Fourteen
The digital clock on the microwave oven read one
forty-five. She sidestepped to the phone and pecked out Karen's number.
Karen answered within four rings, her voice groggy with sleep. "Karen,
it's Lori. There was a man in our yard."
Karen yawned. "Did you see who it was?"
"Just a shadow at Wendy's window."
Karen came awake in a hurry. "Lori!"
"Let's not blow this all out of proportion, but it
might be Ralph, and I want to be sure Amy's okay. Will you call her?"
"Yes. I'll ring back in a few minutes."
Lori hadn't moved when the phone rang a short time
later. "Amy's fine," Karen said. "Are you?"
"Just shaken. Your string trap works great. What do
I do now? I'm not up to rushing outside and demanding identification."
"Don't do anything to scare him off. Wait until the
time is right and shine a flashlight in his face. It's Ronnie, but I want
you to see for yourself. Ralph is going to cause more commotion than a
derailed freight train when he shows up."
"You're right, of course," Lori said. "I'm sorry for
calling at this ungodly hour. If I would have had some forewarning, but I
just walked into Wendy's room and there he was."
"At Wendy's window."
"Karen, don't. I'm frightened enough as it is.
We'll discuss this later."
Karen's labored breathing filled a moment of
silence. "As you wish."
Lori wandered the house in the throes of an anxiety
attack that left her breathless. She locked herself in the master bedroom
and took the rifle down from the wall rack. She mentally went back
through the procedure to fire the weapon, inserting a clip of ammunition,
chambering a round, and taking off the safety before taking aim and
pulling the trigger. Knowing how to use it didn't help her feel more
secure. Only under the direst of circumstances would she even think of
using it. She couldn't imagine such circumstances. She didn’t want to.
Daylight seeped through the shades before she
returned the rifle to its wall mount and rejoined Leslie on the living
room rug. Wendy and Leslie tried to get her up during the early morning
hours. She resisted their attempts, but awoke to a pounding at the front
door just before noon. Karen's impressive silhouette at the screen door
calmed her moment of fright. Lori got up to let her in.
"You don't have a good flashlight," Karen said, "but
you do have a checkbook to buy one. Let's go shopping."
The hazy summer morning was stifling. They walked
the three blocks to the center of town at a leisurely pace. "There's
another meeting of the Defense League tonight," Karen said. "There are
seven of us from around the county. Our children are missing. One boy of
eight. Three girls, but only one a teenager who might have run away.
When they're teenagers, that's all you hear, how they probably ran away
from home."
Lori said nothing. Whatever point Karen was trying
to make had been triggered by the phone call at two in the morning. Karen
would unreel her logic at her own manipulative pace.
"You don't think my Gloria is dead," Karen said
unexpectedly.
Lori stopped on the sidewalk, turned to face the
woman, and chose her words carefully. "You drove Benjamin away, Karen.
He couldn't cope with you. I know it's not fair that everyone assumes
that Gloria went with him, but it is a possibility."
Karen's lower lip quivered. Her hands clenched into
fists at her side. He turned and hurried away, making Lori run to keep up
with her. "I feel so helpless. I know I'm just a fat, ugly old woman."
Lori grabbed the woman's arm and managed to swing her
around. "You know better than to pull that crap on me, Karen Radcliff. I
don't care how much you suffer because of Gloria, I'm not going to let you
take such a cheap way out. Don't you understand how it works? Nobody
cares about Gloria as much as you do. If it wasn't for Gloria being
missing, would you attend those meetings of the Defense League? Do you
care about the missing children of the other parents as much as your own?
Do you attend for their benefit, or for yours?"
Karen looked at her in surprise.
"If it's Ronnie at the windows, we'll find out," Lori
said. "We'll find out who it is, and we'll call the sheriff and report
him. There's nothing more you and I have a right to do about it."
Karen turned away and continued walking. She shook
her head after a time. "It's Ronnie," she said. "I know it's Ronnie
Bates."
"You've convinced Wendy," Lori said in biting anger.
"She takes it for granted that Gloria's dead and that she's next on the
list."
Karen looked horrified.
"Nobody should ever take an assumption for granted
and act on it," Lori said, "but we do it all the time, and it's very
dangerous."
Karen blinked in confusion at the point Lori was
trying to make.
Lori sighed and spelled it out for her. "Are you
certain you’re not suffering for something that never happened? You
haven't even managed to locate Benjamin to make sure she's not with him."
"She's not with Ben. I know that man, Lori. He has
no backbone. He would have hired an attorney to negotiate custody rather
than risk incurring my wrath."
"You don’t know for sure. Please think about what
I've said."
Karen took a deep breath and picked up her pace.
"One thing at a time. The flashlight first. No more dark shapes lurking
in the night. Shine a light in his face. If you caught him the first
night you put the strings out, he's there quite often. Shine a light in
his face and identity him."
They searched what remained of Sorrel's business
district for the expensive halogen lantern Karen insisted she buy. They
found one for sale at Bud's garage across the highway. In addition to his
garage, Buddy Davis ran a small scale key smith and electronic security
business. He stocked his grimy office with the most common merchandise a
small hardware store would carry, ringing up the sale with a demure smile,
a flush to his face, his eyes dwelling on Lori and never once
acknowledging Karen’s presence at her side.
"Disgraceful, don't you think?" Karen commented on
the walk back across the highway. "That man used to steal cars. He's
been in jail, I hear. And there he is, a key smith installing security
alarms for the general public. And he’s a pervert to boot."
"At least he hasn't quit and moved away like
everybody else," Lori said. "When Bud and Carl Adler leave town, this
town will fold up and roll into a drainage ditch."
"Just don't try anything on your own," Karen advised
when they reached the house. "We'll have to lay a trap of some kind so
that you can shine a light in Ronnie Bates' face and see for yourself who
it is. When you decide the time is right, I'll back you up."
When daylight gave way to dusk, Lori swept the
brilliant beam of the lantern across the back yard. She wondered what a
group of frightened housewives could do in any case. Karen expected her
to shine a light into the face of a potential murderer. And then what?
Tie him up with button and carpet thread? Defend herself and her children
with baseball bats? Or shoot him dead first and try to convince Sheriff
Danielson of her justification afterward?
Despite the sweltering heat and Wendy's and Leslie's
protests, she closed the windows and pulled the shades that evening.
Leslie dropped to the couch, blurry-eyed and flushed with the heat. Lori
felt his cheeks. "Too much sun. Too much swimming."
He held a hand up for her inspection. "I got stung
today. By a bumblebee."
"Good for you, Tiger."
Wendy watched television past her usual hour. Lori
stared at the screen without paying it much mind. She failed to notice
Wendy glancing with increasing frequency at the drawn shade to the front
window. Wendy finally climbed to her feet and pulled the shade aside. An
odd, ruddy light cast rippling shadows across the dark walls of the room.
"Mom! Mrs. Robinson's house is on fire!"
Like a judo expert, Lori thought as she flew to her
feet and dived for the phone. Lean against a push, and life gives you a
yank instead.
