Despite her initial optimism, motherhood wasn’t a good fit for Harlow either—at least, not when it came to raising a little boy. Depressed, she wept when Isaac wept. She abandoned him in his crib when he wouldn’t sleep; cursed him when he needed to be changed. For the first year of little Isaac’s life, Harlow was hard-pressed to admit she loved him, and the fact that Red loved their son dearly only seemed to make her resent Red as well. Like a king demanding a son to be an heir to the throne, Harlow was the queen who required a princess, the fairest in all the land.
When Harlow discovered that she was pregnant again, she was ecstatic. For the first time in Isaac’s young life, he had a happy, spirited mother who took him to the park and showed him off to the women at church. She bought him all new outfits and even organized a birthday party when Isaac turned two, and Isaac was the happiest two-year-old in all of Kansas City.
But at the height of her optimism, the world came to a standstill.
On a clear summer morning, Harlow awoke with a head full of plans, but her day was stilted before it began. Pulling the sheets aside, she stared wide-eyed at a scene that wouldn’t have fazed her had it not been her own blood. The sheets, her nightgown, her legs, even her arms, were streaked with gore redder than Danny Wilson’s blood. She could hardly scream when she realized what it was.
The baby was gone.
It had been a girl.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Mickey Fitch had insomnia. He glared at the glowing digital readout of the alarm clock as though it were to blame for his inability to dream. It wasn’t even eight yet, and there he was, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes peeled wide open, his hair sweaty and plastered to his forehead.
He knew why he’d woken up so early, but he didn’t want to admit it—not to himself, not to anyone. It pissed him off, because for all these years he hadn’t taken much issue with his employment. He had been able to mentally distance himself from it all. He did it to preserve himself, did it to survive; but then Andrew Morrison showed up and the whole thing came apart. He’d spent years repressing his guilt, but now all of those ugly emotions were bubbling up to the surface. He had to ask himself: Was Drew really that different from the rest of the boys who had come and gone over the years? Did he deserve Mickey’s interest more than any of the other ones did?
The answer was no, and that was what got to him most. Mickey remembered Drew as a scraggly little kid, an overeager child who was all arms and elbows. Those memories snagged on the edge of his sympathy. But his fond memories didn’t make Drew’s life any more valuable.
Mickey had allowed so many to fall into Harlow’s hands, convincing himself that he couldn’t do a damn thing about it because, the moment he tried, Harlow would turn him in. She still had that bag of cocaine, the one with his fingerprints all over it, the one that would indict him in Shawn Tennant’s death. And while he knew that turning him in would lead the cops to Harlow, it didn’t change the fact that he had been involved, a partner in crime, and if the courts didn’t give him the death penalty, there was no denying that he’d get life in prison. It was something Mick had wondered about on more than a few occasions: If he were caught, which would be better—lethal injection, or day after day of solitary confinement?
Maybe if Drew hadn’t scrubbed the grime out of the toilet bowl, if he hadn’t played video games with Mickey or offered to pick him up a burrito; maybe if he had skipped doing all of those things, Mickey’s ambivalence would be intact, memories or not. Yet there he was, unable to sleep, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about things like guilt and innocence, and whether hell smelled of burning hair and sizzling flesh—the scent of death by electric chair.
Sitting up, he shoved the sheet he was using as a makeshift window shade aside. There, in the sunshine, the Wards’ house stood in all its glory. He knew Drew was over there, performing some menial job that had been done a hundred times before. He rubbed the back of his neck, considering his options. There was no way to stop her from doing what she was planning on doing. If he called the police, she’d call the police right back. He and Red would end up sharing a cell at the state penitentiary, spending their life sentences commiserating, trying to understand how Harlow Ward had turned them into the monsters they had become.
He shuddered, kicked his sheets away, took another peek out the window, and then wandered to the bathroom.
With hot water beating against his back, he had a moment of clarity: If Mickey weren’t around anymore, she’d let Drew go. It would be too risky to cover up the crime herself. Mickey was part of the team now; without him, Harlow would be at a loss.
He had to disappear. It was Andrew’s only chance.
Hearing the Cadillac pull into the garage, Harlow left Andrew in the backyard and reentered the house, her hands balled into fists. Red was in his chair, reading the paper as usual, back from the store much sooner than she had expected. The mere sight of him sparked rage in the pit of her stomach. Not only had he nearly run Andrew off with his stupid comments, but he now appeared as relaxed as ever. It was as if the man were oblivious to what he had done.
Marching over to Red’s chair, she snatched the newspaper out of his hands, leaned in, and hissed into his ear, “Did you see any articles in there about us, Red?”
Red first looked to his crumpled paper, then turned his head to face his wife.
“That stupid little shit of a junkie is sending up red flags,” she told him. “He’s putting Andy on edge, telling him he should watch himself around us, that he shouldn’t be spending so much time around here.”
Red opened his mouth to say something, but closed it soundlessly after a second of deliberation.
“Do you know what that means?” she asked, paper still crumpled in her right hand.
“It means you should get rid of him,” Red replied flatly.
Harlow smirked as she looked out the bay window. Past the verdant lawn, the preened rosebushes, the whitewashed fence, was a perfectly acceptable house across the street. Harlow had wanted that house, not the one next door. But the tunnel would have been impossible to construct beneath the street, so Harlow had turned her attention to the pit next door. She bought the place for the sole purpose of housing a lowlife like Mickey Fitch, and now the lowlife was rattling his chains. The servant was defiant; the slave was taunting its master, and there was only one solution to stop that sort of behavior.
“Exactly,” she snapped. “I want that worthless piece of garbage out of that house. He’s no longer a piece of the puzzle.”
Red cleared his throat as he leaned forward, adopting a more alert posture. She knew that when he suggested she “get rid of him,” he had meant Andrew, not Mickey. But that wasn’t anywhere near Harlow’s plan.
“Wait.” He paused.
“I’m talking about Fitch,” Harlow clarified.
“So...” Red looked confused. “You want me to go next door and, what, slit his throat?”
Harlow exhaled a snort.
“You?” She rolled her eyes at him. “Please. I’d have a better chance of convincing Andy to do that than you.” Red was squeamish. It was why Harlow had to hire Mickey in the first place. Had it been only her and Red, things would have been less complicated. But there had been no way. If she had relied on her husband, she may as well have done her killing on the police station steps.
But things were going to change. Red was going to buck up and be a man.
Pausing at the window, she gazed down the street toward Mickey’s place. “I’m going to shoot him,” she announced. “But once he’s dead, I’ll be down an employee, won’t I?” She turned to look back at him, lifting an eyebrow, waiting for him to catch her drift.
Red tensed. He sat at the edge of his recliner, his fingers biting into the leather of the armrests.
“Congratulations,” she told him. “You’ve been promoted.”
“This is insane,” Red blurted out, his words tinged with unfamiliar desperation.
She had n
ever asked him to take part in her hobby because she knew he’d refuse, but this time he wouldn’t be given the option. Mickey had become a nuisance, and she certainly wasn’t going to waste her time searching for a fresh errand boy when she had a perfectly healthy man at her disposal.
“I told you no,” Red insisted. “I’m not doing this.”
“Oh, Red.” Shimmying over to him, she slid onto his lap, pushing her fingers through his hair the way she used to. “Don’t get upset.” Leaning in, she pressed her lips to his cheek, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “You knew it would eventually come to this.”
“Come to what?” he asked, his words choked with tension.
“This is your test,” she confessed, leaning back to get a better look at him, her fingers gripping him firmly by his chin. “I’ve never asked you to prove your love for me, have I? Well, now’s your chance.”
Red sat mutely, his eyes wide, disbelieving.
“If I get rid of Mickey Fitch, I don’t have anyone to fill his position, do I? I mean...” She chuckled. “You can’t possibly expect me to put an ad in the paper. What’s Mickey’s title anyway, garbage man? Wheat field surveyor? Grave digger? If I get rid of him, you have to do his job.”
“And if I won’t?”
Harlow offered her husband a thoughtful smile, leaned forward, and pressed her mouth to his. He tensed beneath her as if allergic to her touch, but rather than discouraging her, it amused her instead.
“If you won’t,” she whispered against his lips, “then I’ll find someone who will. And you, my darling, will simply have to go.”
With a towel wrapped around his waist, Mickey made a beeline to his bedroom, shoved piles of clothes away from his closet door, and threw an old suitcase onto his bed. He was done. If there were any chance of helping Andrew, he’d have to save himself first.
He knew Harlow would come after him the moment she sensed that something was wrong. Even his mention of the Wards being “off” was enough to make her crazy with rage, her palms itching for blood, and if Drew trusted her as much as Mick suspected, it was likely that he had mentioned Mickey’s misgivings about the Wards by now. He had to get out of the house, get out of Creekside, had to hole up in some roach motel until he could figure out what to do—if he could figure out what to do. All he knew for sure was that he had to vanish. If nothing else, it would buy Drew more time. Mick was confident that without him at Harlow’s disposal, she’d stall on spilling Andrew’s blood.
After his father had died, Mickey had insisted that he didn’t want to move away from Cedar Street. Despite his inability to walk past the room where his dad had pulled the trigger, despite his sudden insomnia and heightened anxiety, he begged his mom to reconsider. When she had asked him why—why he would possibly want to continue to live in the nightmare that had become their life?—he had lied and said that he didn’t want to change schools.
But Mickey hadn’t given half a damn about his classmates. He hadn’t wanted to move because it meant leaving Drew behind—scrawny little Andrew Morrison, all broken up about his pops disappearing; that kid didn’t have two friends to rub together, and neither did Mick. Mickey had told Drew to scram more than a handful of times. Andrew could be a pest, always showing up after school, constantly asking about bands that Mickey listened to but Drew didn’t know. He was more like a little brother than a friend, but Mickey liked it that way. It meant that no matter what, they’d always be close—because that was how brothers were. He didn’t want to be the next person to disappear out of Andrew’s life. And yet that was exactly what happened.
Now disappearing was exactly what Mick had to do to help him.
Grabbing arbitrary articles of clothing off the floor, he tossed them into the open suitcase. Clean or dirty, it made no difference. He’d find a Laundromat. He’d always wanted to visit one of those intensely bright places, shove a few quarters into a machine and sit in a plastic chair reading a magazine, waiting for the girl of his dreams to wander through the front door.
He flipped the top of the suitcase closed and looked around the room, considering what else to take. His eyes paused on the gun tacked to the wall. In that split second he imagined himself marching next door, that shotgun loaded, his intentions clear. He’d kick the Wards’ door in and shoot Red square in the chest, and, as he lay dying, Mickey would trudge down to the basement where Harlow would be hiding. He always pictured her down there. It was the right place for her. She probably peeled that perfect exterior away every night before bed—flawless skin and bright red lips shed like a reptile, exposing a greasy troll beneath, teeth slick and black with blood.
He considered writing Drew a note, something dramatic like Get out or Save yourself, but decided against it. Telling Andrew to make a run for it was like telling him to jump off a bridge—he’d probably make it to the edge, but Harlow would give him the final push. No, it was safer to keep Drew in the dark. If she even suspected he wanted to run, she’d clip his wings and lock him away.
He dressed quickly. Clutching his suitcase, he jutted his arm into the bathroom and snatched his toothbrush off the sink on his way to the front door. He paused there, surprised at how hard his heart was beating. She would be watching. She was always watching. If the TransAm didn’t start, if his bag tore open in the middle of the yard...these factors would decide whether Mickey got away or whether Red would tail him until the Pontiac ran out of gas. And if it did, she would put a bullet through his skull; a real-life Mexican standoff in the Kansas prairie, complete with wind and storm clouds and a lonely highway.
“You just gotta do it,” he muttered, psyching himself up. “Just toss this shit in and jet.” He took a deep breath, tore open the door, and bolted across the brittle grass.
Harlow nearly choked on her Tom Collins when she saw Mickey run across the front lawn carrying a suitcase. In a knee-jerk reaction, she called out to the only person she knew would help her.
“Red!” she squawked. “Get the car!”
Red scrambled out of his recliner, but stopped short of running for the door.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, glaring at her motionless husband, her blood boiling beneath her skin.
Red shook his head, slowly at first, then with more fervor, alerting her that this wasn’t going to happen, that he wasn’t going to be part of her plan. “Get your boy to do it,” he told her. “Let’s see if he passes your test.”
Stunned, she watched Mickey walk out of the house, across the front lawn, and down the tree-lined sidewalk, wondering whether he’d ever come back, wondering whether she’d ever see him again. She assured herself that she wouldn’t care, that it would be better if he faded into the sunset—but she knew better. The idea of watching him bleed to death didn’t shake her, but the idea of him walking out on her made her weak in the knees.
“You son of a bitch,” she whispered into the empty air, reeling away from the window and to her purse upon the armoire. Drawing out her revolver, she narrowed her eyes at its weight in her hand.
That was when Harlow decided that Redmond Ward wouldn’t be given the chance to come home, because she was going to march up behind him in broad daylight, press the barrel of the gun hard against his skull, and fire. And after he hit the ground with his brains spilling out of his skull, she’d shoot him again—shoot him until he resembled the pulp she had left in Danny Wilson’s apartment.
She pivoted on the hard soles of her high-heeled shoes, her finger twitching against the trigger when she caught sight of Andrew out of the corner of her eye. He appeared at the far end of the yard, shielding his eyes from the sun. He was looking after Red, looking in the direction Mickey had fled. Sweet, wonderful Andy—her darling, always so concerned for the well-being of everyone around him.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a breath, turned away from the door, and slid the gun back into her bag.
She wouldn’t allow Red to ruin this for her.
Andrew was going to be hers, no matter how hard R
ed kicked and screamed.
From the side of the house, Drew watched the TransAm jump the curb and bounce into the road. Unable to contain his curiosity, he left his paint can and brush behind and wandered into the front yard, wondering what the hell had happened to make Mickey bolt the way he had. Half-expecting to find a cop parked on the street—red and blue lights whirling—he would have been less surprised to see Mickey in a standoff with the police than to see what he saw, which was a whole lot of nothing. Despite his abrupt departure, the house was still standing. There were no cops. No fire. Everything looked normal—just the way it had been since the day he arrived.
He nearly jumped when Red slammed the front door behind him and started to march, looking as though he were pursuing Mickey on foot. Drew opened his mouth to call out to him, to ask what was going on, but he stopped short of yelling Red’s name. That man was no longer Andrew’s friend. It was still unclear as to how it had happened—how Red had gone from gracious neighbor to reserved and reticent foe—but there was no denying that Drew was no longer in Red’s good graces.
Turning away from the scene, he saw Harlow watching him through the front window. She offered him an odd sort of smile. It lacked her usual confidence—the kind of smile someone gave when they weren’t sure whether they were in trouble or not. It was the smile Emily had given him the moment she knew he was staying in Kansas while she left for Illinois.
Harlow lifted her hand to expose her palm, a silent hello through a pane of glass. She eventually turned her back to him, pulling a knuckle across the apple of her cheek, her eyes glinting in the light. Just then, she looked like the ghost of his mother, standing at the window, waiting for her husband to return.
It was dark by the time Drew stepped into the garage. He stood at Red’s basin sink, trying to wash as much paint out of the brush bristles as he could. Eventually, he wandered across the yard to announce that he was finished for the day, expecting Harlow to insist he stay for dinner, or just to talk. To his surprise, she met him on the front porch. She was lying in the hammock, puffing away on a skinny cigarette with the skirt of her dress folded in around her.
The Neighbors Page 14