by Gwen Florio
Lola pointed toward the kitchen with an exaggerated turn so that Margaret wouldn’t see her face. “In there. In fact, if you can stay here with Delbert, I’ll go in and check on them right now.”
Pal moved to her side. “I’ll go with you.”
Lola thought Pal had already had one confrontation with Skiff too many. “You don’t have to,” she said.
Pal set her jaw and Lola saw the steel in her. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
THIRTY-FIVE
“Brace yourself,” Lola whispered as they slipped through the door. No warning would have sufficed. She pressed her fist against lips to stifle her own reaction to what was left of the man on the floor.
Skiff lay on his back, atop the shards of jars. Blood pooled beneath him. Lola looked away and looked back, at the bits of glass embedded in his skin where the broken jars had found purchase, at the nubs of eyelids, at the raw meat that had been his face, at the splinters of bone protruding from the gash on his brow. Strawberries and burnt sugar, cut by the coppery tang of blood, scented the kitchen. Pal tiptoed around Skiff and turned the burners off, never taking her eyes away from the man on the floor. His gaze rolled from her to Lola and back again. Blisters bubbled yellow across his lips.
Lola crept to his side and forced herself to take one of his hands, thinking to pull him away from the broken glass. The slippery, softened skin slid from his hand like a glove. Skiff’s mouth stretched in a guttural scream. Lola jumped back. She wiped her hand on her jeans. Bits of skin clung to the denim. The moaning took on a dual quality.
“There.” Pal pointed. A few feet away, Bub lifted his head. It fell back again.
“Bub!” Lola knelt beside the dog. “Oh, Bub.” She slid her hands beneath him and rose with infinite slowness. Despite her care, he trembled in her arms, whimpering. She moved to stand beside Pal, giving Skiff a wide berth. “I guess we’ve got to call 9-1-1.” But she didn’t move. She tried to imagine the call: “A man attacked me and I nearly killed him.”
But no one had seen the attack. Skiff—if he survived, and he probably would, given that his injuries were above his chest, where his heart appeared to be damnably chugging along—would surely tell a very different story. Story. A wriggle of hope in her chest. Her story, with its account of the rape and Skiff’s subsequent threats, would be online soon, if it weren’t already. That would help. But as Lola knew from too many years of covering the legal system, the person with the worst injuries got the most sympathy. Pal’s experience—assuming anyone believed her, and rape victims were the least believed victims on the planet—would pale beside Skiff’s grievous wounds. As for Lola, all she had to show was a bloody nose, along with some bruises and a torn shirt. The deepest wounds, the ones to her psyche, remained invisible.
Words bubbled up in her brain, breaking the surface like the strawberries slowly quieting in the pot. Murder. No. Skiff was still alive, albeit only just. If he survived, aggravated assault. Nowhere near as bad as murder, but still a felony, enough to put her in prison until Margaret was a teenager. Self-defense. But no suspicious, hard-eyed juror would ever fall for that one, not when there were no witnesses and a guy’s eyelids had melted away.
“Fuck oh fucking fuck. What the fuck do we do now?” Later, she could never remember whether the words had been hers or Pal’s. The answer, though. That came from Pal. Who reached behind Lola, slid the forgotten paring knife from the back pocket of her jeans, and said, “You take the dog and go on back outside. I’ll handle this.”
Lola took her phone from her pocket and looked at it a long time. In the end, Delbert slid it from her limp hand and called 9-1-1, requesting both sheriff and tribal police. The ranch was, after all, within the reservation boundaries, something that would complicate things, given that the FBI also was summoned whenever there was a felony on the rez. “An ambulance, too,” Delbert said. “We got a man bad hurt here.” He paused. Lola could see him considering the implications of his words. “And a couple of women in pretty bad shape. They fought him off. There’s a child, too, scared out of her wits.”
Lola slumped on the porch steps and awaited the impending swarm of activity. There’d be cop cars from all the agencies, lights twirling red and blue in the monochrome landscape. The ambulance. Even a fire truck, dispatched with each ambulance call, never mind that smoke was nowhere on the horizon. “A regular circus,” Lola murmured, one hand sunk deep in Bub’s fur, kneading his shoulders. Margaret sat beside her, one hand clutching Lola’s sleeve, the other stroking Bub’s head.
The dog would be fine, Delbert had assured her. “Got the wind knocked out of him. Maybe a broken rib or two. He’ll take it easy for a few days. Sleep a lot. That’ll let him heal.”
Tears wet Margaret’s face. “Jemalina won’t heal.”
“No, honey. But she was very brave. She tried to save me, just like Bub.” Lola allowed herself the lie. Jemalina had been doing just what she always did, funneling her natural pure meanness into one last dash to destroy someone’s feet. The unthinkable came out of Lola’s mouth. “When we get home, we can get another chicken. Maybe some baby chicks. Would you like that?”
Margaret lit up. Delbert snorted.
Pal had been in the house a long time. “I’ll handle this,” she’d said. Knife in hand. Lola could think of only a single interpretation. Well. Skiff had it coming. What had he said to Pal at the parade? “Karma’s a bitch.”
Damn straight, Lola said to herself. How bad would it be if, when the various law enforcement agents finally trooped into the kitchen, Skiff had expired? Justice, albeit unofficial, would have been served. Lola’s gut tugged at her, a reminder that she knew better. In their twisted way, Skiff and the others had thought they were serving justice on Pal, and on Mike, too, that night in Afghanistan. They’d concocted a palatable story that everyone was happy to believe. This is different, she told herself. The mantra of rationalizers. Her gut knotted tighter.
She continued her silent argument with herself. There was her story. She’d have to update it now, with the attack, and likely with Skiff’s unfortunate death. Lola had never knowingly written a false word in her life, had never understood the impulses that drove plagiarizers and outright fictionalizers. Now it dangled before her, beckoning. It wouldn’t be active fiction to write that Skiff had died of his wounds, said the beguiling whisper within. More like one of those sins of omissions the nuns of her childhood were always harping on. She could write, truthfully, that Skiff was alive when she left the kitchen. And that when authorities arrived, he was dead. So unfortunate. End of story.
Come closer, the scenario whispered, crooking a seductive finger. Because there was Pal. The truth would see her tried for murder. After everything she’d been through. Hadn’t she suffered enough? Lola started as the words ran through her mind. The very words used by Dave Sparks, by the high school principal, by Skiff himself. Let’s just let this lie. Everybody’s suffered enough.
The wriggle turned into full-blown nausea. She gagged and pushed herself to her feet. She had to stop Pal, if it wasn’t already too late.
“Mommy?”
“Lola?”
Two sets of worried eyes turned upon her. Bub whined and tried to push himself up.
“No, Bub. Delbert, Margaret, it’s okay. I just need to talk to Pal. You wait here.”
Before they could catch her, she was through the kitchen door, closing it behind her in a way that warned Delbert not to follow.
Pal stood over Skiff, the knife dangling in her hand. He was very still, eyes staring ceilingward, unmoving.
Lola held her breath. Forced it out, along with the same question Pal had put to her earlier. “Is he—?”
Pal nudged Skiff with her foot. A creaking sound emerged from those spongy lips. “Nah.”
Lola found herself on the floor, butt planted firmly on the linoleum, hands braced on either side of her. “I thought you would—�
� Unable to finish a sentence despite herself.
“Yeah. I thought so, too.” Pal poked at Skiff again with her toe. The creaking continued. “For sure, I wanted to.” She lifted the knife to her own throat. “Just like he did to Mike.”
“Careful!” Lola came partway up from the floor. Pal dropped her hand and Lola sank back.
“It would have been so easy. All this broken glass. Hell. I don’t even need the knife. Nobody would have thought twice.”
“True.” Probably. Although, among all the law enforcement officers due to arrive momentarily, inevitably there would be one like Charlie. Unconvinced. Dogged. Worrying the inconsistences like a dog on a bone. Hating the unfair of the results, but unable to stop himself from pursuing the truth.
“You’re going to go through hell.” Lola couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “I’ve seen rape trials. They’re bad enough when the guy’s a stranger. But if the two people know each other? You have no idea. I once saw a lawyer lay a cardboard cutout of a woman down on the floor and climb on top of her, trying to show the jury things couldn’t have happened the way she said.”
“Good God.”
“I was so shocked I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him to see how the jury took it. He was a little guy, round as he was tall. He had a hard time getting up.”
Pal’s almost-smile flickered. “It’s not going to go much better for you. You’re involved in your own story now. Isn’t that against the rules? Seems to me I remember Jan talking about stuff like this.”
Lola felt ridiculous, sitting there on the floor, but couldn’t seem to get up. “It’s problematic, that’s for sure.” She stretched out her leg and gave Skiff a nudge, and tried to feel ashamed of the jolt of satisfaction when he emitted a cry. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you?” Lola drew her finger across her throat and looked at Skiff.
Pal shrugged. “It would have been one more lie. After so many. Mike didn’t take the coward’s way out. How could I?” She chewed at the raw spot on her lower lip. “Not that I trust the justice system to get things right. Especially not the military justice system, not when it comes to this stuff. I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy. Hey, Skiff.” This time, she delivered a real kick. He obliged with a real scream. Lola scrambled to her feet.
“Roll those big bare eyeballs of yours over this way. Got something I want you to see.”
Skiff began to shake all over, the raw exposed flesh of his face quivering.
“Pal, he’s going into shock. We should get a blanket.”
Pal’s voice was as unyielding as her grip on Lola. “No. You stay here. I want you to see this, too.” She dropped Lola’s arm and raised the knife.
“Jesus, Pal.” Lola grabbed at it.
Pal was too fast. The knife flashed, coming down across her own arm, carving across an exuberant bloody X across the final single scar there. “That one’s for you, Skiff. I’m done with all of you now.” She threw the knife down beside his body, and left the kitchen, Lola close behind her.
Pal stopped in the doorway and lifted her hand to her forehead, heedless of the blood coursing along her arm. Lola followed her gaze. A line of dust rose above the road. “That’ll be the police,” she said.
The vehicle topped the rise, alone, not the cavalcade she’d expected. Lola narrowed her eyes. Margaret figured it out before she did, on her feet in a flash, skimming down the road toward the approaching car, sounding the first note of joy Lola had heard in a very long time.
“Daddy!”
THIRTY-SIX
Margaret was in Charlie’s arms as soon as he opened the door, the horn beeping as she wriggled onto his lap. They sat in the car a long time. Lola could hear them talking, Margaret’s high, excited tones, Charlie’s low rumble, but couldn’t make out the words. She waited on the porch with Delbert and Pal, each shooting sidelong glances her way.
Charlie finally detached himself from the seat belt, if not from Margaret’s embrace. He approached slowly. Margaret still exuded joy, but Charlie’s face telegraphed low expectations. Lola tried to see the group on the porch as he saw them—an elderly, shirtless Indian man. A near-bald young white woman, her forearm bare and bleeding. And Lola herself. She touched her hand to her face. Gooey bits of strawberry still lingered around her hairline. Delbert’s shirt hung nearly to her knees, but failed to cover the streaks of strawberry and fast-browning blood on her jeans.
“Hey, Charlie.” Lola dropped introductions into the silence. Charlie touched his fingertips to Delbert’s, then switched to a whiteman-style grip for Pal. He turned back to Lola. “Anybody going to offer me some coffee?” In a different tone, it could have been a routine question. The way Charlie said it, it was a dare. A gust of wind kicked up some grit and carried the faint rise and fall of sirens toward them.
“Not a good idea,” said Lola. She moved so that she was between him and the front door. He handed Margaret off to Pal and brushed past her. Pal thrust Margaret into Delbert’s arms and followed them both inside. Charlie stopped and stood unmoving as the sound of sirens grew and grew, filling the air around them, drowning out even the anguished moans from the man on the floor.
In the end, Lola never had to explain anything directly to Charlie. He introduced himself as a sheriff from Montana, mumbling the part about his relationship to Lola, and that was all it took for the ranks of tribal cops and deputies and EMTs and a late-arriving FBI man to bring him into their circle as they questioned Lola and Pal. Delbert was allowed to stand off to one side with Margaret and Bub, as well as Dave Sparks, who had followed entirely too closely the parade of cruisers. Why oh why, Lola wondered, had Dave picked this particular moment to get aggressive about journalism? She belatedly decided she’d liked him better as a slacker. Dave pointed his Leica at her. She forced herself to stare into the lens. She would never, she vowed, be that person ducking away from the camera, hand up to shield her face.
“Lola,” he called. “What’s going on here?”
Charlie, in full sheriff mode, stepped between them. “Who are you? You know this is a crime scene, right?”
Dave introduced himself. Lola saw Charlie register the name, knew full well he had the kind of steel-trap mind that would have held on to Margaret’s days-old mention of “Mommy’s friend, Dave,” as well as Lola’s own dismissive postscript that Dave was “just another reporter.”
“No interviews, not now. They’re still in the middle of their investigation. And no pictures of the child,” Charlie warned. “She wasn’t involved.” Margaret flapped a wan hand at Dave. Charlie turned back to Lola. Earlier, he’d looked as angry as she’d ever seen him. Now she realized that was just a warm-up.
“Charlie—” she started. Something behind her snagged his attention. They were bringing Skiff out of the house. Lola and Charlie moved toward Margaret to shield her from the sight. Charlie got there first. His look warned Lola away. Dave elbowed past her, shooting rapid-fire photos as the EMTs maneuvered the gurney down the steps. The ambulance brapped its siren, warming up for its screaming mission to Casper where, no doubt, Skiff would be loaded onto a med-evac flight bound for Seattle in a déjà-vu of the trip made by Patrick Sounding Sides after his beating by T-Squared. A tribal cop climbed into the ambulance with the EMTs, on the off chance that Skiff might summon something resembling speech on the way. A bit of luck, that, Lola thought. No matter what Skiff said, if he said anything at all, the tribal cop soon would know Pal’s version of events, starting with the allegation that Skiff had killed one of the tribe’s own months earlier in Afghanistan.
“All the background you need is right here,” Lola had told the cops. “Look. I wrote a story about it.” She worked at her phone, typing in the address for InDepth.org. Her story popped up on the screen, photos of Pal and Skiff prominent amid the initial lines of type.
“Let me have that.” A cop reached for the phon
e.
“Why don’t I just email it to you? Then you can forward it to all of these folks. It’s got documents, everything.”
Charlie, who’d listened without speaking, spoke up now. “You wrote a story? On your furlough?”
“Not for the Express. For a website.” Lola felt another demerit land in the column against her.
“Come on, Margaret.” Charlie took his daughter’s hand. “Let’s wait in the car. I’ve heard enough here.”
Enough, Lola thought, to know she’d deceived him about her reasons for staying in Wyoming. To know she’d also lied about working instead of being on vacation. Both of those things were, possibly, forgivable. But he’d seen the unmistakable evidence sprawled on the kitchen floor that she’d put his child at risk, not just forgetting-to-hold-hands-across-the-street peril, but true, mortal danger.
Which meant that, as uncomfortable as the questioning from the cops, it was nothing compared to what she was going to face later from Charlie.
Later came too soon. The evidence technicians packed up their gear and collected their evidence bags. Officers and deputies folded notebooks and put them away. They pressed business cards into her hand. “We’ll be in touch.” A promise, not a courtesy. “Don’t go anywhere for a couple of days. Not without checking in with us.”
Charlie waited beside his car until the last left. “I’m taking Margaret to town,” he said. “Bub, too. We’ll stay in a motel. The sooner we get her away from here, the better.” He whistled to Bub. The dog hesitated and looked at Lola. She nodded permission and he limped behind Charlie, glancing over his shoulder every few steps, waiting for her to follow.
What about me? Lola couldn’t figure out a way to ask without sounding plaintive. She liked dealing from a position of strength. Forget asking, she thought. Thirty only had two motels. She could find him easily enough. “I’ll be down later,” she called. Not giving him a choice about it. Besides, she needed time to update the editors at InDepth.org about the story. “We’ll talk then.”
