The Day I Killed James (8 page)

Then a sudden, panicky, “Who’s there?”

“It’s just Annie. From next door. Is that you, kid?” Maybe she really did live there.

“Oh. Just a minute.” The door swung open. The girl stood with a small, cheap-looking, but all-too-real pistol clutched in both of her hands. Her eyes followed Annie’s down to it. “I’ll put it away,” she said.

“Whose gun?”

“My mom’s. We’re supposed to take care of this place while she’s away.”

“You have that thing with her blessing?”

“Well, Barth is supposed to protect us. He’s older. But he’s in the bathroom.”

“Why is Barth always in the bathroom?”

“I guess my mom just wants to know where he is.”

Annie furrowed her brow, absorbed that for a moment. Felt tempted to just go home. Avoid the whole mess. But it seemed too unavoidable by now. “Are you telling me he couldn’t get out of there if he tried?”

“Well, if he tried hard enough, maybe. But my mom fixed it to lock from the outside. He’d have to break the door or something. She’d kill him.”

“Couldn’t you just let him out?”

“I used to. But then she came home early one time. Parked out on the street and surprised us. Boy, did I catch it.”

“Did she hit you?”

“No. She doesn’t usually hit. But she didn’t let me come in for two days. It was cold, too.”

Annie stepped inside. Gently took the pistol from the girl’s hands and set it on the kitchen table, because it made her edgy. Walked down the narrow hallway to the bathroom.

“What’s your brother’s name again?”

“Barth.”

“These trailer bathrooms are so tiny. How long is he supposed to be in there?”

“Well, she usually leaves when we come home from school. Comes home in the morning. She has a boyfriend in Pismo Beach.”

“Barth?” No answer. She unhooked the door, a simple hook like the kind you’d use on a screen door. “Barth? It’s just your neighbor Annie. I just want to see that you’re okay.”

She opened the door.

He sat in the bathtub. Holding the sides, as if in a life raft. A skinny teenager with lousy skin but shiny, thick black hair. Clean, too. She supposed he had plenty of chances to wash it. He didn’t look the least bit happy to see her. He didn’t say anything.

“Would you like to come out of there?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll sit right here in your living room. When she gets home I’ll tell her I’m the one who let you out.”

No reply.

“She’ll have to take it out on me.”

“Lock the door and go away,” he said. His voice seemed high for thirteen. And quiet, as if his lungs didn’t hold much air.

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, you’re not helping. You’re just going to make it worse. Go home.”

Annie blinked a few times and closed the door.

I’ll call Child Protective Services, she thought. In the morning. I’ll have to. Now that I’ve seen, I’ll have to.

She locked it again with the hook, because he yelled through the door that she should. Annie turned, saw the girl at the end of the hall, watching her. Shook her head, trying to shake away her thoughts, the feeling in her stomach. She pulled the clippers out of the bag.

“Look what I bought.”

“What is it?”

“It’s for evening up short hair.”

“Will you do mine?”

“That’s the idea. But let’s do it at my house.”

Little wisps of black hair fluttered into Annie’s sink. Her stomach felt tight and constricted, like she’d just witnessed an accident on the highway.

For a while the hyperactive buzz of the electric clippers provided the only sound.

Then Annie said, “You told me your brother’s name but not yours.”

“Georgia.”

“Georgia. This is looking a lot better, Georgia. I might have to dial it down one more number. Otherwise this little spot will be shorter.” She pointed to a spot over and behind the girl’s left ear.

“That’s fine. It’ll be just about the same as yours.”

“Pretty damn close. This may sound strange, what I’m about to say. Like it goes without saying. But maybe you don’t know. Because maybe you’re just used to it. So I’m going to say it. The way your mother treats you guys is not normal. It’s abuse.”

“I know.”

“Did anybody ever try to do anything about it?”

“Yeah. A neighbor once. When we lived in Pismo Beach. But my mom told the police the lady was a liar. And the police said they couldn’t prove it.”

“So nothing happened.”

“Well, it got worse. That’s something happening.”

“I guess. It’s not the something I had in mind.”

“Don’t,” Georgia said.

Annie’s eyes came up and met hers in the mirror. The twin haircuts created a strange resemblance, like they must be related by blood.

“Don’t what?”

“Call anybody. Barth was right. It’ll make it worse.”

“I feel like I have to do something.”

“Please. Don’t.”

Annie breathed deeply and let the breath out in a sigh. Turned off the clippers. Without the buzz of them the tiny room echoed with silence.

“I’ll think it out real carefully and not do anything right now. How’s that?”

Georgia brushed at her head. “I like this,” she said. “It looks real good. People will think we’re sisters.”

She walked out of the bathroom without saying more.

When Annie finished cleaning up the hair, she came out to find that Georgia was gone. So was the open pack of cigarettes she’d left on the kitchen table.

FIVE

Your Children Are the Short Ones

When Annie got home from work the following evening, exhausted in a way that no amount of walking or stair climbing or answering questions could possibly justify, she found Georgia sitting on her front porch.

“Can I sleep at your house?” Georgia said. Before Annie had said so much as hello. When Annie didn’t answer fast enough Georgia said, “I got locked out. For smoking.”

Annie looked over at the trailer next door. Dark and silent. Too bad, she thought. I’d like to have a word with that woman. “Where’s your mother?”

“She left.”

“Okay. Come in.”

Georgia flopped onto Annie’s couch. Picked up the remote control from the coffee table and turned on the TV. The blare of canned laughter fell like an assault on Annie’s ruined head.

“Turn that down. Okay?”

Silence. No TV. No answer. She looked to Georgia, who sat quietly staring at her, the cool, steady look missing from her eyes. Annie had never seen her without it.

“I didn’t say you had to turn it off. I asked you to please watch it quietly.”

“Okay.”

The TV sound came back, so muted Annie guessed the girl probably could not follow the dialogue. But she didn’t comment.

Just said, “Have you eaten?”

“Not really. I had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.”

“That was lunch. It’s almost seven-thirty.”

“Well. That’s when I ate. Anyway.”

“I’ll go out and get a pizza.”

“Cool.”

“What do you like on it?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“No onions.”

“Okay. Everything except onions.”

“No anchovies.”

“Got it.”

Annie went off into the bedroom and changed out of the rumpled uniform she’d worn and sweated in all day. Changed into shorts and a tank top. Came back out and looked at the phone. Suddenly happy she’d had someone come and fix it.

She ordered a pizza, then sat out on the porch and smoked a cigarette.

Polished off two Coronas and waited for the delivery guy. Because it had dawned on her that it might be better if Georgia were not left alone in her place, with all her things.

In the morning Annie woke before seven to a pounding on her door. She got up, put on a long shirt, and stumbled out into the living room. Georgia was a narrow lump on her couch, the afghan pulled up over her ear.

Annie opened the door.

A plump, bleach-blond woman stood on her porch, looking unhappy. Wearing a short, fancy dress, as if on her way to an evening out. Narrow nose, narrow features. Her eyes narrowed in anger. Clearly Annie had already done something to inconvenience her.

“You been giving cigarettes to my girl?”

Annie stepped outside, though not a hundred percent dressed, and pulled the door closed against her back, thinking it better if the woman never saw Georgia asleep on her couch.

“No,” she said. Careful to establish an utter lack of intimidation.

“She said you did. Is she lying? ’Cause if she’s lying and she stole them, she’s gonna be sorry she was ever born.”

“She wasn’t lying.”

“Well, one of you is.”

“I lied. I gave them to her.”

“That was a stupid thing to do.”

“Of course it was. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. It won’t happen again.”

The plump woman took a step closer. Raised her finger to point in Annie’s face. “You better not be lying to protect her, either.”

Annie took hold of the woman’s hand. Forcibly lowered it, then threw it aside. Allowed her emotion, her opinion of the woman, to shine through her eyes suddenly and for the first time. Annie took a step in, though they were standing close already, and the woman backed up a step.

“I must have misunderstood you,” Annie said. “I could have sworn you just told me what I…had…better…not…do.” She allowed a pause, an ominous emphasis, on each word. “Maybe you got me confused with your kids for just a second.”

“I just meant—”

“I’m bigger than they are.”

“Well. Just don’t give her any cigarettes.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay, then. Fine.” And the woman hurried away.

Annie wanted to go after her. Or yell after her. Let your goddamned son out of prison. Let your daughter into her own house. You sick, sadistic…But it might only make it worse.

So she just stood a moment, feeling that anger turn inward. Trying to reabsorb it. Then she went back inside.

Lit her first cigarette of the morning and started a pot of coffee.

Georgia, who she hadn’t known was awake, said, “What did you tell her?”

“I said I gave you the cigarettes but it won’t happen again.”

“Did she know I was here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. I better go.”

Georgia looked both ways before slipping out the door. Left the afghan lying in a lump on the floor and the impression of her small body in Annie’s couch.

It was about ten days later. It was the morning after a long, strange night that Annie had spent in her car outside Todd’s house in Cayucos. Carefully not going inside.

When she picked him up at the visitor center and gave him a ride up the hill, she checked him carefully for signs that he knew what she’d done. But there was no reason he would have seen her. And no indication that he had.

Still, she felt she couldn’t swim against that tide much longer.

A group of three female trainee guides stood huddled outside the Roman Pool as Annie and Todd made their way down from employee parking. The girls waved too enthusiastically to their tour groups as George transported them off the hill again. George gave Annie a wistful smile as he rounded the circle. The three young women dropped in to walk with Annie and Todd.

One, a dark-haired girl named Mary Lee, said, “Annie, do you think Jeffrey is cute?”

“Yeah. I think he’s adorable.” Actually, she didn’t think much about Jeffrey one way or the other. But she knew it would help him to say that, and there was no reason not to cut a guy a break.

Mary Lee said, “See? I told you so, Margaret.”

Margaret said, “A little fat for me.”

Annie said, “He’s not fat. He’s just stocky. It’s how he’s built. He’s big. It’s not a crime.”

Mary Lee said, “That narrows it down to four, then.”

Annie said, “Four what?”

Margaret said, “Mary Lee’s in the market for a boyfriend. She kind of likes Jeffrey but also Matt from Housekeeping. And Todd, but don’t tell Todd we said that.” She said it plenty loud enough that Todd, still walking right along, heard just fine and reddened slightly.

Mary Lee said, “Thanks loads, Margaret.”

Annie said, “Who’s the fourth?”

“Leander.”

“Leander has a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore he doesn’t. They broke up. Where have you been?”

Annie said, “Well, you know. Give me two days off, you have to retrain me.”

At the North Stairs, halfway to the guide trailer, Annie peeled left from the group, up the stairs toward the North Earring Terrace.

The Main Terrace was empty except for Leander. He stood looking right, away from Annie, out over Sekhmet to the Pacific Ocean. The morning was cool, the air livable, and Annie breathed it in and vowed to remember this later in her ten-hour day when the inside of the Big House reached eighty-nine degrees and none of the visitors would stay on the tour mats or keep their oily hands off the choir stalls.

“Leander,” she said, and he snapped his head around.

The look on his face changed immediately, as if he’d never meant to be caught having it. Then his eyes reacted to seeing her. In a positive way. In a way they hadn’t before, that she could recall. “Annie. Where’ve you been? I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“I heard you broke up with your girlfriend. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“Taking it well, then.”

“Yeah. I guess. No. I’m lying.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You know, I was just standing here thinking…. When somebody you know has a breakup, it never seems like that big a deal. I mean, you know it bites, but it just seems like…you know. They’ll get over it. It happens to everybody. But then it happens to you. And it’s this really big deal. You know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“She was seeing some other guy right under my nose.”

“I know.”

“I guess everybody did. That’s what bites so bad about it. Finally I just said, ‘Look, what’s it gonna be? I mean, who do you love, him or me?’ Know what she said?”

“No, but I have a bad feeling I can guess.”

“Did you ever have that happen to you? Just suddenly found out the guy you’re with would rather be with another girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Ever do that to somebody else?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. And I felt bad about it, too. I was real sorry. But now that I know how it feels I’m thinking maybe I wasn’t sorry enough.”

His eyes left hers, drifted out across Sekhmet again. A heavy bank of dense white fog sat across the horizon, as if drawing his attention. From the side his face looked young, soft, his eyelashes long and dark, like a pretty girl’s.

She looked up at the Castle and felt a pang of dread for her ten-hour day. Wondered how she’d get all the way through that. Thought of going home sick. Let them call in a guide who was just dying for more hours anyway. There was a voluntary sign-up list full of them in the supervisor’s office. Still, this was summer, and the state hated to send anybody into overtime.

Leander said, “Is it true that you have a crush on me?”

Long pause. Then, “It’s more that you remind me of somebody I really cared about.”

“Oh. Too bad. All summer I’ve been really holding on to that. You know? ’Cause all the guys like you, and you don’t like any of them, and it made me feel like somebody. That you liked me. All that time while she was making me feel like nobody. Don’t think some part of me didn’t know what she was doing. There were signs. I guess I didn’t want to know.”

“I knew you were going to get hurt. I didn’t see what I could do to stop it, though.”

A long silence, after which she turned to see him looking at her strangely. Curiously. “Well, you weren’t supposed to do anything. Why would you even think that?”

Oops. Caught being weird again.

“Long story. I mean, no reason. I mean, I didn’t think that. Really. It was just a figure of speech.”

When she arrived at the guide trailer, Todd was there, along with what seemed like everyone else on the planet. She tried to catch his eye but could not.

Finally she decided to sit out on the front patio with the older smoker guides instead. And she’d have to smoke fast, too. She had less than three minutes to spare before her Tour Two arrived on the hill.

Five guides sat on the patio. All eyes focused on her as she sat down and lit a cigarette.

“What?” she said.

An older man named Ed said, “Get much sleep last night?”

“You guys need to outgrow this fascination with my personal life. Especially since it’s so not fascinating.” Had someone seen her?

“We just wanted to hear the inside story on all the excitement.”

A pang of dread. “Doesn’t anybody just live their own life in this town?”

“Well, it’s not every day that somebody gets shot in this town. That’s a big deal.”

Annie sat blinking a second. “Who got shot?”

“Some teenager in that trailer park where you live. You mean you didn’t hear anything?”

“Actually, no. I slept like a baby. I do tend to be a heavy sleeper.”

Ed said, “My mother was like that. One night this factory down the street exploded, and we were all huddling in the kitchen, like, What was that, what was that? And then—”

“Wait a minute,” Annie said. “Wait a minute. I want to know who got shot.”

“Some kid shot her brother in the middle of the night. I guess she thought somebody was breaking in. That’s all I heard.”

The diesel roar of a bus, the metallic sound of the gate drawing open. And it was too late to do anything except conduct a Tour Two.

The minute she put her group on the bus, she retraced her steps to the Main Terrace, but Leander was not there. No Day Security person was there. He could be in the Morning Room, he could be nearly anywhere. But somebody should have been standing under the magnolias.

On her way back to the trailer she spotted him on the Esplanade. Talking to his ex-girlfriend from Gardening. The girl gave Annie a look she found hard to read. She plucked lightly at Leander’s shirt and told him she’d see him later, then went back to her job cutting back the purple lantana that spilled over the Esplanade walls.

Annie asked Leander if he could find out about the shooting. “Dispatch would know, right? Wouldn’t they know about any sheriff’s calls overnight? Maybe you could give them a call. I need to know the names of the kids involved. If it was Georgia. Or Barth.”

Leander said, “I’ll try to get back to you on that.”

She wanted him to say more but he never did.

Twenty minutes later he sent a message down to the guide trailer that the shooter had been an eleven-year-old girl named Cathy Weiss.

Annie breathed again. Chided herself for the foolishness of her assumptions. Then Ed came in and asked her exactly where she had been last night. Said he didn’t believe this “heavy sleeper” story.

She was tempted to tell him to shut up but managed to hold her tongue.

When she arrived home that evening, a line of police tape surrounded Georgia’s trailer. It filled Annie with a familiar numbness.

A pair of neighbor women she’d never seen, or at least never noticed, stood out front, looking. As though in that absolute void of activity, something significant was just about to occur.

A heavy dusk had fallen, and the moon was already out, hanging nearly full over the dry creek bed. Annie could see a splash of blood on the trailer’s stoop. One of the windows was broken. And the more she stood looking, the more holes in the trailer’s metal shell she noticed. Four that she could see. Quite spread out from one another. Like four or five shots had gone wildly wrong. Too bad one had just happened to hit home.