by Ann Myers
It’s probably a kid’s playhouse, I told my jangling nerves. I’ll find comic books and candy wrappers or old beer cans. The thought of beer cans reminded me of Celia and my recent vow to set a good example and not get myself into trouble. Trouble didn’t seem imminent in the bright sun and clean air, with Linda only a few yards away. I’d peek in to confirm my theory of kids. I stopped tiptoeing. No normal kid would be up at this early hour on a Sunday. I approached the hut. This kid was a pretty good architect. The structure was cone shaped with a nifty triangular opening formed from bent willow branches.
“Rita, are you okay?” Linda’s voice sounded far away, disappearing into the birdsong and branches.
I peered in the triangle. Beady eyes stared back at me, so intense that I barely noticed the giant hand reaching for my neck.
I was not okay.
Chapter 22
I know you.” His voice sounded like he’d smoked since kindergarten. His hands grabbed my elbows, yanking me into the dark hut. I filled my lungs to scream, but a rough hand clamped over my face, turning my yell to a whimper.
“Shhhh . . .” he said. “Hugo’s sleeping. You’ll scare him.”
Hugo? I didn’t care about waking him, whoever he was, unless he was another terrifying giant. Frantic, I tried to recall the moves Cass and I learned at a women’s self-defense luncheon. As usual, I spent most of the time thinking about the food. Now I regretted it. My kicks landed in air, as did flailing attempts to scratch and gouge. Finally, I resorted to the meeting-a-bear-in-the-woods defense. I went limp.
“Hey, lady? You okay?”
Great, the giant was worried, probably concerned that I was fit enough to be murdered. That’s what happened with psychos in movies. They wanted their victims alive and kicking. I maintained my play-dead pose. The hands released me, and after a moment I dared open an eye. The giant hunched in a corner making cooing noises. This was almost scarier than being manhandled. Images of every scary movie I’d ever foolishly watched flashed through my mind. Who was he talking to? His mummified mother? A murderous clown doll? His chain saw?
“Rita? Rita, where are you?” Linda’s call sliced through my psycho images, giving me hope until I realized her voice was becoming fainter. She must have picked the logical way, the path not blocked by an entire tree. I had one chance. I had to make the best of it. Praying that my ankle would hold up to a sprint, I lunged for the opening. I almost made it.
“Hey! Where are you going? Don’t you want to meet Hugo?”
The huge hand that reached out grabbed at my jacket and pulled me back in. I squirmed, desperate to extract myself from the coat. I was halfway out of it when the twisted mass wrapped around my neck and head, like a dressing-room nightmare. I gulped for air, feeling like I could faint or hyperventilate or both. Should I play dead again? No, I decided, clawing at the coat. I yelled with what felt like my last remaining air. “Linda! Help!”
Surprisingly, the hands released me. “Who needs help? Linda?”
I was free. I could have fled if the coat weren’t stuck over my face, blinding me. I bellowed with all my might and had managed to free up my sight in one eye when Linda arrived, yelling. “Stop! Nine-one-one! Fire!” She grabbed my free arm, yanked the coat off my head, and pulled me outside.
Back in the daylight, the forest seemed startlingly sunny and friendly. Relief flooded over me until I realized that Linda and I together would be no match for the giant. All I’d done was put her in danger too. “Run,” I urged her. I followed this up with a noble, breathless platitude. “Leave me, save yourself.”
Then I noticed Linda’s hands, or rather what was in them.
“Ack! Linda, is that a gun?!”
She had assumed the Robocop stance of Manny’s fantasies, feet spread, knees slightly bent, elbows locked, hands gripping a pocketbook-sized pistol.
I can’t say I was relieved. I don’t like guns. I hated when Manny refused to take his off at the dinner table or left it lying around the bathroom with his dirty clothes. I got sweaty-palmed at simply the sight of a gun, any gun, even this one, which would presumably save us from a hulking psychopath. “Let’s go,” I urged Linda. “Quick. I’ll call the police when we’re safe.”
It was too late. The giant was emerging from his cave.
“Any funny moves and I’ll shoot!” Linda cautioned.
I marveled. This was not the Linda I knew, the timid Linda worried about fridge hypothermia or global warming bringing on prairie dog plagues. This was a hard, determined Linda. My eyes locked on her unwavering gun, so it took me a moment to register the figure before us.
“I know you,” he said quietly, and my heart did a flip. In the darkness of Victor’s house and the hut, the man had seemed like a terrifying giant. Now, in the sunny light, he was an old guy in a patchwork of ragged clothes. However, my interpretation may have been swayed by what he cupped in his hands. A tiny buff-colored kitten.
Dirty Harry Linda lowered her weapon and immediately turned back into the kind, worried person I knew. “Tops? Oh my goodness, Tops, you scared us nearly to death. You can’t do that. Someone could get hurt.”
The giant held the kitten closer. “Hugo,” he said. “He’s not mine.”
Linda stuffed the gun back into her purse. “Tops, you terrified Rita here.” She pointed to me, and I felt a prickle of irritation. Yeah, of course I’d been scared. Who wouldn’t be?
Linda’s questioning was hitting a nerve with the giant too. He hung his head as she shook a disapproving finger at him. “And what were you doing at Victor’s last night and then running away?”
The old man turned his broad back to us. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he mumbled, and ducked back into the hut.
My heart, which had relaxed to a normal speed, started to race. What didn’t he want to talk about? Burglary? Murder? Had I let my guard down prematurely, fooled by his age and the kitten?
“Linda,” I whispered. “We have to go call the police.”
I expected her to agree, to worry about getting back across the creek and whether too much cell phone use would lead to head tumors. She didn’t.
“Not yet,” she said, disappearing into the hut.
I felt awful. Here I was, surely failing another friend test. A good person would have bounded right into the nice-old-man/psycho-killer’s hut to support her friend, right? Or maybe she’d sensibly stay outside so that someone could get away and call the police. I held my phone, my finger poised to dial Bunny’s number. The reception bars wavered between poor and zip. I could try to call Bunny. I should call her. Yet something held me back. Mainly, if Linda wasn’t scared of this man, I shouldn’t be either.
“Linda?” I stood at the opening to the hut, my emotions a mix of fear and vexation. The fear, I thought, was logical. So was the vexation, albeit somewhat selfish. Had Linda not noticed how this guy dragged me into his hut and terrorized me? What was she doing, going in there and leaving me alone in the forest? What about hypothermia and my bum ankle? I felt my inner teenager well up inside me. It would feel good to have a sulky Celia moment. Then I thought about Linda. Tromping into the forest had been my idea. She’d come along to back me up, and she had, bravely. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
“Greetings!” the giant said. A gracious host, he spread his hands out in a welcome-to-my-castle gesture.
Now that I wasn’t blinded by fear, I took in the place. The hut was actually pretty nice, with walls lined in blankets and a floor padded with outdoor chair cushions. I suspected that he’d stolen the cushions, but lawn theft was the least of the neighborhood’s problems right now.
Linda stood to one side, holding the purring kitten. “Come on in, Rita. Tops and I know each other from the church.” Her tone was cheerful yet firm, aimed to tell me that everything was okay.
“We eat soup together,” Tops c
larified. “By the Guadalupe lady. Mrs. Linda makes nice soup.”
Now I understood how they knew each other. Linda volunteers at the soup kitchen at Our Lady of Guadalupe, where day laborers and the struggling gather to seek work, solace, and a hot meal.
“She makes really good soup,” I agreed.
“Mr. Victor gave me soup too,” he said, with a note of pride in his voice. “And bread. And the laundry machine.”
“You have a key to the laundry room?” I asked. Why didn’t Victor tell me? I pushed this thought back. Victor didn’t have to tell me who he gave his keys to. I was his renter. However, I also considered myself a friend, and as someone who used the laundry room, I would have liked a heads-up.
“I see you there,” Tops said, not directly answering the question about the key. “Sometimes. Sometimes I see you.”
Sometimes would be about how often I did laundry. I’d do it even less now that I knew I was being watched. I shivered.
“Tops,” Linda said, as if chastising a naughty kindergartener. “It’s not nice to spy. You’ll scare people.”
He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with watching. I only went in at night if it was really cold, to stay warm. Mr. Victor said I could.” He held out his hands for the kitten. Linda handed Hugo over. The little bundle of soft beige fur mewed softly as he nestled against Tops’s scraggly beard.
I was still feeling creeped out about being watched. For how long? And doing what? I didn’t always shut my bedroom curtains at night, reasoning that there was no one in the dark backyard. Worse, if he’d watched me, he’d watched Celia too. I narrowed my eyes, holding back a protective mom instinct to lash out at Tops.
Linda, in her usual way, was managing to bustle around the small space. “Where is that nice feather quilt we gave you a few weeks ago, Tops?”
The big man shrugged and claimed not to remember.
“Did you remember to take your medicine?”
As Linda’s list of questions went on, it became clear that memory was not one of Tops’s strong points.
“Tops said that he’ll come stay at the shelter when it’s cold,” Linda said, addressing me but really chiding Tops.
“I meant to,” he mumbled.
Some of my anger had quelled. He was a forgetful old guy living out in the elements and caring—hopefully—for a little kitten. Victor had helped him. Kind, trusting Victor. Too trusting, possibly. I wondered what else Tops had seen.
I tried to keep my voice light. “Tops, were you over at Victor’s two nights ago?”
“When’s that?” He looked at me, small eyes squinting in confusion.
I tried a different approach. “You saw me in Victor’s place. Who else did you see there recently?”
He hesitated. “You. And the pretty girl with ugly black hair.”
“That’s my daughter,” I said, hardness creeping into my voice despite my best efforts.
He nodded. “I know. Mr. Victor introduced us. She’s nice.” His expression was one of pride. I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. Celia had encountered Broomer and his pot-smoking friends. She’d met Tops. She’d also met Ariel before I even knew about her. She hadn’t mentioned any of these people to me.
“Who else?” Linda said, gently. “Who else did you see visiting Mr. Victor?”
“Mr. Gabriel lives next door. He doesn’t see me. Victor says we shouldn’t bother him.”
“Okay,” Linda said. “And who else.”
“The gold lady and the mean man with the outdoor bathtub. He doesn’t like me.”
He hesitated, mumbling to the kitten, who purred loudly. “There was fighting,” he said through a moan. “Yelling. Bang! I ran away. I ran. Ran, ran, ran.”
“Why’d you run away, Tops?” Linda asked.
He moaned loudly and tugged at his hair. The kitten crawled down his leg and disappeared into a pile of pillows. “No!” Tops cried. He pawed through the pillows and I thought he was seeking the kitten. Instead he pulled out a newspaper. I recognized the front page immediately. Victor, renowned artist, gone, the headline proclaimed.
“Tops, tell us what happened,” I urged, but his muttering was rising to a bellow. “No!” he said over and over. “No, I did a bad thing! Bad, bad!” He threw the newspaper at the wall and reached for a pillow, which he tore mercilessly. Stuffing spilled out as nylon fabric ripped. I thought of those huge hands that had dragged me in and nearly suffocated me.
“Linda,” I whispered. “It’s time to go.”
“We can’t leave him alone like this,” she said, but she was also backing away.
“We won’t be leaving him alone. We’re going to call in the police.”
Chapter 23
Now it was Linda, trailing behind me, repeating the word “No.”
“Linda, please,” I begged as I limp-jogged up the back garden to the casita. I didn’t care that my ankle felt like an angry blimp or that both of my supposedly waterproof boots carried more water than the not-so-mighty Santa Fe River. I wasn’t stopping to rest, empty the boots, or debate about Tops.
“We have to call the police,” I said again. “You know that. Tops may have witnessed Victor’s murder.” He may be Victor’s murderer, I didn’t add.
“He’s confused and old, Rita,” Linda said, catching up to me. “He has dementia and probably post-traumatic stress. He was in the Vietnam War. He’s a vet with medals and everything. We’ve tried at the shelter to get him help. We contacted the VA, but he’s too used to being on his own. Rita, if you call the police, something bad could happen. He gets agitated and lashes out. They might hurt him.”
“You can tell the police all about him,” I said, thinking about Tops lashing out. He might have already lashed out and hurt someone. Victor. “Linda, we owe it to Victor. And to Gabriel. He deserves to know what happened to his brother.”
We’d made it to my door. She nodded now, glancing sadly at the main house. “I know. You’re right.”
Bunny answered her cell phone on the first ring and said they’d be right over. Stay inside and lock the doors, she added. Keep out of trouble and keep your phone line open.
This time I had no trouble obeying police orders. I draped a chenille blanket around my shoulders and attended to my puffy ankle, wrapping it in a pack of frozen peas and elevating it as I lay on the sofa. Munching goldfish crackers and flipping through the Italian cookbook, I tried to distract myself with lesser concerns, like my pasta maker languishing in Manny’s garage. I imagined myself making homemade lemon-pepper pappardelle or ravioli. In my make-believe world, I was free of murder and prowlers and none of my raviolis broke apart. I sighed. My fantasy was just that. Still, freeing my kitchenware boxes seemed like an important step in realizing my new life.
I closed the cookbook and looked out the window. Linda was not obeying orders. Not only had she gone outside, she was also on her cell phone. I popped more goldfish and wondered who she’d called. Linda usually avoids her cell phone because of her brain tumor worries. She’s also read way too many news stories about distracted cell phone users being run over by trains or cyclists. She didn’t seem worried about those dangers now. She paced the driveway, talking animatedly. For her safety, I hoped that Manny wasn’t leading the police brigade. He was a worse driver than Flori without her glasses on.
Reluctantly, I got up and cracked the door. “Linda, come inside! I have tea . . .”
It wasn’t much of a lure. She put away the phone but didn’t come in. “I’m going to go over and warn Gabe,” she said. “He’ll be terrified if he sees police cars again. If they get here before I come back, tell them to be careful around Tops. He’s delicate.”
He wasn’t so delicate when he dragged me into his hut. On the other hand, she was right about giving Gabe a heads-up. What would he think if Manny roared in with sirens blaring? I watched as Linda hurried u
p the path, around the corner, and out of view. I was settling back on the couch when the doorbell rang. Linda, I thought. Gabe must have been out.
I got up, wrapped in the blanket and frozen peas, and swung the door open. In retrospect I should have checked to see who was there. Had I known, I would have smoothed my hair and ditched the peas. As it was, I could only hope that Jake was so thrown by my pea-padded ankle that he didn’t notice my mouthful of goldfish crackers.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked.
All times seemed bad for me lately. “Please come in,” I said, after clearing the lump of crackers from my throat. “I was waiting for the police.” As I said this, I realized it probably wasn’t a classic welcome of the gracious hostess. I tried to cover. “Would you like some tea? Goldfish crackers?”
He smiled and my heart did that annoying flip-flop. “A goldfish cracker while we wait for the police sounds lovely.”
My brain was slow because of how good he looked. Jeans and cowboy boots along with a fall-toned flannel shirt that would be so perfect to snuggle up to under my blanket. I mentally slapped myself. Remember the moratorium! And what had he said? “Wait . . . you’re waiting for the police too? How did you know? I don’t need a lawyer, do I?”
He was still smiling and, like a true Santa Fean, assessing the architecture. “Lovely place. Fabulous ceiling. I love the fireplace. But, no, I hope you don’t need a lawyer or I’ll be double-booked. I’m here for Joseph Topsman. You might know him as Tops. Linda called me. Did you say you have tea?”
That explained who Linda called. Manny would be furious to find his suspect already lawyered up. It didn’t explain why she had called Jake, though. Tops surely didn’t have the money to pay Jake the Strong Defender’s fees. Neither did Linda.
