Dream With Little Angels

by Michael Hiebert

  “Think you’re pretty smart, hey?” he asked back. I thought about replying, telling him how I didn’t think it took a lot of brains to figure that one out (which would really be a remark directed at Dewey), but decided things were too strange lately and I might not be the best judge of what’s permissible for me to say and what’s not at this particular point in time. So I just let it go.

  My mother stepped to the door. “You okay?” Chief Montgomery asked her.

  She nodded. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were red. The Kleenex was gone from her hand.

  “You’re gonna remember what I said?” Chief Montgomery asked.

  She nodded.

  “All right. Then for now, you’re still on the case. But I’m watchin’ you.” He did the “I’m watching you” sign with his two fingers by pointing them first at his eyes and then at her. Then he gave me a wink, making things feel almost normal again.

  CHAPTER 7

  The next afternoon was the afternoon Carry was meant to go to Satsuma to meet her friends for a pizza and a movie. I was still uncertain about what she was really doing and what she was saying she was doing and how the two things were different in the minds of my mother and Uncle Henry, but I gave up trying to sort it out. There were more important things to think about.

  Like how Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow and the missing roadkill was connected. I was still clinging to my theory of the Roadkill Frankenstein monster. It was a good one, I thought. One that made a lot of sense when you plugged in all the different variables.

  My mother drove Carry to the bus stop for Satsuma. On the weekends the bus came to the top of Main Street, almost all the way up to the courthouse building. I came along for the ride. Once we got back home, Dewey would be coming over and spending the night, so I decided to get as much non-Dewey family time in as I could.

  My mother pulled up to the curb in front of the bus stop and Carry got out, dragging her backpack from the floor of her seat and hefting it onto her shoulder. She had been sitting in the passenger front seat of the car and the window was rolled down. The day was exceptionally mild, a nice change from all our recent rain. Carry shut the door and said good-bye before going over to the bench beside the stop and having a seat.

  The car remained at the curb. Both me and Carry looked at my mother expectantly. After a few seconds, Carry closed her eyes, stood and, leaving her backpack on the bench, came over to the open window. “You’re not gonna sit here and wait until the bus comes, are you?”

  My mother sighed.

  “Why don’t you just follow me all around Satsuma?” Carry asked with a defiant gleam in her eyes.

  “I would if I thought I could get away with it.”

  “Mother,” Carry said, “either you’re okay with me going on my own or you aren’t. This is ridiculous.”

  My mother took two deep breaths before responding. “You’re right. I’ll leave you to wait for the bus. Remember: home by five.”

  “Bye, Mother,” Carry said, turning her back and returning to the bench.

  Pulling away from the curb, my mother turned down the first side street, turned the car around, and headed back down Main Street toward our house, taking one last glance at Carry as we went past. “I hope you never go through this, Abe,” she said to me.

  I was about to make a snide remark, asking if she meant she hoped I was never going to discover boys, when something darted out in front of us from between two buildings. For a brief second, I saw it, frozen in place like a picture. It was a possum. Then there was the unmistakable double bump as the car ran it over.

  I turned around and looked out the back window at the brown lump of dead possum lying in our wake. I couldn’t believe it.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Dewey. The roadkill was back.

  Then we stopped at the intersection in front of where the new sushi restaurant was being built. Well, the building was already there, they were just putting a new front on it. That was pretty much all the construction that happened on Main Street. The buildings were all brick and stone so they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Shops would just redress the front and sometimes add new walls inside.

  This restaurant had intrigued me and Dewey since they first started hanging the plywood signs from the top. A big purple fish arched above the main window with an army of Japanese people spewing from its open mouth, carrying thick swords and big silver shields. I laughed again now as we drove past.

  “What?” Mom asked.

  “That place looks funny.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s called the Happy Shogun Sushi Palace and I don’t think the fish or the guys with the swords look very happy. And is the fish swallowing them? Or are they coming out of his stomach?”

  “Sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this already.”

  A week ago the name had appeared along the bottom of the window, and me and Dewey nearly split a gut when we saw it. We’d heard about sushi, of course, but neither of us had ever tried it. “Isn’t sushi like raw fish? Who wants to eat that? It doesn’t sound very good,” I said.

  “You have no idea how good it is until you try it. You shouldn’t judge things like that. Millions of people around the world love sushi.”

  “Not people in Alabama.”

  “Not yet. We’re only startin’ to see the sort of immigration that brings people to our town who will offer us new food like this. You should be happy about it.” The Japanese family who owned the restaurant were called the Takahashis. They had moved to Alvin at the beginning of summer and were the topic of conversation for most of July.

  I looked back at the fish. It had sharp teeth and the sword guys looked pretty mean. “Maybe the Takahashis took Mary Ann Dailey,” I said. For all I knew, Japanese people might eat little girls. If you ate raw fish, you probably ate anything.

  “Now why do you say that?”

  “Well, they just moved in a few months ago and then Mary Ann disappears. Just the timin’ is all.”

  “Listen, Abe, I don’t want you accusing people just because of no reason. That’s twice you’ve done that. I don’t want you accusing our neighbor because he works all night in his garage, and I especially don’t want no accusing because people are Japanese or any culture different than yours. That’s racist. And I am not raising no racist. Not under my roof.”

  “Well, they all have names that sound like Power Rangers,” I said, ignoring her comment about Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow, who, secretly, was still my prime suspect. Not just in the case of Mary Ann Dailey, but in everything.

  “What? I’m gonna pretend I didn’t even hear that.”

  “Why? Saying their names sound like a cartoon is racist?”

  “Of course it’s racist, Abe. Don’t you even know? Remind me to get your Uncle Henry to discuss this with you.”

  I didn’t see how something true could be racist. I didn’t say having cartoon names was a bad thing or nothing. I would actually like a weird name. Especially if it came with super powers of some sort. I decided to keep this thought to myself.

  “What’s sushi like?” I asked instead.

  “I don’t know, but I’m gonna try it before I say I don’t like it. I think it’s great that we get a chance to broaden our horizons without even leaving Alvin. This is one of the reasons for the outreach program.”

  The outreach program was sponsored by our church in an effort to bring more immigration to Alvin. Me and my mother donated money once a week. The church had helped the Takahashis move here. So, in a way, I guess we’re partly responsible for them and their new sushi restaurant.

  “Okay, I’ll try it too, then, before I say I hate it,” I said.

  She sighed. “Well, that’s a start.”

  “What’s a shogun?” I asked.

  “Actually, I don’t rightly know that, either. Some kind of Japanese warrior. I bet this is another good question for Uncle Henry. Then, after you find out, you can tell me and we’ll both learn something. Or, better yet, next time y
ou see Mr. Takahashi, why don’t you ask him? Just don’t say anything racist.”

  “I reckon I don’t know what’s racist and what isn’t,” I said.

  “Okay, stick with plan A,” she said. “Ask Uncle Henry. That was a better idea.”

  CHAPTER 8

  As soon as Mom pulled into the drive, I raced inside to call Dewey and tell him about the roadkill. He was skeptical. “Did you actually hit it? Or just see it?”

  “Both. I mean, we hit it and then I looked back and there it was.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Dewey, I’m telling you we ran over a possum. It’s splattered across Main Street.”

  I could hear him sigh through the phone. “Okay, I’m bringing my bike over. Let’s go check it out.”

  Mom stopped me on the way outside. “Where are you going?”

  “With Dewey for a bike ride.”

  She did a weird thing then. She just stood there like she almost wasn’t going to let me go. “Mom, I’ll be with Dewey. On a bike.” I knew she was thinking about Carry off by herself for the day in Satsuma. I felt like telling her: I’m not going to Satsuma, I’m going down the street a mile. But I decided not to.

  With a big breath, she looked away and came to a decision. “Okay, but don’t be long, all right? An hour?”

  “I don’t have a watch.”

  “We’ll have to get you one.”

  “Okay, but I don’t have one today.”

  Uncle Henry must’ve been listening from the living room where he was watching television. He came in and handed me his Timex. “Here, now you have a watch,” he said. “Please, for your mother’s sake, don’t be late?”

  His seriousness almost scared me. “I won’t,” I said. “We’re just going downtown to check somethin’ out. Then we’ll be right back.”

  Mom looked puzzled. “Check what out?”

  I looked to Uncle Henry. “Mom hit a possum on the way home from droppin’ off Carry. Dewey doesn’t believe me.”

  Uncle Henry’s eyebrows went up. “Really?” He looked at my mother. “You really hit a possum?”

  She shook her head, shrugging. “I dunno, I might have. Why? Since when is hitting a possum such a big deal.”

  “Oh,” Uncle Henry said, nodding, “it’s a big deal to some people right now.” He gave me a wink. “I’ll explain it to her. You go make sure it’s still there and actually dead. Then come home and tell me how this affects the overall theory.”

  My mother looked at him like he’d lost his marbles. I thanked him for the watch and went out the door.

  “One hour!” my mother called after me. “Or less. Less is okay, too.”

  We weren’t even halfway to Main Street when we found a dead raccoon lying on the side of the road. By the looks of things, it had probably been there near on a week. We got off our bikes and inspected it thoroughly. Dewey even poked it with a stick. “It’s over.” He sighed.

  I frowned. I hadn’t realized how much more interesting life was with an unsolved roadkill mystery hanging over it. This was like someone had set a giant piece of birthday cake in front of us, then laid down a big ol’ fork, and then, at the last minute, took away the cake. All we had was forks.

  And dead animals on the road.

  Still, we continued on to Main Street to double-check that the possum my mother killed on our way home was actually dead. It was. Pretty much in the same state of deadness as the raccoon, only more fresh.

  “Well, this ain’t the way I wanted this to end,” Dewey said. Neither of us did.

  “After what Uncle Henry said, I really thought it had something to do with Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow,” I said.

  “I still think he’s up to no good,” Dewey said. “Could be he just hasn’t gone collectin’ for a while.”

  “Dewey, that raccoon has been there at least four or five days.”

  “Maybe he’s saved up so much he’s got a stockpile,” Dewey offered, but I could tell he was scrambling.

  “Could be,” I said. We wanted to believe it, that’s for sure.

  “Even if he isn’t stockpiling roadkill, I still think he’s up to no good,” Dewey said.

  “Oh, I know he is,” I said. “It’s just some kind of no good that ain’t got nothing to do with disappearing roadkill. At least not no more.”

  “So we still have a mystery.” Dewey smiled.

  “He’s still at the top of my suspect list,” I said.

  “Mine, too.”

  For what, neither of us knew. I pulled Uncle Henry’s watch from my pocket. It was too big to wear around my wrist. “My mom told me to be home in an hour. We still got twenty-seven minutes, not countin’ the fifteen it’ll take to get back.”

  That was when Tiffany Michelle Yates came out of Igloo’s with an ice cream cone in her hand nearly as big as my head. It was one of those waffle cones and the ice cream was pink.

  “What kind of ice cream is pink?” Dewey asked.

  “Bubble gum,” she said with a big grin. Her teeth looked especially white against her dark face.

  “Looks girlie to me,” I said.

  “I’m a girl,” Tiffany Michelle Yates said. And she was. A black girl two years younger than Carry that Carry used to sometimes play with. That was back before Carry discovered boys and what Mom called cliques. Now Carry wouldn’t be seen as dead as this possum playing with a thirteen-year-old.

  “What’re y’all doing?” she asked. She wore a pretty pink dress that matched her ice cream and her hair looked freshly washed with a bright yellow ribbon tying it back. She looked as though she belonged on a postcard for Alvin with that giant ice cream cone in her hand.

  “The roadkill came back,” Dewey explained.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

  “It had all disappeared for the longest time, but now it’s back.” He pointed to the possum on the road. “Abe’s mom killed this one.”

  “Okay,” she said, looking at us like we fell off the back of a nut truck. We watched her continue down the sidewalk, eating her ice cream.

  “Girls can be so weird,” Dewey said, mounting his bike. “I doubt I’ll ever understand them.”

  I thought of Carry and agreed. “I know you never will. They’re not understandable. I think that’s their reason for ex-istin’. Uncle Henry told me somethin’ like that once.”

  We rode down the sidewalk, showing off by going no hands and saying, “Bye,” to Tiffany Michelle and her giant ice cream cone as we went past.

  From what my mother would later find out, it was the last thing anybody said to her before she disappeared.

  CHAPTER 9

  We made it back home with ten minutes to spare. My mother was happy about that, and when I returned the watch to Uncle Henry, he promised to buy me my own next time he was in town. I could tell my mother was still a little concerned about Carry, even though she still had three hours to go until the time she had promised to be back home.

  Mom made us some chicken noodle soup and we ate it in the living room while watching television. Cooking and television were nice distractions for her, but every time a show ended I saw her glance over at the clock on the mantel and get a bit more antsy.

  “Stop worryin’,” Uncle Henry said at four. “She promised to be home at five, she’ll be home by five. Besides, I thought you was goin’ into work this afternoon?”

  “What if she ain’t back by five?” my mother asked.

  “Then we’ll deal with that then. Don’t make up problems ahead of time that don’t even exist yet.” He flipped through the channels, stopping at some fishing show.

  “You’re not gonna make us watch people fish, are you?” I asked.

  “It’s kind of relaxin’,” he said. “I think your mom could use some relaxin’.” He looked at my mother. “That is if she ain’t goin’ to work like she says she was gonna. Are you goin’ in or not?”

  “So far I’ve decided to take the day off. I’ll make an official decision come five.”

 
“Fishin’s relaxin’ like watchin’ paint peel’s relaxin’,” Dewey said. We all laughed until the telephone rang, interrupting us. The sound of it made my mother nearly jump out of her skin.

  “Quit thinkin’ the worst,” Uncle Henry said, watching her get up to answer it. “It’s got nothing to do with Caroline.”

  He was right. It didn’t.

  But I could tell my mother was still terrified when she hung up the phone after taking the call.

  Uncle Henry could tell, too. It was in his voice. “Who was it?” He was out of his chair, out of the living room, and standing right beside her. I was behind him. Dewey was still in the living room watching people fish.

  “Mrs. Yates. Tiffany . . . her daughter. She’s missing.”

  “Missing missing?” Uncle Henry asked. “Or just ten minutes late coming home?”

  My mother looked stunned. “Missing missing. Goin’ on near three hours, Mrs. Yates said. Tiffany Michelle was supposed to meet her friend at the movie house at two. She never showed up.”

  I thought this over and then spoke up. “Dewey and me saw her right before then,” I said. “She was on Main Street with the biggest ice cream cone I ever seen. One of those big ol’ waffle cones. The ice cream was pink just like her dress. She asked us what we was doin’ and we told her studyin’ the roadkill that all came back. We even showed her the possum you runned over, but she didn’t seem to care so much about it, just that big waffle cone. I swear it was the biggest one I ever seen.”

  Uncle Henry held up his palm. “Slow down there, son. We don’t care so much about the ice cream. Are you sure it was Tiffany Yates?”

  I nodded. “Tiffany Michelle Yates. She had a bright yellow bow in her hair and looked like she’d just had a shampoo. I reckoned the way she looked she belonged on some sort of postcard or jigsaw puzzle or somethin’.” I thought all my details were helpful, but nobody seemed to want to hear about them so much.

  “Are you sure it was right before that time? How do you know?”