Ten
"Wendy, watch Leslie," Lori called through the
house. "Karen's got an emergency."
Wendy's reply sounded from behind the closed door of
her bedroom. "Oh, Mom!"
Lori locked the back door on the way out. She jogged
through the back yard and across a gravel alley to one of Sorrel's
smaller, three-room bungalows and let herself in the front
door.
Karen was on her knees, dabbing at Timothy's
dirt-smeared face with a damp washcloth. Gertie sat on the floor,
encrusted with grime. Karen looked up in anguish. Tears streamed from
her eyes. "They had blood on them! I don't know how they found
their way here!"
Lori felt a sinking sensation. "Where's Amy?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you! They came here
alone!"
Dread chilled her to the bone. "Oh, Christ."
"Call the sheriff's department!"
Lori dismissed the idea, at least for the moment.
They couldn't afford to cry wolf, not with Amy's constant refusal to file
charges. Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed. "We can drop the
twins off with Wendy. Let's go see what's going on."
Karen scooped the children into her powerful arms.
Lori held the door open for her and followed the waddling woman through
the adjoining yards, the world around them a quiet summer evening
undeserving of the undercurrent of fear and uncertainty. Wendy took the
twins at the back door without comment.
Karen turned to Leslie gawking from the sidelines.
"Child, I need to borrow your baseball bat."
Lori grasped the woman's arm. "Karen, no."
Karen eyed her in cold anger and gave Lori a silent
moment to reconsider her objection. A confrontation with Ralph McBride
was inevitable. There had been blood on the babies, but it hadn't been
their own blood. Most likely, Ralph was drunk and Amy had been hurt.
Lori relented. “Do it, Tiger.”
Leslie went in search of his bat and relinquished his
prized possession with anguish. Karen clutched mid-length in her right
hand and shook it to judge its mass. “Wow, this is pretty. Aluminum.”
With a grunt of satisfaction, she turned away. Lori hurried after her
through the deathly still neighborhood.
"I don't care what this town says," Karen said
unexpectedly. "I did not kill Virginia Cornell. I am not a violent woman
by nature, Lori Malcolm."
Karen banged on the locked front door of the
McBride's run-down house with the tip of the makeshift weapon. "Ralph!
Amy! Open the door this instant!"
Ralph yelled an obscenity from inside. He sounded
drunk, a factor that made it easier to accept what had to be done. Lori
moved aside. Karen leaned her weight into the door. Wood splintered. A
second blow from her broad hips tore the lock loose and sent the door
banging against an inside wall. They charged inside, prepared to do
battle, then stumbled to a halt.
Lori's breath caught in her throat.
The house reeked of unwholesome odors. A thick coat
of dirt and debris hid the pattern of the linoleum at their feet. Low
wattage bulbs hung from sockets in each of the three downstairs rooms,
casting shadows beneath torn flaps of wallpaper stirring in a breeze let
in from outside.
Karen led the way into a dining room centered by a
rusting chrome table heaped with unwashed dishes and the debris of
countless meals. A dim light in the darkened kitchen showed the escape
route the twins had discovered. The back door stood partially open.
Ralph thundered down the staircase with clenched
fists. Blurry-eyed, unshaven, and smelling of alcohol, he lunged for Lori
with outstretched arms and a snarl of sheer animal hatred.
Karen shoved Lori out of harm's way and swung the
bat. The blurred arc of shiny aluminum impacted with the man's left arm
above the elbow. Lori heard the bone break. She turned away, sickened as
Ralph grunted with pain and dropped to his knees. He turned white with
shock and gawked in utter surprise at the massive figure standing over
him.
Lori fled out the back door and gulped clean night
air to keep from vomiting. Ralph realized the extent of his injury from
inside the house and bellowed impotent anger. His cries became shrieks of
pain rising slowly in volume and pitch until Karen finally appeared with
Amy in tow.
Amy held a thin, tattered robe closed at her throat,
her dark eyes hollow and unseeing. Dried blood smeared one cheek. "She's
in shock," Karen said. "Damn that man. I'm going to come back and beat
him to a bloody pulp."
Lori called the sheriff's office from Karen's living
room. "Ralph may be seriously hurt," she added to her description of
events, knowing what it would take to get prompt attention. Despite her
loathing for Ralph McBride, she had no wish to see the medical treatment
he needed delayed.
Amy sat on the couch, holding a blood-soaked rag to
her nose. The twins stood to either side of her, wailing at the top of
their lungs like battered war-orphans. Karen looked down upon the trio
with an expression of despair. Amy looked furtively back and forth
between her rescuers for some idea of what was expected of her, still
disoriented and bewildered by her abrupt rescue.
Karen turned away and started out the door with the
bat and the look of a maddened automaton. Lori dropped the phone. She
grabbed Karen's right arm with both hands, appalled by her sheer physical
strength. "Karen, no! It's not your place to punish him!"
Karen pointed to Amy with a shaking finger. "Do you
think she's going to press charges? What do we do, just let it keep
happening over and over? My God, what if Timothy and Gertrude hadn't
found there way here? They're only babies. What if they had wandered off
and got run over by a train, for God's sake!"
Lori nodded calm agreement. "But he's drunk," she
said calmly. "He wouldn't feel a thing. If you want to beat him to death
with Leslie's baseball bat, at least wait until he's sober."
Karen stared at her in astonishment. She broke into
sarcastic laughter. She studied the bat in her hand, momentarily
fascinated. "It had a nice swing to it."
"Leslie thinks so."
Karen's eyes narrowed. "Did I break his arm?"
Lori took a deep breath to hold the nausea at bay.
"Something broke, and it sure as hell wasn't the bat."
A siren wailed in the distance. Karen looked
suddenly frightened. "You handle the deputies. You're better with them
than I am. Please don't let them arrest me, Lori. I swear, I did not
kill that woman."
Lori went alone to the McBride house. Two cars were
parked at the curb with their red lights flashing. Trent Scarelli waited
for her in the front yard while other deputies filed in and out of the
house.
"You've really done it this time," Trent said as she
drew close. "What happened?"
Lori looked up into the dark Italian eyes that
fascinated her so, despairing that Ralph, Amy, and Carol served as their
only connection to one another in the world. "Karen happened. Ralph
attacked me, and she hit him with a baseball bat."
"His arm is broken."
"He's lucky her aim wasn't a foot or two higher. Or
lower."
"Justification?"
"The twins got out of the house. They were roaming
the neighborhood smeared with their mother's blood. Amy was being held
prisoner in her own home. She's been beaten for only God knows how long,
probably since the last time you paid us a visit. She and the kids look
half starved."
An ambulance pulled to the curb. Two medics joined
the deputies inside the house. Lori cringed when she heard Ralph let
loose with a torrent of obscenities interspersed with shrieks of pain.
Trent shrugged his helplessness. "We can't camp on
their doorstep."
Lori managed a wane smile. "That's okay. You made
good time."
His own smile was a bit more grim. "That's because
you're learning to pile on the drama with those calls of yours to the
station. "
"I know what it takes to get you here pronto."
He gazed at her, tempted to say something that didn't
need saying in that moment. Ralph McBride passed by, caught in the burly
grip of two oversized ambulance attendants. Their eyes met for an
instant. Insane hatred burned in Ralph's dark gaze.
"Your husband's watching from the sidelines," Trent
said.
"My husband's not home," she said, resisting the
temptation to scan the darkness regardless.
"He followed us in with that new pick-up of his.
He's got a police band scanner, you know."
"I try not to pay much attention to what my husband
totes about in his new truck," Lori said dryly. "Thanks for being here
when we need you. My husband seldom is."
Trent's smile dimmed. "I'm never too far away. Not
that you don't do a fine job of taking care of yourself. And half the
town to boot."
"And how do you know so much about me, may I ask?"
"I eat at the Highway Thirty Diner."
Lori nodded her understanding. "Carol gossips too
much."
"We're old friends, Carol and I. But I guess I'd
better be on my way. And you had better go smooth down a few ruffled tail
feathers."
"You won't arrest Karen, will you?"
"Not considering circumstances."
Lori forced herself to turn way. A half block away,
she looked back and saw that Trent was still watching her, and so was Dave
from the bushes alongside the house. She pretended not to notice,
returning through the dark yards to where other patrol cars idled in front
of Karen's house. They lit up the town with their spinning red and white
lights. Karen stood in the front yard with the screaming twins clutched
in her more than adequate arms, watching forlorn as the attendants
escorted a weeping Amy to the ambulance.
Lori took Gertie, and they went back inside to soothe
the toddlers to silence. Both fell quickly asleep in a spare single bed
in Karen's bedroom. "I've got it for the night," Karen said. "You've got
your own to take care of, as usual."
"Business as usual," Lori said with a sigh. She
returned home and ordered Wendy and Leslie to bed. "Let's not forget
school in the morning," she told them in her most motherly tone of voice.
"Mom," Wendy said gently. "Tomorrow's Saturday."
Lori sighed in exasperation. She had been looking
forward to a quiet day to herself. Weekends tended to sneak up upon her
unexpectedly.
Dave was standing in the dining room, blocking her
way. She could see that he had been drinking. He looked angry and, if
she could believe her eyes, frightened.
She gave Leslie a gentle shove to his room. Leslie
went and closed the door behind him.
Dave waited until the house had fallen silent. "You
broke his arm. For God's sake, you busted into his home, ran off with his
wife and kids, and put the man in the hospital."
Lori felt drained of emotion. It took an effort of
will to defend herself. "I didn't do any of that."
"He's a mental case, I'll grant you, but I don't know
why you had to go involve yourself in something that was none of your
business."
Lori bristled with indignation. "I've seen you drag
an injured dog out of the street. Is Amy's life worth any less?"
"No, but I'd call the pound to muzzle a rabid dog. I
wouldn't beat its skull in with a baseball bat."
"Dave, we've discussed this before. We can't count
on the police to defend us. They're too far away. Besides, you're
talking about Karen's behavior, not mine. I have no more control over her
than you do."
"You side with that crazy bitch. You encourage her.
I've had enough of this behavior from you, Lori. I've told you to stay
away from those women."
Lori chortled her defiance. "I'll pick my own
friends, thank you."
He stared at her with a curiously benign expression.
"It's like I don't even know you anymore. What's come over you?"
"More trouble than I know how to deal with," Lori
said. "Without you around to help, I do the best I can."
"Is that what you got in story for me? A baseball
bat across the skull if I get out of line?"
Lori was appalled that he'd say, or even think, such
a thing. She studied him a bit more closely. "Dave, why are you upset?"
He blinked his rheumy eyes and looked ready to bawl.
"I don't think I can leave her, Lori."
A flutter of panic narrowed her focus to razor-sharp
clarity. "Are you going to walk out on us again?"
"I was never really back."
"No kidding."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"You mean you've given me half a chance? Who is that
red-headed bitch, Dave? What in God's name is she doing to you?"
Dave drew himself to his full height. "Lori, I've
warned you about your language."
Anger flared, more than she had ever had to deal with
in the past. "My language? What does any of this have to do with
anybody's goddamn language?"
Dave's eyes widened in drunken indignation. "Lori,
I'm warning you."
Lori sneered her sarcasm. "Yeah, well, go fuck
yourself, Dave. Take your toy, you selfish bastard, and go fuck your
red-head in a half dozen places. Maybe your old man was right about his
barbeque God in heaven, and you'll both die of syphilis and burn in hell."
He stormed her, and he hit her. She never felt the
blow, or the fall. She heard Wendy and Leslie screaming, and calmly
regretted speaking so foully their presence. Beyond that, she couldn't
move or think straight. For the moment, she had no particular reason to
do either.
It was quiet for a time. A familiar and concerned
voice spoke softly. "You okay, Hon?"
Lori opened her eyes. Carol knelt before her.
Standing behind her, a man looked down at her with a smug smile on oddly
effeminate features. Lori stared back up at him, trying to determine how
well his glass eye matched the real one. The glass eye failed to track,
but they both looked about the same otherwise.
Leslie and Wendy stood to either side of the
unwelcome stranger with tear-stained faces.
"Where am I?" Lori couldn't quite tell for herself.
"You're lying on the dining room floor, and looking
quite stunned," Carol said gently. "Move your arms and legs and make sure
everything's working."
"Where did he go?"
"Burning rubber down Highway Thirty."
"I got nasty with him again. He never did know quite
how to handle a woman with a foul mouth. You'd never think that about a
man who's spend most of his life in a factory."
She moved her legs, and then her arms. She rolled
onto her stomach, and pushed herself to her hands and knees. Carol helped
her to her feet.
"Hon, I'd like you to meet Ruben."
"Howdy, Missy," Ruben said in a mellow voice that
matched his smooth exterior. "Looks like you got decked a good one."
Ruben no-last-name's smile was crooked and
insincere. He was a handsome man in a greasy sort of way that didn't do a
thing for her. He looked for all the world like a rat.
"Let me go," she said. "I can walk."
She let Wendy support her to the couch. Leslie
crawled into her arms, outwardly calm, but quivering with terror.
"I'll be okay," she said to Carol. "Maybe you'd
better leave us alone for now. I have some apologizing to do to my
children. We can talk later."
Carol took Ruben's arm. The two retreated
gracefully.
Awkward silence gathered. "What do you guys think
of Ruben?" she asked of Wendy.
Wendy wrinkled her nose. "I think he's a creep. Are
you okay?"
"I think so." She set Leslie aside and struggled to
her feet. "Give me a moment to check."
She went to the bathroom and studied her face in the
mirror. The open-handed blow hadn't left much of a bruise. Her legs
still felt wobbly, and her neck ached from whiplash. Still, Dave had
struck to silence rather than to injure.
She returned to the living room and sat back down.
"I'm getting too old to play punching bag."
"You sure made him mad," Wendy said.
"I deserved what I got?"
Wendy thought it over and shook her head. "No. I
hate him."
"No cold-blooded hatred, Princess. I warned you
about that."
"I hate him, too," Leslie said. The boy's eyes
filled with tears.
Lori wondered how much it would take for the two to
understand that she had gotten the best of their father, that words were
often far more powerful than physical violence.
Leslie looked up with moist eyes. "Is Dad crying
now, too? He didn't have to be so mean, did he?"
Lori hugged the child. "He just got angry. He's
probably crying so hard he's going to rust his brand new pick-up."
Leslie managed strangled laughter.
"We're not like Ralph and Amy," Lori assured her
children. "Honest," she said to their doubtful silence, feeling no less
naked to their embarrassed silence than her helplessness in the worst of
her nightmares.
