True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  “What do you mean, think it through? I need to report this, George. This is serious.”

  “Of course it is. But when you tell Hayes, he has to see you’re on top of things. He can’t see the situation the way a stalker might like him to.”

  “Which is?”

  He presses the back of his hand to his perspiring forehead and squints into the early summer sunshine. “As though you’re coming undone by things.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Okay. First we need a written log of everything. Of every incident that’s happened.” To buy me time to get to the bottom of this, he thinks.

  “I can do that.”

  “And you need evidence that you’ve taken precautions since the crime. That you installed security lights, changed your locks, that I cut the shrubs back from your windows, anything to ensure Grace’s safety.” I need to ensure that if this is Reid, he stops.

  “If you’re right about this, I mean, should I get a dog?” She takes the picture from him and unfolds it again. “After Mark died and I stayed on here, my father said I needed a gun. He thought I was too isolated on this property. I didn’t get one, but I did apply for my permit. So do I need that gun now?”

  “Amy, Amy.” George tips her chin up. “Slow down. Let’s plan this one step at a time. I’ll stay with you for a while, okay? I’ll move in here or you and Grace can move in with me. Because you cannot be alone.”

  Amy shakes her head no with a sad smile and stands then. “I have to be, George. I need to keep working with Grace.” When she starts back toward her house, he quickly catches up to her. “With any more upheaval,” she tells him, “I’ll lose her once and for all to the damn silence. I love what you’re trying to do. And I promise I’ll be very careful, but I have to think of Grace first. It’s up to only me to hold things together here.”

  George looks out toward the distant cornfields shimmering with heat waves, then back at her ready to argue.

  “No,” she insists quietly, shaking her head as she opens the back screen door into the kitchen. “I can’t have you move in and disrupt her routine. It’s too risky.”

  Risk, that’s what it’s all about, no matter what he does. He leans against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed, knowing she won’t budge on her decision. Instead she’s already got the sink filled with soapy water and has dropped in the breakfast dishes, trying to control the small stuff of her life, scrubbing forks and spoons first, then a breakfast plate, a pretty dish edged with blue flowers, for all she’s worth. Her shoulders move with the motion and no doubt she’s crying at the same time. He steps behind her, puts his hands on those shoulders and turns her to him. The plate drips in her grip and he hugs her, plate and all, for a long moment.

  * * *

  Since she gave voice to two particular words, she can’t get them out of her head. Saying them made the reality of the stalking situation stark. When she walks over to Celia’s house to get Grace, Celia has a tall glass of ice water waiting in the midday heat and Amy quaffs it down in long gulps. She paces back and forth on her friend’s deck watching the little golden retriever follow Grace with her green sand pail around the yard. The puppy steps with happy, loopy ease. Okay, so maybe a dog isn’t a bad idea. It would alert her to danger around her home. The two words keep alternating in her mind. Gun. Dog. Semiautomatic nine-millimeter handgun. German shepherd.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to go to your shop alone?”

  “What?” Amy’s gaze turns slowly to Celia sitting at her patio table beneath the navy umbrella.

  “If George is right and someone is following you, then you’re not safe even there.”

  “Well now. Isn’t that nice? Then they won, didn’t they? I’ll just stay home and put bars on my windows and padlocks on my doors.”

  “You know what I mean, Amy. I’m afraid someone can get to you there alone.”

  Amy walks off the deck to the spigot on the back of the house. She tips her glass beneath it and turns the handle, letting cold water spit over her ice cubes. Sasha stands beside her cautiously watching the water flow, inching closer until she finally laps the running water. Her pink tongue curls around the stream. When Grace laughs, the noise surprises Amy and she turns to see her daughter behind her.

  “Sasha’s drinking,” Grace squeals, grinning widely.

  “That’s right,” Amy answers. Why can’t she be happy to hear her daughter’s words? She should repeat them and rhyme them and take Grace’s hands and do a dance and draw out a song of words. Why does there have to be this rage that she can’t even direct? When Sasha turns away and lies down in a shady spot near a gnarled lilac bush, Amy sets her water glass down. Cupping her hands together beneath the faucet, clear water fills them and she presses her perspiring face into the liquid. Again she does it, splashing the water up into her hair. As she turns off the water, Grace’s little hand reaches from behind her. Amy softens the flow and Grace moves her fingers into the water, then dabs her dripping fingertips on Amy’s cheeks. Her fingers are feathers, the sensation on her skin as good as words. Amy sinks to Grace’s height and her tears mix with the spigot water. Is her stalker watching this intimate moment? She won’t give whoever’s intruded into her life the satisfaction of looking around to see.

  When Grace takes her wet fingers to the shade to cool Sasha, Amy returns to the deck and to Celia still sitting at the patio table. “I know why you worry, Celia. You think this nut will grab me off the street while I’m hauling gowns into my shop.”

  “That’s right,” Celia says clearly, squinting up at her in the bright sunshine. “I do. Why take chances?”

  “But don’t you see? I can’t stop living because of this. I have to keep moving forward with Grace. We keep busy with the gowns and playing and gardening and walks. Simple things that keep her engaged. That keep reeling her back to me. Because it seems like she’s getting worse and I can’t let her see a new fear. She can’t be afraid to live. So I have to keep living.”

  “And I don’t have to like it. If it were up to me, I’d keep you both inside with those bars on the windows where I know you’d be safe.”

  Amy leans on the railing, watching Grace in the yard.

  “At least you have George. He was worried sick when he tracked me down at that little Tudor out on Old Willow Road. You and Grace mean the world to him.”

  “He wants to move in with us so we won’t be alone.”

  “Don’t tell me you said no.”

  Amy reels around and eyes her friend. “Don’t you tell me how to live, Celia. Please. Did you lose your husband, your income and your child? I’ve hardly been able to open my shop these past weeks. And for God’s sake, you don’t even have a child. You have a dog. You really aren’t in a position to tell me how to live my life.”

  “I’m not telling you how.”

  “Aren’t you though? Don’t work alone. Stay home. Padlock your doors. Live with George. Come on, already!”

  “Listen. You have to be really careful with this stalking now. And whether you like it or not, I care and I intend to check up on you all the time.” With tears running down her cheeks, Celia looks out at Grace and Sasha in the shade, then back at Amy. “You’re my best friend, who I love very much, and I really don’t want anything more happening to you. Okay?”

  “I’m sorry.” Amy sits in the chair beside Celia. “I didn’t mean what I said. I just get so darn mad at all of this.”

  “I know,” Celia agrees, swiping her tears. “We’re all on edge. It’s only because we’re worried.” She squeezes Amy’s hand, then. “About you.”

  The sensation comes again, again, with the feeling of someone’s hand pressing around hers. She collects Grace and her sand pail and heads home to her sketch pad to draw the feeling into an image. Her pencil shapes the scene as viewed from above. Two hands, the pressure, the warmth, and what? What? The lead pencil point shades his knuckles with short hatched lines, clearly defining the hand. Fading lines, scars, dark lines, all
shaping something apparent but not visible yet. She uses a tissue to blend the hatched shading, studying the hand on top of hers as she does. Something is lodged in her memory, some silent detail that screams to be remembered.

  * * *

  “What happens now?” George asks Detective Hayes. He hadn’t told Amy that the detective called him earlier to stop in for fingerprints. One issue to handle was enough.

  Hayes opens a folder on his desk. “Routine stuff. They’ll be scanned and digitally encoded. But since the girl’s shoes came back with clear prints, we need to compare them with the prints of anyone who came in contact with the evidence. We’re coordinating a separate fingerprint file on the case. The FBI is, too. Everyone’s got a hand in this one.”

  “And my prints will be a part of the file?”

  “You returned Grace that day. If the prints on the shoes aren’t yours, or her mother’s, they may be solid evidence in a future conviction.”

  “And how accurate is this computer search stuff?”

  “If the suspects have a criminal record, ninety-eight to one hundred percent. No two people have identical prints, so we’re looking at a high degree of consistency. Your prints will be keeping company with the best, George. An FBI database stores digital images of millions of people along with their criminal history.” He looks from a copy of the prints to George. “If they have one. Some records are in the system temporarily, like yours. And Amy’s. As part of an investigation. They’ll be deleted once this is done.”

  George holds out an open hand. “What about scars on the prints?”

  Detective Hayes turns the fingerprint images toward him. “See the white line? Scars are the easiest patterns to decipher in a print. But they change over time; they thicken, they heal, so they’re unreliable as a source of identification. It’s the ridge pattern on your skin that stays the same. The computer creates a spatial map of your ridge pattern and converts it into a binary code. When it’s scanned in, the entire system can be searched for identical prints. And if they match the print lifted from the shoe, that avenue is closed.”

  “You mean to tell me that the guys who pulled this off left prints? Wouldn’t they wear gloves?”

  “You’d think so, but after twenty years of doing this, I can tell you one thing for certain. Someone always slips up.”

  * * *

  “I know what you’re doing,” Amy says when he walks into her kitchen later that evening.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” She takes the DVDs from George’s hand. “Bugs Bunny cartoons?”

  “For Grace.”

  Amy looks at George and smiles. “Thanks.” She holds up the next. “Runaway Bride?”

  “Chick flick. You know, with bride stuff. For you.”

  “And Marty?”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “No.” She reads the back of the movie box. “Ernest Borgnine?”

  “He plays a butcher. Lives in New York with his mother.” George waits until Amy looks up at him. “All his brothers and sisters are married, you know? And his customers come into the shop, and his friends, and they always ask him Marty, when you getting married? Your brother just had a nice wedding. When you going to find a girl? And this Marty, he’s a little overweight, in his thirties, and one day he comes home from work and his mother tells him he should go dancing at the Stardust Ballroom. She says her nephew told her they’ve got a lot of nice tomatoes there.”

  “Tomatoes?” Amy walks into the living room and slips the Bugs Bunny disk into the DVD player.

  “Sure. You know.” George follows her and sits in the club chair. “And he meets a nice girl there. She’s a little plain, kind of shy. And they hit it off. But then everyone panics about him being involved with a girl. His friends feel deserted and tell him he found a real dog. His mother’s afraid she’ll have to live in an apartment with a new daughter-in-law and says she doesn’t like the girl. And poor Marty, he starts to listen to everyone. Until finally, well, never mind.”

  “What? What happens?”

  George picks up the newspaper. “Never mind, I said. You’ll have to watch and see. Now sit with Grace and Bugs Bunny, would you?”

  “George.” Amy crouches beside him in the club chair and speaks quietly while Bugs Bunny hatches a scheme. “I do know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You’re bringing all these movies so you’ll have to stay with me half the night watching them. You don’t want to leave me and Grace alone.”

  “So?”

  “We’re okay. I can take care of myself and Grace.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute. But I can take care of you, too. And I like to watch movies. It would help if you’d subscribe to a movie service, though. My DVD options are getting limited.”

  “Oh, you did all right.” Amy watches the rascally rabbit dancing across the television screen. Grace and Bear and a pail of seashells line the sofa. “Tomatoes?” she asks after a moment, still crouched beside the chair.

  George just looks back, not saying a word before leaning over and kissing her mouth.

  “What’s the matter, George?” she asks when she pulls back a little, her hand rising to his face, stroking his cheek.

  “You’re kind of cute,” he whispers. “That’s all. Now go sit with Grace.”

  Amy does, curling her legs beneath her on the sofa, and George lifts the newspaper. But he can’t read a word. He can’t leave Amy. Beneath the reading lamp, behind the open newspaper, he shakes his head. He can’t stop loving her.

  Twenty

  AMY TURNS THE PISTOL IN her hand and draws a finger along the barrel. A week passed since she learned someone is stalking her. Like an old-fashioned scale, her mind has gauged a gun against a dog, back and forth, one side sinking lower in favor, then rising as the other’s benefits weighed heavier. During that week, Grace, Celia, George, and her walking-partner Sara Beth all kept her occupied. Her parents phoned daily. Someone is always with her, but in the end, that type of personal protection will stop. In the end, everyone has to live their own lives. In the end, she needs something she can count on, right away. She can count on a gun.

  “The nine-millimeter is our most popular handgun, even though it’s not the best manstopper,” the salesman explains. “If you’re looking to use it for self-defense, you might want to use jacketed hollow point ammunition.”

  “Jacketed hollow point?”

  “Right. It mushrooms upon impact. You’ll get less penetration but it does greater tissue damage because of the larger diameter of the expanded bullet. Commonly used for self-defense.”

  “I see.” Amy’s slender fingers tuck her layered blonde hair behind an ear and what she sees is this: a jacketed hollow point pumped into the men who assaulted her and Grace one fine morning. Her hatred for them grows as Grace’s silence lengthens. Would the day have gone differently if she had been armed? If she slipped her hand into her purse and pulled out a nine-millimeter semiautomatic and trained it on the man holding her daughter? Or took her own hostage, her gun holding prisoner the man who reached for Grace’s shoe? Would she have won a show of wills then? But Detective Hayes mentioned the kidnapper holding a forty-five caliber weapon. “Do you think I need something larger?”

  The salesman points out forty-fives in the case. “You really shouldn’t overpower yourself with more gun than you can comfortably handle. The nine-millimeter is a good choice. With the right ammunition, it’ll have sufficient knockdown power. You can always trade up in the future.”

  Will this never end? Will she always be trading up, considering gun models, taking lessons? Will she need a weapon concealed on each floor of her home? What would be effective to store in the pantry? The basement? Will Grace need to be trained in weapon use one day? Will she come to carry a gun as easily as a cell phone?

  Amy glances around the shop, the pistol in her grip following her gaze. Bob, her salesman, is reaching into the case and pulling out various nine-millimeter ha
ndguns. Bob. Such an innocuous name. Friendly. Approachable. Bob sells weapons that disrupt and impair the blood supply carrying oxygen to the brain. That disrupt the central nervous system. That break bones and the skeletal structure. That cause neural shock.

  “Now, Amy, is it?”

  “Yes. Bob.”

  He sets four different nine-millimeters on top of the display cabinet. All the shop’s weapons are visible behind glass, much like the precious gems at a jewelry store. They spin out before her on tiers of enclosed, softly illuminated shelves. Lethal guns lie at a precise angle, muzzle to handgrip, in a circular case that gives the optical illusion of infinity. A full array of black and silver and brown wood winds across the shelves. Her eye returns to the blacks. Black looks serious; it holds no fancy allure, no shiny details, no mistaken intention.

  Bob slides a gun closer to her. “Keep in mind a couple things as you narrow down your selection. These are all nine-millimeters. Since you’re thinking about self-protection, consider the circumstances under which you might discharge it. In a violent confrontation, you won’t be cool, calm and collected. Stress and fear screw up your motor skills and it’s damn easy to fumble with too many controls.”

  “Well. There are more controls on some of these than on my microwave. What do they all do?”

  Bob’s hands move in sync with his words, pointing out the various knobs and levers and slides. “You’ve got a magazine release, slide release, safety levers, takedown levers. And on models like this one,” he sets a black and silver gun in her hand, “the controls are ambidextrous. One of each on each side.”

  “It’s a little confusing.”

  “The one you started with has only the magazine and slide release. It’s very simple to operate under duress.”

  Amy reaches for that gun.

  “One more thing. Position yourself with it as though you were going to shoot. We have to check the trigger reach.”

  “Like trying on a pair of gloves? See if my fingers fit?”

  “Pretty much. Go ahead and reach your finger to the trigger.”