Ida pulled in a breath and marched into the chief’s office. Chin up, back straight. Any man named Rather who called his only daughter Ida was setting her up to be a fighter. Ida started fighting in elementary school when her peers fell all over themselves laughing at such witty comments as Ida Rather be at the movies, Ida Rather sit with somebody else.
“You’re running through partners like Ex-lax,” Chief Wren said. “At this rate, they’ll be nobody left.” She sounded more weary than angry. “Tell me what happened.”
“Right,” Ida said. “We responded to a call with a hostage situation. All we knew was that this guy Simon—”
Oh Lord, Jen’s grandfather was at it again. Something had to be done.
“—was barricaded in a house on Ivy Drive, shouting crazy stuff and popping at anything that moved.
A little girl, a three-year-old, was inside with him. Another kid, twelve-year-old boy, lay on the ground in the front yard. Hard to tell how badly he was hurt. Leaking blood, but yelling, so he was still alive. According to him, Lundstrom came hobbling along with a rifle, yelled ‘There you are!’ and shot him. Lundstrom snatched up the kid’s little sister and carted her into the house.”
“Who else was in the house?”
“Nobody. They were all next door. Kids playing outside, Mom’s in the kitchen drinking coffee. Osey positioned me behind a tree and instructed me to keep the back door under surveillance.” Actually he’d said to keep her eyes glued on it and holler if it opened. Then he proceeded to the front of the house. The kitchen window was open and she could hear the suspect inside, yelling and carrying on. “‘Rat going down a rat hole. That’s what they do. Stinking rats down a rat hole.’ I could hear the little girl crying and calling for her mommy. Then.…”
Boom!
The rifle shot shattered the hot air and had her ducking, even though she was on the other side of the house away from the action. She hoped Osey was okay. He didn’t seem like he had the sense to step away from a speeding bullet. She listened, hoping she’d hear something that meant he wasn’t dead on the ground. She eyeballed her surroundings and spotted another door in the side of the house.
They might have a seriously injured little girl inside. If she sneaked in that side door while the sniper’s attention was fixed on the front …
She keyed her radio. “There’s a side door. I’ll see if it’s unlocked.”
“Ida, for God’s sake—” Osey faded away in static.
She darted from behind her tree to the house, then plastered herself against the wall next to the door. She waited. Nothing happened. With a steady hand, she reached to the side for the doorknob and gave it a twist. It turned.
Before she could take a breath, or think a thought, the door snapped inward. The little girl screamed.
A wild-eyed man, breathing hard, pointed the shotgun at Ida’s forehead. Oh, shit, I’m dead.
“Stinking Nazis! Never take me alive!” Boom!
Smoke and fire singed her cheek. The noise deafened her. Osey, blood streaming down his head, yelled.
The shooter racked another cartridge in the chamber. She went for her gun. He swung the barrel around, aimed at her face. She froze. Osey bowled into her knocking her off the step. Boom! They fell in a tangled heap. The shooter bolted.
Osey scrambled to his feet. “Simon! Simon!”
Simon hared off. Osey yelled and took off after him. He was covered in blood. She figured he’d drop down dead any second. She fumbled for her radio to call an ambulance and took off after Osey. Raising her gun, she got a bead on Simon’s back, took a breath and eased her finger around the trigger and—
“No!” Osey, turning back, snarled at her. “For God’s sake, put it away! You’re gonna get somebody killed!”
Simon cackled. “Fucking Nazis. Deserve to die!”
For an old guy he was pretty spry. He whirled and fired off another round.
“Private Lundstrom!” Osey yelled.
The old man faltered. “Who’re you?”
“Corporal Picket. You saved us.” Blood ran down Osey’s face.
Simon looked confused. “I did?”
“Don’t know what would have happened without you.”
“Slippery bastards. One went in a rat hole. Got one.”
“Need a medic.” Osey went up to the old guy, put an arm across his shoulder, and sagged against him.
Simon staggered under Osey’s weight, fumbled to get a grip on his injured comrade. Osey plucked the shotgun away and held it out behind him. Quick as a frog’s tongue, Ida snatched it. Osey, moaning and carrying on, talked to Simon with lines straight out of a World War II movie.
Later at the hospital, when he was getting his head looked at, Osey told her the old guy had Alzheimer’s and thought he was saving life and country from the Nazis. How he managed to get his hands on a shotgun was a mystery. It had been locked up in a cabinet, but somehow the old soldier managed to get a key and slide away from his caregiver. Fortunately, Osey hadn’t been shot. A moment’s thought had made that clear. If he had, half his head would have been blown away. Simon had nicked a corner of the porch and kicked off a chunk of wood that struck Osey’s temple. Bled like a son of a bitch.
“Interviewing neighbors, we learned that Simon was first spotted near the cornfield on the east end of town. We went to question the homeowner, but no one was home.” Ida stiffened her back, lest there be any weakening when the axe fell.
Silence stretched.
“If I keep you on, you think you can manage to stay out of trouble?”
Ida was so certain she’d be booted that it took a second or two before she heard the words and extracted the meaning. “Yes. Yes, ma’am.” She clapped her mouth shut before more words could tumble out.
“Back to work.” The chief sounded very tired. “And, for God’s sake, listen to Osey.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ida ducked out before the chief could get a glimmer of changing her mind.
Osey, white patch of gauze at his temple, was headed for the parking lot when she caught up with him. He slid under the steering wheel. She got in the passenger’s side, snugged up her seat belt and stared out the windshield at the birds endlessly circling in the cloudless blue sky.
“How’s your head?” she said.
“Feels like I been kicked by a mule.”
Ida couldn’t tell if he was still mad or not. “I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah. You already said that.”
“I know. Look, ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a cop. You’ve never seen anybody so happy as when I graduated from the academy. I thought I made it, I’m really going to do this. And then out there…” She waved a hand. “I thought you were dead. It was my fault. I thought…” That my father was right. I’m stupid, inadequate, useless, nothing but excess baggage. “I was really scared. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Hard head,” Osey said. “Takes more than a mule kick to kill me. Just … would you believe I know a thing or two?”
She relaxed her shoulders. “Thanks.”
Did he resent being partnered with her? Hard to tell with Osey. Unlike Demarco who radiated hostility, Osey seemed to deal amiably with whatever got thrown at him. Although he had gotten kind of tight-lipped when she rushed in where she shouldn’t have. If he held it against her, he didn’t show it. He looked slow and lazy, and had a lanky stride that gave the impression he was on the verge of collapse.
“Forget it.” He braked suddenly to avoid a retarded squirrel who darted in front of the cruiser.
“Forget what?”
“Guilt about nearly getting my head blown off. Just don’t do it again.”
“Got it. Is he always like that? Simon, I mean. Lives in nineteen forty-two and runs around shooting people he thinks are Nazis?”
“The uniforms probably set him off. The thing about Simon is, he’s clever about sneaking away from his caregiver. But if you just wait him out, he forgets where he is and what he’s doing and you can just
collect him and take him home.”
“Right. Is he ever lucid?”
“Not really, I guess. Sometimes he recognizes his daughter, mostly he doesn’t, thinks she’s his sister.” A second or two went by, then he looked at her and asked. “Why?”
“Just wondered.” When she had—recklessly as it turned out—rushed into the house, Simon had shouted something about killing someone. But he hadn’t actually, he’d only shot a boy in the leg. The kid was recovering quickly and was getting a lot of mileage out of it.
“When those blackbirds fly around like that, doesn’t it mean they’ve found something dead?” she said.
“Probably. Why?”
“They’re always flying around the cornfield?”
“So?”
She didn’t want to sound like some stupid city chick who didn’t know anything. And she didn’t want to get in trouble again either. From now on she was going to follow orders, not take a step until she was told to. Well, maybe just one.
“You think Simon murdered somebody and slung the body in the cornfield?” A hint of amusement sneaked into Osey’s voice.
“If something isn’t dead out there, why are those birds constantly circling?” It spooked her, those big blackbirds flying their endless circles, like a shot from an old western.
“Farmers are into ecology. Nothing wasted. Cow drops a calf that doesn’t make it, the calf gets spread out for the critters to feed on. Deer hit by a car maybe.”
Dead calves thrown out on the hillside for other animals to eat kind of made her queasy.
Osey looked at her with a breath of inhaled patience. “What?”
“I’m leaving after work. Going home for my niece’s birthday.”
“I thought you were taking your car to the shop.” Osey’s father and brothers owned the garage where she took her car. “How you going to get there?”
“I’m taking the bus home.”
“Aren’t you working tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ll only be gone a day. I get back around noon.” She didn’t have to report for duty until three.
“Want a ride from the bus station?”
“That’d be great.”
They picked up Brett Foster at the swimming pool where he worked as a life-guard. Big football hero, he had to swagger to show his friends the tough don’t worry about a thing. In the interview room, he slouched down in a chair. “What’s the bandage for?” he said to Osey. “Keep your brains from falling out?”
“I’ve been hearing things about you, Brett.” Osey sat across the table. “Things like you were involved in that accident yesterday.”
“It’s too late for the bandage. Your brains already fell out.”
“I heard you were speeding. Racing one of your buddies.”
“You heard wrong.”
“I heard you caused the accident.”
Osey questioned the kid quietly, patiently, relentlessly. Brett didn’t look so tough when Osey pointed out what kind of trouble he was in, speeding, reckless driving, vehicular manslaughter if the injured kid died. This was the same easygoing, amiable Osey, except he never let up. Like that Chinese water torture stuff, drip-drip-drip, never-ending. It was interesting to see Osey pin the kid down when he tried to squirm away.
Before she took her car in after her shift, she drove east to the huge cornfield. The house, probably a farmhouse in some distant past, was a two-story wood frame with a porch running across the front and along one side, turrets sprouted from the second story. It was not a house she would have chosen to live in, sitting across the road from endless rows of corn like it did, with the nearest neighbors nearly a block away. The birds were still there, doing their circle thing.
Leaving her car in the graveled drive, she tromped up on the porch and rang the bell. No answer. With the tight feeling of nerves, she crossed over to the field, determined to know what was dead in the middle. After only a few steps along a row between stalks, she felt claustrophobic. The huge stalks, at least seven feet tall, towered over her. Ears of corn surrounded her. The smell of heat and corn and dust was sickening. Even with the sun blazing down, it was dark inside. And hot. Horrendously hot. Her shoes left shallow impressions in the soft dirt and the wind kicked up a puff of dust with each step. A short distance in left her disoriented. Panic. The heart-hammering, fast-breathing kind that told her she’d never get out of here.
Carefully, she worked her way back to the road and breathed in a gulp of hot air. Shielding her eyes, she looked up at those damn birds. She either disturbed them or they were jeering at her, because now they weren’t so much circling the cornfield as flying around the buildings behind the barn. Forget it, she had a bus to catch.
* * *
Ida occupied Susan’s mind as she drove home around eight-thirty. Would she work out? Eager beaver, hot-headed, apt to use her own judgment rather than following orders. Late evening light filtered through the trees and dappled the sidewalk with shadow. When she spotted Jen walking slowly, backpack dangling from one arm, she pulled over and inched along. “Hey, Jen, like a ride?”
“No thanks.”
“It’s pretty hot for walking.”
“That’s okay. I got someplace to go.”
A clear dismissal that Susan should mind her own business. “What is it, Jen? Tell me what’s the matter?”
A long shuddering sigh. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“There sure won’t be as long as you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
Jen gave her that look teenagers give adults when the adults are being particularly dense.
“Is it your grandfather?”
Shrug. “Yeah.”
“Nobody was seriously hurt.” But only by good fortune. Osey and Ida could both have been killed by a poor, befuddled old man who had been a prisoner during World War II and was probably exacting some revenge for the torture he suffered.
“I gotta go.” Jen trudged off and turned the corner.
Susan watched, then took her foot from the brake and drove on, letting her mind drift back to problems less complicated than adolescence. Ida. Would she settle down and work out? Maybe, if she didn’t leap into something beyond her ability to handle and get herself killed.
9
The bus rumbled its way across Nevada through towns many of which she’d never heard of. Cary dozed and stared out the window at alien landscape, mind disengaged by some numbing wonder at what she’d done. Each stop had her tense with worry, watchful. At Battle Mountain, the glimpse of a cop car jammed her throat with fear. The bus rolled, leaving the car behind. It had nothing to do with her.
A little after six Tuesday morning, the bus pulled into Salt Lake City. She was stiff and tired, sticky and grimy, head sweaty and itchy under the wig, teeth fuzzy. She needed a shower, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, and clean clothes. What she got was her transfer point, with an hour-and-a-half wait. After splashing her face with cold water and washing her hands, she squandered some money on a cup of coffee. With it she ate her remaining peanut butter sandwich. The second bus took her across Utah, and when it reached Dinosaur, Colorado, she hit the twenty-four-hour mark.
Finally, finally, at eight-thirty Tuesday night, they got to Denver. After stiffly climbing from the bus, the first thing she did was find a bathroom and take off the hated wig. She stuffed it in the plastic bag with the knitting. Vigorously she scratched her scalp, digging in with her nails. Turning on the faucet, she stuck her head under the water, then blotted her hair with paper towels.
Tears of misery stung her eyes. She wanted to go home, she wanted California, she wanted Mitch to tell her he loved her. She wanted clean underwear! One foot in front of the other. Keep going. Think about all those steps you’ve already taken. Maybe Mitch found the car by now. He’d be furious. Minus the wig, her own blond hair still wet, Cary went up to the ticket counter.
“Help you?” The man behind the counter was middle-aged and tired and didn’t have much patience. He had a look of either step aw
ay from the counter or pick a destination.
Ticket to oblivion.
Never again would she plant impatiens in the backyard, or smell the Cecil Bruner roses climbing along the fence. Never again would she watch the squirrels scamper through the oak tree, or watch the passion flowers bloom.
The people behind her in line shifted impatiently. “Where to, lady?” the man said.
Home. She swallowed and said softly “Hampstead, Kansas.” She paid for her ticket with more of the twenties.
There was a two-hour wait for her bus. Two hours. Anything could happen in two hours. Mitch could have cops looking for her. Her picture could be out. Missing person. Her stomach rumbled and she bought a hamburger, then sat in a hard plastic chair next to three other tired, defeated-looking people.
The bus came, she got on, sat near a window, and felt herself getting farther and farther from home as it rolled across Colorado. Like she was disappearing, fading little by little. She closed her eyes. When she opened them she was in Limon, Colorado. Somewhere rain had started, and it fell like a heavy mist as far as she could see on the flat prairie. Miles and miles of emptiness, the gray sky like a dome closing down, landscape as bleak and desolate as she felt.
Maybe she’d gotten away from Mitch. Maybe. But she’d lost her sister, her niece and nephew. She dared not even contact them. If he got the idea that Sybil had helped her, he’d hurt Sybil, maybe even the kids. She would disappear from Sybil’s life and Sybil would never know what happened to her.
Cary had only herself to rely on, and what a weak reed she was to cling to. No crying. A crying woman would attract attention. She mustn’t attract attention. A ragged breath caught in her dry throat.
Head on the seat back, she looked out the rain-sluiced window. On the road, wind whirled up small funnels like miniature tornadoes. The bus interior reflected in the glass showed huddled figures trying to find a comfortable position in ungiving seats.
In the front, a young woman juggled a fretful baby while keeping an arm about a toddler asleep with its head on her knee. A teenage boy kept time to music coming through headphones. An older man, maybe a farmer, with leathery skin from constant exposure to weather, swayed, dozing in his seat. Overhead light shone on the book of a young teen sitting with her father. They all looked real and ordinary, like the rain and the wind, real and ordinary. Only Cary sat at odds in their ordinary world, unreal and unbelonging.
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