Whittaker 02 The One We Love

by Donna White Glaser

  She wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t find a pulse. I made certain there was no pulse. That was the most I could do.

  I crawled back up the stairs, coughing and choking so hard I saw dots again. The smoke burned down my throat and air suddenly became a thing to be diligently sought after rather than taken for granted. I stumbled my way blindly across the loft floor until I ran headlong into the wall of bales.

  The only direction was up, and that’s where I went. Midway, a bout of coughing almost launched me off the side. Snot and tears ran freely down my face, but I dug my hands in between the bales, hanging on til I could force a foot up. Then, the other. And kept going up.

  I got confused at the edge. I couldn’t find any more “up” and my mind was too busy wrestling with the lack of oxygen to make sense of my position. Hands grabbed at me, twining in my hair and pulling.

  The roaring had risen to an ear-splitting howl. The barn, all around us, moaned in its death throes. I couldn’t think. I crawled, following Mikey’s heels, knowing that if I lost him now …

  A piercing screech of metal added to the cacophony, as Mikey shoved one side of the sliding door sideways. He’d found it. I lunged forward, thrusting my head through the space into the air. The craving for clean air more urgent than any thirst.

  Smoke billowed skyward, black plumes blotting out the sun. Despite that, this half of the barn didn’t seem to be completely engulfed, though in a structure stacked with hay and made of dry, aged wood, we only had a few moments at most. Mikey clattered the other side open and stood peering over the side. I struggled to my knees and fought to speak.

  “Wait …” A coughing spasm wracked my body, twisting my insides into one convulsing, cramping muscle. I grabbed Mikey’s arm and waited for it to pass. “… heard sirens,” I managed. “They’re coming.” But when had I heard sirens. How long ago? Did they even know where we were or that we were even here?

  Mikey knelt down next to me, placing his black-streaked, earnest face nose-to-nose with mine. His eyes, big and imploring, stared into my own. “There’s a wagon. We jump in it. Just do what I do.”

  And, in front of my disbelieving eyes, he stood, squared off on the edge of the three-story high opening… and jumped.

  He fell through the grey swirling mass and disappeared beneath it. Leaving me alone, staring out into a day turned into writhing night.

  I didn’t hear him land, but that might be because of all the screaming. Mine, of course, and the barn’s. And then I coughed so convulsively I hit my head on the floor, banging my nose so hard I thought I heard it pop. Again with the stars.

  Grabbing the edge of the wall, I leaned out as far as I could, blood running in rivulets from my nose, adding a new twist to the tear/snot/smoke effect.

  “Mikey!” I screeched. “Mikey!”

  “I’m okay! Jump!”

  “Are you freakin’ kidding me? I can’t jump! I can’t even see you.”

  “Just jump where I did. You’ll land in the wagon.”

  A thousand questions ran through my head—all of overwhelming importance and entirely unanswerable. How big was the wagon? Exactly where was the wagon? Would my heavier mass create greater velocity, thus slamming my body through the wagon and halfway to China? Why hadn’t I paid closer attention in physics class? Was there going to be a pitchfork issue at the bottom? Was Mikey out of the way? Was I really as high as logic told me I was? What if I missed?

  How long could I wait for the firemen before burning up?

  Another coughing fit brought me to my knees, and I realized I wouldn’t die from the flames. It would be smoke that would do me in and a lot sooner than the fire. I’d pass out very soon and lie here, unconscious and unfeeling, on top of the hay at the edge of the world.

  And then the fire would charbroil my stupid, chicken-shit ass.

  I sent up one more prayer to the Higher Power that now had my full attention, if he wanted it. Then, I pushed out, aiming for the spot where I’d last seen Mikey, and let myself fall through the dark and the grey and the air and the emptiness.

  CHAPTER SIXTY THREE

  There is nothing remotely fluffy about a wagonful of straw. When I hit, the breath whooshed out in a rush, and all I could manage was short, shallow gasps—a respite from the coughing jag, but worrisome in its not-enough-oxygen, gonna-die implications.

  Finally, my lungs hitched in enough air for my panic to lessen. Slightly. I was still lying on a bed of flammable straw on a flammable wooden wagon adjacent to a flaming inferno.

  Not to mention a killer sill running around, literally fanning the flames and (presumably) cackling with glee.

  Mikey.

  I crawled over the sidewall and flopped to the ground, setting off another round of coughing. I hacked up phlegm, half expecting it to be as black as ashes, but it wasn’t. Mikey was at my side in an instant, grabbing my arm, asking if I was all right. His concern almost did me in. Tears had runneled two clear paths down his black, sooty face. For a moment, I lost track of who was taking care of whom, and then it came to me that, aside from hollow reassurances, I’d pretty much been dead weight for him.

  I wiped a tear from his cheek and he flung himself at me, wrapping me in a full-body, all-boy hug. Maybe dead weight has some uses, after all.

  It was too soon to relax. “Mikey, we’ve got to find the cops.” Never, ever thought I’d say those words. “And the firemen. Hear the sirens?”

  Don’t know how I’d missed them in the first place. The strident wails and siren blasts added to the confusion. “Come on,” I said. “Joyce is still …” I stopped before giving voice to the fear. “We can’t quit now, big guy.”

  We staggered along the side of the barn, pushing through knee-high weeds that clutched at our feet as though the earth was in league with the killer. The smoke wasn’t too bad on this side, making me worry we’d run into Joyce as she made her rounds. When three black-suited firemen came tearing around the corner, I let out a shriek that would have broken glass.

  The sight of us caused a bit of excitement for them, too. They were on us like we were the winning lottery ticket in Saturday’s MegaMillions drawing. The weeds ceased to be an issue as I was half-lifted, half-dragged between two of the firemen to the front of the building, where all hell was breaking loose. Or, rather, where trained professionals from three adjoining communities were battling to shove hell back into its cage. Mikey was carried to the closest ambulance, of which there were plenty.

  Cop cars, fire trucks, too many to count; at least four ambulances; pickups with little swirly blue lights—personal vehicles of the on-call emergency workers—filled the farmyard like an Emergency Vehicle Expo. With relief, I saw that Paul had called out the cavalry. One of the ambulances had parked outside the kitchen door, the driver just barely waiting for the doors to close behind its occupant before wailing away. Paul stood on the porch, blank-faced watching the transfer of his charge; then his eyes met mine across the controlled frenzy between us. His face lit up—it might have been the sight of me in my bra—and he started toward me. A cop pulled him back, already starting the questions. Already digging backwards into this mess. The authorities were involved with a vengeance.

  They could have it.

  And before the wash of relief took hold—because God forbid I should feel that for very long—I spied Astrid safely ensconced between two paramedics with a police officer hovering just to the side. The EMTs were wrapping one of her hands with gauze and she clutched an oxygen mask to her face with the other. The scream she let loose when she caught sight of us put shame to the sirens and nearly caused the cop to draw his gun.

  What the hell? Astrid? I slammed my feet into the ground, causing my firemen escorts to almost rip my arms out of their sockets. They re-gripped and hauled me to yet another ambulance, barely waiting for the EMTs to take over before racing back to the fire.

  An EMT with the name Whitman stitched over her breast slapped a mask over my face, while a male counterpart hauled the stretche
r out and helped me to lie down. Even as they sought my pulse and did the flashlight eye thing, I fought to sit back up.

  “Joyce is dead?” I said. The mask muffled the words, and I pulled it off.

  Whitman put it back on. “We can hear you. You have to keep this on.”

  “Astrid killed Joyce? Is Joyce still in there?” That was stupid. Of course she hadn’t. That had been a very dead body I’d touched. And bloody. My hands were sticky with it. My stomach did a lazy, ominous roll.

  “Is there someone else in the barn?” the guy this time. “Hey! Chief!” He waved the chief over.

  “What’s goin’ on?” The voice coming through the mask sounded all Darth-Vader raspy, but in a reassuring way.

  “She says there’s someone else in there.”

  The chief pulled a radio up to his face.

  I grabbed his arm, yanking the mask off again. “That’s not what I meant.” A cough wrenched from my body, twisting me until I was almost hanging off the stretcher. Someone slapped the mask back on. I pointed at Astrid. “She and Joyce were fighting. I thought Joyce killed—” More coughing. It seemed to be getting worse.

  “We found the body. Is that who you mean?”

  I nodded, holding the mask tight enough to leave dents in my cheeks. I’d learned my lesson.

  “I thought it was Astrid. I mean, I thought Joyce killed Astrid.” I couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Was there anyone else in the barn?” The chief, understandably, was bulldog-focused on that question. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word, his face inches from mine.

  “Just me and Mikey and Joyce. Astrid came in later.”

  “Three of you are out. One fatality. You’re sure no one else is in there?”

  I shook my head and he charged back into the fray, leaving me to wrestle with the facts.

  I kept thinking that. Astrid killed Joyce, okay, no arguing that. Astrid: alive. Joyce, not so much. I still had blood on my hands from checking her body. But then why the fire? Why?

  Off came the stupid mask again and I slid off the stretcher in one smooth move, then charged the fifteen feet between our ambulances. Astrid saw me coming and started screaming again. Behind me Whitman shouted, alerting Astrid’s team, who jumped in front of Astrid protectively, each grabbing at me as I tried shoving my way past their protective wall.

  As well she should.

  “Why, Astrid? Why did you set the fire?” Instead shouting, my voice graveled into useless hoarse croaks. I sounded like a hysterical frog. Plus, I could barely hear myself over the din. I writhed against their restraining hands like a mad thing, trying to get close enough to Astrid so she could hear me, so I could see her face when I made her answer. “Why the fire? Astrid! Why did you set the barn on fire?”

  They were pulling me away. I didn’t have the strength to fight, so I went dead-weight, dropping out of their grasp, and then crawled through their legs. I popped back up, right in Astrid’s face. Eye-to-eye. I must have looked like a beast, red-eyed, soot-blackened face, snarling and snapping. I hoped I did. “Astrid! Why? Why the fire? Why did you set the barn on fire?”

  The cop got between us, and all the paramedics piled on, but as they dragged me away, Astrid screamed, “I didn’t know! I didn’t know you were in there! I didn’t know!” She broke into hysterics, and I saw her paramedics move to push her down against the white sheets, blocking me.

  That was as much of an answer as I was going to get, at least for now. The fight drained out of me, leaving me hollow, shaking and nauseous and cold. I stopped resisting. They hustled me back to the ambulance, tossed me on the stretcher, and refitted the mask. I let them do their thing. Their hands moved professionally, tending to my body; I distanced my mind, retreating.

  Only once I sat up, searching for Mikey. Whitman grabbed my shoulder, ready to pounce, but as soon as I saw him, safely being loaded into his own ride, I lay back down. His ambulance peeled off, with Astrid’s a few moments behind. I’d made my EMTs so nervous, they made a cop ride in the back with the male paramedic. And then we were off.

  CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR

  Had Astrid come to the barn looking for Joyce … or for Mikey? As the ambulance churned its way to Chippewa, I tried to think it through. Why would she set fire to the barn if she’d killed Joyce? To hide the body? Was it an impulsive stab at hiding her deed? It would be stupid, because of course it wouldn’t work, but people do stupid things when they’re freaked out. If anyone knew Joyce best, it would be Astrid; working together, side-by-side, each of them focused on the daily lives of their charges. Astrid could have guessed.

  Were Astrid’s hysterics guilt or fear? Or did I have it backwards? Was there a different motivation all together for Astrid to set the fire?

  I put my brain in reverse, recasting Astrid instead of Joyce for the role of killer.

  Astrid—the nurturer, the welcomer—feeding the women “milk and cookies and tucking them in at night.” Astrid—the only one who hadn’t seemed embittered, burnt out. The one who’d kept her focus narrowed, inside the walls of the shelter, turning a blind eye to the bigger picture in order to tend to the little details in the women’s everyday lives. Had she found a solution to the hopelessness, a way to fight back when someone she cared for and rescued was determined to make an awful, soul-destroying choice? A choice that would undo everything she’d spent so much time patching together, returning to her abuser, taking the children, too, more often than not.

  Was that what drove her?

  Joyce had issues, sure, but did she have the wherewithal to plan and carry out the murders? In her earlier life, Joyce’s fundamental personality style was passivity. Until she bludgeoned her abusive husband in his sleep, that is. Maybe I should rethink that “passive” bit.

  But then why had Joyce attacked Karissa? It hadn’t been Astrid, I’d heard her car pull up to the barn when I was hiding from Joyce. If Joyce was coming to warn Mikey’s mother, she wouldn’t have cracked her head open, would she? Seemed counter-productive.

  Unless …

  I thought of the blood-stained knife lying on the floor, just a few feet away from Karissa; of Karissa meeting us at the door, the same knife clutched at her side; of the warning we’d delivered, Paul and I, the panic we’d instilled. Had she gone after Joyce? Was Joyce defending herself?

  So, there were two choices. Joyce-the-killer attacks Karissa and starts hunting Mikey down. Astrid comes to the rescue. There’s a mighty battle where Joyce is killed and Astrid sets fire to the barn in remorse or guilt or fear or something.

  Or … Joyce comes to warn Karissa, is attacked and forced to defend herself, then tries to get to Mikey before Astrid-as-killer adds a pint-sized victim to her roster. Astrid kills Joyce and sets the barn alight to either smoke us out or silence the only witness to her attack on Regina. Maybe she figured Joyce would be blamed for the fire, too.

  Which?

  Mikey knew.

  The ambulance pulled into a garage bay and I was whisked down a short hall. On the way, we passed by two glass-fronted trauma rooms. The first held a squad of medical people working on Karissa; Mikey, in the next. They steered me into a third.

  No sight of Astrid. Maybe they’d taken her to a different hospital. From what I could remember, though, St. Joe’s was the nearest acute care center in the area.

  They hoisted me off the ambulance stretcher and onto the hospital’s wheeled bed. Almost as soon as I settled, a nurse popped a clip-thing on my index finger and switched me to a different oxygen mask as a second fussed with the machinery. A third buzzed in and out, doing other mysterious nursey-things, and when the doctor joined the mix, they moved around and over me in such smooth synchrony, it would’ve made a water ballet team weep with envy. With the oxygen, my coughing had lessened considerably, but I was still hacking up phlegm and my throat felt red and itchy. After asking me a series of questions, he ordered blood work and “chemistries” and some kind of test that sounded like he was reading the ingredients from a box of cer
eal—the kind nutrition-Nazis warn us about. And then he was out the door and gone.

  “Did someone call Mikey’s grandma?” I asked.

  The nearest nurse glanced up. “The little boy? Do you have his grandmother’s number?” he asked.

  “Not exactly”—not at all, really, but I forged on—“but her name is Bernadette … something. Maybe Mikey knows where she is. Is he okay? Can I see him?”

  Through the window, I saw Mikey being wheeled away. I sat up. “Where are they taking him?” My heart started thudding. I couldn’t lose sight of him. My sudden movement triggered a coughing spasm.

  The nurses exchanged glances over the top of me. Apparently, they’d been informed about my antics at the farm. Antics. Attempted homicide. Whatever.

  The nurse eased me back, his hand warm on my shoulder. “Relax. He’s just going to radiology for a chest X-ray. We have one right here in our department. Isn’t that cool? You’ll be next.”

  They continued to work around and over me. I debated telling them my suspicions, but that glance between them didn’t bode well for my credibility. If I made them too nervous, I was afraid they’d sedate me.

  I kept an eye on the hall, watching for Mikey’s return and still trying to determine where Astrid was. The newly remodeled ER had been designed with the nurses’ station as a central hub, allowing them a view of most of the exam rooms. One in particular—on the far side of Mikey’s, with just the edge of the door visible—had a decent amount of action going in and out.

  “Is that where they took Astrid? The one who set the fire?” The questions just slipped out.

  Another shared glance. They didn’t answer. But they didn’t say she wasn’t there, either.

  Good enough.

  I became even more certain of Astrid’s whereabouts when I saw a uniformed police officer go up to the door and look in. He strolled away almost instantly, so I couldn’t be certain it was the cop from the farm, but if it wasn’t, he was close enough to be his brother. If that was where Astrid was being treated, it didn’t appear as though they considered her very dangerous. An impulsive arsonist, maybe, but not a crazed killer going after a six-year-old. Hell, she might even be a hero in their eyes, if she’d dispatched a real murderer.