Wink (11 page)

After Marty cut the knife handle to length, he held the shaft under his knee wedged against the bench seat as he cut it axially. A vice would be better, but the stench in Gerald’s room demanded he do his work elsewhere. He cut slow and quiet with intentional strokes, so quiet his mother didn’t turn and insist he take his noise outside to the carport.

As he cut, something moved in the attic. At first, Marty’s mom didn’t seem to hear it, but after it clopped by several times moving east-west-east along its evening path, she pressed the mute button on the remote and looked up at the ceiling. The do-it-yourself hosts and reality show bleep-overs on the television fell silent.

“Is someone in the attic?” she asked.

Marty didn’t answer. He stopped mid-stroke in his cutting and looked up at the ceiling with his mother.

It clopped by again in the unmistakable pattern of heel-toe boot-steps against a plank wooden floor. It was the saloon sound in any cowboy movie, the one you hear after they shove through the double-swinging doors and sidle up to the bar for a stiff whiskey. They were pacing steps, what one might call a
mosey.

“What the—?” his mother said. She stubbed out her cigarette and stood, freakishly thin and pale, an undead thing rising from its coffin.

“Someone’s in the attic,” she said and then she screamed upward. “Hello!” She repeated it several times and when the boot-steps didn’t stop, she threw an empty beer can at the ceiling. “Get out of my house!”

Marty, still frozen, watched as his mother half ran and half crawled into the master bedroom, and emerged with the .38 revolver that he had shot Gerald with. It was the first time he had seen the gun since the accident, and his mother with both hands aimed the gun at the ceiling and fired a shot.

His father had loaded it with .38 Specials, the big rounds, and the discharge rang out like bottled thunder in the house. Marty’s ears rang, and his mother fired another shot, and another. She cackled, and with her hands shaking, she fired until the cylinder was empty, and the room was full of gun smoke and the ringing echo of six explosions.

“Take that,” his mother said. She emptied the spent casings onto the carpet and toted the gun back into the bedroom. Marty heard her fumbling around in there, heard some boxes crash, and she shrieked at what might have been a mouse or a snake, and then she came back into the living room with a box of .38 Special rounds.

She loaded the gun and pointed it at Marty. He hadn’t moved since they first heard the footsteps in the attic, and he didn’t move now. He felt frozen, as if his muscles had betrayed him and turned to stone. It was like in his dreams, the ones where he couldn’t run no matter how hard he tried, even when his mother pulled the trigger and a bullet sizzled hot near his shoulder.

She fired again, one-handed with the pistol shaking the way an old dog walks, unsteady and about to fall over. The second shot touched Marty’s hair, or at least the air did, and that stimulated his flight response.

He dropped the saw and the knife handle and ran through the house, out the back door and through the back yard. Hopping the fence, he hid out in the pasture near where the pile of dead snakes had accumulated. It stank out here, but not as bad as inside the house with Gerald rotting in the woodshop. Marty waited as his mother unloaded that cylinder inside the house, and then another and another. The shots flashed and boomed, as if a thunderstorm had erupted in every sense but the rain.

Chapter 21
 
Sadie’s Midnight View

Getting out of bed was a bitch. Sadie wouldn’t say that word to her mother, but that’s what it was. She figured she wasn’t more than one or two baby steps closer to hell having thought the word, and she could afford a few steps in any direction.

The house had been silent for about an hour. That should be enough time, Sadie thought. She reached up, pulled on the triangular handle above her bed, and sat up. She wiped off the sheet, swung her useless flesh-bags over the bed, and angled her wheelchair such that she could mount it without falling.

Oh Lord Jesus help me, Sadie thought. If I fall, either you kill me, or Momma will.

The left-side armrest wasn’t on the chair, and since her bed was level with the chair, Sadie slid from one to the other without having to call on the plastic slide her mother sometimes used to perform transfers from uneven surfaces.

She sat for about half a minute, listening to the house for creaks and other giveaways that might signal her mother’s approach, before she pulled her legs up to her chest and began turning the chair. Measuring her pace in inches, Sadie made her way to the bedroom window and twisted the blinds open.

Her eyes were well-adjusted to the darkness, and without the backlight of her own house reflecting off the window, Sadie could see the Jameson house almost as clearly as if she were standing in the back yard looking up at it.

Make a correction—
sitting
in the back yard looking up at the Jameson house.

The kitchen window was lit with a dim glow, but the bathroom and bedroom windows were dark. All of them were empty.

Movement in the attic caught Sadie’s eyes, and she thought Marty appeared there, looked out, and turned back into the pitch of the attic. She waited, and after a while, the face reappeared, looked around, and turned into the darkness. It was ill-formed, but after the third time she saw it, Sadie decided it could not have been Marty, nor could it be the black angel. The black angel had looked like a bird. This was something different. It was human, taller than Marty, but faded and colorless, like an old photograph. It came to the window, looked out, turned, and paced into the darkness.

As she watched, Sadie first saw a flash in the kitchen, and then she heard the thump of a gunshot. Another flash appeared, followed by another thump, until Sadie counted six shots.

The thing in the attic seemed not to notice, or if it did, it paid no heed. It appeared carefree, and with its gray face looked down on the yard where Marty’s mother had attacked him, and pressed a white hand to the windowsill. The hand became a fist, and it pounded against the window until the glass shattered.

The pop of glass mixed with two new gunshots, and then Sadie saw Marty bolt from the back of the house and scamper over the fence. He ducked into the pasture and disappeared as surely as any wild animal.

A hand startled Sadie when it squeezed her shoulder. Had her flesh-bags been beneath her with muscles and bone and sinew, had she been standing, her knees might have buckled at the fright the touch gave her.

“Sadie-love,” her mother said, and she squeezed Sadie’s other shoulder. “What are you . . . ?”

Sadie turned, and saw on her mother’s face the sleep-stunned look of someone who had been awoken by a noise they could not quite place. She leaned down and stared out the window. Her mother blinked, but then her eyes went wide as more gunshots rang out from the house next door. “Oh, Lord,” her mother said. Her hands yanked the wheelchair around and shoved Sadie into the hallway, and they both sat there huddled against the wall, waiting for the gunshots to grow quiet.

Chapter 22
  The Big Bad Bear

Sheriff Bill Dansley made love to his wife that night, and it was angry love, intense love, the sort of lovemaking that for men his age often resulted in their last stand. He had been deep asleep with the afterglow of complete release when the squawk box chattered at him in the middle of the night and Pippy’s voice said, “All units respond. 10-10, possible shots fired at . . .”

He felt the jolt of adrenaline spread warm through his body, and even from his deep slumber he was out of bed before Pippy repeated the call.

Jackie sat up. “That’s the Jameson house, isn’t it? Weren’t you just out there?”

He yanked on his underwear and fumbled around for his pants. “Sure was. Them crack-heads are about to meet the Big Bad Bear.”

“Shots fired, Bill.” She didn’t have to say the rest, because they had talked about this and he had listened.

“I’ll wear my vest, worrywart. I always do.”

He reached for the radio and responded to Pippy, adding, “And ring up the state troopers, Pippy. They may have cars nearby working traffic on I-10. And go ahead and get a bus headed out just in case somebody’s hurt or gets hurt. Tell them to hold back until we clear the scene.”

The bus was an ambulance, and when he said that, he didn’t need much light to see Jackie’s face change. She left the bed as he finished dressing and by the time he got to the kitchen, Jackie had a thermos of instant coffee ready for him, along with an apple and a long wet kiss.

“It’s not much. Eat on the way so you’ll have some energy. You always say you feel stupid and weak after we, you know, do our thing. Maybe this will smarten you up. Be careful.”

She kissed his cheek and despite her age, she looked eighteen to him. She always looked eighteen and beautiful, and he was still a spry young man who could turn cartwheels atop a running horse.

Hernandez was there when he arrived, along with Richardson and Lancome from the state troopers. Two state cruisers were parked along the feeder road in front of the Jameson house, and Hernandez’s vehicle was in the driveway, nosed up to the hurricane fence. The bus was parked farther down the road, with three paramedics standing outside waiting for the all-clear signal. Red and blue lights spun against the scene and seemed to make the house and bushes and every shadow shudder.

Hernandez was leading Betsy Jameson in handcuffs down the driveway, toward his cruiser, when Sheriff Dansley stepped out of his car and seated his Stetson onto his head and checked his weapon.

“Is the house clear?” he asked Hernandez.

“Richardson and Lancome are checking it. I believe we have the weapon. Thirty-eight Special. Looks like an old police issue revolver, may even be vintage World War I. Wouldn’t mind having a piece like that one. She admits to firing shots, says there was an intruder.”

Sheriff Dansley stopped in front of Betsy and looked down on her. She was so small, so light, about the size of a teenager, but she looked as old and dead as petrified wood. She had been a pretty girl, as he recalled, but that was a long time ago.

“You do some shooting, girl?”

“I had an intruder. I can defend myself, cain’t I?”

“You are absolutely right. Let’s get these cuffs off you. You going to be okay with me, or do you want some settling time in the car? I got room if you want it.”

“No sir, Officer Bill. I’ll be a good girl.”

He uncuffed her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You want to sit down?”

“Fuck off.”

“You’re bringing out the bear in me, girl. Let’s be polite to each other, shall we. You say there was an intruder. What happened?”

She told him and he listened, and then said, “Did you see anyone in the attic or around the house?”

“Nope. Didn’t see nothin’, but I heard him in the attic. I shot his ass.”

“You get eyes in the attic?” he asked Hernandez.

“Can’t get access. They’re looking, but she said you can’t get up there.”

State Trooper Lancome crunched across the driveway holding a cigar box that had been placed inside an evidence bag. “Got drugs on the scene, boss,” he said.

“How much?” Dansley asked.

“Not enough for distribution. We got pipes and paraphernalia and all that, but all I got are a few ounces of weed and meth. Misdemeanor, community service sort of haul. We need the medics, though. I think we got us a stiff in the bedroom.”

Betsy fell to the ground as if she had been slugged in the jaw, a clear faint if Dansley had ever seen one, which he had not. She crumpled before anyone could catch her, and her head slapped the oyster-shell driveway and she lay there unmoving.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, son?” he asked Lancome.

Lancome looked at him and held his breath.

“Help her,” Dansley said. “Get the ambulance and give her some oxygen or whatever. The drugs aren’t enough to trouble with, and whatever it is you have to say, you tell me out of earshot. She’s a civilian until I say better. You copy, son?”

“Copy that, yes, sir,” Lancome said.

While Lancome and Hernandez helped the medics transport Betsy to the ambulance, Dansley made his way into the house.

The first thing he noticed was the clutter. She was clearly a pack-rat, and he knew she regularly hit the dump to pick trash. Here was a busted lampshade, there a pile of mismatched plates, and all around were boxes stacked and filled with junk.

The whole of the house stank with death and filth.

Trooper Richardson stood in the hallway amid a pile of boxes and trash, looking into a bedroom filled with woodworking tools. As he neared, Dansley saw the head of a hospital bed, and then a breathing machine and other coma-patient supplies. Richardson had his face buried in the crotch of his elbow.

“He’s dead,” Richardson said. “I didn’t touch him but that’s a dead smell, boss. You concur?”

Sheriff Dansley didn’t answer, but stood there looking at the body on the bed. He had been on the call when Gerald Jameson got shot. He knew the boy hadn’t quite died, but time had finished what a .38 round could not.

He waited while one of the medics entered the room, a young man whose eyes didn’t stop scanning the house and the two officers standing in the hallway. They were skittish sorts, the medics, as well they should be. They had only rubber gloves and paper masks for protection, both of which the man wore as he leaned over Gerald’s covered body.

“Been dead a while,” the medic said after pulling back the sheet, even before he checked for a pulse. The eyes were sunken, drained of their life’s fluid, and the chest sucked against the bones.

“Don’t need a degree to say that,” Richardson said.

“Copy that,” Sheriff Dansley said. “I guess we’ll get Patricia out here to look at him. Let’s clear the room, mark it off, and don’t touch anything. We’ll treat this as a crime scene until Pat says otherwise. Cover him back the way you found him.”

After the medic left, Dansley inspected the living room where the shots were fired. There were holes in the ceiling and walls, and a broken Bowie knife on the picnic table, next to a hacksaw, a chisel, a hammer, and what looked like a work-in-progress knife handle.

That made him think of someone else, and he leaned into the walkie on his shoulder and said, “Hernandez, get a search out for her younger boy. He’s about twelve or so, should be around here somewhere. Name’s Marty.”

Dansley walked out of the house and into the yard. There was a shed back here, and an old Ford truck that had been scavenged for parts. There were a couple of oak trees, and he walked beneath them, looking for a place where a young man might hide himself.

When he made his way around to where he could see the neighbor’s house, that would be the Marsh’s, the ones who made the emergency call tonight, Dansley looked up at the attic.

There was a window beneath the peak, where you’d need a ladder for access. There wasn’t a ladder, but the window was busted, and when he walked nearer to it, his feet crackled against something on the ground. He removed his flashlight, and shined it down at the grass. Here was a pile of broken windowpane glass. The glass was dusty, and from what he could tell, freshly busted. He looked back at the attic and aimed his light into the blackened window. He watched and listened, but after about a minute of seeing and hearing nothing, he holstered his flashlight and walked back to the driveway, thinking maybe a stray shot had busted it.

Hernandez and Lancome were behind the shed with flashlights, calling out, “Marty,” to see if they could find the boy.

Dansley started to unholster his flashlight and join them in the search when he looked down at his feet and saw two rat snakes intertwined in reptilian copulation. They slithered one over the other like a pair of scaly hands wringing themselves. He jumped back, and nearly fell over his heels into the driveway.

“What’s wrong, boss?” Lancome asked him.

“Damned snakes.” He realized he had his hand on his pistol.

“Yeah, we saw a couple slither-sliders out here. This place is swarming with rat snakes. They ain’t gonna bite you, boss. Rat snakes don’t got no more venom than a little old lizard. Keep away varmints is what they do, suck ’em up like gumdrops.”

“I don’t like snakes,” Dansley said.

“Ah, that’s right. I forgot about that,” Hernandez said.

Lancome swung his light toward Dansley, and then said, “Whatchyu got against snakes, boss, if you don’t mind me asking? My wife loves ’em. We got us a red boa over three feet. Loves him them white mice.”

“He got bit when he was a kid,” Hernandez said.

“There you go,” Dansley said. “I was about eight, and I told my daddy I felt something squishy at the end of my boot. He said it was just my socks, and that’s when my leg turned into a hornet’s nest. I screamed and he lifted me by the heel and shook me out of that boot, and out come a baby copperhead. I lost two toes and damned near lost my leg by the time they got me into town. My old man crushed it with the heel of his boot, and for a while, I had a dead dried-up copperhead nailed to a tree in the back yard. Can’t say I much care for snakes.”

“Gotcha,” Lancome said. “We can get this, boss. Them slitheries don’t bother me none at all.”

Dansley nodded at the officers, and after considering whether or not to shoot the mating snakes, and fighting the urge to check the inside of his boots, he said, “Thanks, gentlemen. I need a smoke. I’m heading out to the car for a minute.”

Then, speaking low to himself, he added, “Tonight was such a good night, too.”