CHAPTER 3
1
“Holy fucking shit!” Eric Blass cried. He was sitting on the ground, and staring up. “Did you see that?”
“I’m still seeing it,” Don replied, looking at the flock of moths winging above the tennis courts and toward the high school. “And smelling it.”
He had given Eric his lighter, since it was Eric’s idea (also so he could semi-plausibly put it all on the kid, if anyone found out). Eric had squatted, flicked the Zippo alight, and applied it to the edge of the cocoon in the littered den filled with junk. The cocoon had gone up in a crackling flash, as if it had contained gunpowder instead of a crazy homeless lady. The stench was immediate and sulphuric. It was like God himself had cut the cheese. Old Essie had sat upright—not that you could see anything more than the outline of her—and seemed to twist toward them. For an instant, her features had clarified, black and silver like a photo negative, and Don had seen her lips rolling back into a snarl. In another beat there was nothing left of her.
The fireball rose to a height of four feet, seeming to revolve as it did so. Then the fireball had turned into moths—hundreds of them. Of the cocoon or a skeleton there was no sign, and the grass where Old Essie had been lying wasn’t so much as charred.
It wasn’t that kind of fire, Don thought. If it had’ve been, we would be baked.
Eric got to his feet. His face was very white, and his eyes were frantic. “What was that? What just happened?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Don said.
“Those Blowtorch Brigades, or whatever they call themselves . . . have there been any reports from them of burning cocoons that turned into flying bugs?”
“Not that I know of. But maybe they’re not reporting it.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Eric licked his lips. “Yeah, there’s no reason why she’d be different.”
No, there wasn’t any reason why Old Essie would be different from every other sleeping woman in the world. But Don could think of one reason why things in Dooling might be different. Things might be different here because there was a special woman here, one who slept without growing a cocoon around her. And who woke up again.
“Come on,” Don said. “We’ve got work to do on Ellendale Street. Bitch-bags to count. Names to write down. This here . . . this never happened. Right, partner?”
“Right. Absolutely.”
“You’re not going to talk about it, are you?”
“Jesus, no!”
“Good.”
But I might talk about it, Don thought. Not to Terry Coombs, though. It had only taken Don a couple of days to come to the conclusion that the man was next door to useless. A what-did-you-call-it, a figurehead. And he seemed to have a drinking problem, which was truly pathetic. People who couldn’t control their urges repulsed Don. That guy Frank Geary, though, the one Terry had appointed his chief deputy . . . that one was a thinking cat, and he was keenly interested in the Evie Black woman. He’d have her sprung soon, if not already. He was the one to talk to about this, if talking had to be done.
But he needed to think about it first.
Very carefully.
“Don?”
They were back in the truck. “Yeah, kid?”
“Did she see us? It seemed like she saw us.”
“No,” said Don. “She didn’t see nothing, just exploded. Don’t be a pussy, Junior.”
2
Terry said he wanted to go home and think about their next move. Frank, who was pretty sure the acting sheriff’s next move would be lying down to sleep it off, said that was a good idea. He saw Terry to his front door, then drove directly to the sheriff’s station. There he found Linny Mars pacing circles with a laptop in her hands. There was a crust of white powder around her nostrils. Her cheeks were colored a hectic red. Her eyes were bleary and sunken. From the laptop came the all-too-familiar sounds of chaos.
“Hi, Pete.”
She had been calling him Pete since yesterday. Frank didn’t bother correcting her. If he did, she’d remember he was Frank for a few minutes, then revert to Pete. Short-term memory loss was common among the women who were still awake. Their frontal lobes were melting like butter in a hot pan. “What are you watching?”
“YouTube vids,” she said, not slowing her circuit of the office. “I could watch at my desk, I know, Gertrude’s screen is much bigger, but every time I sit down I start to float away. Walking is better.”
“Gotcha. What’s on?” Not that he really needed an update. Frank knew what was going on: bad things.
“Clips from Al Jazeera. All the news networks are going crazy, but Al Jazeera’s absolutely shitting themselves. The whole Mideast is on fire. Oil, you know. Oil wells. At least no nukes yet, but somebody over there will pop one eventually, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Linny, I wonder if you could look something up for me. I tried on my phone and couldn’t get anywhere. I guess prison personnel’s pretty cagey about their personal info.”
Linny was walking faster now, still staring at her laptop, which she held out in front of her like a chalice. She stumbled over a chair, almost fell, righted herself, and forged onward. “The Shias are fighting the Sunnis, and ISIL is fighting them both. Al Jazeera had a panel of commentators on, and they seem to think it’s because the women are gone. They say that without females to protect, though their idea of protection sure isn’t mine, some central psychological underpinning of Judaism and Islam is gone. Like both of those things are the same. Basically still blaming the women, even after they’ve gone to sleep. Bonkers, huh? In England—”
Enough news of the world, Frank thought. He clapped his hands repeatedly in front of Linny’s face. “I need you to do your job for a minute, hon. Could you do that for me?”
She snapped to attention. “Absolutely! What do you need, Pete?”
“Terry asked me to get an address for Lawrence Hicks. He’s the assistant warden up at Correctional. Can you find that for me?”
“Walk in the park, piece of cake, can of corn. Got all their phone numbers and addresses. In case there’s trouble up there, you know.”
But it didn’t turn out to be a walk in the park, after all. Not in Linny’s current state. Frank waited patiently as she sat at her desk, first trying one file and backing out, then another, then a third, shaking her head and cursing the computer as people did even when it was their own fault. Once she started to nod off and he saw a fine white thread spinning out of her ear. He clapped his hands again in front of her nose. “Concentrate, Linny, okay? This could be important.”
Her head jerked up. The thread snapped off, floated, disappeared. She gave him a loopy smile. “Roger that. Hey, remember that night we went line-dancing at Halls of Ivy over in Coughlin, and they kept playing that ‘Boot-Scootin’ Boogie?’ ”
Frank had no idea what she was talking about. “I sure do. Lawrence Hicks. Address.”
She finally got it. Sixty-four Clarence Court, on the south side of town. Just about as far from the prison as you could get, and still be a Dooling resident.
“Thanks, Linny. Better get some coffee.”
“I think I’ll settle for Colombian marching powder instead of Colombian roast. Works better. God bless the Griner brothers.”
The phone rang. Linny grabbed the receiver. “Police!” For about three seconds she listened, then hung up.
“They keep calling to ask. ‘Is it true that there’s a woman up at the prison—’ Blah, blah, blah. Do I look like the newspaper?” She gave him a desperately unhappy smile. “I don’t know why I bother staying awake. I’m just postponing the inevitable.”
He bent down and rubbed her shoulder with his fingertips, didn’t know he was going to do it until it was done. “Hang in. There might be a miracle waiting around the next bend in the road. You won’t know until you get there.”
Linny started to cry. “Thanks, Dave. That’s a nice thing to say.”
“I’m a nice man,” Frank said, who did try to be nice, but found that it wasn’t always possible. In the long run, he suspected niceness didn’t pull the plow. Frank didn’t like that. It didn’t give him any pleasure. He wasn’t sure Elaine had ever grasped that he didn’t actually enjoy losing his temper. But he saw how it was. Someone had to pull the plow, and in Dooling, that was him.
He left, feeling sure that the next time he saw Linny Mars, she would be in a cocoon. What some of the deputies had started calling bitch-bags. He didn’t approve of the term, but he didn’t stop them. That was Terry’s job.
He was the sheriff, after all.
3
Behind the wheel of Unit Four once more, Frank got on the horn to Reed Barrows and Vern Rangle in Unit Three. When Vern answered, Frank asked if they were still in the Tremaine Street area.
“Yup,” said Vern, “and making fast work of it. Not many sleepers in this neighborhood once you get past the sheriff’s place. You should see all the For Sale signs. Guess the so-called economic recovery never made it this far.”
“Uh-huh. Listen, you two, Terry says he wants to locate Sheriff Norcross and her son.”
“Their house is empty,” Vern said. “We already checked it. I told Terry that. I think maybe he’s been . . .” Vern must have suddenly realized that what he was saying was going out over the air. “He’s been, you know, a little overworked.”
“No, he knows that,” Frank said. “He wants you to start checking the empty houses, too. I seem to remember there’s a whole cul-de-sac that’s unfinished a little further up. If you find them, just say howdy and move on. But then get in touch with me right away, all right?”
Reed took the mic. “I think if Lila’s not awake, Frank, then she must have wandered off into the woods or something. Otherwise she’d be in a cocoon at home or at the sheriff’s station.”
“Look, I’m just passing on what Terry told me.” Frank certainly wasn’t going to tell those two what seemed obvious to him: Norcross was a step ahead. If his wife was still awake, she’d still be in charge. Therefore, the doc had phoned his son and told the kid to move Lila to a safer place. It was another indication that the man was up to mischief. Frank was sure they wouldn’t be far from home.
“Where is Terry, anyway?” Reed asked.
“I dropped him off at his house,” Frank said.
“Jesus.” Reed sounded disgusted. “I hope he’s up to this job, Frank. I really do.”
“Can that talk,” Frank said. “Remember you’re on the air.”
“Roger that,” Reed said. “We’ll start checking the empty houses further up Tremaine. That section’s on our list, anyway.”
“Great. Unit Four is clear.”
Frank racked the mic and headed for Clarence Court. He badly wanted to know where Lila Norcross and her son were—they could be the levers he needed to end the situation bloodlessly—but that was second on his list. It was time to get some answers about Ms. Eve Black.
4
Jared answered on the second ring. “This is the CDC, Dooling branch, epidemiologist Jared Norcross speaking.”
“No need for that, Jere,” Clint said. “I’m alone in my office. Is Mary okay?”
“Yeah, for now. She’s walking around in the backyard. She says the sun perks her up.”
Clint felt vague alarm, and told himself not to be such an old biddy. Privacy fences, lots of trees; she’d be okay back there. It wasn’t as if Terry and his new second-in-command could send out a drone or a helicopter.
“I don’t think she can stay awake much longer, Dad. I don’t know how she’s managed it this long.”
“Me, either.”
“And I’m not sure why Mom wanted us up here, anyway. There’s some furniture, but the bed is hard.” He paused. “Guess that sounds pretty whiny, huh? With all that’s going on?”
“People tend to focus on the small things to keep the big ones from overwhelming them,” Clint said. “And your mom was right, Jere.”
“You don’t really think a Blowtorch Brigade is going to start up in Dooling, do you?”
Clint thought of the title of an old novel—It Can’t Happen Here. The point being that anything could happen anywhere. But no, it wasn’t a Dooling Blowtorch Brigade he was currently worried about.
“There are things you don’t know,” Clint said, “but since other people do—or suspect, at least—I’ll bring you up to speed tonight.” After that I might not get many more chances, he thought. “I’ll bring you and Mary dinner. Double hamburg, double mush from Pizza Wagon sound okay? Assuming they’re still open for business?”
“Sounds awesome,” Jared said. “How about a clean shirt, too?”
“It will have to be an officer’s blueshirt,” Clint said. “I don’t want to go by the house.”
Jared didn’t reply at first. Clint was about to ask if he was still there when his son said, “Please tell me you’re just being paranoid.”
“I’ll explain everything when I get there. Keep Mary awake. Remind her she can’t eat pizza through a cocoon.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And Jared?”
“Yeah?”
“The cops aren’t keeping me apprised of their strategy for dealing with the local situation—I’m not their favorite person right now—but if I were them, I’d be grid-searching the town and keeping a master list of all the sleeping women, plus their locations. Terry Coombs might not be smart enough or on top of things enough to think of that, but I believe there’s a man who’s working with him who is.”
“Okay . . .”
“If they show up where you are, keep quiet and . . . is there a storage space in that house? Other than the cellar, I mean?”
“Not sure, I haven’t exactly searched it, but I think there’s an attic.”
“If you see cops on the street, you should get everyone up there.”
“Jesus, really? You’re kind of freaking me out here, Pop. I’m not sure I’m following you. Why shouldn’t I let the cops find Mom and Mrs. Ransom and Molly? They’re not burning women here, right?”
“No, they’re not, but it could still be dangerous, Jared. For you, for Mary, and especially for your mother. Like I said, the police aren’t very happy with me right now. It has to do with the woman I told you guys about, the one who’s different. I don’t want to get into the details now, but you have to believe me. Can you get them up to the attic or not?”
“Yeah. I hope I don’t have to, but yeah.”
“Good. I love you, and I’ll be there soon, hopefully bearing pizza.”
But first, he thought, I’m going to take another run at Evie Black.
5
When Clint got to A Wing, carrying a folding chair from the common room under one arm, Jeanette was standing by the door to the shower and the delousing station, having a conversation with an individual who didn’t exist. It seemed to be some kind of convoluted dope deal. She said she wanted the good stuff, the Blues, because they mellowed Damian out. Evie was at the bars of her cell, watching this with what appeared to be sympathy . . . although with the mentally unbalanced, you could never be sure. And speaking of the mentally unbalanced, Angel was sitting on the bunk in a nearby cell with her lowered head propped on her hands and her hair hiding her face. She looked up briefly at Clint, said, “Hello, cocksucker,” and lowered her head again.
“I know where you get it,” Jeanette was saying to the invisible pusher, “and I know you can get it now. It’s not like they close at midnight. Do me a favor, okay? Please? Please? I don’t want Damian in one of those moods. And Bobby’s teething, too. My head can’t take it.”
“Jeanette,” Clint said.
“Bobby?” She blinked at him. “Oh . . . Dr. Norcross . . .” Her face seemed attenuated now, as if all muscles there had already gone to sleep and were only waiting for her stubborn brain to follow. It made Clint think of an old joke. Horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, Hey, buddy, why the long face?
Clint wanted to explain to her why he’d ordered the officers to disable the payphones, and apologize for preventing her from calling her son to make sure the boy was all right. He wasn’t certain, however, that Jeanette would be able to comprehend him at this point, and if she did, if it would achieve anything, or only distress her further. The liberties that Clint had taken with the lives of the prison’s women, the lives of his patients, were grotesque. That he felt he had no alternative did not make it less grotesque or cruel. And that didn’t cover all of it, not by a long shot. It was because of Evie that he’d had to do all of it—and he realized, suddenly, insane or not, he hated her for that.
“Jeanette, whoever you—”
“Don’t bother me, Doc, I gotta do this.”
“I want you to go out to the exercise yard.”
“What? I can’t do that, at least not by myself, I can’t. This is a prison, you know.” She turned from him and peered into the shower. “Oh now look, the man’s gone. You scared him away.” She gave a single dry sob. “What’ll I do now?”
“None of the doors are locked, sweetheart.” Never in his life had Clint used such a term of intimacy when addressing an inmate, but now it came naturally, without thought.
“I’ll get on Bad Report if I do that!”
“She’s lost it, Doc,” Angel said without looking up.
“Go on, Jeanette,” Evie said. “Out to the furniture shop, across the exercise yard, into the garden. There are new peas there, as sweet as honey. Fill your pockets and come back. Dr. Norcross and I will be done by then, and we can have a picnic.”
“A pea-pea picnic,” Angel said through the screen of her hair, and snickered.
“Go on, now,” Evie said.
Jeanette eyed her uncertainly.
“The man may be out there,” Evie coaxed. “In fact, I’m sure he is.”
“Or possibly up your dirty ass,” Angel said through her hair. “He might be hiding there. Go find me a wrench and I’ll help you find him.”
“You got a bad mouth, Angel,” Jeanette said. “Bad.” She started up the short A Wing corridor, then stopped, staring fixedly down at a slanting oblong of sun on the floor as if hypnotized.
“I say you can’t not be bothered by a square of light,” Evie said quietly.
Jeanette laughed, and exclaimed, “That’s right, Ree! That’s right! It’s all Lying for Prizes, isn’t it?”
She went on, step by slow step, weaving left and correcting, weaving right and correcting.
“Angel?” Evie said.
She spoke in that same quiet, courteous voice, but Angel looked up at once, seemingly wide awake.
“Dr. Norcross and I are going to have a brief consultation. You may listen, but you need to keep your mouth closed. If you don’t, I’ll stop it up with a rat and it will eat the tongue right out of your head.”
Angel stared at her for several seconds, then lowered her face into her hands again.
Officer Hughes showed up just as Clint was unfolding his chair outside Evie’s cell. “Inmate just went outside,” he said. “Looked like she was headed for the garden. That okay?”
“It’s fine, Scott. But keep an eye on her, would you? If she falls asleep out there, get her into the shade before she starts to grow a cocoon. We’ll bring her in after she’s completely wrapped.”
“Okay, boss.” Hughes sketched a salute and left.
Boss, Clint thought. Jesus-God, boss. I wasn’t nominated, I didn’t campaign, but I got the job, anyway.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” Evie said. “Henry IV, Part Two. Not one of his best, but not bad. You know they had boys play the women’s parts back then, right?”
She is not a mind-reader, Clint told himself. The men came, just as she predicted, but I could have predicted that. It’s simple logic. She’s got the skills of a good carnival fortune-teller, but she is not a mind-reader.
Yes, and he could go on believing that as long as he liked—it was a free country. Meanwhile, she was looking at him with curiosity and interest, eyes aware and totally awake. Probably the only woman alive who still looked like that.
“What shall we talk about, Clint? Shakespeare’s history plays? Baseball? The last season of Doctor Who? Too bad it ended on a cliffhanger, huh? I’m afraid it’s reruns from here on out. I have it on good authority that the doctor’s companion fell asleep a couple of days ago and now she’s riding in a TARDIS through her own innerspace. Maybe they can recast, though, go all male next season.”
“Sounds good,” said Clint, automatically falling into shrink mode.
“Or should we tackle something more germane to the current situation? I’d suggest the last, because time is getting short.”
“I’m interested in this idea you have about the two of us,” Clint said. “You being the Woman, and me being the Man. Symbolic figures. Archetypes. Yin and yang. The king on one side of the chessboard, the queen on the other.”
“Oh, no,” she said, smiling. “We’re on the same side, Clint. White king and white queen. On the other side, arrayed against us, is an entire army of black pieces. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men. Emphasis on men.”
“That’s interesting, that you see us on the same side. I didn’t get that before. And when, exactly, did you begin to realize that?”
The smile faded. “Don’t. Don’t you do it.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Fall back on DSM IV. To deal with this, you need to let go of certain rational assumptions and rely on intuition. Embrace your female side. Every man has one. Just think of all the male authors who have put on the dress. Mildred Pierce, by James Cain, for example. That’s a personal favorite.”
“There are a lot of female psychiatrists who would object to the idea that—”
“When we spoke on the phone, while your wife was still awake, you believed what I was telling you. I could hear it in your voice.”
“I was in . . . a strange place that night. Dealing with personal issues. Look, I’m not discounting your influence, your powers, however you want to characterize it. Let’s assume you’re in control. At least for today.”
“Yes, let’s assume that. But tomorrow they may come for me. If not then, the next day, or the one after that. It won’t be long. While in the other world, the one beyond the Tree, time is moving at a much faster pace—months are reeling by there. There are dangers, but with every one the women surmount, it becomes less likely that they will want to return to this world.”
“Let’s say I understand and believe even half of what you’re saying,” Clint said. “Who sent you?”
“President Reginald K. Dinkleballs,” Angel blurted from the neighboring cell. “Either him, or Lord Herkimer Jerkimer. Maybe—”
Then she screamed. Clint turned in time to see a large brown rat scamper through the bars and into Angel’s cell. She drew her feet up on the bunk and screamed again. “Git it out! Git it out! I hate rats!”
“Are you going to be quiet, Angel?” Evie asked.
“Yes! Yes! I promise! Yes!”
Evie twirled her finger, like an umpire signaling a home run. The rat reversed out of Angel’s cell and squatted in the corridor, watching her with beady eyes.
Clint turned back to Evie. He’d had a series of questions in mind when he came down here, questions designed to make her face her delusions, but now they were blown away like a house of cards in a strong wind.
I am the one with the delusions, he thought. Holding onto them so I don’t go completely insane.
“No one sent me,” Evie said. “I came on my own.”
“Can we make a deal?” he asked.
“We already have one,” Evie said. “If I live through this, if you save me, the women are free to decide their own course. But I warn you: the big guy, Geary, is very determined to have me. He thinks he can control the other men and capture me alive, but he’s probably wrong about that. And if I die, it’s over.”
“What are you?” he asked.
“Your only hope. I suggest you stop worrying about me and focus all your energies on the men outside these walls. They’re the ones that need to concern you. If you love your wife and son, Clint, you need to work quickly to gain the upper hand. Geary isn’t in complete control yet, but he will be soon. He’s clever, he’s motivated, and he doesn’t trust anyone but himself.”
“I put him off.” Clint’s lips felt numb. “He has his suspicions, yes, but he can’t be sure.”
“He will be, once he talks to Hicks, and he’s on his way there now.”
Clint rocked back on his chair as if she had reached through the bars and slapped him. Hicks! He’d forgotten all about Hicks. Would he keep his mouth shut, if Frank Geary questioned him about Eve Black? Balls he would.
Evie sat forward, her eyes locked on Clint’s. “I’ve warned you about your wife and son, I’ve reminded you that there are weapons you may be able to access, and those things are more than I should have done, but I didn’t expect to like you so much. I suppose I might even be attracted to you, because you’re so damn foolhardy. You’re like a dog barking at the ocean tide, Dr. Norcross. Not to get off the subject, but this is another aspect of the basic problem, the man-woman equation that never balances. Never mind, subject for another time. You have a decision to make: either prepare your defenses, or clear out and let them have me.”
“I’m not going to let them have you,” Clint said.
“Big talk. Very macho.”
Her dismissive tone galled him.
“Does your all-seeing eye know I had to disable the payphones, Evie? That I kept every last woman here from saying goodbye to anyone, even to their children, because we couldn’t risk letting word of you get out any further? That my own son is probably in danger, too? He’s a teenage boy, and he’s taking chances that I’m telling him to take.”
“I know what you’ve done, Clint. But I didn’t make you do anything.”
Clint was suddenly furious with her. “If you believe that, you’re lying to yourself.”
From the shelf, she took Hicks’s phone. “We’re done here, Doctor. I want to play a few games of Boom Town.” She dropped him the wink of a flirty teenager. “I’m getting better all the time.”
6
“Here we are,” Garth Flickinger said, and brought his battered Mercedes to a stop in front of the late Truman Mayweather’s far more battered trailer.
Michaela regarded it blankly. For the last few days she’d felt like a woman in a dream, and the rusty trailer—up on blocks, surrounded by weeds and discarded auto parts, the police tape now lying on the ground and fluttering lackadaisically—seemed like just another of the peculiar turns dreams take.
But I’m still here, she told herself. My skin is still my skin. Right? She rubbed a hand up one cheek and across her forehead. Right. Still clean of cobwebs. Still here.
“Come on, Mickey,” Garth said, getting out. “If I find what I’m looking for, you’ll be good to go for at least another day or two.”
She tried to open her door, couldn’t find the handle, and simply sat there until Garth came around and opened it for her, with an extravagant bow. Like a boy taking his date to the prom instead of to some shitass trailer in the woods where there was a recent double murder.
“Upsa-daisy and out you come,” Garth said, seizing her arm and pulling. He was bright and lively. Why not? He wasn’t the one who’d been awake for over a hundred hours.
Since that night in the Squeaky Wheel, she and Garth had become fast friends. Or drug buddies, at least. He’d had a large bag of crystal meth—his emergency stash, he said—and that had balanced off the drinks nicely. She’d been happy enough to go home with him when the Wheel finally ran out of booze and closed its doors. Under other circumstances she might even have slept with him—as little as men did for her, sometimes the novelty was appealing, and God knew, the way things were going, she appreciated the company. Not under these circumstances, though. If she slept with him, she would really go to sleep after, she always did, and if she did that, whoopsie, there goes your ballgame. Not that she had any idea if he would even be interested; Garth Flickinger did not present as the most sexual of beings, except in regards to dope, about which he was quite passionate.
The emergency stash turned out to be sizable, and they had kept the party going at Garth’s house for the better part of the next forty-eight hours. When he finally fell asleep for a few hours on Sunday afternoon, she had explored the contents of the doctor’s rolltop desk. It contained, predictably, a stack of medical journals and several scorched drug pipes. Less expected was a creased photo of a baby wrapped in a pink blanket. Cathy was penciled lightly on the reverse side—and in the desk’s bottom cabinet, a big box of reptile vitamin supplements. Next, she played with his jukebox. It held nothing but jam bands, unfortunately; she didn’t need to listen to “Casey Jones”; she was well en route to becoming Casey Jones. Michaela flicked through what seemed like five hundred channels on his el gigantico TV, pausing only to watch those infomercials where the hucksters had the loudest, most offensive, listen-to-me-or-die voices. She seemed to remember ordering a Shark vacuum cleaner and having it sent to her old address in DC. She doubted if it would arrive; although it had been a man who took her call, Michaela was sure that it was women who actually filled the orders. Wasn’t it usually the women who got those kinds of jobs? The crap jobs?
If you see a toilet bowl without a ring, she thought, you know there’s a woman somewhere in the vicinity.
“Trume told me he got hold of the best shit ever, and he wasn’t lying,” Garth said, leading her toward the trailer. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was a maniac and he lied almost all the time, but this was the rare instance when he wasn’t.”
The trailer had a hole in the side that was surrounded by a corona of what looked like dried blood—but surely that wasn’t really there. She must be waking-dreaming, quite common among people who had been without sleep for a long time—so said a self-proclaimed expert in a NewsAmerica sidebar piece she’d seen before decamping for the green hills of her Appalachian home town.
“You don’t see a hole in the side of that trailer, do you?” she asked. Even her voice was dreamlike now. It seemed to be issuing from a loudspeaker in the top of Michaela’s head.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “It’s there, all right. Listen, Mickey, Trume called this new stuff Purple Lightning, and I got a sample before the wild woman came on the scene and offed Trume and his sidekick.” Garth was momentarily diverted into reverie. “The guy, he had the stupidest tattoo. That turd from South Park? The one that sings and stuff? It was on his Adam’s apple. Who gets a turd tattoo on his Adam’s apple? You tell me. Even if it’s a witty, singing and dancing turd, it’s still a turd. Everyone who looks at you sees a turd. Not my specialty, but I’ve consulted, and you would not believe what a pain it is to get something like that removed.”
“Garth. Stop. Rewind. The wild woman. Is that the woman people in town are talking about? The one they’re holding at the prison?”
“Uh-huh. She totally Hulked out. I was lucky to get away. But that’s water under the bridge, piss down the sewer pipe, last week’s news, so on and so forth. Doesn’t matter. And we should be grateful for that, trust me. What does matter is this superb crystal. Trume didn’t make it, he got it from Savannah or somewhere, but he was going to make it, dig? Analyze it and then create his own version. He had a two-gallon Baggie of the shit, and it’s in there somewhere. I’m going to find it.”
Michaela hoped so, because resupply was necessary. They had smoked up Garth’s reserves over the last few days, even smoked up the rug-bunnies and a couple of shards they’d found under the couch, Garth insisting that she brush her teeth after every session with the bong. “Because that’s why meth addicts have such bad teeth,” he’d told her. “They get high and forget basic hygiene.”
The stuff hurt her throat, and the euphoric effect had long since worn off, but it kept her awake. Michaela had been almost positive she would fall asleep on the ride out here—it had seemed interminable—but somehow she had managed to stay conscious. And for what? The trailer, balanced crooked on its cement blocks, didn’t exactly look like the Fountain of Awareness. She could only pray that the Purple Lightning wasn’t a fantasy of Garth Flickinger’s dope-addled brain.
“Go ahead,” she said, “but I’m not going in with you. There might be ghosts.”
He looked at her with disapproval. “Mickey, you’re a reporter. A news maven. You know there are no such things as ghosts.”
“I do know that,” Michaela said from the loudspeaker on top of her head, “but in my current state, I might see them anyway.”
“I don’t like leaving you on your own. I won’t be able to slap you if you start nodding off.”
“I’ll slap myself. Go get it. Just try not to be long.”
Garth trotted up the steps, tried the door, and put his shoulder to it when it wouldn’t give. It flew open and he stumbled inside. A moment later he poked his head out the maroon-stained hole in the side of the trailer, a big grin on his face. “Don’t go to sleep, you pretty thing! Remember, I’m going to touch up your nose one of these fine days!”
“In your dreams, buster,” she said, but Garth had already pulled his head back inside. Michaela heard thuds and crashes as he began his search for the elusive Purple Lightning. Which the cops had probably taken and stashed in the evidence locker at the sheriff’s station, if they hadn’t taken it home to their womenfolk.
Michaela wandered to the ruins of the meth-cooking shed. It was surrounded by charred bushes and blackened trees. No meth would be cooked here in the future, purple or otherwise. She wondered if the shed had blown up on its own, as meth-cooking facilities were wont to do, or if the woman who had killed the cookers had blown it up. It was a moot question at this late date, but the woman herself interested Michaela, piqued the natural, seeking curiosity that had made her investigate Anton Dubcek’s dresser drawers when she was eight and eventually led her into journalism, where you got to investigate everybody’s drawers—those in their houses, and those that they wore. That part of her mind was still active, and she had an idea it was keeping her awake as much as Flickinger’s methamphetamine. She had Qs with no As.
Qs like how this whole Aurora business got rolling in the first place. And why, assuming there was a why. Qs about whether or not the world’s women could come back, as Sleeping Beauty had. Not to mention Qs about the woman who had killed the meth dealers, and whose name was, according to some talk they’d overheard at the Squeaky Wheel and in town, either Eve or Evelyn or Ethelyn Black, and who could supposedly sleep and wake again, which made her like no other woman anywhere, unless another existed in Tierra del Fuego or the high Himalayas. This woman might only be a rumor, but Michaela tended to believe there was an element of truth to her. When rumors came to you from different directions, it was wise to pay attention.
If I wasn’t living with one foot in reality and the other in the Land of Nod, Michaela thought, starting up the path beyond the ruined meth shed, I would hie myself to the women’s prison and make some inquiries.
Another Q: Who was running the place up there, now that her mother was asleep? Hicks? Her mother said he had the brain of a gerbil and the spine of a jellyfish. If memory served, Vanessa Lampley was the senior officer on the staff. If Lampley wasn’t there anymore, or if she was snoozing, that left—
Was that humming just in her head? She couldn’t be completely sure, but she didn’t believe so. She thought it was the power lines that ran near here. No big deal. Her eyes, however, were reporting stuff that was harder to dismiss as normal. Glowing splotches like handprints on some of the tree trunks a few feet from the blasted shed. Glowing splotches that looked like footprints on the moss and mulch, as if saying, This way, m’lady. And clumps of moths on many of the branches, perched there and seeming to watch her.
“Boo!” she shouted at one of these clumps. The moths fluttered their wings, but did not take off. Michaela slapped one side of her face, then the other. The moths were still there.
Casually, Michaela turned and looked down the slope toward the shed and the trailer below. She expected to see herself lying on the ground, wrapped in webs, undeniable evidence that she had disconnected from her body and become a spirit. There was nothing, though, except for the ruins and the faint sounds of Garth Flickinger, treasure-hunting his ass off.
She looked back up the path—it was a path, the glowing footprints said so—and saw a fox sitting thirty or forty yards ahead. Its brush was curled neatly around its paws. It was watching her. When she took a hesitant three steps toward it, the fox trotted further up the path, pausing once to glance over its shoulder. It seemed to be grinning amiably.
This way, m’lady.
Michaela followed. The curious part of her was fully awake now, and she felt more aware, more with it, than she had in days. By the time she’d covered another hundred yards, there were so many moths roosting in the trees that the branches were furry with them. There had to be thousands. Hell, tens of thousands. If they attacked her (this brought a memory of Hitchcock’s film about vengeful birds), she’d be smothered. But Michaela didn’t think that was going to happen. The moths were observers, that was all. Sentinels. Outriders. The fox was the leader. But leading her where?
Her trail-guide brought Michaela up a rise, down a narrow dip, up another hill, and through a scrubby stand of birch and alder. The trunks were patched with that weird whiteness. She rubbed her hands over one of the spots. The tips of her fingers glowed briefly, then faded. Had there been cocoons here? Was this their residue? More Qs without As.
When she looked up from her hand, the fox was gone, but that hum was louder. It no longer sounded like power lines to her. It was stronger and more vital. The earth itself was vibrating beneath her shoes. She walked toward the sound, then stopped, awestruck just as Lila Norcross had been on this same spot a bit more than four days before.
Ahead was a clearing. In the center of it, a gnarled tree of many entwined, russet-colored trunks ascended into the heavens. Ferny, prehistoric leaves lolled from its arms. She could smell their spicy aroma, a little like nutmeg, mostly like nothing she had ever smelled in her life. An aviary’s worth of exotic birds roosted in the high branches, whistling and keening and chattering. At the foot was a peacock as large as a child, its iridescent fan spread for Michaela’s delectation.
I am not seeing this, or if I am, all of the sleeping women are seeing it, too. Because I’m like them now. I fell asleep back by the ruins of that meth shed, and a cocoon is weaving around me even as I admire yonder peacock. I must have overlooked myself somehow, that’s all.
What changed her mind was the white tiger. The fox came first, as if leading it. A red snake hung around the tiger’s neck like barbaric jewelry. The snake flicker-flicked its tongue, tasting the air. She could see shadows waxing and waning in the muscles of the tiger’s flanks as it paced toward her. Its enormous green eyes fixed on hers. The fox broke into a trot, and its muzzle scraped against her shin—cool and slightly damp.
Ten minutes before, Michaela would have said she no longer had it in her to jog, let alone run. Now she turned and fled the way she had come in great bounding leaps, batting branches aside and sending clouds of brown moths whirling into the sky. She stumbled to her knees, got up, and ran on. She didn’t turn around, because she was afraid the tiger would be right behind her, its jaws yawning open to bite her in two at the waist.
She emerged from the woods above the meth shed and saw Garth standing by his Mercedes, holding up a large Baggie filled with what looked like purple jewels. “I am part cosmetic surgeon, part motherfucking drug-sniffing dog!” he cried. “Never doubt it! The sucker was taped to a ceiling panel! We shall . . . Mickey? What’s wrong?”
She turned and looked back. The tiger was gone, but the fox was there, its brush once more curled neatly around its paws. “Do you see that?”
“What? That fox? Sure.” His glee evaporated. “Hey, it didn’t bite you, did it?”
“No, it didn’t bite me. But . . . come with me, Garth.”
“What, into the woods? No thanks. Never a Boy Scout. I only have to look at poison ivy to catch it. Chemistry Club was my thing, ha-ha. No surprise there.”
“You have to come. I mean it. It’s important. I need . . . well . . . verification. You won’t catch poison ivy. There’s a path.”
He came, but without any enthusiasm. She led him past the ruined shed and into the trees. The fox just trotted at first, then sprinted ahead, weaving between the trees until it was lost to view. The moths were also gone, but . . .
“There.” She pointed at one of the tracks. “Do you see that? Please tell me you do.”
“Huh,” Garth said. “I’ll be damned.”
He tucked the precious Baggie of Purple Lightning into his unbuttoned shirt and took a knee, examining the luminous footprint. He used a leaf to touch it gingerly, sniffed the residue, then watched the spots fade.
“Is it that cocoon stuff?” Michaela asked. “It is, isn’t it?”
“It might have been once,” Garth said. “Or possibly an exudation of whatever causes the cocoons. I’m just guessing here, but . . .” He got to his feet. He seemed to have forgotten that they had come out here searching for more dope, and Michaela glimpsed the intelligent, probing physician who occasionally roused himself from the king-sized bed of meth inside Garth’s skull. “Listen, you’ve heard the rumors, right? Maybe when we went downtown for more supplies at the grocery?” (Said supplies—beer, Ruffles potato chips, ramen noodles, and an economy-sized tub of sour cream—had been meager. The Shopwell had been open, but pretty much ransacked.)
“Rumors about the woman,” she said. “Of course.”
Garth said, “Maybe we really do have Typhoid Mary right here in Dooling. I know it seems unlikely, all the reports say Aurora started on the other side of the world, but—”
“I think it’s possible,” Michaela said. All her machinery was working again, and at top speed. The feeling was divine. It might not last long, but while it did, she meant to ride it like one of those mechanical bulls. Yahoo, cowgirl. “And there’s something else. I might have found where she came from. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Ten minutes later, they stood at the edge of the clearing. The fox was gone. Ditto tiger and peacock with fabulous tail. Also ditto exotic birds of many colors. The tree was still there, only . . .
“Well,” Garth said, and she could practically hear his attentiveness dwindling away, air whistling out from a punctured floatation device, “it’s a fine old oak, Mickey, I’ll give you that, but otherwise I see nothing special.”
“I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t.” But already she was beginning to wonder. Perhaps she had imagined the moths, too.
“Even if you did, those glowing handprints and footprints are definitely X-Files material.” Garth brightened. “I’ve got all those shows on disc, and they hold up remarkably well, although the cell phones they use in the first two or three seasons are hilarious. Let’s go back to the house and smoke up and watch some, what do you say?”
Michaela did not want to watch The X-Files. What she wanted was to drive to the prison and see if she could score an interview with the woman of the hour. It seemed like an awful lot of work, and it was hard to imagine persuading anyone to let her in looking as she did now (sort of like the Wicked Witch of the West, only in jeans and a shell top), but after what they had seen up here, where that woman had reportedly made her first appearance . . .
“How about a real-life X-File?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s take a ride. I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Maybe we could try this stuff out first?” He shook the Baggie hopefully.
“Soon,” she said. It would have to be soon, because weariness surrounded her. It was like being stuck in a suffocating black bag. But there was one tiny rip in it, and that rip was her curiosity, letting in a shaft of bright light.
“Well . . . okay. I guess.”
Garth led their return down the path. Michaela paused long enough to take a look back over her shoulder, hoping to surprise the amazing tree back into existence. But it was just an oak, broad and tall but not in the least supernatural.
The truth is out there, though, she thought. And maybe I’m not too tired to find it.
7
Nadine Hicks was of the old school; in the days before Aurora she had been wont to introduce herself as “Mrs. Lawrence Hicks,” as though by marrying her husband, she had to some degree become him. Now she was wrapped up like a wedding present and reclining at the dining room table. Set in front of her was an empty plate, an empty glass, napkin and cutlery. After letting Frank into the house, Hicks brought him into the dining room, and the assistant warden sat down at the cherrywood table across from his wife to finish his breakfast.
“I bet you think this is weird,” said Hicks.
No, Frank thought, I don’t think arranging your cocooned wife at the dining table like a giant mummified doll is weird at all. I think it’s, oh, what’s the word? Ah, there it is: insane.
“I’m not going to judge you,” Frank said. “It’s been a big shock. Everyone’s doing the best they can.”
“Well, Officer, I’m just trying to keep to a routine.” Hicks was dressed up in a suit and he’d shaved, but there were huge bags under his eyes and the suit was wrinkled. Of course, everyone’s clothes seemed to be wrinkled now. How many men knew how to iron? Or to fold, for that matter? Frank did, but he didn’t own an iron. Since the separation, he took his clothes to Dooling Dry Cleaners, and if he needed a pair of creased pants in a hurry, he put them under the mattress, lay down for twenty minutes or so, and called it good.
Hicks’s breakfast was chipped beef on toast. “Hope you don’t mind if I eat. Good old shit-on-a-shingle. Moving her around works up an appetite. After this, we’re going to sit out in the yard.” Hicks swiveled to his wife. “Isn’t that right, Nadine?”
They both waited a couple of pointless seconds, as if she might respond. Nadine just sat there, though, an alien statue behind her place setting.
“Listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Mr. Hicks.”
“It’s fine.” Hicks scooped up a toast point and took a bite. Droplets of white mush and beef splatted down on his knee. “Darn it.” Hicks chuckled through his mouthful. “Running out of clean clothes already. Nadine’s the one who does the laundry. Need you to wake up and get on that, Nadine.” He swallowed his bite, and gave Frank a small, serious nod. “I scoop the litter box and take out the trash on Friday mornings. It’s equitable. A fair division of labor.”
“Sir, I just want to ask you—”
“And I gas up her car. She hates those self-service pumps. I used to tell her, ‘You’ll have to learn if I predecease you, honey.’ And she’d say—”
“I want to ask you about what’s going on at the prison.” Frank also wanted to get away from Lore Hicks as quickly as possible. “There’s a woman there that people are talking about. Her name’s Eve Black. What can you tell me about her?”
Hicks studied his plate. “I would avoid her.”
“So, she’s awake?”
“She was when I left. But yes, I would avoid her.”
“They say that she sleeps and wakes. Is that true?”
“It seemed like she did, but . . .” Hicks, still staring at his plate, angled his head, as if he were suspicious of his shit on toast. “I hate to beat a dead horse, but I would let that one go, Officer.”
“Why do you say that?” Frank was thinking of the moths that had burst up from the clipping of web that Garth Flickinger had lit. And the one that had seemed to fix its eyes on him.
“She took my phone,” said Hicks.
“Pardon? How did she do that?”
“She threatened me with rats. The rats are with her. They do her bidding.”
“The rats do her bidding.”
“You see the implications, don’t you? Like every hotel, every prison has rodents. Cutbacks exacerbate the problem. I remember Coates complaining about having to cancel the exterminator. No room in the budget. They don’t think about that at the legislature, do they? ‘It’s just a prison. What are a few rats to an inmate, when they are rats themselves?’ Well, what if one of the inmates learns to control the rats? What then?” Hicks pushed his plate away. Apparently his appetite had left him. “Rhetorical question, of course. Legislature doesn’t think of things like that.”
Frank hovered in the doorway of the Hickses’ dining room, contemplating the likelihood that the man was suffering from hallucinations brought on by stress and grief. But there was the fragment of web that had turned into moths—what about that? Frank had seen it happen. And hadn’t a moth stared Frank down? That might have been a hallucination (he himself was suffering from stress and grief, after all), but Frank didn’t really think so. Who was to say that the assistant warden hadn’t completely lost his marbles? And who was to say he wasn’t telling the truth?
Maybe he’d lost his marbles because he was telling the truth. How about that for an unpleasant possibility?
Hicks stood up. “Since you’re here, would you mind helping me carry her outside? My back’s aching, and I’m not exactly young anymore.”
There were few things he wanted to do less, but Frank agreed. He took Nadine Hicks’s bulked-up legs and her husband gripped her under her bulked-up armpits. They hoisted her and went out the front door, down the steps, and along the side of the house, carefully carrying the woman between them. The webbing crackled like Christmas paper.
“Just hold on there, Nadine,” Hicks told the white membrane that surrounded his wife’s face. “We’re going to get you set up good in the Adirondack. Get you some sun. I’m sure it filters through.”
“So who’s supposed to be in charge now?” Frank asked. “At the prison?”
“No one,” said Hicks. “Oh, I suppose Van Lampley could make a claim, if she’s still upright. She’s the senior officer.”
“The psychiatrist, Dr. Norcross, claims he’s the acting warden,” Frank said.
“Nonsense.”
They settled Mrs. Hicks in a bright yellow Adirondack chair on the stone patio. There was, of course, no sun. Not today. Just the same light rain. Instead of soaking in, the precipitation beaded on the surface of the cocoon, the way it would on the fabric of a waterproof tent. Hicks began to half-rock, half-drag over a stand-up umbrella. The umbrella’s base screeched across the stone. “Have to be careful, can’t apply sunblock with that stuff on her, and she burns very easily.”
“Norcross? The psychiatrist?”
Hicks chuckled. “Norcross is just a contractor. He doesn’t have any authority. He wasn’t appointed by anybody.”
This didn’t surprise Frank. He’d suspected that Norcross’s line of bullshit was just that—a line. It did piss him off, though. Lives were at stake. Plenty of them, but it was okay to think mostly of Nana, because she stood for all the rest. There was no selfishness in what he was doing when you looked at it that way; seen in that light, it was altruistic! Meanwhile, he needed to stay cool.
“What kind of a man is he? This shrink?”
Hicks got the umbrella situated and opened it over his wife. “There.” He took a few deep breaths. Sweat and rain had darkened his collar. “He’s smart, I’ll give him that. Too smart, actually. No business working in a prison. And think of this: he is awarded a full-time salary, almost the equal of my own, and yet we cannot afford an exterminator. This is politics as we know it in the twenty-first century, Officer Geary.”
“What do you mean when you say he has no business working in a prison?”
“Why didn’t he go into private practice? I’ve seen his records. He’s published. Got the right degrees. I’ve always figured there was something off about him, wanting to hang around with reprobates and drug addicts, but I couldn’t say what. If it’s a sex thing, he’s been extremely cautious. That’s your first idea when you think of a man who likes to work with female criminals. But I don’t think that’s it.”
“How would you deal with him? Is he reasonable?”
“Sure, he’s reasonable. A very reasonable man who also happens to be a politically correct softie. And that’s exactly why I hate to, as you put it, deal with him. We’re not a rehab facility, you know. Prison’s a storage center for people who won’t play by the rules and suck at cheating. A garbage can, when you come right down to it, and we’re paid to sit on the lid. Coates gets her jollies sparring with him, they’re pally, but he exhausts me. He’ll reason you right out of your shoes.” From his pocket Hicks withdrew a crumpled handkerchief. He used it to dab away some water beads from his wife’s shroud. “Big on eye contact. Makes you think he thinks you’re nuts.”
Frank thanked Lawrence Hicks for his help and went back around to the front where he’d parked. What was Norcross thinking? What reason would he have to keep them from seeing the woman? Why wouldn’t he trust them? The facts only seemed to support one conclusion, and it was an ugly one: for some reason, the doctor was working on the woman’s behalf.
Hicks came jogging after him. “Mr. Geary! Officer!”
“What is it?”
The assistant warden’s expression was tight. “Listen, that woman—” He rubbed his hands together. The light rain stained the shoulders of his wrinkled suit jacket. “If you do talk to her, to Eve Black, I don’t want you to give her the impression that I care about getting my phone back, all right? She can keep it. I’ll use my wife’s if I need to make any calls.”
8
When Jared hurried out to the rear of the demo house where he and Mary were currently living (if you can call this living, he thought), Mary was leaning against the stake fence with her head in her arms. Fine white threads were spinning out of her hair.
He sprinted to her, almost tripping over the neat-as-pie doghouse (a match for the demo, right down to the miniature blue window frames), grabbed her, shook her, then pinched both earlobes, as she’d told him to do if she started to drift away. She said she’d read on the Internet that it was the quickest way to wake someone up when they were dozing off. Of course there were all sorts of stay-awake remedies on the Internet now, as many as there had once been go-to-sleep strategies.
It worked. Her eyes came back into focus. The strands of white webbing detached themselves from her and lazed upward, disappearing as they went.
“Whoa,” she said, touching her ears and trying on a smile. “Thought I was getting my ears pierced again. There’s a big purple blotch floating over your face, Jere.”
“You were probably looking into the sun.” He took her arm. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
“Why?”
Jared didn’t answer. If his dad was paranoid, then it was catching. In the living room, with its perfectly matching but somehow sterile items of furniture—even the pictures on the wall matched—he paused to look out the window at the sheriff’s department cruiser parked six or seven houses down the street. As he watched, two officers emerged from one of the houses. His mom had invited all her deputies and their wives to dinner at one time or another over the years, and Jared knew most of them. Those two were Rangle and Barrows. Given that all the houses except for this one were empty of furniture, the cops would probably just give them a lick and a promise. They’d be here in no time.
“Jared, stop pulling!”
They had stashed Platinum, Molly, Mrs. Ransom, and Lila in the master bedroom. Mary had wanted to leave them on the ground floor, said it wasn’t as if they were going to care about the décor, or anything. Jared had insisted, thank God, but even the second floor wasn’t enough. Because the demo house was furnished, Rangle and Barrows might decide to really search it.
He got Mary up the stairs, she muttering complaints the whole way. From the bedroom he grabbed the basket containing Platinum’s swathed little body and rushed to pull down the ringbolt in the hallway ceiling. The ladder to the attic descended with a bang. It would have clocked Mary on the head if he hadn’t pulled her out of the way. Jared climbed up, shoved the baby’s basket up over the edge onto the attic floor, and slid back down. Ignoring her questions, he ran to the end of the hall and looked out. The cruiser was creeping along the curb. Only four houses away now. No, three.
He ran to where Mary was standing with her shoulders slumped and her head down. “We have to carry them up there.” He pointed to the ladder.
“I can’t carry anyone,” she said, sounding like a whiny child. “I’m tiyy-erd, Jere!”
“I know. But you can manage Molly, she’s light. I’ll get her gram and my mother.”
“Why? Why do we have to?”
“Because those cops might be looking for us. My father said so.”
He expected her to ask why it would be bad for the deputies to find them, but she didn’t. Jared led her to the bedroom—the women were on the double bed, Molly reposing on a fluffy towel in the en suite bathroom. He picked Molly up and put her in Mary’s arms. Then he got Mrs. Ransom, who seemed heavier than he remembered. But not too heavy, Jared thought, and remembered what his mother liked to sing when he was small: Ack-sen-tuate the positive, elim-i-nate the negative.
“And don’t mess with Mr. In Between,” he said, getting a better grip on what remained of the old lady.
“Huh? Wha?”
“Never mind.”
With Molly in her arms, Mary began to mount the ladder one slow step at a time. Jared (imagining the prowl car already pulling up out front, Rangle and Barrows looking at the sign on the lawn reading COME IN AND LOOK AROUND) socked his shoulder into Mary’s butt when she stopped halfway to the top. She looked down over her shoulder.
“You’re getting a little personal there, Jared.”
“Hurry up, then.”
Somehow she struggled to the top without dropping her burden on his head. Jared followed, panting, pushing Mrs. Ransom through the opening. Mary had set Molly’s small body on the bare boards of the attic. The space ran the length of the house. It was low and very hot.
“I’ll be back,” Jared said.
“Okay, but I’m finding it very hard to care. The heat is making my head ache.”
Jared hurried back to the master bedroom. He got his arms around Lila’s wrapped body and felt his sore knee give a warning twang. He had forgotten about her uniform, her heavy workshoes, and her utility belt. How much did all that add to the weight of a healthy, well-nourished female? Ten pounds? Twenty?
He got her as far as the ladder, contemplated its steep incline, and thought, I’ll never be able to get her up there. No way.
Then the doorbell rang, four cheery ascending chimes, and he started to climb, not panting now but gasping. He made it three-quarters of the way up the ladder, then ran out of gas. Just as he was trying to decide if he could get down without dropping his mother, two slim arms appeared, hands open. Mary, thank God. Jared managed another two steps, and Mary was able to grab Lila.
From below, one of the deputies said, “Not even locked. Door’s wide open. Come on.”
Jared shoved. Mary pulled. Together they managed to get Lila above the level of the trapdoor. Mary collapsed on her back, yanking Lila over and in. Jared grabbed the top of the ladder and pulled. It came up, folding in on itself as it did, and he pressed against it, easing it the last couple of feet so it wouldn’t bang shut.
Down below, the other deputy called, “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?”
“Like some woman in a bitch-bag is going to answer,” the other said, and the two of them laughed.
Bitch-bags? Jared thought. Is that what you’re calling them? If my mother heard something like that come out of your mouths, she’d kick your country asses right up between your shoulder blades.
They were still talking, but moving toward the kitchen side of the house, and Jared could no longer tell what they were saying. His fear had communicated itself to Mary, even in her dopey state, and she put her arms around him. He could smell her sweat, and when her cheek pressed against his, he could feel it.
The voices came back, and Jared sent the cops below a thought command: Leave! The place is obviously empty, so just leave!
Mary whispered in his ear. “There’s food in the fridge, Jere. In the pantry, too. A wrapper I tossed in the wastebasket. What if they—”
Big cop shoes going clump-clump-clump, the deputies came up the stairs to the second floor. That was bad, but they weren’t talking about food in the fridge, or fresh trash in the can beside it, and that was good. (Ack-sen-tuate the positive.) They were discussing what to do about their lunch.
From beneath them and to the left, one of the cops—Rangle, maybe—said, “This bedspread looks kinda rumpled to me. Does it to you?”
“Yeah,” said the other. “Wouldn’t shock me if someone’s been squatting here, but more likely, people that come in to look at the place, prospective buyers, they probably sit down, too, sometimes, right? Or even try the bed. Natural thing to do.”
More footsteps, back out into the hall. Clump-clump-clump. Then they stopped, and this time when the voices came, they were directly below. Mary tightened her arms around Jared’s neck and whispered. “If they catch us hiding up here, they’ll arrest us, won’t they!”
“Shhh,” Jared whispered back, thinking, They would have arrested us even if they found us down there. Only they’d probably call it protective custody.
“Trapdoor in the ceiling,” the one who was probably Barrows said. “You want to go up and check the attic, or should I?”
The question was followed by a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out forever. Then the one who was probably Rangle said, “You can go up if you want to, but if Lila and her kid were in the house they’d be down here. And I got allergies. I’m not going up and breathing a lot of dust.”
“Still . . .”
“Have at it, buddy,” Rangle said, and all at once the ladder went flopping back down, spilling muted light into the attic. If Lila’s cocooned body had been even six inches closer to the open trapdoor, it would have been in view. “Enjoy the heat up there, too. I bet it’s a hundred and ten.”
“Fuck it,” Barrows said. “And while I’m at it, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Allergies. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The ladder came back up, this time closing with a loud bang that made Jared twitch even though he’d known it was coming. The big cop shoes went clump-clump-clumping back down the stairs. Jared listened, holding his breath, as the deputies stood in the foyer, talking some more. Low tones. Impossible to catch more than a word or a phrase. Something about Terry Coombs; something about a new deputy named Geary; and something else again about lunch.
Leave! Jared wanted to scream at them. Leave before Mary and me have fucking heatstrokes!
At last the front door shut. Jared strained his ears to catch the sound of their cruiser starting up, but couldn’t. Either he’d spent too much time listening to loud music with his headphones on, or the attic insulation was too thick. He counted to a hundred, then back down to zero. He couldn’t stand to wait any longer. The heat was killing him.
“I think they’re gone,” he said.
Mary didn’t answer, and he realized her formerly tight grip on his neck had slackened. He had been concentrating too hard to notice until now. When he turned to look at her, her arms fell limply to her sides and she collapsed to the board floor.
“Mary! Mary! Don’t go to sleep!”
There was no response. Jared shoved the trapdoor open, not caring about the bang the ladder made when its feet landed on the hardwood floor below. He had forgotten about the cops. Mary was what he cared about now, and all he cared about. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
Only it was. Shaking did no good. Mary had fallen asleep while he was listening to make sure the cops weren’t coming back. Now she was lying beside Lila, her fine features already blurring beneath the white threads that were busily knitting themselves out of nothing.
“No,” Jared whispered. “She tried so hard.”
He sat there for almost five minutes, watching the cocoon thicken, weaving relentlessly, then called his father.
It was all he could think to do.