Storm Justice

by Pamela Cowan

  The house was off-white, with faded green trim, the address above the door hand-painted in thick black letters. A ragged hedge bordered the garage side, a six-foot wooden fence the other. As she drove by, Storm wondered if Howard would use the hedge or the fence to shield their approach.

  Or maybe Howard wouldn't be using either. Maybe she didn't need him for this. The idea seemed to lift something from her—the weight of worry, she supposed, or some unnamed dread.

  Ever since Howard's unexpected visit to get the travel permit, she'd been thinking about him and their partnership, weighing the pros and cons. He was an element in her planning she could not totally control, and that was worrisome.

  She'd even pulled his file and reread every word, trying to find some clue to help her control his actions. There wasn't much: born in Sacramento, California, April 9, 1977, thirty-six years old, three arrests for disorderly conduct, two convictions. The first got him an overnight in county, the second a resisting arrest that earned him thirty days, a course in anger management and a year of probation. That time, he'd had the bad judgment to punch the police officer who was trying to restrain him.

  His issue seemed to be a lack of impulse control. That was a trait she found dangerous in a partner. Maybe his moving to Seattle wasn't such a bad idea, but could she go it alone? That was the question. Maybe Helena Smith held the answer.

  * * *

  “That was fun, Mommy,” said Joel, as they settled around the table for some chicken from a drive-through near their house.

  “I think we should go again,” agreed Lindsey.

  “I'm glad you liked it,” said Storm. “I'm sure we can go back, and there are parks and playgrounds in lots of other places we haven't seen yet. Maybe we can visit them too.”

  “Mmnumum,” said Joel, trying to talk around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

  “Okay, we'll talk about it later. For now, we eat!” Tom emphasized his words by grabbing a drumstick, waving it around, and taking a huge bite.

  Storm shook her head, but her smile took away any sense of disapproval. Again she was utterly amazed at Tom's skill as a parent by his seemingly endless patience and sense of humor.

  There were times when she felt she should tell him the truth about herself. It might have helped him understand why she acted so strangely sometimes, made him more sympathetic. It wasn't that he wasn't always kind, but she knew there were days, especially her bad days, when he wondered what was going on in her head. Sometimes he even asked.

  “Why are you so sad today? It feels like you're not here, like you're somewhere else.”

  “I just want to be left alone,” she would say. “I have a headache.” It was one of her little white lies. Usually it worked. Sometimes it left him looking lost. It was at these times she most wanted to blurt out the truth about her childhood.

  Of course, she would never do that. To do so would be to take away the entire fiction she had created about the sad way she'd lost her parents in a car accident. Or the wonderful life she'd had after her loving aunt had adopted and raised her.

  At least the story about her aunt was partly true. She had been a wonderful woman, loving and kind. The lie was that she died at the start of Storm’s first year of college, the victim of a heart attack.

  She had built a column of lies on a mountain of ash and she knew how tenuous it was. Storm hated the lies, but worse, she hated the thought of being viewed as even more of a freak, even less normal.

  “You should eat some of those green beans,” she said to Joel. “Lindsey, don't poke your finger in your brother's potatoes. Tom, should I heat up some of that apple pie for dessert?”

  Normal was good.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AT THREE A.M., Helena Smith's street was dark and draped in fog. Storm drove past the house, turned right, and parked at the curb. On both sides, generic houses stood in unremarkable rows. Parked in their driveways and along the street, a few cars huddled like giant, sleeping, metal dogs.

  She sat quietly, looking back and forth from windshield to rearview mirror, searching for any movement. Using her thumb and first finger she tugged at the edge of her jacket’s sleeves, slowly working her way around the left sleeve and then the right.

  There was no wind, nothing to stir the branches of the hawthorn trees lining the street. Even the fog hung where it was, a dense mist that obscured the houses and made everything dim and otherworldly.

  Earlier, in her garage, she had opened the trunk of her car and unzipped the red duffle bag she kept there. It held road flares and markers, jumper cables, a small canvas zipper bag of tools, a quart of oil, a mini first-aid kit, a folded wool blanket for kneeling on, and most importantly, a bundle of zip ties and a roll of silver duct tape. She had put the tape and a handful of zip ties in one pocket of her dark-green Columbia windbreaker. The other pocket held a stun gun and a slim tube of pepper spray.

  Storm was certain Helena was in. She had called the home number listed in the database, and a woman had answered with a tentative hello. “Wrong number,” Storm had mumbled, before hanging up the payphone.

  Now her biggest concerns were how to gain entry into the house and how to learn if Helena was alone. Storm wasn't too worried about overpowering her. The woman was about five feet tall and thin as an ironing board.

  The only way to figure out how to get into the house was to get out of the car. Storm had removed the overhead light bulb so she could open the door at night without its telltale glow. Still, the sound of the door opening seemed loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the nearby houses.

  Adjusting her sleeves one final time, she took a deep breath, got out of the car, and shut the door softly behind her. Her jaw ached, and she realized she was gritting her teeth.

  She'd never been this tentative, this nervous before. Of course, Howard had always been there. He'd been the one to approach their targets, confront, and subdue them. It was only after they were down that she stepped in, making sure they were bound correctly and couldn't break free during their transport to the kill room.

  Storm straightened her shoulders, walked across a small island of patchy grass to the sidewalk, and strode purposefully toward the corner. Turning down Helena's street, Storm's breath quickened. In her dark spandex and running shoes she looked like a runner taking a break. She stopped in front of Helena's house, bent forward with her hands resting just above her knees and pretended to be trying to catch her breath.

  There were no lights on in the house, not even a porch light. The barest touch of reflected light from a distant street lamp lined the sharp edges of the roofline, showed her the railroad ties separating driveway from lawn, and glinted from the dark window panes.

  There was no sound except for the infrequent shushing noise of tires as cars moved past on the main road a block away.

  Storm walked with all the confidence she could muster straight up the driveway as if she belonged there. She tiptoed uneasily past the dark picture window to the front door. The curtains didn’t stir, and she kept moving, reached the front door, grasped the door knob, and turned it slowly. It moved a short way and stopped. She tried the other direction. Same result. The door was locked. She'd have to try the back door or look for an unlatched window.

  She retraced her steps, again crossing nervously in front of the picture window, feeling exposed. As she moved along the garage door, planning to go around the side of the house and look for a way into the backyard, she noticed the garage door was askew. The darker-than-dark shadow at its base was much wider on one side.

  Storm felt along the bottom edge of the door until she found the garage door handle. Wrapping her hand around the narrow metal band, she pulled. Abruptly, with a sound like thunder, the door rolled up several feet. Storm froze, her hand clenched around the handle, keeping the door from moving any farther.

  Holding her breath, every sense alert for sound, light, motion of any sort, Storm stood for several long seconds. After two full minutes had passed, she careful
ly loosened her death grip on the garage door handle, testing to see what would happen. The door stayed where it was, leaving an opening of over three feet.

  Ducking low, Storm slipped under the door and into the garage. It was even darker inside than the street, but her eyes quickly adjusted. She was in a two-car garage, a wide space that seemed to echo its emptiness.

  She could make out the gloomy form of a rickety row of shelves along one wall and a gleam of white near the back. Pulling a small flashlight from her pocket, she played the narrow beam across the space.

  The wooden shelves held nothing but two jars of dried paint. At the back, in the far corner, was a hot-water heater and next to it, a washer and dryer. A small pile of laundry was heaped on the top of the dryer, an open bottle of liquid detergent next to them. They were the only sign that someone was living in the house.

  Overhead was a row of cobweb-covered fluorescent lights and empty rafters. To the right, a wall of unpainted sheetrock and a door.

  Storm moved cautiously toward the door, slowly sliding each foot across the smooth concrete floor, wary of tripping across something in the thin erratic light. She found the doorknob, and wrapped her hand around it, took a deep breath, and turned. Expecting the same sensation of resistance she'd felt on trying the front door, she was surprised when the knob turned easily.

  She clicked off the flashlight and turned the door handle again, this time slowly pushing the door open a crack. The mingled scents of tuna fish and lemon-scented furniture polish met her.

  When nothing happened, she opened the door wider and stepped up the single step. She was inside. Looking around, she could barely make out the contents of the room. A gray-on-gray gloominess draped each piece of furniture. Afraid to chance the light, she felt her way across the linoleum.

  A refrigerator hummed, and there was the ticking of a clock. Aware she was taking a lot of time to cross the room, Storm wrapped her fist around the lens of the flashlight and turned it on. When she opened her fingers slightly the feeble pink light enabled her to make out the edge of a table and three chairs just in time to avoid bumping into them.

  Now she could see what she'd suspected. She was in a dining room, and just ahead was the kitchen. To her right was a carpeted living room. She could make out a brick fireplace and the ticking clock sitting on on end of the mantle.

  Closest to her was the back of a couch and facing it, under the picture window, what looked like a pair of lawn chairs. Moving into the living room, she saw a short dark hallway to the left. Storm realized she was sweating, and a tick had started in her left eyelid, the twitching an annoyance she didn't need.

  She moved down the hallway. The first door on the right was small and louvered; she assumed it was a coat closet, but as she stepped past, she heard the sound of a furnace kicking on. Though it was only a subdued click, the unexpected sound made her jump.

  Wiping her sweaty palms on her pants, she moved farther down the hallway. The next door was on the left and stood open. The flashlight’s glow showed her a small bathroom with worn fern-patterned wallpaper, and the standard white tub, sink, and toilet. The worn linoleum was gold with a Mediterranean pattern popular in the 1970s.

  The next room, also on the left, was bare but for a couple of empty cardboard boxes that looked as if they'd been tossed haphazardly inside. On a normal day, Storm would have been hard-pressed not to rearrange them into a tidier pattern.

  Across from the empty room, and the only one left to check, had to be Helena Smith's bedroom.

  Storm reached into her pocket and pulled out the stun gun. It switched on with an audible snap, and again she froze, afraid she'd awakened the night's target. After a few breathless seconds, she moved forward, reached for the doorknob, and opened the door.

  There were no curtains on the window and enough ambient light from the street to reveal a double bed, a nightstand, and a small dresser. The bed looked neatly made and completely empty. Surprised, Storm decided to take a closer look.

  She had taken two steps when she realized something had changed. A sound—a dull, pounding noise—filled her ears. For a split second, her intense focus on the bed and the bedroom kept her from moving, from recognizing that the sound came not from the bedroom, but from the hallway behind her. She swung around, stun gun in hand, but it was too late. A woman's body crashed into her, shoving her into the room, knocking the weapon from her hand. Storm tumbled backward, falling first onto the edge of the bed, and slid to the floor awkwardly, one leg tucked beneath her.

  A bony knee ground into her thigh. Storm reacted to the pain and shoved her forearm into her attacker's face, pushing her back. Free of the woman's weight, Storm was able to squirm away, almost out of reach.

  As she struggled to her feet, a hand caught her hair, nails tore into the skin of her scalp, and she was pulled backward. At first she fought against it, but then she let herself fall back. Her elbow landed hard on some part of the woman's anatomy, and she was free. Rolling away, she spotted the stun gun, grabbed it, and held it to a pajama-clad thigh.

  There was a high-pitched shout, but rather than being stunned by the powerful electric shock, the woman seemed galvanized. She jerked away and ran, her bare feet making the same light pounding sound as she ran down the hallway, this time in the opposite direction, with Storm close behind.

  “Help!” the woman screamed. “Help!”

  Storm lunged, trying to catch the back of the woman's pajama top, but she was too slow. She jerked her hand back just in time to avoid her fingers being slammed in the bathroom door.

  “Help! Somebody help! She's trying to kill me!”

  Storm rattled the door handle, but the door was locked. Frustrated, she kicked the door. The screams grew louder.

  “Help! Help! Help!”

  “Shut up!” Storm shouted. “Helena Smith. Shut the fuck up, or I'll shoot you through the door.”

  The yelling stopped as if she'd flipped a switch.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” the woman whispered. “Tim isn't here. He owe you money or something? I don't have no money and he's in jail. You ain't getting money from me. You might as well leave.”

  “Shut up,” Storm repeated. She stepped away from the door and paced the length of the hallway. What if the neighbors had heard all the yelling and called the police? How much time did she have? What should she do? Had the woman seen her?

  “Damn. Damn. Damn,” she repeated as she paced, running one hand through her disheveled hair, the other still wrapped tightly around the apparently worthless stun gun. She found a switch on the wall and flipped it up. Two lights in the hallway ceiling came on. The light helped make the night seem both more and less real.

  Think, she commanded herself. If the police showed up, what would she tell them? I was driving around and heard someone yelling. I came in to see what was going on and found a woman in the bathroom? Yeah, that would never work, and even if it did, it would only work until Ms. Helena Smith saw her and realized who she was.

  A week ago, Storm had checked Nicky’s appointment calendar and then made sure she was around at the right time to ‘bump’ into Helena. Of course, no introduction had been made, but Storm had seen her picture in the paper. Plus, the stiff way Nicky was holding herself was a tip-off.

  She made sure Helena got a good look at her. The world was a small place, but not that small. The coincidence of her just driving by . . .

  “You still out there?” a plaintive voice asked.

  “I'm here. You just be quiet a minute.” Storm walked to the living room, peeked through the curtains. Nothing seemed to have changed. She didn't see lights on in any of the nearby houses.

  She pulled out her cell phone and found his number, carefully listed as a mobile number under her doctor's name.

  “Howard,” she said as soon as she heard his voice. “I need you.”

  She told him what she'd done and where she was. She was afraid he would say, no, he couldn't come. It would be a way to punish her for act
ing alone.

  “Keep her quiet. I'll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said.

  She hung up and went back to stand near the bathroom door. After a few moments, Helena Smith asked, “You going to let me out of here?”

  “Soon,” she lied. “I have to see if you're telling the truth about Tim. I've got some friends checking on your story. See if he's really in jail.”

  “I knew this had to be about him. That man is trouble. Hell, all of them are.”

  “Quiet,”

  “Yeah, I'll be quiet, but I ain't stayin' in here all night, you hear me?”

  “I hear you. You do what I say or you'll wish you had.”

  “I don't even think you got a gun,” was the unexpected response. “I didn't see a gun, just that shock thing. I thought they would hurt worse, since I'm not very big. I seen them on YouTube. Some guys were shocking each other on their tongues and their dicks, and they didn't hardly jump. I figured it was because they were big guys. Or maybe they just had a cheap one, you know, not like the cop's Tasers. You can't buy those, I think.”

  “Yeah, maybe they were cheap ones,” Storm agreed. This was no time to give a lesson on the difference between a Taser and a stun gun. “Only this one is a cop's Taser,” she lied. “I just didn't push the button right or something. So unless you want me to try it again, shut the hell up!”

  “So, are you a cop?” Helena Smith asked.

  Storm didn't answer. She wanted the conversation to end. You didn't talk to the garbage. She didn't want to think of Ms. Helena Smith as a person. Her child was a person. The Helena Smiths of the world weren't people; they were monsters, an evil that had to be removed.

  Storm thought about the file and the description of Ms. Smith's son. Though she had no picture this time, she didn't need one to imagine the urine burns, bedsores, and toes, missing because of frost bite.

  She let herself slip into that state of empathy she felt for all the victims and imagined the starvation, the thirst, and the unending loneliness. From empathy for the victim grew anger for the abuser. From anger grew the strength to see the mission through.