Invisible

by Lorena McCourtney

  Okay, shot down there. “I’m concerned about the message on my bedroom mirror. It sounds like a threat.”

  “I don’t think you need take it personally. It’s just another vandal thing. I see graffiti showing everything from heads chopped off with machetes to concrete weights attached to feet. Terrorizing is part of their ‘fun.’”

  I outlined the similarity between what was done with the bench in my yard and the uprooting and dragging of gravestones at Country Peace, plus the possible connection to my letter to the editor. “I think there’s at least the possibility that both the threat and damage here are quite personal.”

  Big empty silence. I could almost hear myself being shuffled into the PLOL category. Paranoid Little Old Lady afraid the boogeyman is out to get her.

  “We’ll keep the possibility of the cemetery connection in mind as we continue our investigation,” he said finally. “And you let us know if you have any further problems.”

  *

  I got in touch with the insurance agent who had replaced the agent I’d dealt with for years. Margo Halenstack was young and blond, and both her pale blue suit and figure were trim, her manner brisk, sympathetic, and helpful. Together we itemized damages. As a longtime saver of bits of paper, I still had receipts filed away on the larger items. I hadn’t realized it until then, but the vandals had rummaged around in the box where I kept such papers, along with other old records and income tax returns.

  Margo told me I could purchase replacements for the destroyed furniture and gave me the name of a cleaning service. I called, and they said they could do the work but not until the following Monday. I cleaned up the flour and sugar myself so I could use the kitchen. I also Windexed the closet mirror. I didn’t feel comfortable in the same room with the figure of a woman dangling on the end of a rope.

  I called the hospital Friday morning and found that Dix had been released. When I dialed the apartment he sounded bored and depressed. I baked chocolate chip cookies and went to visit him that afternoon.

  We sat in webbed chairs on his tiny balcony, his cast-covered leg stretched out in front of him, a metal walker beside the chair. I was surprised they were letting him walk already, but he said they were insisting on it, so his muscles wouldn’t atrophy. He gave the walker a look as if he’d like to toss it off the balcony. I put off telling him about the vandalism and instead chattered about my nice visit with DeeAnn and family. I rivaled Tiffany for bubbliness.

  “Tiffany still coming to see you?” I asked finally, since he hadn’t mentioned her and my bubbles were fizzling.

  “No. Well, actually she and Ronnie did come one time.”

  “Ronnie?”

  “Ronnie Hilderman. New guy on the force. He and Tiffany met in my hospital room last week. They kind of hit it off.”

  “But I thought you and Tiffany hit it off.”

  “She’s a great girl, Mrs. M. She really is. But Goldie Hawn and Szechuan Chinese food really aren’t enough to base a relationship on.” He smiled and patted my hand. “Don’t worry. I’m not heartbroken. And Ronnie’s a very nice guy.”

  I wasn’t heartbroken either, but I was definitely disappointed with the negative results of my matchmaking. Although relieved that I hadn’t already crowed to Magnolia about my skills in that area.

  “So, what have you been doing since you got home?” he asked. Before I could answer, he suddenly straightened and leaned toward the metal railing.

  My gaze followed his. A young woman, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail and her slim body in khaki shorts and a T-shirt with printing, had just wheeled into the parking lot on a bicycle. She dismounted and removed a big paper sack from a basket behind the seat.

  “Someone you know?” I asked, since he seemed so interested.

  Dix leaned back in the webbed lounge chair. I sensed pretended indifference. “Haley McAndrews.”

  “Does she live here in the apartment building?”

  “No. We … used to know each other. She saw in the newspaper that I’d been shot. I guess she figured it was her Christian duty to come see me.” He sounded grumpy about it.

  I made the connection. The woman he’d been to church with a “time or two,” the one with whom the breakup had been hostile. A minute later the doorbell rang.

  “Come on in,” Dix yelled. He sounded as welcoming as if she were delivering a sack of overdue bills.

  The young woman set the groceries on the kitchen counter and came out to the balcony. Now I could see what her T-shirt said: “God believes in you even if you don’t believe in him.” The words were written over a rainbow. Dix made introductions. He scowled at the T-shirt.

  “Dix has told me about you,” Haley said. She offered her hand and a nice smile. To Dix she added, “Chicken tonight. With rice and salad.”

  Dix just muttered an ungracious, “Whatever.” To me he added, “My car is stick shift, and I can’t drive it with one leg in a cast. So Haley thinks it’s her duty to chauffeur and feed me.”

  “Her Christian duty.”

  “Whatever.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Haley,” I said.

  We were both standing behind Dix, and Haley rolled her eyes as if she’d like to pick up that sack of groceries and smash it over his head. “I’d just lend him an automatic car if I had one. But I won’t have a car until I get my student loans paid off.”

  I was impressed. A very responsible attitude.

  “Would you like to stay and eat with us?” she added.

  My first instinct was to back off. The tension here felt like the atmosphere in a deadlocked jury room. Then I decided maybe I should stay and act as go-between before they started throwing chicken and rice at each other. “May I help with dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  We left Dix on the balcony. Haley started putting the groceries away. I said, “Dix seems a little …” I paused, trying to think of a suitable word. Ungrateful grump, although accurate, felt a little harsh, so I tried, “Edgy.”

  “His appetite is okay.”

  She pounded the chicken breasts thin and rolled them around slices of ham and Swiss cheese. I made salad and started some biscuits.

  I told her about trying out this different church. She gave me a surprised glance, which told me Dix hadn’t mentioned my Christianity, and said she’d heard good things about Tri-Corners Community. She told me she’d been reading that series of books about the end times, and I said I’d been meaning to start them as soon as I finished the C. S. Lewis book. We smiled at each other in the way of kindred souls who’ve just recognized each other.

  “You work, or go to school … ?”

  “I work at the community college where Dix has been taking classes. I’m assistant librarian at the college library.”

  Oh yes. Kindred souls.

  “So that’s how you met Dix?” I asked.

  She nodded. I hesitated about asking more questions, but then I went with the theory that people expect LOLs to be nosy. “Why did you break up?”

  “We had … philosophical differences.”

  I didn’t need diagrams. She was a Christian, he wasn’t.

  “And you’re visiting and helping Dix strictly as a Christian duty?”

  Frown. “I’m not sure.”

  *

  I offered the blessing before dinner. Dix didn’t comment, but I got the impression he’d waited for it. At least he hadn’t grabbed for food the minute we sat down. Haley and I, in unspoken agreement not to gang up on him, detoured talk about God and church and discussed an upcoming bond election for the community college.

  Eventually I told Dix about the vandalism and the words and drawing on my bedroom mirror. “I mentioned to Officer Larson that all this might be connected to the vandalism at Country Peace, because of the similarity in MO with the bench, but he seemed doubtful. He also said I shouldn’t take the drawing as a personal threat, that vandals often leave threatening graffiti. What do you think?”

  “I can’t say that I’ve dealt w
ith graffiti or vandalism much. But a threat is … a threat. You should take precautions.”

  “I’ve contacted a repairman about installing a new back door with a dead-bolt lock.”

  “Good. You said earlier that you’d seen one of the vandals at Country Peace, a big, brawny guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you describe him more thoroughly?”

  I looked off into the evening dusk over the balcony, and I didn’t have to dig deep to remember that beefy face. I described it slowly. Broad forehead, wide nose, eyes made piggish by folds of flab over the corners. Heavy jaw, thick neck.

  “Shape of face?” Dix asked.

  “Squarish.”

  “Hair?”

  “I don’t know. He was wearing a cap with a visor.”

  I hadn’t realized it while I was describing the face, but Dix had been sketching it with a ballpoint pen as I talked. He handed me the paper napkin, and I stared at it in disbelief. Dix had caught the man as if he’d been right there in the ditch with me.

  “That’s him! Is he someone you’ve seen? Career criminal or something?”

  “No. I just drew what you described.”

  “You learned this in a class?”

  “No. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do.”

  Haley spoke up. “He’d never met my mother, but one time he was picking her up at the airport for me. I described her to him so he could recognize her, and he drew her perfectly.”

  A natural talent for turning words into pictures. “Did you ever think this is something you might do—” I started to say “if you can’t go back to detective work,” but amended it to “in addition to your regular police work? Don’t they often need an artist to sketch a suspect from someone’s description?”

  Dix didn’t respond, though he looked thoughtful, and we went on to dessert.

  After cookies and pecan-fudge ice cream, Haley rinsed dishes and I put them in the dishwasher. Just before leaving, I got bold and said to Dix, “Since we missed our ‘date’ for going to Tri-Corners Community together, how about making it this Sunday? I can pick you up. There’s plenty of room in the car for your cast and walker.”

  After a scowl from Dix, Haley said, “The only way you’re going to get this man into a church is whop him over the head with that walker and drag him.”

  “Shows how much you know,” Dix retorted. To me he added, “Sure, let’s go.”

  20

  Considering Dix’s current attitude, I was undecided whether to anticipate or dread church with him, but I found a nice surprise in another area when I settled down with the newspaper at home.

  The letters to the editor section held a letter from an older gentleman named Will Arleigh. He, too, thanked Mr. Braxton for the offer of a new cemetery site, but he concurred with my suggestion for setting up a fund for restoring the current cemetery. His wife was buried there, and he didn’t want to see her moved. He backed up his preference with the offer of a thousand dollars to whatever organization was willing to take charge.

  A thousand dollars! Now if only some organization was in charge …

  I picked Dix up a half hour early on Sunday morning to allow time for maneuvering him from apartment to car to church pew. He sat on the pew like a frowning stump for most of the service, leg stretched out and one hand curled around the walker in the aisle beside him, but I could see he was paying attention to the message about why even strong Christians sometimes have doubts. Afterwards I talked with one of the deacons about Country Peace, and he expressed real interest in it as a church project and said he’d look into it further. “Although these things move slowly,” he warned. I was just grateful he hadn’t suggested running it up the steeple to see if it rang the bell.

  Dix was silent on the subject of both church and message on the drive home. I suggested dinner out, but he said Haley had come by and put a roast in the oven before she went to church.

  On Monday and Tuesday, the cleaning people came, along with the repairman to replace the back door. I left them to their noisy work and went shopping for new furniture and television. I’d been thinking I might save the pieces of the old bench and try to glue them together, but when I came home that afternoon the cleaning people had taken them. I felt a pang—another tie with Harley lost—but a little later I decided I’d rather keep my memories whole and unbroken than tie them into a cobbled-together bench.

  By Wednesday the house was back in order, smelling of freshly shampooed carpets and new furniture. With my life more or less back in order, I made a decision.

  *

  A decision that at 7:45 the following evening put me on the edge of Clancy, Arkansas. Clancy was some 150 miles beyond where DeeAnn lived, and it had taken me considerably longer to drive there. My back felt stiff, my bottom numb, and my joints stuck in a bent position. I was looking forward to a hot shower and early bedtime in a motel.

  I’d expected a sleepy town rolling up its sidewalks for the night, so I was surprised to find the stores open, sidewalks jammed with people, bluegrass music blasting from an unseen loudspeaker, and the wide main street crowded with cars. A scent of barbecue drifted in the dusty air, and an espresso stand was doing big business. Honking horns combined with friendly yells and whistles when a convertible with three pretty girls sitting above the backseat inched by.

  Off to the left of downtown the upper curve of a Ferris wheel circled lazily, and beyond it another carnival ride whipped a bullet-shaped capsule back and forth as if intent on slinging it into outer space. Even from this distance I could hear the shrieks and screams.

  A big, hand-scrawled sign fastened to a streetlight pole read: “RVers, Free Parking at Simco Industrial Park” with a big, bent arrow pointing the way.

  The lumbering motor home ahead of me turned at the corner, and when I braked at the town’s lone traffic light I saw a banner stretched above the street that explained all this unexpected activity. “Welcome to Clancy’s Meteor Daze” it proclaimed in jumbled-style print, the words surrounded by a dazzle of silvery shooting stars against a background of midnight blue. Now I also saw posters in windows, with more shooting stars.

  Vaguely I remembered reading that August’s annual meteor shower would be best visible this weekend. It had never occurred to me that such a celestial event might impact my visit to little Clancy.

  Yet impacted it was, and severely so, I found out a few minutes later when I tried to rent a room at one of Clancy’s two motels.

  “Oh my, no, we don’t have a vacancy. We’re always booked up weeks ahead for Meteor Daze. Everyone is,” the middle-aged woman announced with complacent cheerfulness. “That’s clever, don’t you think? The play on words, daze and days. Dooley Bingham thought that one up.”

  Good for Dooley. “Where would I have to go to find a motel room, then?”

  “Dulcyburg is twenty miles, but I know for a fact they’re filled up too. Most people come in RVs, you know. Big ol’ motor homes and trailers and fifth-wheels. Some people even camp out in tents.” Another cheerful smile. “Everyone comes for Meteor Daze.”

  “Can’t people see the meteors from, well, anywhere, without coming to Clancy?”

  “Well, I suppose.” She straightened her shoulders, a little huffy now. “But we have the very best views. And it’s a real event here. We have the carnival and Beef Boogie Bingo and a chicken barbecue and a cow-chip throwing contest and a bluegrass festival. Plus a quilt show and flea market, and a rock concert for the kids. A few people even sleep in their cars out there at the industrial park, just so they can be here.”

  “Doesn’t that kind of get in the way of the … uh … industry?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice. The industrial park is four hundred acres, and so far Clancy’s industry is one chicken-processing plant.”

  “Oh. The thing is,” I said, beginning to feel a little desperate, “I didn’t come for the celebration. I didn’t even know about it. I’m here on a … personal matter. A very important personal mat
ter,” I stressed.

  “Well, you might as well enjoy the Daze since you’re here.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the Alexanders, would you?”

  “Al and Marcy? Sure.”

  “This has to do with their daughter, Kendra.”

  “She and my son worked together at the Dairy Queen, before Kendra went off to college. And then, the leukemia taking her like that, so sudden and terrible …” Her look saddened, and she shook her head.

  Well, I was here to investigate. The circumstances did not appear to be ideal, but I figured I may as well start investigating. I pulled my photo of the person I knew as Kendra out of my purse. “Do you know this young woman?”

  The woman shook her head. “Who is she?”

  “Possibly a friend of Kendra’s.” I brought out the photocopy of the young man’s photo. “How about him?”

  Another shake of head. “What’s this all about?”

  I sidestepped the question and asked, “Could you tell me where I might find the Alexanders?”

  “They live over on 11th Street, brick house with a red door. But I doubt you’ll find them home tonight. Al helps with the RV parking, and Marcy is probably setting up the quilt show.”

  “I see. Well, thank you. You’re sure you don’t know of any rooms for rent? Bed and breakfast? Spare closet? Anything?”

  I did my best to look little-old-lady helpless and send a guilt-inducing message. If this was your grandma, wouldn’t you want someone to give her a place to stay?

  No sale. But an unexpected bonus as I opened the door.

  “That girl in the photo? You might talk to Beth Arlow, well, Bigelow now, she and Kendra were really good friends. She works in Doug Marlow’s office. He’s the new lawyer.”

  I drove slowly around the residential area, hoping to see a bed-and-breakfast or room-for-rent sign on a home somewhere. It was a pleasantly old-fashioned small town, wide streets with tree-canopied sidewalks and a mixture of houses from old Victorian to ranch style. There were basketball hoops over garage doors, lawns well-tended but not elaborately manicured. I found 11th Street and a brick house with a red door. Feeling uncomfortably pushy but determined to do what I’d come here for, I rang the doorbell.