Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem (38 page)

Memphis tried to sketch out the details for the women, even going so far as to spread out the seven recovered rings on his desk. “These rings belonged to the Reverend, ladies. A murder victim. Your husband had the personal property of a murder victim hidden in his motel room. Do you have any idea how incriminating this is?”

“Well, maybe the Reverend gave them to him before he died, because that’s just how Gator was.” “He was the kind of man you want to give everything to.” “I bet those rings were for us. Wedding rings.” “The Reverend was blessing our union.” “Those are the wedding rings we never got.” Memphis wondered who in creation those woman thought of when they thought of Gator Rollins. He decided that as soon as the rings were no longer needed for evidence, he would release them to the wives. Reverend Henry’s sister certainly didn’t need or want them. The Sheriff shook his head when he imagined those women wrapping tape around the backs of those rings to make them fit their scabby fingers.

He smelled smoke. “Young man, what are you
doing?
” One of the boys looked up from where he was lighting the corner of a wall map on fire. “Out. All of you. Out, out, out.”

He wanted some peace in which to think.

RHONDALEE SAT HAPPILY
in her kitchen, stapling together a special “MURDER! MURDER! TRAILER PARK MAYHEM!” edition of the Park newsletter.

She’d headed for the office right after Memphis left, tripping along the blacktop like a nanny goat, imagining how satisfying it would be when Tender heard the news about Annie Leigh being carried off by that revolting man. It was all his fault, Rhondalee had decided, if you thought about it hard enough and really made your mind up to blame it on him.

She’d typed like the wind, the story getting ahead of her at times, her fingers galloping along behind, determined to finish and distribute “the facts.” She’d shuffled her well-worn clichés, her stock phrases, arranged, composed, cut and pasted the story into a shape both lurid and concise. She’d printed it, copied it, and carried it back to the house to staple because the electric stapler in the office had been broken.

She sat at the table, slamming her palm into the old Swingline and shaking her head. The sheer naughtiness of her granddaughter, putting herself out in harm’s way like that. Just like her mother, thinking there was nowhere she couldn’t go. Of course Rhondalee was glad she was fine, just a little scraped-up. But would it hurt that child to be afraid of something for a change?

Several images threatened to bob to the surface of Rhondalee’s mind; what might have happened had Annie Leigh not jumped out of that truck, what might have happened had she not landed exactly as she landed. Rhondalee firmly pushed those images away. She’d left that out in her account of the death of Gator Rollins, the miraculous survival of her daughter and granddaughter. No need for anyone to know about that part of it.

She slammed the stapler with satisfaction, imagining that at least this issue of the newsletter would find its rightful readership.

WHILE THEY WERE
at the hospital, Annie Leigh had sat on a table, holding onto the neck of her guitar and watching intently as a nurse picked gravel out of her knees with a tweezers. She’d asked the doctors to leave in a few pieces, hoping for scars.

As soon as they got home, Annie had wanted to take that vial of pebbles up to show Beau Neely, along with the stitches on her chin and the scabs on her joints. But Raven had steered her into bed, where she’d fallen asleep in moments. Just a little while longer, Raven thought. And we’ll hit the road.

She just wants to watch that talent show, and then I can take her with me.

Raven stepped out and found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, stapling together a newsletter, ignoring her daughter with an air of eternal injury.

“She’s asleep. You’ll keep an ear on her, Ma?”

Rhondalee sighed. “I always do, don’t I?”

RAVEN HAD LEFT,
but she wanted to go back. She wanted her daughter. But she had business to attend to.

She sat at a booth in the Daisy Diner. Isaac sat across from her, a white mug cradled in his big old mitt, his right ankle crossed over his left knee, his sandaled foot bobbing up and down. Like sitting down to coffee with a bear, she thought. He ate, she didn’t.

“Where were you this morning? Where was the truck?”

“I had some business to attend to.”

“What kind of business?”

“Old business.” Her hand shook a little while grasping her coffee cup. She found a quarter in her pocket and a song on the table jukebox.

He groaned. “Not more Francie June.”

“It’s against the law to get tired of Francie June around here. Just so you know.” Raven kept touching the back of her head to verify the pain.

His eyes wandered over to watch little Ranita, then back to her. “Raven, is something wrong?”

“Nope. Nothing’s wrong.”

“Did you know that trucker guy who died? Is that it?”

“Sure I knew him. The Trucker Club, remember?”

Isaac shook his head and sipped his coffee. “I see you smoked it.”

Her hand flew up to touch the empty space in her hatband. Annie’s dark eyes flashed across Raven’s memory.
Mom, please. Just till Sunday, please
. She’d asked her on that ride home from the hospital, asked to hang around for that show. But there were three loads in the next three days she could speak for. She could haul a load of tires to Modesto that very night.

She could take her daughter on the road, now, no problem. There was no need to hide her from the man who had made her. But she had to get shed of this man.

“I want to go a little deeper into the hills. I need your help to find the right kind of landscape. One afternoon, one night. That’s all I’m asking for.”

“An afternoon and a night. I can give you that.”

“And after that?”

After that. “All I ever promised you was a steak. After that we’re over.” Only the tears in the corners of his eyes showed how much she’d hurt him.

They were quiet, then. Sipping coffee, listening to the jukebox. She studied his hopeful face, his focused eyes, noted his dirty fingernails, the pepper in his teeth. She looked at his shaggy hair, his sunburn, the streaks of red in his blonde beard, his pudgy cheeks, that cupid mouth. Something about him reminded her of a boy. But he wasn’t a boy. He was a man.

And she really didn’t need one of those.

ONE NIGHT. ONE
afternoon. All he asked for.

So, she left her daughter for the last time. Left her in the charge of a woman who yanked at the sleepy girl, forgetting her bruises. “You’d
think
your
grandfather
would be here to help,” she whined. Raven saw Annie wince and stumble, thought about the scrubbing she was in for on that tender, scraped skin, and she started to go after her. Then she froze.

One night. One afternoon. All he asked for.

She took Tender’s truck from the driveway. She swung by the rig. He packed up his equipment and she packed some supplies, and they drove.

“You know where I’d love to go,” he said. “I’d love to shoot up where those Bone Pile people live.”

“If you went up there, I think they’d be the ones doing the shooting.”

She put on an old tape of Tender’s. Dolly Parton. It was one of Annie Leigh’s favorites, she knew that from hearing the girl sing it in the bathtub in her impossible soprano.

Isaac hit the button, stopped the tape. “You can’t make me listen to this.”

“What?”

“I’ve listened to your music for a week, but I can’t listen to this crap.”

“You’re calling Dolly
crap?
This is a hillbilly angel singing, you intellectual bastard.” Her voice was hard. “I’m going to rewind. I want you listen to this song with a closed mouth and an open heart.”

So, with his mouth closed as tightly as his mind, he listened to the hillbilly pathos of it. Her voice was angelic, he had to admit, and the guitar picking was fine. He liked Raven’s harmonies, higher even than the woman singing.

To his chagrin, he found himself about to burst into tears.

HE WOKE WHEN
she stopped in a box canyon.

His eyes popped open, and he began to shout. “My GOD! To think this is only FORTY MILES from that trailer park!” He had three cameras, tripods and light meters and lenses and so much stuff she really didn’t know how he made sense of it all. “This is GREAT!” He ran around fiddling and setting up. “This is PERFECT!”

He took shots all afternoon. She snoozed in the sun, hat over her eyes, feeling the heat soak into everything that hurt. And plenty hurt. Mostly, she wished she still smoked.

Finally, it was sunset. They watched it together. He stood with his arm around her shoulders until she shrugged him away. “Aren’t you gonna to take a picture of that?”

“I can’t bear to,” he said. “It’s pollution, you know. Even out here, pollution makes the sunset beautiful.”

She cut her eyes. “Can I give you a little advice?”

“Sure.”

“OK. Here goes. Slug somebody who pisses you off, instead of wondering about how his childhood affected him. Piss on dirt without considering damage to the environment. Let the sun hit your face without thinking about the hole in the ozone layer. And take some goddamn pictures of this goddamn sunset.”