Sweet Cherry Pie

by J. D. Monroe

  “I’m working on that,” Patience replies. “If you come on back, you can be here before nightfall.”

  “I need to make another stop before I head back,” Charity says.

  “No, what you need to do is come back here,” Patience says. “We’ll round up Adam and look for the marks. If they’re there, we’re going to take his ass down.”

  “And do what exactly with the knife? What happens when you get a hold of it and try to stab me in the back?”

  “You think I’d do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Charity says. “But Harmony killed Dad and Uncle John, and she liked them a shitload more than you like me. And I’d rather not use up my precious last words saying ‘I told you so.’”

  There’s a long silence, which is a rarity with Patience.

  “I’m going to visit Mama Bee for some advice on this one,” Charity says. “It’ll take me another couple of hours. You guys find Adam and don’t let him out of your sight.”

  “Fine.”

  Charity hangs up and immediately calls Christina Barefoot. The woman answers after two rings. Her rich alto voice is familiar and comforting, like the warm hint of wood smoke in winter. “Well, look who finally decided to call. You in trouble?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You hurt?”

  “No,” Charity says. “But I could use a pep talk. You at home?”

  “Nope,” Christina says. “Just finished a job up in Durham. About to head home. You nearby?”

  Durham is less than thirty miles away, which is even better than Christina’s new home in Chapel Hill. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while, the universe cuts her some slack. “I’m in Raleigh. Can I meet you?”

  When Charity pulls into Cooke’s Chicken Shack, she spots the rising plume of smoke before she sees Mama Bee. Christina Barefoot is sitting on the tailgate of her blue pickup, smoking a cigarette. The older woman staunchly refuses to give up the habit. She firmly believes something else will kill her first. She’s probably right.

  Christina slides off the tailgate and slams it shut as Charity pulls into the parking spot next to her. The woman crushes her cigarette under the toe of a scuffed brown boot and folds her arms across her bony chest.

  “Hey, Mama Bee,” Charity says. She opens her arms for a hug, but Christina smacks her in the arm hard enough to sting. “What the hell—”

  “What the hell? You don’t know how to work a damn phone and call me in the last three months?”

  “I’m sorry,” Charity says. Truth of it is, she didn’t want to admit to the falling out between her and Patience. If she called too often, Christina would have figured it out when Charity never passed the phone over to her older sister. She’d only believe Patience was in the shower so many times before she got suspicious.

  “Yes, you are,” Christina says. Her black curls bounce as she winds up and smacks Charity again in the arm.

  “Ow! I said—”

  “And what the hell is going between you and your sister? I had to find out from her that you two split up. You conveniently left that out last time we spoke. Did it somehow slip your fool mind?”

  So much for keeping the secret. Charity sighs and holds her other arm out. “You want to go ahead and smack me again? ‘Cause I’ve been hunting alone for the last six months.”

  Christina rolls her eyes. “I ain’t even gonna start, or I’ll get arrested for assault.” Her face softens, and she squeezes Charity tight in a hug. The smell of smoke is cloying and stale, yet strangely comforting as she leans into the embrace. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, but my arm hurts where some crazy—”

  “Charity Lee, I will slap that sass right out of your smart mouth,” Christina says. “Don’t you try me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charity says, pantomiming zipping her lips closed.

  Christina’s red-glossed lips quirk up in a smile. “Come on, I’m starving,” she says. “Busy morning.”

  They order a meal and sit outside in the covered play area. Their conversations tend to attract attention, especially considering neither of them has ever been accused of mumbling. The patter of rain on the metal roof and the occasional shout of a sugar-hyped kid on the slide give them plenty of cover.

  Christina tears into her chicken sandwich and says around a mouthful of bun, “Should have seen this house I cleaned out.”

  “Haunted?”

  “No, it was one of those hoarders and they asked me to organize it all nice and neat,” Christina says, rolling her eyes. “Of course it was haunted. Whole family of spirits in there. Three generations, one gone poltergeist! Took all damned morning. Had to send the family out to the Wal-mart for more salt.”

  “Any trouble?”

  Christina snorts derisively. “Me? Please. What’s going on with you?”

  “You want the whole story?”

  “Patience says you lost your shit on her and told her to fuck off,” Christina says.

  “That is not at all—”

  “I know,” Christina says, waving one hand dismissively as she steals a French fry from Charity’s tray. “I’ve known you since you were a tee-tiny thing and raised you like my own for two years. I’m not dumb enough to one hundred percent believe you or your dumbass sister.”

  “Things were going bad between us for a while,” Charity says. “Then out of nowhere, she wants to sell the house for cash. She said it’d last us for years, and I said no.”

  “But it wasn’t about the house,” Christina says, her freckled brow creasing. “You hate that damn house.”

  “No, it really wasn’t about the house.” Hell, she’d considered burning it to ashes half a dozen times since that night.

  “And what else did you two say? ‘Cause I’m sure it was a real reasonable conversation.”

  “She said it was Daddy who went bad and Harmony was protecting us. Said I was just being spiteful when I shot her, and that I took away the only parent she had,” Charity says. It wasn’t the first time Patience brought up the Harmony as protector theory, but it was the first time she openly accused Charity of having anything but good intentions. It turned out to be the last. Charity had never been angrier in her life. The only reason she didn’t put hands on Patience was the certainty that Patience would do the same, and her sister fought dirty. Just the thought of it makes her feel shaky and tense.

  “And you said?”

  “I told her if she’d been the one to wake up then all four of us would be dead, and she owed me a thank you.”

  “And?”

  Charity sighs. Her last argument with her sister wasn’t one of her finer moments. “And I told her if she tried to sell my daddy’s house, I wouldn’t miss like I did with Harmony, and I’d bury her under it with my own two hands.”

  Christina sighs and looks up to the sky as if to confirm that God is rolling His eyes too. “You two are going to give me heart disease.”

  “Hey, she left, not me,” Charity says. “She told me she didn’t need me, didn’t want to hear from me ever again.”

  “You know she didn’t mean it.”

  “Sure seemed like it when she took off for Greater Western Fuckistan,” Charity says. “Not so much as a postcard.”

  “That’s because the only person with her head further up her own ass than you is your sister,” Christina says. “You’re both Harmony, through and through.”

  “Excuse you,” Charity says.

  “I speak the truth, and you know it,” Christina says. “Have you talked to Patience since then?”

  “Not by choice,” Charity says. “But she showed up on the job I’m working right now. Completely uninvited and unwelcome. She’s like ants at a picnic.”

  As Christina eats her lunch, Charity fills her in on the details of the Brentwood case. By the time she finishes, Christina is finishing off Charity’s untouched sandwich. The woman is bony as a scarecrow and eats like a sumo wrestler.

  “So it sounds like you’ve got this guy cornered,” Ch
ristina says. She rolls her eyes pointedly. “And you obviously didn’t call me out of some sense of obligation.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “You can say it a dozen more times before I’m satisfied.” But Christina’s lips quirk up in a smile. “What’s really worrying you, kiddo?”

  “This knife, Christina,” she says. “Even if we find the guy, this thing is way beyond me.”

  Christina slams her drink down, clattering the plastic tray against the tabletop. “Charity Lee, I taught you better than that. You’ve already let this thing beat you.”

  “I’m being realistic.”

  “You’re being an idiot. Whether you think you can, or you think—”

  “Mama Bee, a positive attitude and a smile ain’t gonna keep this thing from turning Patience on me or me on her. You know how these things are. There’s too much bad blood between us now.”

  Christina sighs and crumples her trash. She slowly walks it to the trash can, long skirt swishing over the toes of her boots. Charity’s heart thumps as she watches the older woman, like she’s waiting for her to return and dole out punishment for some teenage indiscretion. When she sits back down, she holds out one hand and waits until Charity reluctantly puts her hand in it.

  Christina’s grip is like steel. With her other hand, she pushes up Charity’s sleeve to expose the fine script of her tattoo. Christina pulls up the faded gray sleeve of her own sweater to reveal the same tattooed scripture, surrounded by the sweeping curves and lines of an angel’s wing. “What does that say?”

  “Christina…” Not this again.

  Christina squeezes her hand hard enough to hurt. Her gray eyes lock on Charity’s, hard and unforgiving. “Tell me what it says, Charity Lee.”

  Charity sighs. She still remembers the smell of rubbing alcohol, the black beads of ink welling up, mixed with blood, as the tattoo artist painstakingly inscribed the scripture. Christina made her recite it and a dozen others like it while they worked on cursed objects, weaving prayers and petitions around them like armor. She doesn’t look at the ink, just holds Christina’s iron gaze. “Ecce praecipio tibi confrontare—”

  “In English, baby.”

  “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

  “What does it say? ‘Do not—”

  “Christina, how can I not be? This thing made my—Harmony kill my father.”

  “‘Do not be frightened’,” Christina finishes. Charity rolls her eyes and pulls her arm away. She yanks her sleeve back down to hide the tattoo. “You keep on rolling those pretty little eyes while you think about which one of us has done this for twenty-five years.”

  “It’s just words. I could have paid that guy two hundred bucks to write ‘I am the Queen of France’ on my ass, but that doesn’t make it so.”

  Christina’s eyes go wide. “You watch yourself, little girl. It’s never just words, and you know it.”

  Words hadn’t saved her father. He was a praying man who kneeled by his bed and asked for protection over his house every night of his life. She believed in the power of faith, but it wasn’t the flaming sword Christina thought it was.

  “So what do I do?”

  “What you always do,” Christina says.

  “And if that fails?”

  “Then you seal the damn thing up with holy water and call me. It’s not rocket science, Charity,” she says. She shakes her head and lights a fresh cigarette. “What’s really bothering you? Spit it out, child. We both got miles to go before we sleep.”

  “Was I wrong to do what I did?”

  Christina softens. “We’ve been through this how many times?”

  More times than Charity can count. Not enough times to convince herself.

  “I know, but things have changed,” Charity says. “The knife changes everything. And at first, I thought maybe it was her who put the curse into it. But you should have seen her face when she saw the picture. That thing had a hold on her, and—”

  “Charity,” Christina interrupts. “Stop.”

  Charity takes a deep breath and blinks back the sting of tears. “What?”

  “You know I love your mama like my own sister,” Christina says. She takes Charity’s hand, clasping it between her smooth, dry hands. “But I don’t care if she was possessed by the devil himself. She murdered two people, and I don’t have a doubt in my mind she’d have kept right on if you hadn’t taken her down. I hate it for you all, but shit happens.”

  Charity lets out a long sigh, and it feels like she’s been holding her breath for a week. “So what does it mean for her and I?”

  “Honey, this ain’t anywhere near the time for that. You worry about that when you’ve got the luxury,” Christina says. “For now, get your head in the game. This thing isn’t any worse than anything else you’ve dealt with. But it’s personal, and it’s messing with that head of yours. And it will beat you if you let it get to you. So don’t let it.”

  30. JUST LIKE OLD TIMES

  SUNSET SEEPS OVER THE HORIZON like spilled paint as Charity crosses the city limits into Caywood. When she pulls up to the campsite, the black Mustang is still parked in front of the RV. Through the half-open blinds, she can see the flickering color of the TV and the silhouettes of two women who are definitely not hunting down a serial killer. Blood boiling, she fumbles Georgia’s stupid-ass hybrid into park.

  What the hell is wrong with them? She grabs the door handle and expects to find it locked, but the RV door swings open like there’s not a care in the world. What is this, amateur hour?

  Inside is the last straw. The sight of it would have made Mother Teresa snap and sucker punch the Dalai Lama. Patience and Georgia are chatting at the dinette with a plate of raw vegetables between them like they’re at fucking book club. Patience’s journals are pushed aside, laptops closed, and they don’t seem to be researching so much as wasting oxygen. Patience is drinking a Corona, which they must have bought while she was making her four-hour round trip, because they obviously didn’t have anything better to do.

  Georgia looks up and smiles. “Hey, how did—”

  Charity holds up her hand and stops her short. “One, why the hell is the door unlocked? Do you even know what we do? Two, why the fuck are you two here and not out there? Three—”

  “Calm your tits,” Patience says. She grabs a celery stick and gestures with it. “You hungry? You get real mean when you’re hungry.”

  “I will shove that celery up your skinny ass if you point it at me again,” Charity says. “Why are you not out finding Adam Keller? You had one job.”

  “Listen, you little—”

  “We tried to,” Georgia interrupts. She sneaks the carrot stick in her hand under a sheaf of papers. “He’s not at his apartment, and he’s not answering his phone. He wasn’t at class at all today, either.”

  “Then, by all means, sit here with your thumbs up your cute little asses,” Charity says. “It’s not like people are being brutally murdered at an alarming rate. Oh, wait.”

  Patience sighs and clicks the TV off with the remote. “Are you done?”

  “Done what?”

  “Being an asshole.”

  “It’s apparently genetic, so no, not as long as I’m still breathing,” Charity says. She slings her bag onto the couch, which has been taken over by Patience’s bright blue duffel bag. This presumptuous bitch.

  “I’ve got calls out to all of my police contacts,” Patience says. “No one’s called me back yet. I tried Donna, but she’s out on a two-week suspension for excessive force. Alleged and exaggerated, she says.”

  “Shocking. What about Maurice?” Charity says. “Maurice always comes through.”

  “Not unless Georgia has a Ouija board in one of those cabinets,” Patience says. “He died a month ago.”

  “Really? How?”

  “The man weighed three hundred pounds and lived on a dollar-menu diet,
” Patience says. “How do you think he died, genius?”

  “Shit,” Charity says.

  “So I called Nicky Baker, who’s putting in a call for me,” Patience says. “It’ll take him a couple of hours. Which is why we’re just sitting here. Unless you can pull a time machine out of your ass.” She shoots Charity a smug look. “So, as I was saying, Georgia, there’s a certain trick to it.”

  She can’t handle this right now. Georgia looks at her with an almost apologetic look, but she obviously doesn’t want to set Patience off. It figures. Charity shakes her head and grabs a beer from the fridge. She flicks the cap into the trash then storms out of the RV to get some air.

  At the edge of the campsite is a dank retention pond that backs up to a whole row of RV hookups. Moonlight glitters off the murky water in patches. There are flat places where a film of scum absorbs the light without reflecting. The smell wafting off the surface is a potent mix of dead fish and raw sewage. And it’s still a thousand times more appealing than sitting in the RV with her sister.

  How the hell had she ever missed Patience? It’s been all of twelve hours. She’d like to film the whole experience to show all those folks who keep telling her what a shame it is that they’ve gone their separate ways. This is why. They get along like fire and gasoline.

  Wind stirs in the low brush around the pond. She catches a whiff of barbecue and char from a few campsites down. When the wind dies back down, the barbecue scent dissolves into the old fish and sewage smell, sharper than before. A chill breaks across her skin, and her hand automatically goes to the silver knife at her back.

  The water ripples, and a second moon, this one blue, appears in the depths. It surges up out of the water, and she realizes the moon is an eye. Covered in murk and tangled weeds, it looks like a swamp monster from a low-budget horror movie. Heat blooms in her gut as adrenaline floods her veins.

  A dark hand darts out and seizes her ankle, yanking her into the water. She loses her balance and smacks her head on the bank as the thing drags her down into the shallow water. She sucks in a sharp breath and gets a mouthful of undead flesh. It covers her mouth and muffles her scream for her sister. The tastes of rotten meat and sulfur fill her mouth, and she retches, burning acid at the back of her throat.