Skewed

by Anne McAneny

  I looked around one last time. No sign of anyone. Screw it. I was going in. Thirty years was long enough. I got out of my car and entered the code. As the door rose, something crashed. Either Grandpa had literally stuffed this thing and I was disrupting a carelessly constructed house of cards, or I was about to come face-to-face with a big, hairy rat who’d made a nest in Grandma Elizabeth’s old wool sweaters.

  “Are you kidding me?” I said aloud when the door revealed the mess. It reminded me of our attic growing up—and our attic had been a fire hazard twice over. Couches piled on tables ornamented with precariously balanced lamps next to rolled rugs, canvas paintings, toys, chairs, and boxes upon boxes of hastily labeled junk. Grandpa was not one for discarding anything with sentimental value, but apparently he was not above treating it like garbage.

  I flicked a light switch and was rewarded with a single ceiling bulb. For all the illumination it provided, I could have lit a match. As I exhaled, I heard an echo. Did rats breathe loudly? I held my breath and listened. Nothing. Come on, Janie, keep it together.

  No way to move the heavy furniture by myself, so I decided to mount it and work my way from top to bottom. A tall stack of overstuffed boxes was piled against the wall about three-quarters of the way back, so I planted one foot onto the arm of an upholstered chair, placed my other foot on a coffee table, and worked out the rest as I went along. By the time I reached the boxes, I was coughing up dust and pulling off enough cobwebs to knit a silk scarf. At an altitude of twelve feet—Grandpa had gone for the double-tall unit—I summited. Grabbing a random couch cushion, I set it on a pile of plastic bins, took a seat, and let my feet dangle into a small, steep shaft of surprisingly empty space surrounding a metal support pole. The fact that the pole had rusted did not say much for the moisture-control settings in the unit.

  I set my phone on the couch cushion and reached over for the top box, helpfully labeled Miscellaneous. The moment I touched it, two hands pummeled my back, casting me down into the narrow chute of darkness, junk encasing me. The pole scraped against my skin and I felt like the victim of a hazing ritual for fire department newbies. I landed hard on my heels, but at least on top of the contents of the box I’d grabbed; Miscellaneous evidently stood for throw pillows, providing one bright spot in a very dire and confined situation—one where I was trapped like a kid in a well, with only a maniac for company.

  The relief over my intact bones morphed into panic as I scrambled for cover but found no place to turn. I was locked in tight, completely constricted in a straitjacket of random, useless crap. If the person who pushed me down here had a gun, there was nothing between my skull and an impending bullet except my hair—and, horse tail or not, it would not stop a bullet.

  I braced myself, but no enemy fire rained down. Then the barest shatter of thin glass sounded and everything went black. The intruder had broken the bulb. It was followed by scampering, a fair bit of muttering, items crashing, and at least one more breakable item shattering against the floor.

  “Leroy? Is that you? Please, Leroy! We can work together! Don’t leave me here—please!”

  Slowly it dawned on me that I was trying to reason with a man who’d been described in recent days as mentally unstable, sociopathic, schizophrenic, abused, irrational, and most of all, desperate enough to kill. My discomfort probably wasn’t real high on his list of priorities. But what if it was far more than discomfort? What if I never got out of here?

  And then I heard it.

  The door to the storage unit lowered and slammed shut. A metallic click followed. Then nothing. Nothing! Not even the breath of a single rat.

  My own breathing filled the silent void—short, quick, desperate, my mind racing even faster. What if I suffocated? What if more items came crashing down in the world’s most pathetic avalanche, crushing me and cutting off my air? What if no one found me? What if Leroy stole my car and Jack thought I’d never arrived—or had been kidnapped? Would he even search inside the unit? Some future bidder would buy the unit at auction and never explore it until I was a pile of bones, hair, and teeth on top of a throw pillow.

  I scratched, clawed, and wiggled awkwardly, clumsily, to no avail. I tried to scale the pole pressing into my back, but I could barely bend my knees or lift my arms, let alone make it to the top. The only movement came from my rattling, hammering heart. What if? What if? What if!

  Unbidden, I saw the situation for what it was: I was entombed in a vertical coffin of darkness inside a sealed room.

  CHAPTER 49

  Bridget Perkins, 30 Years, 3 Minutes Ago

  Bridget Perkins skidded up to the front of her house, convinced for most of the drive that another car was following her. Was it the strange repairman? Was it Grady, having made it from his office in record time? She’d barely exhaled, driving like a demon, until her pursuer had turned off into the Abels’ long driveway. Was it her imagination or had the car shut off its headlights before making the turn?

  Damn her stupidity. Why hadn’t she just driven to the police station? He’d never have confronted her there. This was insane, but Daddy would protect her.

  Her heart leapt in terror. Where was Daddy’s truck? Oh, no, he was out with clients. She’d forgotten. Now what? Maybe she should have stayed at the diner? No, she couldn’t have lingered there a moment longer. If she was destined to be killed by a psycho, she didn’t want her last breath of life to be the stale, greasy air of Field Diner.

  She threw aside her coat and purse and dashed to the kitchen to call the police. But wait—if she was followed, if he was close behind, she needed to get rid of the evidence. Where? Where to hide it until things settled down? She glanced around the kitchen. In a drawer? No. The refrigerator? No, too obvious. The whole kitchen was obvious. She spun, searching, her eyes seeing but barely absorbing. She reached into her apron and pulled out the item that might get her killed and rushed into the living room. Her eyes alighted on the gray-and-white marble table in the back corner and she knew what to do. If she had time.

  Suddenly she stopped. Dead in her tracks. Her thoughts raced as time slowed and a startling realization overtook her. She flicked on the lamp next to her—two clicks to put it on its brightest setting. Staring at the item in her hand, she ran her fingers over its surface. As she lifted it to the light, tears ran down her face, but her jaw tightened and her shoulders squared in a show of fierce resolve. At the very least, she had to save the twins.

  Willing the strength of the mother she was destined to be, she completed her task with only slightly fumbling fingers, then turned around as the intruder’s hand wiggled the back doorknob. She turned off the light.

  CHAPTER 50

  I screamed. Like a panicked, trapped, helpless baby. I screamed like there was no tomorrow, which I was certain there wasn’t. And then I screamed again.

  It saved me. It brought me back. Somehow, the savagery of the sound, the desperation in my own cry, allowed me to settle into the reality of my plight, to grab hold of it and wrestle it into submission. In fact, I couldn’t possibly be safer. No one could get in to hurt me.

  Except the brimming psychotic who’d put me here.

  Dammit.

  Okay, don’t think about being trapped in here with the furniture that surrounded Mom as she collapsed, her blood spattering everywhere. Don’t think about the specter that rose from that bloodstain and haunted you as a child. Don’t believe that Jack might assume you never even got here, or that Wexler has no idea where you are because you were too pissed off to tell him. Wexler had every right to treat you like garbage. You disrespected the job. You put cases at risk. Suck it up! Just get out and you can set things right with him. Get out. Get out. Get out! After minutes of repeating that harsh mantra and forcing my heart rate to a more reasonable level of panic, I got to work.

  My phone had been lost in the downward tumble to this hellhole, so it was either beneath my feet or it was still up ther
e on the couch cushion. Good. I had a goal: find my damn phone.

  The space in which I was cramped was about fourteen by twenty inches, so I used my feet to feel for the phone. Mostly, I found pillows, but that gave me an idea. I stacked the pillows as best I could with my feet. My hands were level with a shoebox, so I tore at the cardboard and wiggled my fingers around inside. It felt like an old pair of shoes—Grandpa Barton really needed a hoarding intervention. I worked them from the box and cast them to the floor, where I proceeded to step on them. Then I grabbed whatever other items I could reach with barely mobile arms and cast them to the floor. If I couldn’t climb out, I would lift myself up on a slowly mounting pile of junk. I just hoped the removal of surrounding items didn’t bring the whole mess down on top of me.

  By the time I added old place mats, Jack’s toy trucks, the legs of several dolls—I had no idea why they were separated—multiple burlap sacks, and an empty spice rack, I was at least a foot and a half higher, and though I could wriggle my arms overhead, I still couldn’t bend my knees. I yanked down a Tupperware container, but the heat in the unit must have warped it. It popped open and something spilled from it. A choking powder poured onto my face and I made the idiotic mistake of inhaling; breathing became impossible. Every time I tried to cough, more of the stinging, burning substance worked its way into my lungs, not to mention the number it was doing on my eyes. With my next attempt to inhale, I began drowning from the inside out, with no water in sight. My agitated lungs rebelled against the intrusive matter by forcing a cough but then leaving me even more desperate for air. I grew dizzy and felt my heart pounding against my chest and back. Knowing a full-blown panic attack was imminent, I suddenly got one hint of air and caught the unmistakable scent of curry powder. It filled my nostrils, my brain, my entire being. For God’s sake, the Tupperware must have contained the spices that belonged in the rack beneath my feet, and the curry must have been left on Pour mode. That jerked me back to a really pissed-off reality.

  I could damn well die in this cursed storage unit, but I sure as shit refused to be defeated by a condiment, especially one I didn’t like. I embraced the coughing and sputtering and reminded myself I could go minutes without air. I was stronger than this.

  Finally, my lungs relaxed and I took a slow, cautious breath. The more oxygen I consumed, the calmer I grew. Trapped like a worm in a greasy straw and coated in curry, I began to laugh, complete with tears, at my sorry state of affairs, wondering if my goose was cooked or just being seasoned for later. I resumed my work, building and riding the slowest, most random elevator in history.

  An hour later, I hoisted myself from the hole, vowing to set the entire, hateful unit on fire—right after I found that damn haiku.

  I grabbed my phone and saw two missed calls, a text, and a voice mail from Jack, along with six missed calls from Wexler. I called the latter. As I relayed my predicament, the sound of relief and joy in his voice gave me hope. It got me through the next few minutes as I climbed toward the door in pitch blackness. I gingerly descended the unstable mountain, unlocked the door from the inside, and hoisted it open, surprised to see that it was getting dark. As I prepared to call my brother to deliver a much-deserved tirade for being late to his sister’s near-funeral, Wexler’s car whizzed up; he’d only been a mile away when we spoke. He and Nicholls and the seedy Stuff-n-Stash manager got out and stared, collectively relieved but utterly confused. Finally Nicholls strutted over and sniffed me.

  “Yo, Jane Doe, what’d you do? Cook up a little Indian while you were in there?”

  “It was tight quarters, Nicholls,” I said, “and I had nothing else to do.”

  Wexler pushed Nicholls aside, grabbed my arms, and pulled me in. He kissed me in front of everyone and didn’t even mind the curry. “You never fail to surprise me,” he whispered. “And don’t you ever do that again.”

  I smiled, my teeth surely a ghoulish white against my seasoned skin.

  “Well, I’ll be a one-balled monkey on a teeter-totter,” Nicholls said, spitting a pumpkin seed from his mouth. “You two are an item, eh?”

  The manager laughed, sticking his tongue through the gap where his front teeth should have been. My brother pulled up a minute later, lamely explaining how he’d taken a wrong turn and ended up on some closed-off construction site where a nail proceeded to puncture his tire. He held up greasy fingers as proof. It was good to see mighty Jack Perkins with a little dirt on his hands again. I finally accepted his apology, but only because his groveling was truly first-rate.

  “So, Janie,” Wexler asked, “you think it was Leroy in there with you?”

  “Had to be, right?”

  Nicholls shook his head. “First the guy’s rolling around in a wheelchair; then he’s breaking and entering, scaling decks, spelunking through a veritable cave of shit in this unit. I mean, what’s next for this guy?”

  All feelings of lightness and relief dissipated. How long had Leroy been in the unit before me? Long enough for him to have found what I was seeking?

  “Janie, what’s wrong?” Wexler asked.

  Before I could answer, Nicholls got an urgent call on his radio: a shoot-out and an officer with a bullet in his buttocks down near the river; suspect still at large. Wexler and Nicholls exchanged a serious look and both said, “Schwank.” A bullet striking any cop penetrated the psyches of all the guys on the force, even if it was Schwank. There was no doubt they were heading to the river, especially with a suspect still on the loose.

  “You guys go,” I said. “Jack and I will finish up here.”

  Wexler looked less than reassured, but Nicholls was ready to roll. “Come on, horny boy. Janie’s a tough cookie. We’ll be back in plenty of time for you to say good night.”

  I grinned at Wexler, reminded him that nobody had taken down the Haiku Twins yet, and told him to go save Schwank’s sorry ass. As they pulled away, I shouted at them to wear their vests—a bit of the protective girlfriend instinct taking over.

  When Jack and I were alone, he turned to me, flummoxed. “Okay, Sis, what in God’s name were you looking for in there?”

  “A picture of Mom on her twelfth birthday, standing in front of Grandma and Grandpa, holding pink, white, and orange balloons.”

  He tilted his head. “Feeling nostalgic?”

  “Mom hid the haiku in the frame.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Jack and I pulled up to Grandpa’s house at the same time. He opened his trunk and unloaded the first of the four large boxes that had been labeled Pix. I ran ahead and unlocked the front door for him.

  “You sure we should be doing this here?” Jack said. “Maybe we should take these boxes to the police.”

  “Trust me, the police would not appreciate us hauling this stuff in to explore a hunch. Besides, it feels right that it should be you and me, here.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Aww, is little Jackie scared?”

  “Let’s be real. This Leroy guy has been one step ahead of everybody for days now.”

  “Try thirty years.”

  “Exactly. What makes you think he’s not waiting in there with a loaded gun?”

  “Guns aren’t really his style. Maybe cyanide or arsenic.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Besides, he’s probably at your place or mine, or your office, with a syringe at the ready. No way he’d think we’d drive this stuff out to Caulfield.”

  “All right, but if we find that damn haiku, it’s evidence.”

  “And between the two of us, Jack, I think we know how to handle evidence.”

  Jack sighed and entered the house, his feet heavy under the weight of the box. I grabbed another box and followed. When we got them all in, we sat side by side on the couch in the living room, where it had all gone down thirty years ago. The boxes sat at our feet, illuminated by the dim lamp Jack had switched on. The stars shined in through
the branches of the giant magnolia, its silhouette making me shiver. I’d never be able to wash away the memory of Mickey’s actions in that tree.

  “Quack,” Jack said, pulling me back to reality.

  “Pardon?”

  “Well, we are sitting ducks.”

  “Would you grow a set?” I said, immediately regretting my tone. I didn’t want us to be fighting at a moment like this. “Sorry.”

  He shrugged it off. “Why are you so sure Mom hid the haiku behind that particular picture?”

  “You know how Sophie Andricola did that rendering from the original photos—the ones Betty Fitzsimmons mailed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she also went back and blew up the first photo big-time, the one that was a general shot of this room. She broke it into a dozen separate portions and enhanced each with paint and pencil. It was amazing, lots of freaky detail. In one, she zeroed in on the marble table with the framed photos.” I gestured to the table across the room, one of the few items that had survived the overhaul.

  “And what? She saw Mom’s fingerprints on the birthday picture?”

  “No. It was the only photo out of place.”

  “Elsa the Terrible!”

  “Bingo! Elsa treated those photos like soldiers. The ones on the left all tilted uniformly, facing some front-and-center point, and the ones on the right at the same angle, but in the opposite direction.”

  “Remember that time you crashed and knocked ’em all over?”

  “You tackled me.”

  “You still crashed.”

  I elbowed him. “Anyway, on Mondays and Wednesdays, Elsa cleaned the bedrooms and the kitchen. On Fridays, she did the living room, dining room, and basement. Mom was shot on a Saturday, so those frames would still have been perfectly positioned.”