Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (30 page)

Wanderley stood up. “Are you done, then? Is this enough or do you have more punishment planned? I'm not sure what you could do to top this, but I'd like to know ahead of time.”

A set of brown eyes and a set of blue eyes stared back at Wanderley, unblinking, resolved. From beneath the table came an exhausted, yowling yawn—Baby Bear letting us know how boring this conversation was.

Alex said, “Nothing illegal.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah. I'm sure.”

Wanderley left. He wasn't happy with us.

•   •   •

Annie Laurie, who is, in most ways, a restrained and reasonable woman, wanted to go over to the Pickersley house and burn it down after she saw the video.

I told her not to watch the video. I told her I could summarize it for her perfectly well. I tried some “head of the family” business on her. You can imagine where that got me.

Annie watched the video. She watched the video three times and then she went to the kitchen and started slamming cabinet doors shut and banging pots down on the stove and pulling out a celery bunch and whacking it to bits with a cleaver without bothering to wash it or strip the strings from it. I was afraid she would hack through a finger, the way she was going, and I took the cleaver away from her and made her come sit down in the family room and when I let go of her arms, she punched me in the shoulder. And covered her face and cried and cried.

“What should I do?” I asked her. She punched my arm again so I held her hands.

“You should go to the house and get the twins for me and then burn it to the ground and sow the ground with salt.”

“They also have a cat.”

She wrested a hand from me and blew her nose on a paper towel. “You can bring me the cat, too.”

“Annie Laurie, I'm asking you. What do I do? Do I go over there and talk to them?”

Annie punched the couch.

“Oh, Bear. She came to us. That poor girl needed us and we sent her away.”

“Jo sent her away, not us.”

“We let it happen.”

“We put Jo first. We're her parents. That's our job.”

“No, Bear, you're wrong. Jo has everything she needs and most of what she wants.”

“You can't force a friendship, Annie. Phoebe was nearer Merrie's age than Jo's.”

“
I
could have stayed friends with her.
I
could have been there for her.”

“Honey, you tried.”

There was a cold bottle of white wine in the garage fridge. I brought Annie a glass of ice water, a glass of wine and two aspirins. She crunched the aspirins before swallowing. She always does that and it sets my teeth on edge.

Annie drank the water and sipped the wine, and leaned her head back on the cushion. I stroked her hair off her face. She took a long, quivery breath and let it out. I knew my girl was her reasonable self again.

“Okay,” she said. “Do you want to cook dinner and I'll go over and burn their house down or shall I cook dinner and you go burn their house down?”

•   •   •

I checked YouTube late that evening. The video had had 177,024 hits. I glanced at the comments, but I couldn't read them. The creative spelling, the you're/your, their/they're confusion and the indiscriminate use of the F-word give me a headache. But I was with Jo. From my quick look, these were not people to be worried about. These were not the best and brightest to have come through our public school systems.

•   •   •

I couldn't go over there. There was no way I could call. What, exactly, could I say?

Twenty

J
o was grounded for three weeks. She asked for an exception for Halloween, Wednesday night, but we said no, she would have to miss it. That was going to be hard on her. In Sugar Land, the teens trick-or-treat through high school. Nobody minds. Only a few grumblebums complain. I'll gladly buy an extra bag of candy and let the teens be kids a year longer. Most of us feel it's better to have the teens on their feet trick-or-treating than to have teen drivers cruising when little ones are apt to be darting across the streets.

Usually Annie Laurie and I put a table up on the front porch with battery-powered lanterns and our cauldron of candy. Annie sets up a portable CD player so she can play spooky music, and she always puts a costume on Baby Bear. Last year Annie had gone to Target the day after Halloween and gotten a child's costume at seventy-five percent off. She had made some alterations, and now Baby Bear, tethered to a porch column, was dressed as a big pink-and-white rabbit. He looked ridiculous but he didn't care. Baby Bear isn't a self-conscious dog.

Annie tried to get Jo to come out of her room and join us, but Jo said no thanks, she was going to study and go to bed early and she would appreciate it if we didn't disturb her again. We said we wouldn't and took up our posts outside.

There weren't that many trick-or-treaters this year. Most of the kids who came by were driven in beat-up cars from neighborhoods that can't afford to hand out “good candy.” That doesn't bother me any more than handing out candy to teens does. One night a year we give candy to poor kids—what's wrong with that? Everybody I know dumps the extra candy in the End Hunger red barrels at the grocery store anyway.

By nine o'clock we decided to pack it in and moved our paraphernalia from the front porch to our foyer. That's when my phone buzzed. It was Mark Pickersley.

“Bear,” he said. “Could you get over here?”

“What's up?”

He gave me a long silence. “Could you come?”

I said I would, and stripped the costume off Baby Bear and took him with me. This would be the first time I'd seen or spoken to Mark and Liz since the video had been posted on YouTube. That had to be what the visit was about—someone had let them know that Jo was responsible for the posting. I was not looking forward to this sit-down.

Baby Bear and I walked over—I don't like to be driving Halloween night, either. All those tiny bodies in dark costumes running excitedly to and fro. We cut across the golf course and came out on the street that intersects with the Pickersleys'. I saw the red and blue lights well before we got there. For a quarter second I thought about what Annie Laurie had said about burning down the Pickersleys' house, but the lights weren't from fire trucks. There were cop cars at both ends of the block, flashers swirling. Neighbors stood on their porches and steps looking worried or interested. Lots of them were filming or taking pictures. Three officers patrolled the street and kept it clear.

The sidewalks were impassable. Dark-clad bodies stood five and six deep along the sidewalk in front of the Pickersley house and across the street. Each body wore a black hooded robe or sweatshirt. And every one wore the mask from the movie
Scream
. Shoulder to shoulder they stood, gaping eye sockets turned toward the Pickersleys' dark home, the white rubber mouths stretched wide in horror. There had to have been more than a hundred, and more were coming on foot. They were utterly silent—no whispers, no coughs. It was eerie.

Baby Bear growled and jerked at his leash. I wrapped the extra length around my hand and drew him close to my side. There wasn't any getting to the Pickersley house if we stayed on the sidewalk. We stepped into the road and walked the gauntlet of those hooded, staring eyes. It was so quiet that I could hear the pad of my sneakers and the click of Baby Bear's claws on the street. An officer signaled for me to stop and I waited for him to reach us.

“Out of the road, please.”

I said, “I know the home owners.” I pointed to the dark house that was the focus of the rubber-masked gathering. “Mark Pickersley asked me to come. I'm his minister.”

“Hold on,” he said and moved away from me. He spoke into his handheld, listened and gestured me forward. I got a two-officer escort to the front door. When it was clear where we were headed, a hissing started up. Baby Bear jerked and lunged on his leash, trying to get at the menace he sensed behind the white rubber.

Up and down the street, those white faces hissed at us. My skin was crawling.

Before I could knock or ring, Mark opened the door and I stepped in, pulling Baby Bear inside with me.

“Sorry,” I said, apologizing for the dog's presence. “I didn't know what was going on—I planned to tie him to a rail or something, but I won't leave him out there. Is it okay if he comes in?”

Mark urged us both in and shut the door behind us. He turned the dead bolt.

“Let's sit here, okay?” There were no lights on, inside or out. Mark sat down on the carpeted stairs in front of the door. Baby Bear and I took a stair below him. Through the beveled-glass doors and the matching side windows, we could see the crowd growing larger. Baby Bear whined and pushed me with his head. I told him everything was fine and rubbed his head and ears.

“Where are the twins?” I asked.

“Asleep, thank God, before any of this started about an hour ago. I first noticed the people outside after I put the boys to bed and glanced out their bedroom window. There were six of them then, all wearing those slasher-movie masks—standing on the sidewalk across the street, looking up at the house.”

“How is Liz taking it?”

“I don't know. I didn't tell her. She's having some trouble with her blood sugar levels and she went to bed with a headache before I put the boys down for the night. She spent most of the day trying to find a replacement for Mrs. Holsapple and she's not finding what she wants. I think the stress threw her off.”

“What happened to Mrs. Holsapple?”

“She quit. Called up Monday and quit without giving any notice. She didn't give a reason. She called, said she wouldn't be in that day, that she was quitting. She asked us to mail her what we owed her.”

“Ahh.”

“Anyway, I came downstairs, and by the time I looked out the front door, there had to be twenty people outside. I've been sitting here on the stairs, watching the crowd grow. One of the neighbors must have called the cops. It wasn't me.”

“What do the cops say?”

“They say it's a Halloween prank. A flash mob. It's harmless and not personal. They aren't worried. As long as the group doesn't block the road, or drop garbage or make a lot of noise, the police aren't going to bust it up.”

“Do you think it's harmless and impersonal?”

He breathed out. “Oh, it's personal.” He stared out into the night. The street was well-lit, lights shining down on the masked crowd at regular intervals.

Ostensibly, what we had here was a costumed group on Halloween night—nothing sinister, not really.

But it felt sinister. And it felt very, very personal.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “Sitting alone here . . . I needed some company, you know?”

I said I was glad to be there. I was. I wouldn't want him to do this on his own. At our lunch, I'd gotten down on Mark—that story about leaving Liz on the phone. Pretty judgmental of me. Mark had been sixteen then. There have been lots of times when I've done things I'm not proud of, and I was older than sixteen.

The masked group had grown so large they were having trouble staying on the sidewalk. I went over to the study window. The crowd stretched from end to end of the long block. In their midst was a television film truck. I could see a tan-suited reporter smiling big and gesturing back to the scene behind her.

Mark and I sat on the stairs in the dark and watched, neither of us saying a word.

The white cat made its stealthy way down the stairs and parked itself four stairs out of Baby Bear's reach. The cat pretended not to see Baby Bear and began an elaborate tongue bath. Baby Bear wanted to know if I was aware we were being insulted.

The television crew eventually left when it was clear nothing more exciting was going to happen. The crowd continued to grow until eleven o'clock, the people on the sidewalk becoming more and more packed. Then, as quickly as it had come together, it melted away. Within fifteen minutes, there wasn't a
Scream
mask in sight. The cops got in their cars and drove away.

The event was over.

“That's not Liz and Phoebe in the video, Bear.” Mark finally spoke into the darkness. “I don't know how it ever got around that that was Liz and Phoebe. There aren't any names used on the video, you notice that? It doesn't even sound like Liz.”

I didn't say anything, I just listened.

“It doesn't, Bear.”

“Okay.”

“Another way I know it wasn't Liz and Phoebe—I didn't send a text like that to Liz. I would never. I didn't feel that way about Phoebe. I love my daughter. Loved her. Love her.”

At lunch Mark had told me he was ashamed of the way Phoebe looked now. Liz had also said that to Phoebe on the video.

There was the snick of a door opening somewhere upstairs.

“For another, I don't text. If there's something I want to say, I call. I
get
texts from Liz, telling me to pick up the cleaning, stop for milk. But I don't text. Nothing more than a
K
to let Liz know I got her message. Usually not even that.

“That's how I
know
that the video isn't Liz and Phoebe. For Liz to have shown Phoebe a text that came from me, Liz would have had to write it herself. She would have had to borrow my phone, text the message to her phone, and then delete the message from my phone. So I wouldn't see it the next time I got a text to pick up milk.”

I couldn't tell if Mark was trying to convince me or himself.

“And if Liz had done that, I wouldn't be able to see this as . . . it would mean she hadn't lost her temper. The way she did at the church when she slapped Phoebe. This would be different. This would have been . . . planned. So I know the video isn't of Lizabeth and Phoebe.” He mulled this over, taking his time.

“Because if it was, I'd have to kill her.”

At that, I found some words. They tumbled out—“in God's hands” and “knowing all the facts” and “forgiveness” and “divine justice.”

Mark stood when I petered out of words, my cue to leave. “But it wasn't Lizabeth and Phoebe. Didn't you hear me?”

A door clicked shut upstairs. Mark smiled and shook my hand.

Outside, Baby Bear took the opportunity to water the Pickersleys' lush landscaping. I looked up at the expensive home, filled with every good thing money could buy. A woman was framed in the top right window, blonde hair pulled back from a pale face. Our eyes met and held. She didn't look away. Baby Bear nudged my leg to let me know he was ready to go home. I tipped my head to Liz and turned and walked away.

•   •   •

Once home, I remembered to drag the garbage and recycling bins to the curb. Thursday is garbage day. I don't know what made me lift the lid to the garbage can, what I thought I was going to find there besides garbage.

Inside there was a wadded hooded robe and on top of the mass of cheap black fabric was a white face, its mouth open in silent horror, staring up at me. A
Scream
mask. I shut the lid.

•   •   •

Mark and Liz didn't come back to church after that—not our church, at least. Maybe they were going someplace else. Lizabeth sent me an invoice for the damage I had done to the trailer when I'd broken down the front door, and I mailed her a check with another note of apology. I called several times to ask Mark to lunch, but he always had other plans.

From:
Walker Wells

To:
Merrie Wells

How was the meet?

From:
Merrie Wells

To:
Walker Wells

I didn't finish last.

•   •   •

One morning in early November, I left Baby Bear home and went to the Clements High School track to run instead of running on the levee the way I usually do. I'd timed it on purpose. Father Nat Fontana was getting in his four miles. We ran in easy companionship and when he stopped, I stopped with him. We caught up on news and he turned to leave, hesitated, and walked back to where I stood waiting.

He clapped me on the back.

“This is about Jo, isn't it?”

It was.

“Ahh, Bear. As soon as I learned who she was, I urged her to tell you. I told her it was the right thing to do—you needed to know.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Nat and I were friends. We've probably seen each other nine or ten times since Jo had apparently started her RCIA training.

He wrapped an old gym towel around his neck, shook his head. “It wasn't mine to tell. It had to come from Jo.” He studied me. “It hit you hard, didn't it?”

I guess it had. I had deliberately waylaid a Catholic priest, trying to get some information out of him.

“That's why Jo wouldn't tell you. That's why she
couldn't
tell you. She knew it was going to hurt you. Let's go get some coffee. What's the closest place?”

“My house,” I told him.

“Can you make a Vanilla Frappuccino? That's what I want.”

“That's not coffee. That's a coffee-flavored milk shake.”

“You're so legalistic, Bear. Get in the car. We'll go to that Starbucks across from Kroger's. I'll drop you off when we're finished.”

At Starbucks, Nat ordered a tall Vanilla Frappuccino and I had a cup of coffee. We sat outside under a red-and-white-striped umbrella.

“Have you talked to Jo?” Nat asked.