Sendoff for a Snitch (10 page)

“We can hang onto anything else you want but can’t carry now, and you can pick it up when you come back for your other things,” Nicole said. “I’ll wash them when we get the laundry equipment going again. And you can get them when you get settled back in your apartment. Or where ever.”

I wondered when that would be. And where.

“Speaking of that…” Mandy reached over and took Nicole’s hand. “I was wondering if you were interested in house-sitting for two weeks or so after this all clears up? I don’t want to leave the house completely unwatched, and I’m not sure I trust the security firms around here.”

The hired security firms were probably okay, or they wouldn’t be in business for long, but I didn’t voice that thought. “Sure,” I said. “If you’d like me to.”

“You could stay in the carriage house out back,” she went on, “and check on the house every day.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

“I could pay you.”

“No!”

Her face twisted in concern.

“I mean,” I said, “after all you’ve done for me? And if I was staying in the carriage house, you certainly don’t need to pay me. I wouldn’t take money from you anyhow. When is this?” If it was coming up soon, I could maybe stay there until I figured out the fate of my apartment.

She smiled and looked at Nicole. “As soon as we can arrange it. Now that same-sex marriage is recognized in this state, we’re getting married and going on a honeymoon.”

Chapter 9

I
set out for Kelly’s place better dressed than I’d ever been in my life. Long johns, lined chinos, a soft chamois shirt, a heavy wool sweater, a warm down outdoorsman’s jacket that didn’t have garish red and black checks. And on my feet, a sturdy pair of boots lined with two heavy pairs of socks. I clutched the folded poncho. Unless the rain stopped, which it showed no signs of doing, it would be very useful.

Mandy pulled the car out of the garage to give me a ride.

The streets were eerily quiet in these early Sunday morning hours, and the traffic signals non-functional. The buildings we passed were dark. Water gushed across sidewalks and swirled lazily around clogged storm drains. Mandy kept to the center of the streets and avoided low-lying areas.

Occasionally, we encountered another private car, but where were the emergency responders and the utility crews?

Kelly’s kids would be up, so I didn’t worry that it would be too early to go over to her house. Their dad was supposed to return them at nine last night, and they’d have gotten to bed late, but they were always a little unsettled when they came back from visitations with him. And what kid would sleep in anyhow?

Mandy dropped me off in front of the house. Kelly had gotten the big brick house in the divorce settlement. Making the mortgage payments ate up a lot of her salary, but she loved it, and it was in a good neighborhood with a solid school for the kids.

It was dark like everyplace else. I dashed from the car to the front porch, trying to minimize getting the down jacket wet.

The drapes on the front windows were drawn. While that blocked out the light, it also blocked out some of the cold, and with no power, I was sure the heat in Kelly’s house wasn’t working.

I punched the doorbell.

No one answered.

Distressed, I went to the window to see if I could peer through a slight gap between the drape and the edge of the window.

All I could see was darkness.

Could the kids still be asleep? Especially if it was cold in the house, maybe they just stayed in their beds. That would at least be fairly warm.

I went back to the door and tried the knob. Locked. Just as well, I supposed. If it had been unlocked, I would have had to decide whether to go in without an invitation or not. Technically, that would be breaking and entering, even if Kelly had told me to come over.

As I reached to try the doorbell again, a thought stuck me. The doorbell ran on electric current. The power was out. So the bell wouldn’t sound. How dumb could I be?

I raised my hand and rapped my knuckles on the door.

A few seconds later, it creaked open. Chris stood in the doorway, wearing his jacket, his dark curly hair going in all directions and his nose red and running.

“Jesse!” He threw the door open.

“Yep.” I grinned at him. “How’s my man doing?”

He stepped back and looked up at me, a sob catching in his throat.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, stepping in and closing the door against the weather.

He pulled his jacket a bit closer. “It’s cold in here,” he said, “and we’re hungry. And Mom hasn’t gotten up yet.”

I frowned. “Did you try to get Mom up?”

“Yeah. She told me to go fix breakfast for me and Brianna. But there isn’t much food. And I don’t know what to fix. There’s no cereal or bread. I can’t find anything.”

Too much responsibility for a little kid. Chris was eight years old. Brianna was only six. She was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s your sister?” I asked.

He hung his head. “She’s hiding in her closet. She wet her bed, and she’s afraid she’s gonna get in trouble. And her jammies are all wet. She won’t let me help her find her dry clothes.”

“Get in trouble for wetting the bed?” I cast my mind back to Mrs. Coleman, my foster mother. Most of the kids she cared for were in emergency foster care. Lots of them wet the bed. She said that was only to be expected of children who were traumatized, so she handled it with understanding and patience. And waterproof mattress pads.

I took off the jacket and draped it on a chair, then I headed for the stairs. “First, let’s go get Brianna. Nobody’s gonna get her in trouble for wetting her bed.”

Chris followed me. “Dad would,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “Sometimes, he’ll spank her for wetting the bed. And Mom might yell. If she’s been drinking.”

Turning to face him, I said, “Has she been drinking?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. A little. She was okay when we first got home, but then she got upset. There were no lights. She told us to go to bed, but she stayed up.”

I knew Kelly did drink sometimes. More than was good for either her or the kids. She’d cut way back for a while, and I thought things were going pretty good for her. For us.

But then Old Buckles, her father, had come to stay with her. He’d used her address for his home plan when he’d been released from prison, the same one where I’d spent so much time. Only, he was doing life on the installment plan, while mine was straight time.

Maybe that was why she wasn’t freaked out by my background like most people were.

He was a biker, pretty high up in the ranks of a local club called the Predators. Kelly knew he’d spend most of his time with his buddies, but she thought he’d do it up at the clubhouse in the hills. Instead, he hung around her place, and some of his buddies did, too.

One of them, accustomed to the acquiescent women who rode with the bikers, made a pass at her when Old Buckles wasn’t around. She turned him down. Enraged, and probably drunk or high, he beat her up and raped her.

That could drive anyone to want to drink to drown out the feelings. But not everyone would follow through. In Kelly’s case, though, it looked like it may have triggered a return to heavy drinking.

“Anything special she was upset about?” I asked.

Chris twisted the end of his sleeve. “She said you said you was gonna come over last night, but you didn’t. That you’d stood her up.”

I caught my breath. Although I’d told her I’d try to get over yesterday, I didn’t think I’d actually promised. Just said I’d try. There had been too many uncertainties to promise anything yesterday. But she’d felt I let her down.

We climbed the stairs and went into Brianna’s room. Sure enough, the blankets and top sheet were thrown on the floor, and the bottom sheet was wet. There was a waterproof mattress pad on the bed.

The closet door was firmly closed. I went over and knocked on it. “Brianna. Please come out.”

“Go away!” she said in a strangled voice.

“Brianna. I can’t go away. We need to find you some dry clothes. And wash out the wet sheets and things. At least open the door.”

“No!”

I wasn’t sure what to do. “I’m gonna wash out the wet stuff,” I told her. “How about giving me the wet pajamas, too?”

Chris pulled on my sleeve. “The washing machine won’t work,” he pointed out. “Or the dryer. I think it’s the electricity being out.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I can at least rinse stuff out in the bathtub all right. And hang it up to dry. Where can we find some dry clothes for Brianna?”

He gestured across the room. “Laundry basket,” he said. “Mom did some wash, but didn’t get the clothes put away yet.”

Rummaging through the contents of the laundry basket released a pleasant, flowery smell. Fabric softener. I pulled out some heavy corduroy pants, a turtleneck shirt, and a warm sweater. “Any undies?” I asked Chris.

“Probably in the dresser.”

I opened the top drawer and found panties, undershirts, and socks.

“Brianna,” I said, standing next to the door. “I’m gonna open the door and toss these clean clothes inside. Please put them on and toss your pajamas out to me.”

“No!”

“You have to. It’s cold. You’re gonna get sick, staying in wet pajamas.” I yanked the door open a few inches, reached in, and dropped the clothes on the floor. “I’m also gonna throw in a tiny little flashlight,” I told her, “so you can see a little. But I’m taking the wet stuff into the bathroom, so I won’t be right here.”

I took a package of the flashlight out of my pocket and dropped it through the gap in the closet door.

Chris looked with interest at the flashlights. “Can I see one?” he asked.

I handed him one. “You can have one. I got a couple. But I don’t know how long they’re gonna last, so don’t waste it when you don’t need it.”

He took it and turned it over in his hand, pushing the little button that turned on the light. “Neat!” he said. “Thanks!”

I gathered up the sheets and the mattress pad. Underneath, the mattress itself was dry.

“Can you go downstairs and get me some laundry detergent?” I asked him.

Kelly’s house was on the municipal water system, so she should continue to have water despite the power outage. Unless the pumping station got overwhelmed by flood water. That was not a comforting thought.

Water gushed out of the spigot. I turned on the hot water, hoping she had a gas water heater, which might still work. No such luck. All the water was frigid. But it did continue to flow.

When I went back into Brianna’s room, her pajamas lay on the floor outside the closet door. A big step in the right direction. I picked them up and dumped them in the bathtub, too, along with a big glug of detergent from the bottle Chris brought me and stirred it all with the handle of a plumber’s helper I found next to the toilet.

“We’re gonna let that soak a while,” I said.

I ought to go see if Kelly was all right. She probably was, but totally hung over. I was postponing discovering whether my fears were true. And cold as the house was, getting Brianna into dry clothes was a priority.

The door to Kelly’s room was open a few inches. I pushed it open a few more.

Kelly lay on her back, tangled in sheets and blankets. An almost-empty bottle of Southern Comfort lay on the floor next to the bed. The whole room had a sour whiskey smell to it. And like everywhere else in the house, it was cold.

I stepped into the room to make sure she was still breathing. I held a hand down next to her mouth and nose and felt damp warmth as she exhaled. I had no idea what I would have done had she not been breathing.

Her waist-length hair had been done up in a braid, but the braid was twisted across her neck, and big strands of hair were working their way loose. Her nightgown was unbuttoned, and the blankets didn’t cover her magnificent breasts. One bare foot stuck out off the side of the bed.

I shivered. How far out of it did she have to be to not wake up enough to pull the bedding up over herself?

I eased the blankets out from under her and pushed her foot back onto the mattress. Then I covered her up to her neck with the blankets and tucked them around her.

She stirred and rolled over without opening her eyes. “Go away!”

Like mother, like daughter, I thought. But Brianna was a kid. She didn’t have much choice in what happened in her life. Kelly, on the other hand, was an adult. And she had control.

I backed into the hallway and shut the door again.

Chris stood by the top of the stairs, his eyes clouded and his fist pressed up against his mouth. “Is she okay?”

“I think so. Or she will be,” I said. “When she gets some more sleep.”

He nodded wisely. “Needs to sleep it off.”

Not something an eight-year-old should have to be concerned about.

“Are you warm enough?” I asked, eyeing his clothes.

He shrugged. “I guess. I mean, I could put on my warmer jacket if I got really cold.”

I headed toward Brianna’s room.

“She went downstairs,” he said.

“Good. Let’s get the stuff rinsed out and hung up as best we can,” I said.

I let the water out of the tub, refilled it with fresh water, and tried to rinse the detergent from the fabric. Waterlogged, it was heavy, and I could hardly lift it. I finally knelt next to the tub, let that water out, and rinsed everything under running water, then squeezed out what water I could.

Good enough, I decided. When the power came on, the stuff could be washed again. Meanwhile, I hung one sheet over the shower curtain rod and the pajamas over a towel bar. They dripped on the floor, but I didn’t see what I could do about that. The mattress pad, soaking wet and very heavy, I left in the bottom of the tub. Maybe some of the water would drain out.

We went downstairs. Brianna was sitting on the sofa, staring wistfully at the TV.

“Not gonna work, honey,” I told her. “Not till the power comes on.”

“I’m hungry,” she said.

Chris and I went to the kitchen. I opened the cupboards. Not a whole lot of food to begin with, and most of it, like the packages of macaroni and cheese, needed to be cooked.

“Any peanut butter?” I asked Chris. “Or bread?”

He shook his head. “Mom said she had to go to the store.”

The pickings were slim indeed. I took down a container of hot chocolate mix and a pouch of powdered milk. We wouldn’t be able to heat it up, but it would be filling. And reasonably nutritious.

“Any ice cream in the freezer?”

Chris shrugged. “I dunno.”

I debated. Unopened, the freezer would hold food for a few days. If I opened it, I’d severely shorten that time. But we might very well have to eat whatever we could in there anyhow. I opened it.

There was a package of vanilla ice cream. We could make ice cream shakes. Not ideal, and it wouldn’t do much to warm anybody up, but it would have to do.

I mixed up all the ice cream with the powdered milk and the hot chocolate mix, poured some of it into mugs, and gave it to the kids.

“Aren’t you gonna have any?” Chris asked.

“No. I already had breakfast.” I felt a little guilty about the great breakfast I’d had at Mandy’s place when the kids were hungry. But that was irrational. If I’d been hungry and taken some of the milkshake concoction, there’d be less for the kids.

They drank it up and wanted more.

“Okay, but let’s save some for later,” I said, pouring them each another mugful. I put the rest of it in a pitcher and put the pitcher on the back porch, where it would stay cold indefinitely. Although, right now, anywhere in the house would do for that.

“We don’t know how long it’s gonna be before we can get some more food.”

“Can’t you just go shopping?” Brianna asked, a chocolate mustache above her lip.

I smiled. “I bet most of the stores are closed. But I can try.”

The house was chilly, and it certainly wasn’t about to get any warmer. The kids helped me collect blankets, coats, old sweaters—anything that would hold in the heat. We made nests on the sofa.

“Why don’t you guys get some books and paper and crayons and things?” I said. “You can snuggle down in the nests and stay warm.”

Brianna stood in the middle of the living room, her chin stuck out. “I wanna watch TV,” she said. “I don’t want to get in some stupid nest. I’m not a bird.”

Goddess, the cat, crept out from under the sofa and leapt onto the pile of fabric. Her two kittens, who the kids had named Inky and Stinky, tumbled after her, swatting at each other.

“The cats like it,” Chris said, grabbing a book and climbing after them. He snuggled back and pulled an afghan over his legs.

“I’m afraid I can’t do much about the TV not working,” I told Brianna. “And I do have to go out and see if I can find any place to get some food. Your mom’s still asleep, and she’ll be hungry when she wakes up.”

Brianna stuck her fingers in her mouth and looked away from me.

“She’ll be fine,” Chris said, looking up from his book. “Brianna, get your crayons and coloring book. I bet Jesse’ll read us some stories when he gets back.”