Anonymous

by Christine Benedict

  “He could never have cleaned the entire floor with his tongue. And before Marie got here, too,” Debra said.

  Greg knelt down and picked up the cornmeal lid from the cupboard. “Did you leave the front door open when you ran out?” He asked, studying the floor.

  “I might have.”

  “The wind would have whipped through the house.” Greg probed underneath the stove. “Look,” he said, showing Debra white and yellow powder speckled with coffee grounds. “The flour and cornmeal blew under the refrigerator and stove.” Greg took a can of peaches and laid it on the floor. The can rolled to the farthest wall. “The floor’s crooked, but you should have known that.”

  Debra didn’t say anything.

  “You must have given him quite a scare when you came downstairs.” Greg adjusted his baseball cap. “How the heck did he get in here?”

  “From the crawl-space?”

  “There has to be a hole in the mortar somewhere between the quarry stones. I thought I got them all,” he said. Buy a bag of mortar mix tomorrow and I’ll patch whatever I missed.”

  “That doesn’t explain the doorknob or . . . .”

  “That doorknob’s brand new. There’s nothing wrong with it,” Greg said, looking at the clock. “Get the trap? I’ll set it before I leave.”

  “You’re still going?” she asked quietly, subdued.

  “You’ll be okay. You’ll be perfectly fine. Trust me.”

  Greg had left. Debra set the trap in the kitchen, and called Julie again. This time Julie answered the phone.

  “What’s up?” Julie asked.

  Debra hated that phrase, understanding it as, ‘I don’t have time for this. Get to the point.’ “Oh. I just wondered if you were going to jog tonight.”

  Julie didn’t answer.

  Debra waited. An uncomfortable silence. Debra listened closer. Did Julie hang up? Maybe the phone line cut out. “Julie?” she waited. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here. I guess I can jog. Let me get my shoes on, and I’ll meet you at the end of your driveway.”

  “Okay. Give . . . .” Debra started to say, ‘give me ten minutes’, but Julie hung up. She hadn’t even said good-bye. Debra quickly clipped her hair up, stuffed it under a stocking cap, and dug a pair of warm socks out of a laundry basket. Then she opened the closet. Every shoe she had ever owned spilled out with Greg’s, and not one of them matched the one next to it. She sank to her knees, crawling, sorting through the shoes, starting to panic . . . she couldn’t be late. A tennis shoe, she flipped a boot and tossed a slipper, the other one. She shoved her feet inside them, and rushed to get her coat on. Then she heard Julie at the kitchen door.

  “Is anybody home?” Julie yelled, opening the door. Debra raced to the kitchen.

  “Hi. Come on in,” Debra said, zipping her coat. “I just need to tie my shoes.”

  “Why do you have a trap in here?” Julie asked matter-of-factly.

  Debra opened the cupboard door under the sink. The possum, still in the same position, hung upside down in the wastebasket. “I think he’s sleeping. He’s been there for awhile,” she said, half chuckling. “You should have seen the mess he made.”

  Julie glanced at Debra, at the possum, and back again. “Only you, Deb. Only you.”

  Chapter 31

  It was unusually dark tonight, a phenomenon for this time of year. Debra jogged with Julie past Marie’s house, past the recreation complex, and into the development. The quiet between them this time seemed as dark as the nonexistent stars. The only sounds were their shoes hitting the pavement and Debra’s own rhythmic breathing. The stale-leaf smell, like wet dog and spoiled prunes, inundated the night. By now the dead raccoon seemed hardly worth mentioning, and besides being alone that night, Debra couldn’t stop worrying about Julie, about Kyle, about the address that had put him in jail. Why didn’t Julie say something, anything?

  Debra focused on the stretch of sidewalk ahead, the perfectly spaced lampposts. Plodding her narrow running path, a grassy edge on one side and Julie on the other; she felt like she was balancing a tight rope, stretched tight from words unspoken, and even tighter from words yet to come.

  They jogged half a mile, then another half a mile without saying a word. All the while Debra wanted to come right out and say that she was sorry she didn’t wait until Kyle had left. That she should have seen his car. She was sorry that she caused all this trouble, that she’d do anything to take it all back. There was something else that was bothering her, too. Every once in a while she had this feeling that she had forgotten something, but her thoughts circled back to Kyle.

  Julie finally spoke. “I haven’t talked to Kyle yet. He doesn’t want to see me,” she said. “Nothing makes any sense. He tells me one story and an entirely different story to the police.” The sound of her voice in what felt like the dead of night sounded surreal.

  “I can’t believe it,” Debra remarked.

  Julie paused for a moment. “Did you know . . . when you respond with ‘I can’t believe it,’ it implies that you think I’m a liar? You say that a lot.”

  “Oh . . . I didn’t mean . . . you knew what I meant. Didn’t you?”

  Julie was silent again.

  “I didn’t realize I was doing that. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Debra felt her shoulders tighten. “Why won’t he see you?”

  “I don’t know,” Julie answered. “Maybe he thinks I was the one who called the police.”

  “Julie, if you need anything . . . if there’s anything I can do . . . .”

  “I’m sorry I’m so touchy. I’m just not myself since . . . well, you know.” Julie cleared her throat like she was trying not to cry, like she was trying to gain a lucid degree of composure.

  “I know. It’s just that . . . I can’t help but thinking . . .” Debra focused up ahead on a patch of orange mums. “If only I hadn’t given that address to Kyle. He never would have killed that man.” There it was, out in the open. Julie could yell at her now.

  “Debra, the thought never crossed my mind. This isn’t your fault. This has nothing to do with you . . . wait a minute. I have a stone in my shoe.” Julie stopped and took off her shoe. “It’s all Kyle; he doesn’t think about anyone but himself. He didn’t have to act like that. He’s always had a temper, but there’s no excuse for what he’s done, not a single one.”

  Debra didn’t speak. Not after the way Julie had reacted to her ‘I don’t believe it’ comment.

  “I feel like a fool.” Julie got to her feet, and they started to jog again. “There I was at the police station, asking to see my husband and some smug woman cop says, ‘not today, you don’t. I got a note here says he won’t be entertaining visitors today.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about.” Julie jogged faster. The rhythm of her words quickened with the rhythm of her feet. “You should have seen her. I’ve never met anyone who was so frustrating.”

  Debra picked up the pace.

  “So I asked her if she wanted to see my driver’s license. I thought that she made a mistake or something. And you know what she said?” Julie jogged even faster, her breaths and words intermitting.

  It was all Debra could do to keep up with her.

  “She said ‘What did you do to the guy? He doesn’t want you near him. And you’re the only one he’s allowed to see.’ This woman, this mean man-like woman said it just like that, and then she laughed. She laughed at me! You can’t imagine how I felt. I just stood there, taking it.”

  After running for almost a mile, almost sprinting, Debra held her side, breathing heavily. She couldn’t talk now even if she wanted to. It amazed her how Julie could.

  “I said,” Julie’s words came in breaths, “I needed to talk to him. I needed to know if he’s got a lawyer.’ And then this woman cop says, ‘Tough luck lady.’”

  Debra finally slowed down and stopped for a minute to rub the stitch in her belly.

  “She says, ‘Go home. You’re not the only person who’s got problems.’” Juli
e didn’t seem to notice that Debra wasn’t there until a half a block down the sidewalk. She pulled off her stocking cap and mittens, now soaked with sweat. She stuffed them in her coat pocket, and ran back to Debra.

  “What happened? Are you okay?

  They toned the jog down to a power walk.

  “Man, you were doing a pretty good clip.” Debra said, puffing frosty breaths. “Go ahead . . . I’ll catch up.”

  “See you ’round the bend,” Julie said, her voice trailing off.

  Debra was fine with that. Right now the best thing in the world for Julie was to work it off, right down to the soul.

  Chapter 32

  Debra was alone. The darkness outside blackened every window, seeping into every crevice in the dimly lit rooms. Amid creaks and rattles, rumblings from the kitchen, she turned up the television. Barefoot, and wearing pajama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt, she arranged a pillow and blanket on the couch and settled in with a box of chocolate Mallomars. ‘Dallas,’ was just starting, Bobby Ewing, Pamela Barns, J.R.—all a fitting distraction. And after that, a new show, Miami Vice, would distract her just long enough for Greg to get back. At least she hoped it would.

  She inhaled—slow and deliberate. She exhaled—easy and purposefully, distancing herself from all the horrible things that had happened today, mentally erasing those two letters that kept coming back, E D—electrocuted to death. Ed, right there in her basement. She didn’t care about the noise in the kitchen, whatever that possum was up to. The trap was set, even though she had blocked the cupboard doors to prevent them from opening—figuring that with her luck, the possum would pass up the bait and join her on the couch for chocolate-coated marshmallow bars.

  Finally in the perfect position, feet up, sinking into the couch, Debra saw something out of the corner of her eye, something moved. She set her Mallomar on the coffee table, and muted the television, eyeing the spot where she thought she had seen it. Curling the blanket under her chin, she heard a car coming down the gravel road.

  Out of nowhere, a shape materialized on the living room wall. Luminous, its twisted silhouette etched in shadows, it inched its way along the wall. The heaviness of her heart, thumping, pulsing, jarred her every limb. Then it disappeared. She sat straight up . . . . “Ed?”

  She heard another car coming and the misshaped figured appeared again, slowly traveled along the wall, then vanished. That’s when she realized it was only a car, its headlights obscured by the skeletal catalpa tree. The one-hundred-year old tree’s enormous leaves would no longer block the headlights since they had fallen off. She turned the volume on, and slipped back inside her show. Finally relaxed, her eyes grew heavy and she fell asleep.

  Misplaced at first, not knowing how long she’d been asleep; she sipped from an empty glass. Something had snapped under the couch or maybe she had dreamt that it had, but her body jerked her awake just the same. Sighing she took a bite of the chocolate treat that she’d left on the coffee table. It seemed to tingle her lips, her tongue, her fingers. Sugar ants dripped off the Mallomar. Debra jumped up spitting them out, slapping them off her face; while underneath the couch, a half-dead mouse caught in a mousetrap flopped out. It touched her toe, and she screamed her way through involuntarily aerobics.

  Now she was mad. She hated this house, hated that it wasn’t a normal house, one that wasn’t infested with mice and ants and any critter that happened along. Debra punched the blanket into a ball and grabbed the pillow, stomped her way to the door, and pitched them outside.

  She hated being poor, hated the razor that she’d stretched so many times that it cut her legs, she hated using dish soap to wash her hair because she didn’t have shampoo. Her jaw clenched, she stomped back to the couch, to the chocolate crumbs, to the mousetrap. She hauled the trap, mouse and all, outside and threw it fast and furious. Then she wrangled the vacuum cleaner out of the closet; and taking the couch apart, vacuumed every last crumb, every last ant.

  Clutching a lumpy couch pillow and a stiff decorative throw, she plopped down on the couch. “Ten, nine, eight . . .” she counted backwards “. . . three, two, one,” and took a deep breath. “Okay, it’s over, settle down,” she told herself, leaning back. Nothing else would distract her now. Not the shadows that headlights made, not the possum, not the noise inside the wall. She concentrated on Miami Vice, trying to figure out what was going on. Her feet were up now. Her arms relaxed.

  The lights went out. The television flickered off.

  “Crap.”

  Laying there in the dark, waiting for the electricity to come back on, she heard a distant train whistle, its tune long and lean. The sound of a car coming down the road interrupted the not so silent night. She watched misshapen headlights travel along the walls, strumming her fingers on the remote control. The echo of a dog, a tenor, howled. Another dog harmonized, barking the bass. She wondered where the duet was coming from and how far away they were—one mile, two miles, five? How long was this intermission going to take? She waited, laying very still, the couch like a magnet. The wind outside took one long breath, wheezing through the old windowpanes. “Come on,” she huffed. This was taking too long. She sat up. There had to be candles somewhere in the kitchen. She got off the couch and stepped carefully through the dark, feeling her way, trying to remember which cupboard they were in. Another train whistled through the stillness; a floorboard creaked; the sound of metal tapping metal came from somewhere else. The source of every sound, all instruments of an ill-orchestrated sonata.

  Groping blindly in the kitchen, she found a candle, and remembered that she’d seen matches in a drawer across the room. She stepped too quickly and tripped over the empty trap, and fell on top of it.

  “Shit.”

  She rubbed her knee. The half-moon, filtering through the curtains, offered only gray specks of light. She finally found the matches and lit the candle; then reset the trap. Carrying the candle, guarding the flame, she made her way back to the living room, and set it down on an end table. There she watched the candle flame, the unsteady reflection in the polished veneer and thought about what to do. Sitting there for who knows how long, the only thing left was to go to bed. Guarding the flame through the black stairwell, wretched sounds came from inside the wall. She told herself it was only mice. She crawled into bed.

  A door slammed from somewhere inside the house. Her body lurched. She scooted under the blankets, praying, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .”

  She heard footsteps slowly creeping up the stairs. Her throat felt like it was closing, she could hardly speak, “Ed, is that you?” She pulled the tough-cord Sears bedspread over her head.

  “No it’s Greg. ED who?”

  Chapter 33

  “Hi. I’d like to speak to Jeff or Nate Zourenger. Could you please find them for me?” Julie asked over the phone, thankful that someone had finally answered it.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is their mother calling. I’ve been trying . . . .”

  “Hey! Anyone seen Nate or Jeff Zorro?” the voice yelled out.

  She heard heavy metal playing in the background that blasted ‘Bark at the moon’, so-called music that she would have never allowed.

  “Their mom’s on the phone!” the voice yelled again.

  Julie heard a clunk. Whoever had answered the phone, more likely a freshman, must have let the phone drop. This was the only phone, a payphone, to service the entire floor in that particular dorm. It sounded like someone turned up the music. Julie balled her hand into a fist. They were supposed to call every second and fourth Sunday. That was the deal. Listening to Ozzy Osborn’s damning lyrics, half expecting to hear a dial tone next, Julie wondered just how responsible they really were. How could they study in this?

  “Mom?” Jeff answered the phone.

  “Where have you been? I have been trying to call you for days.”

  “I didn’t know you were trying to call me. I’m not here that much. I’ve got this calcu
lus test today and I’ve been studying at my fraternity.” He seemed to be explaining too much.

  “Where is Nate?” Julie asked, picturing him—his T-shirt, wrinkled and faded. His jeans, torn at the knees.

  “He’s down the hall. Do you want me to get him?”

  “Go find him. I need to talk to both of you,” Julie said, rethinking what she was going to say. She heard him yell Nate’s name. Why had she started out by scolding him, she had intended to start on a positive note.

  “Okay, Mom, Nate’s coming. What’s going on?”

  Suddenly everything she wanted to say stuck in her throat. What she was going to say was suddenly all wrong. She took a breath, stuck in a frozen stare.

  “Mom?”

  Julie blinked hard. Her voice softened. “You haven’t heard? You haven’t been watching the news?”

  “Heard what?”

  She was a little relieved. All this time and they still didn’t know. She was on some level glad that they could hear it from her. “Remember those letters that someone was sending me?”

  “Yeah. What about him?”

  “We tracked the man down who wrote them, in that new development. And the same day we found out who he was . . . someone killed him. They’re saying it was your dad,” Julie said, her palm to her forehead.

  “How could they make such a mistake? I’m sure he told them he didn’t do it. Right?” There was a long pause. “Mom?”

  She wanted to say how sick with worry she was, how she wanted to jump through the phone line and hold him tight. She wanted . . . but this wasn’t about what she wanted. A numbing sensation befell her lips and her tongue—the words fell out, “Your father’s in jail.”