Zipped

by Laura McNeal

  Almost without knowing it, he stepped through the rose hedge. First he cut the telephone wire and checked for a security system (there was none). Then he found the electric pedestal in the carport, unscrewed the faceplate, and flipped the main breaker.

  Click.

  The interior lights went dark.

  He slipped behind a storage shed and, sure enough, a few seconds later a woman in a robe appeared at the head of the wooden steps that dropped from the house to the carport. She had a flashlight and directed it at the panel of smaller circuit breakers set into the carport wall. He waited until she’d begun flipping the switches before he stepped out and said in a deep voice meant to sound black, “What you lookin’ for, Mrs. White?”

  All at once the robed woman turned, shone a light into his dark face, and let out what sounded like a squeaky hiss. Then she ran for her door and could be heard locking it fast behind her.

  He walked calmly to the door. He knocked politely. In his black voice he said, “Mrs. White, I need in now.”

  The woman inside said nothing.

  “Mrs. White, I need in.”

  A small voice said something he couldn’t understand.

  “Whad you say, Mrs. White?”

  “I said go away.”

  He actually laughed. “You think it’s that easy? You think you say go away, and I just do?” He lowered his voice. “No, I need in there, Mrs. White. I really do.” Then he said something he didn’t expect to say. He said, “I just want to talk to you.”

  In a brittle, high voice the woman inside said, “Go away or I’ll do something.”

  He tried to make his black voice soothing. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

  “Go away!”

  He clicked on his light and shone it through the semi-opaque glass of the door. He could see the faint outline of her form standing behind the door. In the dim light he noticed something else and pointed the beam to his other hand. Red blood dripped from a tear in the black rubber gloves. The rose hedge, he thought.

  Maurice said, “I’m bleeding here. I need a little first aid.”

  And then with a shock he realized he’d forgotten himself. He’d used his own voice.

  “What?” the woman inside said.

  “I need in there,” he said, and it was his own voice again.

  “Who are you?”

  “I need in there,” he said. “I need your help.”

  “Go away!” she shouted. “Go away or I’ll do something!”

  He was suddenly hot. He loosened his mask, peeled it up over his mouth and nose. “I’m not going away,” he heard himself say.

  “What?”

  “I’m not going away,” Maurice said.

  From within, nothing.

  He tapped at the door.

  Still nothing.

  He shone the light through the window.

  Was she still there? He couldn’t tell if she was still there.

  He pounded on the door.

  Suddenly the woman inside spoke. “I’ll do something,” she said.

  So she was there, but turned sidewise, that’s what it looked like.

  “Go away!” she screamed.

  “I’m not going away,” Maurice said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Three Steps from the Bottom

  Sunday morning, something was different at Village Greens. When Lizette and Lisa got to its entrance, a Jemison police car was parked beyond the waterfall and entry gates, and two officers stood near it talking and drinking coffee. A familiar face peered out from the Village Greens security booth, but he didn’t say, “Howdy-ho, girls,” the way he usually did. Instead, in a somber voice, he said, “What can I do for you?”

  Lisa said, “We have a letter to deliver to the head of Village Greens. I think her name is Etta Hooten.”

  The security guard said, “You can just give it to me and I’ll—”

  Lisa cut in. “We want to hand deliver it.” This didn’t make it sound urgent enough, so she added, “It’s very important.” Which also felt puny, so she said, “It’s about the illegal behavior of a Village Greens employee.”

  This sparked the guard’s interest. “What employee?”

  Lizette looked at Lisa, who could feel the color draining from her face. Lizette shook her head. Lisa turned back to the guard. “We can’t say. But it’s in the letter to Mrs. Hooten.”

  The guard waved one of the officers over—a sturdy, square-jawed woman—and as she approached, Lisa had a strange impulse to run. But she and Lizette stood, frozen, listening to the guard explain to the officer what they’d said. Then the officer turned to them. When she spoke, her lips barely moved, and you couldn’t see her teeth. “I’ll keep it confidential,” she said, “but it would be good if you told me the name of the employee.”

  Lisa didn’t speak. Neither did Lizette.

  The officer had piercing black eyes, which she directed first at Lisa, then Lizette. Again her lips barely moved. “Okay, how about if you just nod yes or no to one question. Is your letter about an employee named Maurice Gritz?”

  The question gave Lisa a turn. She looked at Lizette, who nodded. Lisa turned to the officer and nodded yes.

  “Could I read your letter?” the officer said.

  Again Lisa and Lizette exchanged looks, and again Lizette nodded. Lisa handed over the letter.

  The officer opened the letter, read it once, and read it again. Then she looked up at the girls. “Kind of a sicko,” she said.

  They nodded.

  “So what do you want to happen to him?”

  Lizette snorted. “I don’t think what I’d want is legal,” she said.

  “Okay,” said the officer, smiling so slightly her teeth didn’t show. “What’s your second-favorite scenario?”

  Lizette thought for a second. “I guess I was hoping he’d get fired.”

  Lisa quickly added, “And she should be able to keep working without any kind of . . . you know . . . backlash.”

  The officer smiled at Lizette. “Go find yourself an attorney and you can probably get a lot more than job security.”

  Lizette shook her head. “We don’t want anything more than what we just said.”

  The officer said, “Well, you got that, and then some.”

  The girls waited, but when the officer didn’t elaborate, Lisa asked, “What does that mean?”

  The officer glanced at the security guard and then fixed her eyes again on the girls. She seemed to be studying them. “Okay,” she said finally. “Last night your Maurice Gritz was caught burglarizing the wrong home.”

  It took a second or two for this to sink in. Then Lisa said, “What do you mean, the wrong home?”

  The officer stretched her tight-lipped smile. “Gal who lived in this particular home had a gun and knew how to use it. She shot your Maurice Gritz. Twice. He’ll survive, but for the next little while his work days are going to belong to a penal institution.”

  Lisa stood dumbfounded.

  Lizette looked off to the side and said, “Good.”

  There was a pause, then the officer said, “Justice ain’t often quick, but it’s nice when it is.” She held up the letter. “I’ll need to keep this. You got a copy?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “Well, then, thank you,” the officer said. She smiled tightly again, and they could tell she was ending the conversation.

  That afternoon, Lisa mounted the stairs to the Bledsoe flat. She rang the bell three times before Janice’s mother came to the door, but she hardly looked like Genevieve Bledsoe. Instead of harried and hurried, she looked frowsy and exhausted. Her eyes had sunk into her head and seemed unfocused. There was a grape stain on her top. It seemed to take real effort for her to say, “Hi, Lisa.”

  “Is everything okay?” Lisa said.

  Mrs. Bledsoe nodded.

  “Janice, too?”

  Mrs. Bledsoe started to nod, but then quickly twisted her face away. “Not really.”

  There was another lo
ng silence, with Mrs. Bledsoe leaning against the doorjamb while Lisa stood on the landing wondering what to do next. Then Mrs. Bledsoe turned to Lisa and said, “Did you know this was going on?”

  Lisa felt immediately squeamish. “Know what was going on?”

  “Janice and this Maurice character.”

  Lisa lowered her eyes. “Kind of,” she said. She wanted to say that she’d tried every which way to talk Janice out of it, but that wouldn’t’ve been loyal to Janice and, besides, what was the point now?

  A cat meowed from somewhere behind Mrs. Bledsoe, who said, “She brought his cat home.”

  Lisa nodded blankly. It was news to her that Maurice had a cat. He didn’t seem like the cat type.

  A few seconds passed and Mrs. Bledsoe cast a glance back over her shoulder and said, “Know what Janice is in there doing now?”

  Lisa shook her head.

  “She’s in her room on her knees thanking God that this Maurice character wasn’t killed.”

  All through the conversation, beyond the exhaustion and frowsiness, there had been in Mrs. Bledsoe’s expression a look of disappointment, but with these last words she looked suddenly as if she might cry. She tried to smile and in a soft voice she said, “I’m sorry, Lisa, I just need a little time now,” and gently closed the door.

  Three steps from the bottom of the stairs, Lisa stopped, sat down, and stared across the street at Home Park Gardens. A few weeks before, these apartments had seemed enchanted, bathed in golden light, but now they had the unhappy aspect of abandonment. Someone had tagged one of the cinderblock buildings with red spray paint, the wind had pinned trash across the chain-link fence, and a long broken tree branch lay by the carports. There was an odd tinkling sound that Lisa couldn’t guess the source of.

  She stood and rolled her bicycle across the street, through the pedestrian gate, and stopped. It was the suspension chains of the swings, moving in the breeze, tink, tink, tink. Lisa settled herself into the seat of the swing, which hung so low she had to stretch her legs out before her. From here, she suddenly realized, she could see both Janice’s kitchen window and the window that had been Joe Keesler’s.

  Joe Keesler.

  Everything had been so simple before Joe Keesler.

  Lisa tucked back her legs, closed her eyes, and began slowly to swing. She didn’t swing high. She swung slowly, easily, with her eyes closed, and it made her remember when she and Janice were little, swinging and laughing, and then, when they were a little older, swinging and talking or else just swinging and being quiet like this.

  Maurice had a cat. Who would’ve thought that Maurice would have a cat?

  And yet who would’ve thought he would treat Lizette Uribe that way?

  He was like some weird Jekyll and Hyde.

  Lisa stopped pumping and let the swing coast in slowly shortening arcs. When it came to rest, she walked back to her bike. She stared up at Janice’s window—the blinds were closed—then looked around Home Park Gardens one last time. “Bye,” she said under her breath, and when she stood on the pedals to begin pumping, she wasn’t sure where she was headed next.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The View from Above

  Mick was sitting on the roof. The garage leak still hadn’t been fixed, which meant the ladder offered ready rooftop access, and it was nice up here, it really was. You could see forever, but it wasn’t just that. It was that everything looked better from up here. Cleaner. Problem-free.

  And the truth was, to this point, it’d been a pretty good day. He’d been sleeping fitfully this morning when his father knocked on the door. “Up and at ’em, Mick.”

  Mick had yelled that he didn’t have to get up, it was Sunday morning, and then pressed the pillow over his head, but his father kept knocking. “Got something for you,” he said, and wouldn’t leave until Mick had pulled on sweats and come out.

  His father was dressed in his good pants and shirt—definitely not his around-the-house gear—and he led Mick downstairs to the kitchen where Nora was cooking with an apron over her nice clothes. She didn’t look in any way like the woman hiding in the car in the middle of the night. She looked fine, good even. Normal.

  “Where’re you guys going?” Mick said, and then he noticed a package sitting on the breakfast table beautifully wrapped in slick red paper with a broad black ribbon, Nora-style. “What’s that?” he said.

  Nora smiled. “Open and see.”

  Mick peeled back the paper to reveal an enormous box of Twinkies.

  The truth was, Mick was off Twinkies, but he didn’t say so. He grinned and nodded and said, “Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Nora.” To Foolish he said, “Look, pal, they got us the megabox.”

  “There’s a card,” Mick’s father said, pointing.

  It was a homemade card with a car on the front. Inside it said, Happy birthday to the best son a father and stepmother could ever have. It was his father’s handwriting, and the sentiment got to Mick a little more than he expected. He closed it quickly. “Nice card,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Recognize the car on the front?” his father said.

  He didn’t, not really. “Old Beemer 2002,” he said. “Don’t know what year.”

  “It’s a ’71,” his father said. “Two hundred four thousand miles. It belonged to a lady in Chittenango, but it was towed into the shop with a cracked block. When she heard the tab, she decided to sell it.”

  Mick was listening. He had the feeling this story might be going somewhere.

  “I’d been telling Essa I was looking for a fixer-upper,” his father went on, “so he gave me first shot, and I got it. I’ve been working on it during lunch and after work.” He reached down to give Foolish a scratch. “I figure it’ll be ready to bring home in a week or two.”

  His father stopped talking and took a long sip of coffee.

  Mick said, “So what are you going to do with it?”

  His father grinned. “Oh, that ain’t the question, Mick. The question is, what are you going to do with it?”

  Mick could hardly believe it. “Really?”

  His father nodded. “Really.”

  Mick said, “Joking about this would be cruel and unusual.”

  A chuckle from his father. “Yeah, it would. Which is why I’m not.”

  Mick propped the card in front of him during breakfast and could hardly take his eyes off it—the car was a beautiful deep green and it had a sunroof and it seemed beyond anything remotely imaginable that he, Mick Nichols, might own this car, and better yet that he, Mick Nichols, might drive around in it with Lisa Doyle, in the summer, with the sunroof open.

  Mick, brought up from his reverie, was suddenly aware of movement. Nora and his father were moving around, piling dishes into the sink, grabbing coats and keys. “Where’re you going?” Mick said.

  His father grinned sheepishly.

  Nora said, “Church. Wanna come?”

  Church? Neither of them ever went to church. Mick shook his head. “Naw. Maybe next time.”

  His father had laughed and said, “Who said there’ll be one?” and then they were gone.

  They’d driven off at nine-thirty, and it was nearly one now. Mick had burned the morning looking up 2002 clubs on the Internet, had eaten lunch, and then when he’d been in the backyard looking up at the ladder, decided to climb it. From the garage it was a short leap to the house. The north side of the roof was too cool, so he climbed over the top ridge to the sunnier slope, which was pleasantly warm. He took off his coat and then his shirt, and rolled them behind him for a pillow.

  A pleasant, trilling fee-bee, fee-bee floated in the air. Mick walked to the chimney end of the roof, lay flat, and stared down over the eave.

  From below, the phoebe looked up, stared at him a second or two, and flew off. In the nest, the five white eggs were still together and intact. Good, Mick thought, and was pushing himself up when he heard car doors closing out front. He peered over the roof ridge to the street.

  It was his father a
nd Nora, back from church. As they opened the front gate, he started to call out, but didn’t, and a few minutes later, when his father came into the backyard and called, “Mick?” he didn’t answer then, either. He didn’t know why. He just wanted to be alone up here.

  He sat still, and a while later the front door screen door banged open and closed, and Nora and his father emerged in their casual summer clothes and headed toward the 320i. He was carrying a picnic basket and she was talking in a cheery voice Mick couldn’t quite hear, but when his father bent to put the picnic basket in the backseat of the car, Nora did something shocking. She pinched his father on the bum, and when as a consequence he jerked up his head, he conked it on the car door, and pretty soon they were both laughing like maniacs.

  Who could possibly understand the adult mind? They want their kids to act like adults, but then when they think no one’s watching, they act like kids. The 320i rolled off with his father at the wheel and, out of sight, Mick could hear him expertly downshifting at the State Street stop sign.

  Mick went down the ladder. He grabbed a root beer from the refrigerator, called Lisa and hung up when he got the machine, and did the same when he got Reece’s machine. He took a Twinkie from the box and went back up the ladder. When he was settled again, he peeled back the Twinkie wrapper and smelled it. The smell didn’t get to him, so he took a first tiny bite, and that was okay, too. In fact, it was pretty good. In about a minute, he’d finished it off, then took a deep breath and looked around.

  Down below Foolish found a sunny patch of grass, circled a few times, and tucked himself into the napping position.

  Not so foolish, Mick thought.

  He reached into the pocket of his folded jacket, felt his way past the floppy disk to the birthday card, and brought it out. His eyes feasted on it, couldn’t take it all in fast enough. His. He actually laughed out loud to think of it and was still smiling when he noticed movement at his front gate. When he saw who it was, he could hardly believe his eyes.