She pictured Rick walking into the trailer. She saw him see Anna, Mr. Turtle. And there it was. There was the punch to the chest.
“I should go,” she said.
12
RICK WASN’T A PILL GUY. He was a beer guy. But by the time he’d reached Merna, twenty-five miles east of Arnold, he’d thought about the long drive ahead and felt beneath the seat. He’d grabbed one of the cellophane mounds and fished out another chalky pill like the two that helped him finish the plumbing and ductwork. That shit worked.
It’d be late when he got to town, drove down to Mom’s, but he could at least make sure the house still stood. See if she’d come back on her own. See if Paul’s pickup was there. If it wasn’t, he’d hope Paul was out looking, not still nailing some blonde or locked up in jail for going after the cop. Either way, then Rick could turn around and head home, crawl in bed beside Pam for a couple hours before driving back to Arnold. That’d be good. To get some rest in his own bed. Keep her from frying circuits for a bit.
When he pulled into Madson, his mouth was parched, his pits were wet, and he could feel his hair growing. He scratched at his scalp and felt the cramp in each root that comes from taking off a hat that’s been worn too long. When he made the turn on Walnut, the headlights lit up the locust trees around the house. For the first time it struck him the name of the street didn’t fit.
The pavement gave way to gravel and curved left to avoid the house. As if the road were too good for it. As if it liked the green yards lining the other direction better.
Mom’s place was on the right, as far on the bottom edge of town as a house could get and still be in town. The tamped-down, dried-up yard was separated from a field by a snowy-looking row of elderberries.
Rick tried to remember the elderberries but tasted only the acidic tinge the pills left on his tongue. Not that Mom used the berries anymore anyway. She ate bread Paul picked up from the store and whatever came in a can, when she remembered to eat. She used to make jam, though, when they were kids. She made it back when they went on those picnics. They’d gone on picnics a few times, after Dell Junior was gone. They’d wade through the tall grass of some old, empty house with a big barn and eat bologna sandwiches at the base of the front porch steps. She’d tried for a while. To make things halfway normal.
The buckling shingles of Mom’s roof had a long, rusty streak from the chimney down toward the gutter, which was loose. Paul should’ve fixed it. Rick would come by and do it when he got a chance. Beneath the loose gutter, red glowed through the curtains of the living room window. She left the lamp on when she fell asleep in the recliner. The red was from the curtains. It was a comfort, the red. It made things look like they always did.
Rick jogged the short distance to the window. In the thin gap between the drapes, he made out the recliner’s back. No sign of her yellow curls jutting out past the side. No sign of her short glass of scotch on the arm. No sign of her smoke trailing up toward the ceiling in threads. She was still gone.
In the yard, there was no sign of Paul’s pickup, either. Hopefully he was out looking.
Rick was gritting his teeth. Grinding them. He made a point to loosen his jaw as he jumped back in the van and followed the gravel away from the house. He made a left on Main and sped by all the quiet two- and three-stories. They looked like gingerbread houses. Busy-looking. With hand-turned wood posts, scrollwork wood cutouts filling up every spare blank space. Like everybody who built in town back then was trying to show up the place next door. All that thin-carved wood. Just more shit to rot and break. In daytime, the houses looked fancy as ever, but in the haze of the streetlamps they were dingy, and Rick felt that same coat of grime itching on his skin. He scratched his growing hair as he pulled up to the intersection of the highway.
He made a left to head west out of town. He wanted to get back to the trailer and Anna’s soft little purr of a snore. He wanted to get home to Pam, warm in their bed.
* * *
THE NOVA WAS GONE.
Rick pulled in next to where it should’ve been and killed the engine. It chugged and rattled like it was trying to restart, vibrating sheet metal and his skin. He scratched. He hopped down and slammed the door harder than he meant to. He crossed the dirt yard and took the porch steps two at a time without feeling his feet below him. He touched the doorknob. He turned it. Unlocked.
Three strides inside the living room, he listened, but all he heard was the buzzing sound of no sound at all. Then a tick. Or a thud. From the kitchen. His hand gripped the buck-knife case on his belt, and his head whipped toward the noise. A tick. Or a plop. The drip of the faucet.
He headed for the hallway wishing his boots made softer steps till he heard the thud wasn’t his boots but his heart. It thumped loud and fast as he neared the light from Anna’s room. The door was wide open, not cracked like it was supposed to be, like it always was, and he took the last few steps running, not caring about the noise he made, just wanting to see her where she was supposed to be, sleeping. Safe.
She lay behind the bars of the crib she’d outgrown. She lay there still. He watched her for movement. He listened for the purr of her snore but couldn’t catch it over the sound of his head. He stepped closer, and she smacked a wrist against the bars and murmured. He gave a breath that stuttered with his heart settling.
He went to the next room, their room. At the edge of the bed, something slipped beneath his boot. Fabric, some clothes. He blinked and tried to make out the soft roll of Pam’s hip against the dark. He felt the space where she should’ve been. Just wrinkled sheets. The flat mattress.
He didn’t want to wake Anna. He didn’t want her to know her mother had left her alone. He shut the door to their room before flipping on the light. Her clothes still hung in the closet. Her bras and underwear still sat tucked in the drawer.
He turned off the light. He walked softly back down the hall and out the front door he’d left open. He sat on the grate of the porch, planted his feet on the second step down, and put his elbows on his knees. He held his head, his cramped-up hair, and cursed the speed. Speed made time move slower, not faster. Speed should’ve made time move faster.
She’d come back. She left her underwear. Could she afford to get new underwear? He didn’t know. She kept track of the money. She’d been pissed last week she’d had to put back hamburger for meat loaf. Later that night, she’d been pissed about cleaning his dead foot skin off the heat register. He felt the spongy wetness in his socks and the itch from his tingling skin. His head filled with the relief he got from rubbing his feet on the ridges of the register. So much relief, he wanted to whip off his boots and peel off his socks and do it right this minute. But he wouldn’t. And when she came back he wouldn’t. If she came back, he wouldn’t ever rub his feet on that register again.
The money. He knew she kept it somewhere in the kitchen. If the money was still there, he’d know she hadn’t left for good.
Before he could stand and run inside to search the drawers and cupboards, gravel popped and an engine neared. The front quarter-panel of the Nova nosed past the Silvercrest at the end of the block. She made the turn up their road. She slowed to a creep and stopped short of the van, short of her parking space. He tried to see her face, to see what she might be thinking. All he could make out was the pale of it. She made the turn and put the car in park. It was idling high. He needed to adjust the timing. He kept forgetting. He’d do it tomorrow. She shut off the engine, and he rubbed the thighs of his jeans, ready to stand but not standing. Not yet. He felt like he was watching a deer. Like if he made a sudden movement, she might dart off into the darkness past the trailer court. He waited. She sat in the car. She wasn’t moving, just sitting.
He waved with a jerk he didn’t mean to make. Then he sat. Waited.
The car door opened. She dropped her sandals on the dirt and slipped into them. He stayed put, still scared she might dart. She walked up to the railing and held it. There was a white indent where her gold ring sh
ould have been. She was looking at his boots.
“Needed to get some air,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head.
“Anna’s still asleep,” he said, feeling her out. She couldn’t go and leave Anna like that. She had to know. That’s when things happened you couldn’t take back. Couldn’t undo. When you weren’t looking. When you weren’t there to hear and see. But he still had the feeling Pam could disappear with the wind of a breath. Vaporize at a moment’s notice. And he was still too relieved to have her standing here to take a chance on pissing her off.
“I figured,” she said.
“Went driving around, then? Because you couldn’t sleep?”
She nodded, and a long strand of her hair came spindling down in front of her face. She pushed it away and stared at the toes of his boots. It looked like she felt bad enough, leaving Anna like she had. There was no reason to make it worse.
And it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t sleep without him. She had trouble sleeping as it was. She’d wind up on the couch under a spare sheet half the time. He always told her, just lock the door and listen to the fan. Focus on the fan and let it drown things out. But she wouldn’t run it at all when he wasn’t there.
So she couldn’t sleep tonight and didn’t want to wake Anna with the sound of the TV in the front room. So she went driving around. That was all. Of course it was. He was just edgy because of this deal with Mom. He tried to let that settle and wash through him, but he was jumpy. Twitchy. Probably the speed.
He eyed the pale indent in her finger again. She must’ve taken off her ring before bed. Put it back on in the morning. He’d never noticed.
“Finish the Arnold job tomorrow. Early enough I’ll be home by dinner,” he said. “You can get some better rest, for once.”
Her face had gone blank. No expression. It was good. It meant her brain wasn’t overheating. She kept her eyes down and minded the steps as she passed him. He reached out and grazed her shin with his fingers. The touch made her jump, made her jerk a little as she pulled open the door. He rose and followed her in.
13
IN THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN, Harley checked one last homestead for chain-smoking squatters drinking Cutty Sark from gallon jugs. The Knudsen place sat tucked beneath the ridge of the county oil, right alongside the highway a mile from town. The Penkes owned the land and used the outbuildings for storage. They kept the yard well lit, so trespassers were unlikely. Then again, if the trespasser was Paul, Harley supposed he was nothing if not bold.
Harley listened. He couldn’t shake the sense there’d been someone lingering just out of sight all night. He replayed the sounds: brushing grass, cracking twigs, the low hum of an engine. All he heard now was silence. It should’ve settled his nerves, probably, but it didn’t. He’d been wired since Glenn called, more wired by the burn barrel fire. Then there’d been what happened with Pam Reinhardt. That had him tightly wound in a way he hadn’t counted on.
Under the white glow of the lamppost, the brooder house was sealed up, door dead-bolted. The horse barn was unlocked and mostly empty. The stalls were stripped out. A round-rung ladder at the back led to a partial loft. Harley climbed a few steps, far enough to see two moldy bales and a generator.
At the bigger hay barn, he nudged the double doors aside to see the chrome trim of a bulbous winged Plymouth Savoy, mid-fifties. The plates were out of date, still stamped THE BEEF STATE, and the tag in the bottom right corner was from ’60. He wondered where and when and why Penke had picked it up. Aside from the car, the barn held broken odds and ends. A pair of old tire pumps, a collection of rusted window screens.
He slid the doors shut and crossed the yard to the porch. He climbed the steps and tried the knob. Locked. Around back, above thick foundation stones, the door was stairless and closed, too high for anyone’s reach.
* * *
HARLEY WAITED AT the station till dawn, when the Post-Gazette’s Thursday supplement thunked against the portable siding. He snatched it up and headed to Ziske’s.
Ziske’s spread lay between the county oil and the home place, its drive off the old Schleswig-Holstein, right across the road from the Old German Cemetery and the Jipp place. Maybe he’d heard or seen something notable the last few days. Lord knew he called the station enough when he hadn’t.
The gravel drive sank toward Ziske’s house and outbuildings, which were tucked between a pair of hills turned gold with parched grass.
The concrete steps and stoop sagged into the earth, sloping away from the front door. Harley leaned and peered through the latched screen. At the back of the house, a kitchen radio blared some tinny, manic accordion tune. He called Ziske’s name twice before the thing shut off.
The old man scooted to the door, cursing his walker under his breath. He flipped the hook and turned his back. “You’re early, paperboy.”
“Figure you been up two hours already.”
“Two, three. I got coffee.”
“I can’t stay long.” Harley held the paper out as Ziske turned his back.
“You got time for a cup of coffee.” He scooted down the hall.
Harley had never seen Ziske without his cowboy hat and now wished to hell he’d put it back on. The groove from the hat band was deep enough it surely never filled in, and what was left of the old man’s hair ran in snaking white trails over the humps and bumps of his head. Where scalp showed through, it was tough to say where age spot ended and his regular color began.
Ziske poured Harley a cup of coffee that looked like tea. That was no doubt how the old folks drank it all day long. What they called coffee was a hue barely darker than rusty pipes.
Harley dropped the supplement on the table. “There. Now it doesn’t show up, Gene won’t think you’re running a scam.”
Ziske grunted and used his walker for balance as he sat. He told Harley to pull up a chair.
“Seen anybody around the Jipp place, last few nights?” Harley sat down. “Anybody in a red pickup?”
“Think I see that far? Hell. Jipps’ is past the cemetery. My view that way’s a cottonwood and some gravestones.”
“There’s a comfort.”
“Some days,” Ziske said. “Heard the fire truck up there, whichever night it was. Ask me, Logemann’s the one burnt that place. So’s he could plant a few more rows where it’s tough enough keeping switchgrass.” Lonny Logemann was a thorn in the old man’s side primarily due to shared proximity. He owned everything on the north half section beside the cemetery. “Son of a bitch—waiting on me to die. Watch. He’ll take out another loan, snatch this place up, lose it to the bank. Damn drunk.”
“Lonny called in the fire. Doubt he set it.”
Ziske gave a hard breath. An irritated concession.
“Know if he’s done any roofing? Him or Braasch? Somebody left a bucket of sealant in the burn barrel next door. Caught fire last night.”
“Sealant? Hell, even Logemann’s not dumb enough to have a flat roof.”
“Haven’t heard or seen anything over that way, either, then?”
“Can barely hear or see me. About time for a stroke of my own.” Ziske took a sip from his dainty china cup. It was a cup his wife, were she living, likely would’ve saved for weekly card games or Thanksgiving dinners. “You the one found Doris Luschen?”
Harley said he was. That it was too bad.
“Getting old’s too damn bad.” Ziske pointed at the wall, to a wedding portrait. “Wife’s first cousin.”
Harley recognized the old Lutheran church. Ziske’s wedding party crammed in the narrow room, women in front of the men, everybody scowling like it was the reading of a will. Doris was the exception. She was all teeth. So much teeth, she may not have been able to cover them. She might’ve had no choice but to smile.
“Thick hips,” Ziske said. “Made up for them horse teeth. When’s the service?” He prodded the paper at him with a thick, arched finger. “See if it’s in there yet. Betty said last night
. You know, my girl Betty’s still an old maid. Too old to bear any honyocks, but she can keep house. Wouldn’t kill you to get somebody to keep house.”
While Harley paged through what was mostly classified ads, he pictured Betty Ziske’s thick brown bulb of a permanent, her broad stomach tented under the frills and lace of a wedding gown. Then he pictured what Pam’s midsection must look like. Long and pale, he thought. With the slightest mound of a belly between the hips.
“Think I’m pulling your leg?” Ziske demanded.
“Suspect you’re not.”
“You got to be, what, fifty?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Fifty years old. Waiting to figure out what you want? Don’t nobody know. Better that way. Don’t get it, don’t care. If you knew it and got it, you’d just want something else.” Ziske plucked a pair of shears from a catchall basket on the table. He slid them across the tabletop. “Clip it out for me,” he said, meaning the obituary. “Hear where they had a funeral for the boy?”
“I heard, yeah.” The scissors were for hair, Harley thought. Or something medical. Something too delicate for his grip. He spotted Doris’s obituary. “Full notice to come,” it said. There was no picture for the newsprint to bleach faceless, but he imagined one anyway: Doris leaned back against an old Mercury, squint-smiling in the sun, evaporating. He read the birth date, August 23, 1893. She’d died a month shy of her eighty-fifth birthday. She’d been a year younger than his mother. She’d had him late, his mother.
“Kirschner says he cut a stone for him. Pink granite.”
“Guess it’s something.”
“Says he was here, at least.” Ziske smoothed his hands across the tabletop. The surface was gouged and worn with dips like old butcher block. “I rattled him, you know. Rollie. That morning.”
“Rollie was rattled a long time before that.” The old man had always felt partly responsible. He’d hired Rollie after buying the Lucases’ eighty acres and securing the full southeast quarter section. Rollie’d stayed in the vacant house in exchange for work around the place. The morning it happened, Ziske drove a pickup bed of dirt down to an old caved-in cellar. There’d been two on the Lucas spread, a sturdy one up by the house and a collapsed one a good hundred yards off. Likely left over from a sod house nobody remembered. Rollie planned to fill it that day and was there waiting. He didn’t notice Ziske coming, so the old man tapped the horn. Startled him. But everything startled him. Ziske blaming himself for what happened was as useful as blaming Dell Junior, who was guilty of no more than exploring, sifting for arrowheads and buffalo bones in the powdery blowouts. Ziske blaming himself was as useful as blaming Rollie, for that matter. He’d had no more control over his reaction than a backhoe would’ve.
Pickard County Atlas Page 10
