by Ray Garton
“Shhh, honey,” Andrea said, “be quiet now.” As a couple of pancakes cooked, Andrea took a bottle of baby food and a little spoon from the counter and went to the high chair. She pulled a chair away from the table, sat down, and fed Marnie some Gerber’s mashed peaches. She whispered, “You know how Daddy likes it quiet in the morning, baby, right? Right, sweetie?” She smiled at Marnie, and the baby smiled back as she chewed her food, letting some of the mashed peaches dribble down onto her chin. Her chubby cheeks were as rosy as if they’d been rouged. She had Andrea’s dark, gold-streaked blonde hair, and Jimmy’s big blue eyes, but the smile was all her own.
Andrea gasped when she remembered the pancake. She stood and stepped over to the stove, flipped the pancake with a spatula. “Oh, damn,” she whispered. The pancake was a little darker than Jimmy preferred. Maybe if she put it in the middle of the stack, he wouldn’t notice.
She wore grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt. She was slender, five feet, six inches tall. She had gained only a little weight both times she was pregnant, and she’d lost even that little bit quickly, because Jimmy hated overweight women. He hated overweight people, period. He said it was a sign of laziness and lack of self control. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders and framed a face that was pretty, even without makeup, but that appeared strained and tired.
Jimmy came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve plaid shirt and carrying the newspaper, which he’d gotten from the porch. He silently hung his down jacket on the back of the chair, sat down at the table. Jimmy worked at Marx’s Brickyard, where he operated the heavy equipment used to move piles of rocks and gravel and stacks of bricks. He was five-eight, with a mop of black hair and a mustache, a narrow face and a wiry, taut body.
Andrea served him his breakfast, then went back to feeding Marnie. She cooed at the baby and made her smile as she ate. Marnie suddenly sprayed a mouthful of mashed peaches all over Andrea’s hand, and Andrea laughed in spite of the mess. She got up and went to the counter, tore off a couple of paper towels and wiped up the baby food, then continued feeding the baby.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy stand up at the table, and she wondered if he’d finished his breakfast so soon.
An explosion of breaking glass nearly knocked Andrea out of her chair, and she dropped the spoon with which she’d been feeding Marnie—it clattered onto the high-chair’s tray—and shot to her feet. Jimmy had thrown his breakfast across the kitchen. The plate had shattered against the cupboards over the counter. One of the syrupy pancakes stuck to the cupboard, while the rest of Jimmy’s breakfast fell to the countertop and floor, and shards of the shattered plate scattered everywhere. Andrea’s mouth and eyes were open wide in shock, but that passed quickly. She closed her eyes and bowed her head a moment before turning to face Jimmy.
“How many Goddamned times do I have to tell you?” he shouted as he came around the table toward her.
Andrea tensed, anticipating the blow.
He slapped her face hard once and she made a high, sharp sound of shock mingled with pain. Then his arm swung back and he backhanded her, his knuckles slamming against her cheekbone. He kept slapping her as he went on shouting, his arm sweeping back and forth, back and forth.
“I told you, I don’t like my fucking pancakes burnt!” he shouted. “One of ‘em’s too fucking dark, goddammit! Is it just that you’re so fucking stupid or do you do it on purpose?”
Marnie screamed, and her scream dissolved into wracking baby-sobs.
“Shut that fucking little rat up!” Jimmy shouted. He snatched his jacket off the chair, put it on, and said, “I’ll have to stop somewhere and buy my fucking breakfast, because it seems—” He picked up his glass of orange juice and threw it at the cupboards. The glass shattered with an explosion of liquid orange. “—you don’t know how to fucking cook!”
Marnie wailed as Jimmy left the kitchen.
Andrea tasted blood. The inside of her lower lip had been cut against her teeth. Her face burned as if her cheeks were in flames, and it felt like the right one was beginning to swell a little under her eye, where his knuckles had hit her repeatedly.
Jimmy slammed the front door on his way out.
It did not matter how many times it happened—it was always as shocking as the first time. Andrea never knew what would cause it, and she was never prepared for it.
* * * *
Jimmy Norton ordered a hearty breakfast at the counter of Tess’s Diner on Beakman Street. He liked a big breakfast. He seldom ate much for lunch, so he was hungry when he got home at the end of the day, and Andrea always had a hot dinner waiting for him when he arrived, which was as it should be as far as Jimmy was concerned. She knew what would happen if she didn’t, or was late.
When Jimmy and Andrea had married, she’d wanted to remove the words “to honor and obey” from the vows. Jimmy’s father had predicted this would happen back when Jimmy was thirteen. His father had given him a long lecture about how to “handle” women as he got older, and he’d said that when Jimmy married, his bride probably would want to remove those words, and he’d told Jimmy to resist it. That, Dad had said, was how it was supposed to be—the wife was supposed to “honor and obey” her husband.
Jimmy remembered how his mother had obeyed his father, and how, on the rare times that she had not, Dad had punished her with a beating, sometimes with the belt. He’d punished Jimmy and his brother Neil the same way, of course. Punishment had been a big part of life when Jimmy was growing up.
Jimmy and Andrea had been married four years, and there were times when he could not stand the sight of her, days when he wanted to pick up that baby—a baby he sometimes suspected was not his—and beat Andrea to death with it. Times when he wanted to go through the house and just lay waste to the place, devastate it. When that happened, he had to get out of the house. He would come home from work, have his dinner, then go out and get into the truck and just drive and look around. Sometimes he would come across a woman who appealed to him. He would watch her house, or follow her around town, sometimes for a few nights in a row. Then, he would introduce himself to her in his own special way, show her what a real man was like.
After that, he always felt better.
Those times came more often these days—the feeling he was about to explode with tension, anger, that desire to destroy his own house, his own family. He’d had to go out at night more often and give himself air to breathe. And more often, he had to find a woman. So he could introduce himself to her ... in his own special way.
As he waited for his breakfast, Jimmy watched the waitress pass back and forth before him. She was just a little plump—not fat, he could not tolerate fat people—nicely voluptuous, with honey-blonde hair, big pouty lips. She caught him watching her, but he did not stop, did not avert his eyes. Instead, he smiled. She looked at him briefly and returned the smile. As she smiled, Jimmy winked at her. Her smile grew and she ducked her head bashfully as she turned away from him to take a plate from the order window. He watched as she took the plate to a table.
Andrea was skinny. Her breasts were small and flattish, her knees knobby. She had a nice ass, he gave her that much. But Jimmy was more of a breast man. The fact was, he never would’ve married her if she hadn’t been pregnant with Jenny. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to marry her even then, but after beating the crap out of Jimmy in his bedroom, his dad gave him a lecture on how stupid you had to be to get a woman pregnant these days, and about doing the right thing. Then he’d kicked Jimmy around some more. He’d been drunk at the time, of course. So they’d married, and Jimmy found himself where he was today—restless, trapped, with a growing rage inside him.
The curvaceous waitress placed his breakfast before him, gave him a smirk and a silent wink, then walked away.
Jimmy chuckled a little as he began to eat.
6
Jason
The Northgate Mall opened at nine, and early shoppers came in as soon as the doors were unlocked. The Donut Ho
le was the only vendor in the food court that opened that early, and a short line formed right away. Most of the stores opened at nine, though the higher end boutiques and art galleries did not open until ten.
The two-story mall stood at the eastern edge of Big Rock, right on the border of the city limits. It was patronized by shoppers from neighboring Seaside, Borden, Raven’s Port, and even Crescent City to the north and Eureka to the south.
In the back room of the B. Dalton Bookseller where he worked, Jason Sutherland pinned his rectangular nametag to the pocket of his long-sleeve green-plaid shirt, and went to the front of the store. The manager had opened the doors just a few minutes earlier and there were already three shoppers browsing the aisles—two middle-aged women and a man in his sixties. Jason smiled at them as he passed on his way to the register in front.
Jason’s light brown hair was short and wavy—he’d just gotten a trim the day before at Northgate Hair Design across the way. He had brown eyes with long lashes beneath heavy brows that tilted slightly downward on the outer ends. He had a straight nose, and a strong jaw. It was a fine face, but sad, even when he smiled. His body was soft and tended to be overweight. Jason had fought his weight all his life. He was not athletic—he preferred reading and writing to just about anything. He had no brothers or sisters and had grown up around more adults than children. He’d been a precocious child with an impressive vocabulary which he had not used much because he was so very shy. His weight had been the cause of a lot of pain for him growing up—the other kids never let him forget he was overweight. His weight was also, he’d decided, the primary reason why, at the age of twenty-one, he was still a virgin. His weight, and his painful shyness. He’d made attempts to lose it. He did not eat anymore than anyone else he knew—he didn’t binge eat or use food as comfort. He didn’t get as much exercise as he should, he admitted that. But he was so deathly afraid of embarrassment and humiliation—and that was what he felt every time he tried to exercise.
The manager of the bookstore was a petite woman in her forties named Georgia Williams. She was a chilly person, stiff, abrupt, even when she wore her empty smile, which always looked forced. That morning, she was unhappy because another worker, Cynthia Newell, was late yet again.
Jason worried that when Cynthia arrived, Miss Williams would fire her. She had been warned a couple of times about her tardiness. He did not want Cynthia to be fired. Cynthia was, of course, barely aware of his existence, even though they often worked side by side at the register when it got busy, but Jason enjoyed working with her, being near her.
Cynthia arrived at precisely nine-eighteen. Jason smiled and said, “Hello, Cynthia,” but he said it so quietly that she did not hear him as she hurried toward the back. He closed his eyes as he breathed in the perfume left in her wake. She wore a long grey coat with a black fur collar, and her red purse was slung over her shoulder. She was about the same age as Jason, with short, curly blonde hair and a beautiful oval face. Her shiny curls bounced slightly as she walked.
“Cynthia,” Miss Williams said. She was standing in the humor section, tidying up the shelves, when Cynthia came in. She’d stepped out into the center aisle, blocking Cynthia’s path.
Jason watched as the young woman stopped, her small hands closing into fists, her back stiffening.
Miss Williams said, “I’m not going to warn you again, understand? The next time you’re late, you might as well not come in, because you’ll be dismissed. Is that clear?”
“I’m really sorry,” Cynthia said. “Really, I mean, I would’ve been on time, but there was a wreck on Westphal Street, and I had to wait, along with everybody else. Really. I mean, it was, like, this really bad wreck, there were three cars all scrunched up so bad that you—”
“At this point, Cynthia, your reason for being late is hardly relevant. It’s happened much too often. Do you understand what I’m saying? Once more, and you’ll have to look for work elsewhere.”
Cynthia nodded. Miss Williams returned to what she was doing, and Cynthia went through the door at the back of the store.
Jason knew she would come back out in no time at all, and they would spend another day working together. He had to admit to himself that he had a bit of a crush on Cynthia. But she was not the woman he thought about the most, the woman for whom he reserved his true affections. That would be his next-door neighbor, Andrea Norton.
He’d heard shouting over there again that morning as he ate breakfast. His mother had heard it, too, and had shaken her head as she stood at the stove cooking.
Jason lived in an apartment over his parents’ garage. From a side window in his apartment, he could see the Norton’s’ front yard. His heart broke for Andrea. He had elaborate fantasies in which he saved her from her terrible marriage and they went away together with her baby and little girl, married, and lived far away in another town. He had other fantasies about her, too, which were not quite as elaborate, but no less exciting. He dreamed of burying his fingers in her long, thick brown hair as he kissed her on the mouth, then the throat, then her breasts, kissing and smiling.
Andrea came into the bookstore now and then. She told him she usually bought her books at the used bookstore, but she had a favorite mystery writer and she always bought his books as soon as they were released in paperback because she hated to wait for them to show up at the Paperback Trader. Jason sometimes visited her in the afternoon while her husband was at work, and even mowed her lawn sometimes during the summer, so she wouldn’t have to do it. Her husband never did any yard work.
It did not seem fair that Jason was alone and had no one, and yet a prick like Jimmy Norton had a wonderful wife whom he mistreated and abused.
Cynthia was Sunday-afternoon shopping sprees and sexy clothes and bubblegum pop music. Andrea, on the other hand, was something more ... she was a real woman—thoughtful, intelligent, mature. Jason had a schoolboy crush on Cynthia, but his feelings for Andrea were deeper, stronger.
Andrea’s favorite writer had a new novel in hardcover. Miss Williams had opened the box in back that morning, and Jason would be putting them out on the front shelves a little later. He’d already decided he would buy one for Andrea—it would give him an excuse to go over and see her that afternoon when he got off work at three.
The two middle-aged women came to the register with their purchases and Jason smiled.
7
Fish and Game
Sheriff Farrell Hurley awoke at seven, as usual. He did not even have to set an alarm anymore—he’d been doing it so long, he now automatically woke at seven every morning, whether he needed to or not. Upon waking, he went to his home office and got on the treadmill for awhile. As he walked, he tried to read more of the book of essays by Twain, his favorite writer. After showering, he usually made breakfast for Ella and himself. That Tuesday morning, he felt edgy, nervous. He hadn’t even been able to read while walking on the treadmill—he kept reading the same paragraph over and over again before finally giving up. He made a breakfast of waffles and strawberries, but he repeatedly dropped things or tripped over his own feet going from one counter to another. He turned on the radio on top of the refrigerator and he and Ella listened to the morning news as they ate. When the female newscaster came to the report of Deputy Garrett’s death, Hurley stood and turned off the radio, then returned to his breakfast. They usually talked over breakfast, but on that morning, Hurley was silent, and so was Ella. He hadn’t caught her yet, but he had the feeling Ella was watching him while he wasn’t looking. Was his jitteriness that obvious?
He could not rid his memory of the face of Deputy Garrett’s wife when he’d told her what had happened the night before.
Fran Garrett was a thirty-year-old office manager in a large insurance office. She had short strawberry-blonde hair and a fair-complexioned face with a mouth that was just a tad too wide and smiling all the time—all the time. She was tall—five nine, or so—and curvy, animated when she talked, a little loud, with a generous laugh.
“Hurley?” she said, her voice hoarse. “Is it ... is it ... Billy?”
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m really sorry.”
That wide mouth became wider as the corners pulled back and the eyes crinkled up and the left hand clutched at the front of her robe while the right slapped over her mouth. “Oh, no,” she said into her palm. “Oh, dear Jesus, no.” She trembled as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Hurley stepped forward and took her in his arms, and she collapsed against him, seeming to shrink in his hold.
Fran pressed her face to his shoulder and her words were muffled, but he understood them. “What huh-happened?”
“We’re not sure yet, Fran. We think it was some kind of animal.”
She pulled away from him and searched his face, frowning above wide eyes. “What? A wha—an animal?”
He nodded once. “I’m afraid so. Something big and strong.”
“I want to see him.”
Hurley closed his eyes as he shook his head. “No, Fran. No, you don’t want that. Believe me. I’ve seen him. You don’t want to remember him like that. You can’t.”
“Thuh-that ... that bad?”
“Take my word for it, Fran.”
She’d fallen against him then, collapsing completely, and sobbed for a long time. Hurley pulled her over to the couch and gently sat her down. She slumped forward and put her face in her hands.
After awhile, a small voice from inside the house said, “Mommy? What’samatter?”
She’d lifted her head from her hands. She’d stood then, and bent down to pick up her little boy as she said, “Oh baby, oh baby.”
