Consider the Crows (20 page)

“Michael, last weekend when you were here?”

“Yeah?”

“You tried to see that young woman Lynnelle Hames.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You said you went to her house.”

“I drove around, finally found the place. She wasn't home. Why?”

“Did anything happen? Did you see anybody?”

“Huh-uh. What's up, Mom?”

“Tell me about going out there. What happened?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Could you just do it? Indulge your old mother.”

“Well, I guess, but—”

“Just do it.”

“Okay,” he said, drawing the word out. “It was raining. Windshield wipers, swipe-swipe, swipe-swipe. Long driveway with potholes full of water. I was thinking, wrong again, and then I came to the house. Looked abandoned. Dilapidated. Porch light on, though, and a light on inside. I knocked on the front door. Nobody came. I was leaving when this monster came rushing around from the back. I thought, this is it. The end. Slavering beast rips apart brilliant student.”

“Big white dog?”

“Yeah. Wet and bedraggled. The thing barked at me and raced back and forth like it wanted me to follow. Lassie, you know? So I did.”

“You followed the dog?”

“Not very far. Around to the back of the house. Big old tree. Creepy. I mean we're talking Halloween III here.” He hummed an ominous da da
da
da. “I mean the rain and the dark. Owl going
who who.
Then there was this clap of thunder, like a cannon. I went straight up about six feet.”

He was silent a moment, then said, “I did see something.”

“What?” she asked with a sharp intake of breath.

“Nothing dangerous, Mom. Don't worry. Big flash of lightning. Okay? Can you picture it? Rain, trees, owl, thunder, then this lightning. Whole world got bright for just an instant. About fifty yards away, a bunch of trees.” He paused. “I thought I saw somebody standing there.”

“Who was it?” She felt a pulse beat in her temple.

“It was only for a second, you know, and I sort of thought—Well, I thought it was you. Dumb, huh? Then I figured I imagined it.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “Unheroically, I scarpered, as my Brit mate would say. Why you want to know all this?”

“Well, Michael, she was— Oh, honey, something awful happened.”

She told him about Lynnelle's death but said nothing about being a suspect or the police asking about his car.

“God, Mom. I don't get it. I mean, why? She—” His voice was strained and suddenly sounded much younger. “She kind of reminded me of Timmy. Remember Timmy?”

“Yes, darling, I do.” Timmy and Michael were fast friends when the boys were twelve.

“Like she needed looking after, you know? Just like Timmy, stumbling over stuff and losing his lunch money and nobody paying attention and always being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, if you're friends, you're friends and you stick up for 'em.”

“Yes,” she said. She let him talk as long as he wanted and when he ran down she told him she loved him.

“Love you too, Mom.”

She listened for the click, then hung up. Chickens coming home to roost. She stared into the refrigerator for a time, then abruptly took out the bottle of white wine, poured a glass and sat at the table. Alexa squeezed underneath and flopped across her feet.

Guilt, that old shrunken deformed devil guilt, hissed in her ear. Ssinsss. “Ye have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sins shall find you out.” You thought adoption was the end of it? What happened to that child? You never thought to find out.

When I thought of her at all, I pictured birthday parties, loving mother tucking her in at night, doting father taking her for pony rides. Troubles, Edie said, Lynnelle had troubles—bad things, hard things. Carena shook her head and trickled more wine in the glass. Every child thinks she—or he—has troubles. Lynnelle was adopted by good people who wanted a child. She was cared for, loved.

The old devil shook with wheezy laughter. You took care of a problem and then washed your hands of it. Swirling the glass, she held it toward the light and watched the pale liquid circle. “Pontius Pilate took water and washed his hands.”

She banged the glass down on the table. When I start quoting scripture it's time to take steps. She squinted at her watch; five-fifteen. Steps better wait until tomorrow. I can either find something to eat or sit here and get drunk. “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine.” Or maybe I could get the mail.

Pushing herself away from the table, she stood up, took another sip of wine, then went through to the living room and opened the front door. The dog snaked past and bounded off.

“No! Alexa!” Carena raced down the steps. “Alexa! Come back here!”

The dog was already out of sight. Goddamn it. How would you like to stay out there? She stomped back inside for her car keys.

She parked at the rear of the malevolent-looking house, black against the slate sky with a pale moon rising behind it half-hidden by a trail of clouds. Shivering, she got out of the car. What if it didn't start when she got back in? That didn't bear thinking about. Michael was right, this place was creepy.

Don't get spooked by your own imagination. Get the dog and get out of here.

“I knew you would come.”

Carena's hair stood on end. Pale moonlight filtered through the branches of the oak tree. A figure in a raincoat sat in the rope swing, hands gripping the rope on each side. Carena thumbed on the flashlight.

“Caitlin!”

Caitlin turned her head away from the light.

Carena knelt in front of her, looking up at her face. “What are you doing here?”

“I belong here.”

“You certainly do not.” Carena rose. “Come on, let's go.”

“It's quiet here. Can you hear the quiet?”

“You're freezing. We have to go.” She tried to pry Caitlin's cold fingers from around the ropes.

“It's warmer inside. There's a sleeping bag.”

Carena could not get Caitlin's hands to release their grip. Stay calm. She stopped pulling at Caitlin's fingers, took a breath and spoke normally. “How long have you been here?”

“It's my fault.”

“Nothing is your fault. Caitlin, listen to me. We have to go.”

“Nothing can hurt her anymore.”

“Caitlin, give me your hands.”

She stared over Carena's shoulder. “They're coming.”

Heart pounding, Carena swung the flash around. Glassy eyes glittered in the light. Alexa bounded toward them from the woods, pranced up to Caitlin and scrubbed her face with a wet tongue.

“Oh, Carrie, isn't she beautiful?” Caitlin's voice lost the eerie, distant tone and with tears running down her face, she slid from the swing and threw her arms around the dog.

“Caitlin, how did you get here?”

“I can't remember. It scares me when I can't remember. It's going to be bad again.”

“No, Caitlin.” With a hand under one elbow, she urged Caitlin to her feet, brushed the tangled hair from her face and rubbed a thumb across the tears.

“She's hurt herself.” Caitlin nodded at Alexa who had flopped down and was noisily licking one front paw.

“We have to go now,” Carena said and nudged Caitlin toward the car.

Alexa limped alongside.

16

A
LEXA JUMPED IN
, spread herself across the backseat and licked her paw. Carena settled Caitlin, shivering and teeth chattering, in the front, buckled the seat belt around her, and made sure the door was locked, wishing there was some way to prevent it from being opened. She could almost feel Caitlin slipping away inside herself.

The drive to Topeka was a nightmare. They sang hymns. Whenever Carena tried to stop, Caitlin got agitated and Carena was afraid she would fling herself from the moving car. The road stretched endlessly, hypnotically in front of the headlights; the windows were fogged, the heater droned, and they sang.

By the time they pulled up in front of Caitlin's house, Carena was hoarse. She got out of the car, went around to the passenger side and helped Caitlin out. A porch light went on, the front door opened and Phil came out on the porch. For a moment, he stood there, then ran down the steps.

“Where the hell have you been?” He grabbed Caitlin's arm and she shrank back against Carena.

“Let's get her inside,” Carena said through clenched teeth. Damn him, why did he always attack. The throb in her temples grew worse.

In the living room, a pleasant room with soft shades of green, pale-green carpet, paler green walls and flowered chairs, they got Caitlin to the couch and wrapped her in a blanket. She was quiet now. Curled like a fetus, face turned away, she was starting to withdraw into the deep stillness that made Carena want to cry.

Phil Avery looked down at his wife with fatigue and anger. He was in his mid-forties, a stocky man with a few strands of gray in his carefully combed brown hair and a heavy jaw that always looked in need of a shave. He wore dark suit pants and white shirt with the cuffs turned up. He had a square face that looked tired, the skin was soft and pinched around his eyes and mouth, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot.

“I'll call her doctor,” he said in a dead voice.

Carena sat beside her sister and crooned softly, brushed hair from Caitlin's face. “I'm sorry, darling. I know you can hear me. Just listen. I love you. I'm so sorry this is happening again. Just remember you'll get better. You've done it before. You rest, heal yourself. Don't give up.”

When Phil came back, she stood. “How long has she been gone?”

He rolled down his cuffs and buttoned them. “Since Saturday night?”

“Why didn't you let me know?” The headache surrounded her eyes in a tightening web of pain.

He glanced around for his tie, found it over the back of a chair and slid it under his collar. “Dr. Brock said I should take her in to the hospital. He'll meet us there.”

Carena hated to see Caitlin small and still in the sterile room with its white walls and smell of antiseptic. Twice before she had gotten real bad, babbled about her dark angels and terrifying crows, and cut her wrists. Carena kissed her motionless sister and said she would be back very soon. The tears she was trying to hold back dribbled down her face on the drive home. Caitlin will get better, Carena told herself in much the same tone as she had used with her sister. She has before. As long as she was in the hospital and sedated, at least she couldn't hurt herself.

It was after midnight when Carena got home. She undressed quickly, dropped her clothes on the end of the bed and climbed in. Pulling the covers up to her chin, she closed her eyes.

Was it some predetermined genetic code that decreed Caitlin must carry all the family pathology? She was the best of them, the brightest and the kindest and the softest and the most gentle. Was that why? If Martha Ann hadn't died, would Caitlin still be battling her dark angels? Or would they be safely locked away in some far corner of her mind?

Martha Ann, curly-headed baby, unexpected and the darling of the family. Martha Ann, who had only two years of life. Caitlin was looking after her, had taken her outside to play and Martha Ann wanted her pink teddy bear. Caitlin went in to get it and, in that brief moment she was gone, Martha Ann grabbed the garden rake near the metal end and darted for the steps going down to the driveway. She fell. The tines pierced her throat.

Tears filled Carena's eyes and ran down her cheeks. Much later, she had taken the hose and washed the blood from the driveway.

*   *   *

Students hated eight o'clock classes and tried with creative endeavor to avoid them. This class seemed endless, and the kids who couldn't fit in calculus at any other period looked semicomatose—those that weren't studying for their next class or watching the clock or asleep with their eyes open.

Carena slogged on, not very inspired, not raising a spark of interest. Julie Kalazar, her best student at the beginning of the semester, now close to failing, looked scared. Nick Salvatierra, whom she'd struggled hard with, had reverted to his sullen scowl. When the period finally ended, she went to her office and phoned Phil at work. He was short with her. He didn't like grim reality intruding into his professional world, the one he could control, the one where he invested most of himself. He had nothing new to tell her about Caitlin. She punched in another number and made an appointment with David McKinnon. Even that much felt like action and the rest of the classes weren't quite so burdensome.

At four, she walked into David McKinnon's office. With a smile, he rose from behind his desk, came around it and extended a hand to shake hers. Dark suit, discreet tie. A very good-looking man; she'd forgotten how good-looking. Her ex-husband was very good-looking. Handsome men expected, as some sort of rightful due, pampering and kowtowing. She perched on one of the two black leather chairs beside a low round table. Maybe coming here was a mistake. He wasn't the only attorney in town. He regarded her with eyes a remarkable shade of blue. Even though the office was sufficiently warm, recessed lighting making it seem pleasantly light after the gloom outside, she shivered and kept her coat on.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked.

“What I'd really like is an aspirin.”

“I can probably provide that.” Picking up the phone, he spoke to his secretary and a moment or two later, she brought in a tray with two mugs, cream and sugar and a small bottle of aspirin. Taking the tray from her, he murmured his thanks and she withdrew. He put the tray on the low table in front of Carena and sat in the other chair. She unscrewed the bottle cap, rattled two tablets onto her palm and swallowed them with a gulp of scalding coffee.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.