by Jan Coffey
Years ago, as a teenager, he’d regularly been worried about her. Everyone on the street—hell, everybody in town knew that there were some serious marital problems in that family. And everyone knew the children were suffering for it. As a kid, Ted was tough and outgoing and personable, and brushed off everything with what may have been a pretense of not giving a damn. It was hard to tell about him. Léa, on the other hand, was less able to hide her feelings. She never could help showing her sensitivity or her vulnerability, no matter how hard she tried. To everyone…well, to Mick anyway, Léa had always been carrying her family’s problems on her back.
Through the front windows, Mick saw Léa walk up the stairs with a duffel bag in one hand. He whistled for Max, and the dog bounded down the steps. Mick took the ball from the retriever’s mouth and threw it between the two houses into the backyard.
She’d surprised him tonight with her sense of humor and her easygoing manner. But he’d also been a little surprised at his own immediate attraction to her.
A pickup truck rounded the corner and came slowly down the street. Mick turned and watched it warily. When it pulled up to the curb where he was standing, he saw it was the police chief, Rich Weir, behind the wheel. He was not in uniform. Rich rolled down the passenger window and gave Mick a half salute.
“What’s going on there?” he asked, flicking his eyes toward the Hardys’ house.
Mick didn’t know where it came from, but he found himself mildly annoyed.
“You on duty or off, Rich?”
“You know we’re always on the job.”
Mick smelled Chinese food. There was a small cardboard box full of containers on the seat.
“And that job would be…delivering meals for the Peking Dragon, huh?”
“Cute, Conklin. I’m on my way to Sheila’s.”
“Tell her I said hi.” Mick whistled for his dog and started back toward his own house.
“Seriously, Mick,” Rich persisted, now eyeing the car parked in front. “Do you know who is staying in the house?”
Mick turned and glared at him. “Léa Hardy is staying there for the weekend.”
“I thought so.” The policeman frowned. “What the hell did she come back here for?”
“Any law against someone staying on their own property, Rich? We haven’t passed any new ordinance about that, have we?”
The chief fixed his gaze on Mick thoughtfully. “I asked a simple question. Got a bug up your ass, pal?”
Mick leaned on the truck’s open window and looked into Rich’s square face. “Maybe I do. But this is a free country, Rich, and she isn’t doing anything even mildly out of line. And considering all the grief this woman has had to put up with, I think you should respect her privacy and quit skulking around here.”
Rich let out a low whistle. “Pretty little speech there, pal. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded like you and her have something going on.”
“There is nothing going on between Léa and me.”
“Sorry, Mick,” he said wryly. “You must just sound pissed off.”
“As a matter of fact, I am pissed off—and do you want to know why?”
“Can’t wait.”
“Because you’ve already decided to check up on her for no goddamn reason.”
“No reason, Mick?” The policeman glared back. “I’m paid to keep order in this town. I want this Hardy thing over and done with. I want this town back on an even keel. If she’s here to stir up trouble, then that’s reason enough for me to keep an eye on her. A close eye on her.”
“Let me tell you something, Chief. Léa Hardy’s no troublemaker. She came here knowing the shit this town was sure to dump on her front step. This woman’s got guts. You might consider respecting that in her.” Mick straightened up from the truck. “Good night, Rich. Your delivery is getting cold.”
~~~~
The static from the police scanner whined and crackled off the cheap panel walls of the old trailer. Dusty Norris reached over and adjusted the knob until the dispatcher’s voice came through clean again.
“Russo called again. He says some teenager has parked on Maple Street partially blocking access to his driveway…”
Beneath the bare fluorescent bulbs, a Doylestown newspaper was spread on the card table Dusty used as a desk. Painstakingly, he followed a straight line as he cut the latest murder trial article from the damp pages.
“Jeff, can you check it out? I’m on the other side of town.”
Laying the article to one side, he went to work cutting out the picture of Léa Hardy from an inside page. He paused for a moment and stared at the picture. She was wearing a dark business suit and glasses, and was crossing the street to the court house.
“This is two in a row you owe me, Robin. You know that guy only complains because he’s sweet on you, girl.”
Dusty picked up the two newspaper clippings and walked to the corkboard hanging beside the door of the old trailer. The board was full of other newspaper pieces he’d collected from the trial. He adjusted and moved some of them around before finally finding just the right position for the new clippings.
“It’s not me. Old Man Russo has a hard on for you, boy…”
“Finally, you’re getting it right,” Dusty muttered toward the radio as he walked back to his ancient swivel chair and dropped his weight into it. He swung his booted feet up onto his desk. “It’s about time you assholes figured out he likes the boys better.”
A large hunting knife and a half-carved piece of wood—a rude depiction of a feminine figure—sat on an upended wooden barrel next to him. He brought them onto his lap.
“There is no car blocking anything here. For chrissakes, he is waving me in from his porch. Guess I’m going in.”
“If you don’t come out in an hour, Jeff, we’ll send in backup units.” The dispatcher’s snicker over the radio made Dusty’s lip curl.
“Good luck, Jeff. Asshole. Be sure to keep your pants zipped.”
The razor-sharp blade of the knife shaved through the wood, and the edge of a smile stayed on Dusty’s unshaven face. He paused and looked up at the wall of pictures and newspaper photos above his desk.
They were all of Marilyn. She’d always loved having her picture taken, and it was quite a collection. A veritable montage dedicated just to her. In the center, a wedding photo from which Ted had long ago been excised. Marilyn, beautiful in a sexy white dress, was looking straight at the camera. Straight at Dusty. His gaze wandered to the other pictures.
“Remember when I told you about seeing Russo flashing those boys at the pond?” Marilyn’s high school prom picture smiled back at him. “You laughed, but you had to add him to the list.” He jutted the point of his knife at her graduation picture and looked into the sparkling eyes. “You knew I was watching by the woods behind your house when you hired him to do some gardening for you. You knew I was there.”
He stared at a yellowed newspaper clipping of a young Marilyn winning a town tennis tournament.
“When you came out in your bathing suit and sat on that lounge chair on the patio, I thought the old bastard would croak.” Dusty started laughing. “But it wasn’t enough. You had to take your top off.” He turned the carving in his hand. His thumb caressed the curves and hollows of the breasts, the buttocks. “You rolled over and had him rub oil on your back. On your legs. I know you were telling him just what to do. But you shouldn’t have made him slide his hand up your thighs. You shouldn’t have let him touch you there.”
The blade of the knife sliced through the wood, and a shaving dropped to the dirty floor.
“I wanted to do that, Merl. I got so hard watching you.” His voice grew husky.
“I think you liked having me watch you. I think that day with Russo—” Dusty’s gaze was drawn to a picture of Marilyn in a little bikini lying on a beach. “I think you knew I came in my pants watching you. You knew I couldn’t help it…I couldn’t wait.”
The dispatcher’s voice filled the tr
ailer again. “Robin, I need you to check out a dog barking over on Ridge Avenue.”
“Jeff’s still in there, huh?” she responded.
Dusty felt a couple of drops of water hit him on the shoulder, and he looked up at the water-stained ceiling as he wheeled his chair a little to get out of the way. With his boot, he pushed a metal bucket to catch the drips.
“Robin, maybe Russo’s gonna keep Jeff until you agree to marry him.”
“Fat chance. He can keep him for all I care. I’m heading over to Ridge now.”
Dusty looked to the left of a tiny window, where he’d taped scores of clippings and pictures of Marilyn with other people. There was a newspaper photo of Marilyn hanging a medal around Robin’s neck. Her hand just happened to be brushing the police officer’s breast.
“Yeah. You always liked having me watch you, Merl.” He could feel his hardening erection pressing against his pants. He carefully placed the knife and the carving on the barrel and unzipped his fly. He looked back at the beach picture. “Like the time you brought your friend from college back to town that Christmas. Yeah…sure it was worth it to give her a tour of a closed-up mill in the middle of a snowstorm.” He wrapped his hand around his pulsing erection and pulled a rag from his pocket. “The two of you…on the desk in the upstairs office. I saw you two…each of you doing the other.”
His breathing was getting shorter as his hand moved along his shaft. “You saw me, Merl. You put your head back. You…you looked right into my eyes…when you came.”
“I’m back…and my virginity is intact.”
Dusty grunted as he exploded into the rag.
“More than we needed to know, Jeff.”
“Sure, be that way, Robin. You can go in there next time.”
“Knock it off, you two,” the dispatcher broke in with a chuckle. “Jeff, since you’re in the neighborhood, take a drive down Poplar Street.”
Dusty wiped himself with the rag and threw it into a corner.
“What’s going on there?”
“The chief called. The Hardy girl is back in town.”
He paused as he zipped his pants, his every nerve wired and alert. A rush of anger surged through him.
“No shit? Léa Hardy?”
“The very same. The chief wants a patrol car circling the neighborhood all night.”
“Is Rich expecting trouble?” Robin chirped in.
Slowly, Dusty reached for the knife until his fingers curled around the hilt.
“Damned if I know. But that family is nothing but trouble, far as I can tell.”
With a flash of movement, the chair swiveled around, and Dusty fired the knife at Léa’s picture on the board across the trailer. His accuracy was dead on. The tip of the blade cut the image in half and buried itself deep in the trailer wall.
“Not this time,” he muttered. “No Hardy’s coming close to my Merl this time.”
~~~~
“You could renovate the old house on Poplar Street. Or, if you prefer, you can move into the place where Marilyn used to live. Hell, if you don’t like either of those two, Stephanie will probably build a mansion for you if that’s what it takes to convince you to bring those babies back to Stonybrook.” Bob Slater put a hand on Ted’s shoulder. “Just look at her. She becomes the very picture of a doting grandmother every time she gets near them.”
Ted watched his mother-in-law giving a bottle to month old Hanna, while Emily played at her feet. He smiled but shook his head.
“We can’t live in Stonybrook.”
“Come on, Ted. This is not that Hardy thing, is it? Nobody who lived there then remembers. And the rest don’t even know about it.”
Marilyn walked in from the kitchen, and Ted saw his wife’s gaze go immediately to Stephanie. The flush of anger colored her face in an instant.
“Ted, I said I wanted you to feed Hanna.” She charged toward her mother and took the infant roughly out of her arms.
“But Marilyn…” Stephanie pleaded.
“Bring Emily, Ted. It’s time for her nap.” She fired a hard look at her mother as she started out of the room. “Sorry, visiting hours are over.”
Ted wouldn’t move back to Stonybrook for a million bucks. And it wasn’t a Hardy thing.
Chapter 6
Heather pulled the black T-shirt over her head and shoved her arms through the sleeves. She stood before the mirror and put on a layer of black lipstick.
The black-clad girl with purple hair staring back at her had dark circles under her eyes. Other than that, her face showed nothing.
Heather grabbed a backpack off the floor. Moving about the room, she stuffed her old teddy bear into the pack. She picked up her favorite CD, rap covers of Kurt Cobain songs. She shoved it in, as well, followed by a Metallica T-shirt she’d picked up at a concert in L.A. Going to her dresser, she searched the top until she found the diamond studs her mom had given her for her fifteenth birthday. She pushed those to the bottom of the bag.
On her way out, she grabbed the leather jacket off the floor and stuffed it in the backpack, too. She couldn’t get the flap of the bulging pack to clip closed, but she slung the thing over her shoulder, anyway. Remembering her cigarettes, she rooted around on the shelf of her closet and took down a pack and a lighter.
She could hear the shower running in her father’s bathroom as she hurried past his door. Max appeared at Heather’s side at the top of the stairs. Ignoring the dog’s enthusiastic greeting, she went down the steps with the golden retriever at her heels.
The hands of the grandfather clock were straight up and down, and the chimes started to ring as she reached the bottom. Glaring at the antique piece, she slipped her platform clogs on. With a quick glance up the stairs, she walked through the house to the kitchen and out the back door. The dog almost pushed his way out behind her, but she shut the door tightly.
“Stay!”
The early morning fog was thick and dreary in the yards. The grass was wet and the wisps of mist looked like smoke in the air. She couldn’t even see the stone wall at the back of the property line, never mind the houses beyond it. Coming down the steps, Heather could barely see the outline of the flower garden or the top half of the mulberry tree. Most of the beat-up house next door was hidden, too.
This was just the way she liked it.
Adjusting the backpack on her shoulder, she tapped a cigarette out and lit it before cutting across the back yards. The rain on the grass wet her shoes as soon as she took the first step. It got worse when she crossed into the Hardys’ backyard and the long wet grass immediately soaked her pants up beyond the ankles.
The old carriage house, its gray wood showing almost black through the large sections where the paint had peeled off, looked soft, soggy. As Heather approached, she thought it seemed to have taken on a bit more of a lean overnight.
She started for the path behind the carriage house, but stopped when she saw a possum through the fog, waddling along the stone wall ahead of her, and decided against cutting behind the building.
Heather took a drag off her cigarette and directed her steps up the gravel driveway next to the Hardys’ house. Her mind was racing as she walked. She used to sleep a lot, but now—despite her pretense of it—she couldn’t sleep at all. All she did was think. Think and get disgusted and mad at her mother for not loving her anymore. For kicking her out. At her father for not realizing that she wasn’t a two year old anymore. He still thought she could be babied and won over by some nice present or a day at work with “daddy.”
Of course, she found she got plenty mad at herself, too. It was just so hard to care about anything. Or do anything. She was just getting dumber and lazier as every day went by. Other than a sugar kick here and there, she didn’t eat anything healthy, either. And she was getting fat. Her ass was too big and her chest was too flat. She was tired of the purple hair, but the reaction she got from people who knew her father or her grandparents was too good to miss. She’d become an asshole, and she hated herself fo
r it.
What it all came down to was life sucked, and Heather was so goddamn tired of it.
She wasn’t half done with the first cigarette, but she took out a second one and lit it and threw the first one into the wet grass. She took a deep drag and ignored the growl of hunger in her stomach.
“Good morning.”
The cigarette fell out of her mouth as her foot slipped out of one of the wet clogs. In an instant, she was sitting on her butt, with the gravel digging into the palm of her hand where she’d landed. With her heart beating in her ears, she jumped to her feet and looked around wildly through the fog.
Years ago, somebody had told her that the Hardy house was haunted. She should have believed them.
“Are you all right? Sorry to scare you. Over here.”
This time Heather saw the figure of the woman leaning over the side railing of the porch. She was waving and looked concerned. Gathering herself together and brushing the gravel from her hand, Heather slipped her foot into her clog and moved a couple of steps closer.
“Weird weather, don’t you think?”
Heather’s usual reaction at a time like this would be to blow the blabbermouth off and hit the road.
Her feet, moving up the driveway, seemed to have other plans.
“I’m Léa Hardy.”
“No shit.” She hadn’t meant to say the words aloud. But they were out, and Heather found herself gaping at the plain-looking woman still leaning over the railing. She had her hair pulled tight in a ponytail and didn’t have a stitch of makeup on her pale face. The Hardy woman smiled, and Heather decided maybe she wasn’t ugly plain, just didn’t-know-what-to-do-with-herself plain.
“I guess everybody in this town knows me or has heard of me.” She looked down at Heather’s shoes, and extended her hand. “I think I might have heard of you, too.”
She stared at Léa’s extended hand and decided not to take it. “I gotta go.”
