Liberty or Death (16 page)

As I left the room, closing the door behind me, I realized that this nosebleed was actually a boon and not a bane. Now I had an explanation to give Mary Lou Wilkerson about my marathon stint in the bathroom. And why I hadn't answered. I hurried down the hall, let myself in, determined that yes, indeed, there was a chair in there, in which I could claim to have been sitting. I checked the mirror. Not just blood, but streaks of black grime. These guys might be able to prepare for and manage an emergency, but none of them could dust. I washed the blood off my hands and face—there was nothing I could do about my clothes—and went upstairs, a paper towel pressed against my nose.

With my free hand, I dropped the key back on Mary Lou's desk and scooped up my books. "Sorry I was so long," I said. "My nose started bleeding all of a sudden and I couldn't get it to stop. When you knocked on the door, it was gushing so much I was afraid I'd choke if I tried to speak."

She pulled open the drawer, deposited the key, and from another drawer got out a fistful of tissues. "Here. These are better than that paper towel." I dropped the towel in the trash and replaced it with the tissues. Much nicer on my poor wounded nose. "My son used to have nosebleeds," she said. "I used to think it was allergies. You have allergies?"

I started to shake my head, thought better of it, and used words instead. "Not that I know of. These just happen sometimes. Not often. I hope it stops soon, though. I've got to get back to work."

"And Theresa's
so
understanding. Well, you go back and lie down for a while, and I'm sure you'll be fine." She came out from behind the desk. "I'll just get the door for you, shall I?" She followed me across the room and held the door as I exited into the blinding sunshine. "Hope you like those books."

I climbed into the car, set the books on the seat, and then sat there, my head tipped back, waiting for the bleeding to stop. It must have been over a hundred in there, but I was shaking like a leaf. I was getting too old for this nonsense. As soon as I got Andre back, I was going to do what everyone wanted—retire from dangerous pursuits and take up knitting baby blankets. At least I'd have something to show for that besides ulcers and lines in my face, and it wouldn't take years off my life.

I was dying to look at the papers I'd copied. But not here, and not back in my room. I drove slowly down the main street, past Theresa's, and parked in the lot of the little market. Then I pulled them out and began to read through them. It was no use. I had lots and lots of information, including names and addresses, but I didn't know my way around, so what good was it? I needed a local map. And I needed a good place to hide these damned papers. I didn't dare leave them in my room, and they didn't seem much safer here in the car, not with a thousand eyes watching me all the time.

Then I remembered. When he gave me the car, Dom had showed me some of its little tricks, like the hidden radio. And like the secret compartment built under the passenger seat. Press a button that was hidden under the edge of the carpet, and a drawer folded down. Press the button again, and the drawer disappeared. Nifty. At the time I had thought it was silly and wondered what on earth it was for. Now I knew. It was for these papers, and other papers I might acquire. And for my gun. My sweet little pearl-handled Barbie special.

I fumbled around until I found the button, checking to see if it worked. The store had a big sign in the window that said copies 5 cents. I was planning to stow the papers away as soon as I'd made copies. Time was short. I'd only had an hour to start with. I grabbed my purse, hurried inside, and asked the girl behind the counter where the copy machine was. She pointed toward the back corner. "By the ice cream," she said, "if it's workin'." At the back of the store I found it, another one of the slowest machines in creation, but at least it did make copies. It reminded me of the one at work, the one my secretary, Sarah, finally threatened to push out the second-story window if I didn't replace it. This one was about ready to go for a swim.

Stately and ponderous, it rolled back and forth, making faint black slimy copies. I kept looking over my shoulder, afraid that at any second Stuart Hannon or one of his brutish entourage would appear and my goose would, as they say, be cooked. Just as the machine spat out the last copy and I'd shoved it in my purse, my fearful prophecy was fulfilled in the form of Roy Belcher, swaggering down the aisle with a basket loaded with beer and junk food.

"Hey, Dora. I didn't know they ever let you out of that place." He leaned back from the waist, parking the basket on one cocked hip, his free thumb stuck casually through one of his belt loops. It looked like something he'd practiced in front of a mirror. Too bad the effect was spoiled by that jutting expanse of gut. He gave me his usual rude inspection, his eyes coming to rest on the blood on my shirt, then rising to my nose. "What happened to you? Get in a fight?"

Yeah, I killed Stuart Hannon,
I thought. Aloud, I said, "Nosebleed. I get them sometimes."

He nodded. "You workin' tonight?"

"My third meal today. And my feet are already killing me."

"Yeah," he said, "that Theresa's something, ain't she?"

Everyone is something,
I thought. And then,
hey, that would make a good title for a children's book. Maybe that could be my new career. It had to be better than this.
"I should get going," I said. "She'll kill me if I'm late." People around here were like that, killing at the slightest provocation. I picked up the basket I'd set beside the machine and did a little rapid shopping. A bottle of cold lemonade. A box of tissues, the extra-soft variety with lotion. A small container of detergent to wash the blood out of my shirt. And a copy of the Maine Guide and Atlas, with maps showing every little highway and byway. A large envelope to mail the shelter census sheets to Jack Leonard.

Roy was still in line as I left but he called after me, "Hey, maybe I'll see you later." I smiled and waved and left. Smiling hurt my face. My nose felt swollen and ugly. He came out of the door just as I was leaving the lot, and got into a battered old van. I was surprised that it wasn't a pickup truck. That's what guys drove, and Roy was a real "guy."

I stopped at the post office and mailed the copies to Jack. Probably a careless move. No doubt the postmaster and all the clerks, despite their good, secure government jobs, were rabid antigovernment militia members as well. Unfortunately, I didn't think of that until I'd handed the envelope to the clerk, too late to get it back without calling attention to it. What else could I do? I didn't know when I'd get another contact person, or how Jack would let me know. Maybe tomorrow, on my morning off, I'd call, let him know this was coming and see how he wanted me to pass future information. Sighing, I turned and trudged out on tired feet. It was time to go to work.

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

I slept badly and woke with the birds, cranky, aching, and ready to strangle every chirping one of them. I was starving, unable to remember whether I'd ever gotten dinner last night, and unsure whether I could go downstairs and get breakfast when I wasn't working. Discretion seemed the better part of valor—if I appeared in the kitchen, they might put me to work—so I ate a half-melted Slim-Fast bar, not so nasty and chemical as some, and walked to a convenience store where I got some orange juice. Thus fortified, I drove to Mary Harding's house and knocked boldly on the front door.

If it was possible, she looked even worse than the last time. Probably worn down from the heat as well as all her other troubles. She stood in the doorway, staring at me with dull eyes, and I wasn't sure whether she was holding the door open or the door was holding her up. After a minute, she shook herself and managed a faint smile. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Harding? I don't know if you remember me..."

"The girl from Theresa's. You brought Lyle home."

"Yes. And when I did, he asked me if I had a car, and when I said yes, he asked if I could take him to see his father."

"He never should have done that."

"He's just a child, Mrs. Harding. He misses his father. I know this is probably very presumptuous of me. You don't know me from Adam, but I've heard from the people at the restaurant about Lyle and his dad. How close they are. And I thought, since I don't have to work until dinner today... that maybe I could take him to see his father? If you'd let him go with me, I mean."

Mary Harding gave a decisive shake of her head. "No. I'm afraid not. It's kind of you to offer but we don't take favors from strangers." She began to close the door in my face.

Behind her, I heard a wail, and Lyle's voice. "Grandma! She wants to take me to see Daddy. Why won't you let her? Nobody else will take me. He must be very sad so far away from us. And lonely. Daddy gets lonely. Sometimes he cries. I've seen him cry, Grandma..." The boy's voice was insistent and impassioned, the way kids were when they've sighted on something and won't let go. "He cried when Mom left and when I walked a little and when those men came. I bet he's down there now, crying because we don't come see him. Grandma. Please! Please! Let me go. It's all my fault he's in jail anyways."

"It's not your fault." Mary Harding sighed. "Lyle, you stop nagging at me. The Harding family isn't so bad off we need to take charity from strangers, you hear me? I'll get you down there to see your daddy just as soon as I can."

"But you can get me down there today, Grandma. She said so. That woman. Dora. She's a waitress just like Mindy. And she's nice like her, too."

I felt like a voyeur, standing there on the porch, but I lingered, just in case she changed her mind.

"She's a stranger, Lyle."

"You let me go with that man named Roy because he said he was a friend of Daddy's, and we didn't know him."

"That's different. He's a neighbor. He lives right here in town..."

"So does Dora. She lives upstairs over the restaurant."

"You make me tired with all that arguing," she said.

"If you let me go with Dora, you can go back to bed and sleep all morning."

"Since when did I ever sleep all morning? I've got chores to do. Laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping..."

"Then you'll let me go?"

"I never said..."

"But you'll get so much done without me around being a nuisance."

"You're never much of a nuisance..." There was a lot of love in her voice. "...except when you keep nagging at me like this."

"She's still waiting out there on the porch, Grandma. Open the door and tell her it's okay."

Mary Harding pulled the door open again, staring dubiously up at me. "I don't know about this," she said, hesitantly.

"I don't blame you a bit, Mrs. Harding. You don't know me. But you can set any conditions you want, and give me any instructions. You can even come with us, if it would ease your mind. I kind of thought you might like the break."

She sighed and pulled the door wider. "Come on in," she said. "You want some coffee?"

Lyle chattered at me merrily for the first twenty minutes, stared out the window for the next ten, giving me a running commentary on everything we passed. When he went quiet, I looked in the rearview mirror. He'd fallen asleep in that sudden, boneless way small children have, his bright head bobbing gently on the worn upholstery. I took advantage of the moment to call Roland Proffit and ask if he could meet me. He suggested a small shopping center up the road from the jail, and we agreed on a time. He didn't have to tell me he disapproved of what I was doing. Tone of voice was enough.

After twenty minutes with Lyle and his father, I was ready to join the "Free Jed Harding movement." It wasn't because of anything he'd said. Harding was a man of few words, at least to me. It was because of the way he was with his son. The way his face lit up when he first saw Lyle, the gentle way he gathered the boy out of the wheelchair and onto his lap. It was the way he listened and heard and responded to Lyle's eager babbling. It was the way he looked at his son with tears in his eyes. He ignored me, after a first polite nod, not because I mattered so little, but because his son mattered so much.

I knew this was a man who had threatened a veteran's hospital worker with a loaded gun. If I'd read an account of it in the paper, I would have wanted him arrested and taken off the street, but watching Jed Harding with his son, I was sure the threatened man had deserved it. Life had driven Jed Harding to his limit. What he had done was wrong. I'd been at the barrel end of a gun and knew how terrifying it could be. Maybe he needed some counseling, but he didn't belong in jail.

Then again, perhaps I was being influenced by my own incipient parenthood. Two years ago, I hadn't had more than a passing interest in children. Then my partner, Suzanne, had had a baby, and taken to dropping him into my lap at odd moments. "Feeding your baby lust," she'd said. "Those of us with stretch marks and sleepless nights can't bear it that the rest of the world isn't with us." At first, it had just been rather pleasant, holding her baby. Then one day, I found myself nuzzling his head and wondering what it might be like to have one of my own.