Unhinged

by Sarah Graves

  A posse of them shinnied down a trellis, their avid eyes suggesting that behind their smeary lips, their teeth had been filed to carnivorous points. A squad of teenagers had already formed a blankly staring cordon behind us, blocking possible retreat. Even Monday blinked uncertainly as masses of diapered toddlers assembled, infant grins signaling the intent to grab her nose and see if they could make it go oo-OO-gah!

  “Heel,” I said firmly and she lined up like a shot, her tail tucked and her ears lowered unhappily. Which was what did it, finally. Most of the time you can menace me with impunity; on my own behalf I am a mild-mannered person. But threaten my dog and I’ll cheerfully feed both your lungs to you for breakfast.

  “Scram,” I snapped, turning to stamp my foot at the advancing teenagers. They backed away, startled.

  “Shoo,” I told the toddlers, scattering them with brisk little waves of my hands. “Go on, scat!”

  The children who’d been coming down the lattice at me halted in mid-shinny and began making their way up again, scrambling in through the open window. One after another, little rumps tumbled over the ledge and were engulfed by the percussive thumps of a boom box so loud, it could’ve been used to divert the migration of whales in the North Atlantic.

  But while I was repelling the Children’s Army, Monday had taken advantage of my inattention; now she was in the sandbox, surrounded by plastic toys, slurping milky cereal from a bowl that had originally held Cool Whip.

  Then I spotted the first cat, and the second and third, and understood what else that sandbox was surely full of. “Monday!” I bellowed. She ambled to me, which was when Wilma finally appeared in the thundering darkness of her own front doorway.

  “Yeah?” She wore a bloody apron. A cigarette dangled from her lips. A big knife was clenched in her hand.

  There were cats on the rooftop, cats on the walls, cats in the bassinet on the porch, which also had sleeping babies in it, apparently undisturbed by the decibel level. I could only conclude the boom box’s blaring had already deafened them.

  “Wilma,” Ellie said quietly. “Please. We need your help.”

  I glanced sharply at her; this was not an approach I thought could work. But something in Ellie’s attitude had changed while we stood there. “These aren’t all Wilma’s kids,” she told me softly. “They can’t be. Can they?”

  Wilma squinted at us through the cigarette smoke spiraling into her dark eyes. She flicked the burning butt at the sandbox, then beckoned for us to follow her.

  Some of the bigger children had returned to their morning routine, which I didn’t want to think about too much; I kept imagining a neighbor child somewhere out in those scrub trees, being boiled in a pot.

  “What’s it matter,” I told Ellie, “whose… ?” At least I didn’t see any gun-toting infants. But I did spot a squirrel pelt nailed to a door frame; probably they were all out hunting.

  “You want help? I’ll help ya. Maybe then the stories goin’ around’ll quit bein’ about me.” When it reappeared from the shadows, Wilma’s face was impassive but her tone now took on a distinctly querulous note.

  “Come on,” she said flatly and vanished once more into the din.

  As I hesitated several things were occurring to me, one of them being that Wilma was no one’s fool. At least, she apparently took care of all these children who, despite their wild air, didn’t look abused or malnourished.

  “Well, you comin’ or ain’t you?” Wilma called impatiently.

  The children were beginning to close ranks around us again, eyes avid, sticky hands outstretched. Maybe they didn’t look abused but they did remind me of another of Sam’s favorite movies: Night of the Living Dead.

  As if, if they touched me, I might start to like the ghastly music booming at heart-rupturing volume from upstairs.

  We followed Wilma inside.

  She led us to a room I identified with difficulty as the kitchen. A table peeped from under heaps of laundry and coloring books; toys and juice bottles mingled with dishes piled in the sink. A refrigerator wheezed in the corner, crayon drawings and finger paintings plastered to the front of it.

  “Sit,” Wilma commanded, sweeping old newspapers from a pair of wooden chairs. I obeyed; Ellie remained standing, the better to let her mild gaze rove over her surroundings.

  Wilma returned to the task she’d been doing before we showed up: cleaning a big fish. With five swift whacks she relieved the fish of tail and fins, tossing them to the floor where they were instantly snatched by cruising felines.

  “Now, you wanta tell me how the hell I’d even know if a cat was missing?” Wilma demanded without preamble.

  In one blade-flash the fish was relieved of its interior, the result pounced upon by more cats. Wilma glanced dourly after a feral-looking feline, caught the expression on my face.

  “Hell, you think you’re the only ones figure I might’ve got rid a’ the old snoop?” she asked, responding to my surprise.

  Blade-flash; fish fillet. “Munchkin,” she added with a loud, dismissive snort. “Who the hell thought that one up?” Whack. “I got enough tryin’ ta remember kids’ names, ’thout namin’ cats.”

  “You mean you didn’t name it that?”

  Over in a corner behind a padded wooden rocking chair with a child asleep in it, a feline the size of a terrier was devouring something growlingly: the fish’s head.

  “No, I didn’t,” Wilma declared. “Eastport rumor mill dished out that little detail, not me. And I don’t live nowheres near that skinny witch, Harriet Hollingsworth, either. Over in high muckety-muck-town, like you.” So much for not speaking ill of the dead. Or for us being the ones asking the questions:

  “Yeah, I heard you was stickin’ your noses all around. So I followed your old man home, acted like I believed that fool story he was tellin’, like that kid of yours needs anything, just so’s I could find out what you two had cookin’.”

  She made a sound of disgust. “Shouldn’a wasted my time. Knew when you mentioned the cat what you were thinkin’. But why would any cat o’ mine be all the way across town, anyhow?” she went on, lopping off more fillets. “Cats don’t range that far.”

  Drat, she was right. Cat Dancing was an indoor animal, so I hadn’t thought of it. “You mean you were just stringing us along?”

  “Yeah. You deserved it, try’na play detective with me. My nephew, he fixes trucks for the electrician, don’t do no wiring.”

  “Why’d you mention the motel?” Ellie asked. Because Wilma’s story about wanting to know if we’d swallowed town gossip about her didn’t quite wash; the death of Wyatt Evert’s eco-tourist had not been linked to Harriet’s by anyone but us.

  “I just tossed that in for atmosphere. Niece does yard work there, is all. Why?” Wilma added curiously, “did I get lucky?”

  “Yeah,” I told her, discouraged. “You did.”

  Wilma scratched her scalp with the tip of the knife she was using to cut chowder pieces. I didn’t see any fishing gear around but probably some of the larger children had caught the fish with their teeth. “Had ya goin’, huh? So why’n’t you two snoopy-doos spread that on a cracker, take it all over town?” she demanded. “I got enough trouble, this crew, ’thout the whole world thinkin’ I’m a killer.”

  Seizing the fish skeleton she strode to a window, flung the remains into the teeming yard. “Although I guess the newspaper in the old bat’s claw’ll finish that idea, I give it enough time.”

  Which was just what we’d thought: that the newspaper could’ve been Wilma’s attempt at misdirection. But now it seemed unlikely she could’ve planned it that way. She’d spun us, was all. Motive gone, the means and opportunity similarly vanished…

  Slamming the window, Wilma wiped her stained hands on the front of her sweatshirt, which bore the legend “Don’t Freak With Me — I Freak Back.”

  You sure do, I thought glumly. Two gory handprints streaked fishily through the legend as if to punctuate it. “All right,” I said, crestf
allen; what a letdown. “But what about…”

  A series of thuds, crashes, and shrieks from above suggested that more murders were being committed that very minute. “Shut the hell up!” Wilma bellowed at the ceiling.

  Silence fell briefly, followed by the sound of thundering feet down the stairs, out the door — bang! — and over the front porch.

  “…Fran,” I finished weakly.

  Wilma slapped the fish fillets onto a platter, thrust the plate into the refrigerator. “What about Fran? That damned Wyatt has got a mad on about somethin’, laid her off. He don’t get rid of it, we’re gonna be eatin’ cats, Fran don’t have a paycheck.”

  Which answered the question of how Wilma had any house at all; despite battalions of swarming children, I saw no evidence of any Mr. Bounce, or anyone else who might earn income.

  Curiouser and curiouser, I telegraphed to Ellie, who nodded minutely.

  “Fran’s the only moneymaker in the house,” Wilma said, “or as ever was. We’d be down the tubes without her. Wouldn’t we, Eldred?”

  A child in diapers had wandered in sleepily; Wilma mussed its hair roughly but with affection, grabbed a pacifier from a clutter of cat toys, and popped it into the child’s mouth before it could howl.

  “Yes sir, Fran’s our angel,” Wilma Bounce declared. It was the first time I’d heard her utter a sentence that didn’t have a swear word in it, or sound as if it ought to.

  “Not here much but she comes home when she can,” Wilma told us. “An’ when she does, my little sister stays right here with me an’ the young’uns, anytime she’s in town.”

  “I don’t see why you want to talk to me,” Fran Hanson said crisply when we’d located her again. “Wyatt’s not my problem. Or not anymore. He thinks he fired me? Well, the hell with him. I quit.”

  We’d found her at the end of the fish pier, gazing glumly at the water as if she might jump in.

  I’d felt like jumping too, even though Ellie had said ruling people out was as important as ruling them in.

  Now I cut to the chase with Wilma’s little sister. “You were in town when Harriet vanished. Wyatt, too.”

  She turned on me. “So what? You think I had something to do with some wacky old woman disappearing? Believe me, I stay out of what goes on in this town. It was bad enough growing up here. Now I’ve gotten away, what do I care?”

  It was a common small-town story. One kid makes good, leaves and never comes back. But Fran had come back; did so regularly, in fact, despite her apparent contempt for the place. She whipped a cigarette pack and lighter from a stylish leather bag.

  Down in the boat basin, men in rubber boots traded banter and tools as they worked to keep their means of livelihood afloat another day.

  “Bunch of losers,” Fran commented scathingly.

  Right, I thought, wanting to smack her. And getting busted for receiving stolen property was truly classy, wasn’t it? On the other hand, there’s a slant-roofed little shanty on a rocky hill up in coal country that I’ve never returned to at all.

  “Why do you come back?” Ellie asked Fran reasonably.

  “You saw Wilma,” she replied. “I can’t abandon her and if I only send money and don’t visit her feelings get hurt. She is my sister.”

  I had a feeling that wasn’t the whole story but I let it go for now. “So you went to work for Wyatt Evert because you knew if you did, the job would bring you here. That way, it wouldn’t feel to you as if you were visiting home. It would be just that you were here on a business trip.”

  Fran glanced resentfully at me, crushed the cigarette under the heel of her smart boot. “Which even if it were true is none of your business,” she retorted. “What do you two want from me, anyway?”

  Implying that nothing about yokels like us could be of any interest to a smart, snazzily reinvented person such as herself. Gosh, I love it when somebody gives me an opening like that.

  “Wyatt Evert’s a crook and you’re his accomplice. You’re on the run — that’s why you’ve changed your name, isn’t it? — and unless you talk to us right this minute I’ll make sure you go to jail on the Florida probation you’re violating just by being here.”

  Fran’s face sagged in shock, telling me I was right about one thing, anyway; she’d run out on the Florida probation order. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, recovering swiftly.

  Maybe it was on account of her faithfulness to Wilma that I took pity on her. Or maybe it was that shanty I’ve never had the guts to revisit. Fran came back often, and when she did she stayed at Wilma’s wild kingdom.

  “Fran, I’m not trying to jam you up, or Wyatt, either. Not unless I have to, and I hope I don’t.”

  She eyed me mistrustfully as Sam appeared on the breakwater, once again pushing Maggie in the wheelchair, full of news. “Hey, Mom, you’re not gonna believe it.”

  “Sam,” I began firmly; when it comes to manners a boy’s best friend is still his mother. “This is—”

  I turned to Fran, intending to reintroduce her so he could shake hands, say it was nice to see her again, and hope that she was enjoying her stay in Eastport.

  But he didn’t wait. “Wyatt Evert,” he told me excitedly, “just punched Tim Rutherford in the nose. There’s blood all over the sidewalk!”

  From her seat in the wheelchair, Maggie peered closely at me while Fran reacted to Sam’s report.

  “Oh, god. Why did he punch him?” Fran asked.

  “Dunno,” Sam replied, “but—”

  “Your eye looks better,” Maggie told me. “The bruising is going down. The contact lens isn’t bothering you?”

  I was still wearing the lenses and surprisingly, I’d begun getting used to the green. It gave me a jolt of “who in heck is that?” in the morning right after I first put them in, but that was all.

  “They’re fine,” I said, turning to Sam again.

  “ — asking something about nonprofit,” he was saying. “And then, whammo.”

  “What else did you hear?” Fran questioned him intently. “I mean, before Wyatt punched the reporter.”

  Sam frowned. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”

  But Tim must’ve asked Wyatt something fairly pertinent, which to me just reinforced the notion that maybe there’d really been something to the nonprofit angle Tim talked about, on our trip to Machias.

  “Seems our friend Wyatt’s a tad sensitive on the subject of his business dealings,” I said when Sam and Maggie had gone on, Sam’s curly head bent charmingly to hear what Maggie was saying.

  He’d traded the gauze arm-sling for a red bandanna that made him look dashing, as if he’d been injured in a sword fight; also, the last time I had seen my son so fascinated by a conversation, Bert was confiding a secret to Ernie on Sesame Street.

  Sam was in close mode. Later: push away. I had no illusions my little pep talk about Maggie had altered anything.

  Fran tried to change the subject: “Wyatt’s feeling nervous. He says you think he might’ve killed the old battle-axe. And Roy McCall says you think maybe he had something to do with that dancer who died, Samantha.”

  She colored at my inquisitive glance. “Roy and I have had a few drinks since we met at your house,” she explained grudgingly.

  And more, her face said clearly, not that I cared. But she was trying to divert me so she went on, piling one messy detail upon the next.

  “I’ve been sneaking away with him, actually,” she confessed with sly defiance. “There’s plenty of empty rooms in Eastport. A crew member’s room at the motel or in a B&B during the day. Roy can borrow one when he wants. They all borrow each other’s rooms, no one cares.”

  Which was way more sociology than I wanted to learn. “But you’ve got him wrong too,” she added. “Roy’s in more trouble than before. The replacement for Samantha, the dancer who’s coming in? Tonya somebody? Well.”

  Happily, she prepared to deliver news that might take the spotlight off her. “Tonya, it turns out, has
stood around in some shoots in front of cameras. But that’s all.”

  Commercials, Roy McCall had said. A toothpaste ad. But now I realized: the days of dancing toothpaste tubes were long gone.

  “She’d never actually danced in a production. She’s awful.” Fran’s eyes shone at the memory of trouble that wasn’t her own. “So now the guys footing the bills are mad at him for letting the first one get killed.”

  She was on a roll, thinking her ploy was working. “That’s very interesting,” I replied, trying not to react to the fact that all the motives I’d thought up — lovely, bloody-minded motives like vengeance in Wilma’s case or defense against ticked-off Mob guys, in Roy’s — were crashing and burning.

  “Now, about Wyatt and his supposed nonprofit organization,” I said. Whereupon she sensibly realized she’d run out of subjects to divert me, and gave in.

  “I just found out, myself.” She was suddenly defensive. “I knew Wyatt was bent but he swore up and down this time he was on the level, that there was money enough in playing it straight not to need any stealing.”

  Sure, and pretty soon zebras would be wearing polka dots. “What’s the crooked part? And how did you find out at this late date?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was cleaning out the van. I found a ledger stuffed way down in the upholstery, under a seat.”

  “And?” Fran didn’t only look defensive; she looked scared. So considering her history, I suspected what must be coming next.

  “It’s just like the one I use for keeping Wyatt’s financial records. For the tour business and the—”

  “Fran,” I interrupted, “have you ever filled out forms to register a nonprofit organization? Don’t try to tell me you don’t remember.”

  As a project, registering a nonprofit is like writing War and Peace. By the end, you’re lucky if your writing arm’s not tied up in a sling like Sam’s.

  “No. I haven’t. And Wyatt wouldn’t have. I do all that stuff,” she said. “Or I thought I did, but now it looks like he keeps records, too. Only the numbers are different. Bigger,” she emphasized, “numbers.”