The Enemy We Know

by Donna White Glaser

  She rose to her feet, swaying a bit, but hanging tough. Through all this, she’d managed to keep the knife and retain her position in front of the door. I grabbed a chisel and skittered sideways, putting the ATV between us. We stood in an impasse, each breathing heavy and watching the other through narrowed eyes. The bottom half of her face looked like a gory Halloween mask.

  In the distance, I heard sirens.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  I saw the awareness as she registered the sirens, too. Her head tilted slightly as if trying to make sense of the sound, then her eyes found mine. A look of disbelief spread over her bloody face, eyes widening in shock.

  “You called the cops?” she asked, as incredulous as if I’d cheated at checkers.

  She flailed both hands in a tantrum, spitting blood, and grunting, “nnhh, nnhh, nnhh!” The knife whistled thinly through the dusty air. Wild-eyed, she started backing toward the door, and I felt a surge of hope.

  Until she stumbled over the gas can again. I knew what she would do even as the idea formed in her head. She had the gas can overturned and the liquid glugging out, washing the blood from her chin, before I could scream “No!” The shed filled with gas fumes, thick and choking. She stood there, dripping, eyes staring out at me from under a gasoline haze.

  “Now what?” I whispered. “You don’t smoke. You don’t have a lighter.”

  “No,” she said. “But you did.”

  And she pulled out my lighter.

  Her hands shook so wildly that the lighter didn’t catch right off. Not even the second time. Not waiting for her to work out the kinks, I leaped onto the ATV, twisted the key, the engine roaring to life like a trapped beast. Slamming it into gear, it lurched forward, crashing into Mary Kate and flinging her up on the hood, a disproportionately large hood ornament. I aimed for the double door and got half of it—the closed half—and took out part of the wall as well.

  We plowed through, boards cracking and spinning out into the clearing like pinwheels. Scared the crap out of the cops milling around the yard looking for a simple, little shooting incident. Mary Kate flipped off the front of the ATV, rolling through the weeds.

  She still grasped the lighter, though, and third time’s a charm. A sickening whoosh exploded in front of me, and I ducked away from the searing flash and heat. She shrieked an all-too-human wail, stretching her arms out to me, hands reaching for me even as the flames bit into her. No matter what Mary Kate intended—to hold or be held—the flames had her now, and they bent her backward, buckling her over. Trying to escape, she stumbled, flinging herself in senseless frenzy.

  Mary Kate couldn’t escape her pyre, and I couldn’t help her. One of the officers responded with amazing presence of mind, covering Mary Kate’s thrashing body with his jacket while another ran for the squad. A third popped up with a First Aid kit the size of a textbook. It was a nice thought, but I didn’t think a gauze pad and an antiseptic wipe was going to be enough. The second cop barreled through with a blanket, flinging it over Mary Kate and the first guy, and pig-piled on them both. The screams muffled, so they were either suffocating the flames or Mary Kate. She probably didn’t care which.

  I sat, a numb and passive bystander on the ATV, watching. The ambulance wailed like a lost soul up the dirt road, slinging rocks. It skidded to a stop, EMTs jumping out like an exploding clown car. Mary Kate was still screaming under the blanket, and the cops were still patting at the smoldering cloth, their professionally trained faces unable to contain their horror even as their hands coped with the crisis.

  Almost forgot about Marshall.

  Stumbling off the ATV, I made my way over to a cop. He was just standing there, uselessly holding the kit in one hand, his other clamped over his mouth. It didn’t help. When they pulled the blanket off Mary Kate, he leaned over crisply at the waist and threw up on his nicely polished shoes. She was still alive, however, although whether that would prove a blessing or a curse would likely remain in doubt for some time.

  Marshall, though. I grabbed the cop by his arm, shaking it back and forth. He yanked it back, intent on vomiting in peace.

  “Stop puking. My boss is bleeding to death out there.”

  He spit and gagged. “What?” I had his attention. He remained bent over, but at least he was focusing on my knees. I leaned over, eye-to-eye, just to make sure.

  “My boss is gut-shot.” I pointed at Mary Kate—a mistake since he gagged again. “She shot him, and he’s out in the woods bleeding to death. He needs help.”

  He recovered remarkably fast, probably relieved to deal with a normal GSW instead of the charred and blistered heap that the EMTs frantically worked over.

  “Out there?” he asked, pointing toward the trail.

  “Yeah.”

  He commandeered the ATV. I sat on the grass. I sat on the grass and prayed to a god I wasn’t even sure existed. Just in case.

  The ambulance with Mary Kate roared off soon after the second one had pulled up. Several more police cars skidded up behind the second ambulance, cops from nearby counties piling out and scattering with choreographed purpose.

  From the few glimpses I managed, Marshall was still alive but unconscious, his skin grayed out, lips blue. They tended to him quickly but less frantically, loading him and taking off.

  Somebody had taken up a position next to and over me, his presence a shadow-image flickering in and out of my consciousness. When Marshall’s ambulance finally spun off down the road, I tried to stand. Made it to my knees and got stuck. A hand reached down, hovering next to my face. I grabbed it, let it pull me to my feet.

  Blodgett. He wore old jeans—the kind called dungarees, which had never attempted to be fashionable—and a local high school sweatshirt in only slightly better condition than the oil rag I wore. His eyes, though, were kind. Tired and penetrating, but kind.

  “About time,” I said, not really knowing what I meant.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  I didn’t drink, but it was only because Sue and the Wednesday night women stapled themselves to my ass. I don’t even know how long they kept watch. With no appetite and endless insomnia, I lost all sense of time. Days ran into nights, a blurry cycle devoid of purpose or meaning. What little energy I spent was used to keep it that way. I didn’t want to make sense of it. Insight would kill me.

  Despite my best efforts at self-induced oblivion, Blodgett kept me tethered to reality. He stopped in regularly to see if I’d remembered anything new. I tried insisting on a search warrant to keep him out, but Sue and the girls kept letting him in.

  He came to update me on Mary Kate’s recovery and the case’s progression. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know about the public defender that had been assigned or the court dates that kept being postponed. I certainly didn’t want to know about her IV drips or the coma they induced or the start of the skin grafts.

  But Blodgett kept up a steady barrage of updates, determined to keep me abreast of the developments, slowly helping me regain a sense of perspective, a reduction of Mary Kate to person-status. Disturbed and obsessed and dangerous—yes, all that. But not a monster, not a Glen Close-jump-back-out-of-the-bathtub freak of nature. Not immortal.

  I need to know that.

  As I lie through the long days and longer nights waiting for them to announce a trial date, a cloak of dread wraps around me, weighting my arms and legs and heart. I never want to see Mary Kate again. I never want her to see me. I can’t understand what invisible, arbitrary, and completely imaginary signal she created that drew her to me in the first place. Draws her still.

  Both creator and captive of her own obsession, she remains convinced of my love for her, of her destiny with me. She sends letters and cards, first from the hospital and later from the jail infirmary. I finally got a restraining order, but it was about as effective as waving the peace sign at a rabid pitbull. She convinced one of the jailers—a sworn member of one of the most cynical, hardened professions on earth—to call me from his cell phone w
ith the message that her latest surgery had gone well. I wasn’t to worry, he said.

  Because of the surgeries and medications, they’re waiting on a psyc-eval, but Blodgett tells me that it’s doubtful she’ll stand trial anytime soon. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

  If I were at all interested in my surroundings, I’d have to admit that Regina, of all people, has been wonderful. She started picking me up and dragging me to the women’s shelter where she volunteers. The first thing she did was give me a tour of the facility, showing me the security devises and safety protocols. I hate it.

  I hate being shown the exterior video camera system, the keypad alarm consoles, the motion-activated lights. I hate hearing about the drills they run in case one of the abusers show up or the precautions they take to keep the safe house a secret. It doesn’t make me feel safer, knowing there are ways to protect myself from bad people. It doesn’t make me feel better knowing I haven’t been the only person harmed by someone I trusted.

  I come home from these little field trips with blinding headaches, my scalp and skin stretched so tight and thin from the swelling of rage that I fear it will split open, cracking like an egg.

  But Regina keeps coming, and I keep going. She makes me sit in Group at the shelter, too. When I tried to hide behind my therapist mask, she forbade me from commenting on anyone else’s story; I can only share my own experience or listen quietly. I spent the first three Groups with arms crossed and mouth shut, reciting Mother Goose rhymes in my head to keep the other women’s words from penetrating.

  Strangely, it never occurred to me to get up and leave or even to refuse to go in the first place. The last time I exercised my own will had been sending the puking cop into the woods after Marshall.

  While that effort saved Marshall’s life, it hasn’t saved our friendship. I visited him, once, in the hospital. When I apologized for essentially leading a killer to his doorstep, he offered forgiveness for another peek at my bra. But he grew silent when he learned that I’d searched his home and office. When I admitted to dosing him with sleep aids, the sparkle in his eyes dulled and he turned his face to the wall. After a long while, I left.

  The next day I discovered that he put me on the No Visitor list. Within hours of being discharged, he left for his brother’s house in Wyoming. To recuperate, he told Regina. To hide, I told her. But who could blame him?

  His taking off has had the benefit of rousing me from my stupor. I listened at the next Group and started paying attention to the sun’s course across the sky. Sue dragged me outside one day. It was hot. The sun felt good. It was summer. I’d almost missed it.

  I finally felt strong enough to read the last sonnet. The one Mary Kate left in my glove box while I’d been tending Marshall in the woods. Blodgett has the original, of course, but Regina convinced him to leave me a copy. I think he’s scared of her, too.

  But it’s my choice. My decision—to read or not to read.

  No more be grieved at that which thou has done:

  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

  Clouds and eclipses stain both the moon and sun,

  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

  All men make faults, and even I in this,

  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

  Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,

  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,

  And ‘gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

  Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessory needs must be,

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

  Shakespeare, thou are one freaky dude.

  Thank you for reading THE ENEMY WE KNOW. I hope you enjoyed it! Please check my website http://www.donnawhiteglaser.com/ for more Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mysteries coming soon.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As a writer, I’m supposed to be able to write beautiful words, but when it comes to this section I get all thumb-tied. Needless to say—although I appear to be saying it anyway—without these people, I’d have given up on this dream long ago.

  To my first readers, Ma and Neecie and Katie. You laughed in all the right places and held me up through all the bad. I love you ladies.

  To the most talented group of writers anywhere! My critique writers’ group, past and present: Helen Block, Marjorie Doering, Gail Francis, Darren Kirby, Marla Madison, April Solberg, and Bob Stokes. (We miss you, Bob!) You slashed the whip when I grew weary, sliced and diced when my metaphors got too goofy, and kept my BIC-FOK. (That’s not swearing, Pastor Craig. I promise.) Best of all, you made me a better writer.

  To Kristin Lindstrom: thanks for believing.

  To Sisters In Crime and the Guppies: to these groups, I owe a debt too big to be repaid, except, perhaps, by emulating your generosity. I hope every new writer discovers the riches of SinC.

  To Rob Walker: you were the first professional writer I’d ever approached with questions about the industry. You treated me as an equal instead of the naïve wannabe I was so certain I was. Thank you for the advice and encouragement.

  To Joe Konrath: I’ve never actually met you, but you had a hand in this process nonetheless. You’ve made indie publishing, not only respectable, but advisable. Bless you for A Newbies Guide to Publishing. http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

  To the most important people in the world: my husband and kids. I’m sorry for all the times we had a “fend for yourself” supper night or had three inch dust woofies rolling across the kitchen floor like misbegotten tumbleweeds. Thank you for hanging in there. But I’m still not dusting.