All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (28 page)

“Why don't I drive you over in your car, Brenda? Is that okay?” I said.

That way, I was in charge, and it left the guys any vehicles they needed to haul stuff away. My plan was to go by the garage and get a key to Kellen's house. They'd be out of the way there, because I knew Kellen didn't keep any product at his house.

After we got Brenda and the girls settled, Kellen could come up to the ranch and help me figure out what to do. We'd have to call the cops, but not until we cleaned up and had a story in place.

 

3

AMY

Kellen's garage was the same as any other run-down mechanic shop you see in little towns. Two garage bays, both doors standing open. Lawnmowers and motorcycles in various states of disassembly. On the back wall were a window and a door. Parked there was what I knew had to be Kellen's motorcycle. The fenders were chromed and all of it was covered in stars.

“I bet he's in the office,” Butch said, but when he pushed the door open, he said, “What the fuck?”

Through the open door I saw what everyone else saw, I suppose. Wavy on the desk, leaning back on her hands, completely naked, resting her bare feet on Kellen's legs. He was in the desk chair, his shirt off, his pants open. I didn't notice any blood, although later that was all anyone talked about—the blood on his desk blotter. Small amounts of blood are almost invisible when you have a puddle of blood burned on your retinas like a sunspot.

I saw what everyone else saw, except that at the moment the door swung open, I saw Wavy smiling before her eyes went wide.

Kellen stood up, and as he fastened his fly, Butch lunged at him and swung. Butch punched him in the face and all Kellen did was say, “Goddamn, Butch, let her get dressed before you come in here and try to kick my ass.”

He didn't look like he'd been punched until he saw Mom, Leslie, and me.

“You son of a bitch,” Mom said. “How long have you been doing this? How long?”

“Okay, ma'am, I know—I know how it looks.” Kellen put his hands up, like he was surrendering, or preparing for Mom to fall on him like a hungry lioness. “But I love her. We're gonna get married.”

Kellen picked up a piece of paper from his desk and held it out to her. She took it and glared down at it, her face getting redder.

“Val and Liam know, okay? I bought her a ring and Liam signed the paperwork. He signed it today and the judge says—”

“Liam can't give you permission to marry her anymore!” Mom twisted and tore at the paper until it was just a pile of scraps at her feet.

Then I understood the dead man in the hallway of the farmhouse was Uncle Liam.

While all this was going on, Wavy got dressed, pulling up her panties and tugging on her T-shirt and skirt. As she stomped into her boots, Mom stepped around Butch and reached for the phone that was lying off the hook on the filing cabinet. As she did, she looked down at the desk blotter and said, “You're going to burn for this, you fucking bastard.” I'd never heard her use the F-word before.

Mom put the receiver to her ear and, for the second time that day, dialed 911. When the operator answered, she said, “I want to report a rape.”

“Wait, Mrs. Newling. Just wait.” Butch, not Kellen, said that.

“What's the address here?” Mom said.

Sitting back in the desk chair, with a hand to his head, Kellen gave my mother the address and she repeated it to the operator.

“My name is Brenda Newling. It's my niece. Yes, yes, I did make that earlier call. I had to leave there. I—no, this is
not
a prank. I was there and they were—” Mom's voice got louder and louder until she was silent for a moment. “They're there? You have someone at the house?”

Until then, Butch had been shaking his head, but he came around the desk and jerked the phone away.

“You dumb cunt. You called the cops out to the house? You called the cops?” he said.

“Valerie and Liam are dead! Somebody shot them! Yes, I called the police!”

“Fuck! Fuck!” Butch tossed the phone on the desk and ran out through the garage. A moment later we heard the car start and drive away. He'd left us there.

“Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry,” Kellen said.

Mom looked at Wavy and realized what she'd done: blurted it out with no warning.
I'm calling the cops on your fiancé, and by the way, your parents are dead.
Wavy started trembling. Kellen put his hands on her hips and walked her back until she was sitting on his lap. Wrapping one arm around her shoulders, he tucked her head under his chin. He kissed her hair and said, “I'm here, Wavy. I'm here.”

It seemed like that would be the end of it. Mom would stop yelling and saying awful things, and Kellen would take care of Wavy. He obviously knew how.

They were still sitting like that five minutes later when a police car pulled up. Mom went outside and, when she came back, two sheriff's deputies were with her.

“Why don't you girls step outside?” the younger deputy said, while the older one went into the office.

“Come on, Junior,” he said. “You're gonna have to come with us.”

“Give us a couple minutes, okay?” Kellen said.

“No, you need to let go of her and stand up.”

“Jesus, Delbert, she just found out her mother's dead. Give us two goddamn minutes.”

The deputy stepped back and we waited. Kellen set Wavy up on the edge of the desk and for a while they hugged each other. She whispered in his ear, and then she kissed him. That didn't help the situation with the deputies, because it was a movie kiss, like when the hero and heroine are saying good-bye, and maybe they're never going to see each other again.

The older deputy said, “That's enough of that. You need to step back and put your hands on your head, Junior.”

Before he did it, Kellen reached into his pockets and tossed a handful of things on the desk: keys, bolts, a pocket knife, and loose coins that rattled across the desk and tumbled to the floor. He unhooked his wallet and tossed it on the desk, too. I could tell he'd done it before, from the way he turned around and laced his hands on the back of his head. The deputy cuffed him, while Wavy sat on the desk, watching.

The deputy turned to Mom and said, “Normally, we'd get another patrol car to take her to the hospital, but things are a little crazy today. We've got a real situation up at the Quinn place.”

“I know. This is their daughter. Have they found her brother yet?”

“Holy crap, ma'am. That's the Quinn girl?” The deputy blinked. “I don't know. I didn't know he was missing.”

“I told Nine-One-One.”

“Well, a whole lot's happened since then, so I'd better radio the sheriff and let him know.”

“Delbert!” The younger deputy shouted from the far garage bay. “There's blood over here. A lot of it.”

“Ma'am, I need you to get these girls out of here. If you could take them out to the drive so I can secure this place.”

Mom gathered Leslie and me around her, but when she tried to bring Wavy into our huddle, Wavy refused. She put her arms around Kellen, where he stood next to the desk. Mom grabbed the back of Wavy's T-shirt and tried to pull her away.

“Miss Quinn, you need to step outside,” the deputy said. Wavy didn't move.

“Wavy, it's okay.” Kellen couldn't put his arms around her, but he leaned down and kissed her. “Go outside with your aunt. I love you. It's gonna be okay, sweetheart.”

She looked up at him and shook her head, but she let Mom lead her away. Even though Wavy wasn't fighting anymore, Mom kept her shirt clutched in one fist as we walked out through the garage. As we passed the other deputy, we saw what he was looking at. There were a dozen quarter-sized drops of blood on the floor and on a nearby workbench a puddle as big as a dinner plate. An hour before, I might have thought that was a lot of blood, too.

As we stood outside in the sun, I heard the younger deputy say, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I got a gun over here, Delbert. There's a gun over here with blood on it.”

 

4

WAVY

Of course Kellen said, “It's gonna be okay.” He didn't want me to be scared, but Mama was dead. Not Sad Mama or Good Mama or Scary Mama ever again. Just Dead Mama. And Donal was missing. And Kellen was in handcuffs.

The cops took us to the hospital, where I saw Mr. Cutcheon in the parking lot. He waved at me, but Aunt Brenda wouldn't let me go to him. The hospital smelled like disinfectant and sadness, like when Mama and Donal had their wreck. In a white room with a maze of blue curtains, a nurse said, “How's she doing? We're going to have a private exam room for her in a few minutes. Are you her mother?”

“I'm her aunt. Her mother—” Aunt Brenda couldn't say it. Dead Mama. Always. That was how death worked. Dead Grandma. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the smell of Grandma's house. I wanted to smell something nice that wasn't sadness. I pulled my shirt up over my nose. It smelled like Kellen's sweat. Safe.

Aunt Brenda dragged me into a room with a black table covered in paper.

“Why don't I take the other girls down to the visitor's lobby? The candy stripers have magazines and stuff,” another nurse said.

Leslie and Amy looked scared, and their eyes were red from crying. Dead Aunt Val for always, too.

Then Aunt Brenda and the nurse and I were alone in the little room.

“Sweetie, why don't you let your aunt help you change into this gown, okay?”

It was one of those blue hospital things with strings and no back. Aunt Brenda pulled on my T-shirt, trying to take it off, but I twisted her wrist until she let go.

“Ma'am, does she understand? Have you told her anything?” the nurse said.

“I didn't know what to tell her. Is it like a pelvic exam?”

“Yeah, like when you have your pap smear. Has she had one before?”

“I don't think so. She's only thirteen.”

“Oh, sweetie. Oh, I'm so sorry,” the nurse said.

I hated hearing them talk about me like I was broken. Mama was dead, but I was fine. I knew what “rape” meant and that wasn't what Kellen had done.

“You know, ma'am, we might give her a sedative. To calm her down.”

“That's a good idea. She's pretty nervous about people touching her,” Aunt Brenda said.

I wasn't going to take any sedative. No pills. No needles. They weren't going to put anything into me.

“I'll go get that and maybe while I'm gone you can help her change into the gown.”

The nurse opened the door, and that was all I needed. I dodged around Aunt Brenda, ducked past the nurse, and into the hallway. I was free.

Where to go was the hard part. Not to the shop or Kellen's house, where the cops might catch me. At the Lutheran Church, a carnival had been set up in the parking lot, which was crowded with people. The air smelled like funnel cakes, heavy and greasy.

No one even noticed me when I sat down in one of the tents, where people were playing bingo. I stayed there all afternoon and into the evening, going from tent to tent. When it started to get dark, a woman came up to me and said, “Are your parents here? Do you need a ride home?”

I shook my head and forced myself to smile and wave as I walked away. The police were still at the shop, but at Kellen's house, they had gone. The front door and the back door were closed with yellow tape, but the window to the laundry room was open. Balancing on a trash can, I popped out the screen, and crawled inside. The cops had made a mess, dumping things out of drawers.

After I put everything away, I took a shower. All day in the heat had made me sweaty, and I felt sticky between my legs. Wrapping up in a towel, I took my dirty clothes into the laundry room and put them in the hamper. In the dryer were clean clothes, mine and Kellen's mixed together. I put on a pair of my panties and one of his T-shirts that I liked to sleep in.

When I opened the freezer, I was hoping for ice cream sandwiches, but I found something better. Thirty-one little foam cups of ice cream. On top of each plastic lid, Kellen had written a letter in black marker. Setting them out on the table, I moved them around until I solved the puzzle: HAPPY BIRTHDAY WAVY! I LOVE YOU!

He'd drawn lopsided hearts on the other four cups.

I opened the first one and took a bite. Chocolate with cherries in it.

 

5

AMY

After Wavy ran away from the hospital, we walked to the police station. Mom asked one of the deputies about our car, but he shook his head.

“I don't know anything about that, but I expect the DEA will impound everything on the property.”

“The DEA?” Mom said.

“It's crazy up there. I went out to help with roadblocks and it's knee-deep in feds.”

“Because of the murders?”

“What? No. Mrs. Newling—there's—your brother-in-law has a meth lab up there about the size of a—it's big.”

Mom made all the right noises of shock, but I don't think it surprised her. After all, she knew what he'd done in the past. Did she really think he was
ranching
?

Whatever she thought, she was too tired to argue. Leslie was too tired to even whine. The three of us sat in the police station, our backsides going numb on hard plastic chairs, until the sheriff's wife took us to a motel.

She was a tiny, wiry woman, what I imagined Wavy growing into. Physically, anyway, because the sheriff's wife filled up dead air with talking. Probably she had to. Mom, Leslie, and I were like zombies, trudging into the motel room.

“Don't you worry, Mrs. Newling. We'll find your niece and nephew.”

The sheriff's wife put her hand on Mom's shoulder, and that's when she fell apart. The night we found out about Grandma's cancer was the first time I saw Mom cry, but the night of Wavy's fourteenth birthday was worse. Mom let the sheriff's wife hold her, and she cried so hard it shook the bed they were sitting on. Leslie and I just watched. We were cried out. More than anything, I wanted to go home, so I was relieved when the sheriff's wife said, “Now, have you had a chance to call your husband?”