Endangered Species (37 page)

light bulb, decorated with a folding paper shade the size and shape of a

beach ball, cast a warm glow over a jungle of potted plants and ceramic

animals.

Lynette's calm acceptance soothed Anna more than she would have

admitted.

"Cut it off, all of it," Anna said as Lynette emerged from the cabin

with comb and scissors.  Her voice sounded far away, as if she was

listening to herself on the radio, and she stopped speaking .

Being stoned was an art form and she had long ago lost the knack .

Piled on top of the night's adventures, the dissociation was

disorienting, frightening, and she wanted little more than to be

straight .

Time, she promised herself.  If memory served, by noon she should be

completely down.

Had Lynette questioned or argued or pried, Anna had no doubt that she

would have run screaming into the woods.  As it was, the woman began

gently brushing the tangles from her hair, taking great care not to tug

or pull.  While she worked she talked, her voice low and sweet and

monotonous, like rain on the roof.  The words themselves were

unimportant.  Occasionally Anna tuned in: "We used to have a corgi .  .

.  The dress my sister wore was this awful tangerine .  .  .  Mom said

the cats couldn't sleep on the bed .  .  ." Pointless wonderful stories

without drama, violence, or passion.

Knots inside Anna's head began to loosen and, as the planks beneath her

became covered in hanks of hair, she felt as if a vise were being

unscrewed from her skull; blood flowed, thoughts moved.  She started to

cry.

Lynette either didn't notice or kindly forbore comment.  The snipping

went on a long while, or so it seemed to Anna-time continued to do its

petty-pace thing, skewed by drugs and distraction .

When she eventually came back from the nowhere she'd gone to, Lynette no

longer chattered but hummed a melody: "Amazing Grace." Religion, at

least of the church-and-Sunday-school variety, had never made much sense

to Anna but she'd always loved that hymn.  This creaking morning it fell

on her ears like the voice of fate itself.  Once before, she'd reached

religious epiphany through music .

She was a sophomore at California Polytechnic State University .

the song had been the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun." She'd been stoned

then as well, but having a considerably better time.

"Was blind but now I see." Lynette put words to the tune.  Her voice was

cool and soft.  Anna liked hearing her sing.

Her sing.

Th two words reverberated.

"Orinsing," Mitch Hanson said that, or something that sounded like it.

Anna drained the last of her tea and set the cup on the porch rail

between a blue glazed rabbit and an African violet.

Whispering on stockinged feet, Lynette picked up the mug and slipped

through the screen door to make more tea.  Anna scarcely noticed she'd

gone.  The old fat dog collapsed at her feet.  She kicked off her

moccasins and rubbed her toes along his back.  He grunted, admitting to

at least one porcine ancestor.

There goes Ellen's college tuition.  Ellen Hull?  Norman Hull's

daughter?

A year with the Seven Sisters.  Radcliffe?  Barnard, et al?

Orirising-and an echo.  Orinsing-sing.  Or in Sing Sing.  Ellen would

end up in college or in prison.

A bit of the letter Anna had found in the chief ranger's desk from

Ellen's aunt in Pennsylvania made sensc in this new light ." The change

isn't helping Ellen.  Things aren't working out." And a bus ticket back

to Georgia.  Alice Utterback: Nice wife but that kid's a piece of work.

In Hull's calendar beside his daughter's name had been the initials "PO"

on several of the dates.  Parole officer.

"Ellen's selling dope," Anna said to the dog ." Her dad must get it from

the Hansons.  Ellen peddles it in the schoolyard." What could be better?

The girl had just turned thirteen, according to the letter .

Most definitely a minor and, so, hard to prosecute.

She saved her daddy's life.  What was that abOLit?  Had Ellen, via the

Hansons, told her dad not to be on that plane?  Or had she known Todd or

Slattery was onto the marijuana plot, told her dad, and Dad saw to it

they were disposed of?  Had the Hansons intended to kill Hull and Ellen

told him and so saved his life?  That would mean not only the chief

ranger but his daughter could be in danger.  If at first you don't

succeed .  .  .

"Shit!  I cannot, cannot think," Anna muttered, and found another cup of

hot tea pressed into her hands.  She sucked at it greedily ." God, but

I'm thirsty," she said by way of thanks.

"Can you tell me what happened to you?" Lynette asked.  She'd taken up

the scissors again and was snipping near Anna's right ear .

Anna set down her tea, turned, and took hold of the other woman's wrist,

pointing the scissors away from her throat.

"That depends on whether or not you killed Slattery Hammond and Todd

Belfore ,she said bluntly.

Lynette's eyes widened and her breath was drawn in with a shush of

sound.  She looked shocked, not guilty, but over the past hours Anna had

lost faith in the reliability of her perceptions.

"Why would I do that?" Lynette said.  That wasn't an answer but it

didn't strike Anna's ear as an evasion either.  Lynette made no attempt

to free her arm.  It was beginning to shake.

"Woman scorned and all that," Anna hazarded ." YOU found out Slattery

was married."

" I didn't know he was.  Not till you told me."

An idiotic rhyme racketed through Anna's fogged brain and before she

could stop herself she gave voice to it ." Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Lynette looked startled, laughed; then her face blanked and she stared

into the darkness ." I guess I knew," she said.

Anna waited.  After a moment the woman began to tell her story.

"The morning Slattery was killed I went by his house to pick up some

things.  There was a letter and I read it.  She didn't mention the

little boy."

Anna's grip tightened ." What time was it?"

"When I read the letter?"

"When you were at Hammond's house."

"Early.  Eight or a little before."

Anna's attack had been later in the day.  Lynette could have been lying

about the time, but she didn't think so.

"I was there in the afternoon," Anna said, loosing Lynette's wrist and

turning back on the stool ." There was no letter." From the corner of

her eye she could see Lynette's hand come up, the sharp scissors

pointing at -a soft spot just below Anna's ear.  For too long, Lynette

neither moved nor spoke, and Anna wondered if she'd misjudged her

quarry.  She tensed, ready to grab the scissors if she had to.

A sigh so deep Anna felt the air puff in her hair gusted from Lynette's

lungs.  Their little tableau came to life.  Lynette combed, snipped;

Anna picked up her mug of tea ." I took it," Lynette admitted ." I was

going to confront him with it the next time I saw him .

First I wanted to pray about it."

"Any revelations?"

"Somebody should punch the SOB's tucking lights out."

Anna spewed a mouthful of Earl Grey into a Boston fern ." Don't do

that," she spluttered ." You'll choke me to death."

"Someone did put his lights out," Lynette said soberly ." I've felt bad

and not only for the deaths.  I don't know that I was in love with

Slattery-he wasn't the kind of man that is good for people-but I was

very attracted to him.  I thought maybe

"All he needed was a good woman's love?"

"Pretty stupid?"

"Not necessarily."

"I felt bad about him and Todd.  Me praying and them dying .

Not that I prayed for their death.  I'd never do that.  But God knows

our hearts.  There's a dark spot in mine.  There was that day."

If Lynette's God couldn't reassure her he didn't down airplanes on a

jilted girlfriend's whim, Anna certainly wasn't going to try .

"What were you picking up at Hammond's house?" she asked instead.

"Some boxes Dot and Mona needed back for their Llpdating project."

Because she needed to talk and Lynette was willing to listen, Anna told

her about the night in the hog pen, the Hansons and their remark about

Ellen's college tuition.  She finished her story at the same time

Lynette finished cutting her hair.  Drugs, murder, and conspiracy were

temporarily shelved for the important things in life .

The two of them went into Lynette's crowded bathroom so Anna could see

her new hairdo.

In the old and spotted glass, her face looked unfamiliar.  Hazel irises

were rimmed with bloodshot whites.  Time's crows had left tracks around

her eyes, and her forehead was creased with lines etched deep by the sun

of the high deserts.  She ran her fingers through the short hair, liking

the feeling of lightness, cleanliness ." I look like a little boy," she

said in some wonder.

" Or a pixic."

"A little old man is more like it." Anna riffled the short hairs on her

left temple.  All were white, standing out in a fan against the darker

reddish brown over her ear ." My neck looks chickeny."

Lynette didn't chime in with the expected compliment and Anna was mildly

offended ." I like it," she said at last ." I like it a lot."

"Third mug of tea in hand, sipping this time, satiation lending her a

veneer of civilization, Anna sat out on the porch.  Bare legs propped up

on an overturned bucket, trousers hung over the rail, she waited for the

dots of clear nail polish to dry.  Southern wisdom-or a sinister bent

toward practical jokes--had inspired Lynette to daub the lacquer on each

and every chigger bite.  The theory behind the practice was that,

deprived of oxgen, the bugs would suffocate .

Anna hoped it would be a slow and hideous death.

Lynette was curled in a hanging basket chair suspended over the dog ."

Why would Mitch and Louise burn Norman's share of the crop-if it was

Norman's?" she asked.

"Spite?  Malice?  Revenge?" Anna suggested ." Maybe they were gunning

for Hull and got Todd by mistake."

"Norm might have asked them to burn it.  You know, saw the light and

wanted out of the business," said the kinder Lynette.

"Wouldn't the Hansons just say, 'Goody, more for us,' and keep the lot)"

"Too much work for the two of them?"

"The area getting too hot to wait for a second crop to mature?"

Both tired of the guessing game and relapsed into silence .

Strains of "Be Careful of the Stones That You Throw" sounded from the

stereo inside ." Good stuff," Anna said of the music ." Incredibly

rich."

"Staple Singers.  Black gospel."

"No white gospel?"

"We try," Lynette said, and Anna laughed at the disappointment and

resignation in her voice ." I guess when for generations the Lord and

music were the only outlets allowed for self-expression, you get really

good at both."

Light was beginning to raise the night to the east ." I'm dry," Anna

said, and stood to pull on her trousers.

"Are you straight?"

As an arrow, Anna lied.