Don't Turn Around

by Hunter Morgan

  Casey squeezed his hand and released it. “Go see him. I think you’ll feel better. They will have unhooked him from the ventilator and the monitors and other equipment. He’ll still be in his bed. His eyes will be closed. He’ll look very peaceful.”

  Adams eyes filled with tears. “Thank you for this, Casey. I won’t forget it.”

  She smiled sadly. “You’re welcome.”

  She took a seat alone in the quiet, dimly lit lobby. Adam was gone no more than ten minutes. She rose as he entered the room. He looked better than he had when he left. He looked relieved.

  Casey hugged him again and, again, he hugged her, and she felt a connection to him that she believed only those who have lost loved ones could share. “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. You were right. I do feel better, now. He looked so peaceful. Finally.”

  She smiled up at him. “I’m glad. I’m glad you could see him that way once more.”

  “I already signed what needed to be signed.” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the hallway he’d just come from. “All done. We’d already made arrangements for cremation. The doctor on duty pronounced him, so he can go directly to the funeral home.”

  “Right. Good.”

  He stood there for a minute, his hands clasped. Then he released them. “So I guess that’s it. I really appreciate you coming over, Casey; I mean it. You should go home now.”

  “You sure?” She looked up at him, not sure she should leave him quite yet. “You don’t want to grab a cup of coffee or something first? You look like you could still use a minute.”

  “I…I hate to keep you. There is a little break room always open for patients’ families.” He pointed down the hallway. “If you want, we could just grab a cup.”

  She looped her arm through his and they started for the hallway. She felt good knowing she could help him. “One cup,” she said, “and then I’ll be on my way.”

  I sit at my desk and I stir my cup of coffee and listen to the clink, clink of the spoon. I am annoyed by what I have read in the paper. I stir faster and coffee splashes up over the rim onto the newsprint, smearing it.

  I like to remain in control and it seems as if the Charlie situation is getting out of control. At first, the whole lawsuit with Rights for the People backing him amused me, but now his case is getting too much publicity. The story has been picked up by the Associated Press and is gaining momentum. A couple more weeks and he’ll be a hero.

  Charlie is many things and he has served his purpose well—in ways he will never know—but he isn’t a hero.

  I sip my coffee.

  Something needs to be done about Charlie, if for no reason other than he annoys me. I’ve grown bored with the stalking game, anyway. I’ve learned from it, but I am ready to move on.

  Besides, I am beginning to feel guilty. I like her more than I realized. I am seeing more potential in her. Seeing her not as a pawn, but perhaps a queen.

  I went to the post office this morning hoping for a letter from Maury, but there was none. He hasn’t written in a week and I am worried. Have I lost favor? I want to go and see him. I want to ask him. If I’ve said something to offend him, I want to know. I want to apologize. It took me a long time to find Maury. I don’t want to lose his friendship now. Not now, when I might need his help.

  I wonder if he is angry about the drawings I have requested. Or perhaps the news clippings I have sent him. I don’t want him to think I am, in any way, competing against him. I simply want to possess the knowledge he possesses.

  Chapter 28

  Drina heard the knock on the door as she was picking up dirty clothes off the bathroom floor in the back of the trailer. It started again as she came down the hall. “Coming!” she called.

  She flipped on the front light before unlocking the door. She wanted to be sure it wasn’t James. He’d been there four times in the last three days since she’d kicked him out, begging her forgiveness, begging her to let him come back. Promising to get a job and bullshit like that. He’d said he loved her. He’d told her he couldn’t live without her, that he’d die without her. Drina had heard that line before.

  She pulled back the curtain on the window. It was the manager of the park. She opened the door and let him in. Last time Getty had been there, it was to chew her out about James’s stupid truck parked in the shed.

  “I made him pull that truck out a couple days ago. He’s gone, him and his crappy truck. I swear.”

  Getty tipped up his yellow Makita ball cap and looked at Drina. He was an okay guy. Just trying to do his job. Drina knew that.

  His eyes crinkled. Something was wrong.

  “I paid my rent,” she said suspiciously. “Put the envelope in the box, just like I do every month. Didn’t you get it?”

  “Drina, honey, has he been here?”

  “Who?” she said. But she knew who he meant. “James? No…well, he came this morning before I left for work, but I told him to get his white ass off my property. I told him not to come back. That we were done.”

  “You didn’t see him tonight?”

  She shook her head. “Came home from work. Fed my niños and we played Candyland. We had baths and I put them to bed. Nobody’s been here tonight.” In the distance, she could hear a police siren. Maybe an ambulance. Police cars and ambulances came to her neighborhood more often than she liked.

  Drina was beginning to get a weird feeling. Like something was really wrong. Like the time her baby sister drowned in the pond on the Fourth of July. But her babies were safe. She knew they were safe; she’d tucked them into their beds.

  Blue lights flashed behind Getty in the open doorway. She could hear people outside. Hear voices.

  Panic fluttered in Drina’s chest. “Dios Mío, what’s wrong, Getty?” She turned for the open door.

  He put out his hands to stop her. “You shouldn’t go out there.”

  “What is it? Who is it?” She stared at his pudgy middle-aged face. “James? Ay Dios! Not James!” she shrieked, grasping her head with both hands.

  Getty tried to prevent her from getting out the door, but she pushed past him and ran down the concrete steps in her socks with no shoes. There were people walking through her yard. Neighbors. A police car had stopped between her trailer and the next. She heard the wail of an ambulance as it approached.

  Drina ran past her neighbors, around the back of the trailer. “James! James!” she screamed.

  Her stockinged feet slid in the partially frozen muck.

  Her neighbors were gathering near the back shed where her niños kept their bikes and their wagon. Where James had parked the truck.

  “Drina,” someone said.

  “Drina, no.”

  They had flashlights. Beams flashed in the darkness illuminating the run-down, tin-roofed shed that wasn’t much more than a lean-to.

  “You’ll have to step back. Sir, ma’am,” the police officer was saying behind her.

  Someone drew a flashlight beam across the end of the shed where James had parked the truck. Drina half expected to see the truck again. No truck. Just a silhouette. Something hanging…

  Drina grabbed a flashlight from a woman standing next to her and centered the beam on the silhouette, starting at the bottom and slowly raising it. First she saw the legs, then the black, hooded sweatshirt. A sob erupted from Drina’s throat as she raised the flashlight higher until the beam of light encircled James’s face. More light appeared around his head as others raised their flashlights until it looked as if he wore halos. Like an angel floating. Only there was a rope around his neck leading upward into the rafters.

  Drina screamed, fell to her knees on the cold, wet ground. The flashlight rolled away as she grabbed her hair, in handfuls, shrieking. The last thing she saw as she lowered her head to the ground was her son’s red trike under James’s dangling boots.

  Angel lugged another bag of rock salt from the storeroom area behind the curtain, out front, all the way to the door. “Stack them where p
eople can see them,” her sister had ordered before taking off to have lunch with her new boyfriend. “People don’t buy what they don’t see,” is what her sister had said. Amber was smart like that. A good business-woman.

  The county had been pelted by icy rain this morning. Angel had had a hard time getting out of the parking lot at the shelter. That big ol’ car of hers with the bald tires didn’t ride so well on ice. She might just buy herself a bag of the rock salt and throw it in her trunk for emergencies. She wouldn’t want to get stuck somewhere with little Buddy in the car, not the way the heater was acting up. With the employee discount, it would only come out to $1.50.

  She dropped the bag of rock salt on top of the two she had already carried out and went back for another. The flea market was quiet today. People were staying inside, or just driving where they had to: school, work, the doctor’s.

  If Angel had any sense, she’d have stayed home too. Only she couldn’t go home. She was still at the shelter. No money, no other place to go. She really wanted to go home, at least until the eviction notice was served. But a week had passed and Shonda said Charlie was still in the house. He and his brother. Shonda had offered to send some of her cousins to put them out, but Angel knew those guys. They carried tire irons when they evicted people.

  Angel didn’t want to make trouble for Charlie. She just wanted him out of her house. She just wanted him out of her life.

  At the shelter, the counselors had warned her she shouldn’t go back to work, or go to any places her boyfriend might be. But Angel had been working since she was fourteen and she couldn’t not work. She was going crazy just sitting around watching soaps on TV and listening to other people’s troubles. She was used to keeping busy. Besides, she couldn’t just keep accepting handouts from the nice people at the shelter. Buddy needed his milk. He needed his vitamins. Angel had gotten herself into this mess with Charlie; Buddy shouldn’t have to pay for it.

  Angel had talked to another girl at the shelter about getting a place together. Tammy had two kids, but she had a good job. The place where she’d been living had been her boyfriend’s, so she had to get a new place. She knew where there was a trailer for rent that she could afford if she had a roommate. She had suggested maybe they could live together, maybe even share babysitting so each of them could go out once a week and meet a decent man who worked. Angel and Tammy had laughed about that idea. Like there was such a thing as a decent man.

  Angel liked Tammy and she liked her two little girls. She thought maybe they could get along pretty well living together. But to move in with Tammy, Angel had to have her half of the deposit, and the only way to get it was to work. So, she’d come back to work. It wasn’t like Charlie was going to come here and hit her or anything. He never hit her in front of anyone. He was too chicken he’d get in trouble.

  Angel returned to the front of the store with another bag of rock salt and dropped it on the pile. As she straightened up and rubbed the small of her back, she saw Charlie standing there. He was wearing one of James’s black sweatshirts, his hands thrust in the front pockets.

  “Angel.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.” She walked back toward the cash register wondering to herself how she had ever thought he was good-looking. “I gotta work.”

  “Angel, please,” he said pitifully.

  Charlie could be good at pitiful when he wanted to be. But she wasn’t falling for it. Not this time.

  “Angel, didn’t you hear? About James?”

  “What?” She went around the cash register to put some distance between them, just in case he tried to get all huggy with her. “He finally get picked up for stealing shit from the houses where his girlfriend works?”

  “No,” Charlie rasped. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, God.” Angel looked up from the counter. “Charlie, you’re kiddin’.” But she could tell by his face that he wasn’t. “I’m so sorry. What happened?” She came back around from the cash register.

  “They say suicide,” he sniffled, “but I don’t believe it. James wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.” Charlie looked at her. “I think somebody hanged him and made it look like he did it himself. He was into some stuff he wouldn’t tell me about. It happened right in Drina’s backyard where the kids coulda seen.” He raised his hand and let it fall. “James’d never do that. He’d never kill himself.”

  “Ah, Charlie.” Angel put her arms out to him and he wrapped his arms around her waist and lowered his head on her shoulder.

  “You gotta come home, baby. I need you right now. I got the funeral and Granny to worry about. She’s not takin’ it well, I’ll tell you that.”

  Angel didn’t say anything. She felt just awful about James. Sure, she didn’t like the bastard, but he was still Charlie’s blood.

  But Angel was dug in. She wasn’t going back to the house with Charlie. She had plans now. Plans with Tammy. Plans that didn’t include Charlie. She felt bad for him, but not bad enough to put herself back in front of his fists again. And she knew that’s where she’d end up. No matter what. He’d hit her again. Men like Charlie always did.

  “So you comin’ home, baby?” He sniffed, looking down at her.

  Angel let go of him. Backed up. “I can’t do that, Charlie.” She folded her arms across her waist. “You know I can’t.” She touched her nose. She’d just gotten the splint off the day before. “You know it and you know why,” she whispered.

  “Ah, I’m sorry, baby. I just got drunk. I got mad. I won’t no more; I swear I won’t. I turned a new leaf, now with James gone. I’m a new man.” He put out his arms to her. “Come on, baby. Please? I need you, baby. I…I don’t think I can live without you.”

  Tears filled Angel’s eyes and she took another step back. This was where her boyfriends always got to her. This was when she crumbled—when they said they needed her. Then she thought about Buddy. About what Buddy needed.

  “I’m sorry about James, Charlie—I swear I am—but I can’t come back. And you’re gonna have to find another place to live. My eviction notice ought to be comin’ any day ’cause I ain’t been makin’ the rent.”

  He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He was definitely playing the pitiful card. “You’re not comin’ home, baby? But my brother is dead.”

  “I’ll come to the funeral if you want me to. Me and Buddy. You just tell me when and where.” She shook her head sadly. “But I ain’t comin’ back to you, Charlie, not ever. You hit me. You’ve hit me time and time again, and I can’t let you hit me no more. I can’t let Buddy grow up thinkin’ that’s how a man ought to be.”

  Charlie stood there looking at her for a minute, his hands hanging at his sides. He looked like he’d lost weight and he needed a shave. “You’re not comin’ home?” he whispered, seeming bewildered now.

  She shook her head.

  As she held her breath, Charlie slowly turned around and walked out of the shop.

  Angel hoped she would never see Charlie Gaitlin again.

  “Why are we here?” Ed demanded from the passenger side of the car. “I thought we were going out for pizza.”

  “We are going out for pizza, Dad. We’re meeting Jayne and the kids in half an hour. I’m just…checking on someone. A client.”

  Casey had called the shelter to speak to Angel only to find out that she had gone to work, against the director’s recommendation. Casey had left a message, but Angel hadn’t called her back.

  Casey had read about Gaitlin’s brother’s suicide in the paper this morning and she was worried about Angel. Worried that Charles would use his brother’s death as a way to lure her away from the shelter and back into his web. Men like him don’t hesitate to take advantage of women any way they can.

  Casey cruised down the street in front of the public-housing complex, and then, seeing only a dim light from Angel’s unit, pulled into the parking lot.

  “We’re having pizza here?” Ed grumbled.

  “No, Dad. We’re having pizza at Bob�
�s Pizza Palace. That’s where you said you wanted to go.”

  “Should have driven my own car.” Ed crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the window.

  “You sold your car, Dad,” she said gently.

  “Then I should have driven yours. This is taking too long. I’m hungry.”

  Casey wanted to remind him that he no longer had a license, that he wasn’t capable of driving, but when she looked at her father in the seat beside her, something told her that he knew that. He just wasn’t happy about that one more step in the loss of his freedom, and for that, she couldn’t blame him.

  So, Casey kept quiet as she drove slowly through the parking lot. She was relieved not to find Angel’s car. She did, however, see James’s old red pickup with the dented blue tailgate. It was parked in the handicapped parking space right outside Angel’s door. The same place Charlie had often illegally parked the car.

  As Casey headed for the parking lot exit, she thought about Charles Gaitlin sitting alone in the apartment. His brother was dead. His girlfriend was gone. He was probably sitting there getting drunk this very moment, feeling sorry for himself. She wondered how long it would take him to find another woman to beat on.

  Casey needed to talk to Adam about Linda’s case. She needed to find out what was taking so long. He had sworn it wouldn’t be long before Gaitlin would be arrested again. Even though she had talked with Adam every day since his grandfather had died, she didn’t feel as if she could bother him about it this week. He had enough to deal with, with his parents returning from Europe and having to make the arrangements for his grandfather’s memorial service Saturday. But next week, they would definitely discuss the issue. Casey felt as if she had been patient long enough with the legal system; it was time to start pushing someone.

  “Where we going now?” Ed asked as Casey pulled out onto the street.

  “We’re going to have pizza with Jayne and the kids, Dad.”