And so once again we spent cold, grim, pain filled hours slogging through pitch black woods until finally… finally, reaching the grove and sanctuary.
… . .
I SAT BY THE STOVE, SOAKING up the heat and sipping wine while Priscilla showered. She emerged scrubbed shiny and wearing her bunny jammies. I went in and showered until the water was well beyond ice cold.
We sat in the settee, eating granola bars, drinking wine, and comparing wounds. My forehead seemed fine, scabbed over with no sign of infection. We both had lacerated arms, caused by stone fragments blasted loose by Anderson’s bullets. I had three fairly deep puncture wounds in the top of my left leg, and another in my right arm.
Priscilla had a deeply gouged biceps, a hole high in her left breast, a rent just above her beltline, various slashes, and a deep cut just beyond her hairline Everything that hurt or bled was squeaky clean and slathered with disinfectants and antibiotic ointments, and I was willing my immune system into red alert.
Priscilla’s head was bleeding again from the scrubbing she had given it. I made a production out of a lot of unnecessary poking and prodding, went hmmm a few times and said, “Okay, your wound needs work. What I’ll do is, I’ll shave your head and put some butterfly sutures on it and if you refrain from sardonic remarks it should be okay in a few days. I know it’s going to be tough, keeping your mouth closed, but… ”
She raised her head and smiled, “Get a pulse. What I’ll do is have another glass of wine.”
Under her thoughtful gaze I filled her mug. She raised the mug in salute, drank, and said, “Think you’ll be able to hang out at Gretchen’s anymore? Knowing what’s twenty some odd feet below you?”
After a time I said, “I think so. That place is so foreign, so alien, it’s as if it was a world away. You?”
She absently stroked the top of her wounded breast and muttered, “Not an issue.”
… . .
I HAD SERIOUS RESERVATIONS ABOUT COMING clean with Helen Watson, but Eva and Ona, and even Sarah said it would be all right, that she had a right to know and that she would keep quiet. When, for the fifth or sixth time, I expressed my concerns to Priscilla, she gave me her trademark slant eyed look and told me to give it a rest.
So on a windswept night as cold as death, Helen knocked timidly on Eva’s door. Ona, pushing Eva in her chair, ushered her into the kitchen and handed her a glass of wine. After several minutes of conversational fiddle faddle that jerked around the table in a spastic cadence, Priscilla said, “Oh for Christ’s sake,” and proceeded to tell Helen our story. As when we related our tale to Eva, Ona, and Sarah, she left large gaps, but Helen got the gist of it, and when Priscilla was through, silence filled the room like an early morning fog.
Finally Helen picked up her glass, gulped down her wine and said, “Finally. I was resigned to never finding out, never knowing.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, turning her makeup into a rainbow that ran down her face in streaks. Ona patted her back with awkward slaps and muttered, “There there,” and poured her more wine. Sarah, gripping her glass of Champagne with both hands cried silently, her tears splashing in the wine like tiny bombs.
Helen dug in her purse and hauled out a blue silk handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. I cleared my throat and said, “I’m glad we were able to clear up the why and how of Harold’s disappearance for you, it must have been hell, especially early on.” My words sounded inflated and pompous and phony, but I didn’t know what else to say. What I wanted to say was: ‘For God’s sake, keep your mouth shut.’
And, as usual Priscilla did the deed. She leaned toward Helen and said, “What we’re really wondering is, are you going to keep quiet about all this? Because if you don’t, Harry and I are going to be in seriously deep shit.”
Helen gave Priscilla a startled look and said, “My Dear, I wouldn’t consider going to the police or anyone else about this. I have been immersed in an agonizing limbo for ten years and now that I know, really know, a great weight has been lifted from my heart. Nobody, not even my son, who was more concerned with Harold’s estate then he was about his father, will ever hear about this from me. I’m just thankful that you and Harry are all right, I don’t think I could have coped with your dying also.”
I watched her cry and be comforted by Ona and Eva, and gave a silent, heartfelt, “Amen.”
… . .
THE NEXT DAY, AT THREE IN the afternoon, we buried Frank Jankey and Charles Watson in the woods a few yards from Eva’s house. Priscilla and I did the digging, easily knocking through two inches or so of frozen topsoil. Eva told us to dig deep: “I don’t want no damn coy dog to come trotting up the yard with one of Frank’s bones in his teeth.” So we dug deep, and covered Frank and Charles, their bones in separate stainless steel cases, with dirt and at least two hundred pounds of rocks to mark the spot. In New Hampshire it’s legal to be buried on your property, so in a few months, or weeks, Eva will be buried near the sad pile of stones that marks her beloved’s grave.
Helen, sobbing continuously, hugged everyone two or three times and talked compulsively about her upcoming trip to Florida. As she was leaving, she called me to the window of her gray Lexus, and with Mandy drooling on her shoulder, patted my arm and handed me a stack of money. “God bless you and Priscilla, God bless both of you.” I stood there, holding the money while she pounded my arm. Then she nodded, wiped her eyes, and slowly drove down the hill.
We ate an early supper with the women of River Road. After a final glass of wine we donned rainsuits, gloves and helmets, left River Road, and pedaled the dark, silent streets as sleet hissed out of the night and rattled off our rainsuits like B.B.’s.
We stopped in the middle of Main Street and looked at the dark hulk of the Chapman Building. Priscilla took off her helmet, ran a hand through her flattop and said, “You think they’ll ever be found?”
My leg wounds itched. I gently rubbed them and said, “Someday perhaps. The important question is will we be implicated? And I don’t think we will. They’ve been looking for Anderson for days now, raising all kinds of hell and no one’s so much as blinked in our direction. His leaving his car down by the bridge was a good move for us. Yesterday, Gretchen said they’re about half finished putting the cement floor in the basement, and the utility rooms have cement floors now, so it’s unlikely anyone will rediscover that filthy horror. It’s lost to history and we’ll both be long gone before the supports let go and the damn thing collapses in on itself. So I think we’re good, I think we got out of this thing alive and free from suspicion.”
“Me too,” she said. “And we also got some coin out of it.”
“Yes we did, but not nearly enough.”
She reached over and patted my cheek. “Thanks for telling Eva she didn’t have to pay the five K. Ona was some relieved too, things are tight, and not having to pay you was… ”
“Forget it,” I growled. “Just forget it.”
By the time we walked our bikes into the grove there was an inch of snow on the ground. We made the boat and I got a fire going, poured wine, and settled in by the stove with Cat and a history magazine. Priscilla, as usual, was wandering the dangerous wasteland of nuked D.C., searching for pray and treasure.
Later, I stuck my head out of the forward hatch. The wind was howling through the trees, driving small, brittle flakes of snow against the boat. Cat, who was on my shoulder, waved her bad paw at the night and yowled. I enjoyed a deep shiver and closed the hatch.
I showered, took my supplements with a final glass of wine, fed the stove and turned down the damper. Cat, fed and content, was laying in front of the stove, soaking up the heat. When I burrowed in for the night, Priscilla, clad in her bunny jammies, her pale face glowing in the monitor light, was still on the hunt.
… . .
SOMETIME DEEP IN THE NIGHT A cool hand pressed against my cheek. I jerked awake and looked up. In the dim light I saw Priscilla standing by my bed with Cat hanging from her hand. Her naked body shone with a
pale luminescence in the dim light. “What? What is it?” I stammered.
Priscilla leaned down. With her face close to mine she said softly, “This mangy hairball seems to think it’s her duty to stick her paws in my face and purr in my ear. She’s wrong, and I thought we might … kind of join you for the night, and afterwards… afterwards, maybe the hairball will purr in your ear.”
I dwelled on that for a bit and held up the covers. Priscilla dropped Cat at the end of the bed, climbed in and pressed her hard soft body against me. She nuzzled my neck, put her lips against my ear and whispered, “The game’s over, Harry.”
The End
Table of Contents
Copyright
DEAD DEAD DEAD, THE LITTLE GIRL SAID
Table of Contents
Copyright
DEAD DEAD DEAD, THE LITTLE GIRL SAID
Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said Page 23