by Sam Reaves
Abby managed not to trip over the cord. “Nice night to be outside,” she said.
Ned looked up at her. “Yeah. Want to sit for a while? I just have to wrap up this e-mail.”
“Thanks.” Abby lowered herself onto a chair. The steps would be negotiable even with a mild buzz, but at the bottom there was nothing but an empty apartment. The crickets were in full voice and the night was sultry. She watched Ned pecking at the laptop, his face lit from below, concentrating with a mild frown. After a while his expression eased and he sat back. “Sorry. Dealing with a minor crisis in Angola. Want something to drink?”
“No, I’m good, thanks.” Abby blinked at him. “I thought you were retired.”
“More like between jobs, but yeah. This is sort of a hobby.”
“What kind of hobby involves a crisis in Angola?”
Ned let a few seconds pass before answering. “I do some volunteer work for an agency that runs demining operations in various places.”
“Demining? What, like filling in mines?” Abby knew the drink was making her stupid.
In the light from the laptop she could just make out his smile. “No. Clearing land mines. Angola has millions of land mines left over from their civil war. People out in the bush step on them all the time. It’s going to take decades to get rid of them all. Probably never get them all, in fact. But you have to try.”
People surprise you, Abby thought. “How did you get involved in that?”
“Just contacts, networking. I wanted to do something.” He looked at her and smiled again. “Call it atonement.”
Abby sat nodding stupidly. “You told me you were an expert in guilt because you’d been on both sides. But you only told me about somebody else hurting you. You didn’t tell me about the other side.” Ned just sat peering at her, and instantly Abby was appalled. “I’m sorry. I’ve been out drinking with Lisa Beth and I’m drunk. Forget I said that.”
He laughed gently. “That’s OK. I brought it up. I guess I owe you the rest of it.”
“Not if you’d rather not. Just forget it.”
A few seconds went by and Abby had decided he was going to forget it when he said, “I did a little work for a government agency out there. One of the ones that are kind of publicity shy. And that’s about all I can tell you, because they made me promise not to talk about it. But it wasn’t always pretty.”
“I see.” Abby nodded. “Ruth Herzler told me there was a rumor you were in the CIA.”
After a moment Ned said, “That’s not true. I can tell you that. And I can tell you that when I was in the Congo there was a terrible war going on that nobody outside Africa ever heard much about. Suffering on a massive scale. But we needed their coltan for our laptops and our cell phones, so the mining companies cut deals with some pretty nasty people to keep the mines going. And that’s what I did. And that put me in position to be what those government agencies call an asset. At first it was an adventure and then it was just a job. I did it as long as I could stand it and then I finally quit. And that really is all I can tell you about it.”
Abby sat contemplating the spinning of her head. “But you’re atoning.”
“Giving it a shot.” Abby could just make out his mild frown in the light from the computer. His eyes went out into the night and he said, “Too many times in my life I’ve been in situations where I could have made a stand and maybe stopped something bad. But I settled for just stepping out, not participating. That was better than going along, I guess. But it’s not much to be proud of.”
Abby leaned forward, hands on the arms of the chair. “I should go to bed. I’ve had a busy day. I drove another would-be suitor to suicide today. This one botched the attempt, thank God.”
“Say what?” Ned slowly reached out and closed the laptop, leaving his face in darkness.
“A kid in my class. He was infatuated, borderline stalking me. I sicced the dean on him and he tried to kill himself.”
They exchanged a long look in the scant light from distant lamps. “Not your fault,” said Ned. “Really, really not your fault. This is one you just wipe off your shoe. I mean it, Abby. These tormented waifs have no claim on you. None at all.”
She nodded a few times. “Thank you. It helps to hear it. Still. It’s not a nice thing to go through.” Abby sat listening to the crickets buzzing away in the dark. She stood up, a little uncertainly. “All right, bedtime.”
“You OK to go down those steps?”
“I think so. I think between jail and the hospital all the potential stalkers are accounted for tonight. Maybe just listen for screams till I’m inside.”
The light on the eaves went on as Abby stepped off the porch. She went down the steps very carefully, concentrating on the placement of her feet. At the bottom she stepped onto the grass, reaching into her purse for her keys. Movement in the brightly lit yard drew her eye and she stopped in her tracks.
A raccoon, unmistakable with its black mask and striped tail, was pawing at something in the middle of the lawn. It was a plastic shopping bag, knotted at the top. The raccoon had torn the plastic and was reaching in to scoop out little bits of something red, taking them to its mouth. Whatever was inside the bag appeared to be about the size and shape of a soccer ball.
Abby staggered a little. “Ned?” She retreated to the foot of the steps, calling out again. “Ned?”
She looked up to see him standing there. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I’m being stupid. Could you come look at this? There’s a raccoon.”
“He won’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that.”
He caught her tone of voice, and he came trotting down the steps. He stopped at the corner of the yard and looked. The raccoon paused and looked up. Ned picked up a stick and hurled it. The animal scuttled off into the brush at the top of the slope.
“What’s in the bag?” Abby could barely find her voice.
Ned walked slowly across the lawn in the glare from the light on the eaves. He bent down, pulled at the shredded plastic, was motionless for a moment, then, somewhat gingerly, picked it up with both hands, holding it away from his body as it dripped a little onto the grass.
“Oh, God, what is it?”
Ned smiled at her. “About half a watermelon. The Schwartzes were having a picnic in their yard this afternoon. They must have overlooked this when they cleaned up.” He turned toward the woods, wound up, and slung the bag out into the darkness. They listened as it whiffed through foliage and thumped into the brush down by the stream. “Nice snack for a raccoon.” He came back toward the steps.
There was a moment of suspension and then Abby laughed. She laughed so hard she reeled, nearly losing her balance. “Easy there,” said Ned reaching for her. She caught his hand and pulled and suddenly she was in his arms, and for a moment she wanted to stay there; there was nothing she wanted more in the world than to stay there being held by someone who cared about her, because the last person who had held her because he cared about her had been dead for more than a year.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away, not sure how long they had been embracing. A couple of seconds, she thought. Only a second or two, she fervently hoped in her drunkenness.
“You OK?” He let her go, a hand trailing on her arm.
“I’m all right,” she said, steadying and making for her door. “My imagination got the best of me there for a second. Good night.”
She looked back as she got her door open to see Ned standing there, watching her with a grave look.
The deck behind Tina and Steven Stanley’s house had a view of a patch of ill-tended lawn, a stretch of privet hedge lined by flower beds and a garage with peeling white paint, all benignly shaded by a giant elm. To Abby it looked like heaven.
“You can get so much more house for the money in a town like this,” said Tina, baby on her hip and wineglass in hand. “We could never have afforded something this big in LA or Madison.”
“The only problem is tha
t you have to live in Lewisburg,” said her husband, bringing a tray of hamburger patties up from the grill. That brought a knowing laugh from the crowd on the deck, seated at the table or leaning against the rail, a miscellaneous assemblage of men and women some years shy of middle age, all junior members of the Tippecanoe College faculty.
“It’s not that bad,” said Tina. “I’d rather raise a child here than some place where I’m afraid to let them walk down the street by themselves, like Chicago or New York.”
Abby said, “I grew up in lower Manhattan, and I did OK. You learn certain rules when you’re small, you learn how to watch your step, but I never felt like I was in danger. I feel like I had a pretty normal childhood. Frankly, this town scares me a lot more than New York ever did.”
Looking abashed, Tina said, “Well, that’s understandable, seeing what you went through.”
Suddenly everyone was looking at Abby. She managed a shrug. “No big deal. They’ve arrested the guy who did it, apparently.”
“Did they ever find the guy’s head?” said a man she had just met, a disheveled chemist.
Abby blinked at him and said, “Um, no, I think the head’s still missing. But that was the second murder. It was the first one I reported. Anyway, like I said, they’ve made an arrest.”
After a brief silence Steven said, “And let’s hope that’s it for excitement in Lewisburg for a while.”
“I’m good with boring,” said Tina, and the conversation moved on. Abby ate a hamburger and fell into conversation with the chemist’s wife, who was from New Jersey; the party moved indoors and Abby took a turn sparring with the overstimulated one-year-old, cross-legged on the floor. She had a third beer and drifted from conversation to conversation and at a certain point was startled to discover that she was having a good time.
Tina disappeared to put the baby to bed and the crowd thinned a little. It was not going to be a late night, Abby saw. She was struck with a sudden yearning for loud music, crowded dance floors, jostling at the bar. She wanted to paint the town red. I’m not good with boring, Abby thought, not really. Coming home on the subway with Samantha in the wee hours from some hip club in Brooklyn, tipsy and giggling, barhopping in Boston, plying Evan with drink until she could drag him onto the dance floor. What happened to all that? Samantha had a baby and I had a personal tragedy. And here I am.
She wandered out onto the deck, which was now deserted, and more out of boredom than anything else pulled another beer from the cooler. She moved to the edge of the deck, out of the direct light from the house, and leaned back against the rail, tipsy and bemused. The door opened and Graham came out onto the deck. He fished a beer out of the cooler, straightened, and saw her.
“Hey. Hiding, huh?”
“Drinking alone in the dark. This job is undermining my moral fiber.”
Graham twisted the cap off his beer and came to join her in the shadows. “How did your calculus section go yesterday?”
Abby grimaced. “Nobody seemed to want to talk about it. I stammered out something along the lines of ‘You probably heard about Ben, let’s hope he’s all right,’ and I was met by deafening silence. Maybe they detected the note of ambivalence in my voice. I don’t know how many people knew about the, um, stalking.”
Abby watched Graham’s eyes flee hers. “Hmm. These things do get around.”
“Cole West knew about it. He actually came and told me that Ben had been warned. He said, ‘He got told,’ whatever that means. How Cole found out about it, I don’t know.”
Graham was looking distinctly uncomfortable, scowling at the label on his bottle. “I discussed it with Cole,” he said after a moment. “I just asked him if he knew what was going on, because I knew he was in the class. Good God, if he went and threatened Ben or something, that’s bad.”
That hung in the air for a moment. Abby wasn’t sure she liked the image that conjured up, and she wondered just how frank Graham was being. “I think that’s exactly what happened. Is that what you wanted to happen?”
“My God, no.” Graham stiffened and shot her a look. “I just wanted to find out what was going on. I wanted information.”
Which you could have gotten, amply, from me, Abby thought. “I’d thank you for looking out for me, but I’m not sure that was the best way to do it.”
He broke off eye contact and frowned down at his beer bottle. “If I played it wrong I’m sorry. I was concerned.”
Abby shrugged. “I appreciate that.”
“Ben’s apparently out of the woods medically, for what that’s worth. His parents are withdrawing him from school and getting him help, again.”
“Let’s hope it works this time.”
“Hear, hear.” He held his bottle toward her and they clinked and drank. Graham said, “There’s some talk inside about the possibility of a little jaunt to Naptown. Dave and Lorraine know a music venue there that brings in some pretty good bands. We get going now, we can be there by ten thirty, just in time for the show. You interested?”
It sounded like exactly what Abby had been wishing for. It also sounded a lot like being Graham’s date, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about Graham right at that moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I’m up for a real late night.”
He was smiling at her faintly, just visible in the dim light. Softly he said, “We could go someplace closer, just you and me. A nightcap and some conversation.”
It had been a long time since Abby had been courted, and she had missed it. He was devilish handsome, and the easiest thing in the world would be to say yes. Abby wasn’t sure what was stopping her, except a hard-won mistrust of the easiest thing in the world. That, and the image of him breathing a word in Cole West’s ear. She was staring at Graham, paralyzed with indecision, when he reached out, put a hand to the back of her neck, and pulled her toward him. Caught by surprise, Abby failed to resist. The kiss had its pleasant aspects, but she pulled away before it went on too long.
Graham murmured, “You’re amazing.”
Abby sank back against the rail. She took a deep breath. “I won’t say I didn’t enjoy that, but don’t get any big ideas. There’s alcohol at work.”
“I’m sorry.” He managed not to sound sorry.
“My life is complicated enough without a professional relationship turning into something else. OK?” Especially with somebody I don’t know if I can trust, she thought but did not voice.
She wasn’t sure for a moment how it was going to go; Graham stared solemnly, blinking a couple of times. “OK,” he said finally. “Sure.”
Score one for the primate brain, Abby thought, stomping on a pang of regret.
An up-tempo version of “Für Elise” jerked Abby out of sleep at two thirty in the morning. It took her several measures to recover enough consciousness to recognize the ringtone of her phone, grab the thing, and silence it. She put it to her ear just beginning to wonder who was calling her and what disaster had occurred. “Hello?”
“Abby? I’m so sorry to wake you up.”
It took a second for Abby to identify the girl’s voice, tenuous and wavering. “Natalia?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Where are you? What’s wrong?” By this point Abby had taken in the time on the clock and swung her feet to the floor.
“I’m kind of like stranded.” Abby could hear tears just below the surface. “I’m out in the country, near Lewisburg. My daddy’s in Indianapolis and my mama doesn’t drive, and Leticia’s brother isn’t answering his phone, so I didn’t know who to call. I’m so sorry to wake you up.”
“Natalia, it’s all right. What do you want me to do?”
“I need somebody to come pick me up. I went to a party with this girl, but I wanted to leave and she didn’t, and she went off with some guy, and then this other guy started getting weird, and I just left. I started walking. But it’s a long way, and I’m scared and I don’t know if they’re gonna come after me, and . . .”
>
“Natalia. I’ll come get you. But I need to know where you are.”
“I’m walking up toward Indianapolis Road, on 600 East. My phone says I’m like half a mile south of it. That’s about three miles east of town. You know where Indianapolis Road is?”
“That’s what Main Street turns into, right?”
“Yeah. If you just go east out of town you’ll come to 600 East. I’m walking north toward Indianapolis Road.”
“OK, I’m coming to get you. Just keep walking. Or do you want to stay on the phone?”
“No, that’s OK. I’m all right. Abby, I’m sorry.”
“Natalia, don’t worry about it. I’ll be right there. Just keep walking.”
Abby was dressed in two minutes. She grabbed her keys and phone and made for the door. She went out into the yard, triggering the light, locked the deadbolt behind her, and ran up the steps.
Abby had gone just under three miles along a deserted Indianapolis Road, creeping at thirty miles an hour, one eye on her phone, peering into the darkness at the limit of her headlights, when she spotted the sign for 600 East. She turned south and had gone just a couple of hundred yards when she spotted Natalia, striding fast toward her on the shoulder of the road. Abby flashed her high beams and pulled over.
The girl trotted to the car, tore open the door, and flopped onto the seat. Before the door slammed Abby could see tear tracks on Natalia’s face in the feeble glow from the dome light. “Oh, my God, Abby, thank you. I was so scared. I’m so sorry to bother you. I didn’t know what to do.”
Abby grabbed her hand and squeezed. “It’s OK. I’m happy to do it. What the hell happened?”
Natalia put her face in her hands. “Oh, shit. I just did something stupid. I went to a party with this girl I kind of know but not real well, and we came with these guys, and we drove all the way out here and then when we got there it was weird. They were drinking Everclear shots and doing drugs and stuff, and I didn’t know anyone and then the girl went off upstairs with a guy and this other guy started coming on to me, and I like just freaked and left. I just ran.”
