by Lisa Wingate
I held up a hand to get Nester to quit. A car had just pulled up outside, and I figured it was the CPS investigator. “Listen, all I’m doing is providing transportation across the lake. It’s the investigator’s job to get to the bottom of things. But it won’t help any for you two to be filling his head with stories. So far I haven’t had any trouble with Len – not over this situation with the little girl, anyway. I want to see he gets a fair shake. That’s it.”
“Be careful,” Burt advised, and both Nester and Dorsey nodded, their faces real solemn. Then they started up a conversation about spinnerbaits.
The door opened, and a kid, maybe in his midtwenties, stepped in. He was carrying a scuffed-up leather briefcase, so I figured he was my contact. I stepped up and introduced myself. Randy Alsup had the kind of soft, wimpy handshake other men don’t respect, and he was geared up in loafers and dress pants. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a college class somewhere and didn’t have a clue that we were about to slog through the mud to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. If Len did give us trouble, this guy wouldn’t be any help, but on the other hand, I had a feeling Randy was so out of his element, he could be talked into anything.
Maybe that was the way Andrea’s boss had planned it. I’d already talked to her on the phone this morning, and she’d told me that her boss, Tazinski, had it covered. She figured that sometime in the next few days, she could have Birdie’s referral in the bag – assuming Len made a decent showing in front of the investigator.
Nester and Burt slipped out of their seats, started gathering their gear, and waved their good-byes on the way to the back door. A couple of their buddies were already waiting down at the dock. I knew where they were all headed.They’d be in their boats, across the lake, and up the river channel before I could get there, then they’d hang around, dropping a line in the water and watching for me to come along with Randy in tow. One way or another, the dock–siders were going to make sure that if something interesting happened, they were close by to see it.
Pop watched them go, his face long and forlorn. Back in the day, he would’ve turned the store over to his wife and been right there with them. I decided if everything went all right with Len, I’d cut off my workday when the water safety course was finished this afternoon. I could come back to the Waterbird and figure out what it would take to rig up the ramps to get Pop down to the dock. With some railings and gates down there, maybe Sheila wouldn’t be so worried about Pop rolling off into the water.
If we worked at it, we might even be able to come up with a way to get Pop into a boat again – some kind of hoist and pulley. Right now, the man was a prisoner in his own store. The thing he liked the best was right outside his window, just a stone’s throw away, but out of reach. It wasn’t right for a good man like Dorsey to end up this way.
I pointed Randy toward the door and told him we’d better get going. He was agreeable enough, and we headed down the hill, talking about the weather. On the trip across the lake, he let me know that this investigation was just one of many. He’d only been in this job a few months, and he already had a list longer than his left arm. I had a feeling that the last thing he wanted to do was process more paperwork on Birdie than was absolutely necessary.
The farther we went across the lake, the more worried Randy looked. By the time we’d made it to the river channel, passed the bystanders in their boats, and started the trek through the woods, he’d asked me four times how much farther it would be. Guess he’d never gone to an appointment by boat and hike before. All the way up the hill, he kept checking the woods, still shadowy and quiet in the morning light. Some nocturnal critter scampered past in the brush, and I thought Randy was gonna jump out of his loafers. “What was that?”
“Probably just a bobcat or a coyote on the way to den up for the day.”
“Holy smoke!” he whispered, his eyes tracking the sound.
“Don’t worry. He won’t come over this way.” I started walking again, and Randy followed along, all the while watching the trees.
“People live up here?” he asked, about the time we were clearing the edge of the woods.
“Some people like it.” We started through the tall grass toward the cedar break that hid Len’s place. “They have their reasons.”
Puppies scampered out from under the house when we cleared the Johnson grass and hit the broomweed patch that doubled as a farmyard. In back of the house, the big white pit bull woke and barked. A second later, another dog joined in, and Randy took out his pad, making notes while we slogged through the patchwork of mud and grass.
Hay was waiting on the porch with Len.The place looked freshly swept, and the raccoon skins that’d been hanging on the porch posts had been moved. Hay must’ve convinced Len to clean himself up, too, because he was wearing a plaid shirt that wasn’t ripped, torn, or worn through, and he had on jeans that hung over his frame like a feed sack, but at least they were clean. I couldn’t smell him from six feet away, either, so maybe he’d bathed, or maybe he’d just been out in the rain the last few days. His hair looked like it might’ve been combed, but it was hard to tell under the axle-grease-gray ball cap.
I stood off to the side while Hay made the introductions, and we took seats on a bent-up lawn chair, two overturned buckets, and a cooler with a crack in it. Randy explained why he was there, but it was hard to tell how much Len really understood. Andrea had warned Randy ahead of time not to mention Social Services or CPS. Len didn’t react when Randy explained that he was from the Department of Family and Protective Services. That was more big words than Len could process all at once. For some reason, Len tried to get us to walk down the lane and look at his garden. Randy wanted to talk about the little girl, of course.
“Sh-sh-she slll-sleepin’,” Len said, like that was explanation enough. He gave the screen door a worried look and touched a finger to his lips, letting us know we ought to be quiet.
“All right. Well, we’ll talk to her in a few minutes, then.” Randy checked his watch, then rubbed his forehead, frustrated already. He opened his notepad and started asking questions – how had Birdie ended up with Len, where was her mother, did Len have a phone number to contact her, had she indicated when she’d be coming back, did Len know where she lived? Len’s answers were spotty. As was usual with Len, what was probably confusion and lack of understanding came off looking like stubbornness. Hay and I glanced at each other, knowing the interview could have been going better. So far Len’s story was that Birdie and her mother showed up a few weeks ago, in the middle of the night. They didn’t have any suitcases with them – just some trash bags in the trunk of the car.
Len didn’t know where his daughter lived, where his ex-wife lived, or whether the ex-wife was even still alive, but he had seen them from time to time in years past. After a little questioning, the pattern was clear enough. At some point, the ex-wife had figured out that between his military pension and what he earned trapping, fishing, and selling vegetables, Len usually had some spare cash stashed around. For years she visited when she needed money, bringing a little girl named Norma, who was supposedly Len’s daughter.
Once Norma grew to be an adult, she knew the trick, too. It was even easier to pull off after Len’s folks died. Len hadn’t seen the ex-wife in a long time, but the daughter paid him visits every so often. If Len didn’t have cash on hand, she sometimes stayed until his check came in. Then she took what she could get, and left. It sounded like she moved around a lot, because occasionally she stored stuff in the barn or the old school bus. She’d lived there a few times when she was out of a place to stay.
“Her ugg-gotta go back ’n work, all-time,” Len said.
“Back to work?” Hay interpreted. “Do you know where she works, Len?”
Len shrugged his bony shoulders.
“Did she go back to work this last time?” I asked. I had a bad feeling about the kind of individual Birdie’s mother probably was. A woman didn’t show up in the middle of the night wit
h her kid in pajamas and no suitcase unless she was running from something … or someone. Whatever had happened, Birdie had probably been through it right along with her.
Len shrugged again. “Uddd-dunno.”
“And you don’t have a contact number for her?” Randy pressed. “A phone number? A way to call her?”
“Unnn-no, sir.”
“Maybe a check belonging to her, a piece of mail – something like that?”
Len rubbed his palms over his pants legs, fidgeting under the pressure of all those questions.“Unnn-nope. I uddd-dunno.” He got out of his chair and told us he needed to go down to the lake to run his lines now. In his mind, the visit had gone on long enough.
“I’ll need to talk to … uhhh …” Randy flipped through his papers, then finished his sentence. “Lillian now. I’ll also need to see the inside of the house – her bedroom, the kitchen, and so forth.”
Randy stood up and headed for the screen door, but Len beat him to it, then slapped a hand over the frame and held it closed. “Her s-s-sleepin’,” he insisted, the word coming out in a hail of spit that made Randy glance at his notes. Tiny dots of moisture ran the ink.
“Do you leave her in the house alone when you go down to the lake?” Randy asked, and I had a feeling this meeting was about to slide off a cliff.
Hay must’ve been thinking the same thing, because he stepped in before Len could answer. “Now, Len, I explained to you that he was going to need to see the kitchen, and the house, and talk to Birdie. Remember? We discussed that, and you said it’d be okay.”
Len squirmed like he had a nest of red ants in his shirt.
“Len,” I said, but I didn’t stand up. I didn’t want Len to think we were putting the rush on him. “You know how the other day I told you there’re rules about keeping wild animals – like that baby coon? Remember that? It’s my job to look after wild animals and make sure they get the right kind of care from the right people, so that they can grow up and be safe and happy.”
Len’s gray eyebrows gathered low in his forehead, but he nodded, so I went on. “There’re people who do that same job for little kids. They’ve got to make sure that when a little child stays somewhere, it’s a proper place for a child. That’s what Randy’s here to do. He has to see inside the house to do his job. You understand?”
Len’s look turned hard, and he squeezed a hand over his chin. “Y-y-you took my urrr-raccoon.”
Right away, I realized I hadn’t made the best comparison. The raccoon was a sore subject. “I know that, Len, but that was the law. When something’s the law, you don’t have any choice about it. The law says that Randy, here, has to see Birdie and see where she’s living. As long as it’s all right, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Len stuck his hands in his pockets, a few coins jingling as his fingers dug around. He looked from me to Hay and back, his lips working back and forth over his teeth. “They ugg-got a ugg-game warden fer k-k-kids?” he asked, finally.
Hay nodded, and I said, “Yeah, Len, they do. They’ve got game wardens for kids.”
Len’s shoulders sank, and he took his hand off the door. If he didn’t understand everything else, he did cotton that game wardens had authority, even when you were on your own property. He opened the door and went in without another word. Randy followed him, clipboard in hand, and Hay and I trailed after. Inside, the house smelled of mildew and fry grease.The corners of the living room and an entire front room that might’ve been a bedroom once were piled high with junk of all sorts – old clothes, magazines and newspapers, cardboard boxes filled with pecans Len must’ve collected last fall, empty milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles waiting to be used for jug lines, deflated inner tubes, beach towels, Styrofoam coolers, minnow buckets, shoes, flip-flops, flotation devices, and all manner of flotsam that’d probably been found around the lake.
In the center of the room, a threadbare sofa listed to one side, bulges of dirty foam rubber pushing through the green covering, like skin peeking through the gaps in a fat man’s shirt. Across from the sofa sat a console television with rabbit ears that wouldn’t pick anything up anymore. Not much chance Len had heard about the national conversion to digital signal. The screen and knobs were covered with a layer of dust – evidence that the set had been out of use for a while. Beside the sofa, a faded gold velvet recliner was draped with a quilt and pillow, like someone had been sleeping there regularly.
“Who sleeps here?” Randy asked, pointing with his pen.
“I ubbb-been,” Len answered, and continued on through the living room, his hands nervously clenching and unclenching the front of his shirt. “I ugg-got food … for ubbb-Birdie.” Without waiting for an answer, Len moved on through the doorway into the kitchen, which wasn’t as bad as the living room. The sink was clear of dirty dishes, some mismatched china and a frying pan sat drying in a drain rack on the chipped green Formica countertop, and above the counters, a bank of open shelves were packed with home-canned goods. It looked like Len’s mother had taught him a few things. He knew how to wash dishes, make preserves, and keep a kitchen halfway functional. Watching Len in the tiny kitchen, his big ol’ hands still worrying the front of his shirt, it was hard to picture him canning produce.
Hay and I stood in the doorway while Randy and Len moved around the crowded space. Len was talkative when it came to canned goods, and after a while it was clear that he wasn’t working up sentence after sentence just because he was proud of his produce. After I mentioned the raccoon, he must’ve hit on the idea that he needed to show he could keep a little girl fed and watered, like a pet animal.
“I ugg-got ’maters, n’ corn, n’ pin-no bean. Ugg-got more in the ubb-barn.” He started toward the back door, his eyebrows lifting hopefully, but Randy shook his head, standing in the gap to block Len’s exit. The white dog in the backyard came to the screen and growled, and Randy sidestepped, putting the stove between the dog and his rear end. “I really need to see Birdie now.” He pointed toward a closed door off the other end of the kitchen. “Is that her bedroom?”
“Ubb-bedroom?” Len asked, seeming confused by the question.
“Is that where Birdie sleeps?” Randy took a glance at his watch, blinked hard and frowned, like he couldn’t believe how long this was taking. “Her bedroom. Is that Birdie’s bedroom? Is that where she stays?”
“’S my umm-mama’s room.” Len opened the back door and spit a plug into the yard. He gave the dog a pat before pushing it out of the way and shutting the door. “She don’ like unn-nobody in ’er room. Mama udd-don’t.”
Hay slipped closer to the bedroom door. Other than a tiny bathroom and washroom off the side of the kitchen, and the junk-filled front bedroom, the area behind that closed door was the only other living space in the house. “I think it’ll be all right if they go in, Len. It’d be okay with your mama, since that’s where Birdie’s been sleeping.” Hay’s voice was low and soft, patient. He laid a hand on Len’s shoulder and guided him forward, and Len softened in his grip.
For a second I just stood there watching Hay’s hand, wondering how long it’d been since anyone had shown that kind of tenderness toward Len. Most folks tolerated him at best and used him as the butt of their jokes at worst, but Hay treated him with the same care he would’ve given anyone – like all the talk about Love thy neighbor as thyself wasn’t just talk with him.
Maybe the next time Hay came around my house in the evening, bringing vegetables he’d bought from Len or trying to talk me into helping with his latest production at the Tin Building, I’d be more welcoming. Maybe Hay wasn’t trying to get nosy or push his way into my business. Maybe he saw in me a man who’d been raised going to church every Sunday, and gotten mad at God, and quit. Maybe he could tell that deep down inside of me, there was a part that’d started to face the fact that you’re not always going to understand why God does things the way He does, but you don’t do yourself any good by turning your back on your faith, either.
We
found Birdie asleep in the bedroom, curled up next to the toy raccoon from the park gift shop. The place was surprisingly clean, except for a coating of dust that looked like it’d probably been collecting for years. The bedroom set was antique, but simple – an iron bedstead that was probably white once, a walnut dresser, a night table, and a washstand with a mirror. A blue-and-white enamel pitcher and basin still sat on the washstand, and next to it lay a woman’s dresser set of brushes and mirrors like the ones my grandmother had when I was a kid. There was even a perfume bottle with a little billows bag on the back. The bottle was still half full, the perfume now thick and brown, the color of motor oil. Nothing in the room seemed to have been touched since Len’s mother passed. Her shoes were still in the corner, her clothes in the closet, her Sunday hat hanging on the bedpost. Here and there, tiny fingerprints and wavy trails in the dust showed that Birdie had been investigating her surroundings. I wondered how Len felt about that, being as he’d kept his mama’s room the same all these years.
I glanced over and caught Randy looking around, his forehead knotted up, like he couldn’t figure out why the rest of the house was piled with junk, but this room was clean as a whistle, except for the dust. I realized that Len must’ve cared quite a lot about Birdie, to be letting her stay in a room he’d kept perfect all these years. Judging from the dishes and clothes in the old school bus, when Birdie’s mother came here, either she bunked in the bus, or Len did. The only signs of activity in this room were Birdie’s tiny fingerprints.
Randy moved around the interior, inspecting it from a distance, like he wasn’t sure he should touch things, either. His toe hit the bedpost, and Birdie woke up, then rolled over and stretched, her blue eyes moving in a drowsy zigzag. She studied me for a minute, and I could tell she remembered me from before. Beside me, Hay leaned close and said, “Hi, Birdie. Did you have a good sleep?”