by Mira Gibson
“Is this going into your next article?”
“Give me that.” Snatching the police report then folding it to fit in his back pocket, Jake mentally reviewed his options both in terms of getting her talking and getting her out with as few games as possible. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Sit down,” she said then qualified the suggestion by adding, “You’re making me nervous.”
There was a sofa chair adjacent to the couch, which seemed like a safe distance so he sat there.
“Is that what your next article is going to be about? That police report and whatever I tell you?”
Figuring the truth would get him farthest with her—no danger of being quoted if his theories never made it to print—he reacted naturally, exhaling a long sigh. “I don’t have enough yet and I don’t know when I will. I’m still looking into things.”
She frowned, thinking his position through.
“I’d still like to get a detailed account from you.”
“For another puff piece?”
“It might not get printed and that wasn’t a puff piece.” His tone was strained. Statements like hers always touched a nerve with him no matter how seasoned he’d become. But he cleared his throat, aimed for an even, unemotional response with a biting undercurrent. “Doesn’t it bother you that your perspective was absent from my article? It didn’t have to be. It still doesn’t. I can write anything about you that you want, as long as I substantiate the article with tangible information.”
“Like Robinson’s report,” she clarified.
“It was Robinson? You’re certain?”
The way she was holding his gaze was confirmation.
“Yes, like Robinson’s report if you can corroborate that there wasn’t a gun in Maude’s bedroom when the police arrived.”
She smiled crookedly and leveled her eyes on him. “And give you an ace in the hole? What do I get?”
“What do you want?”
“I’m not sure anything you have to offer compares,” she said, though her tone was contradictory, its melody highly suggestive.
“Well then there’s nothing to negotiate, is there?” He shrugged as if reverse-psychology might work, then for good measure snuck in, “You’re too smart to be duped, right?”
Contemplatively and in a far away voice, she said, “It’s weird how someone can die and three days later there’s a funeral, like that’s all the time you have to get over it.”
The way her vulnerability suddenly shone through softened him, and he wasn’t sure what to say at first.
Gently, he offered, “No one expects you to get over it by the time the funeral wraps up, Roberta. That’s not why funerals happen a few days after someone’s death. You can take all the time you need.”
“No,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t. They’re already over it.”
“Your parents?”
“Everyone.”
“Roberta, did they hurt your sister? Did Charlie kill her?”
“What happened to Weird Wanda?”
Her sudden woolgathering, the meandering to random subjects, made him realize negotiating had been far more promising. Even tit-for-tat had seemed a more worthwhile exchange.
“She was schizophrenic. She’s getting help.”
“You got her to trust you, then you locked her up.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Isn’t that what happened?”
“No,” he said easily with no intention of clarifying the real chain of events.
“Has she eaten anyone in the asylum?”
It was a stretch for Jake not to react strongly to that. “I hear she’s doing well.”
“Why’d you dump her just because she went to the loony-bin?”
“I didn’t dump her, because-”
“Why were you dating a street person?”
“Why are you asking me about this?”
Shrinking demurely, not that he would buy it, she said, “I like talking to you. You’re nice.”
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and hoping she wouldn’t be here when he opened his eyes. But she was, and staring at him with childlike interest.
“I think we’ve gotten off topic.”
Abruptly, she dropped her innocent act along with her dress, shocking him so instantaneously, that he could barely process it—Roberta: standing, lines and curves, skin, all skin; Jake: somehow on his feet, urging her back, not wanting to hurt her but wanting to shove her off—as she wrestled him towards the couch.
“Get off. Roberta! What the hell are you doing?”
She’d wrapped herself around him like a barnacle and it seemed she was angling to fall with him to the couch. As soon as he’d peeled one arm off, her other slapped around him, in an ugly tangle of limbs he couldn’t control.
“Are you crazy? For Christ’s sake, stop!” He yelled and finally used the force he was hoping he wouldn't have to use, throwing her hard to the couch where she bounced at an awkward angle and tumbled to the floor.
Heaving to catch his breath, Jake became momentarily stunned at the sight of her then grabbed her dress and offered it, his eyes glancing sideways to avoid her.
“Are you hurt?”
If she answered, the loud, tinny ring of his kitchen phone drowned it out and he started through the room, confused at who would be calling at this hour.
“Yeah?” he said into the receiver, as he turned to see Roberta slinking her dress on and then shaking the beer bottle as if she might not have finished it.
“Hi, Jake?” A cool and even tone, though soft and melodic, hit his ear, causing it to prick up, thrilled. “It’s Gerty.”
“Oh,” he said, eagerly.
“I know it’s late, I...” It sounded like she pulled the phone away from her mouth. “I wasn’t sure who to call. I’ve been debating for hours.”
Listening so hard he was leaning into the wall, turning his back to Roberta, and willing the strange girl to stay silent, Jake asked Gertrude what was going on.
“I...” again she trailed off and it made his heart punch in his chest. “I think you should come here. I’m at my house.”
“Yeah, I’ll be right over.”
As soon as she recited her address, he promised to see her in a few minutes and quickly got off the phone.
“I don’t know what the hell that was,” he stated firmly, as he began walking back, “but I’m heading out which means you’re-”
But Roberta was gone.
Chapter Thirteen
“What happened?” he asked, winded, the heels of his boots striking the wooden slats of the shallow deck, as he approached her front door. He looked as though he’d come running from his truck and slowed up only because she’d appeared in the doorway. “Are you hurt?”
It took some effort, but she angled her eyes up at him, meeting his gaze. She’d popped a total of four Xanax in the hour it’d taken her to scrub blood off her wall, off the bookshelf. It wasn’t until now she realized she’d overdone it. Looking into his eyes, which were shadowed with the porch light behind him, magnified the drugs effects and suddenly Dr. Hagstaff’s warning rang true—One every four hours or else you’ll be swimming, and Gertrude not quite getting him and Hagstaff clarifying, Woozy, disoriented, dangerously at ease.
“I’m fine. I didn’t know who else to call.” She’d explained that, hadn’t she? It seemed familiar, but she couldn’t actually anchor it to their phone call.
Jake’s breathing had calmed. His chest no longer rose and fell in heaves, as he glanced past her, which called to mind the fact that she hadn’t invited him in yet.
Before allowing him inside, she affirmed, “Off the record,” but it sounded like a question.
Holding her gaze was confirmation enough so she stepped aside and he entered. A few paces and his eyes locked on the wall, the bookshelf, the smeared blood stains that no cleaning product she owned would lift out. The living room smelled of bleach and whatever artificial lemon-scent that came with it these days.
Gertrude was hyper-conscious of the strong smell now that she wasn’t alone so she opened the windows behind the couch, but the scent remained overpowering.
After staring at the wall, Jake seemed to take in the room as a whole and as he did, Gertrude saw the vandalism with fresh eyes. She’d thought she’d cleaned much better than she had, but in fact she'd only managed to spread the stain, making it worse. She hadn’t bothered with the candles except to blow them out and the carcass of her old dog was exactly where she’d found it. For the most part, that was why she had called him. She couldn’t bring herself to handle Rusty on her own.
She was hit with a sharp swell of déjà vu when Jake turned to her and because of it the bottle of Xanax in her back pocket started nagging her. But she knew taking another would be a mistake. If anything she ought to flush the pills out of her system, clear the haze that had built in her head and turned her limbs to rubber.
“Is that a dog?” he asked without looking at it again.
“They exhumed him.”
“Who?”
“Whoever did this.” Heavy footed, she walked to the bookshelf, gesturing at the shelves. “It was blood,” she said, staring at but not quite seeing the stains now that she was closer. “It couldn’t have been my dog’s.”
When she glanced at Jake, he was studying the wall as if he could get an impression of the symbol that had been there. His hands were planted on his hips, causing his tee shirt to pull taut across his chest. Then he eyed the candles, pacing towards them until his boots were inches from the dog.
“A satanic symbol?” he guessed when he went back to analyzing the bookshelf.
“I thought so, but have you heard of anything like that going on out here? I haven’t.”
Jake seemed thrown.
“I’d really like to get my dog buried,” she said, implying it was the primary reason she’d asked him to come, but the suggestion didn’t reach him. He was too deep in thought.
“What did it look like, a circle?”
Nearing him, she explained, “Yes, a circle and a star inside of it and at the center of the star were two ovals.” She brushed her hand over a dark smear where the blood had been particularly stubborn. “They looked like eyes to me.”
“Did they break in?” he asked, meeting her gaze and drawing attention to how close they were standing.
She took a few shy steps backwards and cringed to tell him her oversight.
“I didn’t lock up.” Before he could gape at her stupidity, she rattled off theories and excuses, anything to get the look off his face—his eyes wide and astounded, brow knit with confusion, mouth parting ever so slightly, but clearly aghast. “It’s safe around here and I usually lock it. I must have been rushing out and forgot. I don’t know if it’s connected, but a truck rear-ended me on the highway.”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you mention it to me?”
Heated, Jake angled his eyes on her with such intensity she couldn’t get her words out. And yet, she knew he wasn’t furious at her, but at the missed opportunity as though somewhere along the line he’d volunteered to protect her even though she couldn’t place when or why.
“I’m still getting my bearings,” she said finally.
“Meaning you forgot like you forgot to lock your house up,” he pointed out.
It sounded like an accusation. “I hope you’re not suggesting this is my fault.”
“No.” Softening, he added, “I’m just worried about you.”
“I’m not handicapped so you can stop looking at me like that.”
“That’s not what I think, but I noticed you haven’t remembered things.”
Jake didn’t know the half of it, not by a long shot, but she didn’t defend herself further since anything she said along those lines would only add fuel to his fire. He seemed to drop it as well, turning his attention to the dog.
“Do you have a wheelbarrow?”
“Out back, but it won’t fit through the doorway.”
“Okay,” he said, assessing the dog. “We’ll need a blanket. One you don’t mind never seeing again.”
Leaving him, Gertrude stole away to her bedroom where she flipped on a lamp that was resting on the nightstand beside her bed. A soft glow came over the room, warming the rounded log walls, white bedspread and wooden headboard, and a wood stove across from the foot of the bed. Rounding through and careful not to clip her knee on the footboard, a mistake she’d made several times living here over the years, she couldn’t think of a blanket she wouldn’t mind parting with. But when she reached the closet and took inventory, she decided on a woolen one Doris had brought with her from their parents house.
They’d gotten into a stupid fight over it. Gertrude hadn’t wanted it in her house and Doris had yelled at her that there wasn’t a stove in the living room. She’d freeze on the couch if she didn’t layer on the wool. It had been the dead of winter and though Gertrude hadn’t a leg to stand on making her argument against the blanket—she couldn’t offer Doris alternatives, because she didn’t have any—she’d ripped the blanket from her sister’s grasp and declared Doris would sleep in her room.
Why Gertrude hadn’t taken the extra step of burning the thing or at the very least getting it out of the cabin was lost on her. And looking back, she couldn’t understand her volatile reaction, except that she knew nothing of her parents had come into her cabin and she needed to keep it that way. The alternative would’ve been very bad, and though she didn’t know why, she sensed that at one point in time she had.
When she returned, she found Jake hunched on the couch, his elbows braced to his knees. He glanced up at her, getting to his feet.
“I’ll get the wheelbarrow,” she said, handing him the blanket. “Do you need work gloves? I think I have some in the closet.”
“Yeah, we shouldn’t touch him.”
The closet was in the hallway between the living room and her bedroom so Gertrude doubled back with Jake in tow. Opening the door, she sensed him near her and when she reached for the nest of gloves that were balled up in hanging shoe rack, he beat her to them, and the angle had her trapped.
Jake slapped a pair against his thigh, getting the dust off then handed them to her and by the same token christened a second pair for himself.
Turning towards her, he asked, “Where’s the wheelbarrow?”
“This way,” she said, but couldn’t actually move with him blocking her in.
He lingered and a fresh billow of tension swelled between them or so she thought until she decided it made more sense to figure she was crazy to read anything into this. He stepped aside, freeing her, and Gertrude padded quickly through the house and out the front door, sensing all the while Jake at her back.
Fog was rolling in from the lake when they rounded the cabin. They walked out of the dim porch light and into darkness. The shore wasn’t eight yards from the back of the house, and Gertrude could smell its cool, marshy scent, wet sand, and the breath of vegetation that had grown unruly along the water.
Tucked against the cabin siding where an alcove stored winter wood that was now too soggy for her to make use of come November, was the wheelbarrow, its wooden handle laced with cobwebs, its basin filled with wood and rainwater.
Gertrude smacked the cobwebs off with a gloved hand, saying, “I never use this thing.”
But Jake took charge, grabbing hold of the handles and tipping the wheelbarrow on its side. The water splashed out, wood clattering into the weeds.
They made their way silently around the front of the house, Jake pushing the wheelbarrow, his arms straining to steer it, and Gertrude stealing shy glances at him, wondering how awkward she should find this midnight dog burial when the only thing that unnerved her was realizing Jake’s help made her feel calm. She reasoned that her instincts must be off and concluded she’d bring it up with Dr. Hagstaff as soon as she saw him.
Jake set the wheelbarrow down on the deck, havi
ng hoisted it with a jolt over the lip that separated the wooden slats from the gravelly driveway. And then he started through the cabin, Gertrude close behind.
“Lay out the blanket, would you?”
She did, spreading it on the floor and smoothing it out.
Stooping, Jake carefully scooped the dog into his arms with an air of remorse as though it was a child who had died too soon. She wondered if he could see the real dog, Rusty alive, through the eroded corpse, the mound of fur and bones and encrusted mud, to which her pet had been reduced. He set him on the blanket just as carefully then eased back.
“What was his name?”
“Rusty,” she said, watching him. “He was a good dog.”
“How’d they find him?”
She studied the lines of his face for a moment when he looked at her, and felt suddenly raw like she didn’t have skin or flesh or bones and the deepest part of her, her essence perhaps, or her soul if such a thing existed, was exposed to him. Strange intimacy she couldn’t resist.
“I had a pet marker in the yard, you know, a headstone?”
He seemed to mull that over then folded the blanket around the dog.
“He’s not heavy. I can carry him.”
Again, Jake scooped him up in his arms and muscled to his feet then followed Gertrude out to the wheelbarrow where he laid the bundle down gingerly in the basin.
“Thank you so much,” she blurted out, having realized she’d completely forgotten.
A thin smile formed at the corners of his mouth, which he suppressed as he held her gaze. “No problem.” After a beat, Gertrude thumbed the edge of the blanket, finding relief in breaking eye contact, and he added, “I’m glad you called me.”
“The grave is back here.”
She walked along the side of the cabin then cut left into the yard, stalking through tall grass and listening to the ruddy thumps of the wheelbarrow’s wheel plowing through the bumpy brush behind her. Somewhere an owl hooted, long and low, and the wind rustled cattails along the shore. The afternoon heat had burned away hours ago and the night air felt cool and damp.
When she reached the grave—a four foot hole, jagged edges, loose soil matting the tall grass in haphazard mounds—she scanned the dark grass for the pet marker, as Jake lowered the wheelbarrow beside the hole and breathed deeply, whether to catch his breath or steady his nerves, she couldn’t decide.
