The Kitchen Charmer

by Deborah Smith

  At the corner of her right eye, the slightest twitch appeared. She looked away.

  Bar Code was watching me with his head tilted. A long black braid hung down one shoulder, dividing the camo pattern on his jacket into twisted faces. I blinked to erase the image. He said slowly, “I come from a family of chefs. They own the finest restaurant in Miami. I was to retire from the Army after twenty years, and become one of them.” He lifted a hand toward his braid then pulled the swath of hair aside, revealing a bald area above one ear and a divot deep enough to hide a marble. “But my ability to taste food, it is gone.” He lowered the braid. “I never want my family to know.”

  Pain and protest roared inside me. Suddenly I wanted to leap at them, hug and hold them, tell them we would not surrender to the valley of the shadow of death, and we would fear no evil.

  I will help Gus heal somehow . . . but what if I can’t, what if the valley of shadows is too deep? And what if my own valley is too deep?

  13

  “I WANT TO HEAR Lucy’s voice. Now. Or I’ll use the copter to come there and track her down.”

  “She’s safe and sound,” Alberta told him. “Stop stalking her.”

  Alberta and Macy sat stone-faced in front of the ham radio. Kerosene lanterns flickered in the warm confines of the office. The scent of hearth-baked cornbread filled the farm house. The sound of crackling firewood mingled with the low voices of women and children who were watching a movie on a generator-supplied TV in the living room. They were wrapped in deep, cozy afghans I’d made.

  I stood rigidly, staring at the radio unit as if Kern could reach through it and grab me by one arm.

  “Don’t lie about my motivations,” Kern snapped. “I’m in charge of your part of the county. When I ask for a roll call, everyone answers. It’s a security measure. Don’t make me come up there. I’ll do background checks on every new resident, and you know what that means. ICE will get involved.”

  Alberta clicked the mic. “You’re not worried one goddamn bit about Lucy’s safety. You’re trying to find out if she went to Germany to see the captain.”

  Macy held up a sheet of paper for me to read.

  NARCISSIST, she’d written on it. SOCIOPATH.

  “Let me talk to her,” he shouted. “Or I’ll be the worst enemy you and your cunt girlfriend ever made.”

  That word raised the challenge to a whole new level. Macy grabbed Alberta’s wrist before Alberta, furious, flipped the mic switch again. “No threats,” Macy ordered. “No pissing contest, please.”

  Alberta nearly growled.

  I reached between them and pushed the switch. “I’m here. What do you want?”

  “Why do you play these games?”

  Macy scrawled on another sheet. GASLIGHTING.

  One of her favorite warnings about toxic relationships. Gaslighting. A bully’s attempts to convince his victim that everything is her fault or merely her imagination. The term came from a 1940s Ingrid Bergman film set in turn-of-the-century London. Ingrid’s new husband wants her inheritance. He uses many tactics to convince her she’s losing her mind, including tricks with the gas lights in their home.

  “The games are all yours,” I said. My voice sounded far stronger than I felt.

  “He calls you Luce, doesn’t he?”

  “Stop spying on me.”

  “He’s a traitor, Luce. He disobeyed orders and killed a U.S. asset. He should be going to prison, not coming home with an honorable discharge. Wakefield pulled strings for him. I told you the MacBrides are nothing without Wakefield money. Now do you believe me?”

  “You wanted to know that I’m here. Well, now you know. Don’t ever call me Luce, again.” I released the switch. Breathing hard, I wobbled to a chair and sat down.

  “I’ll get you some wine,” Macy said. “We have to have a toast.” She sprinted from the room.

  Alberta swiveled in her chair, slapping her hands on her denimed knees. “Parmenter, you make me proud.”

  I discreetly rested a hand on the slim outline hidden under my skirt. The only time my hands didn’t shake was on wool or guns. Guns were the opposite of wool. They had no soul. They didn’t talk to me the way wool did. No love, no memories, no regrets. I considered them a blessedly neutral therapist.

  I traced the outline.

  Only Gus can call me Luce.

  I HAVE STEEL PINS inside my leg. And a new knee. I’m made of manmade parts, now.

  Tal and Gabby held my hands, discussed me, made plans for my future, and told me they loved me.

  Where is Luce?

  Why isn’t she here?

  My sisters had always come across as one taste, to me. A sweet and sour beer, wrestling for which flavor would come out on top; they weren’t good at sharing . . . sharing what?

  Me.

  “You’re in the recovery room, Gussy. Your knee replacement went off without a problem. We’re here. We love you. Gabby and I are right beside you. Look at his skin. It’s got the texture of an over-baked wheat loaf. Sun damage. He hasn’t been moisturizing or using enough sunscreen. When we get him to my house we’ll tell him that skin treatments at Bah Spa are part of his physical therapy. We’ll figure out how to convince him. Even Doug goes to Bah Spa. I hope he likes Doug.”

  A snort. I knew that snort. Gabby. “Tell him Lucy wants to give him a lanolin-and-lavender grease rub. He’ll go for that. He does look crusty and pale. Let’s be honest. He’s going to have to recalibrate his pressure cooker, if you know what I mean. Deal with being an invalid. Come to terms with the distinct possibility he may eventually lose this leg if it doesn’t heal well. Even if it does, he’ll walk with a limp.”

  “Why are you being such a downer?”

  “Because something else is wrong with him. That’s why we can’t communicate the way we used to. And . . . we’re not his baby sisters anymore. We’re grown women, Tal. We’ve waited all these years for him to come home and lead the way. We were conditioned to believe we needed our big brother, our man of the family, to build a family business. But we don’t. He’ll have to accept that he’s not the leader of this family anymore.”

  “Look, all that’s important is that he comes home, and gets well, and the three of us—along with Jay and Doug—come up with a plan for the future of Free Wheeler. All of us have a piece of our heart in it.”

  “We don’t even know if he’ll stay in North Carolina. Especially if things don’t work out with Lucy.”

  “They will.”

  “Tal. Even if there hadn’t been a blizzard, she wouldn’t have been able to . . . ”

  For the next minute they spoke too softly for me to hear. I caught a word here and there. Damaged. And broken.

  Skunk Fruit Ale. That’s their brew name. My sisters. Sweet with an underbelly of stink.

  Going home to Luce. Damaged. Broken. Both of us.

  No more fighting for lost causes.

  I have to tell her not to go there.

  Not to leave the farm.

  Why? Not go where?

  I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually I realized I was back in my private room. “Hullo, Captain America,” said a smoky British voice. That voice had kept me company in a lot of bars and beds. “I hear that I’m the ‘other woman’ now. That’s fine. I didn’t reach my exalted state of fame and misery by running away from competition.”

  Hands slipped over my face, stroking my jaw. “I hear she’s a wounded little dove. Exactly your type. She and I obviously have a lot in common.” I knew the smell of that lonely kitchen. Roast beef left out to dry. Congealed butter on the verge of going sour, hiding her grief and memories, pressing the pain points like an infection we shared.

  Hana.

  14

  Yarnspinner—

  WE’VE GOT SATELLITE gear that can patc
h you through to Captain MacBride. G will bring it to you—recon with you at the usual spot if you send OK. BTW, we checked stats at Landstuhl. Captain is out of surgery and Good. N. Owl.

  My breath streamed into the cold sunshine. My brain flooded with relief.

  “Hey. Parmenter!”

  Alberta’s voice.

  I looked up.

  “Doc Firth radioed for help. Come talk to him.”

  So far, Doug had rescued ten motorists, a hiker, five dogs, ten cats, several lambs, two donkeys, and four hamsters.

  “I need knitted blankets, ya kin? And any kinda sweaters you can make for pigs and hens. It’s cold enough on the farms to freeze the willy off a polar bear.”

  Since his deep Scottish burr carried throughout the main house, and a dozen women were in the kitchen at that time, laughter erupted.

  We’ll knit for ya Doc, but can you show us your willy?

  Soon I and the others filled the shed where I stored all the finished yarns. Hands flew with needles and crochet hooks. I guided and instructed and watched with satisfaction as stacks of small blankets and critter sweaters grew tall.

  A farm cat leapt onto a table and nuzzled me. I jumped at the brush of his snowy fur on my hand.

  It burns.

  I stepped outside where the rest couldn’t see me examining my completely unharmed skin. The sensation ebbed then returned even hotter. I thrust my hand into a snow bank.

  The wool sense came first. Then the faintest, distant smell. I examined my hand for burns while I searched the horizon, where snow-laden clouds still pancaked the Ten Sisters.

  A blue-gray smudge pushed into the lowest clouds between the smallest mountain top, Little Clara. There were five townships in Jefferson County. Voting districts, post office routes—the names were just oddities on a map to outsiders. Corn Haint. Big Walk. Turtleville, Crossroad’s Cove.

  And Devil’s Knob.

  That township, named for the giant rock that jutted high above the western side of Hog Back Mountain, was the most remote part of the county, home to only a dozen fulltime residents, and served by only one old, crumbling, macadam road that dead-ended at the entrance to a wistful fairytale. The Everlast Inn.

  I had seen photos and Technicolor postcards in albums Delta kept at the café. As much as Delta disliked Howard—probably the only cousin of hers she had ever rejected—she spoke warmly of his mother and the Bavarian-style hotel Marvis DeClare Monzell had built in the shadow of Devil’s Knob during the 1950s. Marvis dreamed of an Alpine resort that would bring fame to the high peaks.

  Everyone else nicknamed it The Chicken Haus. It failed within a dozen years, and when she died soon after, Howard turned it into his private retreat, where he threw parties for his business cronies.

  “Marvis had the Whimsy,” Delta told me. “Whether it came from drinking too much or cussin’ God for having given her Howard as her only child, it was a special light. Howard dimmed it.”

  Nausea rose in my throat.

  Fire. At the same time, a skein twisted hard inside my chest. Pike.

  “GET OUTTA MY sight, goddamn you. You’ve been helping Monzell hide these women up here. Holding them prisoner. Like slaves. Running a goddamn whore house.”

  “Pike, calm down. They work for Howard.”

  “Dancing naked and giving blow jobs to his business buddies?”

  “They’re housekeepers and cooks and bartenders.”

  “On the side, you mean. Don’t bullshit me, boy. Not a one of them has a green card. This godforsaken place is so isolated they couldn’t run away. All the outside doors were locked. Two women burned to death because they couldn’t even get out into the goddamn yard when the fire started. You piece of shit. I’ve given you every chance to be a good man, to become a good law officer. Cleo begged me to put up with your shit just a little longer. Now, I’m done. I’m gonna throw the book at Howard and you, too. You’re no nephew of mine. Not anymore.”

  “Here’s the thing, Uncle Pike. I don’t give a fuck whether you consider me family or not. I’m going to run this county, and this state, and even the whole country, one day. There’s nothing you can do to stop me or Howard.”

  “Sheriff! We got a third death. EMTs can’t get her heart going again. She’s burned real bad. The medivac copter’s still twenty minutes out. She’s lost.”

  “Collateral damage,” Kern said. “Just another immigrant taking American jobs. Nobody cares.”

  “Sheriff, don’t! Don’t shoot him!”

  Delta

  Pike was twenty-five years old and six-five and built like a big stone chimney. A house could fall down around him and he’d still stand in the lost wreck of the homestead, doing guard duty. Justice showed in his eyes. He went off to Vietnam a raw-boned yahoo and came home knowing how to kill. How to be a tough-but-fair country sheriff like his daddy and granddaddy before him. Wouldn’t talk about the war. He bought a big motorcycle and smoked weed and drank and raised Hell. All the girls wanted to belong to him. But not me.

  I wanted him to belong to me. I used my kitchen charms to win him. He believed the law is sacred. He took care of people. He took care of me. I took care of him. Oh, my Lard, we were a hot ticket. Love is made on hope and sorrow and the desperate business of living life instead of life living you.

  PIKE HAD HAD a heart attack.

  The Chicken Haus was no more. Three women were dead.

  Had the mysterious Alaina, aka Megan, set the old hotel on fire? Was she a freelance arsonist?

  “I can’t get a reading on that,” I confessed to Macy and Alberta. “But I can tell you those women were forced to do a lot more than clean rooms and make beds.”

  I sat on the edge of a hard, vintage secretary’s chair in front of the farm’s ham radio, waiting for more news on the fire and Pike’s condition. He’d been helicoptered to the nearest hospital, which meant across the state line in Tennessee.

  “Maybe they set fire to the place so they could escape,” Macy said.

  “Opal tells me they were locked in.”

  Alberta grunted. “Either way, they’re fuckin’ doomed unless we can find them. They know too much. Monzell will never let them talk to the authorities.”

  “And it’s not like immigration will be on their side,” Macy said. “They’ll end up in a camp.”

  Alberta grimaced. “We have to figure out where Kern has stashed them.” She tapped me on the forehead. “You got a GPS in there?”

  “I’m trying my best to find them.” I wound a scarf in my hands.

  We all flinched when Kern’s voice came over the receiver. He gave his call sign and the usual intro jargon. Then he added, “Sheriff Kern Burkett calling for Lucy Parmenter. Official business. Confidential.”

  Sheriff? Macy mouthed at us.

  Alberta picked up the mic. “Sonuva . . . ”

  I clamped a hand over hers. “I’ll talk to him. He’s tangled and on the defensive.”

  “Tangled?”

  “When strands of wool tangle, if you’re not careful about the way you handle them, they’ll mat and turn into felt. Tough and unworkable.”

  Macy gently pried the mic out of Alberta’s fist. “We need to keep him fluffy.” She handed the mic to me.

  I shut my eyes, pushed a button, and replied with the farm’s call sign, then, “This is Lucy.”

  “I said ‘Confidential.’ Are you alone?”

  Alberta and I traded a look. Macy held up a sheet of paper. PLAY HIS GAME.

  “Yes. I’m in charge of monitoring the radio for updates on Pike.”

  “I gave him CPR. Saved his life.”

  I spread my hands on Alberta’s desk. I watched my fingers quiver. Careful. “That’s what we’ve heard. You did a good job.”

  “Yes, I did my best. I called to tell yo
u that I’m in charge, now.”

  “As Acting Sheriff. Of course.”

  “No. The county commission has named me sheriff. Pike is done.”

  Alberta, Macy, and I traded a horrified look.

  “But . . . is that legal? There’s an election coming . . . ”

  “Let the traitorous lawyers fight over the details. I’m the sheriff now. Constitutionally, sheriffs are the only legitimate law officers in this country. We’re the only ones who are chosen by the people, for the people. The Constitution demands that we rule above police chiefs, federal agents, judges. We’re even higher that the Supreme Court. America is finally getting back to its true greatness. What happened today was meant to be. My destiny. Our destiny. The best and the brightest. The strongest and the smartest. Survival of the fittest.”

  My stomach twisted. Kern went on, “You know that I did right by Pike. He was my opposition in the election, and some people will always distrust me. But you . . . you see the real me. You see into people’s minds and spirits.”

  Humor him and his twisted interpretation of authority. “There’s no doubt in my mind you did what you . . . what you had to do.”

  “I need you more than ever.”

  Chills went up my spine. “Could I help you with those poor women who worked at the hotel? Are they Hispanic? I speak fluent Spanish. I went on missionary trips to Central and South America with my dad.”

  “Don’t worry about them. They’re well-fed and well-paid little mamacitas. Here on work visas. My father-in-law is taking care of them personally. Last I saw, they were in a convoy of trucks behind a bulldozer, making their way to the Daw Ridge plant. Howard was in the convoy with them, like a father figure. They’ll bunk at the plant for a couple of days, and when the snow and ice clear they’ll get re-homed.”

  Re-homed. Like unwanted pets.

  Clouds began to part. I wound my scarf around the hand that held the mic. “Any clue what caused the fire?”