Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem

by Karen G. Berry

  “We’d better call County and have this place dusted.” Memphis pressed his hand to his forehead, felt the tectonic shift of the world below him. He held out the baggie full of rings. “I’m going to leave you and Hiram in charge here. I need to get over to the hospital.”

  Hiram stood up, shedding a lap full of crumbs on the rug. “Can I radio County?”

  Garth shook his head, all smiles. “Gosh, Hiram, that seems like a waste of county money. You know they don’t have a very good cleaning crew here, and just think of all the prints that might be hanging around a place like this. Hundreds and hundreds. Don’t we have all the evidence we have right here?” He shook the Baggie, and the bright and sparkling items inside threw Hiram into a spin of admiration. Garth gave another of those toothpaste ad smiles. “Come on, Hiram. Let’s tape it off and go deliver these to the office. I’ll tell you what, you can carry them.”

  MEMPHIS PARKED ON Sweetly Dreaming Lane in front of his brother’s home. Melveena’s Caddy was parked behind him. His eyes burned from tears and smoking wreckage, his stomach rolled at the thought of human incineration, and his shoulder hurt from the exertion. He kept hearing the words of Melveena that day in his kitchen.

  Wrath is the work of women and gods.

  Which gods, he wondered. The pretty Jesus on his prayer card? The sly tricksters that figured in the stories his mother had told him in the cradle? The only God that was real to him anymore was the uncaring force that had driven him to his knees at the site of the accident. The God who only existed to be implored at life’s worst moments. Did that God have a stake in men having the deaths they deserved?

  He stood beside his cruiser in the still of morning, watching as filmy curtains ruffled in and out of Fossetta’s back bedroom window. He took the small pair of pink moccasins out of his pocket and tucked them inside the rusty mailbox, because he knew this much. Whoever had killed the Reverend, it wasn’t sweet and silent Fossetta.

  He shook his leonine head, smoothed his impressive mustache. Squared his broad shoulders. And knocked very lightly.

  Rhondalee answered in her leopard-spotted robe and slippers. Her face was naked, her hair caught up under a scarf surprisingly close in the color of her hair when he met her.

  Why, Memphis thought, she almost looks like herself.

  “Rhondalee, it’s about Annie Leigh. Now, she’s all right, but she’s in the hospital with her mother.” He held out his arms to catch her when she fell down in her fit, then guided her to a seat at the kitchen table. He sat beside her, watching carefully for signs of shock while he told her of the night’s happenings, how Gator Rollins had kidnapped her granddaughter, how she threw herself out to escape. “I don’t know how that guitar case was made, but it was apparently of miraculous workmanship. It broke her fall. She said it was like riding something, the way it carried her to the ditch. The case is nothing but splinters.” The fit acted up a bit, then, there was some casting about of thin limbs, a shake of the head on the skinny neck. But she settled. “Rhondalee? I also want you to know that we found some fairly conclusive evidence that Gator killed the Right Reverend Henry Heaven. The Reverend’s rings. Gator Rollins must have killed the Reverend to get those.”

  Rhondalee LaCour was on her feet in moments. “I need to get to work on a special edition of the newsletter!”

  His voice was deep, gently encouraging, and filled with disbelief. “Well, don’t you think you’d better go see your daughter and Annie Leigh at the hospital? I was headed there myself, I can give you a ride.”

  “It figures she’d get into some nasty business like this, wandering around in the night like she does as if the world was a safe place. Raven is with her. I have other things to attend to!” She rushed out the door in her robe, headed for her office at the Clubhouse.

  Memphis sat a moment at the table, trying to find the energy to stand. He knew he had enough evidence to pin the murder of the Right Reverend Henry Heaven on the pile of ashes that was the late Gator Rollins. Rhondalee would handle the matter of public opinion. It would be sewn up and forgotten.

  Still, it didn’t add up.

  Memphis knew what Gator had done to deserve a death by fire. Gator Rollins was a monster. But Gator Rollins would never have taken a handful of junk from a man, let alone kill to do it. That left the Reverend. What had he done to call down divine wrath?

  Wrath is the work of women and gods.

  Memphis shook his head. He would never solve the murder by considering the vast and unknowable face of God.

  He put his head in his arms on the table, and allowed himself to sleep.

  MELVEENA HAD KEPT a full night’s vigil beside Fossetta, who lay still and pale as a figure on a sarcophagus. But morning was underway, and there were matters important to which she must attend. Melveena touched that beautiful nimbus of hair. “I’ll be by later,” she whispered. “I’ll bring you something sweet.” She stood and stretched, feeling something pop in her lower back, but in a good way.

  She stepped outside to the morning sky, so fresh, so much cleaner than anything it lit. She looked up and down the street at all the decorative yard displays. There was the little wooden cow with the hose in its tail, so that it would swish back and forth while watering. There were the geese, a pair, dressed for the season in colorful clothing. There was every kind of garden gnome, far more than seven, and two donkeys with carts. She looked at the Clubhouse yard. Gravel and cactus. She thought, that’s what grows in a place like this.

  She heard a sound, then. A howl similar to the one that had blown around the Park all week, but this one had an earthly source. A mundane and mechanical sound.

  The sound of several tortured trannies.

  Yes, this was the sound of a caravan of Caravans, the pre-1989 models, all with defective transmissions that stopped shifting into “High” once the car warmed up. And these transmissions had driven a long, long time, West and South, from Utah to California, in second gear.

  These mini-vans groaned in automotive complaint through the Park until they reached the ten spots marked “Visitor” in front of the clubhouse. There were only four vans, but the drivers parked so badly that they managed to fill eight of the spaces. The doors opened.

  First came boys, boys with flat mouths and thick glasses, boys with hulking shoulders and pudgy chests, boys with worn out workpants and dusty boots. They immediately formed a ring around the sundial in the center of the courtyard of the clubhouse. They opened their flies and pissed like dogs. Tender is going to have a fit, thought Melveena. He’s going to have to take up the Astroturf.

  Next, unfolding their legs from the mini-vans in a tired manner, came seven drab women. They peered around nervously. They saw Melveena. They looked at one another and began to nod. It was odd, that nodding, like the bobbing heads of the little dogs Melveena remembered seeing in the back windows of cars, back in the days before hatchbacks. Nod, nod, nod.

  A young one left the group. She walked with a sideways angle to her gait, as if she might shy off. She wore her hair piled on top of her head. A wispy lock had worked its way free, and was stuck in the corner of her mouth.

  “Hello.” Melveena spoke as sweetly as she could. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. We need some help.” The girl’s voice registered as a whisper. She pulled that mouse-brown lock clear of her chapped lips. Melveena fought an urge to offer her a nice moisturizing swipe of Chanel lipstick, but look what had happened last time she made free with lipstick.

  The other women slowly came to stand in a group around her, similarly skittish. Most of the dresses were pastel colors, but one had on a dark blue dress as wrinkled as her face. She peered at Melveena with fascination and horror, her thin lips working with distaste. Melveena found herself looking down to see what she wore to inspire such a disdainful reaction. It was a little on the matchy-matchy side, but it was certainly not out of line for daytime attire. She held out her hand to the woman in dark blue and smiled. “My name is Melveena Strange.” Her m
anicure simply hung there, untouched, until she withdrew it.

  The older woman finally gathered her courage enough to speak. “Good morning to you.” She swallowed, swallowed again. “We’re looking for Mr. Gator Rollins.”

  Another woman stood forward, dressed in pale turquoise. She looked to be in her thirties, but she might have been an exhausted twenty-something. “Yes. We’re looking for Mr. Gator Rollins.”

  “I believe he’s left town.” Melveena watched the boys, who shambled up the street, spitting and shoving and swarming the Tyson satellite dish. Two were tormenting the penned Rottweilers. “You’re his… family?”

  The seven women nodded and nodded, searching each other’s eyes for agreement and affirmation and courage. Apparently, they found it.

  “Yes,” said another. “He’s our husband.”

  And so, while Melveena spoke ever-so-gently to the seven wives of Gator Rollins, the residents of the Francie June Memorial Trailer Park woke to the hard yellow light of another morning.

  MEMPHIS ENTERED AN office full of mayhem.

  There were a bunch of Bone Pile men in there speaking calmly, punctuating their words with pleasing rises and dips in volume. “Yup, I said that he left for a time, but I ain’t all that sure how long a time it were.” “I don’t know how long it were, and I don’t think you asking me fifty time is gonna change that.” “I don’t know how long. Maybe five minutes. Maybe five hours. But he left for a time. For a time, he left.” While the Bone Pilers obfuscated, boys with blank eyes climbed around the desks like recently released zoo animals. Seven washed-out women milled around the office repeating certain phrases like mantras that would deliver them from the reality of their loss. “I can’t believe it.” “He would never do this to us.” “I can’t believe it.” “This isn’t like him.” “He couldn’t have.” “We don’t believe it.” “We were blessed to have a man like Gator in our lives.” The boys kicked over trashcans and whooped. And when someone finally made it clear to Memphis that these women were none other than the seven wives of Gator Rollins, he got busy with explaining. Garth had done a fine job of breaking the news, but the women couldn’t take it in. They didn’t believe that he had been implicated in the murder of a man of God.

  Memphis tried to sketch out the details for the women, even going so far as to spread out the seven recovered rings on his desk. “These rings belonged to the Reverend, ladies. A murder victim. Your husband had the personal property of a murder victim hidden in his motel room. Do you have any idea how incriminating this is?”

  “Well, maybe the Reverend gave them to him before he died, because that’s just how Gator was.” “He was the kind of man you want to give everything to.” “I bet those rings were for us. Wedding rings.” “The Reverend was blessing our union.” “Those are the wedding rings we never got.” Memphis wondered who in creation those woman thought of when they thought of Gator Rollins. He decided that as soon as the rings were no longer needed for evidence, he would release them to the wives. Reverend Henry’s sister certainly didn’t need or want them. The Sheriff shook his head when he imagined those women wrapping tape around the backs of those rings to make them fit their scabby fingers.

  He smelled smoke. “Young man, what are you doing?” One of the boys looked up from where he was lighting the corner of a wall map on fire. “Out. All of you. Out, out, out.”

  He wanted some peace in which to think.

  RHONDALEE SAT HAPPILY in her kitchen, stapling together a special “MURDER! MURDER! TRAILER PARK MAYHEM!” edition of the Park newsletter.

  She’d headed for the office right after Memphis left, tripping along the blacktop like a nanny goat, imagining how satisfying it would be when Tender heard the news about Annie Leigh being carried off by that revolting man. It was all his fault, Rhondalee had decided, if you thought about it hard enough and really made your mind up to blame it on him.

  She’d typed like the wind, the story getting ahead of her at times, her fingers galloping along behind, determined to finish and distribute “the facts.” She’d shuffled her well-worn clichés, her stock phrases, arranged, composed, cut and pasted the story into a shape both lurid and concise. She’d printed it, copied it, and carried it back to the house to staple because the electric stapler in the office had been broken.

  She sat at the table, slamming her palm into the old Swingline and shaking her head. The sheer naughtiness of her granddaughter, putting herself out in harm’s way like that. Just like her mother, thinking there was nowhere she couldn’t go. Of course Rhondalee was glad she was fine, just a little scraped-up. But would it hurt that child to be afraid of something for a change?

  Several images threatened to bob to the surface of Rhondalee’s mind; what might have happened had Annie Leigh not jumped out of that truck, what might have happened had she not landed exactly as she landed. Rhondalee firmly pushed those images away. She’d left that out in her account of the death of Gator Rollins, the miraculous survival of her daughter and granddaughter. No need for anyone to know about that part of it.

  She slammed the stapler with satisfaction, imagining that at least this issue of the newsletter would find its rightful readership.

  WHILE THEY WERE at the hospital, Annie Leigh had sat on a table, holding onto the neck of her guitar and watching intently as a nurse picked gravel out of her knees with a tweezers. She’d asked the doctors to leave in a few pieces, hoping for scars.

  As soon as they got home, Annie had wanted to take that vial of pebbles up to show Beau Neely, along with the stitches on her chin and the scabs on her joints. But Raven had steered her into bed, where she’d fallen asleep in moments. Just a little while longer, Raven thought. And we’ll hit the road.

  She just wants to watch that talent show, and then I can take her with me.

  Raven stepped out and found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, stapling together a newsletter, ignoring her daughter with an air of eternal injury.

  “She’s asleep. You’ll keep an ear on her, Ma?”

  Rhondalee sighed. “I always do, don’t I?”

  RAVEN HAD LEFT, but she wanted to go back. She wanted her daughter. But she had business to attend to.

  She sat at a booth in the Daisy Diner. Isaac sat across from her, a white mug cradled in his big old mitt, his right ankle crossed over his left knee, his sandaled foot bobbing up and down. Like sitting down to coffee with a bear, she thought. He ate, she didn’t.

  “Where were you this morning? Where was the truck?”

  “I had some business to attend to.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Old business.” Her hand shook a little while grasping her coffee cup. She found a quarter in her pocket and a song on the table jukebox.

  He groaned. “Not more Francie June.”

  “It’s against the law to get tired of Francie June around here. Just so you know.” Raven kept touching the back of her head to verify the pain.

  His eyes wandered over to watch little Ranita, then back to her. “Raven, is something wrong?”

  “Nope. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Did you know that trucker guy who died? Is that it?”

  “Sure I knew him. The Trucker Club, remember?”

  Isaac shook his head and sipped his coffee. “I see you smoked it.”

  Her hand flew up to touch the empty space in her hatband. Annie’s dark eyes flashed across Raven’s memory. Mom, please. Just till Sunday, please. She’d asked her on that ride home from the hospital, asked to hang around for that show. But there were three loads in the next three days she could speak for. She could haul a load of tires to Modesto that very night.

  She could take her daughter on the road, now, no problem. There was no need to hide her from the man who had made her. But she had to get shed of this man.

  “I want to go a little deeper into the hills. I need your help to find the right kind of landscape. One afternoon, one night. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “An aftern
oon and a night. I can give you that.”

  “And after that?”

  After that. “All I ever promised you was a steak. After that we’re over.” Only the tears in the corners of his eyes showed how much she’d hurt him.

  They were quiet, then. Sipping coffee, listening to the jukebox. She studied his hopeful face, his focused eyes, noted his dirty fingernails, the pepper in his teeth. She looked at his shaggy hair, his sunburn, the streaks of red in his blonde beard, his pudgy cheeks, that cupid mouth. Something about him reminded her of a boy. But he wasn’t a boy. He was a man.

  And she really didn’t need one of those.

  ONE NIGHT. ONE afternoon. All he asked for.

  So, she left her daughter for the last time. Left her in the charge of a woman who yanked at the sleepy girl, forgetting her bruises. “You’d think your grandfather would be here to help,” she whined. Raven saw Annie wince and stumble, thought about the scrubbing she was in for on that tender, scraped skin, and she started to go after her. Then she froze.

  One night. One afternoon. All he asked for.

  She took Tender’s truck from the driveway. She swung by the rig. He packed up his equipment and she packed some supplies, and they drove.

  “You know where I’d love to go,” he said. “I’d love to shoot up where those Bone Pile people live.”

  “If you went up there, I think they’d be the ones doing the shooting.”

  She put on an old tape of Tender’s. Dolly Parton. It was one of Annie Leigh’s favorites, she knew that from hearing the girl sing it in the bathtub in her impossible soprano.

  Isaac hit the button, stopped the tape. “You can’t make me listen to this.”