The Miracle Stealer (10 page)

“No,” I told Gayle. “I'm steering clear of crazy people.”

Gayle smiled. “Girl, you're in the wrong town for that.”

Jeff laughed and set out our plates and drinks. “Come sit with us,” he said to Gayle.

For a second, she and I looked at each other, then she said, “No, I've got to get back. I'm a bit shorthanded these days.”

Jeff said it was good to see her, and Gayle turned to go. But then she stopped and looked back. “Take care of yourself, Andi.”

“You too,” I said. Then I stabbed a straw into my soda and looked away, not wanting to see her go.

Jeff said, “Something wrong with Gayle?”

I just started eating.

 

Jeff and I returned to Mr. Dettweiller's to tell him about the inspection Lute had done, which gave the car a relatively clean bill of health. Mr. Dettweiller shrugged and said, “So you interested?”

“Probably so,” I told him. “But I need to sleep on it. Could I keep her till tomorrow?”

Jeff's head swung left and he stared at me. Eager to please, Mr. Dettweiller agreed and said he'd see me in the morning. “Take good care of her,” he said, then swabbed his red, tearing eyes.

As Jeff and I walked back toward the cars, he said under his breath, “What do you need with that car overnight?”

“Nothing in particular,” I said. “Just something I felt like doing.”

Jeff stopped walking. “It's not much fun being lied to, you know?”

Of course, I hadn't been truthful with Jeff about a lot of things that day, so I couldn't blame him. But I also couldn't think of how to start explaining. We stood there without talking for a minute, then Jeff said, “Catch you later,” and climbed into his car. He left me there in Mr. Dettweiller's driveway, feeling bad for lying to him and worse because I couldn't follow. But now that I had a likely vehicle for my Anti-Miracle Plan, I was ready to get to work on the other ingredient of my hoax: a pint or two of blood.

 

When I left Cohler's, holding a plastic bag sagging with supplies, I didn't head straight home. Instead I found myself cruising the lake on Roosevelt Road, pretending that the Skylark was mine and contemplating the places I could go. I found a decent country station on the AM and cranked the windows down, let the wind work through my hair. Over at the Abernathys', I saw my mother's truck and a dozen other vehicles, some with out-of-state plates. A small crowd had gathered under the Grandfather Elm. Since I didn't slow down, I couldn't say for sure how many I could or couldn't recognize, but that didn't mean they were Pilgrims.

I passed the country club, then crossed beneath the dam and turned north. Ten minutes later I slowed to navigate the hairpin curve over McGinley's Cove, then downshifted to encourage the Skylark up the steep incline that leads to the highest point in Paradise. At the apex I paused, but I couldn't do what I needed to do next in broad daylight. Besides, I didn't have a hacksaw.

I thought about driving all the way down into Roosevelt Park, confronting the black-booted Reverend Castle and the Pilgrims
and whoever else wanted to make Daniel a small god. Maybe I'd even ask around about a thin, skinny guy with a perpetual itch. But I had a solid plan and I needed to stick to it. So I returned to the compound, knowing I could make good use of the time alone. I was pretty sure my mother would be home by dinner.

When I was a child, I remember being afraid of the toolshed. It sits off by itself in a corner of our property, leaning slightly under the weight of years. Pine needles cover the roof. It looks like a fine place for a witch to live, especially if you're a little girl. As I got older, my dad and I spent many hours in it as he taught me how to handle the tools, how to sharpen a mower blade and clean a paint-brush by spinning it in your hands. Together we built birdhouses and a swing for Daniel and even the Adirondack chairs on the front porch. Now I carried my plastic Cohler's bag to the shed, wondering for a moment what he'd think of my latest project.

Inside the shed, the naked lightbulb that hung from the ceiling was dead. I made do with the dingy sunlight forcing itself through the dirty windows, which barely reached the cobwebbed corners. I shuffled past the riding mower and the busted ten-speed bike, then cleared a space on my dad's worktable, shoving aside the mechanical guts of a leaf blower I'd taken apart but never reassembled. Before me, I laid out the contents from the bag: a tiny bottle of red dye, a couple cans of tomato paste, and barbecue sauce. For pure gross factor, I'd even bought a jar of raspberry jelly. From the rickety shelves behind the shovels and rakes, I dug out a box of dried blood that we used to ward skunks away from a strawberry garden that never took hold. Having no luck finding anything like a bowl, I dumped the rusty nails from a Folgers coffee can. Remarkably, it didn't leak when I poured in some
water, and I began experimenting with different recipes, stirring my concoctions. Really, it seemed like I should be adding in lizards and bat wings.

My goal was peculiar: I needed a substance that, perhaps in the moonlight, might resemble human blood. At the same time, it had to be something that upon closer inspection (an emergency room?) would obviously be fake. This second part was especially crucial.

My first few attempts looked mostly like the guts of a strawberry pie, too lumpy and bright to be mistaken for blood. The second batch, heavy on the water and barbecue sauce, was far too runny. In addition, it smelled just like what it was. It wouldn't fool anybody for two seconds. Begrudgingly, I realized that cooking up my own fake blood wouldn't work, and I sat on the riding mower to review my other options. There was a bloodmobile that toured the area on an irregular schedule. Maybe I could sneak in there. Or St. Jude's—I was certain they had blood on hand. But this meant stealing, and more upsetting, taking away something somebody else might need.

My eyes fell on the veins in my forearms, and my mind turned to my own personal supply. Maybe the answer was storing my own blood until the time was right. What would I need? A syringe, one of those bags? The presence of my own blood would be a nice touch, I decided, a convincing piece of evidence in the midst of a grand hoax. But before I could pursue this course of action any further, I heard a truck door slam and knew I was alone no more.

As I walked up the hill from the toolshed, Daniel and my mother circled the Skylark. She asked, “Did you buy this?”

“Not yet,” I told her.

Daniel climbed through the open window and crawled into the backseat. “It's gigantic in here,” he shouted. “Like a cave.”

“The car is awfully big,” my mother said.

“Think of how safe I'll be in a wreck.” I told her about Mr. Dettweiller and Lute Moody's inspection and she listened carefully.

“You know better than I do,” she said. “I'll call Betty tomorrow and get the insurance straightened out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I, uh, I appreciate it.”

“I am your mother, Anderson. And I do want you to be happy.”

Daniel was on his knees, bouncing on the springs in the backseat. He couldn't hear what we were saying. My mother's eyes looked sad, and I knew I'd been a topic of concerned conversation over at the Abernathys'. Or maybe she was wondering where this car could take me, my plans for leaving town. Whatever it was, she embraced me suddenly. I squeezed her back, and her chin rested on my shoulder. She whispered in my ear, “I love you, child.”

And I said back, “I know that, I know.” I hoped this might give her some comfort with what I knew was coming our way.

Long after midnight, I was back at my post in the Adirondack chair, waiting for my mother's bedroom light to go out. For as long as I could remember, she went to bed around eleven, disappearing into her latest paperback romance. Typically she passed out after a half hour or so, and more often than not she left the light on. When I lived up in the main house, I'd sneak in and turn it off for her so she'd sleep better. These days it stayed on
till morning. But I couldn't be sure she was asleep now, and so I'd waited and watched and waited some more. Finally I realized that I was just stalling, and I stood up and headed for the Skylark.

The engine was even louder in the stillness of two a.m., and as I drove down the driveway I expected to see my mother in the rearview mirror, running out of the house in her nightgown. Maybe I was hoping she'd stop me. Roosevelt Road was empty, and every house was dark, as if the whole village were a ghost town. As I passed Jeff's house, I slowed and squinted through the forest, checking for a light or some sign of life. I remember feeling very alone. Chief Bundower was probably out there somewhere, gripped by his infamous insomnia, treeing raccoons with Pinkerton. He and I hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words since what happened at St. Jude's, but I know he didn't blame Daniel for his wife's death. I had to admit my mere presence on the road at that hour was suspicious, though, and if the Chief pulled me over and felt compelled to search the vehicle, he'd find the hacksaw under the front seat.

Turns out that the Skylark's left headlight was cockeyed bad. As a result, I had a better view of the shoulder than the middle of the road, something that made me feel slightly off balance as I drove. The approach to the cove from the north is a long, gradual rise, something like that first hill of a huge roller coaster. At the top, the part of the ride where it seems like the people in front of you are dropping into nothing, I stopped the car and cut the engine.

The world fell silent. Up on that summit, I'd reached the highest point in Paradise. From here I could see back to the town, south to the dam, across the lake to the open spaces of the
country club's golf course. Most important, though, was the view right ahead of me. Roosevelt Road dipped down at a fierce angle for a hundred feet, the screaming part of the roller coaster ride, then hairpinned away from the lake. Right at the curve, there are a few guardrails, installed just after Michelle Kirkpatrick's prom-night disaster, followed by a flat grassy area where people used to park and admire the sailboats passing by the cove's mouth. The grass leads to a token wooden fence, just a series of interlocked railroad ties to mark the edge of the cliff. After that, it's a two-hundred-foot drop to the rocks.

With the Skylark positioned in the middle of the road, I shifted into neutral and stepped out. I steadied the steering wheel with my right hand at twelve o'clock and propped the door open with my left. The muscles in my legs strained as I shoved, and at first I thought the emergency brake was on. The Skylark didn't budge.

I put my back into it then, leaning my weight toward the decline. I faced the road and shoved so hard I thought my head would pop. But back behind me, I glimpsed the rear wheel as it slowly rotated. I felt a tightening in my back and my shoulders burned. I was at the edge of what I could do, but just like the wall you hit when you're running, if you push through it, there's always a hidden reserve of sweet golden fuel. The car moved an inch forward, then a foot. The front wheels reached the hill and the Skylark began to roll on her own, picking up speed so quick that I had to hop in before she took off without me. I had to fight the instinct to take the wheel, but this whole expedition was a test of alignment, so I forced my hands to stay on my lap. The car bounced and rattled, and every tree on the side of the
road seemed like the one we'd strike. But the Skylark stayed straight and rocketed headlong toward the guardrails and the cliff beyond.

The wind whipped through the car and I felt a strange sense of exhilaration. My mind flashed to the terrible pressures that must have driven Michelle Kirkpatrick to suicide. For an instant, I thought of letting the car go, of riding it off into the open air, and the weightlessness I'd feel just before the plunge.

But that wasn't the plan for tonight, and my hands snapped up to steady the steering wheel as my foot finally stomped on the brake. The Skylark skidded and I fought with her to avoid fish-tailing. Her weight and speed were difficult to control, and the car came to rest sideways on the road in the middle of the hairpin curve, about ten feet shy of the guardrails.

The center guardrail was battered from cars taking the curve too fast, lined with streaks of every color of paint you could imagine. The whole thing wobbled like a loose tooth. I didn't think it would take too much for it to go, but I wanted to be sure, which is why I brought the hacksaw.

Between the guardrails and the drop-off, there's only about twenty feet, just enough space for couples to park their cars in the old days and look out over the lake. I drove the Skylark into that space and got out into grass grown tall as my knees. When I walked through, it shushed against my legs. I stepped over the wooden fence, crossed to the ledge, and peered down. Two hundred feet below, the lake water washed up against jagged rocks.

McGinley's Cove itself was empty, a fact which surprised me not at all. Nobody ever went in there. Rocks and the carcasses
of smashed boats made the water impossible to navigate, plus there was no sand or even dirt along the shoreline, so what was the point? Besides, it was a well-established fact around Paradise that the cave at the foot of the cliff was a reliable place to encounter the ghost of Irene McGinley, or at least those of her drowned sons.

Worried that someone might come along, I went back to the Skylark and snatched the hacksaw from under the front seat. In the light cast by the half-moon, I knelt down by one of the gray posts that secure the guardrail to the ground. To test the saw, I set its teeth on the metal and began pulling back and forth. Tiny silver shavings drifted down like sawdust, and with only a few minutes of effort I had a four-inch cut. I set the saw in the grass and did some quick calculations in my head. The night of the hoax, the whole job would take about thirty minutes for all three posts of the center rail.

Somewhere behind me in the forest that stretches east for miles, something growled in the night. Not Pinkerton. Not a coyote. Something that sounded angry and lost.