Thorns of Rosewood

by G M Barlean

  Tanya leaned over me, her face flushed. “Oh, thank God. She’s waking up.”

  My eyes trailed down to the finger marks beginning to show up as bruises on her neck. I shifted my gaze and winced at the sight of Debbie, her face swollen from the blow of the crystal vase wielded by Naomi. Caked blood matted her short dark hair.

  “Nice hit,” Debbie said as she pinched my cheek.

  Then I remembered smacking Naomi in the head with the trophy. “What have I done?” I mumbled, pushing away Debbie’s hand and shifting my weight up on my elbows.

  “The world a favor.” Debbie stood up, put her hands on her hips, and grinned down at me.

  Betty had been kneeling by my side. She also stood, and her face switched from worried to serious. “We have to get out of here.”

  I looked over to see the red stain creeping from Naomi’s head onto the white carpet, and the room spun again.

  “Get up, Josie. We don’t have time for you to be fainting.” Debbie yelled down at me as I swooned. “We gotta go, and we gotta go now.” Debbie started for the door.

  “But we can’t leave her there.” Tanya helped me stand. “And there’s blood all over the chair and I threw up all over the carpet and Naomi’s bleeding all over the carpet, too.”

  “Our fingerprints are everywhere, Betty,” I mumbled as I stood on shaky legs.

  “There’s no time to worry about this now, Josie. We have to leave. This has all gone way too far,” Debbie yelled, already near the front door.

  Debbie was right. We did have to leave. We couldn’t be caught here in Naomi’s home with blood literally all over our hands.

  So we all ran, crazed and haunted, out the door and to my car. I was too dizzy to drive, so Debbie took the wheel and drove everyone back to their respective cars in front of Sully’s.

  When we arrived, Debbie grabbed Tanya by her hand. “Tanya, keep your mouth shut, you hear?”

  Tanya stared at Debbie like she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had. “I have to explain to Rusty where I’ve been. I smell like puke and bar and alcohol. I have bruises on my neck. I have to tell him what happened.”

  “You tell Rusty you were fired and then spent the rest of the time with us at the bar, you hear? Tell him I choked you for all I care. Just don’t tell him anything about Naomi. Not yet. We can’t have anyone else knowing until we decide what we’re going to do. Do you understand me? Don’t say anything else, no matter what.” Debbie was yelling and it was scaring the hell out of all of us.

  Tears welled in Tanya’s eyes. She looked through the car door window at her own car. “I don’t know…”

  “What don’t you know?” Debbie shouted.

  “If I can lie to Rusty.” Tears streamed down her face.

  I reached out and touched her shoulder. “Just for now, okay, Tanya? Until we can figure out what to do.”

  Tanya nodded.

  “Listen to Josie. Don’t breath a word about going to the Talbots’. We have to figure this whole thing out, but not until tomorrow. Right now, we can’t be caught in their house and the less people who know we were there, the better. We shouldn’t be seen together either, so get out and go. We all need to think about how we can prove we were nowhere near the Talbots’ house. Lock yourself in your homes and shut the hell up!” Debbie vibrated with impatience.

  At first Tanya’s bottom lip quivered, and I expected her to continue arguing. Then she nodded and answered in a small voice. “Okay.” She took a deep breath and left the car, running to her own car as though if she didn’t do it right then, she’d never have the courage again.

  Then Betty and Debbie left for their cars and drove away to their own homes. To sit silently. And that’s what I had to do, too. Go home, sit quietly, and wait until someone told me what to do next.

  Chapter 32

  Gloria shook her head. “So you all just left Naomi on the floor and left all the mess behind? You took a big risk.”

  Debbie stubbed out her cigarette and leaned forward. “Don’t interrupt,” she said, then took over the story.

  Debbie Cleans Up—1974

  I had told everyone to get in their houses and keep their mouths shut.

  “Do you have a plan, Debbie?” Betty asked me before she left.

  “I’ll talk to you later. That’s all I can say right now.” I didn’t know what to do, but I knew we’d done more than enough as a group. A lot more than we should have. Anything more would require more stealth and less people.

  In my own car, I hoped no one had seen me with blood all over my face. It was dark and the town was quiet, as usual. I drove away slowly, in control, to my home—trying not to draw any attention to myself.

  Hot water from the showerhead pelted my face. I stood under the stream until I knew every spot of blood had been rinsed clean from my body. Steam rose around me and my head throbbed. I was so exhausted, but I had way too much to do before I could sleep.

  I dressed, then drank a cup of hot coffee and smoked a cigarette while I sat at my kitchen table and tried to make sense of everything. I couldn’t sit in my house and hope the situation was going to turn out all right. It wasn’t. I was sure. It was going to be a huge scandal and we were going to be right in the vortex of the storm.

  Three cigarettes later, I finally knew what I had to do. I had to go back to the Talbots’ and deal with the body. Clean up the mess. If not me, then who? I had the least to lose.

  I threw a shovel in my backseat and headed back to Naomi’s. When I pulled my car around through the alley, I saw the rear of their house. It was still dark inside. It had been at least an hour since we’d left, maybe more. I remembered us turning off the lights before we scurried out like the rats we were. At least we had that much presence of mind.

  I exited my car and stared at the back patio. The French doors of the big living room loomed like an invitation to a horror movie. I began to walk through the grass and toward the house and tried to prepare myself for what I had to do. Clean up the mess. Polish away the fingerprints. And drag Naomi’s sorry carcass out of her house and then figure out where to bury her. It was going to be a hellishly long night.

  I swallowed hard, then checked the doors. Open. Gently turning the knob, I entered the murky darkness of the house. Silence greeted me. The sound of my own breathing was as loud as a blaring horn, accompanied by my heart thumping a rhythm hard in my ears.

  I couldn’t see a thing, and although I would have liked to work unseen in the shadows, I didn’t know this house well enough. I was going to need light. I fumbled along the wall until I found the switch, then braced myself for what I was about to see. I had a feeling it was all going to be much uglier than it had been before.

  The lights blazed on and I turned to the scene. I gasped.

  Naomi was gone.

  The pool of blood was there. The vomit. My own blood all over the chair. But no Naomi.

  My God. Where was she?

  I scanned the room, terror filling my lungs. She could be anywhere. Then the worst thought of all.

  She could be out driving in her car right then, trying to find us and do to us what we thought we’d done to her. I had to warn everyone, and I had to do it fast. I caught sight of the phone on the wall, grabbed it from its cradle, and punched in Betty’s number.

  She answered with a tentative “Hello?”

  “Betty, this is Debbie.” I breathed into the phone. “I’m at the Talbots’.”

  Betty gasped. “What in God’s name are you doing there?” Her voice was almost a scream.

  I didn’t have time to explain. “Betty, right now all you need to know is Naomi is gone and you need to be on the lookout.”

  “What do mean, Naomi is gone?”

  “Gone. Just gone. I don’t know where. But she’s not lying on the floor where we left her. She could be anywhere. She could be in her car driving straight to your house for all we know.”

  “Oh my God!” Betty screamed.

  “Listen, Betty. Calm down. Call everyone e
lse and let them know. Maybe you and Josie should be together. Tanya has Rusty. Keep an eye out. We don’t know what’s coming.”

  “Okay, Debbie, but what are you going to do? What if Naomi is still in the house?”

  I felt my heart clench in fear. I peered through the blaring light of the living room and into the darkened recesses of the rooms lying beyond. Rooms I wasn’t familiar with. I didn’t know where the darkness led or what it contained. Naomi with a gun pointed at me? I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll come to your place after I’m done here.”

  “Okay,” she answered. “Debbie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful.”

  I hung up. Careful? We’d all gone way beyond careful. The time for taking care was gone. Now it was time to be smart.

  I started working and an hour later, the bloodstains were out of the chair and carpet. The bleach I’d used was going to ruin both, but I needed the evidence gone. What did I care if Naomi’s chair and carpet needed to be replaced? I ran around with a cloth and bleach and polished everything I could think of that might have our fingerprints. The trophy. Doorknobs. I hated being Naomi’s housekeeper even for one moment, but this was for us, not her.

  The whole time I cleaned, I kept expecting Naomi to sneak up behind me, or Doug to come home. Neither happened. Regardless, I made it through, then turned off the light, ran out to my car, and hurried over to Betty’s place, smelling of chlorine and fear.

  “Debbie.” Betty exhaled as though she’d been holding her breath. She opened the door wide to let me in but slammed it tight and locked it as soon as I was in the house. I entered like a shadow, and they watched me as though I had a disease. I wanted to tell them to rest assured, they’d already been infected with what was ailing me.

  Josie stood a few feet behind Betty. I don’t know what I looked like, but they looked like absolute crap.

  Finally, Josie broke the silence. “Where is she?” Her voice cracked.

  “I don’t know.” I wasn’t lying. I really didn’t know. Part of me had wanted to search every room of the Talbot house, but the bigger part of me was too scared to find her. Had she stumbled to her bed and died? Or to the shower? Maybe she was lying at the bottom of a bathtub with blood rippling out in waves as water pelted her from above. Or maybe she was in her car and on her way to the police. No scenario sounded good to me.

  “We won’t know until someone comes knocking,” Betty said as she stared at the door in horror.

  I really couldn’t think straight anymore. I didn’t have a clue what we needed to do next, but I had to keep thinking, keep working toward a solution. “You told Tanya, right?” I asked Betty.

  “Yes. She and Rusty are locked down and keeping watch,” Betty mumbled. Her eyes were dazed. “Debbie, tell us what you did?”

  I shrugged. “Cleaned up.”

  “What do you mean, cleaned up?” Josie asked as she wrung her hands.

  “I cleaned everything. With bleach. The vomit, the blood. The prints.”

  The women stared down at their hands. “Do you think you got it all?” Josie asked, hope in her eyes.

  “I tried. I don’t know. Maybe I missed some things. It’s hard to say.” I felt a sickening lump forming in my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but it didn’t want to budge.

  “And Doug never came home?” Betty’s fingers nervously pinched at the skin of her bottom lip.

  “Never,” I answered.

  “Do you think the neighbors saw anything?” Josie asked.

  “It’s possible.” I hoped not. But only time would tell. What more was there to say? Nothing. We sat in silence for a while, then we checked the doors and windows one last time to make sure they were locked. None of us wanted to be alone, so we stayed together all night. Safety in numbers. If Naomi was out looking for us, we’d fare better as a team. We each found some kind of weapon and made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the living room. I clutched an old baseball bat, Josie hugged a tennis racket, and Betty grasped a frying pan.

  I didn’t feel safe at all.

  In spite of our fear and worry, exhaustion overtook us. We cuddled into our throw blankets on the couch and chairs and slept like the dead until eight in the morning when someone started pounding on Betty’s door.

  Chapter 33

  Debbie Takes Control—1974

  I jerked awake at the noise. Betty and Josie were staring, bleary-eyed, at the door, their mouths hanging open. It didn’t look like they could move even if they wanted to.

  I went to the door, then braced myself for whatever was on the other side. Cops, Doug… Naomi. I held the bat in my white-knuckled hand and opened the door a crack.

  “Package for Betty Striker,” the courier said with a smile far too perky for the moment.

  Betty jumped up from her chair and ran to the entry. She signed for the package then peered around the doorway at the world beyond her yard. She slammed the door shut and locked it tight.

  “We need to check on Tanya,” I said.

  Josie went to the phone. We watched as she dialed, then waited for the conversation. It sounded as though she and Rusty had survived the night without visitors. I assumed Tanya had cracked and told Rusty everything. It didn’t matter. He’d know eventually and if they could trust anyone, it would be Rusty. In the light of day and after a few hours of sleep, I realized she could have never kept it from him. It was mean of me to demand it.

  “Now what?” Betty asked me as though I had a clue.

  I began to pace. I acted like I was thinking, but I already knew what I planned to do. I just had to think it through properly. “ Well,” I said, “now you need to go to work, Betty. You still have a job. If you don’t show up, it will look suspicious.”

  Betty nodded. “What about Josie?”

  “Josie and Tanya are both out of jobs right now, thanks to Naomi. Why don’t you two spend the day together out at Tanya’s place. You can try to keep each other calm. Don’t let Rusty call the police.”

  Josie nodded, then shook her head vigorously. I could tell she liked the thought of being with someone and did not like the idea of cops. “I’ll call Tanya back and tell her I’m coming out.” She turned and ran back to the phone.

  Betty searched my face. “What about you, Debbie? What are you going to do?” she asked with suspicion in her voice.

  I didn’t answer. She wouldn’t have wanted to know, anyway. While Josie talked on the phone, I gave Betty a shrug, turned, and left for my house. The less they knew, the better.

  I sat at my kitchen counter, drank coffee, and thought about my plan. No way in hell were we going to be able to keep this thing quiet. Doug would eventually—if he hadn’t already—figure out Naomi had gone missing. He’d have seen the wet spots on the carpet and smelled the bleach. He wasn’t an idiot. Even though I’d cleaned everything, he’d know something had happened… that someone had been there.

  And what about Naomi? Maybe she was still somewhere in the house. Or maybe he’s the one who came home, found her, then took her to the emergency room. Or maybe she drove off the road into a ditch somewhere like she’d left Mari. The police might have already found her. There were too many variables, and it was driving me mad not knowing.

  I kept coming back to the fact we were the most likely suspects. We’d reported Naomi to the police. Tanya had been fired. Josie and Betty had a motive, too. We’d sat in a bar all afternoon. There were too many dots to connect. Even the village idiot could have eventually figured it out.

  The only thing I could think to do was take the blame. I had the least to lose, and after all, I had cleaned up the mess. The longer I thought about it, the more sure I became. I’d made up my mind. I had to go talk to Doug. I’d feel him out and if I had to, I would confess—tell him I’d murdered his wife. I’d take the fall.

  A half hour later, I was standing in front of the district court office. I steeled myself to carry out my plan, but I’ll admit, my stomach was rolling.
r />   My plan was to see if I could read Doug’s mood. I needed to see his face, see how he was acting. He had either come home and seen the blood and mess, then gone out to find Naomi, or he’d come home to the smell of bleach and then gone out to find Naomi. Or maybe he came home to find Naomi dead somewhere in the house. I didn’t know, but I couldn’t wander through life waiting for it to sneak up on me.

  Finally, I turned the knob and entered the office. “Hey, Connie. Is Judge Talbot in?” I tried to act casual and rifled through my purse, acting like I’d stopped by for the heck of it.

  “Well, yes, but the door to his office is closed. I haven’t talked to him yet this morning. Is this a legal issue?”

  I almost laughed out loud at the irony. Illegal issue, more like it. “Oh, no. Just wanted to bend his ear. Had a question. Not a big deal. If he’s busy…” I let my words hang and turned back to the door with a wave of my hand. I also wondered what I was actually going to say to Doug.

  “Wait while I check.” Connie gave me a smile. “I don’t think he has much on his docket today.” She rapped on the judge’s door, poked her head inside, then looked back to me. “Go right on in. He said he has time for you.”

  “Hey thanks, Connie.”

  He was in his office. What did that mean?

  I walked through the door on shaking legs, wondering if I was insane to be there. I heard Connie shut the door behind me with a click and there I stood, trapped in Doug Talbot’s office.

  Doug offered me a casual glance as he looked up from the file on his desk. He pointed at a chair. It seemed as though if he’d been searching for his wife all night, he’d look a bit more frazzled. A good sign.

  “Debbie? What brings you to see me?”

  I took a seat. “Oh, just wanted to chat. You look fresh and chipper this morning. You must have slept as well as I did last night. It’s all this cool fall air. Been great sleeping weather, hasn’t it?”