Bleeding Kansas (7 page)

“The sheriff?” Susan asked. “Has Hank Drysdale been out here?”

Gina shrugged. “I didn't catch his name. He stopped by at eight in the morning because he saw Autumn's car in the yard. He claimed to be worried about my safety.”

“He wasn't as bad as the other one.” Autumn shuddered. “At least it's possible the man was a sheriff, although he didn't have a uniform or a marked car.”

“What was he driving?” Lara asked at the same time her mother asked, “What other one?”

“Some horrible-looking lout straight out of
Cold Comfort Farm
had climbed up the big tree outside the bathroom window and was peering in when I got up to pee around six this morning,” Autumn said.

Lara was startled to hear a grown-up woman use that word boldly in the middle of conversation: I have to pee, she rehearsed in her mind. Would Kimberly and Melanie go, “Ooh, gross,” or would they think she was totally cool?

“What happened?” Susan asked.

“I opened the window and shouted at him. He grinned as though he'd just done the cleverest thing on the planet and kept hanging on the branch while I kept shouting, until I suppose his hands froze and he more or less fell out of the tree. And then got up and ran away.”

Lara said, “Was he about twenty, maybe? With dark curls and red cheeks?”

“He had on a stocking cap, and anybody outdoors on a December morning would have red cheeks,” Autumn said impatiently. “Is he your boyfriend? Did you two dare each other to spy on us?”

“No!” Lara cried. “I don't have a boyfriend, and it wouldn't be him if I did, if it's who I think it might be.”

“Calm down, Autumn.” Gina walked to the bed and put a hand on her friend's shoulder. “Who do you think it was, Laura?”

“Lara,” Susan corrected automatically, while Lara said, “Mom, don't you guess it was Eddie? It's the kind of thing he does.”

“Who's Eddie?” Autumn demanded. “Remember, we don't have a playbill.”

Lara blushed again. “Eddie Burton.”

“Lara,” Susan said warningly, meaning don't say something you can't back up with facts.

Lara knew her mother didn't like to hear about perverse acts. Susan wanted to believe that people had pure and ardent spirits, that no one, from her beloved abolitionists to the most tiresome of her neighbors, ever abused their children or raped a heifer or did any of the other grotesque things that went on day in and day out somewhere in Kansas, even right here in Douglas County, if you could believe Curly and Chip.

“Mom, if he's climbing their trees and staring in the window at them, they have a right to know who he is—or, at least,” Lara corrected herself conscientiously, “who I think it could be. And they should let Sheriff Drysdale know, because otherwise Arnie Schapen will just use it as an excuse to lock up Eddie, or come in here and snoop around.”

She turned to Autumn and Gina. “The Burtons live down the road to the south—Schapens are to the west. You can't see Burtons' from here because it's off behind the Ropeses' house, but if you drive up the county road toward Highway 10 and see a rundown place with about a hundred cars up on blocks in the yard, that's Burtons'. And Arnie—Mr. Schapen, I mean—he's a deputy sheriff, so it could have been him who came out this morning to check on your car, but the Burtons are, like—”

She caught her mother's headshake before she brought out the word
retarded
and changed it to, “They don't always, well, catch on as fast as most people. Especially Eddie. He was at Kaw Valley Eagle when I was, even though he's a whole lot older, and his whole lesson, every morning, was saying the alphabet, which he never could remember past the letter
f,
and then he'd get a nosebleed and have to—”

“But does he climb trees and spy on people?” Gina interrupted.

“Oh! That's the first I ever heard of him doing that, but he used to crawl under the bathroom doors to look up our skirts, me and Kimberly's, and now he likes to set fires—”

“Lara,” Susan cut her off. “You have to get into town for basketball practice.”

She turned to Gina. “If you wouldn't mind bringing the pie pan back when you're done—I used one of our real ones. They make better pies than the throwaway pans. And, please, people out here are friendly. Don't get the wrong impression just because of one little incident.”

“Yes, indeed,” Gina said. “They might burn down your house if you're an abolitionist, but perhaps since it was winter they just wanted to be helpful, heat the place up for you. So they climb the tree outside your bathroom to make sure you haven't frozen during the night. That sounds very friendly indeed.”

Lara giggled, but her mother shepherded her from the room. As they walked down the back stairs to the kitchen, Lara heard Autumn Minsky say, “Honestly, Gina, when I told you Lawrence was a center for the arts in the Midwest I wasn't expecting people to reenact
In Cold Blood
for you. Maybe you should rethink staying here. It smells and it's cold—”

“And it's cheap,” Gina said. “My uncle isn't charging me anything but utilities and taxes to stay here. Nowhere in New York could I find a place that cheap, let alone a gothic horror like this. Maybe I'll write a novel about it while I'm out here,
Cold Comfort Farm
meets
In Cold Blood
—I'll call it something like
Cold-Blooded Farm.
”

O
N THE WAY
to Lara's basketball practice, mother and daughter talked over their morning with Gina Haring.

“She can't really be poor, the way she says she is, can she?” Lara said. “Did you see her cappuccino machine? Or her clothes! Did you notice that sweater? It must have cost a hundred dollars, easy.”

“Easi
ly
,” Susan corrected automatically. “I can't imagine what it cost—your aunt Mimi sometimes spends a thousand dollars on an outfit, but even her clothes aren't that fine. I think Gina's husband was very wealthy—she probably has the wardrobe she bought while she was married.”

“And then he divorced her because she was sleeping with women, and he didn't give her any alimony or anything.”

“Lara! How can you say such a thing? We don't know anything about her marriage or why it ended.”

“Melanie Derwint told me. She goes to Full Salvation Bible with the Schapens, and she says Myra told Mrs. Derwint.”

“And if Myra Schapen says something, it must be the gospel?” Susan demanded. “Until Gina chooses to confide in us, we won't make any assumptions about her private life. All Mr. Fremantle told your dad was that she'd gone through a difficult divorce, and we don't have any right to ask her questions or guess what that means.”

“Oh, all right,” Lara agreed sullenly, all the while planning to talk over what she'd seen with Kimberly Ropes at basketball practice.

Her mother's mind wandered into a different place. “Did you hear what Gina was saying to Autumn as we were going down the stairs? That she would try to write a novel about the house? It would be wonderful to have that kind of creative gift.”

Susan's voice trailed away, trying to imagine the special light that must flood the mind of someone with a poem or a novel coming to life inside them. Different from having a baby, which anyone could do. An artistic vision would sustain you in hard times, the way Abigail Grellier's vision had sustained her. Susan would have to share some of those old diaries with Gina.

“She talked in such a funny way,” Lara said. “I don't think she's serious about writing a novel—she just likes to say things. Why would she do that, say things like ‘living in a palace,' when you know she was probably thinking it was the worst dump she ever saw.”

“Artistic irony,” Susan murmured, bathing Gina's rudeness in an inspirational glow. “If she really has a vision, she may not realize how she sounds to other people.”

“And the woman from Between Two Worlds,” Lara went on. “Did you see that bumper sticker? ‘Witches Heal.' Is she a witch? Do you think Gina might be one, too? She said she went into the shop for ‘supplies.' I should have gone into some of the other rooms to see if she has a witch's altar set up. Maybe she can conjure the spirits of the dead—she could set up a séance for you with Great-Great-Grandmother Abigail!”

“Lara, no. I've seen Autumn Minsky at the farmers' market in town. I'm sure she doesn't believe in anything so superstitious.”

“But, Mom, Ms. Haring said she'd gone into the store for ‘supplies.' What could that mean, unless it was for some kind of witch ceremony?”

Susan cast around in her mind. “Incense,” she decided. “To cover up the smell of cat.”

“Even though we didn't smell any when we walked in? That was lame, Mom!”

“No one burns incense in the morning,” Susan said firmly. “Not even confirmed witches.”

They had pulled up in front of the high school. Lara grinned and said, “Good try. Me and Kimberly will be at the library at one, okay?”

“Kimberly and
I
,” Susan corrected, but Lara was already halfway up the walk.

When Susan and Lara reported on the visit to Jim that night at supper, he looked narrowly at his daughter. “Your mother is wound up about the mold and the Fremantle house, but it's hard to believe you are, Lulu. I'd like to know what's in that bedroom you care about so much.”

“Nothing, Dad,” Lara said earnestly. “Mom was telling Gina all the stuff I've heard a million times, about the fire extinguishers and the marble in the fireplace and everything. I just wanted to—”

Her voice trailed off. She couldn't think of any reason that made sense for why she had gone up to the main bedroom. No matter what she said, it was snooping, exactly as Autumn Minsky from Between Two Worlds had said. Lara was as bad as Eddie Burton, or almost. The thought made her squirm, but also suggested a diversion.

“Dad, those women, they said Eddie Burton had climbed that old evergreen on the south side of the house and was peeping in at the bathroom window.”

“Lara!” Susan exclaimed. “We don't know it was Eddie.”

“But, Mom, who else could it have been?” Lara was aggrieved.

“Maybe Myra Schapen,” Chip suggested. “Getting ready to add a little paragraph to ‘News and Notes.'”

It was the first night Chip had joined them for supper since his blowup with Jim over the marijuana at Fremantles'. The rest of the family was so relieved to see him that they laughed loudly, especially Lara, who was happy to have the spotlight turn away from her.

“Yes, Myra has a periscope into every house around here; it's the only way I can figure how she knows everybody's private lives.” Jim said. “She and Gram had some real fights about it when your uncle Doug and I were boys.”

“Maybe Arnie was her spy when you were boys together,” Lara said, “and now she has Junior and Robbie doing it for her. It could have been Junior up that tree, because the lady from the witch store, she said whoever it was grinned like he was the cleverest guy on the planet, and whenever Junior gets away with something slimy he does grin like that.”

“Junior would break the tree,” Chip objected. “Maybe it was Robbie.”

“Oh, yeah, like Robbie would do
anything
for Junior. You know Junior bullied Robbie even more'n me when we were at Kaw Valley.”

“So he bullied Robbie into spying for him,” Chip said.

“You see,” Susan exclaimed, “you two just started a new rumor. Two new ones. In five minutes, you've gone from claiming it was Eddie Burton up the tree to saying maybe it was Junior Schapen, or even his brother. Do you understand now how wrong it is to put out your opinion and claim it was fact?”

“And please remember that you two aren't to call Arnie and his mother by their first names. They don't like it, and we don't need to go out of our way to stir them up,” Jim added.

“I bet Lulu's right, though,” Chip said, “that it was Eddie Burton peeping in through the bathroom window.”

“But why?” Susan demanded.

“Because he's a creep,” Chip said. “Also, because he's been Junior's gofer since we were eight. People have been wild to know what Autumn Minsky is doing with Gina Haring ever since her car first showed up last week, so it figures that Myra—Nanny Schapen—would want to be the first to know. Curly will find out all about it and tell me.”

“Chip, don't. I don't like the way Curly spreads news all over the place—he's like a wind blowing stalk rot to every farm in the valley. Don't encourage him to blow up Ms. Haring's troubles bigger than they already are. Leave Ms. Haring alone.”

“Oh, Dad! Anyway, we don't need Curly to tell us what Autumn Minsky is doing out at Fremantles'—everyone knows.”

“They do?” Susan said sweetly. “And exactly what is that, Etienne? And exactly how do they know it?”

Chip reddened and didn't answer, but Lara said, “You mean, because she was in Ms. Haring's bed, Chip? But I thought you said women can't be sodo—”

“Lara, you're displaying your ignorance, not how cool you are, so put a lid on it.”

Lara subsided into a glower. She found relief in kicking Chip under the table for raising the subject to begin with. Chip kicked back and hit her chair leg.

“I'm worried about the Burtons, anyway,” Susan said to change the subject. “Ardis is coming into the food pantry once a month now, they told me at the church board meeting. That fine Clem got for going over to Arnie's with his shotgun is really taking a toll on them.”

“Mom,” Chip chided mockingly, “that's gossip, you know.”

Susan bit her lip. “You're right. It's just—I feel for Ardis, with five children all living at home, plus Clem's great hulking father, who has to have his diapers changed every few hours. How are they ever going to pay off that fine on what she makes clerking at By-Smart?”

“They could if Clem would get off his butt and work his land, or even find a job himself,” Jim said shortly.

Lara stopped foot fighting her brother to say, “The lady from Between Two Worlds said someone from the sheriff's office came around checking on her car, you know, that red hybrid. Maybe that was Mr. Schapen.”

Jim made a face. “I guess I could give Hank Drysdale a call, just ask him if he sent someone out there. I don't want Gina Haring being bothered, not when she's taken that house off our shoulders. Which reminds me, Lulu, whatever you were doing there this morning, don't. Even if you left your own stash of dope in the master-bedroom fireplace.”

“Dad! That's unfair. I told you last week I don't do drugs, and I'm not a liar.”

“I don't like to think of you spying on the neighbors. Whatever you were doing in Gina Haring's room, I don't want you snooping around like Myra Schapen. You've got enough going on in your own life not to add the neighbors' activities to your list.”

“I wasn't snooping, Dad, at least not like that. Besides, it's so unfair to compare me to Myra Schapen. I don't go around threatening people with hellfire and damnation, or put stories about them on the Web!” Lara's eyes were swimming with hurt tears.

“But, sugar, gossiping is as bad as putting it on the Web,” Jim said.

“I know you don't like gossip, Dad, but the Schapens are such jerks, and Eddie Burton
is
creepy. If I can't talk about them, it will all fester inside me.”

“And give you a terrible complex?” he suggested. “And a farmer's daughter can't afford a fancy psychiatrist to sort out her problems so it's my duty to let you gossip so you don't build up weird complexes?”

Lara laughed reluctantly, unwilling to give up completely on her grievance. “Something like that, Dad. Of course, maybe Mom and I will make the X-Farm into such a huge success that we can all afford therapy.”

He pulled her over and ruffled her hair. “I'm spending my share on a fancy trip. When you and your mom are organic-sunflower millionaires, talking to your shrinks about how hard it is to have all that money, I'm going to be hanging out in Argentina all winter with the bobolinks.”