by Alex Kava
She resented having to cut short her morning walk. What was it about his sudden freedom that took precedence over her own? That’s what it felt like when he called last night and left the message to meet him for breakfast. Summoning her as if he could still boss her around just like when they were kids. He used that brief yet demanding tone of his, “Meet me at that place we talked about. It’s time.”
“It’s time,” she mimicked under her breath. She had no idea what the hell he was talking about. It was as if he was talking in code. As if they were kids again, plotting one of their childhood conspiracies. Ever since he had gotten back he had been planning something, something big or so he kept saying. But, of course, he couldn’t tell her until it was time. That was Jared, so secretive and always calling the shots. He expected complete loyalty with no questions and no hesitation. It had always been that way. Like the Rebecca Moore thing. Jared didn’t even bother explaining, instead he insisted the police got it wrong. Melanie knew that could happen. She’d seen it happen years before.
She pumped her arms, keeping her pace and not letting her anger slow her down. She hated that Jared made her feel like she still owed him. It didn’t help that she wasn’t there for him during the trial.
It was as if nothing had changed in the five years he had been away. And yet everything had changed. She had changed, or at least, she thought she had. Although it couldn’t have been very much. Why else would she be rushing to meet him, rushing once again to do whatever her big brother told her to do? Like cutting short what had become her daily ritual, her daily gospel and the replacement for a quick fix of nicotine and later still, for four cups of hot scorching coffee. The coffee had helped her get through the initial withdrawal from the cigarettes. Now this new addiction, a three-mile morning walk, replaced the caffeine.
She didn’t need Dr. Phil to see she had simply transferred compulsions. She took the same walk every day at the same time. Even walked at the same pace. Only today she had to quicken the pace if she intended to meet Jared. Quicken, she decided, but not cut short. She pushed back her shoulders as if this one defiant thought was the same as standing up to her big brother. Something she had never been able to do in the past. But that was the past. Maybe Jared needed to see that she wasn’t that same little girl he could boss around. She was an adult, a grown woman with her own son. She had been forced to grow up while Jared seemed to live in the past, even moving back in with their mother when he was released from jail.
That was a mistake. Their mother was crazy with all her black magic and superstitions. Certifiably crazy or so she and Jared liked to claim, making up any kind of excuse for why she kept picking loser husbands like both their dads. Saying their mother was crazy seemed better than admitting she was simply stupid. Maybe that was Jared’s problem. Melanie thought about teasing him that maybe he had inherited Mom’s crazy gene, though she knew full well that she would never dare to tease Jared. He would see it as a betrayal, and he would remind her, again, that all they had were each other because of the past they had survived and the secrets they continued to share.
Melanie turned left at Fifty-Second and Nicholas Streets and headed into the Memorial Park neighborhood, a stretch of huge brick homes with carefully manicured lawns. Not a ceramic gnome in sight. That made her smile, thinking of her son, Charlie’s, newest obsession of stealing lawn ornaments, even though it annoyed her as much as it amused her. She couldn’t help thinking that maybe it was another example of like mother, like son. After all, she had taught him well, making a game early on of their escapades. It may have started as a game, but it bugged her that Charlie still treated stealing as a game, completely unaware of the risks and dangers. Yes, she had taught him well, maybe too well.
She’d brought him in when he was only eight. They stole packs of ground beef—quickly graduating to T-bone steaks—from the HyVee on Center Street, stuffing them into his school backpack. Charlie became so good at it she didn’t even notice him steal the Hostess Twinkies and Bazooka bubble gum until they appeared later on their kitchen table, alongside the packs of meat. He was a natural, and now, nine years later, with that baby face and lopsided grin, he could still get away with almost anything.
Their game had started as a matter of survival, a way to supplement Melanie’s string of shitty jobs. So what if Charlie swiped a few silly lawn ornaments as long as he brought home a leather jacket or enough CD players to pay the rent? What did it matter that he still considered hot-wiring Saturns a game? Maybe it was that carefree attitude that kept him from getting caught, though Melanie worried that it had more to do with luck than attitude. They had had a long string of good luck, and lately she found herself not trusting it to hold up. But she didn’t dare tell Charlie that.
Luck and a little bit of opportunity. That had been her ticket out of the stink hole she grew up in. For the last ten years she had provided a nice home for herself and Charlie in the middle of Dundee, a respectable Omaha neighborhood. A good family neighborhood, though not quite like this one, she thought as she looked around. She kept to the sidewalks, wondering if anyone behind these huge, decorative doors would understand. How could they with their polished black BMWs and Lexus SUVs in their driveways, not a missing hubcap or spot of rust in sight, let alone a homemade In-Transit sign Scotch-taped to the rear window?
She walked past the only pickup parked in the street, a white Chevy, and she knew before she saw the attached beat-up trailer that the truck belonged to a lawn service. Then she saw two young men, shirtless and glistening with sweat, down on their knees on the front lawn of the house. They both had what looked like oversize scissors, and they were cutting blades of grass from in between the pristine white picket fence, obviously unable to use the array of machinery on their trailer for fear of scarring the white wood.
Melanie resisted the urge to laugh. Jesus! What did it cost to have something like that done? She wanted to roll her eyes and make some sympathetic gesture in recognition of their plight, but then they would have known. They would have realized that she didn’t belong here, either, that she was an outsider, too. So instead she just smiled and continued walking.
She checked her wristwatch, a sleek, black-faced Movado with a single diamond that Charlie had given her on Mother’s Day. She didn’t bother asking him anymore how he got things or from where. She couldn’t help thinking the watch belonged in this neighborhood even if she did not. It was then that she saw the eight-by-ten piece of cardboard nailed to the tree. She remembered noticing the tree soon after it was ravaged by last week’s thunderstorms. The wounded maple managed to keep only its trunk intact, the branches ripped off, leaving behind what now looked like two severed arms, still reaching in surrender to the sky. This morning someone had added a hand-printed sign, a sort of public epistle that read, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” In small print below was written “Emily Dickinson.”
Melanie glanced at the house the tree belonged to, but didn’t slow her pace. She repeated the phrase to herself, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” She snorted under her breath. What the hell was that supposed to mean? And, besides, what did people with brick mansions and BMWs need to know about hope? What problems could they possibly have that couldn’t be solved with their money?
She remembered what Jared always said. That people who had money didn’t have a clue about people who didn’t have money.
Melanie looked back at the tree. Even from almost a block up the street that poor, ugly thing stood out in the middle of this picture-perfect neighborhood. It didn’t need a stupid quote from some dead poet tacked onto its pathetic remains to remind it that it didn’t belong.
“Hope is the thing with feathers?” she repeated, but still didn’t understand. Was somebody poking fun? Or maybe pointing out that they were above having an ugly tree in their front yard? Surely they didn’t think hope was going to save it, so it had to be a joke or some highbrow message. It didn’t matter. Why was she even wasting her time with it? One thing she knew for
certain, hope was something only people in brick mansions could afford to count on. People like herself and Charlie and Jared counted on luck. A little bit of luck could make things happen. She and Jared had crawled up from the same stinking hole. That was the one thing they understood about each other.
She glanced at her watch again. Maybe things hadn’t changed as much as she thought, and she picked up her pace. No sense in pissing off Jared.
CHAPTER 4
7:15 a.m.
Jared Barnett watched from across the street, three houses down, in a car he knew she’d never recognize. He had been here once before, but it had been at night, just to scope out the place. He had been pleased to discover no dog or even a trace of one in the backyard, only a shitload of mud and piles of some fucking pebbles that hadn’t set properly in the new walkways. He remembered because he’d worried that the sound of him walking over them would wake up the neighbors.
Now sitting here, he wondered why in the world she had chosen a huge, old two-story in the middle of Omaha when she could easily afford a new house out in some ritzy West Omaha suburb? But this was better for him. More traffic; it wouldn’t be unusual to have cars parked along the street. Anyone who saw him would simply think he was waiting for a girlfriend in one of the apartments across from her house.
He pulled out the cell phone and flipped it open, stopping to admire it. He might have to hang on to this one. Technology stuff amazed him. He didn’t have a clue how it all worked, but he loved having it, owning it. Like a new toy. He’d had fun in the last week taking pictures—sometimes without anyone knowing since the miniature camera was almost hidden in the back panel of the phone. He could take a person’s picture then program it into the phone with that person’s phone number. It still amused him that, when he dialed a number, the person’s photo came up on the tiny video panel inside. And it blew him away when his phone rang, bringing up the caller’s photo as a caller ID. Totally cool.
He’d filled up the queue in just a few days. The only problem was he didn’t know how to erase them. That was one disadvantage—stolen cell phones didn’t come with instruction manuals, and he hadn’t been able to figure out the erasing part on his own yet.
He punched in the number, watching the small video panel then almost laughing out loud when the photo appeared. He’d taken the picture as he ate, catching him between bites, his mouth full of cheeseburger. He liked catching him off guard, sort of keeping him in his place, if only for a second or two and if only inside this high-tech contraption.
“Yeah?” Jared heard him say in place of a greeting, trying his best to sound like a tough guy.
Jared held the sliver of metal to his ear and said, “You almost finished?”
“I told you I’d take care of it.” But there was no urgency in his voice.
“When you finish, you know where to meet me, right?”
“I remember.”
“Good.” Jared pushed End. He hadn’t even had time to shut off the phone when it began ringing. Jared thought perhaps he had hung up too soon. Was there something he forgot? But one quick glance at the caller’s picture, and he groaned out loud. “What?”
“It has to be today.”
Instead of answering immediately, Jared gave him a heavy sigh, his best “don’t fuck with me” sigh. Then finally he said, “I told you I’d take care of it.”
“That’s what you said last week.”
“Last week didn’t work.”
“I’m getting pretty fucking tired of waiting. The set-up is perfect for today. It has to be today.’’
“I already know all that. I’m taking care of it. Now don’t fucking call me anymore.”
He snapped the phone shut, this time shutting it off.
Jared Barnett was sick and tired of people wanting things from him. Tired of cleaning up messes. This time there would be no mess. He was making sure of that with his own insurance policy. He pulled the cassette tape out of the pocket of his overalls, flipping it around in his fingers, pleased with the power this little flimsy piece of plastic gave him. The cell phone picture hadn’t been the only thing he had taken without the motherfucker realizing it. He had their entire conversation on tape, down to the last instruction.
Just then he noticed the front door to the house open. He pulled down the baseball cap and put the cell phone to his ear again. To anyone watching him, he was just some guy parked along the street to make a few phone calls while he waited for someone.
Her big, Italian husband came out with a briefcase in one hand and a huge Pullman in the other. Excellent—a trip for hubby. So he did have the day right, after all. Following close behind was the little girl. The two were packed and in the car by the time she finally came out, stopping to lock the front door.
Yes, it was perfect timing. Jared zipped up the coveralls, despite the fabric sticking to his body. He wished he had worn underwear, now feeling the inseams scrape against his sweaty thighs. By the time the SUV backed out of the driveway and headed up the street he had his shoes and socks off. He wasn’t going to take any chances this time.
CHAPTER 5
8:30 a.m.
Eppley Airport
Grace Wenninghoff hugged the leather portfolio to her chest as she watched her husband and four-year-old daughter say their goodbyes. It was a little like watching an Abbott and Costello routine. Vince was on one knee, still slouching in an attempt to be eye level with his daughter, completely oblivious to the extra creases he was adding to his expensive trousers.
“I’ll see you in ten days,” he told Emily.
“Not if I see you first,” she quipped back, trying to contain the smile but bursting into a giggle even before his eyebrow rose and his hands went to his waist in his pretend look of surprise.
They did this routine before every trip, which was becoming more frequent in the last year, and yet both played their parts with genuine pleasure and surprise. Sometimes Grace wished she was part of their fun and games until she remembered that this exchange wasn’t exactly motivated by fun. Instead it was the product of sadness and perhaps a bit of fear.
Vince rose to his feet, stretching his six-foot frame with a slight touch to his lower back, a subtle gesture no one but a nagging wife might notice.
“You remembered your Advil gelcaps?” she asked when he came over for his goodbye kiss, which she planted on his cheek despite his disgruntled look.
“That’s your idea of a send-off?” He was joking again or trying to, looking to Emily for his audience and rolling his eyes to get her giggling again.
“It’s an eleven-hour flight,” she said without a smile, refusing to be pulled into the duo’s game of pretend, or what Grandma Wenny might call “denial.”
But before Grace could remind him that she was the keeper of logic in this family, that she was the grown-up, he surprised her by pulling her in for a hug, crushing the leather portfolio between them. In her ear he whispered, “You sure you’re okay?”
And then she realized it was all still part of the charade, his constant attempt to protect Emily, who Vince either didn’t realize or truly didn’t want to see had become a precocious, tough tomboy. In fact, Grace wouldn’t mind planting a little fear in Emily if it kept her from catching backyard snakes and crickets and dumping them into her kiddie pool to see if they could swim. Sometimes Grace wondered who her husband was really protecting from the cold, hard facts that came with growing up, his daughter or himself.
“I’m fine.” She pulled away to meet his eyes so he could see that she meant it. “What’s a few boxes? I’ll have them unpacked and the house looking like home before you get back.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He frowned at her, his brown eyes no longer playful but clouded with concern.
“What? I’m not allowed to joke? Okay, so it might take longer than ten days to get unpacked.”
But, of course, she knew he wasn’t talking about the mess of their new home, a huge old Victorian, all the packed boxes still stacked an
d left exactly where the movers had set them over two weeks ago. No, Vince didn’t mean that mess. She knew what mess he meant. He meant Jared Barnett. She had made the mistake of telling him about seeing the bastard at the coffee shop and in the courtroom. Luckily she left out the dry cleaner’s. He worried too much, always concerned that some criminal she had sent to prison would someday come back for revenge. Unfortunately, an occasional threat came with the job, an occupational hazard. Most of the time they were empty threats.
“I just don’t want you constantly watching for the man in every shadow,” Vince said then held out his hand to Emily, closing the subject of serious adult talk. It didn’t matter. Grace knew that as soon as she and Emily got into the car Emily would be grilling her.
And, unlike her husband, Grace tried not to lie to their daughter. But she was also guilty of protecting her. She hoped Emily never had to be faced with the realities of her job as a deputy prosecutor. Now that Emily was in preschool the girl’s questions became more difficult. Last week she wanted to know why Grace’s last name was different than hers and Daddy’s. Grace couldn’t remember exactly what she told her, but it certainly had not been the truth. How could she tell her four-year-old that the reason she used her own name was that, if any bad people who Mommy pissed off came looking to hurt her, they wouldn’t find Emily and her father?
“Don’t worry,” Grace said, squeezing her husband’s hand. “I’ll be okay. I always am, right?”
He smiled down at her, apparently satisfied and unaware that her mind had already become preoccupied as she scanned the airport terminal, looking through groups of people coming and going. Making sure that Jared Barnett was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER 6
9:50 a.m.
