Clean Burn

by Karen Sandler

  “What did you find out from Lucy?” I asked, hoping to defuse the tension.

  “A crazy story. She heard the kid crying, went out to find him on her porch. Couldn’t stop him from crying, so took him down to SaveMart to buy him a doll.”

  “Except it was her supposed daughter she thought she was buying the doll for.”

  “Yeah,” Ken said. “Lucy swears she never went to the Vallejo’s house. Her pickup truck is similar to the one the witnesses saw, but the mileage to and from doesn’t match the odometer.”

  “It’s a pretty generic truck,” I pointed out. “You really think she took that boy from his house?”

  “How’d she get hold of him if she didn’t?”

  I had no answer to that. I told him about Sharon Peele’s burns, and he agreed it was worth a conversation with her. He still hadn’t tracked down Marty’s actual address. Arnie only had a P.O. Box and Denning didn’t exactly have a host of friends in town who might know the location.

  The parking lot of the community center off Main Street was packed with cars. I could hear the music blasting from inside the moment I opened my door. Teens and tweens swarmed the wide lawn in the front of the building, boys and girls eyeing each other, considering the possibilities. Cassie sat with a cluster of her friends on a tree swing that had been set up under a massive blue oak.

  Just inside, a shrine of sorts to Brandon Thompson had been set up. His mother and father hovered nearby, mom’s eyes red but dry, dad looking lost. Photographs and memorabilia of Brandon’s short life, from baby photos and a soft, knit blanket, to soccer pictures and well-worn shin guards surrounded a basket filled with checks and cash. I dropped a ten into the basket.

  The band was live and raucous, bluegrass with a sprinkle of rock. The musicians ranged from early thirties down to one young man who looked barely out of his teens. An enthusiastic crowd gyrated on the dance floor, couples whirling past me at light speed.

  Ken leaned close to shout in my ear. “That’s Brandon’s oldest brother on fiddle. The one on the left.”

  That explained how they’d been able to muster such an accomplished band on such short notice. Watching the dancers, Ken’s foot tapping in time with the music, I had an uneasy suspicion he was about to ask me out on the floor. He’d turned to me, put out his hand when rescue arrived in the form of Miss Sweet-as-pie.

  “They’re playing Levi Jackson Rag next, Sheriff,” she informed him. “I’m looking for a partner.”

  She gazed up at him dreamily, then gave me a narrow-eyed glare behind his back. I gave her a friendly smile. “Have at it.”

  Ken mouthed Save me! as she dragged him out on the dance floor. I ignored him, dodging the gyrating bodies searching for sanctuary. Flip-down chairs were installed along the walls that flanked the stage and a table with munchies and punch was set up beside Brandon’s shrine. The chairs were mostly occupied by the older, blue haired set who probably wouldn’t appreciate a young, spry thing such as myself in their company. So I scooped up a handful of chips and found a corner beside the snacks table where I could hide.

  I found McPherson there, swaying slightly, sipping punch from a red Solo cup. I guessed that the bulge in his jacket pocket was his friend, Mr. Gin Bottle.

  I raised my voice so he could hear. “Can you explain the small town appeal to me? Is it that everyone knows your business... but pretends they don’t when it’s convenient? That they love to sit in judgment and sniff out your dirtiest laundry? Or just that you can’t get a decent cup of coffee anywhere within fifty miles?”

  Whatever high he’d experienced from saving Norberto had come crashing down. He looked at me blearily, as if I’d intended he take my questions seriously. “Can hide inna small town if you want to.” He slurred the words only slightly.

  “You can hide in the city,” I pointed out.

  He shook his head, then took a healthy swallow of the boozy punch. “People’re everywhere. Watching you. Here, you can fall inna river an’ no one will ever find you.”

  He stared morosely down at his cup. Had the alcohol put him in such a damned gloomy mood, or was something else eating at him?

  “We found the kid Lucy took,” I reminded him.

  I thought he’d smile at that, him being the hero, but he only looked more morose. “What ‘bout those two boys? Ones you been looking for?” he asked.

  “Still missing.”

  He took another sip. “Too bad.”

  Ken and Miss Sweet-as-pie do-si-do’ed or sashayed or whatever dancers do past me, the admin glowing as she gazed adoringly up at him. When the dance ended and the band launched into a polka, he put out a hand toward me, begging again for rescue. Cold-hearted bitch that I am, I backed out of reach and left him to Miss Sweet-as- pie’s tender mercies.

  Rich gripped his cup so hard, a little of it sloshed on his hand. “D’you got kids?”

  I thought of Benjamin. “No, I don’t. How about you?”

  He shook his head slowly, his gaze fixed on something across the dance floor. A woman was shaking an angry finger at her five year old son. The boy said something to her and she gave him a swat on the butt.

  Victim of abuse that I was, I generally had two responses to that sort of thing. Either instant knee-jerk fear would jet through me, or blinding anger, depending on whether it was the child me or adult me that stood up inside. More adult than child tonight, I wanted to walk over and give that mother a shake.

  McPherson looked mildly horrified at the woman’s treatment of the boy, and I wondered if he was also a member of the abuse survivor club. “Your parents hit you like that?”

  He shook his head. “Din’t believe in phys’cal punishment.” The last word came out in three carefully enunciated syllables.

  He tipped up the cup, gulping down the last of it, then made his unsteady way to the punch bowl. He served some more up, only half of it landing in the cup. He must have trusted me, or else he was too far gone to care because he turned back toward me, coming close enough so my body would shield him from view of the room. Then he reached inside his jacket for the bottle and topped off the punch cup.

  Tucking the gin away again, he drank deep. The band’s fiddle player launched into a long riff and the dancers spun past us in a whirl of skirts and cowboy hats knocked askew.

  McPherson stared at the little boy who was now screaming his head off. Rich’s eyes were red and he blinked slowly as he struggled to focus. “More’n seven,” he muttered.

  “Seven what?” I asked.

  “Jus’ the ones we count.”

  What the hell? I peered at the swaying McPherson. “I’m not following you.”

  He took another slug of his drink. “T’others’re way worse.”

  While I wrestled with McPherson’s drunken non sequitur, Ken snaked his way toward me through the crowd. I could see Miss Sweet-as-pie on tiptoes trying to locate him through the press of bodies.

  “Have a heart,” he said, grabbing my hand, “or she’ll have her hooks in me all night.”

  I tried to break Ken’s hold and nearly jabbed an elbow into McPherson. Rich gave me one more bleary, alcohol- infused look, then wandered off toward the exit.

  “I don’t think he’s okay on his own,” I said to Ken.

  “Jim!” Ken called out to a lanky teen behind the snack table. “Make sure Mr. McPherson gets to his store.” Jim loped after Rich.

  “Dance with me,” Ken said. “Save me.”

  “You know you want her, Ken,” I said, grinning. “Just surrender to it.”

  He looked over his shoulder. Miss Sweet-as-pie was closing in on him. “You only have to follow. I’ll go slow.”

  Ken all but yanked me onto the dance floor as the musicians started up a slow, plaintive melody, a cowboy cry-in-your-beer kind of song. One hand on my waist, the other locked with mine, his restraint was as secure as any compliance hold. Miss Sweet-as-pie huffed on the sidelines, a woman scorned.

  After I’d stomped his toes four times in the first tw
enty seconds, Ken pulled me in a little closer. “It’s a waltz. One-two-three, one-two-three. Anybody can do it.”

  “Anyone with a pair of functioning legs,” I muttered. Pain shot up my left calf every other step, transforming the count to one-stab-three, stab-two-stab.

  He grabbed me tighter around the waist. “Just hang on. I’ll hold you up.”

  I dug my fingertips into his shoulder. As we waltzed past the munchies table a third time, I spotted McPherson still there, still holding that same crumbling pile of chips.

  Ken put his mouth next to my ear. “What were you and Rich talking about?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. Small town life, raising children. Seemed like there was a rain cloud hovering over him tonight.”

  “I don’t know the whole story, but scuttlebutt around town is that his kids all died in some kind of accident.”

  That tickled a brain cell somewhere deep inside, but I couldn’t wrap my thinking processes around it. Besides, the pain in my leg did ease with use and I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. Not that I’d ever tell Ken that. I let him haul me around on the floor, his toes still in peril from my klutziness, my palm dampened by the sweat soaking through the back of his shirt.

  When the music changed to a faster rhythm, he pulled me closer, turned me faster, until heat radiated off both our bodies. It was like sex, fully-clothed in public, and I wondered why I’d never tried dancing before.

  Miss Sweet-as-pie had hooked up with Alex, the two of them cheek to cheek as they spun through the crowd in some kind of intricate dance. She kept an eye on Ken and me, no doubt looking for her opening. Out of breath and slathered in sweat, I was ready for a break by the time the band jump-started yet another fast-moving dance. But Ken kept an iron grip on me to prevent Miss Sweet-as-pie from cutting in.

  When he finally let me stagger off the floor, he was right behind me, following me outside. All that physical contact had my libido sitting up and clamoring for attention, the spring breeze tantalizing rather than cooling me. When Ken tugged me into the shadows beside the community center, I didn’t resist. When he kissed me, I was ready to pull him right down my throat.

  After a few minutes of hot and heavy, Ken pulled back, gasping a little as he stared down at me. I read the question in his eyes.

  “Yeah.” I groped for oxygen. “Let’s go.”

  We kept a couple of feet of space between us as we walked toward the Explorer. Ken smiled and waved at a few Greenvillians along the way, then did open the car door for me. A weak, girlie part of me appreciated the gesture.

  I saw Cassie still lingering under the oak tree with her friends. “What about your niece?”

  “She’s staying with a friend again,” he said as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Over at the Clarks’.” He glanced over at me. “I made sure she had her insulin squared away.”

  I could almost hear the mood music playing in the background. We traveled in silence, edgy energy bristling between us. The first time we’d had sex, we’d been at his place mulling over a case. His wife had been out of town and we’d let ourselves get carried away.

  Tonight wasn’t happenstance. Tonight I could pull the plug at any time. At least until I was naked with him between the sheets. Naked and exposed, every scar revealed.

  That thought was almost enough to stop me cold as we stepped into his house. Except this wasn’t some low-life I’d picked up in a bar on Market Street. This was Ken, a man who knew every dark corner of my damaged soul.

  He should have torn off my clothes, should have had me, right there on the living room floor. Taken me quick and hot, so I could pretend it was just a one-night stand like all those others had been. So I could keep my grip on the truth I’d nurtured inside for so many years, that I was degraded and bad, deserving of the worst a man could offer up.

  Instead, he kissed me up the stairs, down the hall to his bedroom. His mouth lingered on mine with each step, feathering along my cheek, my throat. Breathing into my hair.

  When he undressed me, he took his time, pulling off my jeans, skimming my shirt up and over my head. His palms hesitated over the worst of the burn scars, the ones he remembered and the ones that were new to him. Not a word spoken as he unhooked my bra, saw the circle of healed desecration around my right nipple.

  I fought back tears more than once. Shook with the effort of it as he turned away to pull a condom from the nightstand. Squeezed my eyes shut so tight as he nuzzled my neck, I thought I’d never open them again.

  Climax caught me by surprise, wrenched from me by Ken’s touch. After years of finding pleasure only with a lit match, it didn’t seem possible to achieve it through tenderness. While I lay there, overwhelmed, staring up at him, he came, sending me over the edge again.

  He didn’t let go. Just fell asleep still inside me. I lay there, the man so tightly wrapped around me I could scarcely breathe, and finally let the tears go. They slipped into my hair, my ears, dripping onto the pillow.

  I don’t know what terrified me more, that I’d rediscovered what had made our lovemaking so profound or that this man was the only one on the face of the planet who could make me feel that way.

  I’d seen the look in his eyes when he came. He was hoping for possibilities in our reunion that I couldn’t possibly allow to happen. I was beyond damaged goods, a reality I’d never been able to get through to him.

  A few minutes later, he finally relaxed enough that I could ease him from my body and wriggle free. I found my clothes, pulling them on as I went. I was halfway to the door when I remembered I didn’t have my car.

  I dithered for a moment, then spotted Ken’s cell on a table by the door. With barely a whit of shame, I thumbed through his address book until I found Alex’s number. I called him on my own cell.

  He answered after one ring. “Deputy Farrell.”

  I could hear the music in the background. Apparently the benefit dance was still going strong. “It’s Janelle. I need a favor, Alex. No questions asked.”

  I wasn’t sure the young squirt would have the necessary discretion, but he said, “Whatever you need.”

  “Pick me up at the sheriff’s place. I’ll be outside.”

  To his credit, he didn’t say a word. With only the slightest hesitation, he said, “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  Quiet as a thief, I crept outside and stood in a chill drizzle waiting for Alex. It struck me as I shivered in the cool wet that the nearest box of matches was back in my room. I didn’t even care.

  CHAPTER 19

  As dawn faded the blackness of the dark basement to gray, Mama sat on the top step of the stairs and watched her children sleeping. Junior lay sprawled on his stomach, his arms stretched above his head. Sean snuggled up beside his brother. Sean should have been sleeping in his own bed, but the boy worshipped his older brother. Just like before, he’d wake during the night and go find Junior.

  Baby Lydia dozed lightly, faint whimpers telling Mama she’d be awake soon. Thomas slept just as deeply as he had since Mama had first brought him home. She’d tried to rouse him enough to tip a little water past his lips, to spill some broth into his mouth, but he just lay limp in her arms.

  Junior shifted onto his side, tucking his arms close to his chest. Her oldest boy’s behavior lately troubled her. He’d never been like this before, rebellious, disobedient, prideful and angry. Something had changed in the time between before and now. It was almost as if he wasn’t her son anymore.

  That notion set off a burning anxiety in the pit of Mama’s stomach. When she’d found baby Lydia, she’d been sure it was the Lord’s way of sending her a message, that Mama was worthy, that He approved of the rituals she’d performed in His name. Then Sean had come back to her and her fount of blessings overflowed. Then Junior’s return so soon after.

  Maybe Junior had been touched by the devil during his time away. Maybe that was the wrongness she sensed in him. She knew there was goodness in him still, but at times the evil seemed to crowd that out, forcin
g him into dark deeds.

  She needed Angela so desperately. Her oldest had just dipped a toe into womanhood when she’d gone away. She’d always lived up to the name Mama had given her, virtuous and pure-hearted. If Angela was here, she would drive the taint from Junior’s soul and restore Mama’s oldest boy to her.

  If Angela was here, Mama could finish it. The last ritual, the final purification. Instead of destroying them one by one as she had been, she could burn away all the sins festering around her, threatening to pull her into Satan’s grasp. With one last candle, she could light a final cleansing conflagration.

  Bring me Angela, Lord, Mama prayed. Before I lose Junior entirely. Before the world’s wickedness pulls us both into the pit.

  She waited for the glow inside her, the heat that told her the Lord had heard her entreaty. But as dawn spread its faint hope into the corners of the basement, Mama only felt colder.

  Time was running out. Mama could feel its imperative looming over her. If the Lord didn’t intend to return Angela to her, would there be another sign she should watch for? How would she know when the time had arrived?

  Do it now, Satan whispered in her ear. Why wait?

  Even as a thrill of anticipation shivered down her spine, Mama resisted. Not by Satan’s command, Lord, Mama vowed, only by yours.

  Only by yours.

  CHAPTER 20

  I was deep in a damn good dream, an X-rated fantasy involving me and a Keanu Reeves lookalike, when the room phone interrupted me. Brain only half-engaged, I pressed the phone to my ear and drifted off again. Ken shouting my name in my ear jostled me back into semi-awareness.

  “Yeah, what?” I muttered as I struggled into an upright position.

  “You left,” he said, the accusation clear in his tone.

  I scrubbed at my gritty eyes, forcing the guilt away. “Tell me that’s not why you called.”

  “There was another fire. A shed again.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Anybody hurt?”