Piper (30 page)

Crap, Dirk!
I'd forgotten all about the trial. He must have been relieved to find out there was no longer a defendant he had to testify against. He wouldn't have to manufacture the big lie. On the other hand, there was no longer anyone alive who could deny what Dirk had sworn happened between the two of them.

“I used to read bedtime stories to your mother,” Willard said out of the blue. “
Huckleberry Finn
.” He sat cross-legged in the middle of the seat, the blanket wrapped around him like an Indian squaw, with a dog on each side. “I loved the trip down the river on the raft. Old Jim would get scared and Huck had to settle him down.” Willard chuckled to himself. “
I ‘uz hungry, but I warn't afeard, Huck
.”

“Jim was the wise one, you know.”

“No, he warn't.” Now Willard was even talking like Jim. “He was a slave.”

“It's irony, Willard.”

“Well, Kitty and me liked ‘im anyway.” He pulled the blanket up around his ears and I thought he might be mad at me for being so uppity, but then he started talking again in a voice that drifted slow like a wide river. “She promised me we'd go on one them steamboat paddle wheelers … float down the Mississippi clear to the Gulf of Mexico.” I thought I'd heard all their stories, but this one was new.

I felt a lump in my throat thinking of him and mom together on that steamboat. “How old was she when she promised you this?”

“Couldn't have been any bigger'n a border collie. Tried to get the wife to go, but she didn't like the idea of sleeping someplace she had to share a toilet.”

“Maybe you and I can take that trip, Willard.”

“Don't pull my chain.” It was an expression he must have picked up at one of the construction sites.

“I'm serious.”

“What language you speaking?”

“I mean that's where we're going.” It came to me just then. There was no other place that made sense. Mom had promised it; I was going to do it. “To the Mississippi River.”

He slapped the upholstery and bounced up and down on the seat. “You hear that guys? We're going down the big one!”

We talked about it some more and I tried to recall my grade school geography so I could tell him exactly where we'd be heading. Then I tried to settle him down so we could get some sleep, but he kept breaking into dialect and making wisecracks about whatever came into his head and laughing. I remembered the pills Dr. Miller had given me. Willard was supposed to have one the first night. Now I could see why; he was going manic on me. We didn't have any water in the car so I explained how he had to get it down by making a big goober. Old people were supposed to be skeptical of new ideas, but not Willard. He squeezed out so much saliva that he was drooling like Diller by the time I slipped the pill between his lips.

I was still awake, with my eyes wide open and looking up at the seams in the ceiling upholstery when I heard him snoring. I kept thinking how proud Mom would be at the way I'd taken charge, how I was going to keep Willard out of the nursing home in Mount Vernon, and jail. But for the first time since we'd left, I felt alone and I was scared. I was scared because Willard trusted me and I was afraid I was going to let him down.

19

For the second day in a row, I was awakened by the dogs. This time they were barking and the air was heavy with the sourness of their breath. For a moment, I didn't know where I was. My feet were cold where they'd stuck out the end of the blanket and my eyes were crusted over. When I raised up, my shoulder hit something hard that knocked me back down. I felt around, then grabbed what turned out to be the steering wheel. There was a second noise behind the dog noise, a tapping sound, metal against glass. Someone was tapping on the driver's window with a coin. Mrs. Churchill, normally as placid as warm milk, had crawled over to the driver's side of the car and was barking in my ear.

“Shut up, all of you! I hear it.”

The windows were glazed with hoarfrost, but I could see the shadow of someone's head next to the glass, with knuckles in the foreground moving in a circle. Whoever it was wanted me to roll the window down. I looked into the backseat; Willard was sound asleep. Through the glaze on the rear window I saw a blue light blinking on top of the car behind us and my heart started racing again, the same gallop it did when Bagmore told me he'd seen Willard running from the fire two nights ago.

As I rolled down the window, I could see a man in a wide-brimmed hat and at first I thought he was Royal Canadian Mounted Police and we'd inadvertently crossed the border, but his name badge said, “W. Rasmussen, Washington State Patrol.”

“Good morning.” He had a friendly smile, pink in his cheeks, and bright, eager eyes that had already started casing the interior of the car from the moment I cracked the window. Even though it was daylight, he leaned over and shined a flashlight into the frontseat. Mrs. Churchill was wagging her tail now, anxious to make up for the poor first impression she'd made. Paddy stretched his head forward between the window and the headrest, desperate to be recognized. “These yours?”

“His really,” I said, pointing over my shoulder, not wanting to use names.

The officer leaned his head in behind mine and shone the light into the back. I could smell baby powder deodorant. He must have just come on shift. “Is he okay?”

I was relieved I'd given Willard the pill. Hopefully, he'd sleep through this little interrogation. “He's a heavy sleeper. A little old, you know.” I gave a chuckle, making sure my teeth didn't chatter. This was just like walking into one of those fancy hotels Willard talked about. I just had to act like I belonged here.

The trooper stood up straight and I could see he was on the lanky side, in excellent physical condition, not a wrinkle in his creased pants except for the sitting marks across the lap, which was at eye level. “Let me see your license.”

I looked down at the dash. The key was still in the ignition. I wondered if I turned it whether the car would start or sputter the way it had in the garage.
Come on, Piper, you belong here. You belong here as much as he does
. “Actually, he was driving … we traded seats … he's shorter.”

“Give me his then.”

This was like one of those mazes in a children's magazine; every pathway led to Officer Rasmussen. I got up on my knees and leaned over the seat. Willard was sleeping with his butt against the back of the seat. Diller licked my wrist as I pulled Willard towards me and dug into his back pocket for the billfold. It was just as likely his wallet would be filled with coins and bottlecaps from one of his treasure hunts as a license. The leather was weathered like he'd left it outside and so worn at the corners that the plastic credit cards stuck through. I flipped open one of the plastic windows to a picture of Mom with her Jackie Kennedy bouffant hairdo, a miniature of the high school graduation picture she'd shown me once from what she called her virginity chest. The rest of the windows, cracked and opaque, contained pictures but no license. The bill compartment was crammed with membership cards from the Humane Society, PAWS, Greenpeace, and Doctors Without Borders. Finally, I found the driver's license, with Willard's leprechaun likeness sealed beneath the lamination, and pinched it over to Officer Rasmussen's waiting fingers.

“Car registration?”

I flipped the visor down and the clip-on case with the registration fell off and into my lap.
Bingo
.

“Be right back,” he said, and I watched his buns recede in the rearview mirror. There wasn't an iota of hula in those tightass, military hips.

He left the door to the patrol car open and I watched him make a call on his radio. If we were going to run for it, this was the time to do it. Instead of using the car, I wondered if we'd have better odds going cross-country, like
The Defiant Ones
, shackled convicts running for their lives through swamps in the deep South. Of course, that would require Willard's cooperation and he was still in a drug-induced coma.

“Willard! Time for breakfast.” I practically yelled, “Breakfast!” He shifted position and wrapped his hand around Diller's hind hock like it was an overhead handrail.

We weren't going to be the defiant ones.

It seemed like the longest wait and I wondered if the trooper had called for reinforcements. Maybe they were blockading the freeway. The morning sun had defrosted the windows on the passenger side, which meant that was the direction of the Mississippi River. Hopefully Officer Rasmussen would be satisfied with the documentation and be on his way before Willard woke up. I was still afraid that if Willard as much as saw the uniform he'd spill his guts.

I puffed out the window and my breath rolled into a churning fog. Maybe it was because that's the way I'd last seen her, in a fog, but I thought of Rozene and wondered what she'd think when she found out I'd taken off. Would there be an enormous ache of regret? A tingle? There was already a yawning hunger in me I knew would never be satisfied. I couldn't imagine ever taking the chance again with someone else that I'd taken with her. From here on in I had to reconcile myself to the fact I'd live my life out in the company of misfits like Willard, and if he ever left me I'd sleep with his dogs, and when they were gone, I'd find more strays like Willard had done.

“Overnight camping here is against the law, Ma'am.” I hadn't heard him sneak up.

“We weren't camping, sir,” I answered out of reflex.

He scratched an “X” with his fingernail into the softening frost on the outside of Willard's window. “Looks to me like you've been here all night.”

“Yeah, but …” I wanted to explain how we hadn't used the restrooms, how we'd hardly gotten out of the car. Could that be camping?

“This isn't his car,” he said, “and the driver's license has expired.”

“Maybe he's got a new one in his bag …”

“I checked. He hasn't had a valid license in nine years.”

“He's forgetful, officer …”

“That's not the bad news.” Officer Rasmussen had suddenly become pushy, the cherub smile had disappeared. He wanted to run over the top of us with his information. “He's wanted for questioning back home.”

How stupid I'd been! I should have at least tried to get away when we had the chance. Against my better judgment, I'd sat there and done whatever Fuhrer Rasmussen asked me to do. I'd gone soft. “He's an old man,” I said. “You can't do this to an old man. He's practically senile. How could he break the law if he's senile?”

“Step out of the car, please.”

“Nazi,” I mumbled.

When I reached for the keys, he thrust his arm through the window and glommed his hand onto my wrist like a manacle. “I wouldn't do that if I were you,” he said, as he managed to open the door while pulling me out onto the pavement by the wrist at the same time. The dogs spilled out the door and scattered like somebody had thrown a handful of marbles across the parking lot. “Call 'em back,” he said.

“Run, you guys!”

“I don't want 'em to get hurt.”

“You're melting me with your compassion, sir.” I knew I was blowing any chance for a change of heart, but I couldn't help it. I was pissed at myself for letting Willard get caught.

“You haven't even asked me why they want him for questioning,” he said, twisting his grip on my wrist a little tighter. “Why not?”

Mistake number thirty-nine! I'd forgotten to act like we were paid guests in the hotel. “You didn't give me a chance … I figured it was routine … why
are
you questioning him?”

He smiled that roadside grin he'd probably learned in trooper school. “Say, you're a tall one, aren't you?”

“Doesn't he have a right to know what you want to ask him?” I tried to shake the trooper loose, but he would have none of it and dragged me back to the passenger side of the patrol car. “Isn't there a Constitution? You can't just push innocent people around. We're on a trip. He's my grandpa.”

The heat was on full blast in the patrol car, and there was an unmistakable man's smell. Everything was masculine, the upright rifle attached to the grip on the dash, the dented aluminum thermos bottle tossed onto the seat, the two-way radio that buzzed and crackled with cryptic messages. Rasmussen walked around the front, eye balling me all the way, and dropped into the seat behind the steering wheel with his legs spread, one heel on the door sill, and wrote more on his clipboard. I leaned back to see if I could read what he was writing in large block print, but he tilted the board away from me. The dogs sniffed around the picnic tables, looking for the scraps of fried chicken and burgers they could undoubtedly smell even though the crows had long ago picked the area clean. Still there was no sign of Willard stirring and I thought how rich it would be if he'd already awakened, saw the police car, and slithered out the side door on his belly like a snake into the “Pet Area.” Judging from the effect they were having on Willard, Dr. Miller must have given us horse pills.

Then the trooper picked the mike up off its hook. “Hey, Steve, this is one-seventy-nine again.” He held the mike away from his mouth and waited for a response while staring over to my side like he owned me. There was a subdued hum of the kind you get in between radio stations.

“Yeah, one-seventy-nine, I read you.”

Rasmussen held the mike against the corner of his mouth like a fist. “I'm gonna tag the car.”

“Roger, trooper.”

“Can you also send Animal Control?”

“Oh, no,” I broke in, “you're not taking the dogs!”

“Justa minute, Steve.” He gestured toward me like the mike was a stone he was going to cuff me upside the head with. “You're interfering with police business, Ma'am. One more outburst and I'm going to arrest you for obstructing justice.” He paused. “You got that?”