by K. C. McRae
“No, not like that. There wasn’t any control in what I did.” Talking about it with a relative stranger like this felt like opening a vein.
“I’d do it. I’d kill to protect myself if I could. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.” Barbie’s head bobbed emphatically.
“Did you?” Merry asked.
“Did I what?”
“Kill to protect yourself.”
Barbie looked puzzled, then sudden comprehension dawned. “What? You think I killed Clay?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Her face had flushed a deep scarlet, and her voice shook. “I can’t believe I thought we could be friends. Jesus Christ.”
Merry held up her hands. “I—”
“Get out. Just get out.”
The very air had soured. As Merry limped to the front door, Barbie spoke from the kitchen. “You know what I said, about thinking you did the right thing?”
Merry turned and looked at her.
“Well, I was wrong. You’re a murderer, just like that tramp cousin of yours.”
Olivia, wearing a battered terry cloth robe, emerged from the hallway. The glare she directed at Merry could have stripped the skin off a moose. She hurried to Barbie, put both arms around her. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
Merry left.
Out on the street, she paused and took a deep breath, trying to fill the void that seemed to have opened in the pit of her stomach. She climbed into the Blazer and started it.
Less than two blocks away she was shaking so badly she had to pull to the curb and dowse the lights.
seventeen
Closing her eyes, Merry concentrated on slowing her breathing, on not thinking, but it didn’t work. Zeke’s visage rose in her mind.
His lank dishwater-blonde hair, the sharp features that reminded her of a rat. The swagger, and the high-pitched giggle that sounded like a girl’s. She’d disliked him the minute she’d laid eyes on him. He’d been a high school buddy of Rand’s, had latched onto his coattails and ridden them through five or six jobs in Daddy’s oil exploration company. A sycophant, fawning over Rand and agreeing with everything he said while gazing after him with calculation whenever he left the room. Rand had loved having the guy around, and would hear nothing against him. The only time her husband had ever threatened to become violent had been when Merry and he were fighting over Zeke’s constant presence in their lives.
By that time, she’d realized what a vast mistake it had been to marry Rand in the first place. They argued constantly, bitterly. She’d already made the decision to leave him when Zeke came over that afternoon.
Merry had told him Rand had a business meeting and wouldn’t be home for hours. He’d gone into the kitchen and helped himself to a beer. She couldn’t bodily remove him, so she tried to ignore him, going about her business as best she could. At one point, she’d contemplated going out and running errands. But she didn’t trust him and hated the thought of leaving him alone in her house.
Zeke settled in front of the television and kept drinking. He made it through one six-pack and started in on another. Then, coming into the laundry room from the back yard where she’d been deadheading the spring flowers, she found him waiting for her, a strange look on his face. He blocked the doorway into the kitchen, glassy-eyed and grinning.
“Excuse me, Zeke.”
He belched in her face, filling the air between them with a roiling miasma of half-digested brew.
She waved her hand in front of her, disgusted. “You’re such a goddamn pig. Let me by.”
“Ah, Merry. Don’t be like that. Why don’t we be friends?” A leer replaced the sick grin.
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”
“Bitch.”
She looked into his eyes and saw the jealousy, the loathing. But it took a few more seconds to finally recognize her danger. She rotated on one foot to run out the back door, but he grabbed her and pulled her back.
“C’mon. You and me’re gonna have a little fun.”
“No!” She yelled it into his face and twisted in his grasp, moving her arm against his thumb and breaking his hold. But scrambling backward, she wasn’t fast enough to escape his other hand, which shot out and caught her arm again. He coiled his fingers in her shirt and yanked her toward the kitchen. She screamed as loud as she could, hoping one of the neighbors might hear. Infuriated, he punched her in the face, and her head cracked back into the doorframe. The pruners she’d been using in the yard went flying.
Struggling to remain conscious, she kicked and scratched and bit. She kept thinking she should be able to get away from the scrawny little bastard, but his strength, even against her high-adrenaline panic, unnerved her. The entire time they fought he kept muttering.
Bitch. Whore.
He dragged her into the kitchen and shoved her to the pantry floor. She tried to crawl away, but there was nowhere to go. He fumbled with his belt, and, for a moment, hope flared that he might be too drunk to go through with it.
As he concentrated, she aimed a kick and let fly. But she had no leverage from her prone position, and at the last second he turned enough so her foot only bounced off his thigh.
He hit her again, in the stomach, and her resistance leaked away
as she retched. He got her shorts down, scratching her with ragged fingernails, pinned her to the floor and forced her legs apart. He tore into her then, a ripping, distorted conglomeration of pain and humiliation, punctuated by waves of crippling terror as he muttered in her ear with each thrust.
“Interfering whore … making life hell … no one … will miss you … stupid … interfering … bitch … make … you pay … shut up … shut up … shut up!”
She’d known he was going to kill her then, was trying to tell him she was leaving anyway, but he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t pay attention, he was so concentrated on his vengeance.
Fury bloomed within her, fueled by both her fear and an overwhelming sense of self-preservation.
And that was when she’d seen the pruners had fallen inside the pantry. She turned her head and pretended to close her eyes, going limp beneath him. Still he labored away, swearing at her. But her eyes were open enough to see the sharp, pointed little blades of the dead headers. She slid her right hand over. Couldn’t quite reach. Wiggled a little to get closer.
“Oh, now you’re liking it, aren’t you bitch? Gettin’ into it, yeah.”
Her fingers touched the short, wicked blades of the pruners, and she teased them into her hand. Turned them so they lay across her palm. And in one sweeping motion, jammed their sharp points into his neck.
He stopped driving into her, unsure, and then roared in pain and anger. She stabbed him again. And again. Over and over until he slumped on top of her, pants around his ankles, hot blood gushing out of his neck onto her face and chest and arms. She kept stabbing even after he had stopped moving, needing to be sure, out of control, hatred incinerating her reason.
That was what no one knew. That she’d kept doing it even after he was unconscious, possibly even after he was dead. That was what haunted her, made her doubt her own sanity at three o’clock in the morning.
Rand had been livid. In court, he’d testified that he thought Merry had seduced Zeke and had taken out her anger at him on his friend. He’d lied, saying she liked rough sex, had begged him for it, and he was sure she’d convinced Zeke to play along.
The jury hadn’t believed him altogether, or she would have been convicted of a worse crime than manslaughter. But he had swayed them enough that they didn’t believe she’d killed Zeke purely in self-defense. They thought she’d started it.
———
The air inside Chewie’s Bar vibrated with music from the jukebox squatting by the door, something slow and aching. A couple swayed over the wood plank dance floor, and patron
s leaned onto small tables, talking and watching and drinking. Through an empty doorframe, a man and woman played pool at the table in the back room. The fierce odors of beer, bodies, and pungent aftershave mixed in the air.
Chewie clanked an empty into a bin below the bar. Merry grinned to herself as she flashed on Han Solo’s hirsute friend. She caught a glimpse of red and black under the thick hair that covered Chewie’s arm as he guided a towel over the bar, methodically wiping up any spills and polishing the dark wood. It was the tattoo of a bull’s-eye he’d had for twenty years, commemorating his first marksman competition win. Trophies from subsequent victories were tucked in among the liquor bottles lining the mirror behind the bar. The most meretricious of these was a gold-plated rifle that stood more than two feet tall.
The bar hadn’t changed much. A crisp new sign hung on the wall over the jukebox. CAPACITY: 72 PERSONS—THANK YOU, HAZEL FIRE DEPARTMENT. The lower corner had a computer-generated picture of a block-figured man putting out a small fire of exactly five flames with a hose. It looked like a well-endowed fat man pissing on a fern.
Those firefighters working the fire at the Lamentes’ deserved a better logo.
Chewie’s delighted voice rumbled. “Hey, Merry! Welcome home! What’re you drinking tonight?”
Her eyes raked over the tap handles. “I’ll take a Moose Drool. No, wait.” To hell with it. “Make that a whiskey ditch. Not a lot of ditch.” She felt a righteous drunk coming on.
After a couple attempts at drawing her into conversation, Chewie shrugged and moved down to a spare old man who seemed more than happy to take advantage of his devoted ear. But the bartender seemed to know her intentions and kept the drinks coming. Three whiskeys later, Merry stood up to go the bathroom and had to put her hand on the bar to steady herself. She’d always been a bit of a lightweight, but four dry years in the joint—ha! the joint, what a stupid fucking term—had badly undermined her capacity for alcohol. ’Course, it might have something to do with all that extra blood she was sure Anna Knight, that lip-licking angel of mercy, had drained in the name of public service. Or the two shots of scotch she’d had at the Lowdown.
She felt better, though. Lots better. Mostly because she didn’t feel much at all.
After the hazy but otherwise uninteresting trip to the bathroom, she settled onto her stool again and raised her finger to Chewie. He frowned but lumbered her way.
A voice behind her spoke. “How ’bout a Coke this time around?”
She whirled and had to catch herself again. Yvette Trager, wearing a hot pink satin running suit, hitched herself up on the stool next to her.
The older woman gestured at the glass sitting in a pool of condensation on the bar. “You making a habit of that these days?”
“Not so far. But I gotta say, I’m liking this so well I might do a lot more of it in the future.”
Yvette nodded. “Plenty of folks decide it’s a good way to go.”
Merry nodded back at her. “Glad to hear you approve.”
“Oh, honey. I don’t approve. Just because a lot of people do it doesn’t mean they’re right. You do much drinking before you went in?”
“Nope.” She drained the glass. “So I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Uh huh. Well, if you want to be stupid about it, I can’t stop you. Problem is, the stupidity tends to spread. You keep it up and I’ll bet ten to one you’ll be back inside prison within a year.”
“Oh, right. I wasn’t drunk when I killed Zeke. He was, but I wasn’t.”
“Hon, you don’t have to kill anyone to go back to prison. You just have to break your parole.”
“Well, don’t you worry about me, Yvette. I’ll be a good girl.” She turned away, dismissing the woman, and signaled for Chewie again. “I’ll take another.”
“The hell you will. Chewie, give this girl a Coke. We’ll be over there in that booth.”
He nodded and fished for a glass under the counter.
Traitor.
Yvette grasped her arm in a surprisingly strong grip and pulled her off the stool. She wasn’t prepared for it and almost fell.
I’ll be embarrassed about this tomorrow. But for now she didn’t much give a rip.
Yvette led Merry, protesting, to the booth. “Oh, for Godssake. I was just kiddin’. Just havin’ a little post-release celebration. Little party for myself.”
“Okay. Come sit with me for a while. We’ll make it a girls’ night out.”
Merry grimaced. “Tried that already. Over at the Lowdown. Didn’t go so good.”
“Ah, so you’re making the circuit. Love that zydeco they have over there.”
Imagining the woman who was depositing her into one of Chewie’s Naugahide banquettes prancing around to a Cajun beat in that glaring pink running suit made Merry laugh.
“What?”
“Nothin’. Never mind.”
Chewie brought over a couple Cokes, and Yvette paid for them. She took a sip, watching Merry over the rim of the glass.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Told you. I’m celebrating.”
“Bullshit.”
“Oh, fuck, Yvette—” She winced at the other woman’s sharp expression. “Sorry. Anyway, nothing’s going on.”
Yvette considered her. “How’s the detective work going?”
Merry took a drink. Damn stuff was too sweet. And fizzy. “Not so hot. Lauri’s been arrested. And now she’s—” She remembered in time that Yvette, as an officer of the court, should not be told of Lauri’s sudden departure.
“She’s what?”
“She’s not guilty, that’s what. They’re going to put her in jail for something she didn’t do.”
“Like they did you?”
“Oh, I did it. Never claimed not to. Even if I didn’t exactly have a choice.” Barbie’s words came back to her. “Everyone thinks I’m a murderer, and you know what? They’re right.”
“So Lauri’s different.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it just the teensiest bit possible that she did do it?”
The idea wended its way through the whiskey cloud. No one seemed to know what Lauri was capable of, how she thought, or what to expect from her. Hope laced Merry and Shirlene’s perceptions, self-defense against the idea that someone they knew, someone who was family, could have killed a man in cold blood with no rational provocation. And if she was innocent, the thought of wrongly accusing her became equally untenable, so they—Merry and Shirlene at least—veered away from considering Lauri’s guilt. They seemed to be the only ones, though. Everyone else appeared quite willing to believe her capable of murder.
What if they were wrong? What if Lauri was that cold-blooded? Would anyone, especially her mother, identify what amounted to severe mental illness in her cousin?
And all this time Merry had been endangering herself, getting into it with pretty much everyone she knew, in defense of the little brat. And now Lauri’d run off. That flat-out pissed her off.
“I’m going to get another drink, Yvette. You can wait here or you can leave, but I’m having another whiskey.”
“Sheez, listen to yourself. Whatever you’ve got stuck up your butt, it’s not about Lauri. I mean, sure, her situation’s bugging you, but I don’t think that’s what has you in here tonight. This thing with your cousin’s been a cause for you. As far as I’ve heard—and believe me, I’ve got ears everywhere—you’re not doing yourself any real harm by trying to find out what happened. At least you’re not moldering away out at your ranch. And who knows, you may be right about her.”
Merry stared at her. “You think I’m doing the right thing?”
“I do. Just don’t get in over your head. And if it turns out she did kill her boyfriend, well, be ready to accept that.”
“But she didn’t. I know she didn’t.” And this cla
rity, she realized, she should trust. Her earlier thoughts had just been booze-induced whining, looking for an excuse to stop trying to find out what really happened to Clay Lamente. One positive word from the former high-school secretary, and she was ready to try some more.
Problem was, she didn’t know what else to do.
“Okay. So that’s not the issue,” Yvette said. “Are you having trouble with anyone else since coming back, about what happened down in Texas?”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Of course I am. People don’t take kindly to a murderer coming home to roost among them.”
Yvette nodded. “Either the comments are piling up, or someone said something in particular that got to you. Well, hon, I am here to tell you, and this is as a woman and a friend—yes, a friend, whether you like it or not—that you are not a murderer. You killed someone, and you did it because you thought you had to. If your rotten ex-husband hadn’t testified against you in court, the jury would have ruled self-defense. They should have anyway. But they didn’t, and you’ve had to live with that. You’ll have to continue to live with it. But don’t let it eat away at that core of strength that allowed you to keep yourself alive. You do that, and your rapist and your ex and all the sonsabitches who would prefer that women stay soft and pliant and defenseless will have won.”
Merry gaped at her.
“All that is, of course, off the record. And on the record, I don’t recommend using physical violence to solve your problems in the future.”
The Cokes were gone. Her liver had been laboring away, and she now felt steady and only a little fuzzy around the edges. She didn’t want to be drunk anymore, and that seemed to have an effect, too.
“Yvette?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re one hell of a parole officer, you know that?”
“Why yes, honey. I do.” And she smiled.
———
But she wouldn’t let Merry drive home, despite her protestations. Yvette took her back to her house and made a bed on the sofa. It was a lumpy old thing, but Merry fell asleep in seconds, warm and more relaxed than she’d been since returning to Hazel.
