In the car, Abby rocked. Sami’s glare wasn’t aimed at me. She bared her teeth. I steeled myself and followed her gaze.
In front of me, Jim. Alive. The wave of relief nearly sent me back to the floor. Breathe. Breathe. The thought came in Abby’s voice, not my own. Jim knelt, not looking at me, but at the ground between us.
I made myself face the thing that didn’t belong, the thing I didn’t want to see. Between us, crumpled on the floor like a discarded rag doll, lay Blevins.
He wouldn’t break any more windows.
The Ceiling Man. I glanced up. No red.
The red was in front of me, not above me. The dark pool edged toward me, a blemish on the once spotless floor. Evelyn’s not going to be happy. I swallowed the acid in my throat. I will not be sick.
“Jim?” He didn’t look up from Blevins.
Dead Blevins.
Abby pushed him. Impossible.
Jim is here. Shouting. He opens the back door of the car—I see his mouth move, but the white noise in my head drowns out his words.
The wind howling. Yelling. Sami barking. Jim grabbing Blevins, pulling him out of the car. Blevins laughing.
Different laughter. Another man.
I hadn’t seen another man. If he was still there, he was hiding.
“Jim. There’s another one.”
“No, there’s not.” His eyes held mine a little too long.
I didn’t know how Blevins ended up on the floor, broken. I didn’t know why he was in the garage in the first place. I didn’t know where the pool of red came from. Most of all, I didn’t know if what I’d seen was real.
“What happened?” I didn’t want to know, but I needed to know.
“You saw it.”
Abby pushed Blevins. She killed him.
“No.” I addressed both Jim and the nagging voice in my head. The crazy voice.
The ice and steel in Jim’s eyes weren’t directed at me. It’s his cop face. That’s all.
“Yes, you did.”
Think.
Jim hits Blevins. Blevins laughs, and Jim hits him again. Why doesn’t Blevins go down? Blevins puts his hands on Jim’s neck.
Abby screaming—no, singing.
“POP goes the weasel!”
A flash of light, an explosion.
Blevins in the air.
Blevins bounces off the wall and lands on the floor.
It isn’t possible but it’s true.
“You saw it,” Jim said. “He attacked me. I knocked him down. He hit his head.”
Pop goes the weasel. Blevins in the air.
No. Jim’s explanation was possible, so it must be true.
“Is he going to be all right?” I asked, but I wanted Blevins dead. I wanted confirmation. Most of all, I wanted Jim to reassure me, to drive out the impossible scene playing over and over and over in my head.
Jim stood. Dark stains covered his pant legs. Red. Blood. Blevins’s blood.
Abby killed him. Abby killed him. The sing-song thought taunted me. The harder I tried to block it out, the louder it trilled.
“He’s gone,” Jim said.
Abby stopped her wailing. “The Woodsman is gone,” she said.
Blevins was dead. He couldn’t hurt us.
“Carole?” Jim held out his hand, stained to match his pants.
I shook my head and got up on my own.
“Take Abby in the house. You don’t need to look at that,” he said.
The compulsion to look was intense, and Jim’s attempt to shield me made it worse. I had to take it in, to make sense of what I’d seen. What I thought I saw.
It is not possible but it is true.
Blevins sprawled on his back, arms and legs akimbo. Heads don’t attach to bodies at that angle. The dark trickle at the corner of his mouth didn’t account for the widening puddle of red.
A wide rake—not a broom-like leaf rake, but a steel-tined garden rake—lay in the middle of the dark halo. The empty hook. The tines pointed upwards. In the center, Blevins’s head. Impaled.
Jim took my arm. I imagined his bloody handprint eating through my sleeve, burning my skin, entering me. I swayed, but Jim caught me before I fell.
“How. . .what. . .” I couldn’t find the words.
“Karma,” Jim said, grim. Predatory.
Involuntarily, I jerked from his grasp.
“You’re safe. Abby’s safe,” he said.
The Woodsman is gone.
“I’m just—cold.” My teeth chattered. The imprint of Jim’s touch burned like acid on my arm. Blevins’s blood. We are all stained.
“Shock,” he said. “You need to take Abby inside. I’ll be in in a minute.”
In the car, Abby no longer rocked. Her stony face gave no clue whether her hard eyes were the result of fear or fury.
Abby did it.
It is not possible but it is true.
For a second, I was afraid of my daughter.
“Time to go in,” Jim said.
Abby’s expression didn’t change. Sami snarled.
“It’s safe now. You can get out of the car,” I said.
“It is not safe,” she said. “The Woodsman is gone.”
“I’m here,” Jim said. “Come on, honey. Time to get out of the car.” He reached for Abby, and Sami leapt.
Abby screamed, and Sami bounced off Jim and hit the floor.
Blevins bounces off the wall and lands on the floor.
It isn’t possible but it’s true.
“Fucking dog!” Jim collapsed against the side of the car. His arm torn, his blood mixed with Blevins’s.
Dirt and pennies.
Abby put her hands to her ears. “Help is coming,” she said.
Sirens screamed in the distance and grew louder. Nearer. Evelyn must have called 911.
“I hate red.” Abby wasn’t talking about the blood. The lights at the end of the driveway flashed red. Township, not city. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to wonder if Jim was in the car. My automatic—normal—reaction comforted me.
“The lights should stop now. They hurt my eyes,” Abby said.
All I saw through the blowing snow was the strobe of cherry lights as a second, a third, a fourth vehicle pulled up and stopped. They really called out the troops. I wondered if one was an ambulance. Blevins was beyond help.
“They should help Sami,” Abby said.
The dog lifted her head and whimpered at her name, but didn’t get to her feet.
“I think your dad needs some help.”
“I’m good,” Jim said.
“He is not good.” Abby was out of the car. “It is still Code Red Hostile Intruder Alert and we are not safe.” She sat down next to her dog.
“Daddy took care of the bad man, and the police are here. We are safe.” The sirens stopped, but the red lights were all I’d seen of the police. What was taking them so long?
“No. It is still Code Red.” Abby took Sami’s head into her lap.
I knelt and put my arm around her shoulders. She jerked away. Sami bared her teeth and growled.
“On the ground! Face down! Arms straight out to your sides!” The garage filled with blinding light, but I understood. Police, with flashlights. And guns.
“Abby, it’s the police. Do exactly what they say,” I whispered.
“Shit,” Jim said.
“The Woodsman cannot help us anymore,” Abby said.
[48]
Carole
THE GARAGE SWARMED WITH POLICE.
We stood outside in the still raging blizzard and answered questions. Abby cocooned herself in Livvy’s quilt, its bright fabric muted beneath a layer of wet snow, and refused to—or couldn’t—speak. Between the wind and the wet, I was frozen to the core, and between the shivering and the shaking, I could barely squeeze out answers. Jim asked the cops to take Abby and me into the house.
“I think we can finish this inside,” one of them said.
A mute nod was all I could muster, but I was grateful to
Jim for suggesting it and to the officer for agreeing. Township or city, they were all cops and knew each other.
Three uniformed cops escorted us inside. I didn’t know any of them. Jim stayed outside, taking the police through what happened. He was one of them. They would believe what he told them.
He would protect his daughter.
“He attacked me. I knocked him down. He hit his head.” I tried to convince myself Jim’s words were true.
“A few more questions and we’ll have you write out your statements and leave you alone,” the cop in charge said. His name was Gillespie.
“The Woodsman is gone.” Abby clung to me.
“Daddy is fine,” I said. “He’ll be in soon.”
“No. He is gone.” She buried her face in my shoulder.
“He’s fine. Remember, he’s the Woodsman.”
“Not anymore,” she said, bereft.
“Can we do this later?” I asked Gillespie.
“The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be done.”
I could have made a fuss and refused to let them talk to Abby alone and probably gotten away with it, but I wasn’t sure what Gillespie would ask me. I wasn’t sure I wanted Abby to hear my answers. I compromised and let them separate us, but insisted we be able to see each other. Abby and a woman officer named Weber went to the dining room. Gillespie stuck with me.
In the living room, I sat on the couch wrapped in an afghan. Gillespie remained standing.
“This won’t take long.” He was kind, but I knew he was lying.
Jim would say it’ll take as long as it takes. As far as I was concerned, it was already taking too long.
“How did the rake end up on the floor?”
“I don’t know. It may have been there when we went in. I didn’t notice.”
I couldn’t get warm. The scene outside seeped into the living room. The whine of vehicles coming and going merged with the sound of the wind. No sirens, but their red lights flashed through the sheer curtains and lit up the room. Like Abby, I’d come to hate red.
Evelyn and her interrogator were in the kitchen, and the smell of coffee drifted through the house. I wondered if they’d taken Blevins’s body away. I hoped so. Even dead, I didn’t want him anywhere near us.
Abby shredded a piece of paper and stared at me while she answered questions. Abby’s stare could mean so many things, and I wasn’t sure what this one meant, but I assumed she was answering. Weber kept her voice soft and low, and Abby matched her tone. Their murmurs reached me, but not their words.
I knew Abby’s story would be exactly what she’d seen, if she’d seen anything, and I was sure Weber would dismiss it. She’d assume Abby was incompetent or crazy. If I told Gillespie what I saw, he’d assume I was incompetent or crazy or high.
I hoped Abby would just answer Idunno and refuse to talk and wished I could do the same.
I kept my story simple. Believable.
“Blevins attacked Jim. Jim knocked him down.” I wanted to believe Jim, so I repeated his story and hoped Gillespie believed me.
“What?” I’d drifted off and missed something Gillespie said.
“We’re just going to go over this once more. What did you see when you entered the garage?”
Abby shifted her gaze from me to Weber, her eyes narrow and her mouth shut tight. I recognized the expression. She was pissed.
“I really should be with her.”
“As soon as we’re done here. She’ll be fine,” Gillespie said.
He asked me the same questions over and over.
I gave the same answers over and over.
“Why would Blevins be in your garage?”
“How would I know? And it’s not my garage. It’s my mother-in-law’s.”
“Did he have a weapon?”
“I didn’t see one.”
“Has he bothered you before?” Gillespie threw in a new question.
“He used to come into the downtown Senior Center. I work there. Worked there.”
“Other than that?”
I hesitated. “I think he was there when our house burned down. I’m not sure it was him. There were a lot of people around.”
“When was that?”
I had to stop and think. “The night before last.” An eternity ago.
“Why were you outside?”
“I was taking Abby and going to my parents.”
“Why?”
“With all the crap going on around here, don’t you want to leave?”
Gillespie didn’t answer my question. He kept on with his. Where were you standing? Where was your daughter? What brought your husband to the garage?
I longed to pull an Abby and end the conversation with an Idunno. Or start yelling and screaming.
I did neither. I stuck to short simple answers. Just the facts, Ma’am. I wasn’t standing. I was on the floor. I didn’t know how I ended up there. Maybe I had a panic attack. Maybe I’d blacked out for a few seconds or minutes. Time was fuzzy.
I left out the other voice, the one I’d heard in my head.
I didn’t tell Gillespie about the flash of thunder and lightning that filled the garage. The thunder and lightning I’d felt, not heard or seen. Had Jim felt the same thing, or was it only in my head?
“Pop goes the weasel,” Abby sang in the other room, loud and off key as ever.
Blevins in the air. He hits the wall. The garage shakes. Blevins on the floor in a pool of blood. Silence, until Abby wails.
“Daddy was the Woodsman.” Abby’s Fast Voice. Not a good sign.
“I need to be with her.”
“We’re almost done here. Do you think you could write out your statement? Just put down everything you’ve told me.” Gillespie’s question wasn’t a request. It was an order. He handed me a clipboard and a pen.
“Hey. Can she write a statement?” Weber directed the question to me, but Abby answered.
“I am not stupid. I am autistic.” Abby was defiant, more fed up than pissed.
“There you go,” I said. We’ll get through this.
“I have very neat handwriting,” Abby said.
“That’ll be a change from the usual.” The corners of Gillespie’s mouth twitched.
“Don’t laugh,” I said. “Her handwriting’s better than mine.”
“I have a nephew a lot like Abby. Weber’s going to get schooled if she isn’t careful.”
I liked Gillespie. Weber, not so much, but I wanted them both gone.
I wrote everything, from the time Abby and I found Blevins in the garage to the time the cops arrived. Almost everything.
“He attacked me. I knocked him down. He hit his head.” If I wrote down Jim’s story, maybe it would become the truth.
I read my statement, decided spelling didn’t count, signed the form, and handed it to Gillespie.
“Am I done?”
“For the time being,” he said.
He followed me to the dining room. Abby handed her statement to Weber.
“Officer Weber said I should write everything that is true,” Abby said, “so I made a list. It is not as good as Devon’s lists, but it is true. I do not think Officer Weber believes me.”
I told her I was sure whatever she wrote was fine.
“This is my list,” she said. “One. Daddy was the Woodsman.”
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Weber said. She handed Abby’s statement form to Gillespie.
“Two. The Woodsman tried to save me.”
“She’s been stuck on a couple of fairy tales lately,” I said.
“Three. The Ceiling Man is dead.”
“Who is the Ceiling Man?” Gillespie said.
“Four. The Ceiling Man is not gone.”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Five. The Woodsman is gone.”
[49]
Abby
MY LIST IS NOT A lie but I do not think it is the truth.
My mom says, “Abby, sometimes leaving things out make
s the truth act like a lie.”
I do not think the truth should act like a lie. My list is the truth but I think if I do not leave things out Officer Weber will think it is a lie. I think maybe she thinks I am stupid and I think I bother her.
Daddy says, “Ignore those silly people. They see what they want to see and nothing else. It’s their problem, not yours.”
Officer Weber is a policeman even if she is not a man. Policemen are not supposed to be silly people. I do not think Officer Weber likes me.
Daddy is a policeman. Daddy is the Woodsman. The Woodsman is gone.
I think if I tell Officer Weber the Ceiling Man hurts my dad and I am Abby in a Box and my spring is too tight and I do not have a meltdown instead I go POP and the man in the backseat is dead on the floor and the Woodsman goes away but the Ceiling Man does not, she will not believe me.
I do not think Officer Weber can keep us safe even if I do not leave things out.
“It’s a very good list,” my mom says.
“I do not like the spring and I do not like to go POP.” I hear my Fast Voice.
“Abby, breathe. It’s a good list, and we’re safe now,” my mom says.
I think it is an okay list but I think my mom is wrong. We are not safe now. Maybe we are not safe ever.
I do not want my mom to be wrong.
Officer Weber shakes her head. I do not know if her head-shake means, “No, it is not a good list” or “No, we are not safe now” or something that I do not understand. Head-shakes are slippery. I want to tell Officer Weber to use her words but I do not because it might be disrespectful and rude.
Adults do not like it when I tell them to use their words. Except my mom and Daddy. They laugh when I tell them to use their words. I want my mom to laugh and I want her to be not wrong but I do not tell her to use her words.
“She didn’t see anything,” my mom says. “She was in the car, and I didn’t want her to see the—the thing on the floor.”
My mom is wrong. I see the thing on the floor. The thing on the floor is broken and red. The thing on the floor is the man in the backseat. The thing on the floor is the man my mom calls Blevins. I think he is dead and I think it is my fault. People who make people dead are bad people and are in trouble. I do not want to be in trouble.
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