Skewed

by Anne McAneny

  Jack nodded, infatuated with the power of evidence.

  “The birthday photo was off by at least fifteen degrees, and, according to Grady, Mom was standing in the middle of the living room when he walked in.”

  “So she’d just hidden the haiku in the frame and was turning around when Grady arrived?”

  “Not Grady. She’d just hidden the haiku and turned around when someone else came in the back deck door first. Someone who followed her, or who already knew she lived here.”

  We both looked at that door, holding a solemn, silent vigil. Slowly, deliberately, I stood and walked to the marble table and placed my hands on it as I spoke, my back to my brother. “Mom had just hidden the haiku, her heart pounding, her hands shaking, maybe even sweating. She would have been refastening the backing to the frame, maybe using her dirty apron to wipe away her handprints when the first footstep sounded on the back deck.”

  I whipped my head around as my mother would have done.

  “Stop it, Janie. You’re freaking me out.”

  “She quickly put the frame back in place, but didn’t have time to position it just so. The last thing she wanted was to be caught near the table, because then he’d know. So she turned around quickly, trying to make it look like she’d been anywhere but at that table.”

  I stepped away from the table just as my mother would have done.

  “She took a few steps toward the center of the room, with designs on making it to the front door, maybe dashing through it to safety and freedom, knowing Grady would be on his way, but the footsteps grew faster and she heard a hand grasp the knob. It jiggled only slightly, but she knew the door wasn’t locked. Nobody locked doors back then. She stopped cold and awaited her fate, desperately formulating ways to talk her way out of it. Then the door creaked open.”

  “Leroy Fitzsimmons,” Jack whispered, his voice as tense as his body.

  I stared at the door, half-expecting it to open.

  “Maybe,” I whispered back.

  “What are you talking about? Who else could it have been?”

  A footstep suddenly sounded on the lowest step of the back deck, followed by another. Jack and I glared at each other. We quickly became a joint force of one, back to back, defending our territory.

  “You carrying?” he whispered.

  “No.”

  The footsteps came steadily, growing quieter as the intruder exercised more caution with every move.

  Jack reached over and flicked off the lamp. The last image engraved on the rods and cones of my eyes branded itself there in a photo-negative brain rush: Jack’s glistening, dark eyes staring at me, terrified but determined. The Haiku Twins didn’t cut and run; they stayed and fought.

  I reached over and grabbed a thick glass vase from a table, then took six silent steps toward the door, matching them to the pace of the person crossing the deck. Heavy. Measured.

  Jack did the same and took up a crouched position next to the door. Ready position.

  “Starsky and Hutch,” he murmured, referencing our old childhood game and favorite rerun.

  A flashlight beam flicked on outside and pressed directly to the lowermost pane of the door as the knob jiggled.

  The door was locked.

  I snaked my left arm up to the knob as the beam searched wildly around the room. In one swift motion, I unlocked the bolt and yanked it open as Jack sprang onto the unsuspecting visitor. The audible intake of breath from the intruder was immediately stifled by Jack’s hard-charging, full-body assault.

  I raced onto the deck, the heavy vase poised and ready to crack a head, but from the excruciating sound of a skull hitting the deck planks, I knew my strike would be redundant.

  A second set of arrhythmic footsteps rushed up the back deck stairs, startling both Jack and me and sending us into a flurry of confusion.

  “What in God’s name?” said a slow, deliberate voice. “Jedediah, you okay?”

  It was Mr. Abel, holding a rifle at his side and looking aghast at his unconscious son-in-law. He leaned down next to Jed, laying the gun on the deck.

  Jack grabbed the flashlight from where it had fallen and shone it on the person who’d borne the brunt of his pummeling. “Jed Matheny?”

  “Annelise’s husband,” I said in case Jack had forgotten. “From next door.”

  Jack aimed the flashlight at Mr. Abel. “What are you doing here?”

  Mr. Abel frowned and looked embarrassed when he saw the vase in my hand. “I’m awful sorry, Jack and Janie.” It may have been the first time he’d ever addressed us both by name. “Guess we scared the wits out of you two.”

  “Never mind that,” Jack said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Jed spotted those kids who’ve been causin’ so much trouble around these parts lately. They had a fire going in the woods, smoking, drinking, and whatnot. When he approached them, they ran off in this direction, so Jed came back and got me. Thought we should check it out, what with Barton in the hospital and all. We saw one of ’em near the house, so I went back, got my gun, and we figured we might catch him in the act.”

  I heard the tale with a mixture of skepticism and fear. As my mind flew in eight different directions, Jack cut in. “Did you ever think to check the front of the house, Mr. Abel, to see if it was Janie or me?”

  “You don’t know how bad it’s gotten. The kids these days are downright delinquent. And with the disturbance the other night and that murderer on the loose, we didn’t know what to think. What are you doin’ here so late, anyway?”

  I noticed Mr. Abel looking beyond me and gazing at the boxes inside. “You’d better get Jed home,” I said. “Get some ice on that head. You know the signs of concussion, Mr. Abel?”

  Jed helped clarify the answer by coming to and moaning. “Oh, man, I’m gonna be sick. What happened?”

  “You let your guard down,” Mr. Abel said harshly. “Now hush and we’ll get you home.”

  “Let me help you,” Jack said, righting Jed, who looped a long arm over his shoulders. Jed dwarfed both Jack and Mr. Abel and would be a handful to transport. “I’ll drive you back,” Jack said. “My car’s up front.”

  “Jed,” I said, “have you and Mr. Abel been together the past few hours?”

  Mr. Abel looked surprised by the question, and Jed seemed too muddled to do anything but give a straight-up answer. “Yeah. We were workin’ on my truck for a good while before all the commotion started.”

  My suspicions about Mr. Abel suddenly dissipated, but if they did prove true, I figured Jack would be safe with Jed as a barrier between them.

  “You’ll be okay here for a few minutes, Janie?” Jack asked. I assured him I would be, and the three of them tramped through the house and out the front door.

  I waved as Jack drove off, suppressing a grin at the thought of Annelise descending the stairs in floppy pajamas and face cream, only to see handsome Jack Perkins—the one who got away—in her living room. What a delightful scene it would be.

  I closed the door and the silence of the house grew heavy and sullen. I stayed motionless, weighing the idea of facing the boxes without Jack. And then I heard a noise. A creak, a crack, a jarring. Definitely something. I stood there, holding my breath for what felt like a minute, but heard nothing else. Come on, Janie, you’re almost there. It’s the same noises you cherished growing up in this old place, the ones that let you know you were home and safe.

  Even in my calmer state, I turned on every light and returned to the living room to face the four boxes.

  The birthday photo was in the second box, beneath a cheese grater that had, oddly, worked its way into the Pix box. I stared at it, disbelieving. Here it was. In my hands. I’d found it.

  In the photo, the balloons drifted left; there must have been a gentle breeze that day. And my mom looked so happy, like she knew the best secret in the world and
she was proud to keep it. The three of them—my mother and Grandpa Barton and Grandma Elizabeth—grinned back at me with delighted expressions that held no warning, no hint of a Perkins family curse. They were simply a family intertwined, touching in as many places as they could through linked arms, held hands, fingers on shoulders, with no idea how violently the links would shatter one day.

  The frame was cheap; the photo, displayed with no mat, showed signs of fading. I flipped it over. No back paper to keep out dust and insects or to fight humidity. I hoped the contents hidden within were okay. Slowly, I pried up the small metal prongs that held the coated cardboard in place. Despite my care, one prong snapped off. Had my mother pressed them back too hastily in her panic? With the release of the final prong, the backing came loose and seemed to let out a sigh, relieved to finally share its burden.

  I eased off the cardboard to reveal a piece of plain card stock, placed there for its thickness, to keep the photo pressed properly to the glass. Gray and thin, it was utterly nondescript, but I stared at it in awe. There would be no more layers, no more barriers, only this insubstantial piece of glorified paper, and then the reason my mother had died.

  I lifted it.

  Nothing.

  I panicked, stricken with a profound sadness and the utmost rage. I fought the urge to hurl the whole thing, glass and all, across the room, shattering it into a thousand pieces to make it feel as crushed as my soul.

  Nothing?

  And then it fluttered down. It had been stuck to the other side of the cardboard.

  A napkin. A single, square napkin. Cocktail-size. It landed by my feet.

  Hands shaking, I picked it up and turned it over.

  There it was. In a fine, black ink. The haiku.

  CHAPTER 52

  Bridget Perkins, 30 Years, 1 Minute Ago

  Bridget and her dad—heck, everyone in Caulfield—were so dang trusting that nobody bolted their doors until heading to bed for the night. And even then, they forgot half the time. Bridget knew before the first rattle of the door handle that it would be unlocked, allowing the intruder to walk right in as if invited for tea. Truth be told, she wasn’t entirely sure who it would be.

  Still in her heavy shoes from the diner, she took four small, silent steps away from the hidden haiku and toward the center of the room before freezing in place. Maybe he wouldn’t look this way. Maybe he’d go straight to the kitchen or assume she’d headed upstairs. She’d been a star sprinter in high school; perhaps escape was still an option. But even as the desperate thoughts nibbled at her brain, she knew he’d spot her right away, that he’d have seen the lamp go dark, that he’d sense her fear, her rigidness, her vulnerability exactly where she was, exactly how she was. People like him, they just knew.

  He entered, as if her dread had cued him, and turned to her immediately. His tiny flashlight pointed downward and then glided to her feet, her waist, and, finally, her face. The night was so dark and the moon so absent that Bridget couldn’t quite make out the details of her visitor, but she knew him now and felt relief that the aura of suspense had been punctured. She turned the lamp back on to reduce the effects of his flashlight. Things were in motion now, things that would change simple events into incidents with aftermaths.

  What was the man’s name again? What had Grady called him?

  “Why?” he said in the trifling voice she recognized from the diner just a short time ago. “Is it some sick thing you do, some game you play?” Then his words took on an omniscient quality, a declarative air. “You take people’s things, waitress.”

  “Yes” was the only syllable Bridget could manage, and its simple utterance—the first time she’d ever admitted her transgression—weakened her resolve, made her feel exposed. “I’m sorry.”

  “You have no idea,” he said, “no idea what you’ve done.”

  “I’ve already called Grady. He’s on his way.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I’m afraid?”

  “You should be. You know that as well as I do.”

  “You and I, waitress, we’re alike,” he hissed. “Both victims. The unnoticed, the underappreciated, the insignificants crawling undetected like dust mites feasting on humans in slumber. You serve your customers and they don’t even notice your perfect face.” He cast his eyes down, ashamed. “I noticed . . . tonight.” He drew a deep breath and then jerked his head up. “I spend days skulking through ductwork, laboring in crawl spaces, stooped low on floors, always discreet in unseen corners, forgotten yet devouring. Not with my mouth, mind you, but with my ears, eyes, brain, and sometimes . . . my fingers. You see, I, too . . . I, too, pilfer, but I suspect you already know that.”

  Headlights bounced over the bump at the distant top of the driveway and lit up the paleness of the man’s face. Twice more as the car grew closer, he stood in brief illumination, flickering but immobile. From the sound of the engine, Bridget knew the approaching vehicle wouldn’t be Daddy’s truck. It was a car with an expensive, purring engine, moving fast, frantically, as if a life depended on it.

  “Where is it?” he said.

  Bridget found the steel within her that had made her so attractive to Grady. “I understand what you go through, how hard it is for you. But this doesn’t have to end horribly. I need to protect my twins, and if that means keeping a secret for a short time, I’m willing to do that.”

  His voice fell to a whisper. “Keep your secret, and God willing—or me prevailing—perhaps you won’t get hurt.”

  He stepped back, gliding along the floor into the kitchen, effortlessly slipping into the shadows as he’d done so many times before.

  Grady pulled open the front door.

  CHAPTER 53

  My mother’s life for a simple napkin? A napkin that had been in a room with me most of my life? It seemed unfathomable that so much had depended on so little, until I recalled how I’d almost lost my own life over a slip of paper no larger than a cookie’s fortune.

  I read the haiku, scrawled as it was in a combination of print and cursive:

  Public Serve-ant Slave

  Pandering gratuity

  To none you serve now

  I read it again, dismayed to realize I didn’t even care about the words. Sick thoughts from a disturbed mind. This ultimate discovery, the big revelation, felt wholly anticlimactic. It could have applied to Grady. It could have been for my mother. It could have targeted anyone in a service or public profession. Whoever it was, their life had been spared by my mother’s nimble fingers, the plan diverted, with her life taken instead.

  It all seemed so futile, so silly, and yet I knew the importance of the item in my hands. The handwriting could be traced back to the killer and the napkin forensically analyzed. I gazed at it, my eyes seeing the words, my brain hearing their threat, my fingers appreciating the angel-wing texture of their source, but only my subconscious absorbed these details. Most of all, I felt sad and exhausted, beyond repair. Hot tears dripped down my cheeks.

  My phone rang, startling me from my curled position on the sofa, lost in the words of a demon, a man who’d lain in wait all this time for the survivors of his massacre to rise up and send him to hell. I hardly felt like a threat.

  “Hello?” I said into my phone, scraping together the energy.

  “Janie, it’s Grady, just calling to check on you, make sure you’re okay after our ordeal with finding Sam today.”

  “Grady,” I said, my voice catching. “I’m fine, but . . .”

  “You’re still shaken up, aren’t you? Want to get together? Maybe we could have a drink together without thugs barging in on us.”

  I took a moment of heretofore unimaginable pleasure in being comforted by my father, and then answered in a whisper. “I found it.”

  “You found it?” His voice held wonder, delight. “The haiku?” The two words were uttered with such profound awe t
hat my tears flowed freely as I realized I’d not only found the haiku, but the key to Grady’s full exoneration, perhaps the catalyst to his future. Could this simple napkin bring everything full circle and provide a worthy ending, if not a perfect one, to a long, dismal story?

  I heard Grady swallow back his own tears and sniff away years of pent-up emotion.

  “Where are you?” he said, his words barely breaking the surface.

  “Grandpa Barton’s.”

  “Oh, Janie, this is . . .” And the resonant voice of the strong survivor faded to blissful silence.

  “I know,” I said, and we hung up shortly thereafter.

  I went to call Jack but saw his cell phone sitting on the couch next to me. Poor Jack, stuck over there with Annelise, unable to use a fake call or text as an excuse to depart. Ah well, it was news best delivered in person anyway, sister to brother.

  I forced myself from the couch and walked to the stairs, halfway to the second floor before realizing my destination: my mother’s room. I needed to be as close to her as possible, to let her know it was over, but when I entered I was seized with an unspeakable energy, a determination that would not subside until I succeeded.

  I laid the napkin on my mother’s white desk near a set of art pencils that had remained unused, their sharp points having always offered potential, but never hope. To keep the napkin in place, I weighed it down with my mother’s final sculpture, a haunting piece that had hinted at a unique depiction of a man and his much larger shadow. I turned to face the room head-on.

  One thought extinguished all others: my mother had kept journals. Grandpa Barton would never have discarded them or subjected them to an unforgiving storage locker. I scanned the pristine room, reluctant to disrupt all that Grandpa had fought to preserve, so I sat on the bed and employed the best search tool I owned: my mind.

  If my mom and I were so alike in our guileful ways, shouldn’t our hiding spots be similar? Somewhere permanent, not a dresser drawer, not anything remotely mobile that could be cast off or stowed. A minute later I rose confidently and approached her closet. I removed the hanging clothes that Grandpa had refused to relinquish, followed by crates of sweaters, shoe boxes, a pack of forgotten lightbulbs, a mousetrap—unused—and some corroded batteries. Then I stepped inside and took full measure of the small space. I knew immediately to turn around and look up. At the top of the closet, above the door frame, near the vent housing was a thin, triangular cut in the drywall, about six inches on a side. A finger-size hole had been bored in its center. Using a crate as a step stool, I climbed up and raised my hand to the triangle. My index finger fit the hole perfectly.