It was kind of him to say.
But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound that man’s neck made at the bottom of the stairs.
“Still,” I say, “I’d like to know his name.”
Maxwell cracks open the folder. “His name was Jerry Galvez.” He offers me another kind smile. “He’d been arrested for drug possession several times. Arrested for aggravated robbery several times.” Maxwell hesitates. “He was also arrested for assault and rape, Miss Lee. He wasn’t a very nice guy, Mr. Galvez.”
My throat feels raw as I swallow.
If I had thought knowing the man’s history would help me come to terms with his death, I was wrong. Even a list of crimes couldn’t erase the fact that he was dead. That he’d been alive at the top of the stairwell but not at the bottom. And for a moment he could have been the worst man in the world—it already sounded like he was—and it wouldn’t have mattered. Because he’d been alive. And now he wasn’t.
“Miss Lee?”
I press my lips together and meet Maxwell’s eyes.
“I know it’s difficult,” he says gently. “But don’t blame yourself. It was an accident, and it was self-defense.”
I nod. “I know.”
“Knowing and believing are two separate things, Miss Lee.” He makes a note on the legal pad at his left. “Have you spoken to anyone?”
“About?”
“About all of this?” He smiles. “A counselor? A therapist.”
“Uh—no.”
A therapist? He wanted me to talk to a therapist? Geez, I must look worse than I thought.
Maxwell hands me the paper with a name and number scrawled on it. “Think about it. This isn’t something you should hold inside.”
I smile faintly looking at the paper. “I’m pretty good at holding things inside.”
Maxwell shrugs. “So am I. So are my guys.” He nods at the window. “But it’s not something we should do.”
I meet his gaze again.
“Thank you,” I say.
He looks up and lifts his chin. “Officer Raymond is back with your friend.”
I look over my shoulder where Officer Raymond is standing with Cecily at the other end of the main room. I stand slowly, and Maxwell offers me his hand again. I shake it.
“Try to take care of yourself, Miss Lee.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Maxwell’s eyes twinkle at me. “I’ve heard stories about you.”
“Oh, I dread to think.”
He laughs and nods at his door. I step outside and make my way to where Raymond is waiting. Cecily eyes me suspiciously but I ignore her.
“Thanks, Raymond.” I smile at him.
“Don’t mention it.” He grins back. “You recognize anyone?”
“Not really.” I shake my head.
“Meh. It was worth a shot.” Raymond ushers us out into the hallway again. “You hang in there. We’ll get this all sorted out.”
He salutes and ducks back into the room again, leaving Cecily and me in the entryway. With a shared glance, we head for the door.
“How was Keith?” I ask.
“He is as fine as can be expected.” Cecily smiles faintly. “He has many friends in this facility.”
“I’m gathering that.”
“He was heartened with the news that his job is waiting for him,” Cecily says. “What did the police want with you?”
“To see if I recognized anyone from a list of photos.” I hold the door open for her. “I found out the name of the guy who died.”
Cecily glances up at me.
“Jerry Galvez,” I say.
She looks away, nodding. “Did you recognize anyone?”
The thin-faced man with the light hair from the photo pops in front of my vision again. I know I’ve seen him. But where? Who is he?
“Someone looked a little familiar, but I couldn’t place him.”
Plus—the name Jerry. That was familiar too. Like I’d heard it recently.
But then, Jerry was a common name. I probably could list a dozen Jerrys that I’ve known, and none of them would be the sort of people to be involved with drug traffickers.
Cecily is fidgeting again.
With a sigh, I tuck my arm in hers. “Don’t worry.”
“I am endeavoring not to.”
I chuckle. “Well, maybe if we keep telling each other not to worry, one of us will stop.”
Defeated by Dog Food
It’s a freaking miracle. I can see the floor.
After more than a week of back-breaking labor, broken fingernails, and more tubs of questionably hazardous material than I care to count, the ugly orange house actually looks like a decent place to live—on the inside at least. Now that the threat of rain has passed, we’ll be painting in a few days so the outside matches the inside on its level of sketchiness.
Slowly, I straighten my back from where I’ve been bent over a box full of random kitchen gadgets and several huge jars of assorted buttons.
Everything still aches. My back. My legs. My neck. My eyebrows.
For a moment, I glance around the kitchen and into the dining room. The place doesn’t even look the same, now that the floor is visible in every room and towering stacks of magazines aren’t blocking the light from outside. The windows are clean and clear. The room fresheners we brought in make the whole house smell like vanilla. Prisha and Cecily have wiped down all the walls, and some of the wallpaper isn’t even that bad anymore, now that it’s not covered in dirt and dust and decades of neglect.
I shiver as I glance at the stairs, though.
No matter how we fix it up, it’ll never be nice. It’ll never be a safe place, not after what happened. In my memory, I can still hear the crack of old Kicky’s neck as we tumbled head over heels down those stairs. I remember the way he went limp under me. The cold, hollow vacancy in his lifeless eyes—
“Trisha?” Prisha appears in front of me, waving her fingers before my face.
To be fair, she’s probably been there longer than I knew. I just didn’t notice her, so lost in my horrific memories.
“Hey.” I smile. “Yes? Need something?”
Prisha touches my arm. “You just seem distracted.”
“It’s the head injury.”
Prisha purses her lips.
“Don’t worry. I’m teasing.” I brush past her into the dining room. “We’re making great progress. I think we’ll actually be finished by the time we need to be.”
“Don’t jinx it.” Prisha comes to stand at the table in the dining room with me. “Just when we think we are getting ahead, your projects tend to take giant leaps backward.”
“Noticed that, have you?”
“Frequently.”
“Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t my fault?”
A loud knocking interrupts us. I glance at the upstairs door and the downstairs door. They are both open, and the knocking didn’t come from there.
“It’s the front door,” Prisha says.
I sigh. “It’s probably a salesman or maybe a Jehovah’s Witness.”
Prisha goes to the door and opens it, the hinges creaking ominously. I peer into the living area so I can see over Prisha’s head, and standing on the front porch is the old crazy man. The one who attacked Cecily!
“Prisha!” I rush to her and pull her away, moving to slam the door.
“No, wait!” The old man holds up Cecily’s purse and thrusts it toward us. “I came to return this!”
I pause with my hand on the doorknob.
“That’s the man who attacked Cecily?” Prisha whispers.
“Yes.”
“But he’s so old.”
If the old man is offended by Prisha’s statement, he doesn’t demonstrate it. He just holds Cecily’s purse out penitently, not meeting either of our faces with his downcast eyes.
Even though all my instincts tell me not to do it, I take the purse from him. Handing it gingerly to Prisha, I turn a skeptical eye back to
the old man.
“I would like to apologize,” he says. “To the young lady. And to whoever owns the ugly purple Buick.” He stabs his index fingers into each other absently.
“You broke my car window?”
The old man winces.
“Why?” Prisha hovers at my elbow. “Why would you do these things? We don’t even know you.”
The old man looks up finally, tears in his brown eyes. “This house belonged to my father.”
I sigh and slump forward.
He’s got to be kidding.
“When my father died, I thought he would leave it for me.” The old man’s lower lip trembles. “He didn’t. He didn’t leave me anything. He gave it to some charity.”
“The Union Rescue Mission,” I say quietly.
“I don’t care what it’s called.” The old man wails and buries his wrinkled face in his hands. “This house should have been mine!” He sobs brokenly.
I glance at Prisha. Her face has softened, and she moves out from behind me to set a gentle hand on the man’s arm.
“There, there,” she says. “Don’t cry.”
“All of my memories,” the old man boohoos dramatically. “All of my childhood. My father gave it to strangers.”
This old guy isn’t quite right. I’m not sure if Prisha notices. She’s nice like that. I don’t think I’ve ever been as nice as Prisha is.
“So you broke into my car—because why?” I ask.
The old man sobs again.
“I thought you might have left the keys where I could get them.” He sniffles miserably.
I shake my head. “So you broke into my car for the keys. And Cecily?” I hold up her purse. “Did you think she had the keys too?”
He nods like a toddler caught doodling on the wallpaper.
“You could have hurt her.” Prisha pulls back and scowls at the man.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” the old man warbles. “You have to believe me. This house is all I have. It’s my last hope.”
I set Cecily’s returned purse on a nearby stack of labeled boxes. “I’m sorry, Mister—”
“Barry. Wilfred Barry.” He dashes snot off his face.
“Mr. Barry.” I nod. “I don’t know why your dad did what he did, but he did it. The house belongs to the Union Rescue Mission now. But they’re going to auction it. So maybe you can buy it back from them.”
“I shouldn’t have to buy something that rightfully belongs to me!” Wilfred barks, shifting to an aggressive position on the threshold of the door. “My hateful father took it away from me, and it’s mine!”
“Okay.” I hook my hand around Prisha’s arm and pull her away from Wilfred. “I think that’s enough. Thank you for returning Cecily’s purse, but we really—”
I’m tilting backward into a stack of boxes before I realize Wilfred has shoved me.
For a 70-year-old crazy man, the dude has some arms.
Prisha squeals in terror somewhere as the room spins. Something is stabbing me in the back. What am I laying on? Where is Prisha? Why do these things keep happening to me?
Wilfred is shouting. Angry. Prisha is speaking. What is she saying? Did I hit my head?
Hands. Hands and fingers are on me, clumsily digging in my pants pockets.
A shout of victory and a hard shove that knocks my head against the floor, and the door slams.
“Trisha!”
Aaron. Finally. Where was he? His arms bear me up and cup my face, but there are three or four of his faces. That’s problematic. Which one do I look at?
“Hey, hey.” He steadies me. “Breathe.”
“Old man.”
“What old man?”
“The old man who attacked Cecily.” Prisha sobs from the corner of the room. “He took Trisha’s keys.”
A loud grinding noise rattles the house’s windows. Snarling and whining, a wheezing engine turns over and over in the driveway.
“The RV.” Aaron hisses. “Are you okay?”
“Go!” I push his arm away.
“Prisha! Cops!” Aaron shouts, and he’s out the door.
The RV engine catches, and it roars to life. The room is still whirling, but I get to my feet and stumble outside on the porch as Prisha calls the police on her cell phone.
How many times are the police going go have to come to this house? They’ve got to have the address memorized by now.
From the porch, I can see Mr. Barry in the driver seat of the RV, shaking his arms over his head in triumph as the engine roars under the hood. He throws the RV in gear and leans over the wide steering wheel, and guns it.
The engine groans.
And the RV doesn’t move.
He guns the engine louder.
Still, no movement.
Slowly, I walk down the steps, watching as Mr. Barry goes nuts in the driver seat, screaming and crying and pounding on the steering wheel. Motion at the back of the RV draws my gaze, and Aaron and Nathan are high-fiving each other. Now I can see. They’ve put blocks in front of the rear wheels.
Sturdy cement blocks too tall for the RV to get over without a better driver at the wheel.
Aaron Guinness. Quick thinker.
Aaron walks toward me. “Did he hurt you?”
“I just banged my head, Aaron. I’m fine.” I run my fingers through my hair. “What is wrong with this guy? Why did he do this?”
“Hey, you talked to him longer than I did.” Aaron squeezes his arm around my waist briefly. “He’s locked in there too. So if you don’t have the keys—”
I pat my pockets. “I think he frisked me. That’s how he got the keys.”
Aaron scowls unhappily and kisses the side of my head softly before he moves back toward the RV that’s still roaring and struggling. I can hear sirens approaching now.
“Hey, Trisha?”
I glance toward Aaron and walk to where he and Nathan are standing at the back of the RV. At the rear of the vehicle is a large picture window, which takes up nearly the entire back portion of the RV. At least, it had been a big picture window. At the moment it’s mostly shattered.
Like someone had thrown a rock through it, the window hangs in tattered shards, a hole large enough for a person to squeeze through obvious in the bottom corner.
“When did that happen?” I scowl.
“That’s what I was going to ask.”
“Suppose your crazy friend did it?” Nathan nods at the RV that’s rocking back and forth, engine still growling and trying to accelerate over the cement blocks.
“Yeah. Not my friend.”
With the wailing of a siren and the flashing of lights, three police cars glide up to the driveway. Inside, Mr. Barry flails even more wildly. I think I can hear him screaming from here.
Aaron goes to meet the broad-shouldered police officer who walks up the driveway, and I narrow my eyes at the broken window. That doesn’t sound like something Mr. Barry would have done. But then, I hadn’t expected Mr. Barry to be the sort that would outright attack me and steal my keys so he could run off with the RV, so obviously my instincts aren’t as refined as I’d like to think.
I haven’t been batting a thousand on my character judgments recently just in general, so that should probably tell me something.
Two more police officers join Aaron, and the three officers face off with Mr. Barry and his RV. One officer is knocking on the door.
Mr. Barry had better obey if he knows what’s good for him.
I stay where I am at the back of the RV. Chances are, they’ll knock in the door and grab the hobbled old man before he can get away.
Nathan moves to wait beside Aaron, both of them silently offering support if it’s needed.
I can’t really see Mr. Barry at this point, but the RV isn’t rocking anymore. If he has any sense, he’ll open the door, but it doesn’t seem to me like he has any sense at all.
“He’s running,” one of the officers says.
I laugh. I can’t help it. The idea that Mr. Barry woul
d try to run from the police is worthy of laughter.
Of course, it doesn’t even occur to me that he only has one place to run to.
Mr. Barry appears at the broken window before I even realized he was coming toward me. For a 70-year-old guy, he’s really quite spry. He’s out the hole in the broken window and leaping at me so fast that I can’t even shout for help.
His bony body collides with me for the second time in less than twenty minutes, and we both go sprawling to the concrete of the driveway.
“Oh, not this time, buddy.” I clutch his spindly arms as he tries to climb off me.
Bad, bad idea.
He turns into a Tasmanian Devil.
A wrinkled, bony, skeleton of a Tasmanian Devil, but holy crap his elbows are like knives! This is the most valuable lesson of my life: Never wrestle with a bony old man on concrete when you’ve already got a concussion and he’s running from the police.
One knife-edge elbow cracks me in the jaw, and I see stars.
He shrieks like a banshee as the police pull him off me, and then Aaron is there, helping me sit up and gently checking me for wounds, muttering under his breath about trouble-making church secretaries.
Even in the arms of the police, Mr. Barry doesn’t calm down. He thrashes and kicks and throws his head back and forth, frothing at the mouth like some kind of madman.
“Is he rabid?” Prisha jitters behind us. “Did he bite you? Are you infected with something, Trisha? Do we need to take you to the hospital?”
The world is still tilting wildly, but I manage to wave off her concerns as Aaron helps me stand up. “I’m fine, Prisha. Just a little banged up.”
“You were a little banged up last night,” Nathan points out. “Now you’ve reached a new level.”
“A new level?”
“You got beat up by an old man.”
“Ugh.” I drop my head. “Why do these things keep happening to me?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” Nathan pats me on the arm.
Mr. Barry is hooting and hollering as the police officers slap a pair of cuffs on him and drag him to one of the waiting cars. I dust myself off as I stand up.
Flipping Fates Page 17