Catwalk

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  We all went back to gathering the final lengths of wood, and Alberta suggested we go warm up for a few minutes and come back with a couple of rakes to finish up. She got no argument from me. I wasn’t really cold, but I could stand to visit the bathroom after all that liquid lunch and time out here. As we walked toward the slope to Alberta’s driveway, we saw someone dragging a little red wagon loaded with bags of something. Cat food?

  “I haven’t seen a sign of a cat since we got here,” I said.

  Hutchinson said, “They hid in the bushes by the building, and in the plants along the fence, last time. And I guess under people’s decks and sheds.”

  “They’ll come out for dinner,” said Alberta.

  The approaching wagon squeaked and clanked over the ground, uneven now from heaving after a few nights of freezing temperatures, and the figure pulling it looked up. “Giselle,” I said.

  Alberta suggested she leave the wagon and join us for a few minutes, so she fell into step with the group. “I didn’t do it, you know.” Her lower lip stuck out and her arms folded across her chest. She glanced at Hutchinson. He nodded at her but didn’t say anything, so Giselle said, “A lot of people touched that pooper-scooper.”

  A police cruiser drove slowly by, and Hutchinson waved. “They’re still looking for that kid, that Rudy Sweetwater.”

  Hutchinson’s words registered as if in the background. I was remembering again Giselle’s story about hitting something with the pooper-scooper, hitting over and over and over. What was it she had said? “It was like a red veil fell over me.” I had to ask.

  “Giselle, do you remember telling me about hitting something, not being able to stop?” She stared at me. “What were you hitting?”

  Her eyes went wide and she seemed to have trouble finding her voice. Finally she said, “The ground. I was picking up after Precious, and I was so angry, and I called him a piece of shit, I mean, Rasmussen, not Precious, and then instead of picking up the poop I hit it, and then I just kept hitting it, and first I heard the handle crack and my arms were tingling and I just …” She took a long breath, and her voice was closer to a normal tone when she spoke again. “I felt a lot better then.”

  “So you threw it away?”

  “Huh? No, it was just cracked. I figured Jorge would fix it when he found it. I just leaned it against the garbage can.”

  I believed her. I had no idea whether Hutchinson did, but he was kind enough to say, “Keep the faith. We’ll figure it out.”

  We spent about ten minutes warming up with coffee and chocolate chip cookies. My sinuses felt a lot better after I blew my nose. We all had a quick peek at the kittens, and promised to come back for a little playtime before we left. I stepped out onto Alberta’s deck to wait for the others. I pulled my phone out and stared at it, burning to hear Tom’s voice, but he needed this time with his son and he had said he would call later. I put it back in my pocket.

  A light breeze was breaking through the earlier stillness, and with it came the faint scent of something burning. Probably leaves, although it was late in the season and I wasn’t sure a neighborhood like The Rapids of Aspen Grove would allow burning. Maybe a fireplace, or drift from beyond the subdivision. I thought I saw something moving near the clubhouse. A large black dog, maybe? I got just a glimpse before it disappeared behind the building.

  Another thread of air brought a stronger trace of smoke and a hint of charcoal starter. For a split second I didn’t think much of it, but smells are memory triggers and my memory jumped to the image of flames leaping over the top of my van, and I suddenly felt very cold in spite of my many layers.

  I went back inside to see if they were about ready. We were, as my film professor used to say, burning daylight. Hutchinson was on the phone and mouthed, “Just a minute.” Alberta said Giselle was in the bathroom and she’d wait for her. I went out the back door and stepped off the deck. A flock of perhaps thirty starlings flushed from a pair of pin oaks off to my right, and I heard an oddly familiar sound that I couldn’t place. A sort of whoosh.

  fifty-five

  The gate at the side of Alberta’s house was shaded by an arbor and the latch had never thawed from the overnight freeze. I kicked the gate free, and had to clear the ice that dropped into the latch mechanism before I could re-latch it. I hadn’t noticed how slick the downward slope was earlier. The grass crunched beneath my boots, and the inside of my nose pinched. Getting colder, I thought. The breeze was mostly not there, just a whisper now and then from somewhere just left of my trajectory. A thin gray line rose from the back of the clubhouse, as if someone had run a giant pencil through the steely sky.

  For a moment I wondered whether I could sneak into the club house and sit by the fireplace for a few minutes. I pictured myself ensconced in a large leather club chair, feet on a matching hassock, a book in one hand and hot brandy in the other. You gotta lay off those cold pills, my little voice said. I walked a tad faster, gloved hand in my pockets and shoulders hunched. It was definitely getting colder.

  As I passed the sprawl of shrubbery at the end of the clubhouse, the breeze caught me full in the face and the dual scents it carried nearly bowled me over. Smoke. The throat-clutch of petroleum distillates. As I rounded the clubhouse, a wave of heat hit my face and I jittered to a stop. I sensed movement to my right, but the scene to my left had my full attention. The straw bales along the back of the clubhouse were topped by a thin line of flames that grew taller as I watched, rising like living things from the dry line of fuel beneath them.

  The stink of charcoal lighter fluid hit me with the double whammy of instant migraine and wrenching nausea. At first I thought it came from the straw bales, but knew it shouldn’t be so strong since it was already burning. Then I heard another whoosh, closer and louder this time, followed by a long wail that sent a needle of fear straight to my heart. I spun around.

  Two more fires. The broken two-by-fours we had stacked earlier were blanketed by a sheet of blue and orange flame. Just beyond them another fire seemed to dance on the air a few feet above the ground. It moved this way, then the other, so bright against the background of dark, distant trees that at first I couldn’t make out anything but the fire itself.

  And then it started to scream.

  Someone—or something—was on fire. I started to run, pulling my coat off and screaming, “Lie down! Lie down and roll!” The screaming figure spun around, and I saw that for the moment it was just a sleeve on fire. “Lie down!” I was almost there, my coat held in front of me to wrap around that terrible arm and smother the fire. Thirty feet and closing.

  Suddenly there were voices everywhere. The screaming figure in front of me. Voices behind me yelling, “Don’t run!” and “Roll on the ground!” and “Oh my God!” A police cruiser slammed over the curb and onto the far end of the wide stretch of lawn behind the clubhouse. It spun sideways into a stop and two officers jumped out and ran. One of them carried a blanket, the other something red. Fire extinguisher.

  “Get it off me!” The voice came out like a rusted hinge. Its owner dropped to the grass, pulling the zipper open on the burning jacket. The first cop arrived, his own jacket in his hands. He used it to smother the flames, and the screaming turned into a moan. The police officer pulled his own jacket away, looked at the charred sleeve, and asked, “Are you burned?”

  “It hurts!” said a voice I thought I knew, although the police officer blocked my view of its owner.

  “Help us here!” I spun toward the voice and froze for a moment. The straw bales were engulfed in flames, and burning bits of straw rose here and there on the breeze. Then a few more, and the whole thing seemed to take on a life of its own. The flames changed shape, growing longer, hungrier. They found no fuel in the limestone wall of the clubhouse, so they reached for the roof. More burning bits rose and landed like so many matches. Tiny flames began to appear here and there on the roof.

  Ne
w screeching spun me back around. The sounds coming from the figure on the ground had changed. The pure terror was gone, replaced by raw rage and something like despair. Someone else was screaming, too, off to the side. Then I realized I knew those faces, the screaming woman and the one holding her back. Candace Sweetwater, her face twisted and wet, trying to free herself from Sally Foster’s embrace.

  Sally let her go, and Candace ran to the little group on the ground. Behind me, I heard more yelling, and turned to see a crowd of people emerging around the side of the clubhouse. They must be evacuating the place through the front door, and the more curious members came to see what was happening. Hutchinson sprayed the straw bales with an extinguisher. It helped for a moment, but ran out of juice before the fire was out.

  “Get back!” I yelled, and when he looked at me I pointed to the roof. The near edge was on fire now, and burning leaves were beginning to rain down from the gutters.

  Sirens. Lots of them. A fire truck screeched to a stop by the hydrant at the street and a half-dozen firefighters got to work. Two more police cruisers arrived, and an ambulance.

  I stepped closer to the group. Candace Sweetwater knelt beside Jim Fong, the police officer who had rolled her son in a blanket. Someone had pulled the boy’s ever-present hoody partway off, exposing his face, which seemed to be cycling through a kaleidoscope of emotions. Candace reached to touch him, and Rudy Sweetwater screamed again.

  “Don’t you touch me!”

  “But why? Why, Rudy?” Candace’s voice was thin, as if the life had been pinched out of it.

  “You know why!” Rudy let out another scream as Jim Fong’s partner made room for the EMT, then glared at his mother, the look made demonic by the flames reflected in his eyes.

  Candace sobbed.

  The EMT tried to open Rudy’s mouth to check his airways, but the boy waved him off. “It’s just my arm!” Then he looked at his mother and screeched, “I hate you! You should have taken his money when you had the cha …” His words ended in a stream of four-letter words as the EMTs unwrapped the jacket to see Rudy’s arm.

  Alberta pressed up against me and we turned to watch the firefighters. They had all but extinguished the fire, and I heard the guy who seemed to be in charge tell a couple of them to go inside and check for hot spots. “Unbelievable,” said Alberta.

  “All you care … about is … your damn … dog … those stupid cats,” Rudy said, flinching as the EMT cut the sleeve off the boy’s hoody. “And … that horrible … man!” He seemed to rally on the last part. Rage is a powerful painkiller.

  “What are you talking about?” asked his mother.

  He stopped speaking as the EMTs shifted him onto the gurney, and my thoughts leaped to what Marietta had said about what Jorge had seen. Rasmussen on the agility course in the dark. Rasmussen talking to someone out there. Someone running in the dark a few minutes later. Had that been Rudy Sweetwater? Was he the killer?

  I stepped closer to the gurney. “Rudy, did you kill Charles Rasmussen?”

  The EMTs and Officer Fong all stared at me, and Candace wheeled and said, “How dare you!”

  “Shut up, Mom,” Rudy screeched, his voice like an open wound. “I didn’t mean to. I told him he should think about the things he does to people. He wrecked my life.” Tears popped out of his eyes, but his voice got stronger. “He stole my mom’s business and she lost all that money and …” He gasped as the EMT strapped him in. “He was a bad man. They tell us to stop bullies in school. Well, he was a bully. He was chasing a little cat out there, chasing her and yelling at her, when I first saw him.” He stopped and his whole face seemed to clench. Then he went on. “I told him to stop that, and he shoved me. He shoved me and called me a little shit.”

  The EMTs started to wheel the gurney toward the ambulance, but Rudy stopped them. “The second time he shoved me, I tripped and fell, and he laughed.” Rudy was starting to cry. “He laughed and said some things about you …” He looked at his mother, and I could only imagine what Rasmussen must have said about her. “I was leaving, but I saw a scoop by a garbage can outside the ring, and I just … I picked it up and I ran up behind him and I hit him.” Tears were running down his cheeks now. I felt Hutchinson move in next to me, but kept my eyes on Rudy. “He sort of stumbled when I hit him, and he started to bleed, and I hit him again. But,” he said, “I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to hurt him.” Rudy got control of himself, but his face was pale and pinched. “He turned around and said he was going to ‘skin me alive,’ and I ran.”

  “So he was on his feet? You didn’t knock him down?” I asked.

  Rudy shook his head. “But that really made me mad,” he said, glancing at the ashy mess he had created, and with a chilling calm that belied his emotional story.

  “And he was okay when you left?” asked Hutchinson, his voice calm.

  Rudy laughed, then moaned. “No. I ran, but then I heard a noise behind me and heard him make this weird oomph sound, and I turned to see. That little cat was there, off to the side, and the douchebag was on the ground next to the pause table,” said Rudy.

  Hadn’t Hutchinson said they’d found cat hair on Rasmussen’s pants?

  “He tried to get up, but I guess he hit his head.” He laughed again, and said, “It was funny. The cat sort of looked at him and looked at me and then meowed and left.”

  “We need to go,” said the EMT at the back of the gurney, and they began to roll it toward the ambulance.

  Rudy was still talking, and Hutchinson and I followed, along with Candace. “He got to his hands and knees, and just sort of stayed there, swaying around. So I left.”

  I said, “Rudy, the pooper-scooper….You hurt him, but those blows didn’t kill him.”

  “Jeez,” said Hutchinson, very softly so that only I heard him. “The cat killed him.”

  We both stopped walking and stared at each other. But I had a couple more questions, and ran to catch up. “Rudy, did you send the fake bomb to Alberta’s house?”

  He tried to grin, but the pain on his face created a creepy smirk. “Yeah. Wish I could have seen her face when she opened it.”

  “Why threaten Alberta?”

  He shrugged. “Lots of people were mad at her, so I figured it would be fun.”

  “But why wreck the cat shelters?” I asked.

  “I didn’t do that,” he said.

  “But then why set them on fire?”

  His whole face relaxed and his expression went blank. He looked at his mother, and at Alberta, and back at me. He shrugged and said, “Why not?”

  fifty-six

  Tom had left a message on my cell phone sometime during the melee at the clubhouse, but I didn’t see it until I emptied my pockets pre-shower at home. By then, I had just over an hour to make myself presentable and meet him and Tommy at Paula’s on Main. I had no idea what dinner would be, but I had half a mind to order the key lime pie for an appetizer. That and tee martunis should fix me right up.

  Goldie had come running over the moment I pulled into my driveway, and I’d given her the synopsis. When I told her I had more on my evening agenda, she pushed me toward the bathroom and said, “Go, go. I’ll feed the boys.” And, once I gave them a group hug, she had done just that. She’d been sitting at the kitchen table when I re-emerged, Jay’s head on her lap and Leo on the table, his leg dangling and, every few seconds, tickling Jay’s ear.

  “Hey, you still know how to clean up good,” she said, looking me up and down. “I haven’t see you in a skirt since … since …”

  I fastened the second silver hoop into my ear and said, “My hair okay?”

  “Everything’s gorgeous,” she said. “But don’t let me be the judge of that. Get going!”

  It wasn’t quite raining, but a fine mist called for the wipers, and it took me a minute to find the switch in the rental. I was getting a little tired of being
without my own van, scratches, pet fur, coffee stains, and all.

  The host was checking names to find the table when I felt an arm around me. “I’ll take it from here,” said Tom. He wrapped me up in a hug and whispered, “You really have to stop getting into these situations, Janet.” He backed off and looked into my eyes, and I thought my heart might stop. “I don’t know what I’d do …”

  The host was gaping at us, but I didn’t care. “It wasn’t, I mean, I wasn’t in any danger,” I said. Unless you call proximity to a firebug with accelerants a danger.

  “Liar,” he said. “Come on.” He took my hand and led me to a table at the back of the restaurant.

  “Janet,” said the young man, rising. He was a good three inches taller than his father, and had the same warm, firm way of folding my hand into his. His coloring was entirely different—blonde, blue eyes—but he had Tom’s grin that suggested trouble on the way. “I’m so glad to finally get to meet you.” Whatever jitters I’d had about meeting the family, which consisted of this one young man, dissolved.

  Conversation worked its way backward in time, beginning with the afternoon’s fiery events. “He’s not badly burned,” I said. “I guess he managed to pull his hand up into the sleeve. He needed treatment, but it could have been much worse.”

  “So if that Rudy kid didn’t break Alberta’s window, who did?” asked Tommy.

  “Harry, the cranky birder who created a scene at Alberta’s TNR booth,” I said. “He was wearing a Callaway t-shirt, and the ball that broke the window was a Callaway. I told Hutchinson about the shirt, and the police followed up.”

  “That’s pretty extreme,” said Tommy.

  “I guess he caved in when they showed up at his house. He admitted to hitting the ball through the window and to dismantling the cat shelter and breaking up the wood.”

  “Crazy,” said Tom. He changed the subject then to a recap of Leo’s competitive debut, and I could tell two things about Tommy. First, he’d already heard it at least once, and second, he didn’t mind at all. “I hope I get to meet Leo and Jay before I leave,” he said.