important call,” she said.

  “Dad said it was for emergencies only,” Thomas told her through his mouthful of cookie.

  “Gross, Thomas,” Kenny said. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. This is an emergency.”

  “Is not.” Thomas opened his mouth before swallowing. Kenny pressed his lips tight at the sight of his teeth full of black, gooey half-chewed goop and spit. Thomas slugged his soda pop. “You can see where your mom is from here. Why don’t you go over there?”

  “Remember what I told you before, Thomas?” Mrs. Ramirez said. “About the police? We don’t need anybody horning in on our business. This is court business, and we got to take care of Kenny’s mom. He just needs a minute to talk to her, and you know our phone is turned off now.”

  “Dad got really mad when he found out you talked to Aunt Lottie on it. Said he was going to take it out of your support. What’s ‘your support’? Like a bra?”

  “Never mind, Thomas. Don’t talk like that. Where’d you learn such things?” She puckered up, and Kenny wondered if she might say something bad. But she didn’t.

  “I’m not going to do that again,” she said in a very soft voice, like a princess in the cartoons. She turned her face to Kenny and back at Thomas. “You can call the Grenthems for us, can’t you? Ask about Kenny’s mom? Your dad would be okay with that, right? Then Kenny could talk to her for a second. Then you hang up. Nobody else has to know.”

  “C’mon, Thomas. Don’t be a sissy,” Kenny told him. “I’d let you do it if it was my mom and the cops were after you, gonna shoot you dead.”

  “Nobody’s shootin’ anybody,” Thomas’s mom said.

  Thomas opened his mouth again so Kenny saw all the black gooey stuff again. “Not a sissy,” he said and bumped off the chair to go to his room. “I’m dialing.”

  A couple of minutes later when Thomas handed him the phone and his mom’s voice came on, Kenny told her he was all right. “Uncle Art was nosing around trying to find us. The police came too.”

  His mom’s voice didn’t sound like her, and she kept crying and choking and wheezing. It was hard to listen, since Mrs. Ramirez talked very loudly in the background about how she told Officer Deegan that she didn’t know where Berta was.

  “Okay, Mom? You heard? I’ll come over after dark.”

  “Kenny?” Mrs. Grenthem was talking now. “Your mom’s pretty sick. She’s not breathing too good. Do you know what she took this time? No? I think I may take her to the hospital after all. Don’t you come here. I don’t have time to take care of you too. Stay where you are. Got it?”

  Kenny fingered the tube of the syringe again. What difference would it make if he told Mrs. Grenthem about it now? He looked at Mrs. Ramirez while he held the phone to his ear. He didn’t really want to stay here either, especially if Thomas was going to his dad’s tomorrow. “Okay.” He handed the phone to Thomas so he could push the off button. He liked to be in charge.

  “Mrs. Ramirez, I have to find my aunt.”

  TWENTY

  Sunday, December 17

  The shuddering snow blower under Cam’s hands and the monotony of pushing away the white stuff was a respite from being cooped up inside the last couple of days. He even welcomed the intense cold enveloping his fingers and toes despite the new outdoor gear. Made him appreciate the woodstove and insulated equipment all that much more.

  He floated back to the memory of the woman’s skin. Touching a woman again brought a heady mix of pleasure, guilt, and shame. Even though he’d been engaged for a year, Cam had never shared a home or bed with anyone but family. Not a prude, he’d made a deliberate choice not to live with a woman who wasn’t legally his. Maybe Grandma Bonnie’s lectures had more to do with that than any particular religious stirrings of the junior high years when he, his sisters, and Mom lived with her during secret-spy Dad’s mission. Two sides to every story.

  There were too many intimacies, revelations, when a man shared his life that were best given after the “I do,” when a commitment before God made running away that much harder. Nope, best to be married before letting someone else see everything good, and bad, about a guy. Cam took, as a good sign, experiencing pleasure meant his past misfortune hadn’t damaged his desire for a woman. Shame and guilt?

  Where did that come from? He was innocent of the false charges against him at the university. No shame from being framed. Guilt, though. Hmm, guilt at being attracted now to someone other than Laura? Possible. Three years since she died. She’d always been slightly offended at his old-fashioned chivalry, she’d said, when it came to matters of spending horizontal time. Not that he’d been immune to those long, slow kisses. She’d used straightener on her hair but, other than that, was glorious-proud of her luscious bronzy skin, her full lips and sloe eyes. No doubt about it, Laura had been a beautiful woman. Raised in Detroit, good home, nice connections, she’d still planted herself in northern Wisconsin. She and his sister Georgia had gotten on famously from the first time they’d met. Laura’s parents hadn’t blamed him, they’d said, as if anything about her choices or the fact that cars got in the way of deer could have been his fault. They’d never called after the funeral.

  Cam looked up at an opening in the trees and stopped the blower. He pulled out his cell. Three bars. Good. He didn’t have the hospital in his menu, but it didn’t take long to find the number.

  “Community Hospital. How may I direct your call?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cam said, surprising himself. “Uh, I have a…a friend with frostbite. Pretty bad on the hands and feet. How soon can you send an ambulance out to pick her up?”

  “If you have an emergency, please call nine one one.”

  Wasn’t she listening? Cam shifted so the wind wouldn’t echo in the phone. “It’s not an emergency. She just needs treatment.”

  “I can put you on hold to wait for a nurse, sir, but it will be a while.”

  “What if I cut off my hand in a snow blower?”

  “Sir, we’re beyond capacity and running on emergency power during the current blackout. If your friend is not suffering a life-threatening emergency, the best I can do is put you on hold until someone can answer your questions. Now, do you have a life-threatening emergency?”

  “No. Thanks.” Cam pressed the end button and slipped the phone back in his pocket. So the power was still out in town. He looked up the long driveway, visible only as a blinding white path through the woods. Sunlight beamed through frosted tree branches. Even though the temps were frigid, heat from the sun would make a crust on the top of the sparkling snow—wh
atever wasn’t blowing into man-height drifts.

  He opened the phone and speed-dialed a number he did have stored. “Hey, Sven, Cam Taylor here. Put me on your plow list, okay?”

  Sven grunted. Perhaps Barter Valleyans in general hadn’t been overly welcoming, but business was business, and Sven and Ole had been two of the three—okay, five—people who talked to him when he’d been writing for the paper. Homeboys get taken for granted, and it never hurt to remind the good folks what businesses are available in their own backyards through a feature in the local rag.

  Besides, Cam’s money was the same color as everyone else’s.

  He’d also gone on ridealongs on some of their ambulance runs, done an article on it. Ever since Michael Perry made being an EMT popular with his memoirs, meeting the neighbors had been in style. Cam lived too far out of town to join the volunteers as an EMT, otherwise he might have fought that battle.

  Cam pushed the blower on another pass back to the house. Maybe he’d try to pick up a used blade somewhere and get it fitted on the trunk for next year.

  What? Like he was planning the next emergency? The inner smirk changed to adrenalin-charged, battle-ready prep mode when he caught movement in the backyard. Findley?

  Cam left the blower in front of the garage, stalked toward the figure, and groaned.

  What was that crazy woman thinking?

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Kenny, sweetheart, I got no car and no phone,” Mrs. Ramirez repeated to Kenny’s constant begging to find his aunt. She’d sent them to bed, and nothing changed in the morning. Stupid Thomas drooled to cartoons, not helping him out.

  “The roads are closed and there’s no power. I’m sure your aunt is safe.”

  Kenny was just as sure she wasn’t. But how could he tell her that? Uncle Art might stick a needle in him too if he told anyone what he heard on the phone before the storm. He wasn’t supposed to listen in if Mom was already talking, but he’d sneaked into his mom’s room and picked up the extension so he could call Thomas. He really hadn’t known Mom was talking on the other line already. The TV was so loud he couldn’t hear out in the living room. He’d only wanted to know if Thomas got Mrs. Carter’s math problems.

  Mrs. Ramirez said before she didn’t trust Uncle Art. “Um, Mrs. Ramirez?” Kenny crossed one foot over the other. “She lives with Uncle Art.”

  Mrs. Ramirez was pretty smart. Kenny knew she got it even though she didn’t say it. Whoop! It was like code talk in Thomas’s books. Genius. Maybe they could figure out more words, like ones for danger and run.

  Thomas said, “So?”

  Kenny opened his mouth to call him dummy but whipped around when the sirens got loud. Not again! His chest started to burn and his legs shook. “Mrs. Ramirez?”

  She turned him and pushed his shoulders toward the back door. “Quick!” He couldn’t stop going all stiff like a stone and trembling when she opened the little closet door next to it. He’d rather go outside even though he didn’t have a coat on and the air froze a guy. “In here!” She threw some garbage bags down around his feet, pulled the baby ironing board hanging on the side in front of him then closed the door. The look on Thomas’s face before the door shut almost made him laugh. If he wasn’t so scared. Not-good memories of dark and another closet in his house made him want to hurl. He crossed his legs and willed himself not to pee.

  Forever later, when he thought he was going to throw up and wet himself, the door opened.

  “Come out, dummy,” Thomas said.

  Dummy! Thomas was the dummy. “Where are the cops?” Kenny whispered instead.

  “Not cops. Amb’lee-ance.”

  Kenny pushed the little ironing board back against the wall and stepped over the pile of grocery bags. “Who for?”

  “Your mom. She looked dead.”

  * * *

  Art would run out of gas if he let the car idle much longer. It had been too cold standing out there, watching. He hoped he hadn’t missed anything when he was forced to wade through the deep drifts back to where he’d left his car, close to Berta’s trailer. That bozo Mahoney almost plowed him in. Monkey-boy better watch out.

  Flashing red lights blinked in his side view mirror. Cops again? Now what? He wasn’t sure he could muster up the good faith show so soon after the last one. Art slumped in the seat as the sound of the siren caught up to the sight of the ambulance.

  Not the cops. But the red, boxy rescue truck from the Compton Volunteer Fire Department was coming his way. Some geezer must have blown a gasket. But what were they doing here from eight miles out of town? Sven and the crew must be busy elsewhere. Art sweated it out until they stopped in front of a bile-green trailer that wasn’t number seventy-four. He sat up a little straighter and watched the action with his nose barely jutting over the steering wheel.

  A couple of minutes later two guys hauled someone out on a gurney, loaded him on, and screamed away. Art sat up again. Faces at the other trailer windows slowly disappeared. The only other thing moving in the snow was Mahoney inside his little yellow machine, going a lot slower as he rearranged the snow banks, appearing and vanishing behind his mountains.

  Art put the car in gear and inched along, hoping Mahoney wouldn’t smack into him.

  He had at least until Monday night to figure out what to tell Roman, figure out what happened to Berta’s body, and find the kid. Oh, and open that new bank account. He drove to number seventy-four and came to a snow-crunching stop in front of the trailer house with the black shutters. Mahoney squirted out of the way.

  Art watched the trailer door and front windows while he eased himself from the car. No action. Maybe the plow noise covered up his arrival. Maybe he’d get lucky this time.

  How should he play this one? Nice uncle? Bad uncle? Worried? Upset family? Good thing Deputy Do Good was too stupid to notice he was packing. Though of course he kept the permit handy. Prison guards were shoe-ins for concealed carry, donchya know.

  Would Mahoney’s noise be enough to cover the sound of shots? Now he wished he’d have thought of a silencer.

  Mahoney stopped the plow. He sat there in the middle of the road, watching.

  * * *

  Roman Masters squinted at the spine of the book he plucked from the return bin in the prison library. Chuck Colson. Roman laughed as he flipped pages, reading the underlined words that made another very different story. Yep—too many people with too much time on their hands. Not like him. No, sir. Keep busy, keep playing the game. Be prepared for Release Day. Have a plan. Don’t want to re-offend.

  “Romy! What’s happening?”

  Roman unclenched his hand as he plastered a noncommittal smile and turned. “Good afternoon. Pretty quiet here in the library.” One small bit of rebellion he allowed himself was refusing to acknowledge the guards by name. Especially when they called him Romy.

  “Yeah, good one.” Peterman whipped his head around, tapping a mindless rhythm with his palm against his thigh, next to the stick. Not a rhythm Roman could identify, anyway.

  “Can I do anything for you?”

  Peterman swung abruptly and glared, narrow-eyed, at Roman. “What?”

  “A book, perhaps? A Walk Across America is pretty good.”

  The stare remained icy.

  To pretend respect, Roman studied the back of the book in his hands and set it on the shelf. He checked the bar-covered clock on the wall near the camera in the upper corner. In five minutes the first patron would arrive. Yes, that’s how he was to refer to his fellow inmates when they earned their fifteen-minute library session. One at a time, of course.

  “Warden’s got me babysitting tonight,” Peterman said.

  Seven weeks, end of January, Roman chanted internally while electric prickles tingled across his shoulders down to his fingers. He swallowed and unscrewed his jaw to reply. “Good to know,” he said, and continued to replace books on the shelves. The lights flickered.

  “Power’s scheduled to come back on in town by morning,” Peterman said.<
br />
  Roman nodded. Art was due back to work on Monday night.

  When he got to Finnegan’s Wake, he slowed, made a show of turning to blink at the door as if he heard a noise, which made Peterman turn the same direction. Thus diverted, Roman placed the book under some papers on the desktop. He was allowed to check out one at the end of his shift. No need to let the babysitter or anyone else think he was particularly interested in that book. No need at all.

  The buzzer droned harshly, indicating the first patron arrived. Peterman sauntered to unlock the door. “You realize you’re subject to another search after this? Gruden’s on duty tonight.” His grin didn’t reach his eyes as he looked back. “Halman’s not.”

  Roman’s sphincter spasmed. January thirtieth. Hang on.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “The outhouse is the other way,” Cam said toward the shuffling figure in his snowy yard.

  She didn’t stop. Lord, what a stubborn woman. “Rosalind, it’s about fifteen below with the wind chill. I spent a good twenty minutes to get to Findley’s place on snowshoes. At the rate you’re going—in my old boots—I figure you might get there by dark.” And she had to be hurting. How did manage?

  She didn’t slow down. If anything, she hobbled faster, switching directions, slogging through snow that drifted into undulating heaps in the deep pine forest.

  Great. He could see the headlines. “Rapist Attacks Again.”

  She made it to the old LP tank. Uncle Wally used to have liquid propane hauled in for heat and cooking on a gas stove. Maybe Cam would do that next year. Cutting enough wood for the winter took up time he’d rather use for writing.

  “The outhouse isn’t a thing of glamor,” he called, walking in her wake. “I’m sorry I’m not equipped with indoor plumbing, just a pump in the sink.” He tried not to sound like he was defending himself. “I got through to the hospital.”

  At that declaration, she stopped.

  “They said not to bother them unless you were dying. Which might happen if you keep going. Even then they probably couldn’t send an ambulance. Too many emergencies.”