Liberty or Death (8 page)

Finally I crossed the room and raised them, letting the night into my room, a warm, moist night with enough breeze to move the shades but not enough to cool things off. It was so quiet here. I was used to the ocean, which was never still, and the muffled comings and goings of my condo neighbors. Here there were no cars passing. No radio or TV noises. Far off, a dog barked and another answered. Some insects hummed. Andre was somewhere in this same night. Was he hot and miserable like me? Hungry? Hurt? Was he frightened of what might happen? Was he worrying about me? Was I wrong to insist on doing this? Did I make things worse for him by taking some risks, instead of sitting safely at home? Could I have sat safely at home?

I knew the answer to the last question. No. They may also serve who only stand and wait, but that wouldn't work for me. I was a doer. I always had been. If Dom and Rosie hadn't helped me find this job, if Jack Leonard had locked me out of the operation completely, I would have found my own way in. It sounded mushy to say that this was about love, but it was. Besides, what comments about love and commitment didn't sound mushy? In our society, people might be allowed to complain, but they weren't encouraged to talk about the good things, the happy things, the solid, underlying relationships that make life work. We're allowed to be miserable, frustrated, complaining, and angry, but not to be happy. Andre and I were happy.

I hadn't wanted to let Andre into my life; after I lost my husband, David, I'd sworn never to fall in love again. But in he had come, forceful and persistent. Comforting and good to me. I hadn't thought so at first. When Andre showed up on the doorstep, investigating Carrie's murder, I disliked him. If there's an opposite to "hit it off right away," that's what we did. I thought he was pushy, insensitive, and rude. He thought I was being a prissy obstructionist who really didn't want to find out what had happened to my sister. He pushed me over the edge when he forced me to look at the pictures of my sister's body, showing in graphic detail how she had died. I stormed out of his office, sick with horror.

Later, he showed up at Carrie's apartment, which I had been cleaning out, bringing dinner as a peace offering. It was an uneasy truce. After what he'd done, I didn't entirely trust him, and because I'd tried to keep things from him, to protect Carrie's privacy, he didn't entirely trust me. But we've come a long way since then. He still can't help being too protective and I still can't help being a bit too assertive—we're both oldest children—but we're working on it. Not long ago, walking along the beach in Hawaii, where I'd gone for business, I realized that whatever our difficulties of personality, career, and geography, I wanted Andre in my life permanently, and was willing to make some sacrifices to make that happen. Was this my sacrifice?

I straightened my pillow and lay down again, closing my eyes. I had to get some sleep. Day two in my life as Dora the waitress would be starting in less than six hours, but I'd reached that state where I was too exhausted to sleep. I'd just drift off and I'd find myself awake again. The sheets felt scratchy. My body ached and I couldn't gulp my usual Advil or soak in a warm bath. A determined mosquito made repeated forays after blood. The stiff canvas shades rustled too loudly. I was hot and sweaty. Tomorrow I'd have to get a fan.

The noise of the shades was driving me crazy. I threw off the covers and went to put them up. Got to the window and realized I already had. That rustling wasn't the shades at all. Cautiously, I peered out into the night. It was so dark all I could see was shadows on shadows. But one of the shadows was right beside my car. And it was moving. I watched the shadow circle the car, trying all the doors, trying the trunk, before picking up something and scraping at one of the windows. Someone was trying to break in.

My purse wasn't down there. Tonight it was up here with me. And I had no way of knowing whether this was any more sinister than someone trying to steal a car or whatever might be in it. Maybe that was how they greeted all newcomers in the town of Merchantville. A little welcoming vandalism. But with all the tourists about, they didn't need to pick on a poor waitress. I grabbed my shorts, tucked in my nightshirt, and went pounding down the stairs. Without even thinking, I threw open the door and yelled, "Hey you! Get away from my car!"

There was the clank of something being dropped, and the figure turned and ran away. I had an impression of someone tall and slender. Nothing more. Heart pounding, I flipped on the outside light and went out to inspect the damage. Other than a few ugly scrapes, the rustmobile was in pretty good shape. I knelt down and picked up the tool that he had dropped. Pry bar. Nice, handy, burglarious tool. Carrying it with me, I went back inside, locked the door, turned off the light, and went back to bed, the sturdy metal bar on the table beside me.

The surge of adrenaline must have put me right over the top, because as it subsided, I fell into a deep sleep. I slept like a rock until I was dragged from sleep by my alarm clock. Feeling like I'd been beaten from head to toe with a cast-iron frying pan, I limped into the bathroom and tried to compose my face and hair into something vaguely human. Then I pulled on some clothes, whatever was on top of the suitcase, and headed for the stairs. This was a lot like summer camp. Roll out of bed too early, sleepy and sore from exercise, in steamy, rustic surroundings, pull on slightly damp clothes from an undifferentiated heap, and head out to start the day. Only this time, I wasn't having any fun.

Halfway down the stairs, a sudden thought snapped me back like a bungee cord into the room. My purse and my gun. The purse could go back in the car. It was probably safe enough in daylight, with all the comings and goings at the restaurant. But just in case, I didn't want to leave the gun there. On the other hand, I didn't want to leave it lying around my room, either. People were already showing themselves a bit too curious about me. I finally left it at the bottom of an ancient box of sanitary pads under the bathroom sink, protected by half a dozen of the ugliest spiders that ever crept across the planet. I expected it would be a guy who came searching, if anyone did, and no guy I've ever known will cross a barrier of spiders and a jumble of cleaning products to reach into a Kotex box. Even if it was a woman, my deterrents were pretty good.

Theresa, Clyde, and the boy who had come yesterday to help at lunch were already in the kitchen. No sign of Natty. I mumbled good mornings, poured myself a desperately needed cup of coffee, and remembered that I'd reformed. Just this once, I thought. Only half a cup. I put some wheat toast in the toaster, and started checking supplies. We needed more bread. More muffins. More butter and syrup and jam in the tubs. Mechanically, I performed my morning tasks. Without being asked, Clyde fixed me scrambled eggs. I made more coffee. Gulped my breakfast. Picked up my apron and was about to tie it on when Theresa said, "You might want to look in a mirror before you go into the dining room." I ducked into the bathroom and checked. Aside from a decorative cluster of cobwebs in my hair and the fact that my T-shirt was wrong-side out, I looked fine.

Restored to order, I went back to the kitchen. "Thanks," I said. "Too little sleep last night. Someone tried to break into my car. After I scared him off, I couldn't get back to sleep."

Theresa exchanged glances with Clyde, then shook her head. "It won't happen again," she promised.

I tied on my apron, checked the pockets, picked up the coffeepot and headed for the dining room. It was amazing how little sound carried through the kitchen door. The room was already half full, though it wasn't officially opening time yet. I recognized a few people from the day before, and lots of new faces. A couple people even made a point of saying good morning, and asking how my first day had gone, doing their best to make me feel welcome. The whole place was buzzing with talk about something in the news, but I was so busy I couldn't catch more than snatches of conversation. I didn't count the number of trips, but it felt like close to a thousand, back and forth, back and forth, until I was no more than a robot with aching feet.

Gradually, from the bits I heard, I understood that there had been some kind of shootout involving the police, but that was all I could learn. I didn't dare seem too interested, and I was so busy I didn't even have time to glance at the paper. It was an exquisitely cruel form of torture, especially for a knowledge junkie like me. I collect information and provide answers for a living. I have a compulsion to know and understand. But today I was Dora the waitress, running her feet off, too busy for even snatches of conversation. Once I caught, "...heard the cop's name was..." And another time I heard, "...expected to recover, but the..." I lingered to listen, but someone called for coffee. And that was all.

Finally, it was that magic time of the morning when people stopped eating breakfast and it was too early for lunch. Around 10:30, a silence suddenly fell over the place. Clyde scraped down his grill and went out onto back porch to smoke. Natty arrived and started, without a greeting to anyone, to work on preparations for lunch. He was followed shortly after by Kalyn, who dropped her pack on the table and said, "Hotter 'n hell out there. Gonna be a scorcher." She'd come on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle and was all pink and windblown.

I got myself a glass of milk, sat down at the table, and put my feet up on a chair. They ached with a throbbing that was almost like a second pulse. I was too tired even to go to the bathroom.

"You see the paper yet?" Theresa asked.

"Been too busy running the Merchantville marathon," I said. "I didn't think there were that many people in the whole town."

"Aren't," she said. "They come from miles around." She shoved the paper at me. "Big story. Something about a state trooper and a shoot-out."

My heart jumped as a surge of anxiety shot through me. Time, other people, and the kitchen all slid away as I grabbed the paper, frantically scanning the words. Anyone in the other room would have to wait. The headline got right to the point and restored my heartbeat. FEMALE TROOPER WOUNDED, MOTORIST DIES, WHEN TRAFFIC STOP TURNS DEADLY. It wasn't Andre, then. But was it Norah? I rushed through the paragraphs. It was Norah, or, as the papers put it, Trooper Norah Kavanaugh, a five-year veteran of the force, twice-decorated daughter of a Connecticut police chief.

According to the story, Norah had been traveling south on Route 4 when she encountered a car being driven erratically. Although she was off-duty and driving an unmarked car, she had called for a trooper to back her up, then mounted a portable light on her car and pulled the driver over. As she approached the driver's window, a man had stepped out of the car with a gun in his hand. When she identified herself as a police officer, he had opened fire. Despite being wounded, Trooper Kavanaugh had managed to draw her own gun and return the fire, killing the shooter. Kavanaugh's injuries were not life-threatening and she was expected to make a full recovery.

I closed the paper and stood up, hoping that my feelings—a confusing mixture of guilt and relief—didn't show. It was my fault that Norah Kavanaugh had been in that place at that time. My fault, in a way, that she had gotten shot. If I already felt rotten, today's news made me feel worse. There had been little in the story about the identity of the man who was shot, pending notification of his family. I looked around the busy room. "Anybody hear anything about the guy that trooper shot?"

Theresa rushed past me and grabbed the coffeepot. "Local kid," she said. "Young guy. Hot-headed moron in love with guns. Came in here sometimes. Always rude. Always in too much of a hurry to bother to use his brain. Now see where it got him." But no name. No description. No comment about his family or connections. Or why he might have pulled a gun on a state trooper.

I nodded, not sure what I was agreeing to. Maybe Clyde would tell me more, if I asked him in a quiet moment. I moved on to the next item on my agenda. "Anyplace in town where I might find a fan?"

"Hardware store might have 'em, if they're not sold out," she said. "You'd better go now. A day like this, lotta people gonna have the same idea. Some of those camps get real hot and stuffy, especially to folks used to air-conditioning." She pointed toward the dining room. "Things are quiet right now. Out the door, turn right, and it's two blocks down on the corner."

Sidewalks in Merchantville were a hit-or-miss kind of thing. There was one in front of Mother Theresa's, but it petered out at the end of her building, then a cinder track meandered along past her parking lot and past a gas station, and then there was some sidewalk again. I limped down to the hardware store, got the last fan in the place, and started limping back. Almost back, passing the broad, weed-strewn gravel lot that served as parking for the restaurant, I heard something that sounded like a cat crying. I stopped and listened and decided that it sounded more human than animal. Maybe someone had left a baby in a car. I'd read about that. Terrible things happened when it was hot. Babies died.

Lugging my fan and limping along, I checked all the cars. I found nothing, but I could still hear the crying. It seemed to be coming from the back of the lot. Behind the lot, there was a steep hill, and between the lot and the hill, a weed-filled ditch to catch the water that flowed down the slope to keep it from flooding the parking lot. I walked slowly along the edge, peering down into the ditch, hoping I wasn't going to find some poor animal tied up in a sack and left to die, or an abandoned baby. At the far corner of the lot, where it ended and the ditch disappeared behind a shabby brick building, I found the source of the noise—a small towheaded boy in an overturned wheelchair.

He was sweaty and dirty and bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but otherwise seemed to be all right. I dropped my fan, climbed down the bank, picked up the boy and the chair, and carried them back to level ground. Then I set him back in the chair and knelt down in front of him, the million questions of a worried adult bubbling to my lips. Two escaped before I could stop them. "What were you doing there?" I asked. "Are you all right?"