Hung Out to Die (28 page)

“And you did that. To the woman you love.”

“Loved! In the past! And she dumped me,” Lenny said, sounding agitated, “for a no-good bum. She got what she deserved. I wouldn't have killed Daddy if it weren't for her.”

“I saw the way you looked at her at the Bar-None. You still love her. And I'm sure when she said stand up to him, she didn't mean kill him,” I said angrily, forgetting that part about staying calm being my best bet. “And I'm sure she didn't think you'd turn into a hit man for Rich.”

Lenny smacked me hard in the face, and the car swerved. Daddy moaned in the backseat.

“Just drive,” Lenny said angrily. “We're almost to the house. Then I'm dumping you and your daddy, too. You all can suffocate together.”

“You know you can't get away with this. Killing four people?”

“You think your boyfriend will save you?” Lenny snapped.

“My boyfriend's in Kansas City,” I said.

“I mean the reporter, with you at the party. You've probably told him everything,” he said.

I felt a clenching in my stomach. Caleb was in danger, too. “I didn't,” I said.

“Uh, huh. I'll take care of him, later.”

“Look, he's really not my boyfriend—”

“Right,” Lenny said with a sneering, mimicking tone. “I saw the way you looked at him.”

I was shivering so hard that I had a hard time walking. And my hope—that when Lenny was preoccupied with trying to drag Daddy through the dark and cold, I'd have a chance to get the gun from Lenny—was ruined by the fact that Daddy had come back around when we'd jolted to a stop at the end of the long lane that led up to the Burkette house.

Lenny had held the gun on me while I untied Daddy's ankles and took the gag from his mouth. Daddy had immediately started to curse Lenny, but I'd shaken my head gently and he'd stopped. Then Lenny handed me a flashlight, and barked directions as we walked around the side of the house. He was behind us, the gun trained on us, of course.

And we were so far from the road, nobody would see the flashlight in the woods. If they did, they probably wouldn't think anything of it. Not only that, but it was unlikely anyone would drive by for hours. After all, only locals used these roads. And most of the locals were either at Rich's retirement party, or snugly in their homes sipping hot chocolate.

In other words, we were pretty much doomed.

“Don't talk,” Lenny had told us as we started around the house. “If you do, I'll shoot. Don't run. If you do, I'll shoot. It's just as easy for me to shoot you now and dump your bodies in the cistern—but I'd rather think of you as dying cold and miserable in each other's company.”

When we got to the cistern, I thought maybe I could attack him when he was pulling away the cistern lid. But Lenny wasn't about to let himself get in a vulnerable position.

He ordered Daddy to pull away the lid, which was partially pulled back.

It was heavy and Daddy grunted and pulled, and finally got it off and to the side.

“Not as young as you used to be, huh, Henry,” Lenny said. I could hear the grin in his voice. “Train the flashlight down there. Take a look.”

Daddy and I crept to the edge, and I shone the flashlight down into the cistern.

At the bottom of the plaster-lined well was Mama. Her eyes were shut. She was still, her face tilted up. She had scrunched up in her fur coat, as far away as possible from the other thing in the bottom of the cistern.

A corpse that was mostly—but not completely—rotted away to the skeleton. A few rags were all that was left of the clothing.

I gagged.

Lenny laughed. “Take a look at your future.”

I sat back, hard, on the cistern lid—and immediately felt it crack beneath me.

For the first time in my life, I was thanking the good Lord that I needed to lose twenty pounds—because the cracked lid gave me another idea.

I didn't react, though. My heart started thumping harder. What was a cistern lid, but gravel and mortar? And over time, even that would start to weaken. The old cistern lid had been pulled back and forth a lot lately, weakening it. How big of a piece had cracked off? Small enough to pick up and throw, but big enough to knock Lenny out? I prayed that maybe, yes, this was true.

“May? May?” Daddy was calling Mama's name anxiously.

I heard a barely audible, weak, “Henry?” Tears pricked my eyes.

“Oh good. Still alive. I was hoping she hadn't died of exposure just yet. That's why I left the cistern lid ajar. Leave her some air. Let her see you join her. Let her contemplate the choice she made—the wrong choice, years ago,” Lenny said bitterly. “Get down there, Henry!”

I half expected Daddy to jump up, lunge at Henry, try to knock him off balance, but Lenny had anticipated that.

He released the safety, held the gun pointed down into the cistern. “Try anything Henry, and I'll pull the trigger and kill her. You won't even have your last minutes together.”

Daddy stood up slowly, lowered himself down into the cistern using the ladder that was attached to the side.

“I tried to get out,” Mama was saying. I could just hear her soft, dry voice. “But the lid was so heavy. I couldn't budge it. Henry, where's Josie . . .”

“Oh, she's coming, too, May,” Lenny said. “Finally, your little family will be together again.”

Daddy peered at me over the rim of the cistern. Our eyes met in the glow of the flashlight. His eyes said “I'm sorry.” And mine said back, “It will be okay.”

Then Daddy's head disappeared. Oh, Lord. I'd have to move fast . . . but I was so cold and shivering. How could I possibly aim with the chunk of cistern lid—assuming I could even lift it?

“Hand me that flashlight,” Lenny said.

I held it up to him, not wanting to get up and have him see the cracked lid. He snatched it from me.

“There's still a chance, May. Come out. Tell me you love me like I know you always did. We can disappear together. You're good at that—disappearing. This time disappear with me. I saw the look in your eyes, May. I know you loved me all this time. You can undo your choice of Henry—”

There was silence, and then I heard my daddy saying, “May, oh May . . .” I could see them, somehow, in my mind's eye, and I knew they were holding each other.

“Shut up, damn you,” shouted Lenny. “Or I'll shoot her now! Let her decide.”

There was another silence. I scooted forward, shivering, shivering. Lenny knelt, leaned forward, peering into the cistern, waiting for my mother's answer.

I was waiting, too, because I knew all of Lenny's attention would be focused on her.

Finally, my mother spoke, her voice quivering but somehow still strong. “If I've learned anything in my life, Lenny, it's that you can't undo your choices. What you saw in my eyes was pity. Now, as before, and always, I choose Henry.”

Lenny screamed, a long piercing, “nooooo!” and pointed the gun into the cistern, starting to pull the trigger . . .

I launched forward, grabbed the chunk of cistern lid—oh, Lord, it was too big for one hand . . . I grabbed it with both hands, threw it at Lenny.

I hit him in the shoulder.

He spun, still screaming “noooo!” and fell backward into the cistern as he finished pulling the trigger.

The bullet hit me in the shoulder, and I stumbled, losing my balance, and took an unfortunate step in the wrong direction as I gasped in pain and tried to keep from falling. But I fell anyway into the cistern. My head hit the side of the cistern wall and I plunged into sudden, consuming darkness before I hit the bottom.

Epilogue

“Am I dead?” I asked.

“Why would you think that?” Mrs. Oglevee asked sternly, frowning at me.

“You're not doing anything weird,” I said.

Mrs. Oglevee was sitting behind her teacher's desk, looking like she always had back in junior high. I looked down at my arms, hands, outfit, feet.

I was wearing jeans with ripped knees, one of Uncle Horace's old sweatshirts—sleeves cut off, pulled to be off-shoulder to reveal my neon-green tank top—and tennis shoes with curly neon-green laces. The laces looked like curly fries.

Oh, my Lord. I had to be dead. I was dressed like I had in the 1980s, in junior high.

And if I was dead and back in junior high in the afterlife, I apparently hadn't lived as good a life as I thought I had. I gulped.

“Don't be impertinent, young lady,” Mrs. Oglevee was saying. “Of course you're not dead. But you are, again, late with your assignment. Your essay about your family was due yesterday. Why didn't you write the assignment?”

Part of me knew this was a memory . . . part of me knew this wasn't real . . . but the same words came out of my mouth as I'd spoken years ago to Mrs. Oglevee, as I stared down at my green curly-fry laces.

“Everyone else was talking about how they were going to write about their mom or dad. But I can't do that,” I mumbled. “I mean, I have Aunt Clara and Uncle Horace, and I love them, but the rest of my family . . .”

“Young lady, look at me!” Mrs. Oglevee barked.

I looked up at her. She was glaring across the table. “What do you think family is? Genetic coding? Bloodlines? A chart in the front of a Bible?” She leaned across the table, narrowed her eyes at me. “A real family is of the heart. And friends are the family the heart chooses.”

She glared at me a little longer, then shook her head. “I reckon you'll understand someday, Miss Toadfern. At least, I hope so.”

She started fading, Chesire-like as always. “Mrs. Oglevee!” I called. My clothes suddenly felt looser. I glanced down. My 1980s garb had changed to hospital wear. “Mrs. Oglevee!”

But she just smiled. “Remember! Friends . . . family the heart chooses . . .”

Then she disappeared completely, and I was left in a white fog . . .

And then my eyes were open and I was wincing from a light.

“Hey, look who's back from the dead!”

I tried to sit up, moaned.

“Take it easy,” the voice said.

Sally, I realized. I opened my eyes.

She helped me sit up, pressed a call button. I was in a hospital room, I realized. Several nurses came in, checked me over.

After they bustled out, I focused on Sally. “Tell me,” I said. She knew what I meant.

“You're in Masonville County Hospital,” she said. “Room 53B.” She jerked a thumb at the pulled-to curtain behind her. “Lady in the other bed is here with a broken leg. Car wreck. Anyway, you were shot in the shoulder and knocked out when your head hit the concrete as you fell into the cistern.

“Lenny Burkette died upon impact in the cistern. Broken neck. According to Uncle Henry and Aunt May, he landed the wrong way, right on top of his daddy's remains.” Sally paused and shuddered. “With the cistern lid off, Aunt May was finally able to use her cell phone, called for help. You've been out for a few days. But you're going to be okay.”

“But, if I fell in, too, why didn't I—”

Sally looked at me for a long moment, and then said, “Your parents moved to try to catch you. Even Aunt May, as weak as she was. They broke your fall, Josie, which may well have saved your life. Just as you saved theirs.”

I took that in. Then said, “Guy?” I didn't like it that I had been out for a few days, unavailable for Guy.

“I've called Stillwater and let them know,” Sally said. “Guy is okay.”

“They didn't tell—”

“No,” Sally said. “He was anxious two days ago—Sunday—when you didn't come for your regular visit, but he's okay. You may be okay to visit him next Sunday. Anyway, Chip Beavy's been running the laundromat for you since you've been gone. And Rich Burkette is in custody for aiding and abetting attempted murder. He and your parents explained everything. Caleb Loudermilk got quite a story. Had to have extra copies of the
Advertiser-Gazette
printed. He is expecting two columns, by the way, to make up for the fact you didn't get a chance to meet your deadline.” Sally smiled when she made that last statement.

I took in everything she'd said, then asked for a sip of water. She helped me with that. My head was pounding and I felt weak. I also really didn't like all the IV lines coming into and out of my arms.

“Josie, I called Owen,” Sally said. “He sent those—the yellow ones.” I turned my head slowly. The bandage on my neck was stiff and thick. There was a gorgeous bouquet of yellow roses in the windowsill. And next to that, a purple and orange arrangement of fall flowers.

I looked back at Sally. My eyes pricked. “He's not coming back,” I said.

Sally looked away for a second, then back at me with watering eyes. She shook her head. “I don't think so,” she said, taking my hand.

“The other flowers?”

“From your mama and daddy,” Sally said. “They . . . headed back to Arkansas, after they were treated and released—Aunt May, for exposure, and Uncle Henry, for a broken arm, which he got while saving you. They asked me to tell you that they're not going to pursue FleaMart here. They think they'll try to open one in the South. Something about keeping a promise to you, Aunt May said. But they said to tell you they wish you well.”

I didn't even need to ask. They weren't coming back, either.

“Hey,” I said. “You'd better get back to the boys.”

Sally gave a pshaw-style laugh. “What are you talking about? They're out in the hallway—with the rest of your family. Want to see them?”

I perked up. “Of course.”

She jumped up, opened the door, and in trooped my family.

Sally, of course. Harry, Barry, and Larry.

Cherry and Deputy Dean.

Mrs. Beavy.

Winnie, who started crying when she saw me, and hugged me so hard she almost pulled my IV loose. “You're supposed to be in Chicago,” I said.