by Wendy Laine
I needed to wash my hands. I had to.
I was in the bathroom washing them when Jem walked in, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“It was so loud,” she said.
I grabbed a nearby towel and wiped my eyes. “It was nothing, baby doll. Go back to your nap.” The wall between me and what was once my dog was thick enough, now, that I could say that with only a small skip in my words.
Jem’s lower lip stuck out in a pout. She was about to dig in and be stubborn. Even at three years old, she shared a stubborn streak with the rest of the family.
“If, um, if you go back to your room, I bet Mama will give you a cookie when you pretend to wake up.”
Jem smiled and scampered back to her room. Once upon a time, a cookie would’ve bought my happiness, too.
I went to my room and locked the door. I could hear the mumble of Mama’s and Dale’s voices coming from the front room. Mama kept saying, “It was just an animal attack. You got me? An animal killed Jester.”
Animals didn’t kill like that. They didn’t. They didn’t cut something open cleanly and just leave it. Daddy would tell her. Daddy might take a bit to get home from work—his Saturday schedule was unpredictable.
I pulled out the razor blade from the book in my bedside table.
That was the funny thing about blood. Sometimes, it made things worse. Sometimes, it made things better.
I checked again to be sure I’d locked the door, even though I knew I had. There were things that I didn’t care to explain to anybody, let alone to my family—especially not to my family. Mama had her version of OCD, and I had this one. It wasn’t clean. It didn’t help me sort things like socks. It was in my head and heart, and it howled.
The blade was sharp, and I disinfected it regularly. I cut high across my shoulder. It hurt, and it felt right at the same time. Pain I could control. When everything else in my life flowed in opposite directions, and the itching threatened to eat me alive, I could still control the pain from the cuts.
It was my fault Jester was dead. I hadn’t gotten up to check on him. And I’d yelled at him. The cut was a small payment toward a debt that loomed over me.
Daddy’s car pulled up outside with a crunch of tires on our pebble driveway. Normally, he pulled in slowly so the pebbles didn’t spray everywhere, but not today. He must’ve already been on the way home from Memphis if he got here this fast.
Mama knocked on my door a few minutes later. “Pips, Daddy’s fixin‘ to bury Jester. Did you want anything buried with him? His toys? Anything?” Her voice was watery and sobby.
My wall was thick. I’d built it thick. “How about…everything?”
“Everything?” Mama repeated.
I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see me. There wasn’t a reason to keep anything. It’d grow all moldy and vile. If all his toys were buried, I wouldn’t have to look at them and be reminded there was no dog using them anymore. The guilt would still be there, no matter what, but maybe I’d forget now and again.
“Fine,” she said eventually. Her footsteps retreated down the hall.
The light from the window slid across the floor as the sun moved through the sky. Outside, a shovel slid in and out of the earth with a shoosh, shoosh—like the ground was hushing the memory of my dog. The ground between Jester and me was another layer on my wall. When the noise stopped—when I was sure what had once been my dog was deep underground, I got up off my bed.
There’d been no sirens. In our family, we didn’t talk about things we didn’t want to believe had happened. It was like with the toys. They were gone. Jester was gone.
The itching, which the cut had pushed off, was coming back. The air around me was tight and dusty. The whispers came. In my head. The whispers screamed and filled my mind like a crowded room. I’ll never be clean again. I’ll never be good enough. My fault. My fault.
I changed clothes. Those clothes had touched death, and the red shirt reminded me of all that blood everywhere. Normally, I wore dark colors, or red in case my cuts bled, but I slipped on the farthest thing I owned from blood-red—a blue-checkered sundress. The thick straps might show my cuts if I wasn’t careful, but I was nothing if not careful. Tragedies didn’t happen to the things I loved ‘cause I was so careful. Things didn’t get broken, but Jester was good and broken—broken to bits.
It wasn’t me. It couldn’t have been me.
So, who was it?
I looked out my window. There’d been rumors the Trunkers’ old place was rented again. Hard to believe anybody’d want to live there. Maybe they were the type who liked killing animals. There wasn’t a car or truck in the driveway. It still looked empty.
I left the house without running into anybody.
The Trunkers’ property wasn’t much of a walk away. I cut through our front yard, the Henleys’ field across the road, the back lot of the Porters’ machine shop, and then crossed the road again to get to the farmhouse. I could’ve followed the road in front of our house the whole way, but then it wouldn’t have been a straight line, and I took a direct path whenever I could.
From above, our part of Hidden Creek looked like a wing in the way the roads crossed. I lived at the tip of the wing and the road in front of our house formed the underside. The Trunkers’ barn and their dilapidated house sat at the top of the wing. The fields stretched across it, filling it in. ‘Course it was too pointy to be a bird wing—it was more like a bat wing. The barn would’ve been like the finger of the bat—which was about right. The wretched thing darn near gave the whole town of Hidden Creek the finger with how ugly as sin it was.
I pushed through the gate of the fence that framed the yard and went up to the door. The porch swing was all in pieces. I knocked twice. And waited. Nobody answered. Shifting sideways, I peeked through the picture window into the front room. If somebody was living here, they weren’t anxious to decorate. A couple of cereal boxes sat on the counter, but otherwise, the place looked empty.
What kind of people rented a falling-down house? Maybe they wanted to use the barn—such as it was.
My parents used to tell me never to go into the barn—or trespass. But there’s a statute of limitations on things like that. In Hidden Creek, we‘re expected to trespass once we’re teenagers.
A good breeze after a soaking rain would take the Trunkers’ barn down. It was held up by termites stacked on top of each other and just plain stubborn Southern persistence. I touched the flaking red paint on the outside the barn and tore off a small strip to mark I’d been by. A one-by-one foot stretch of paint was already missing. It likely made the barn less stable, but I didn’t care. Well, I cared a little, but not enough to stop doing it. Better to complete my patterns and keep the voices hushed, and my skin less itchy.
My family wasn’t into farming and such, not like most of Hidden Creek. Daddy wrote computer programs for a company out of Memphis—though he telecommuted a lot, on account of the distance. We had three computers and only a couple acres of land. That was darn near unnatural in Hidden Creek. I’d never driven the tractor in our barn, and I’d never owned a horse—just a dog. Just Jester.
I guess I didn’t really own him anymore. You don’t own the dead. He belonged to the earth more than me.
The dusty stillness inside the barn suggested it wasn’t an explanation for the new renters. It looked as ugly as usual. Rusty tools once hung on the walls of the barn, but I’d taken them down one day while wearing latex gloves and buried them near the fence. Having rusted metal tools lying about wasn’t safe. Better to bury things like that—to hide things that shouldn’t be seen.
I counted out the steps toward the hay bales, eight steps. Eight steps toward the first bale and then an even number between each one—sometimes, they were big steps to make it an even number. After touching a bale of hay, I brushed my hands off before pulling all my hair back and wrapping it in a knot to keep it out of my mouth. There was enough of a breeze that strands kept tickling my lips and cheeks.
“
What are you doing?” a deep voice asked from the dim corner of the barn.
I jumped a foot. Squinting, I could almost make out a body lounging in the barn’s inky black corner. He was only a shadow, but he seemed tall and long. “What am I doing? What are you doing?”
“Sweetheart, I think my question gets answered first.” There was a smile in his voice. Yeah, I didn’t trust that. Or him.
“You can wait all you want, but I don’t talk to strangers.” I put my hands on my hips before leaning over and touching one of the bales of hay real fast. Then, my hands were back on my hips. My hands itched. I tapped my middle finger and thumb against each other—it made the itch more bearable.
He laughed as he pushed up from the hay bale, then walked toward me. His voice sounded young—my age or thereabouts. But shoot, he was tall. Crap, if he fell over, he’d be halfway home. His walk had a hitch in it, like he rode something. A horse. A bike?
As he came closer, I backed away and put up my hand. “Stop!”
He stopped. The lower half of his body was visible in the sun cast through the door. His blue jeans had a hole in one knee. Rusty-brown splotches ringed the ripped denim. Blood? Probably his own blood from a skinned knee. It looked like an old stain—like it’d stubborned out a wash cycle or two. Black leather boots peeked from beneath the raggedy hems of his jeans. Not cowboy boots.
“Fine then, Dorothy, I’m stopped,” he said.
Dorothy? I flicked my eyes down to my checkered dress. Maybe I looked a bit like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, but not more than a smidge. My hair was blond, not brown, and it was in a knot at my neck, not in braids.
“Easy. I’m harmless,” he said, pulling a baseball cap from his head. His speech was too neat and tidy to be small town, but his drawl was smooth, southern, and sounded real sweet. “People call me Gris.” He hit the red baseball cap against his jeans. Dust from the cap caught the light and sparkled.
“What kind of name is that?” I didn’t trust him or the funny feeling in my heart and stomach.
“Short for Grisham, but only my mother and my birth certificate call me that. You always ask more questions than you answer?”
“You always ask questions of people when you’re trespassing?”
His face was in need of a shave and a smudge of dirt graced his cheekbone. He grinned. That probably worked with everybody else, but not with me. I didn’t take to charming boys.
“I’m not trespassing,” he said.
“You sure are.” I needed to get out of the barn, but I had one more hay bale to touch before I could leave. I took the steps, counting in the back of my mind.
His eyes followed me, and a frown pursed his lips. He had a cut on his lower lip. I shouldn’t be staring. People didn’t like it when I stared. But then, that mouth of his smiled, pulling the cut tight. ‘Course he would prove to be the exception to that “staring bothering people” business.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“That”—I tapped the last bale of hay. Done. I could leave now—”is none of your business.”
Gris flung his cap back on his head and blew out a sigh.
“And don’t call me sweetheart.” I edged sideways toward the door. My hand fingered the pepper spray in my pocket. I’d made it myself. My parents refused to believe shadows crept into my room at night, but they did. Plus, the world was filled with dangerous, ugly things.
“Give me another name, then.” He watched my progress toward the door. Then he took a single step forward.
Whoa. I yanked out my bottle of spray. “Stop! Stop yourself right there!”
He held both his hands up. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’d heard small-town people were friendly, but they sure don’t mean you, do they?”
“I’m nice to people I trust…and who mind their own business.” Not entirely true, but I wasn’t mean to people, so it was near the truth.
That smile again. He probably got away with murder.
Murder. He’d darn near distracted me from my whole purpose of coming over here.
I frowned. “How long have you been around? Did you hear a dog bark early this morning?”
He tilted his head. “I’ll answer your questions if you tell me your name.”
It should’ve been a bargain, but I didn’t give out information to people I didn’t know. “I’m serious, Gris. Somebody murdered my dog.”
His whole body went still as a statue. “Somebody killed your dog?”
I nodded.
“Who?” The cut on his lip stretched tight from his frown.
I shook my head.
“You don’t know, or you won’t tell me?” His words were clipped, without the smooth charm of earlier.
I shook my head again. I knew I was draining his patience, and maybe that’s why I did it. I wanted to see how far I could push Gris before his control broke. I’d file it away with the rest of what I knew about him—which was precious little.
“You live in the white house over there?” He pointed.
It wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out that’s where I lived, but I still didn’t want to tell him.
“Will you at least tell me your name? This is getting pretty damn ridiculous.”
“Don’t profane.” Don’t profane? I sounded like my mama, and I said much worse things in my head all the time.
His charming smile was back. I’d shown weakness, and now he reckoned he’d be able to pull me under his spell.
“I don’t like charming boys.”
“You find me charming?” He tilted his head again. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“I don’t find you charming. It won’t work on me, so just knock it off.” I let myself have two fibs a day before I cut myself. I’d have to tell a second one now.
“Settle down, sweetheart. You’re in my barn. You’ve told me somebody killed your dog, and I think you’re accusing me. I’ve told you my name and, in return, you’ve acted like I’m a walking disease that you’re gonna spray with whatever that bottle holds.”
My bottle held hot red pepper powder mixed with rubbing alcohol and baby oil. It was the first recipe I’d learned. The second had been chocolate chip cookies. I make a mean chocolate chip cookie…but not as mean as my pepper spray.
“Nobody owns this barn.” A small fib, but it was still a fib. So, that’s two. Somebody did own it. Though it hadn’t been the Trunkers for longer than I’d been alive.
“I’m renting this place—so it’s like I own it.”
“You’re the new renter?” He didn’t look old enough to be renting a place and living all by himself.
“I am. Now tell me your name, and I’ll answer any questions you have.”
“Laura,” I fibbed. Three fibs. I’d have to pay for that and tell another one. This fib was worth the cut. If Gris was gonna be around for any length of time, saying the name Piper Devon would give away my life history—and I didn’t care for a stranger knowing that much about me.
His eyes narrowed. “Fine then, Laura.” The heavy way he said the name called me a fibber. “My name is Gris Caso. I’m eighteen years old, and I’m staying in the farmhouse while I…take care of something in town. I got in late last night and went right to bed. I don’t know what happened to your dog, but I’d be happy to help you find out.”
“Why would you wanna help me? I’ve been particularly aggravating.” Hanging my hands at my sides, I tapped my fingers again. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“You were trying to rile me up?”
I nodded. ‘Course I was. He didn’t think I acted like this with everybody, did he? I wasn’t rude. Not usually. My mama had raised me better than that. “I wanted to see if you’d lose your temper.”
“In order to figure out if I’d killed your dog?”
“No.”
He waited for me to elaborate.
I didn’t.
His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it was a person that killed your dog?”
“What makes you think it wasn’t?”<
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He shrugged. “I heard a dog bark after midnight. It didn’t sound like it was being harmed. It was just barking. I imagine if it was an animal attack, you’d have heard that. But it still seems more likely than somebody killing it. What was it—poison?”
There was too much I didn’t know about him. Ignorance was dangerous. Knowledge was power. I eyed Gris’s cut lip. “How’d you hurt your lip?”
He ran his tongue along the cut, making me shiver. “Punch to the face.”
“Does that happen often to you?”
“More so than I’d like.”
I squinted. “Maybe you aren’t charming enough.”
In the distance, two sharp whistles blew. Mama wanted me home. She could whistle loud enough with her fingers I could hear it over a mile away. “I should go.”
“All right.” His charm had fallen away and left behind confusion. It was easier to talk to somebody when they were confused.
“I’m going to find out who killed my dog,” I said over my shoulder. Jester deserved that, and I needed to know the answer if I was ever going to sleep again.
“And I meant what I said about helping you.”
I snorted. “You can’t help me. Nobody can help me.” At the door to the barn, politeness dictated I turn and say, “It was nice to meet you, Gris Caso.” My mama had drilled politeness into me. She said if we weren’t polite, people and society all around would turn to anarchy. I didn’t like anarchy, but I also didn’t always like being polite.
“It was…interesting to meet you, Laura.”
I shook my head. “My name isn’t Laura. Please don’t call me that.” I spun and ran across the fields toward my house. With the machine shop and the tree line, it should’ve taken me out of Gris’s sight long enough he’d tire of watching. But the truth was, as I walked into my house, I knew he was still watching me from the top of that bat wing. I didn’t like it.
No, that was a lie. I did like it. Four lies. One. Two. Three. Four.
I shouldn’t spend any more time with Gris Caso. Right there was serious harm waiting to happen.