Satan’s Lambs

by Lynn Hightower

  “That’s two of the big three.”

  “What’s the other one?”

  “Marijuana. Grow it or smoke it and they throw away the key.”

  Eloise grinned.

  Lena felt an ache in the small of her back. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Gosh, no. I got to check my cake and see if Charlie’s okay. I’ll be right back.”

  The couch was dark green vinyl. Three Matchbox cars—a tiny dump truck, a police cycle, and a Thunderbird—were on the far right cushion. A TV Guide was open beside them. The television was going in the apartment next door.

  “Now, Aint Bea,” a male voice said in an irritated tone. A woman’s voice rose and fell, followed by a ripple of laughter.

  Lena heard the oven door open and close, and she went to the edge of the kitchen. A portable black radio was turned low, a male voice sputtering in barely audible tones. It was small room, warm and humid, the table and counters covered with bowls, spoons, cake pans. Batter dripped from a mixing bowl onto the edge of the sink. Two pans of sheet cake had been set on the table to cool, cushioned by worn plaid dishrags.

  A small boy sat up on his knees at the table.

  “Charlie, you watch them pans.”

  The boy nodded and stared at Lena. Eloise turned around.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you in there so long. Just let me—”

  “Go on and finish,” Lena said. “I’ll sit down and talk to you while you work. I’d like to see somebody make a cake that isn’t lopsided.”

  “You want some coffee?”

  “Wait till you get a free hand.”

  “That’s my boy there, that’s Charlie. Charlie, say hi.”

  Charlie ducked his head.

  “Charlie, say hi.”

  “Hi.”

  He was tearing strips off magazines and gluing them to a sheet of newspaper. Lena watched for a while and saw the hint of a pattern. Charlie looked up at her.

  “Looks good,” Lena said.

  Charlie smiled briefly. He wore a Batman T-shirt and a thick diaper. He looked too old for the diaper, and too young for the precision of his work.

  “How old are you?”

  Charlie held up four fingers.

  “Almost five,” Eloise said, not turning around.

  “Do you want to talk in front of Charlie?” Lena asked.

  “He always stays with me in the kitchen when I bake. It’s sort of our routine—since he was a baby. It’ll be okay.”

  Charlie sucked his bottom lip and tried to reposition a strip of paper. He peeled it back up, but a layer stuck to the glue. He scraped at it with his fingernail.

  “On the phone you said Archie was going to—”

  “K-I-L-L me. I meant it, too.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You know why he went to prison?”

  Lena nodded. The year before Jeff had killed Whitney, Archie had robbed a savings and loan. He’d gotten away with three hundred thousand, give or take some change.

  “He gave the m-o-n-e-y to me to h-i-d-e.”

  “But I thought—isn’t that how he got plea-bargained down? He turned in his share, pleaded guilty, and testified against the guy with him. The security guard was killed, wasn’t she?”

  Eloise nodded. “The money Archie turned in was the other guy’s. He had his stashed away with me.”

  “How come he had you hide it?” Lena said. That much cash, and the woman hadn’t spent it? Lena looked around. It didn’t look like she’d spent it. Lena cocked her head sideways and looked at Eloise. “Why didn’t he hide it himself?”

  “Thought he’d make bail, but he didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t the other guy—what was his name, Nesbit?”

  “Yeah. George Nesbit. The shooter. He did tell, but nobody believed him. And he couldn’t say where Archie’s money was. So.” Eloise shrugged. “I hid it. Back then, when Archie said do something, I did it.” She turned around and pressed her back to the sink. “I’m not like that anymore. I used to drink, and I was snockered most of the time. But when I got caught with Charlie here …” The boy looked up and she smiled at him. “I don’t know, it was like getting religion or something. I quit drinking—haven’t had anything in almost six years. Maybe seeing what happened to your sister, or having a baby on the way. I don’t know. But I got my GED”—Eloise smiled broadly—“and next fall I’ll be taking classes at the community college.”

  “Give Archie his money, then, and get rid of him.”

  “That’s the trouble. I went to check on it—I started worrying, you know how you do? And it was gone.”

  “Shi—” Lena glanced at Charlie. “Shoot.” She rubbed her eyes. “When was the last time, before now, that you checked it?”

  “Not since I put it there. Seven, eight years, I guess.”

  “You sure you looked in the right place?”

  “God, yes. You think I wasn’t careful, knowing Archie’d be back? It’s in a special place I knew when I was a kid. In the woods. I can go straight to it.”

  “Who else knew?”

  “Nobody, I swear. That’s what’s driving me nuts.”

  “Maybe somebody just found it.”

  “Not where I hid it. And Archie is going to be on my doorstep in about two months, wanting it back. I could disappear, run away. But he’d find me. And I got things going okay now, it would be a problem for me to move.”

  Charlie squirmed in his seat.

  “Honey, you got to pee?”

  The boy tore a corner off the cover of a Reader’s Digest.

  Eloise sighed. “Four and a half and still won’t potty train. I’m ready to teach him to change himself. The last doctor I took him to said it may be physical, it may be allergies. She wants to run tests. But I got to be on a waiting list for those, and we’re still waiting. None of the kids around here will play with him. They call him diaper boy, the space piddler. Seems to me the last thing he needs is to move. Be all unsettled again.” She scratched her arms. “Hives. I get them every time I think about Archie getting out of jail.”

  “I’ll say one thing for you, you do got a problem.”

  Eloise leaned back against the stove and folded her arms.

  Lena chewed her bottom lip. “I suppose the cops are out of the question?”

  “Won’t they be mad about me hiding that money? It’s one of the big three, remember?”

  “You might cut a deal. Possible jail term for accessory.”

  “That’s no good.” She scratched the tops of her legs, her nails making scritching noises on the polyester. “I better tell you the even worse news. What I make from the cakes just barely keeps us. I do my best in June on the weddings, and I got more orders this year than I know what to do with. Could you wait till then for your money?”

  “We’ll work something out.”

  Lena frowned. If Eloise Valetta had taken the robbery money, she wouldn’t still be here, worrying about Archie. Unless she’d spent it all?

  Eloise was chewing her lip. “I was thinking one way we could do it. Like with Janette Swan. You helped her out, so she makes you chili every week. And you helped that guy’s daughter, you know, the one that delivers Coke. And I bet you always have plenty of Coke. I was thinking that—you know I make these cakes? I could make you one once a week. They’re good, people come down from Louisville to get them. And they have good bakeries there.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t bake me a cake every week.”

  “You don’t like cake? I bet you’re allergic to eggs or something.”

  “No, I love cake. That’s the problem. Look, when I need a favor you can help me with, I’ll call you.”

  “Got to be something.” Eloise scratched the back of her neck, “Your oven self-cleaning?”

  “No. It’s an old one.”

  “You’re not one of those odd women likes to do housework? You hate to clean your oven, don’t you?”

  “Usually I don’t bother.”

&
nbsp; “Goodness, you shouldn’t let it go, you’ll get mice up under the burners. How about I clean your oven every six months? You help me get out of this trouble, and I’ll do it two times a year for the rest of your life.”

  “That’s a long time to be grateful. How about just for the next two years?”

  “Three years.”

  “You haven’t seen my oven.”

  “Three years.” Eloise shook her head. “Lord only knows how you make ends meet. And that’s just in return for waiting till June when I’ll pay you cash money. No, now look. I’m going to need your full attention here. Archie is pretty darn scary, and I got a baby to protect.”

  Lena smiled at Charlie and thought, just for a moment, of her nephew. “We got a baby to protect.”

  Eloise put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, and nodded.

  3

  That night Lena had the dream again.

  It started with her parking the Cutlass by the curb out front. It was Friday and Rick was out of town. She and Whitney were going to eat chocolate cheesecake and talk.

  The front of the house was dark, except for the glow of a nightlight in Kevin’s window. Whitney had said she’d be out on the swing, so come around to the back.

  It was full dark. A lightning bug glowed, then faded. A grasshopper leapt from a forsythia bush and landed on Lena’s shoulder. She brushed it off and went to the back of the house. Warm wind rippled the blades of grass, and made the wind chimes sing.

  “It’s me, Whitney.”

  The chains on the porch swing creaked. Lena wondered why the back porch light wasn’t on—there was only a sliver of moon. She went up the porch steps slowly, feet thumping the wooden slats.

  “Whitney?”

  The swing creaked again; the wind had moved it. Whitney wasn’t out on the deck.

  The sliding screen door stood open. A black moth flew in the house. Lena went to close the door, then stopped.

  A line of thick black dots had soaked into the boards of the porch. Lena followed the drips to the swing—the top slat was stained and splintered. Lena put her finger out, then jerked it back, feeling the silky stickiness of a spider web across her wrist.

  She stuck her head in the doorway and flicked on the porch light. The drops of blood led down the porch stairs to the yard, but she didn’t follow them. The back door was standing open. Little Kevin was inside.

  A low-watt bulb burned over the sink in the kitchen. The counters were clear; the dishwasher hummed. The room was hot and smelled like baked potatos. A bottle of Flintstones Chewable Vitamins sat on the counter next to a child’s yellow plastic mug.

  Lena ran her tongue across her bottom lip. Her mouth was dry.

  The hallway was dark, except for the faint glow of the nightlight. Lena paused in the doorway of Kevin’s bedroom, listening for his childish exhalation of breath.

  The room was quiet.

  She went in, squinting in the dim light. He was in his big-boy bed now—she had forgotten, expecting the crib. She could see his hair on the pillow.

  She turned on the light.

  There was a hole in the blanket over the small chest—a hole too big for this baby. The face was unmarked, sweet, tears still glistening in the thick black lashes. In his fist, he clutched the tail of a battered blue bunny, its whiskers dotted with blood.

  There was blood on Lena’s hands, so she must have touched him. Her footsteps were heavy now, slow. She turned lights on all over the house. She went to the kitchen and looked at the phone. A note was taped on the wall. Detective Mendez, it said, by a number. Lena had to dial it twice.

  Mendez answered on the second ring; sane, safe, alert. Her own voice was low and sleepy, oddly slurred. She told him about the boy, the blood, the bunny. He told her what to do. She said no, and hung up the phone. She couldn’t stay put until she found Whitney.

  Lena went back on the porch and followed the blood trail down the steps.

  The light from the kitchen and the back bedroom helped, but it was too dark to see if there was blood in the grass. Lena walked along the back of the house, then around to the side.

  Whitney sprawled at the top of the driveway, her ankle touching the left front tire of her car.

  The smooth sensitive flesh above the inside of her right elbow flapped open and bloody. A heavy-caliber bullet had torn her belly and killed the child within. Her left eye socket was a congealed mass of blood and tissue. The exiting bullet had ripped the back of her head in half. Blood pooled and ran under the car, soaking into the asphalt drive.

  The next part, Lena knew, was the sirens. Tonight, in this dream, the phone rang instead.

  Lena opened her eyes and rolled sideways, pushing hair out of her eyes and wiping sweat off her face. The phone rang again.

  “Hello?”

  “Caught you.” The voice was male and pleasant—no particular accent. A voice you might hear on the radio. “Lena?”

  She took a breath.

  “Lena?” the man said. “You know who this is?”

  “What do you want, Jeff?”

  “Unfinished business, my sister-by-law. Just want to let you know, I’ll be around again soon, to see you.”

  Lena hung the phone up gently. Her wrist grazed something cool, and there seemed to be grit on the sheet. She sat up and fumbled with the switch on the lamp. Light pooled over the top of the bed.

  There was a seashell on the pillow—a yellow one, with swirls of pink, and grains of sand inside.

  4

  Calling Mendez went against the grain.

  These days she called him when she needed cop favors—running an NCIC records check, the occasional peek at a file, a piece of backdoor information. No PI could function without access to a cop.

  She liked calling him—a jab to her favorite target. Mendez never turned her down. Whitney was long buried, but between them the corpse was fresh.

  This time felt different. This time was like asking for real help. The kind of help Whitney had needed, before Hayes shot her down. The kind of help a woman couldn’t get.

  There was a time in her life, long past now, when Mendez would have been the first and most natural step, but she was way beyond that now. Policemen, husbands, sisters—they always let you down. If Hayes wanted to start something, she would handle it.

  Still, there was Eloise Valetta to think about, and Charlie. She pictured the boy, bent over the newspaper, arranging scraps of paper. He reminded her of her nephew. Both had that same air of knowing what they were about. She remembered Kevin sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of dry Cheerios, ignoring the cartoons and watching the commercials. She could see his chubby fingers lining up the Cheerios across the coffee table before he ate them one by one.

  Maynard squirmed out from under the couch and sat at her feet.

  “Yes?” Lena said.

  The cat strolled into the kitchen and Lena followed. Maynard looked up at her, his tail high. He miaowed.

  “Okay,” Lena said. “I’m doing it.”

  She set a plate of food on the floor. Maynard hunkered forward and purred. Lena stroked the silky back, feeling the skin ripple under her hand.

  “Did you see Hayes last night, Maynard?” She looked down at the cat. “If you see him again, you hide.”

  Lena realized, when she got to the outer office, that she ought to have called and made sure Mendez was there. It was just on 8:15. He might not even be in yet.

  The woman behind the front desk was pudgy in her uniform, the style unflattering to the female figure. Lena wondered how many decades it would be before women cops got their own uniform.

  “Is Sergeant Mendez in?”

  Lena smelled coffee, cigarette smoke, floor wax. A tired-looking woman in blue jeans was cleaning the bathroom. The door was propped open with a big metal mop bucket. Lena heard water running and smelled the acrid odor of cleaning fluid.

  The woman behind the desk was eyeing Lena’s earrings. Lena pushed her hair back off her shoulders. The woman chewed the era
ser on the back of her pencil.

  “Those what they call shoulder dusters?”

  Lena fingered the left earring. “No. Shoulder dusters come all the way down to here.”

  “I been thinking about getting my ears pierced. Everybody says you don’t even feel it. Tell me now, does it hurt?”

  “Bravest thing I ever did was get the second ear pierced.”

  “I knew it.” The woman nodded her head and jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the elevator. “Mendez is up there. I think I saw him come in about an hour ago.”

  “Thanks.”

  The elevator was slow. Lena slipped into the bullpen through a side door, avoiding the secretaries behind the fortresslike counter out front. Rows of desks were butted side by side like a schoolroom for adults. It was cold in the room and she shivered. She smelled overheated coffee.

  Mendez had taken off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. His shirt was white, cuff links gleamed at the sleeves, and his thin dark tie was neatly knotted. He was making notes on a yellow legal pad and he wrote quickly, never lifting the pen from the paper. He stopped for a minute and took a sip from a Styrofoam cup. Lena crossed the room, ignoring the stares from other cops behind other desks. Twice she nodded at familiar faces.

  “Hello, Mendez.”

  He looked surprised. He pulled a chair from behind an empty desk and set it beside his.

  “Coffee?”

  “No, I’m swimming in it.”

  He raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. He sat in his chair and looked at her. His lack of polite patter used to unnerve Whitney.

  Lena fished the seashell out of her shirt pocket.

  “Found this on my pillow last night.”

  Mendez leaned forward and took the shell. He looked it over and frowned, lips tight, then set it on the legal pad in the center of his desk.

  “When do you think he got in?” Mendez sat very still in the chair. His voice was harsh.

  “It wasn’t there when I went to bed.” Lena frowned. “The phone rang, around three this morning. It was Jeff. After I hung up, I turned on the light and found the shell.”