Blackbirds (10 page)

  "I am gonna puke."

  "The cats bred, too. Even after people found the body, nobody dealt with the cats. They multiplied until they became a colony. A hundred feral cats, maybe more. The walls and floors were spackled with feces and ammonia, a home to parasites and disease. Someone did the merciful thing and burned the place down a year or so after." Harriet stares off in the distance. "I still remember the sound of fire crackling and cats wailing as they burned."

  Harriet walks off, up to the porch. Frankie trails.

  "You're one broken cookie," he says.

  "Knock on the door."

  "You said parasites. What kind of parasites?"

  "
Toxoplasma gondii
– causes toxoplasmosis. Cat feces have it. Gets on people's hands. Or in raw meat. Often survives the cooking process. It messes with dopamine levels. It changes the brain chemistry of the host. Some speculate that the parasite is the very reason for 'cat lady syndrome,' as it rewires the brain so that the person loves cats, going so far as to hoard them. There may also be a link between it and schizophrenia. Now knock on the door."

  "You're fucking with me. I can never tell when you're fucking with me."

  She pushes past him and knocks on the door.

  "I'm not touching anything in there," he says. "I don't want to ingest particles of cat shit and have cat worms reprogram my brain."

  Harriet knocks again, more forcefully.

  They hear something within; a bump, a shuffle. Then, footsteps. The locks rattle one after the other: one, then three, then six. The inside door opens, and an older woman's head peeks out, her nose pressing against the mesh of the screen door. A tube snakes up her nose. An oxygen tank on wheels sits at her feet.

  "Go away," she rasps. "I don't want your damn magazine. I
told
you that. I don't want to hear any nonsense about 144,000 seats in Heaven – that doesn't make any damn sense! Billions of people have come and gone on God's Green Earth, but he only likes 144,000 of them? What kind of crazy god is that? Answer me!"

  "We're not Jehovah's Witnesses," Harriet says.

  "Like hell. What are you, then?"

  "FBI," Frankie says, and flips his ID and badge like they do in the movies. The woman squints at it. Harriet shows hers, too, with a less ostentatious gesture.

  "FBI? Whatever for?"

  "It's about your son," Harriet says. "We'd like to talk to you about Ashley."

 

Harriet can see the channels in which the old woman moves; the woman is a hoarder, albeit an organized one, and her rooms are formed of canyons carved through the piles of debris.
National Geographic
stacks form mountains, each peak capped with a potted violet. The tops of furniture peek out over a laundry basket and an ironing board and mounds of paperback books – it's like wreckage floating atop a sea of more wreckage.

  The smells of mold and dust comingle in her nose. It doesn't bother her. It does bother Frankie, from what Harriet can tell – he slides past twin magazine towers to find a chaise lounge, on which he sits, his gangly limbs giving him the look of a Daddy Long Legs failing to find comfort amid the ordered chaos.

  His eyes dart to and from a distant staircase, where golden eyes peer out from between the railing bars. Another mangy cat sits ill-concealed behind one of the magazine stacks.

  The woman, Eleanor Gaynes, sits in a chair, her hand curled around the top handle of her oxygen tank. "This is about Ashley, you say."

  Harriet doesn't sit. She stands, but doesn't pace. She remains stock still.

  "That's right. Have you seen him?"

  "No."

  "No contact with him?"

  "I told you, no. Haven't heard hide nor hair from him. Not a peep. He's gone. Flown the roost years back when I got emphysema, and I guess he's never coming back. We done?"

  The old bitch is lying. It's only partly true that people have certain universal hooks that indicate when they're lying, but everybody has
individual
tells. It takes a certain instinct to know when someone is slinging a lie. Harriet has that instinct. It's no one thing that tells her. It's in the woman's inflection, how she blurts out the information, as if
she doth protest too much
. It's in the way her hand curls tighter around the top of the oxygen tank, pulling it closer. Harriet has an animal's sense. She can practically smell the deception.

  "Mrs. Gaynes. Your son. I'd hate to think you're impeding our investigation. We are trying to help him, you know. We're trying to protect him from some very bad people."

  The old woman's lip quivers. Her brows darken.

  "You leave him alone," she hisses. "He's a good boy. He sends me money."

  "Money. How much money?"

  "Enough for my treatments."

  "Do you know anything about a suitcase? A metal suitcase?"

  Fidgeting with the oxygen tube, Mrs. Gaynes shakes her head no.

  Harriet finally moves. She doesn't move swiftly; she simply approaches and enters the woman's personal space. Her knees nearly touch the oxygen tank. Harriet folds her hands in front of her.

  "I see you're on oxygen," she says.

  "I told you, emphysema. Got it from smoking. Most of my lung capacity is gone. Got about twenty percent left, the doctors say. You can't get it back, they say. Damn doctors."

  "You need the oxygen to breathe."

  Mrs. Gaynes picks at the fraying edges of the blanket across her lap. "That's the idea." The words come out sarcastic and bitter.

  "Interesting fact about oxygen," Harriet says, "as I'm sure you're aware from the many warnings on the tank and nozzle–"

  Harriet pulls out a Zippo lighter with a paw print painted onto the metal.

  "– is that it's flammable."

  Frankie moans. "I'm going to go make some tea or something." Harriet's okay with this. She doesn't need Frankie for this kind of thing. This is her thing, not his. They both have their niches. Still, sometimes she wonders: Is he losing the taste for this work? Does he really have the stomach for it?

  As Frankie exits the room, Mrs. Gaynes remains transfixed by the lighter.

  "You're not FBI," the old woman hisses, watching her reflection in the chrome.

  "I should clarify," Harriet says. "Oxygen is not exactly flammable. Technically, it's considered an accelerant. That's how fire burns – it feeds on oxygen. It helps flame to spread quickly and efficiently. The problem with the air around us is that the oxygen is diluted. But what you're breathing is the real deal. Incredibly pure. Perfectly concentrated."

  "Please," the old woman says.

  Harriet's face shows no emotion, but inside, her heart is a leaping gazelle. This is her favorite part of the job. It is a small pulsing center of warmth inside her mind.

  "Were I to light a lighter," Harriet continues, "the presence of the tank and the precious oxygen whispering from the tube would help the flame sweep over your frail, withered body. Have you ever seen someone set aflame?"

  "My son–"

  "Forget him. Think of yourself. I was… on-scene at a car fire. A woman and her husband sat trapped in the car, held fast by crumpled metal and melting seat belts. It was not a quick death. All that screaming. All that thrashing about. Such movement only helps to churn in more oxygen and give the fire more meat for its ragged teeth."

  Mrs. Gaynes sobs silently as Harriet pops the tubes from the old woman's nose. From the end of the tubes come a faint susurration:
fsssssssss
, the sound of something once life-giving, now potentially deadly. Harriet brings the lighter close, pops it, massages it with her thumb.

  "Now. Your son. Where is he?"

  "I can't–"

  "You will.
Your son
. Or you burn. This whole place burns."

  She sobs, cries out: "He's innocent!"

  "Innocence is a fable." Harriet lights the flame but holds it away, then slowly draws it closer – like a mother playfully bringing a spoonful of food to a stubborn child. "Tell me where your son is, or you can die amidst the wails of your filthy cats."

  "North Carolina," comes Frankie's voice from behind them. Harriet frowns and backs away, flipping the lighter closed and extinguishing the flame.

  Mrs. Gaynes loses the tension in her muscles and just
flops
forward, moaning, crying.

  "How do you know?" Harriet asks.

  In one hand, Frankie's got a can of generic ginger ale, which he takes a delicate sip from, as if to make sure his lips don't touch any secret cat shit germs. In his other hand he holds a postcard, which he waves around.

  "The stupid dickhead sent her a postcard from North Carolina, and the equally stupid old broad hung it on the fridge like it was his third grade art project. Postmarked a week ago." He frowns and reads the postcard again. "He's been sending her money, like she said."

  Harriet takes the postcard. Looks it over. On the front,
Greetings from North Carolina!
The name of the state plays host to mountains, the ocean, some city hall. On the back, Ashley writes,
Mom. In a town called Providence. Not far from Asheville. Met somebody who will join the team, help me meet my sales quota. Soon moving on to bigger and better. Get well. Will send money again soon. Love you. Ash.

  "Well," Harriet says, disappointed. "That concludes our business here."

  She knows she should be pleased. They have the answer they need with a minimum of effort. No bodies to clean up. And fire is a chaotic, uncontrollable element.

  And, yet, sometimes you just want to burn an old lady.

  "Ashley," the old woman mutters.

  Harriet tries to find a way to pull her mood out of its tailspin. She thinks of sticking it to the old woman, of telling her the truth about what her son does for a living, but the old woman probably already has a sense of it, and besides, Harriet just feels tired.

  Instead, she simply says: "Kill her, Frankie. I'll be in the car."

 

Outside, Harriet taps the postcard against the palm of her hand.

  From behind her, two
pops
. Frankie's gun.

  That, she reminds herself, is Frankie's gift. Every tool in the toolbox has its function, and this is Frankie's. He cleans up messes. Maybe he complains. Maybe he's squeamish. But, for now, he does what he's told and she's thankful for that. Harriet knows that dispatching the old woman wouldn't be something she could do – not because she doesn't have the stomach for it, but just the opposite. She has too much heart for it. She'd make it last. She'd enjoy herself.

  Frankie emerges from the house looking like nothing happened.

  "Thank you," she says.

  He cocks an eyebrow. She doesn't usually thank him.

  "We have to bring Ingersoll in on this." She throws him her phone. "Call him."

  "But he likes you best."

  "Call him."

  "Shit."

  He picks up the cell.

 
 

 

Miriam stands in the thick of it.

  It's night. She's no longer sure what time. She smells the stink of exhaust as another bus comes and goes, purging its people like a bulimic, then gorging on more. Across the way, sitting on a blue bench is Ashley, who makes an impatient roll of his index finger to say,
move, move, move.

  Once more, she thinks of running. Maybe just get on a bus and go; not like she hasn't done it before. Her feet stay glued. She's not sure why.

  (
You like him. You like this. You deserve this
.)

  The Charlotte downtown bus terminal looks not unlike a giant airplane hangar – open air, big arched canopy, skylights allowing a faint glow from the moon above. It makes her feel very small.

  She wades into the crowd, hands out.

  Same plan as the last hour, and the hour before that, and the hour before that – her hands graze the hands of others, or she touches an exposed shoulder as someone passes. She takes a step, and –

  Miriam blinks away the image. She steadies herself. Not like she hasn't done this before. She's amazed at how many hospitals she's inadvertently seen the inside of. She lets her bare shoulder brush the shoulder of a man in a tank-top as he reaches in to hug his wife –

  Fine, whatever, Miriam thinks. Guy gets old, gets sick, kills himself. She won't be sad. He makes it to old age, good for him. Most do. That's what she realizes. Most people make it into their sixties and die of some "old person" disease – cancer, stroke, heart attack, cancer, stroke, heart attack, on and on, forever and ever. Throw in a little diabetes. A dash of pneumonia.