True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  Through the blue strobe police lights, George watches from the sidelines. They are intermittently illuminated, over and over again, this mother and daughter who never deserved the day. He hands the kitten carton to one of the detectives.

  “Come on, Carbone. They need you back at the station,” the officer driving the van says.

  George doesn’t want Amy Trewist recognizing his voice, his eyes, while her memories are fresh. Grace is safe. They will have police protection for the time being, as well as plenty of family sticking close. One of those men must surely be her husband.

  “All right, you leaving now?” George asks.

  “Yeah, I’m ready to go. They’re going to get the kid a drink of water and swing her by the hospital. Precautionary stuff, you know?” The officer starts the ignition and switches off the flashing light. “Nice to see a happy ending.”

  Several dark sedans sit at the curb. Maybe this will never have an ending. Hours pass before he finishes answering questions back at police headquarters. He repeats every detail of Grace’s return in the parking lot, saying it was dark; he can’t be sure how many men were in the car; no, he didn’t get the license plate. Once he realized what was happening, he says, he rushed into the store with the girl, afraid for their lives. The reporters take pictures outside Addison’s police department.

  Reid was right. In the camera flashes that break the darkness, no one sees through his story, no one reads his thoughts, no one points an accusing finger. Instead, they make George Carbone a hero.

  * * *

  Night falls on the country road. An owl swoops from the big maple tree. Misty dew covers the distant cornfields. And it’s all good, it’s a peace that Amy wants surrounding her child. She tucks in the blankets around Grace. Earlier, when she had let detectives gently question her, Grace wouldn’t talk, burying her face in Amy’s shoulder instead. But to Amy, all that matters is this: The doctors issued a clean bill of health and she got to bring her home to cuddle with stuffed animals and to tuck under a soft blanket, wearing her spring jammies. Because home is love. At home, her daughter tastes love in a cup of warm chicken soup. She hears love in the tinkling notes of her wind-up music box and in her mother’s words. She sees love in her colorful room and in the eyes of Amy and her parents, of Celia and her husband Ben. Especially, though, Grace feels a new love for the stray kitten curled against her in a tight ball. It is tiny, just a scrap of fur taken from its mother much too soon. Like Grace. Can it be anything more than a constant reminder of the worst day of their lives?

  But Grace stroked the kitten gently and quietly spoke to it. Wherever she went, the kitten followed close behind, scampering along to keep up. They set down a saucer of warm milk and Grace waited on the floor, rubbing at her tired eyes as it lapped enough milk to fill its belly. Afterward, the two of them fell asleep together. What defines evil’s existence is its contrast with good. Grace found the good in an evil day in a little kitten. The cat was like a guardian angel keeping her daughter’s mind distracted from the danger around her. Now she’s an angel in their home. They’ll call her that. Angel.

  Outside their home, police protection remains indefinitely. A cruiser sits at the curb.

  “Mom,” Amy whispers when Ellen walks into the room. “Did you make up the guest room for you and Dad?”

  “I did. He’s still at the Station, talking to the detectives.”

  “Well he is a constable, Mom. You know how that goes. The cop is always on in him.”

  “Especially when his beautiful granddaughter is involved. How is she?”

  “Sound asleep. Would you sit here for a little bit?”

  “Of course.” Ellen bends over and leaves a kiss on Grace’s face.

  “I just need to do something,” Amy says as she folds her daughter’s clothes and sets them with her saddle shoes high on a closet shelf. She noticed earlier how the laces were tied in a double bow to keep the shoe snugly in place. The gunman had looked out for her.

  Still, she feels hatred, directed at the man she came into contact with, the man who could have changed the day. Their hands and eyes had locked. And no amount of good, of caring for her daughter or encouraging words, can erase that he did not try to stop the crime.

  But another man returned her daughter, a good Samaritan brought into this nightmare unwillingly. Someone who did the right thing from the very start. He scooped her daughter into his strong arms, grabbed the kitten and ran. What a difference between the two.

  She slips a cardigan over her shoulders and walks outside to find Officer Pine sitting in his cruiser. He gets out of the car as she nears.

  “Is everything okay, Mrs. Trewist?”

  Amy nods, her arms wrapped around herself in the night’s dampness. “I just want to ask you something. The man who phoned the police. The one from the grocery store parking lot. Do you know his name?”

  “Oh sure. He’s a great guy. George. George Carbone.”

  “Would you know how I can reach this George? I’d like to talk to him in the next few days and thank him.”

  “He owns the meat market down on the west side. It’s in Sycamore Square.”

  Amy pictures the local plaza. A working windmill turns in a small pond in the center of the circle of shops. She recalls a jeweler, several clothing boutiques, and a clock and lamp shop. Sycamore trees line the long driveway leading to the plaza of cream-colored buildings. But she can’t call to mind a fresh meat market.

  “A butcher shop?” she asks.

  “Well. If you want to call it that. George runs a nice place. The Main Course. Take a ride there some time. He’d be happy to see that you and your girl are doing fine.”

  Six

  GEORGE WAKES TO THE SOUND of heavy rain the next morning. Lying in bed, he holds out his arms, turning them and studying the sinuous tendons. If only he’d followed his dream and become a professional baseball player all those years ago. He would be fresh out of spring training right now, traveling on the road with the team while Nate went criminal. Chasing infield ground balls while Nate sidestepped felonies. Seeing the cheering crowd as he rounded the bases instead of seeing pouring rain, thinking the water sluices over an armored truck, over a parking lot’s pavement, washing away any lingering evidence.

  No. Instead of fly balls exacting his eye-hand coordination, working with lethal blades does. His fresh meat and seafood market accommodates caterers, restaurants and a discerning public. And Nate’s laid tiles in many of those customers’ homes and businesses. They raised blue-collar trades to a new height. Nate is divorced, George never married, and neither one has kids. Which is exactly why George doesn’t understand his brother’s actions. Nate doesn’t need the money. So they can return their share of it anonymously and restore the family honor. He’ll tell Nate that. It’s about family, after all, that’s what Nate’s been saying. Taking care of family. But in the meantime, he has to get ready for work, shower, make a pot of fresh coffee and read the front page of the paper.

  His picture is plastered on it. And outside his window, two television vans are parked at the curb. So when the doorbell rings later, he fully expects a pack of reporters, microphones in hand, cameras flashing. But it’s Nate who walks in carrying a toolbox and heavy carton of stone tile, his hooded sweatshirt covering his head from the rain.

  “What’s going on now?” George asks.

  “Those tiles came in that you wanted. Thought I’d start on your wall here.” Nate sets the box down and flips off his hood before pouring himself a cup of coffee. He wears his work clothes: blue jeans, a tight T-shirt revealing broad shoulders, and work boots. A loose denim shirt hangs past the leather tool belt on his hips.

  “What’s in the box, for real? I can’t keep that cash here.”

  “Tile, George. Calm down.” Nate pulls a box cutter from his belt and slits open the carton. He perspires even though it is cool; his voice drops even though they are alone.

  George doesn’t want their voices to drop. He doesn’t want secre
ts. He just wants his footloose brother back in his own staid, workaholic life. “The hell with the tiles. We need to talk, Nate. I can’t take this and we have to figure out how we’re getting out of it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Nate tells him. “This is all part of the plan. Once your walls are redone, the safe will be invisible to the human eye.”

  “Safe? That’s the plan to get out of this?”

  Nate nods. “We’re going about our normal lives, remember? You wanted to redo your kitchen wall and I’m taking care of it. Like we planned.” He sips his coffee and eyes George’s jeans and polo shirt. “Where’s your work clothes? Don’t you have to open up?”

  “Dean’s taking care of it. I’m not going in today.”

  “Why not?”

  “You see those vans out there? I’m not about to deal with the media all day. That is definitely not normal, and don’t you tell me it is.”

  “It is for you,” Nate insists. “Now that you’re a God damn hero. Didn’t you read the paper? Heroes talk to reporters, build up the story, pump themselves up.”

  “I read it, all right.” The paper ran a studio portrait of Amy Trewist and her daughter. She wore a simple sheath, her sandy blonde hair falling to her shoulders, her jewelry minimal. Glaringly apparent was the lack of a man. “Do you realize who you messed with yesterday?”

  “We didn’t mess with anybody. No one got hurt.”

  “Jesus, Nate, not that you can see, anyway. Didn’t you read the articles? That lady is thirty-three and a widow already. She suffered enough without you screwing with her.”

  “Hey, she got her kid back. She’ll recover.” Nate returns the box cutter to his tool belt and pulls a heavy hammer from the beat up toolbox. He straightens his six-foot-one frame and taps the hammer head in his other hand. His eyes squint as he studies George. “Don’t you start worrying about that dame now. Just get to work. Give the press the pictures and interviews they want and they’ll get bored in no time. Your fifteen minutes of being a hero will be history in a week.” He pulls out his measuring tape and checks a few numbers along the wall.

  “Wait a minute, Nate. Screw those damn tiles.” He grabs the tape from his brother’s hand. “Listen, we have to turn ourselves in. We’ll say we were threatened, something, I don’t know.”

  “No. You listen.” Nate grabs the measuring tape back. “This tile work’s going to be fancy shit. I know you only wanted a backsplash, but this wall has to be extended. I need space behind it, you know what I mean?” He surmises the kitchen carefully. “We tallied it last night while you were bringing the girl back. Your wall will be worth close to a million. That’s your cut.”

  It’s the way Nate says it, his words coming as plainly as if he is talking measurements, fifteen and three-quarter inches by one million, that makes George pour his coffee down the drain. He can’t drink, can’t eat and he fought dry heaves once already. He can kick Nate out. Set his toolbox outside the door in the rain and lock the deadbolt. But yesterday is far from over. Until he figures something out, his brother will build a custom, hidden safe in his kitchen wall. And George has no doubt. The safe will be indecipherable from the tile under the influence of his skilled hands.

  * * *

  Amy no longer takes anyone at face value. When Hayes stops by her house on Thursday morning, she can plainly see that he is about fifty years old with very short light brown hair and a calm expression. But she knows there is more, unseen. There’s a handgun on his body, strapped somewhere beneath his jacket. She works with him to quietly press Grace for simple details about her captors, but their attention distresses her. She gets even more quiet, sucking her thumb and withdrawing, not looking at either of them. So when Ellen puts on Grace’s purple galoshes and takes her outside to splish-splash in puddles, Hayes turns to Amy. He asks her to describe the weapons that had been involved in the crime. Maybe they can be traced.

  “Black as hell,” Amy says, glancing out the kitchen window at her daughter walking in the light rain, before turning back to the detective. “The man holding Grace, his weapon seemed larger than the other’s. Than the man who took her shoe.”

  Hayes tells her that the brain catalogues visions that, without prodding, the conscience remains unaware of. So he prods, and prods, asking for wording or insignias she might have seen, the finish of the grips, the presence of safety levers or any magazine protrusion. “The length of the barrels. Could you describe either one?” he asks.

  Behind closed eyes, Amy pictures the man holding Grace beneath one arm, and holding a weapon in his other hand, keeping it pressed almost unnoticed along his leg. She hesitantly motions the length with her two hands.

  “Maybe a four-inch barrel,” the detective notes. “Did it look narrow? Wide?”

  “Wide. Like there were two barrels together.” She points to a picture from a selection he brought along, indicating traditional double action frames, and winces at the array of weaponry. “There are so many,” Amy says, startled when Angel jumps from a kitchen chair up onto the table, stepping lightly across the images.

  “Is that the cat from the kidnappers?” Detective Hayes asks.

  “Yes. Angel.” Amy scoops up the black and white kitten, and what she thinks is this: A couple pounds of soft, warm fur; a couple pounds of a cold, black gun. She shifts the cat’s weight in her hand before setting her on the floor. “Too bad she can’t talk. Imagine what she saw that day?”

  “No kidding.” Hayes turns back to the weapons and from what he repeats into a digital recorder, the guns involved seem to be a forty-five and a nine-millimeter.

  If it weren’t for the firearms violently imposed upon her life, she would still be happily ignorant to the ways of these weapons. She would be at work at her vintage bridal shop, scouting the Internet and flea markets for lace gowns with sweetheart necklines, for a white moiré silk, high-waisted dress a customer requested, for the elbow-length satin gloves she needed to pair with a 1950s sleeveless gown.

  Instead she doesn’t leave her home. Surrounded by an acre of tended land that the original farmer never relinquished to developers, the lawn and trees become her cocoon. The investigators, like Hayes, come to her, and Celia and Ellen run her errands around town. After walking blindly into Addison’s worst crime ever, she doesn’t trust herself to venture further than her own backyard and so it is with resistance that she finds herself in her shop later Thursday.

  “I heard you again last night,” Ellen says as she hangs a cupcake dress with a full skirt of lace and tulle, trimmed in ruffles, on a black dress form. “It’s just like after Mark died. You’re up half the night, Amy.”

  Amy sits on the gold settee, her hand skimming the brocade floral pattern. “Well of course I’m up. I can’t stop seeing Grace being grabbed from my hands. Then I see that man’s face, the one who took her shoe. He came so close to me. When I shut my eyes, he’s right there. When I dream, he’s there. So no, I can’t sleep.”

  “It’s not just sleep. You’re not eating. You’ve been disorganized all week.” Ellen lifts and drops the gown skirt, fluffing the ruffles. “You’d never even have come here today if I didn’t put the gowns in your car and buckle Grace in the back seat. And you love fussing with the gowns.”

  Amy does. Her vintage bridal shop is all part of capturing her family history, a part of four generations of women woven together. A part of the art of her grandmother’s intricate hand-stitched lace doilies and veils and table runners and even bracelets. A part of the sweet memories stopping at tag sales with her mother years ago, lifting lace treasures from old trunks or a chest of drawers. A part of the magic stories her mother spun about the lace. A part of standing together in the sunlight, her mother’s hands lifting lace like butterfly wings for Amy to see, dust rising like fairy tale stardust. She feels a bit of that enchanted stardust in each lace gown she chooses and loves that she can share it with her own daughter now, too.

  “You can’t take another year to recover,” Ellen is saying. When she lifts
the gown skirt one more time, Angel scoots beneath it. “Be quick, for Grace’s sake.” Grace moves beside her, laughing at the little kitten’s paw shooting out from beneath the gown, tapping at her foot. “I’ll have to be getting back home to Dad eventually.”

  So there it is. Her father already returned to New Hampshire, to his waiting job on the force there. One day soon, her mother will leave her three hundred miles behind, too. Even though the police still check on her safety, she dreads being on her own again. Going out in public. Entering stores, walking through parking lots. Being responsible for herself and her daughter. Needing eyes on the back of her head.

  “Maybe if you start dealing with people again, a little bit at a time.”

  “I don’t trust people, Mom. I don’t know how to anymore.” She gets up off the settee and walks over to the counter, adjusting the bracelets on the jewelry holder there. The rain had stopped, and their gemstones and gold chains glimmer in the late afternoon sunlight shining through the front display window. All the while, her ears are tuned to Grace, waiting to hear words she might say.

  “What about that George fellow? That would be a good way for you to get out a bit.”

  “Who?” She looks over at her mother.

  “George. George Carbone. You were going to thank him for bringing Grace home safely.”

  Amy looked at his photographs in the paper all week, studying the face, the strong chin, the dark eyes. Yet he looked tense, or worried. Something. She cut out one picture and leaves it on her dresser mirror, thankful for his anonymous presence in their lives. But she hadn’t reached out to him.