Caught in a Bind

by Gayle Roper

  “What if I can’t let go?” Her voice was a whisper.

  The romantic in me wanted to say, “Then hang on for all you’re worth. It’ll all work out for the best.” Instead the realist in me spoke. “Never underestimate the power of choice. You can let go if you must. You tell that to the girls at His House all the time. You can’t do any less than you ask of them.”

  She nodded. “I know.” Tears sat in her eyes again. “But he’s so wonderful!”

  I thought about the Mac I knew and wonderful wasn’t the word I’d choose. Crabby, demanding, driven, clever. But wonderful? No.

  “Dawn, he’ll only make you very unhappy.”

  She sighed. “But he’s a great kisser.”

  I wanted to laugh at her expression, but I didn’t. “That’s because he’s had so much practice.”

  She looked at me, hurt that I’d say such a thing. But it was all too true, and she needed to remember that.

  “Dawn, you’re a woman who has spent her whole adult life in ministry. Serving God has been your priority. You can’t sell out for Mac. For that matter, you can’t sell out for anyone!”

  She closed her eyes. “You’re right. I can’t.”

  We were quiet for a moment. Then she straightened her spine. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

  I followed her to the table and watched Mac’s face light up when he saw her. I could only imagine her expression.

  Dinner was almost over when Mac pointed his fork at me. “I almost forgot. I got a phone call about you late yesterday.”

  “About me?” I laughed. “Good or bad?”

  “Bad.”

  I blinked, surprised.

  “I’m to keep you reined in, or the News will be the object of the biggest lawsuit we’ve ever seen.”

  SEVEN

  I shook my head in disgust. “I know who the caller was.”

  “Good.” Mac attacked his baked potato. “Then you can tell me. It was an anonymous call.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s a coward. His name’s Bill, Tina Somebody’s husband.”

  “Tina Somebody’s husband.” Mac looked at Curt. “And she wonders why I have to correct her copy before it makes the paper.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my copy and you know it.” I cut the final section of my stuffed chicken breast into three neat pieces. “Tina is a woman I met at Freedom House yesterday. Well, I didn’t meet her there exactly, but Stephanie put us in contact.”

  “Stephanie Bauer?” Dawn asked. “Isn’t she great?”

  “Yeah, yeah, she’s great,” said Mac, who had never met her. “But who’s Tina?”

  “A battered wife. I helped her move out yesterday and drove her to her parents’.”

  “And her husband came home and found her gone and somehow knew you were the culprit?” Mac asked.

  I shook my head. “He was there when she left.”

  “You moved her out in front of the husband?” Mac was appalled. Curt didn’t look any happier.

  “Well, someone had to help her.”

  “Where are your brains, woman? What if he’d had a weapon?” Mac asked.

  I shrugged. “Someone still needed to help her.”

  “Have you ever heard of the police?”

  “It was for my story!”

  “Oh.” Mac was instantly mollified. “Okay.”

  “Wait a minute here,” Curt said, veal cutlet halted halfway to his mouth. “It’s okay for her to risk her life for a story?”

  Mac raised his hand to quiet Curt. “But there wasn’t any danger. She said he didn’t have a weapon.”

  “She did?” It was Dawn. “I didn’t hear her say that.”

  I laid my knife and fork carefully across my plate. “Listen, all of you. I will tell you what happened. But first I will tell you that I can make decisions about my safety on my own. Got it?”

  I looked around the table, pausing as I looked at Curt. He and I had had “discussions” in the past about what he considered the risks I took in my work.

  “Got it?” I repeated as I looked at him.

  He looked grim but he nodded. “Got it.”

  I gave him a huge smile and said, “I think it’s a matter of trust.” His eyes narrowed as I threw his own words back at him. He looked like he wanted to argue, and well he could. Trusting someone to remain faithful was a far cry from trusting someone not to get injured in the line of duty, especially when a second volatile person was involved.

  I began talking quickly to forestall him. “Tina called Freedom House while I was there. She needed help. I helped her. Her husband was unhappy with me. He called Mac. End of story.”

  “How do you know that?” Curt demanded. “You don’t even know his name, but he knows yours and where you work. It’s a short step to finding where you live. And he’s got a history of being violent.”

  “Only toward Tina.”

  “You know this for sure?”

  I didn’t. “If he calls again, we’ll get worried, okay? In the meantime, I want chocolate truffle for dessert.”

  When we left the restaurant, we split up, Mac and Dawneach to their own cars and their own homes, Curt and I to his car.

  “Let’s drive up to Hibernia Park.” I buckled my seat belt. “I need information about the mansion for my Great Homes article.”

  He looked uncertain. “I’ve got so much to do before Wednesday night’s opening.”

  “What’s an hour?” I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Okay,” he said. “But just a quick trip.”

  I tried not to feel guilty as we drove through the warm Palm Sunday sunshine and turned into the park between the white pillars with the lion heads embedded in them. We drove up the winding narrow road past the whitewashed cottages, some occupied, one boarded shut, over Birch Run Creek and past the fishing pond. We rounded the sharp S curve, and there sat the mansion, its coppery peach stucco a soft flame in the sunshine.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to live in a place like that?”

  “If you had lots of servants,” Curt said practically.

  We walked around the mansion with its slate front steps bordered by boxwood, its quarter-round turrets cuddled against the wings on either side of the main house, and I took lots of pictures. The white trim and red metal roof made the unusual color of the house more vibrant. I was disappointed the house was closed to visitors today.

  We walked hand in hand to the beige building over the rise behind the mansion where the ranger’s office was. Inside on the counter lay a collection of brochures on various features of the park, including one on the mansion. I picked it up and began reading.

  I learned there had been an ironworks on the property from the 1790s to the 1870s. At the height of the ironworks there had been two iron forges, two heating furnaces, a rolling mill, a gristmill and at least sixteen men and boys working the facility.

  I was impressed and turned to Curt to comment when a man in jeans and a flannel shirt walked in. “Yo,” he called toward the offices in the back of the building.

  A ranger walked out from his office. “Hey, Witt.”

  “We’ve got a visitor,” Witt said.

  The ranger glanced at Curt and me. “We’ve got lots of visitors.”

  Witt looked at us and shook his head. “This one’s staying.”

  “As in overnight?”

  I knew the park gates closed at dusk, so overnight stays were illegal.

  “Pete found blood in the men’s restroom early yesterday morning. He cleaned up the mess yesterday, but there was more today.”

  “A couple of visitors cut themselves.”

  Witt shook his head. “Not that badly two days in a row. We’re talking lots of blood and bloody bandages, not Band-Aids. And Andy’s lunch disappeared yesterday. And someone slept in the maintenance barn last night.”

  The ranger nodded. “I’ll contact the police.”

  I grabbed Curt and dragged him from the office. “Do you think it’s Tom?”
r />   “The bleeding man? Of course not. If Tom were hurt, he’d go to the hospital.”

  “What if he stole the money?”

  “Why would he hide here? He’d run.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for Edie to join him?”

  Curt looked at me with his bemused I-can’t-believe-you-said-that look. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a mystery novelist instead of a journalist?” He glanced at his watch and grimaced. “Come on. I’ve got to get going.”

  I sighed and let him drive me home. It would have been such a great story even if I did feel guilty for suggesting it, like I’d betrayed Edie.

  It was after four when I rang her doorbell. While I waited for someone to answer, I studied the daffodils nodding among the yews. Their heads bobbed in the soft breeze in time to a tune only Mother Nature heard.

  I bent to the closest cluster and broke off a stem close to the ground, then another and another. I broke off some of the long, slender leaves too.

  I was back on the porch with a fistful of yellow sunshine when the front door finally opened. “Hi, Randy.”

  He wasn’t happy to see me. “I take it you want something besides my mother’s flowers?”

  “They’re for your mother to cheer her up a bit.” I smiled at him warmly. If I could drive Mac nuts with my smile, maybe I could do the same thing to Randy. “How’s she doing?” I sounded as chirpy as a spring robin.

  He shrugged and stepped reluctantly aside. My smile seemed to do nothing to him, good or bad. Oh, well. You can’t win them all.

  Edie was lying on the great blue couch much as she’d been the other night. Her face was a mask of misery with dark circles under her closed eyes and the lines from her nose to her chin deep and cruel. She huddled under the same blanket I’d gotten for her Friday. If I hadn’t seen her last night, I’d have thought she hadn’t moved since the body was discovered.

  As usual I wanted to fix her hurt, and this time I truly had no idea how.

  “Hey, Edie.” I kept my voice soft in case she was asleep.

  She wasn’t. She turned to me immediately, hope in her eyes. When she saw it was only me, the hope died. Irrationally, I felt guilty.

  “For you.” I held out the sunshine I’d picked from her yard.

  She took the bouquet and stared at it as if she’d never seen a daffodil before.

  “I thought you might like some cheer.” I grinned in what I hoped was an encouraging manner.

  She smiled faintly. “I think I had too much of that yesterday, didn’t I? Did I make too big a fool of myself?”

  I knew she referred to her tipsy condition of last evening. “I’ve seen you in better shape,” I said gently. “But no harm was done.”

  “Only because you guys took care of me.”

  “That’s what friends do. Shall I put the daffodils in some water for you?” I took the flowers from her unresisting hand. “And while I’m in the kitchen, why don’t I get you something to eat?”

  “Not hungry.”

  “I’m sure, but that’s not the issue. Have you eaten today?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “She hasn’t had anything.” It was Randy. I hadn’t realized he was still lurking in the doorway.

  “But I haven’t had anything to drink either.” She turned her head and skewered her son with a sudden, fierce gaze. “Randy threw it all away.”

  The boy immediately began to excuse his actions. “Having a thief for a stepfather is bad enough. I’m not going to have a mom who kills herself and someone else driving drunk.”

  I realized with surprise that he was genuinely concerned about Edie beneath his facade of ridicule.

  “You know, Randy,” I couldn’t resist saying. “It’s okay to do nice things for people.”

  He looked at me as if I had a second or third head, made a disgusted noise deep in his throat and walked out.

  I reminded myself that he’d had some rough knocks in life. He had the right to be testy.

  The power of choice.

  I promptly reversed my opinion. If the legal system could do it, so could I. Randy did not have the right to be difficult. All he had was the right to choose. And he was choosing wrong.

  I turned back to Edie. “Do you have any chicken broth or instant soup?”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “I’m sure you don’t, but you’re going to get it.”

  I found some Lipton’s instant chicken noodle soup and heated it in the microwave. While it heated, I filled a vase and arranged the daffodils. Somehow they looked like pencils stuck in a jar, all weird angles and no grace. Sighing, I took the flowers into the living room and put them on an end table where Edie could see them.

  I brought her the steaming cup of soup and a plate of saltines. “Sit up and drink.”

  She looked at me without moving, rebellion strong in her eyes.

  “Edie, sit up. It won’t be good if Tom comes home and finds you sick.”

  She pulled herself upright, grabbed the cup and took a small sip. She frowned as it burned her tongue, but she kept sipping. “I guess I was hungry after all.” She inhaled a couple of saltines. Eventually the cup was empty and most of the saltines gone.

  I took the empty cup and went back to the kitchen. I rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher.

  “Did she eat anything?” Randy asked from behind me.

  I turned and studied him. Because of my strong desire to please people and fix everything, I had trouble comprehending someone like Randy, someone who purposely chose to hurt.

  “What’s the matter with you?” His tone was ice.

  “Nothing. And yes, she ate. She had a cup of soup.”

  “Um.” He turned to leave. “She wouldn’t eat for me.”

  I tried to imagine a conversation in which Randy demanded Edie eat and she refused. The mind boggled.

  “I’m assuming you’ve heard nothing from William,” I said as I sat in my cushy chair across the room from Edie.

  She shook her head. “Not a word. Now I wonder if I want to hear.”

  “Don’t you want to know what’s happened? I’ve always thought not knowing was terrible, worse than knowing, even when the information’s bad.”

  “If the possible information was that your husband was dead, you don’t want to hear.”

  “Do you really think he’s dead, Edie?”

  She slid back down on the sofa, and though her color was still bad, she looked more alert. The soup had been good for her.

  “I’ve been lying here all day, thinking about just that question. One minute I think, of course he’s not dead. If I had my heart torn out, I’d certainly know. Then I think, no, I wouldn’t know. I’m not clairvoyant. I’m just a wife who loves her husband.” She raised a shaky hand to her forehead and rubbed.

  “Headache?” I asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe.”

  “Can I get you some Tylenol or aspirin?”

  “Would you? Now that I’ve eaten the soup, I think my stomach can handle it.”

  “Where will I find them?”

  “Upstairs in the bathroom off our bedroom. On the second shelf in the medicine cabinet.”

  I climbed the stairs and walked down the hall, carpeted in nondescript, inexpensive beige, past two bedrooms and a bath. It wasn’t hard to identify which room was Randy’s. The door was open, and I could see every electronic device known to man or teen: wall-mounted plasma TV, CD system with the latest speakers and a collection of CDs that would make any disc jockey in the country drool, a computer with a slim monitor, a laser printer, a DVD player and a stack of DVDs, controls for computer games, a cordless phone, a scanner and an iPod. I even thought I saw a fax machine on his desk, though I couldn’t imagine why a kid needed a fax machine.

  Edie and Tom’s room was at the end of the hall. I followed the beige carpeting across their bedroom to the bath. The cabinet hung above a small pedestal sink, and I easily found the Tylenol on the second shelf, just like Edie h
ad said.

  When I hurried back into the bedroom, I flinched and ducked as I saw someone rushing at me. Even after I realized I was looking at myself reflected in the mirrored doors of the closet, it took a while for my heart to stop pounding. Downstairs I went to the kitchen to get water for Edie. Her drinking glasses were just like mine, a blue-light special from Kmart.

  Excess in the living room and dining room. Low budget in the rest of the house, Randy’s room excepted. I frowned. Somehow Edie didn’t strike me as the type to flaunt luxury in the rooms people saw when they visited. Tomeither. Strange.

  “I scared myself in your mirrored closet,” I said as I returned to the living room and handed her the water and pills.

  “Tell me. I scare myself every time I get up during the night. Tom likes them though.” She smiled to herself. “He says he likes seeing multiples of me, if you can imagine that.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  She looked at me, smile gone. “You know, Tom has never told me if he has any brothers or sisters.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Once when he was almost asleep and very relaxed, I asked him where he went to high school. Without thinking, he said he graduated from Audubon High School, hooray for the green and the gold. But every other time he was willing to talk about the past, he said he was from Camden. Later he denied he’d ever mentioned Audubon. I looked up Audubon and Camden on a map. Audubon is a town in New Jersey not too far from Camden, but you’d never live in one place and go to school in the other.”

  She closed her eyes and a tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  Soon she was asleep. I stayed curled in my chair, thinking. I stood by my original sentiment that Tom loved Edie deeply. I could think of no good reason he wasn’t calling home, and I could think of several bad ones.

  Lord, if he’s still alive, take care of him, okay? And let him come home safely. Please.

  I heard Randy rummaging around in the kitchen and assumed he was making himself something to eat. Good for him. Maybe I had been misjudging him, and he would turn into a decent human being after all.

  “There’s nothing in this house to eat,” he bellowed.