by Olive Balla
“That’s right.”
“Then how do you explain the fact that your Jeep was completely filled with canned and packaged food?”
Frankie avoided the deputy’s eyes. “I…I try to keep the cabin well provisioned in case we make a spur of the moment trip, or in case we get snowed in. Hard weather came early this year.”
Good God, was that the best explanation she could drum up? Everything she said made her look more and more suspicious—even to herself.
Rollins nodded his head as if to say he was trying to understand, but the perplexed look remained in his eyes.
“What do we do now?”
“Look Miss O’Neil, I appreciate how you feel. But there is no ‘we.’”
“Then I guess that leaves only me.”
The deputy cocked his head to one side and squinted. He shook his head a couple of times. “You’ve heard of something called ‘obstruction of justice’?”
Frankie held her hands up palms out. “I’m not obstructing anything. I’m just a concerned citizen.” She lowered her hands, stood, and glared down at the deputy, her arms ramrod straight at her sides. “But it is good to know you’ll wait a few more days before tossing my brother’s file on top of the rest of your cold cases.”
Rollins reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card identical to the one he’d given Frankie at their first meeting. He pulled a pen from the same pocket and scribbled on the back of the card.
“I’m giving you my personal cell phone number. In the event you remember something, call and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing.” He held the card toward Frankie. “And please don’t try to do anything on your own. Think about it—if someone was willing to shoot your brother in front of you, they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you.”
And they know who you are, Uncle Mike’s voice intoned.
“Now you tell me,” Frankie said out loud.
Rollins looked surprised. “It’s just logic.”
“Sorry, I was talking to…I mean…” Her face aflame, Frankie yanked the card from the deputy’s fingers and stuffed it into her handbag. She squared her shoulders and strode toward the cash register.
Deputy Rollins’ chair scraped on the hard wood floor behind her, but she didn’t look back.
Chapter Fourteen
“Right on time,” Bellamy said into the phone. “That’s more like it. Anything new to report?”
“Not really,” the voice at the other end said.
Bellamy held the phone between his shoulder and ear, freeing up his hands to straighten the papers on his desk. “Are you asking us to believe that absolutely nothing has happened in the past forty-eight hours worth reporting? We may have to re-evaluate our cost-benefit ratio with regard to your employment.”
There was a pause as the person on the other end of the line apparently considered how to answer. “She’s not happy about the whole thing. But in my opinion she’ll eventually accept it as an accident.”
“Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Another pause. “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t be ill-advised enough to leave out any vital information would you?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s good. It wouldn’t be wise.”
“I may be lots of things, but stupid I’m not.”
“We sincerely hope that’s true. Stay in touch. If she finds something or becomes suspicious, we may have to change our strategy.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means.”
“You said you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to O’Neil, so why would you need to hurt his sister?”
“Just covering our assets, so to speak. However, you’re in no position to question either our motives or our actions. Check in tomorrow at the usual time.”
“I might not be able to do that. I’m going to be busier than usual.”
“Please do not waste our time with your saber rattling. Our agreement has been sealed, or have you forgotten how deeply involved you are in all of this? Must we remind you of the multitude of accidents or illnesses that can befall the elderly? We would hate for your grandmama to suffer an inconvenience.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“We can be.” Bellamy chuckled. “But only if you do not do as you are told.”
****
It was late by the time Larry arrived at the chicken farm. The dark squares that were the bunkhouse windows meant Mel had gone to bed. A halogen bulb mounted on a nearby telephone pole threw the buildings into stark relief, lending an eerie feeling to the place.
Larry pulled his vehicle up to the locked, galvanized metal gates. Leaving the engine running, he got out, walked to the gate, twisted his key in the padlock, and pushed against the oblong frame. When the gate was open just enough for him to drive through, he returned to his car and turned off its lights. He drove a few feet into the compound, cut the engine and allowed the car to coast to a stop. Every motion slow and deliberate, Larry again stepped out of the car. After resting the door against its frame to avoid any telltale click, he started toward the bunkhouse.
The smells associated with thousands of chickens living, eating, crapping, dying and moldering assaulted his nose. Just as a pizza parlor employee can grow to despise the smell and taste of anything Italian, he’d developed a dislike for all things poultry. He fought against the impulse to gag.
Almost as bad as the smells, were the sounds. The noises the chickens made in their jammed-up spaces were pitiful. It was like they were pleading for someone to let them out into the sunlight and open air. But it was their eyes that bothered Larry most of all, their frightened, beady little eyes darting around, searching for a way out. He’d often wondered if they somehow understood what was going to happen to them.
His face grew warm. Who cared what the chickens felt, anyway? Yessiree, Wuss-man Larry was in full wuss mode tonight.
The bunkhouse consisted of two rooms: a large living room cum sleeping room, and a tiny bathroom with a shower barely large enough for a single person. In the absence of closets, either for clothing or storage, he and Mel had driven nails into the walls from which they hung their work clothes.
Daily activities at the farm always followed the same format. A handful of workers arrived at Bellamy’s only legitimate business around five every morning and left at two in the afternoon. Two or three workers fed the chickens, and cleaned and packed eggs for delivery to local customers. One employee oversaw the feeding and care of the baby chicks in the nursery. Two employees killed, cleaned and packaged the hapless older hens that no longer laid eggs regularly and put them on ice for delivery to a locally owned fried chicken establishment. Any chickens that died overnight were thrown on top of several inches of chicken dung and covered with more dung. In a couple of weeks, the birds would become part of the rich compost sold to local nurseries.
Larry stepped to the bunkhouse door. He slowly turned the key in the lock until he heard the mechanism click then opened the door just enough to glide through. He left the door slightly ajar to ease his silent departure.
Light from the outside lamppost along with half-hearted moonlight sifted through the filthy windows. The combination generated just enough visibility for Larry to navigate the room where he’d lived for the first year he worked for Bellamy.
The snoring lump that was Mel lay on his cot. Larry moved over to the empty bed where he slept when required to stay on the farm, and pulled his clothes from the nails he’d driven into the wall beside it. Between periodic furtive glances toward Mel, he draped the things over his arm, grabbed his work boots and headed for the door.
But a familiar sound froze Larry’s hand in midair as he reached for the doorknob—a mewling whine that told him Mel was dreaming again. The attendant thrashing, groaning and whimpering never ceased to freak Larry out, even though he knew of Mel’s recurring nightmare. Was, in fact, part of it.
Right after the
y’d dropped out of high school in Amarillo, Mel had talked Larry into burglarizing a home during the funeral of the wealthy owner. They shinnied over a seven-foot brick wall surrounding the house and climbed through an open window. The two boys filled their pillowcases with jewelry and other small valuables, and then climbed back through the same window.
Once outside, Larry tied the top of his pillowcase in a knot. He threw the bundle over the wall, and climbed over after it. But Mel had filled his pillowcase too full to tie. He was trying to figure out how to get it over the wall without losing any of his treasure, when the deep barks and growls of an approaching guard dog sent him into a panic.
Mel squeaked in fear and frantically threw his pillowcase over the wall, raining plundered stuff onto the ground on both sides. He scrambled to haul himself over as well, but the dog was faster.
His head and shoulders disappeared as the dog must have clamped its jaws around the targeted foot and yanked down. For the next several seconds, growls mingled with Mel’s screams and the sounds of thrashing bodies.
Frozen in place, Larry vacillated between feelings of self-preservation and the impulse to help. If the grounds keeper hadn’t arrived when he did, the dog would have killed Mel.
The surgeons took several hours to repair Mel’s throat and gnawed fingers. The throat wounds left a crisscross pattern of puckered scars that lightened with passing time. But the pinkie finger on Mel’s right hand healed wrong. Permanently bent at a ninety degree angle, a pale, fibrous web of skin held the digit tightly in place. The web reminded Larry of a tiny, albino bat’s wing.
After doing time in the juvenile detention center, the two had shared a lopsided bond. Mel followed Larry around like a gosling follows its mother, and a guilt-ridden Larry allowed it. Until lately, the relationship had been tolerable.
Experience told Larry he had about a minute before Mel jerked awake, sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. So he did what he’d done before getting his own place: he put his things down by the door, tiptoed over to Mel and shook him by the shoulders.
“Go back to sleep. It’s just a dream, man.”
Mel never even opened his eyes. He grunted, turned over and fell asleep again almost instantly.
Larry waited until Mel’s breathing slowed and deepened into a persistent snore. Like a wraith, he moved back through the bunkhouse. He picked up his belongings, slowly pulled the door open, and stepped into the night.
He backed out the gate and drove up the road a distance before turning on his lights, wracking his brain for any detail he might have overlooked. Though there were a couple more issues to resolve, he felt his plan was good.
Smiling in anticipation, he drove to Frankie’s house.
****
Mel came awake slowly. He threw back the blanket, sat up, and put his bare feet onto the floor. He stretched, chuffing as the circulation in his muscles and joints kicked in. Not yet fully awake, he moved his eyes around the bunkhouse. His gaze passed over the room a couple of times before spotting what had been niggling at him.
He reached for the phone recharging on the nightstand, pursed his lips in what Larry called his blowfish face, and speed dialed his buddy. When Larry didn’t answer, he broke the connection and tried again. This time Larry’s phone went straight to voice mail.
“Hey it’s me,” Mel said after the beep. “What’s up? Your stuff’s gone from the bunkhouse and I haven’t seen you since you brought the car back. Call me.”
Mulling over what Larry’s prolonged absence might mean, Mel went to the bathroom, relieved himself, and got dressed in his work coveralls. He picked up his work boots and sat back down on the edge of his bed. From inside one boot he withdrew two soiled and sweat-stiffened socks, which he slid onto feet so dirty they looked like rusted blocks of iron.
With the soles of his boots alternately either sticking to the linoleum floor or crunching on and pulverizing something, he headed toward the coffee pot. He punched the button to start the brew, and tried Larry’s phone again. This time when Larry didn’t answer, Mel was ready with what he wanted to say.
“What the hell’s going on with you? Ever since you started watching that O’Neil bitch you’ve been different. You’d better call me or I’m going to tell Bellamy you’ve taken up with her.”
No sooner did he end the call than he had second thoughts about his message. What if it wound up doing the opposite of what he’d intended? What if it just pissed Larry off?
Poor judgment—that was Mel’s problem. At least that’s what his grandma used to say. She said he was born without whatever it was that made people think before they did things. And she ought to know, since she was the one who raised him.
Grandma had sure enough taught him the ways of the world—he owed her that. If she told him once, she’d told him a thousand times that the world was made up of two kinds of people: those who got hurt, and those who did the hurting. It was the way of things, pure and simple.
He ran his fingers over a lumpy patch of small circular scars on his right forearm as the memory of Grandma’s final life lesson slid into his mind. He’d since dubbed the day as Judgment Day—even had the date tattooed on his left ass-cheek.
As usual on lesson day, Grandma had held the red, smoking tip of her cigarette against Mel’s arm and waited for him to scream. But this time he hadn’t uttered a sound. This time he just stared right back into her eyes without even so much as a blink. Her eyes had opened into huge round saucers, and her jaw dropped as he plucked the burning thing from her fingers and ground it out against her wrinkled, brown-spotted cheek.
But he especially enjoyed remembering the sounds she’d made as he wrapped his hands around her boney neck and squeezed. Squeaky, gagging sounds that made him feel like he could do anything he wanted. Like he could rule the world. He’d never known a person’s eyes could bug out so far—except in cartoons, or like one of those rubber doll things with eyes that shot out when you squeezed it.
Even though her face was dark purple by the time he finally threw her against the wall, he guessed she must have survived, because the police hadn’t come looking for him.
Mel knew he wasn’t real bright. But Larry sure was. He was smart as a whip. And he was the only one in the world who’d ever treated Mel okay—who’d ever seemed to understand him.
Oh, Larry had ragged on him good and proper when he smashed everything in O’Neil’s place just for the hell of it. And he’d sure enough been pissed when Mel shot that hunter guy he’d thought was Tim. But he got over it, just like he always got over Mel’s mistakes.
Larry even forgave him for getting even with the dog that chewed on him. He didn’t speak to Mel for several days after that, except to say the dog didn’t mean it personal, that he just did what he was trained to do. But he’d finally come around.
And now all Larry could think about was that O’Neil woman. Her with that thick, shiny hair and tiny feet. She wasn’t hardly big enough to be full grown. But Larry was in heat with a capital H, and it was like the years of their friendship never happened. It was like Larry said before that witchy woman put a spell on him: she was the real problem.
The seeds of a familiar black emotion started up in Mel’s stomach. It shot roots throughout his solar plexus, the pulse of it threatening to choke him.
Chapter Fifteen
Frankie called the office of Tim’s attorney, the name and number of whom she’d found inside the front cover of the Trust notebook. She spoke to an assistant and set up an appointment for later that afternoon to go over details regarding her brother’s will. Maybe the attorney would have some answers as to what had been troubling Tim.
The drive to Flatte’s office took her through Nob Hill, past downtown, and into Old Town Albuquerque. As if traveling backwards in a time machine, she drove past upscale modernized storefronts and condos, dry cleaners and automotive shops, and into the hundred-year-old square of adobe shops and eateries.
The air in the square was redolent with the aroma
s of baked breads and tortillas fresh off the griddle. She inhaled the subtle bouquet of beef, chicken and pork simmered in red or green chile. Though she’d already eaten, her mouth watered as the fragrances pricked at her tongue.
A hand-carved wooden sign, crafted to match the building’s adobe architecture, announced the offices of Flatte and Flatte, Attorneys at Law. The well maintained xeriscaped grounds boasted a variety of moss rock and indigenous plants geared toward water conservation. A small sign positioned next to a paved driveway discreetly invited visitors to park in the rear.
She did as the sign suggested, then made her way through the front door and to the front desk. She identified herself to the young receptionist, who in turn pointed to several heavy, carved wood chairs grouped around a glass-topped coffee table, and disappeared down a hallway. Frankie took a seat.
Whoever decorated the waiting area must have been the director of a museum or mausoleum in a former life. Heavy, dark wood furnishings sat beneath a collection of original watercolor and oil paintings, their weighty, Baroque frames suspended from silk ropes. An overabundance of native pottery and sculptures rested in glassed-in enclosures atop woven wool rugs. The coffee table boasted a huge silk flower arrangement, so tall and wide Frankie had to crane her neck to see around it. Heavy-handed use of cinnamon aerosol thickened the atmosphere. No whispered offer of aid to the litigious public here—the décor virtually screamed old school credibility and worthiness. By the time the receptionist returned, lethargy had set in and Frankie was in near-snooze mode.
“Miss O’Neil?” The young woman spoke in hushed tones through barely parted lips, as if she’d received her receptionist training from the same undertakers’ university as the decorator. She motioned for Frankie to accompany her through an arched doorway and into a spacious office.