Larceny and Old Lace (22 page)

“Rob Goldburg—”

“Aha! So you eat with them, too!”

“Jesus ate with everyone.”

“Don't you quote the Bible to me, Abigail. You don't even have the right version.”

“He ate with them in the King James version, too, dear.”

“Jesus did not eat with homosexuals!”

Unfortunately I was riled. “How do we know? The Bible doesn't state their sexual preference. For all we know, Jesus himself might have—”

“That does it! You get out of this car this instant. And remember, I can and will shoot you if you try and get away.”

I undid my seat belt and opened my door in slow motion. I slid out an inch at a time. I regret to say that I had to leave both my purse and my car keys behind. Unfortunately Anita is a thin, agile woman, and even though I have bucket seats, she was able to move right along with me. The gun never lost contact with my hair.

“Now kneel. I'm going to give you one minute to pray.”

My first prayer was that I wasn't kneeling in fire ants. Those foreign invaders are more vicious than killer bees. Fortunately they weren't mentioned in any version of the Bible that I'm aware of, or Anita might purposefully have had me kneel in those.

I'm not claiming that God spoke to me, but as I was praying for deliverance from Anita, a thought popped into my head. Since it was my nose and my tongue that had gotten me into the predicament, perhaps the same things could get me out.

“So, you plan to shoot me, do you? Well, then what? The next time loggers come up here, or even hunters pass by, they'll find me. Nowadays police can trace bullets, you know.”

“Oh, I ain't going to shoot you. As soon as you're done praying, we're taking a little walk. You about done yet?”

“No ma'am, I have a lot of sins to confess.”

“I expect you do. Say them fast, 'cause it's fixing to rain.”

The woman was turning more corners than a blind man in a carnival fun house. “The moon's out, Anita.”

“Not anymore it ain't. I been praying for rain, and the Lord is about to answer.”

I wasted a few precious seconds glancing around. She was right. The moon was a thin silver streak and fading fast. The trees, which had been individual shapes, were one black mass again.

I started praying in earnest.

“Ain't you done yet?”

“I've been a wicked woman,” I wailed.

She generously gave me a few more seconds. “All right, now get up and do exactly as I say.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Is that sass I'm hearing in your voice, Abigail?”

“No ma'am.”

Anita grabbed a hank of my hair and wrapped it painfully around her fist.

“Walk straight ahead, Abigail. Keep walking straight, no matter what, till I tell you different.”

I walked dead straight ahead. Just when I thought I was going to hit a tree, it appeared to jump aside. I must have gasped.

“It's a trail,” Anita cackled. “Brandt and I came up here hunting over Thanksgiving. Sometimes things don't change as much as you think they do. The loggers might have cut the trees down that was here when I was a child, but they didn't
change the trail none when they planted new ones. Dirt's packed down too hard.”

If you can imagine me as a horse, and my hair as the bridle, Anita, with the help of her gun, steered me through the pine forest in pitch blackness. We were a clumsy team, but we covered ground surprisingly fast, even though most of the time it felt as if we were walking uphill. I tried to sense and remember any changes in my environment; the feel of a rock beneath my feet, the smell of a rotting log, but it was all hopeless. The darkness was so intense that even had I been able to overpower Anita, I would never have been able to follow the trail back to my car.

It felt like we had gone about a mile when Anita cruelly jerked me to a stop.

“This is it, Abigail; this is where you die. Are you prepared to meet your maker?”

“W
ait! Can I say good-bye first?”

“Good-bye.”

“Not to you. To my family.”

She grunted. I took it as permission, although it could have been because of the sudden splatter of raindrops.

“Good-bye Susan, good-bye Charlie, good-bye Mama, good-bye Aunt Marilyn, good-bye Dmitri, good-bye Buford—”

“Enough! Buford isn't your family anymore.”

The bottom fell out of the clouds and a million tons of water dumped on us all at once.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” Anita sang. “You see, Abigail, I told you I was praying for rain.”

It was hard to hear a blessed thing. “What?”

“The rain will wash away your blood. The Lord has truly answered my prayers. Make sure your eyes are closed, Abigail. I don't want to shoot you with your eyes open.”

Try thinking of a way to distract a madwoman with a gun, who has you by the hair, in the middle of a pitch-black forest in a downpour. If you can think of any better ways please send them to me in care of the Den of Antiquity, Charlotte, North Carolina.

“You didn't tell me yet how killing my aunt was going to help the Lord!” I shouted.

“Your aunt had earthly riches!” That's what it sounded like. Of course she could have been saying that Aunt Euey
had earthy itches, in which case Tony might have been lying after all.

“What kind of riches?”

“Mould-bread face!”

So what's a little name calling when you are about to die? I may as well give tit for tat.

“You slime-sucking, sourpuss Holy Roller bitch!”

Anita did not get to hear all of my epithet, because a bolt of lightning hit a pine tree less than fifty feet away. For a split second the tree and surrounding area were lit up like a football field on game night. The lightning acted as a giant knife, splitting the tree down the middle for a third of its length. At that point the lightning appeared to gather itself into a ball and roll down the rest of the way until it hit the ground, where it didn't stop. It was headed right for us.

In the brief time it took for this to happen, I could feel Anita let go of my hair. One of the few advantages of being so short is that when I need to take a fall, I don't have far to go. I was able to throw myself on the ground and roll away from Anita before she had time to react. When she did react, it was to the lightning ball, not to me. Fortunately for her, she was apparently able to dodge the ball.

I say apparently, because suddenly we were plunged into total darkness again. I did have an image of Anita flinging herself out of harm's way, but I am ashamed to say that I didn't bother to find out if indeed this happened. Instead of sticking around and acting like the Good Samaritan I pretend to be, I took off into the woods like a deer spooked by hunters. Of course, I was much clumsier than a deer and made more noise than an elephant in a chime shop. I also inflicted a good deal of bodily harm to myself by thrashing through the woods willy-nilly.

I had no idea where I was going, but I have enough common sense to know that I should head downhill. So when I stumbled into a little gully, I followed it. In my part of the Carolinas all valleys eventually lead to the Atlantic Ocean. This one might not lead to my car, but if I followed it long enough I might well end up at Myrtle Beach. Long before then I was bound to hit a jillion towns, probably even Charlotte.

Clambering down a gully in what Daddy used to call a “gully-washer” is no picnic, but it was actually less of a chore then making my way through the woods. Pine needles can be treacherously slippery when wet, and smacking the ground was only slightly less painful that kissing a tree. Besides, there weren't any trees growing in the gully to obstruct my progress. Sure, there were more exposed rocks to contend with, and I did slip a number of times, but all and all it was much faster going.

I am guessing that I had covered about a quarter of a mile when the rain stopped. One minute I couldn't even hear my own gasps, and the next minute the tree frogs were singing. A few minutes later the moon popped into place overhead.

So abrupt was the transformation that I sat down in the gully, muddy water swirling all about me, and cried. At least I think I cried. It's hard to tell if you're really crying when you are all wet. At any rate, I felt my face go through the motions, and despite efforts to the contrary, one very loud sob managed to escape me. Almost immediately I heard someone or something moving in the woods off to my right.

Since the obvious possibilities were Anita or a black bear, neither of which I wanted to encounter, I forced myself up and on my way. It was, of course, much easier to traverse the gully in the light, but more frightening as well. Now that I could see the slippery rocks, and the mud banks about to cave in, my progress was slower. I had taken only a few tentative steps when I heard a loud crack, not far off to my right. Coward that I am, I sat back down in the water with a plop.

There was another loud crack, this one even closer.

“So kill me already,” I screamed, and cupped my face in my hands.

“Abigail!”

The voice was not Anita's, and I was reasonably sure it wasn't a bear. I peeked through my fingers.

“Roy?”

A million tons of water can alter one's appearance, you know. Handsome Roy, with the thick head of hair, looked more like a drowned muskrat on a beanpole than the man whose pickup I'd nearly scraped.

Roy grabbed me and gave me hard hug, but I wiggled loose.

“You're not
with
her, are you?”

“Me? In cahoots with Anita?”

I stepped back and pried a muddy rock loose from the side of the gully. “Well?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I followed you.”

I discarded the first rock and palmed one with a sharp edge. “What do you mean, you followed me?”

“I've been following you ever since you left the restaurant. I stayed about a quarter of a mile behind till you hit the dirt road. Then I had to lag even further back so as not to raise dust. When you stopped in the middle of the road like that, I had to stop, too. That's when I got out and started walking along the edge of the woods. When I saw her take you into the forest, I tried to head y'all off at an angle, but it was damned dark and I couldn't see where the hell I was going.”

“And then it poured.”

“Yeah, a real frog-strangler.”

I'd known Anita for years, and although I'd always thought of her as a religious fanatic, I'd never thought of her as crazy. Roy, on the other hand, I'd only known a couple of hours. For all I knew, he was one of Anita's sons whom I'd never met or an escaped rapist from the state pen.

“What made you follow me?”

“I had a gut feeling something was wrong, and I guess I was right. I didn't like that woman from the start.”

I dropped the rock. “What tipped you off?”

“Well, it wasn't hard to see that the woman was a wacko. When you got up to use the phone she nearly busted an eardrum trying to hear you. I started to talk to her and she about snapped my head off. Yelled at me for interrupting the Lord's work.”

“Apparently killing me was part of that work. She would have gotten the job done, too, if it hadn't been for the lightning. Speaking of which, she could be anywhere. And she's armed, you know.”

“Yeah, I figured that. A woman like you wouldn't go off
into the woods with the likes of her unless there was some kind of weapon involved. You know what kind of gun it is?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“It might, if we run into her and she starts shooting. Knowing if and when she has to reload could be a big help.”

“All I know is that it was a hard gun. I didn't get a close look.”

“How did you get away?”

“You didn't see the lightning?”

“I saw it.”

“It nearly killed us. It might have killed her—I don't know. I didn't stick around to see.”

“Then we best be going.”

Without asking my permission, Roy scooped me up and started carrying me like a baby. I'm not complaining, mind you. At least he didn't hoist me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Still, it wasn't a very practical move on his part.

“Wouldn't it make more sense if I rode piggyback?” I whispered.

“Yeah. But I was planning on using you as a shield if I need to.”

“That's not funny. Anyway, the woman would just as soon shoot you in the back.”

At the risk of sounding like a wimp, I rode on his back all the way out of the forest. Believe me, with Roy's legs doing all the walking we saved a lot of time. My job was to keep an eye on the rear, which I did. And I don't mean just Roy's rear, either.

Unfortunately Roy was not the great white hunter he would have me believe. After about an hour and a half and two gullies later, we stumbled out onto the road. It wasn't the logging road, however, but a paved highway.

“Hell,” Roy said. “I could have sworn I was headed right for the logging road and our cars.”

“Turn left, then; it's got to be just down there. I think I see that old stump.”

Roy ignored me and made a right turn.

“What you doing?”

“I know what I'm doing, Abigail. Just leave the directions up to me.”

“Put me down!”

Unlike the stereotype of the average female, I am a darn good navigator, and I firmly believe most women are. In my case, I became an expert the first time Buford and I ever took a trip into unfamiliar territory. That man would sooner be castrated than consult a map, and he wouldn't stop to ask directions if his life depended on it. If I had a dollar for each wasted mile Buford drove while we were married, I could buy Imelda Marcos's shoe collection. At any rate, while we drove those endless miles in which Buford was lost, but wouldn't admit it, I knew exactly where we were at all times.

I may have had to put up with Buford's stupidity—if only to keep family peace—but I didn't have to put up with Roy's. As soon as my feet hit the pavement I started walking. In the right direction.

“Hey, what do think you're doing?” Roy kept up with me for a few steps but then fell back. “You don't know this area, Abigail. You're going to get lost!”

I kept walking. Unfortunately I had managed to lose one of my sandals during the ordeal in the woods. Although the pavement was a little rough, it was still easier to walk altogether barefoot rather than lopsided. Although I didn't have Imelda's resources, I cavalierly threw my remaining sandal away.

The rain had cooled things down considerably and it was pleasantly warm. My clothes were almost dry. Under better circumstances I could well have enjoyed a nighttime stroll down a deserted country road—preferably with a well-chosen companion, like Greg Washburn. But Roy would do in a pinch, and I had every confidence that he would be joining me in a few minutes. Just as soon as he realized his mistake.

I was very wrong. Not only did Roy not join me, but what I thought was the big stump marking the logging road turned out to be a clump of blackberry bushes draped in honeysuckle. However, much to my joy, further down the road, I could see a light. It appeared to be stationary, perhaps the light from a house.

Adrenaline is a funny thing. One's body can produce great
amounts of it under seemingly opposite circumstances. What had served me well in the pine forest and gully served equally well on the paved road. I flew like Mercury and was there without really having been conscious of the journey.

It was a house, all right. A very ordinary-looking house, but one guarded by a pack of snarling, snapping dogs. Again, thanks to my adrenal glands I sailed right past them. My bravado must have intimidated the dogs because almost immediately they lost interest and slunk off.

I leaped up the steps to the front porch in a single bound. Well, two at the most. Finding no doorbell, I pounded on the door. My internal clock told me that it was no later than ten, and probably much earlier. Besides, the light undoubtedly meant someone was still up. And even if they hadn't been before my arrival, the dogs had surely done their job.

Nevertheless, nobody answered.

The garage door was closed, but there was a car parked in the driveway that looked functional. I would have bet Aunt Marilyn's life savings that the owner was home. I pounded again until the windows rattled.

The door opened just a crack, and I could see a thin slice of pink. “Go away!” a woman said.

“Please, I need help. Do you have a telephone?”

“I said to go away. If you don't, I'll sic them dogs on you.”

“Please, this is an emergency. There's been an accident, and I think somebody's dead.” That was partly true, because Anita might well be dead, as far as I knew.

The door opened as far as the chain would permit. “There been a car wreck?”

“No ma'am—”

The door started to close.

“Yes, ma'am. Two cars. Bodies lying everywhere.”

The door closed just long enough and far enough for the chain to come off. The woman, who was wearing a pink long-sleeved dress, looked surprisingly familiar, although I couldn't place her. A second woman, dressed in blue, darted out of view.

“You in the accident?” Even her voice sounded familiar.

With no shoes, and more scratches than a one-eared tomcat,
it should have been obvious to her. I was forced to lie again.

“Yes, ma'am. May I use your phone?”

She stared out into the night. “I don't see no accident.”

“It's down the road about a mile. People moaning and screaming like you wouldn't believe.”

“You wait here,” she said, and closed the door.

She took forever, and I was too antsy to stand there like a lawn jockey. I started pacing like a caged lioness. It was a small porch bounded by a wrought iron railing, which made my circles tight. I swear I had made a dozen circuits before I realized I could not only see into her garage, but what I was looking at was even more familiar than she was.