Cicada Spring

by Christian Galacar

  A few of them—all friends of Dickie’s—ended up together in one room, drinking Schnapps, smoking cigarettes, having some laughs. But slowly, couples broke off, disappearing to more private quarters to have some fun, and before long she and Dickie were alone. They started doing their usual stuff: necking, kissing, hands on each other. This time it wasn’t enough, though. Eventually Dickie whispered in her ear that he wanted to sleep with her. He had asked many times before and had always laughed it off when she spurned his attempted advance to home-plate, but this time was different. This time he had a dark, glassy, mean look in his eyes when she pulled away.

  Exactly when and what happened after that was a blur. She was pretty well buzzed by this point. She remembered him standing up, getting mad, but then suddenly becoming calm and insisting they drink more. The subject changed and she drank, not wanting to be a stick in the mud. She drank more than she ever had, and that was where her recollection of the night went out of focus. The memories she had were all snippets of him on top of her, her trying to get up and feeling helpless, feeling sick, feeling pain. Then him laughing. Then she must’ve passed out because everything went black.

  The next morning she woke up naked and alone in the motel. The room smelled of cigarettes and booze. The sheets were cold, and there was a spot of blood beside her. Her head pounded viciously. She couldn’t recall much of what had happened, but inside she knew. She went into the bathroom, sat down in the tub, and ran the shower. She cried for close to an hour, maybe two. But once she left that room, she left it all behind. She never cried again, and she never told anyone. The only person punished for what happened that night was her. Grounded for two weeks for not coming home.

  The following Monday, she saw Dickie in the hall at school. He walked right past her, not so much as a smile. The two never spoke again. Three months later he left for college in California. She never saw him after that. He died in a drunk driving accident his freshman year. There was a girl in the car. She died on impact. Catherine always wondered if Dickie was on his way to do to that girl what he’d done to her back at that motel the night of the dance. If he was, maybe he’d done the girl a favor by killing her before he had a chance to do worse.

  “What time is it?” Sam asked, pulling Catherine’s mind back to the present.

  “What?” Catherine said, slowly turning to him.

  “I asked what time it was.” Sam flipped his hat around in his hands. He was bored. “What if she doesn’t come home right after work?”

  Catherine looked at her wristwatch. “It’s almost quarter of six,” she said. “She’ll be here. I’ve known Brenda since we were young. Never met a more boring woman in my life.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Catherine knocked the hat out of Sam’s hands. “Knock it off. That’s obnoxious.”

  Sam picked it up, placing it in his lap. “What crawled up your ass?”

  Catherine ignored it. “My point is that Town Hall closes at five everyday. By five oh five the place is a ghost town. She probably stops for a bottle of wine, some groceries, and then it’s home to feed her cat and watch TV. You can practically set your watch to it, you’ll see.”

  Sam laughed, shaking his head, then turned and gazed out the window toward the front stairs of Brenda’s apartment building.

  Catherine continued. “Calvin could’ve spared us a stakeout if he’d just let us go down to her work and catch her there. Who cares if people see us talking to her?”

  Sam turned back. “You know he’s just doing his job, right? You can’t envy him right now. He’s trying to be discreet about this until we come up with something more. Suppose that girl comes forward tomorrow and points the finger at someone else? What if that boyfriend of hers—her friend or whatever, the one Calvin’s looking into—did have something to do with this?”

  “I just don’t find it believable that she would lie about that. If this kid did it, she would just say it was him.” The second she said this, she cringed inside. She knew this wasn’t true. She knew girls lied about this type of thing all the time. In Catherine’s case, her lie had always been to herself. She’d chosen never to ever tell anyone she was raped, to deal with it in her own way. But she was sure—pretty sure, anyway—that Kara wasn’t lying. She’d seen the truth on her face the night she went to her house. Catherine’s heart listened to Kara. She was telling the truth.

  Sam smirked. “That’s not true and you know it. People lie all the time. And until you see the motivation, the lie never seems possible. But once you do see it, well, you never know how you missed it.”

  “I’m sorry, but I just don’t think she’s lying. Though I can see you’re already toeing the line.”

  “I’m just saying that we could all lose our jobs if this goes down wrong. He’s lookin’ out for us more than you think. He’s a good man who was dealt an impossible hand… he’s just trying to play it as best he can.”

  “Spare me the poker metaphors, would you?” Catherine said, rolling her eyes. She knew Sam was speaking the truth though; Gaines was a good man. He’d always been a great boss to her, had always put the town, the people, before himself. And maybe that’s what he was doing now: trying to spare the town from this grotesquery. But Heartsridge didn’t need to be spared; they needed to know that the man they all trusted, the man they voted for to run their town, was a monster. She just needed to prove to Gaines that Harry Bennett was lying. But she couldn’t deny the one very real obstacle she’d heard over and over again: there just wasn’t enough evidence to arrest Harry for this crime. She didn’t know what she would find talking to Brenda and Kara, but she had to try.

  “Well, looks like you were right,” Sam said.

  A yellow Volkswagen pulled into a parking space in front of Brenda’s apartment. A portly woman carrying a bag of groceries stepped out and walked toward the building.

  “That’s her,” Catherine said. “Wait here.”

  Sam looked like he might argue about going with her, but he didn’t.

  Catherine opened the door, walking briskly across the street. She caught Brenda at her door while she was fidgeting with her keys.

  “Brenda?” Catherine said, stopping at the base of the stairs.

  Brenda started, spinning around quickly. “Oh, you scared me. What’re you doing here, Catherine?”

  Catherine put her foot on the first step, leaning on the handrail. “Like to ask you a few questions about something, if I could.”

  Brenda’s forehead wrinkled. “Okay… sure,” she said in a puzzled tone. “Come inside. I need to put this bag down. I’m not the young lady I used to be.”

  Catherine said nothing. She and Brenda were roughly the same age, mid-thirties, but Catherine didn’t feel old in the same way the woman standing in front of her, struggling with a bag of groceries, seemed to. For this, she felt a peculiar air of self-righteousness, knowing she’d made it through the last fifteen years of life in far better condition than her counterpart.

  “No problem,” Catherine said. “This’ll only take a few minutes.”

  Brenda smiled, turning and slipping the key into the deadbolt. She unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

  Catherine followed.

  The interior of Brenda’s apartment was almost exactly how Catherine had imagined it: worn-out rugs; the sharp, ammoniated smell of cat urine; thick drapes pulled snug over the windows; a couch piled with layers of quilts and hand-knit afghan blankets.

  In the pile of blankets, Catherine saw a white and black cat raise its head and then yawn into a long stretch.

  “There’s my widdle pwincess,” It was a slur of embarrassing baby-talk. “We hungwee my widdle darling?” She shut the door behind Catherine, plopping her bag of groceries on the counter and going to the couch. She made a series of high-pitched smacking and kissing noises directed at her cat, until she scooped it up in one arm and brought it over to Catherine. “This here is Joan, as in Joan of Arc.” Brenda laughed, pressing the cat against her fac
e, covering its head in kisses. The cat writhed and then jumped from her arms. She chased it with her eyes until it disappeared into a back room. Then she brought her attention to Catherine. “Sorry. Haven’t seen my girl since this morning. I promise I’m not a crazy cat-lady. Well not completely, at least,” Brenda said, and laughed.

  Catherine was hit by a sudden thought: This could have been me—one false move and I could be living this gem of a life.

  But was she really so different? They were both single (she presumed this of Brenda). They both lived alone. They were both the same age. Neither made much money…

  Catherine smiled politely. “No need for apologies.” She looked vaguely around the apartment. “Cozy place you have here.”

  Brenda waved her off. “Who you kidding? This place is a sty right now. I’ve been meaning to clean it, but with the festival coming up, Harry has me too busy with paperwork. I’ll get to it eventually.” She hesitated a moment. Then: “So what did you need to talk to me about?”

  “Kara Price,” Catherine said bluntly.

  “Kara Price?” Brenda’s face scrunched. “The new intern? What about her?”

  “She worked with you on Saturday, from what I understand. Is that right?”

  “Yes. It was her first day,” Brenda said. “I was training her on some basic stuff, like how to take calls, how the filing system works—mostly busywork she’ll be doing during the summer. Why? She in some kind of trouble?”

  “We’re just looking into something. Nothing I can discuss, unfortunately. Hope you don’t take offense.”

  Brenda’s eyes lit up. “Oh, how exciting. A scandal,” she said, smiling.

  “Not exactly. But I’d love your cooperation. It could be a great help.”

  “Anything,” Brenda said.

  “I really just need to know about the end of the day on Saturday.”

  “Like what?”

  “To start, what time did you leave?”

  Brenda tilted her head, bringing a finger to her chin. “I think we finished up around a quarter to five. I remember because I heard the bells chiming down at St. Christopher’s as I drove through town on my way home.”

  “And what about Kara? Did she leave when you did?”

  Brenda nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. I showed her how to lock up Harry’s office and how to close up for the day. Then she left and headed toward the grocery store.” She looked down at the floor for a moment, then quickly back up. “I probably should have offered her a ride, I know, but I just wanted to get home. I hadn’t felt well all day. She said she lived close by, anyway.”

  Catherine felt something against her leg. She looked down and saw Brenda’s cat brushing against her. “And what about Harry? When did he leave?” Catherine asked, back to Brenda, watching her face and her eyes closely as she accessed the memory and answered. Catherine had started to entertain an idea: What if after years and years of working for the most powerful man in Heartsridge, Brenda, the secretary with nothing to love but her cat, had developed a crush on the man she worked for? And if that were the case, would she lie for him? Would he even have to ask her to? Or would she just do it out of instinct to protect him, to protect herself from losing something she cared about?

  Brenda’s face offered nothing, only that dumbstruck look that seemed to live there.

  “Harry? Well… let’s see. He left before we did, maybe an hour or so earlier. Told me he wanted to get some stuff done around his house.”

  “Did you see him after that?” Catherine sighed thinly, folding her arms. She could feel this going nowhere.

  “No. The next time I saw him was this morning,” Brenda said. “This have something to do with Sheriff Gaines coming to see him?”

  Catherine inhaled, her lips parting.

  Brenda noticed and threw up her hands. “Right, right. I forgot, you can’t tell me anything. Forget I asked.”

  “Thank you.”

  She was starting to feel a frightening hopelessness growing in her. She was realizing that Calvin was right; there was no evidence. Brenda was telling her exactly what they already knew, and without revealing what had happened, there was little else Catherine could do. She was starting to wonder if maybe her best bet would be to wait for the rumor to get around town—and she knew it would. Once it was out there, they wouldn’t need to be so discreet. Once it was out there, someone might come forward as a witness. And while she had plenty of doubt the latter would happen, there was at least some hope there.

  There was a moment’s pause between the two women. Then Brenda said, “Is there anything else? I don’t know if I’m being at all helpful.”

  “You are. I really appreciate your cooperation,” Catherine said. “One last thing—did you notice Harry acting strange or angry or different in any way?” Catherine could hear desperation in her own voice. She was reaching for something—anything—that could point her in the right direction. There were no answers here, though, and she knew it.

  Brenda narrowed her eyes, thinking. “I don’t think so. He was a little stressed, but that’s normal this time of year, with the festival a few days away,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Catherine. “I think that’s all.”

  Brenda laughed softly. “Well, I don’t know if I helped, but I hope you got what you came for.”

  “Thanks, Brenda,” Catherine said. “I’ll be in touch if I think of anything else I need to ask you. I can see myself out.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll be here,” Brenda said, apparently referring to her and the cat. “Take care, Catherine.”

  When she returned to the cruiser, Sam was just finishing up a conversation on the dispatch radio. “All right, I’ll tell her,” he said, and then hung up the radio.

  “Tell me what?” Catherine said as she shut the door and started the engine.

  “Promise not to shoot the messenger?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “Well, Calvin wants you to hold off on going to the Prices’. Said her father came by the station a few minutes ago and was pretty bombed. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to go poking around right now.”

  Catherine put the car in drive and pulled out into the street. “That’s fine. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “Everything go okay in there?”

  Catherine came to the stop sign at the end of the road. “This is just pointless,” she said. “Everyone’s going to know about this soon enough. I don’t see why we have to be so quiet about it. Having to tip-toe around makes it damn near impossible to figure anything out.”

  “You think Calvin doesn’t know that?” Sam said. “He just doesn’t want to be responsible for letting the cat out of the bag. Give it a week. Wait until word spreads, and then I’m sure he’ll give you some more leeway. Harry isn’t going anywhere. What’s the rush?”

  “I know, I was already considering that… but I have my concerns.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like in a week, after this really gets around, Harry Bennett will be the victim, not Kara. Christ, that’s already how it is, but it’ll be on a larger scale once it gets out to the masses. Without evidence, Kara’s accusations will just be lies. That’s how people will see it—that’s how they are seeing it. Every single person who has found out so far has refused to believe that the magnificent Harry Bennett could be capable of such a thing, and I think that is exactly what he was counting on. That’s why Calvin won’t do anything—he doesn’t want to be on the losing side when this comes to a head. It’s going to be a witch-hunt. You’ll see.”

  “Can you blame him?” Sam said coldly. “What would you do in his shoes?”

  And for the first time, Catherine wasn’t wholly certain she knew. It was true: arresting Harry now would be career suicide, and she couldn’t ignore that, but it felt so wrong to do nothing.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the sun lowering below the trees. As the day waned behind her, she drove, her thoughts shifting back to Dickie Hume.

  CHAPTE
R 18

  “I’ll tell you why,” Harry Bennett said resentfully, “because she wants attention. That’s all women ever want—attention.” He downed the rest of his bourbon. “Drama is the last drug of the desperate whore.”

  “Calm down,” Allison said. “You sound ignorant when you talk that way.”

  “Well, it’s true!” Harry yelled, slamming his palm against the wall. “Why else would this girl make up something so terrible? Attention. That’s all.”

  Harry had spent the last ten minutes breaking the news to his wife about Kara Price’s accusations against him. He was prepared, though. He had practiced the conversation in his head more times than he could remember. It was just one more lie to sell, and he was good at that.

  “Lower your voice, the neighbors will hear you.” Allison shushed him. She tried to put her hands on him, but he pulled away.

  “Oh, who cares, Ali?” He shrugged exuberantly. “Who fucking cares? Who cares if they hear us fighting? It’s life. People fight.”

  “Put the drink down. You’ve had enough. You’re drunk, Harry. I know you’re upset but—”

  “Yeah, well, you’d be drunk too, if you had the day I did. Anyone come to your office and accuse you of raping a fifteen-year-old girl today?”

  Allison pursed her lips but said nothing.

  “I didn’t think so,” Harry said, walking past her to the living-room bar and topping off his glass. With his back to her he grinned proudly, quickly stifling the smile before he spoke. “Talk to me about being drunk when that happens to you. You know what this could do to my career?” He turned and took a seat on the arm of the couch, staring absently at the floor, really trying to put on a show.