Rosalind

by Stephen Paden

  "Watcha got there, sweetie?" Nancy asked.

  Rosalind folded the paper back up and started to put it back into her panties, but Nancy spoke again. "Honey, it's okay, you can have things here. I was just curious is all."

  She pulled the page back out. She tried to think of how to describe the thing and what it meant to her, but instead she got up and walked it over to her, handing Nancy the picture of the woman. Nancy unfolded it and looked at it. "Oh my. Now that is a handsome dress. I bet you'd look something lovely in it. Where'd you get it?"

  "My daddy brought home some big magazines sometimes. I tore it out before he threw it in the fireplace, 'cause I liked it." Nancy cringed when she said the word daddy and wondered how the girl could even stomach it herself.

  "This looks like it's from a Penney's catalog. Says here it costs eleven dollars. That's a lot of money for a young girl to save up." Rosalind shrugged. "What, you don't like the dress?" Rosalind shook her head. "The woman?" Rosalind nodded. "Now what about the woman do you like, if it ain't the dress?"

  "I wanna be pretty like her," Rosalind replied.

  "Honey, girls like this don't exist. I mean they do, but they're all made up to sell dresses. I bet when she's at home cookin' dinner she looks just like me or you. And don't you ever think you aren't pretty. You've got the most pretty hair and those freckles on your face make you just cute as a button."

  When the man in the truck had called her pretty, she recoiled at the thought and didn't trust him. When he'd stolen her money, her distrust of him and anyone who would do such a thing was justified and she figured that that extended to his telling her she was pretty. But this time, when Nancy had said it, her face blushed and she smiled. She smiled because for the first time in her life she believed it.

  "I tell you what, let's do this," Nancy said, putting her knitting needles and yarn away and grabbing a pen from the end table that sat between the couch and the chair. She slid off of the chair and down to her knees and put the page on the coffee table. "You're gonna write your name underneath her picture, and we'll just pretend that it's Rosalind wearing the pretty yellow dress and not this faker. That sound like a plan?" Nancy said.

  Rosalind nodded, but Nancy could tell that something was bothering her. "What is it, Rosalind?"

  "I don't know how to write," she replied.

  "Well, that's just what we're gonna teach you right now." She handed her the pen, and Rosalind held it like a knife. "Okay, first let's work on how you hold it. You ain't gonna stab anyone with it, so open your palm and then place the pen in it." She did as Nancy instructed. "Now, put your index finger…that's the one closest to your thumb…put the tip on the middle of it. Now grip it on both sides using your thumb and middle finger until it sticks out of the gap your fingers have made in your hand." Rosalind obeyed. "Now, let's start with your first letter, which is an R." Nancy guided her hand, but let Rosalind do the work. The vertical part of the letter was too long, but Nancy said, "That's fine, now make a half-moon at the top of it and to the right." She did so, although it was jagged and went over the line at the top and the bottom. "Now where the bottom of that hoop meets the line, draw a diagonal line away from it and to the bottom right." Again, she did so, this time stopping the line well short of the elongated one she drew at first. It was an odd looking R, but goddamnit, it was an R and Rosalind looked up at Nancy and smiled. She damn near thought that the girl was going to laugh.

  Rosalind waded through the rest of the letters with amazing speed and clarity, each letter an improvement on the last. When the D was complete, Nancy grabbed the page and held it up to her. "You're a goddamn genius, honey." She handed the page back to Rosalind and she took it back with her to the couch and sat down. Nancy hopped back into her chair and continued her knitting.

  Twilight Zone was playing on the television, but Rosalind had no interest in anything that was on the set. She just stared at the picture of the woman, the new Rosalind, and forced back the tears. She was happy.

  Chapter 14

  Joe Hanes sat at his desk with the folder in his hands. He read the contents of the letter from the coroner, but now he had a decision to make. Paul Stump had been killed by a knife to the throat, that one was a no-brainer, but Henrietta had died from smoke inhalation, as well as being burned alive. The baby, however, showed no signs of distress on the lungs, which left the coroner clueless as to how he died. He put down the envelope and grabbed the photos from the crime scene. He came to a picture he had seen a thousand times and sure enough, the gas can was sitting there in what was left of the living room. He'd known then that it was the delivery method for the fuel that was used to start the fire, but his humanity did everything it could to shrug off the possibility that someone could have done this to another person, and that it might be a young girl. He still wasn't sold on that idea.

  He tried to think back to that morning at the diner. He'd come in and sat down at his usual booth. Rosalind had been there, sitting at the counter and sipping on a soda. What was he missing? He had walked over to her, patted her on the back and then left. Did he notice anything out of place?

  Any burns?

  And smell?

  That was it! The smell. The amount of gasoline it would have taken to burn that room in the fashion that it'd been burned would have been a half-full to full can. Then there was the wood around Paul Stump—deliberately placed there. It was definitely arson, any rookie cop could just look at the scene and see that, but anyone who'd handled that much gasoline would surely have smelled of it after the fact. When he patted Rosalind on the back, he had gotten close enough to smell her and from what he could remember, she did smell like smoke. But anyone and everyone who used a wood-burning stove smelled like that. What he didn't remember smelling was gasoline.

  Good.

  He didn't want to think of an innocent like Rosalind of being capable of something like a triple murder. But he'd better call Nancy and double check. She was with her for an hour before he'd gotten there, and the smell of gasoline could have dissipated before he got there. He grabbed the phone and then put it down. It was still early enough for coffee, even a second cup. He grabbed his coat and walked to the diner.

  Nancy and Rosalind were at the counter, Rosalind sipping at her soda. Sheriff Hanes walked in and sat down next to Rosalind and put his hat on the counter. "Coffee," he said. Nancy poured him a cup and then set it in front of him.

  "Rosalind, I'm glad you're here." He thought about the road he was getting ready to take. He wasn't positively sure that Rosalind wasn't the murderer, and if he said the wrong thing, she may bolt. He hoped that living at Nancy's had calmed her down and made her feel safe, but with what had been done to her by her father, he didn't think there was any place on the planet where Rosalind would find any real comfort. "We know that the people who died in the fire last month were your family." Rosalind squirmed in her seat. He could see that she was getting anxious, so he tried another approach. "It's alright, honey. I just needed to ask you a few questions, you know, so I can close the case and we can all just move on from it. Is that okay?" Rosalind didn’t look at him, but nodded. "Now this is the hardest question I will ever ask you and I don't want you to be scared, I just need to ask it. Did you have anything to do with setting the fire?"

  Rosalind turned to the sheriff. This was an easy one. She had come out of her room with the suitcase her mother had packed for her and the living room was already on fire.

  This isn't so bad, she thought.

  She shook her head back and forth. He scanned her face for the usual tell-tale signs of lying, but found none.

  "See there, the worst is over," he said. "Just a few more. Did you see anything strange that night? Was your mommy mad at your daddy? Was there an argument?" Nancy shook her head back and forth at the sheriff, pleading for him to stop. At that moment he realized that he might be going deeper into some of the details that she shared with him when Rosalind was in the hospital. "You know what," he said shaking his head, "I do
n't need to know that." He took a drink of his coffee and grabbed his hat, stood up, and walked to the door. "I think we can close this case up just fine, but young lady, unless you want trouble, I'd never again tell anyone your last name is Stump. And from what I know about your daddy, that might just be the best thing you could do. But, you didn't hear that from me." He tipped his hat to a smiling Nancy and left.

  Nancy leaned in and said, "I told you he was a sweetheart. If I wasn't married, I'd hop right on that train, if you know what I mean."

  Chapter 15

  Nancy and Rosalind left the diner and drove past the sheriff's office on the way to Nancy's house. Susan stood at the window inside and watched Nancy's car disappear down the road. Her eyes never left it.

  Earlier that morning Hanes had told Susan the reason Rosalind had been in the hospital. At the time he said it, he had completely forgotten about Susan's own inability to conceive a child. When Susan heard the news, she bowed her head and sat down at her desk, wondering if she was the only woman on earth who couldn't get pregnant. Sheriff Hanes, still focused on the young, red-headed girl, didn't notice her anguish and went about his day. So Susan stewed for the rest of the day and cursed herself. She also cursed Rosalind. Sure, she had lost the baby, but God damn her for being able to get pregnant at all when there were respectable, mature women who deserved it more. Women like Susan, for instance. She was practically royalty in Whispering Pines. It was true that she hadn't earned the right to be called a princess or a queen or anything like that, but she, like any would-be princess, had married into it. She had attained a certain status in this town and it was all due to her choice in husband: a man named John Byrd.

  John Byrd was the owner/operator of Regional Tire. What started out as a small delivery service from an old bus to customers around the county landed him the distinction of Salesman of the Year in 1956 and from there, his own franchise which now serviced Lincoln and the surrounding counties. His farm, however, hadn't produced a thing since the business took off, and he was considering selling it and buying a house in town. The truth was that he hated farming. His parents had left it to him in the will, and when his father was killed in the Big One, and his mother passed suddenly of a heart attack three years after the war ended, he took it over reluctantly. He hated farming, and didn't like his father much more than that, so he shelved the idea and fired the farmhands, leaving the barn to whither season after season. Besides, he had once told Susan, if the tire business didn't take off, the fields would still be there.

  She closed the blinds and went to her desk. With ten minutes left in the day, she grabbed her purse, locked up the station and went home.

  ***

  "What do you want for dinner?" she asked John.

  "I don't care. Wait, I have some business I need to take care of tonight. I'll be home late, just leave me a plate," John said.

  "I don't know why you have to work so late," she sneered.

  "You think part-time secretary work can keep this place going?"

  "I didn't say that. Never mind," she relented, "you're right."

  He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Hey," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to build something here. Something for us. Besides, if we're going to try again, we're gonna need the extra income."

  She pushed herself away from John and walked to the empty basinet by the dining room window. She folded her arms and stared out at the tree in the yard.

  "What's wrong?'" he said.

  "Nothing." She let out a big sigh and turned to him. "It's this new girl in town."

  "New girl?"

  "Some stray wandered into town a week or so ago. She's staying with that waitress from the diner. She's quite the little scandal."

  "How old is she?"

  "I don't know," she replied, throwing her hands up in the air. "Young, I guess. The sheriff says she's sixteen, but when I saw her drive by the office today, she looked much younger."

  "Is that the scandal? She looks younger than she is?"

  "No, silly. Let's say she's younger than sixteen and she's already gotten pregnant. The good thing is she lost the baby. Fine by me. She doesn't deserve it anyway."

  "Pregnant already, huh? So she's loose is what you're saying."

  "Obviously," she replied.

  "Huh," he said. He stared through Susan as she turned back to the window to look at the tree in the front yard. "Well, don't worry about what the doctor said. They're human and they can be wrong too. People like us deserve to have children and by God, we're gonna have one if I have to sell every tire in my warehouse to do it." He walked over to her and turned her around. He pulled her chin up and kissed her gently on the lips. "It'll all work out. Don't you worry."

  John Byrd could lay on the charm. It was one of the things that set him apart from the other guys that they both went to school with. Most of them, to Susan's dismay, had little ambition to do anything but what their father's had done and what their mother's had expected of them. But John was from a different mold. When they had sat on the edge of the cornfield one evening their during their senior year, he had looked up at the stars and said, "I'm going to be one of them." She asked him what he meant, and he replied, "They're still there. They've been around for thousands of years, maybe even more, but they're still there. I'm gonna make my mark."

  The tire business was hardly the everlasting work of the cosmos, but in the small town of Whispering Pines, he had made his mark. But he wasn't satisfied. Sure, the town loved him and he was well respected, but he wanted more. His desire to put himself on the map constantly pushed against the confines of the city limits, but instead of stretching the business into a regional power (like its name had suggested it was), his ambition festered inside of him and something darker was born. He wanted the money and the power, sure, but it that wasn't his prime motivation. Those things were nice and they made his life at home easier, but there was a hunger that was consuming him. A hunger for power, but a power over something or someone.

  He tried running for mayor in 1958, but when Sheldon Buckle won the spot, he took to the cellar under the hill by the edge of the cornfield and seethed. He hung a boxing bag in the damp room and punched it until his hands were raw. It didn't help. How could he have lost to Sheldon Buckle of all people? Wasn't he a respected and loved businessman? Sheldon owned a damned grocery store for crying out loud! But he gracefully shook Sheldon's hand that day, and took to the cellar that night. Susan had noticed this retreat and remembered what he had said to her that evening next to the cornfield. His ambitions, which she had so dearly loved, were effectively cut short. It was nearly impossible to be elected after an unsuccessful run at office in Whispering Pines, but John assured her that they still had the tire business and that people would always need tires.

  While Susan was relieved that John's frequent visits to the cellar had declined over the past year, she could still see that there was something lingering in his mind that sometimes twisted his face into something horrible, and he would go back to the cellar for hours, leaving her in the house to wonder. But the next day, he would always come back to being himself.

  She could tell that this was one of those nights. He would go for a drive after it had gotten dark. But instead of using the car, he would always pull the old truck out of the barn. He assured her that he just wanted to keep it running and the best way to do that was to not let it sit. She would have been embarrassed to be seen in it—the paint was scratched to hell, the tires nearly bald (which she always thought was ironic), the front window wore a long crack across the entire glass—but he only took it out at night. She was thankful for that, at least.

  The last light of day had followed the sunset and John grabbed his coat and went out to the barn. Susan heard the monster roar and then backfire and then when she went to the window, the headlights trailed off down the driveway. He turned toward town and the truck disappeared from her sight.

  Chapter 16

  John put the truck in park and
killed the ignition. The light was absent in this particular spot and there weren't many houses on this road. If someone came by, he could just say he was looking at the stars or something. He still looked at them whenever he could, but instead of seeing them as equals—as comrades in the great plan—he now resented them. They were there and he was here. He eyed the girl in the window of the house that rested a few hundred feet off the right side of the road. He'd come here often since Susan had told him about her. At first it was out of curiosity, to get a peek at the fiery, young red-head that came to town only a month ago, seemingly out of nowhere. Sheriff Hanes, in his ignorant wisdom, neglected to provide Susan with any details about the young girl, her last name, or her connection to the family that had died in the fire, but John knew the town like no other. He had delivered tires to damn near every house in the county. So when Susan had told him that the young girl was staying with Nancy Fletcher, he knew right where to go.

  He grabbed a cigarette from the pack, lit it and rolled down the window. The smell of smoke and oil from the engine made him queasy at first, but it settled in his lungs and became something familiar and calming. He had been here before, but the street was different. And it was a different house and a different girl. His appetite and ambitions had changed—changed into something darker—and if this shitty town couldn't see him for the star that he was, the young women he stalked would.

  He had to be careful. This new girl was different. She had the attention of the sheriff. But from her silhouette in the lit window of the living room, he could tell she was something special. Her breasts were large for a girl her age. Susan never had much in the way of a chest, but the girls he watched always did.

  What was the harm?

  He was just watching, and for the first few months it had been enough to quell the burning in him. But lately it was growing. His appetite was bursting through the seams of his body.