Taking Terri Mueller (6 page)

Later, she found it hard to fall asleep. She lay in bed for a long time, hearing her father and Aunt Vivian talking in the living room. She was drifting off when she heard the clatter of cups in the kitchen and came awake again. Her aunt's visit had been different from other years. Not as good, not as wonderful. It wasn't her aunt's fault. It's me,
Terri thought again. I'm different. It made her sad, .and she got out of bed wanting to see her aunt again, to tell her that she loved her.
That
hadn't changed.

She opened her bedroom door and heard her aunt saying, “Philly, listen to me, dear, it can't go on like this. You have got to tell her.”

“No,” her father said.

“She's asking questions. And now you're talking about involving two more lives—”

“Viv, I can't. Think what you're saying.”

“Think what you're doing, Philly.”

“I have. I thought about it a long time ago.”

“That's just the point—it was a long time ago. Terri's growing up. You—”

“All the more reason I can't. It's
done.”

“She has to know sometime.”

Terri stood frozen by the door.

“You don't know what you're saying, Vivian.”

“Things have changed, time has passed. I feel very strongly about this. I love Terri—”

“Yes, and so do I. For god's sake, do you doubt that?”

“Then tell her the truth.”

“No,” he said again. “Vivian—I can't.”

“Then maybe I should.”

There was silence. The hairs all over Terri's arms stood up.

“You've never betrayed me. You can't now.” Her father's voice was low. Was he crying? She couldn't bear to hear any more and closed the door.

SEVEN

“Hand me that wrench, will you, Terri?” Phil Mueller was lying on his back on the floor, his head inside the sink cabinet.

“Do you have enough light?” Kneeling, she poked the lead light farther under the sink.

“Fine.” Her father grunted as he twisted the wrench around the trap.

“Should we let the landlord know we have a leak?”

“Are you kidding? We'd be lucky if it got fixed by next spring.” He crawled out from under the sink. “That should do it, but put the pan under again, just in case—”

“Daddy.” She meant to speak sharply to get his attention, but the words came soft and slow. “I heard you and Aunt Vivian talking.” He was washing his hands with the R&O Soap from the blue tin. “I heard you,” she said. “Sunday night—before Aunt Vivian left. I heard you talking . . . I heard what you said.”

“You heard us?” There was a shy smile on his face. Was it a smile? It caught her by surprise and it hurt her as if the smile were saying,
Please protect me
.

“Daddy . . .” Oh, this was so hard to do. Should she be
saying these things? But if she didn't, then it would all just keep going endlessly around in her head. “I know something is wrong,” she said. That sounded so bold. “I think something is wrong,” she said, softly. “Please, if it is, tell me? If you did something . . . I don't care what you did—”

“Nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong,” he said. He put damp hands on her shoulders. “Do you love me?”

Why did he ask that? He knew. But he waited for her answer. She nodded.”
Yes
.”

“Then that's all that matters. It's worth everything.”

What
was worth everything? What was the “everything”? She had spoken so softly. Maybe he hadn't really understood what she said. “I
heard
you,” she said again. “You and Aunt Vivian. She said you should tell me—”

He cut her off. “That conversation wasn't meant for your ears. It was private, between me and Vivian. Were you eavesdropping? I'm disappointed in you!”

She could hardly breathe. “I wasn't eavesdropping!” Behind him, on the counter, the TV was on. Little figures danced on the screen, throwing out their arms, all of them smiling. In the background someone was singing, “Ain't life wunnerful? Wunnerful? Wunner . . . fulllll!”

“You're only thirteen,” he said. “There are a lot of things in life you don't have to think about yet. Enjoy your life now, Terri, there's a long time ahead of you when things won't be nearly as much fun for you as they are now.”

“I can't have fun if you're in trouble.”

“I'm not in trouble,” he said. His voice softened. “You
can rest easy on that, honey. Look, you overheard something and you're jumping to conclusions. I think we should end this discussion.” He turned away to dry his hands. “Just forget what you heard, Terri. Just forget it, honey. That's the best thing to do.”

That was Wednesday night. She didn't “just forget it.” She couldn't. He'd always said they shared everything. She had believed it. Didn't everything that affected him affect her? They were a
family
. But he had secrets from her. Was he protecting her from something bad or ugly?

She remembered a long-ago hot spring day (she'd been eight or nine), a traffic jam, cars stopped on a highway. They had walked forward. She saw the flashing lights. She saw the police cars. She saw the grey car crumpled like a piece of paper. She saw feet sticking out from beneath that crumpled paper car.

“Look, Daddy—”

“Don't!” He pulled her against him, covered her eyes, turned her, walked her away. Then, only then, she understood that she had seen death. Dead Feet. She stumbled along next to him, her face buried in his waist, her heart beating so softly and heavily inside her chest. A Dead Person. Dead like her mother. “Don't think about it,” her father said. “You don't have to think about it.”

But she had thought about it. Yes, even then, when she was a child. Now she was thirteen, and he was still saying the same thing to her. No good, she thought.

Friday night he went out to visit Nancy. Terri stayed home. About half an hour after he left she went to her
father's room and took the grey metal box down from the closet shelf. She pressed the latch. It was locked. She pressed it again, harder.

She heard something in the hall and stopped, her heart jumping. What if her father walked in on her? Okay, she just wanted to see her birth certificate again. She'd asked him to let her have it. She would take good care of it. It was the only thing she knew of that linked her to her mother.

“Kathryn Susso Mueller,” she said out loud. “Kathryn Susso. Kathy.” Or maybe she had been called Kate? Or Cat? She pushed at the lock again, then put the box back. She felt restless and strange.

In the kitchen she bit into an apple. Maybe she was hungry? But after two bites she was full.

In the living room she fell down on the couch. A cloud of dust and dog hairs rose and settled. Barkley grinned hopefully at her. He wanted to play. Terri closed her eyes and tried to see her mother.
A tall, handsome woman
. . . It wasn't enough. So many things she didn't know, would never know unless someone told her. But who? Her father wouldn't talk about Kathryn.

Kathryn. She loved the name. She said it again. “Kathryn.” Kathryn had been killed in her car by another driver. Had he been drunk? She
hated
that man, whoever he was. Where was he now? What if she met him someday and knew he was the one who had killed her mother?

She sat up, clutching a pillow. She would want to kill
him!
Barkley poked his head against her hand and whined. “No, Barkley, honey, not you.” She put her arms around his
neck. What if her father had felt this way after her mother's death? What if he had found the driver and killed him?

She jumped to her feet, turned on the TV, immediately turned it off. She had never seen Phil angry enough to even raise his voice. What had he said to her the other day?
I'm disappointed in you
. That was the way Phil got mad. But yet, the thought made so much sense, would explain so many things, that she kept thinking about it.

Say her father just hit the man. And the man slipped, fell, and cracked his head on the pavement. Died. Became a Dead Person. That would be murder. Manslaughter. What had Aunt Vivian said?
You have to tell her. She's got to know sometime
. . .

“Oh, Barkley.” She put her face against his familiar stinky dog smell. “Oh, Barkley.” Her father, a murderer. It would have meant jail for him. And there she would have been, four years old, with no mother and no father.

Rather than let her be orphaned, had her father decided to run? To go away with her? To disappear before the police came for him? Wasn't that it? It would explain everything. All the moves they'd made, and what her aunt had said to him, and why he didn't want her to know about any of it. “Oh, Barkley,” she said again.

On Saturday, Terri and Shaundra shopped in the Mall for a birthday present for Shaundra's mother. They looked at scarves, sprayed perfume on their wrists, and checked out the beads and rings in The Carousel. Finally Shaundra settled on wooden wind chimes which she said her mother could hang outside her bedroom window.

They went into Wendy's for lunch, taking a booth near the back. “What a relief to have that over with,” Shaundra said. She poured ketchup on her burger. “You're sort of super-quiet today, Terri. You okay?”

“Yes, sure. I have things on my mind.”

“All the cares of the world. Tell Aunt Shaundra your troubles, my child.” She grabbed Terri's arm. “Terri, there goes George Torrance!”

“Where?” Terri's face warmed.

“Over there, walking past the pretzel shop. Oh my god, he's stopping to buy a pretzel.”

“Don't point, Shaundra.”

“I'm not
pointing
. Do you think he sees us? Do you see him? Do you see him?”

“I see him,” Terri said. “He's with Christopher.”

“Isn't he
darling
?” Shaundra said.

“George or Christopher?”

“Both of them!”

“I thought you said George had greasy hair.”

“I've changed my mind. I think he's very nice. I was talking to him the other day, and I decided I'm going to do everything I can to bring you two together.”

“Shaundra! You didn't say anything about me?”

“Don't worry, I'm not that dumb.”

Terri slid her bracelets up and down her arm. “Shaundra—we are best friends, aren't we?”

“Yes, of course.” Shaundra bit into her hamburger. “That's why I like George now.”

“Yes, but I don't mean that. We should be able to tell
each other anything, don't you think?”

“Yes,” Shaundra said with her mouth full. “Aren't you going to eat?”

Terri took a small bite of her cheeseburger. “I want to ask you something. What if someone you thought you knew everything about . . . really knew . . . what if you found out that person did something that was, that was
bad
?”

Shaundra leaned forward. “Terri, are you in trouble?”

“No, not
me
. Someone else. What if it was your father that did the something bad—”

“He did,” Shaundra said. “He divorced my mother!”

“I mean something much worse.”

“What's worse than that? Murder?”

Terri set her bun down on the plate. The smell of the fried potatoes rising from the paper cone made her feel nauseous. She pushed them away.

“Hey, Terri—” Shaundra slid down in her seat. “Are you sick or something? You don't look too good.”

“Shaundra—if I tell you something, will you swear never to tell anyone?” Shaundra nodded. “You've got to swear,” Terri said. Shaundra nodded again and held up her hand. Terri didn't want to think about her father by herself anymore. She told Shaundra what she had overheard and what she had figured out. It was hard to say. “I think . . . my father killed that man.” She wanted to call the words back.

“Terri, do you really think it happened that way?” There were little dots of sweat on Shaundra's upper lip.

“I don't know—” She felt like crying. “I don't know, but what else could it be?”

“Oh, god,” Shaundra said. “That's terrible.” She leaned forward. “I've heard my father say there's murder in everyone's heart. I thought that was gross, but maybe it's true. Oh, Terri. I don't know what to say.”

Terri turned her head. “Don't say anything. I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

“All right, we won't then. We'll talk about other stuff. I'll tell you about my seven loves.”

“Seven?” Terri managed a weak smile. “I thought it was six.”

“There's a new one. Rory Ross. Isn't that sweet?”

Terri smiled, a forced smile. She hardly heard anything Shaundra said. Had she made a bad mistake telling Shaundra her father's secret? If the police found out, they would come for him. She pushed aside the cold cheeseburger. The congealed meat spilling out of the bun looked like blood. Where was her father now? Home? With Nancy? Doing their shopping? It didn't matter. If the police wanted him, they'd find him. She had told Shaundra too much. Shaundra's father was a policeman.

What if Shaundra said to him,
Pop, I have a friend who thinks her father killed someone a long time ago
. And what if Shaundra's father, the detective father, said,
This sounds like an interesting case . . .
and came with a gun and handcuffs . . .

“Daddy.” Her lips silently formed the word.
Daddy, you're right, I don't have to know . . . whatever you did, keep the secret. Don't tell me. I don't care. Let's just go, let's leave this town, let's go right now so they won't ever find you
. . .

“Terri. Terri?” Shaundra shook her arm. “What's the
matter
?”

“I was just . . .” Her palms were soaked. “I was just thinking . . . Shaundra, you won't ever say anything about my father to anyone?”

“I told you I wouldn't, Terri.”

“Not anyone?”

“I won't. I
promise
you. I won't! Please don't feel so bad. Maybe it's not what you said at all. You know, you said yourself your father couldn't hurt anyone.” She put her hand over Terri's and Terri felt comforted for the moment, and close to her friend.