Authors: Deborah Rogers
Jennifer switches off the bathroom light and eases herself into the steaming water. At the end of the bath, flames from two soy candles duck and dive from the draft of her body and she rests her head on the folded towel and stares at those flickering lights. They sit in pretty mirrored glass votives, a gift to herself, years before. She had always loved candlelight, how it made everything meaningful and serene, how it changed the simple act of cleaning yourself into an indulgent event.
Her breath comes slow and easy. She feels tired but oddly energized, like she has come through a difficult challenge and lived to tell the tale. An ugly problem had been solved. They would search and find nothing. The body would soon vanish without a trace.
Jennifer draws in a clean and fulsome breath. The blisters on her hands burn and the muscles in her legs ache but tonight has been a good night. Tonight she has slain a dragon.
She thinks of Ethan North. Other, more pressing, investigations would soon demand his attention. The Hank Blake case would fade into obscurity, becoming another face on a database somewhere, another deadbeat dad who never showed up.
Through the tails of steam Ethan's face comes to her. The strong contour of his jaw, the masculine marker of three-day growth, that earnest expression. She closes her eyes and lowers herself further into the soft fleece of juniper and thyme bubbles.
When she is done she slips – naked and fresh and mellow and warm – into her silky cotton sheets and spreads out like a star, right in the middle of the bed, just because she can.
Lenise stares into her bowl. A splodge of ketchup sits like a loose turd, center-left, on top of the tee-pee of French fries. The girl with Cody will not stop talking. Blah. Blah. Blah. Words spew out of that pink cupid-lipped mouth blurring into one long monologue. No pausing for breath. No real substance.
Lenise glances at Cody. He is nodding right along with the girl, their two hands resting atop the vinyl gingham in a Siamese fist. Lenise is so tired, so sore and drained from last night's endeavor, she only wishes she had the energy to get up and leave.
It had been a bad idea to come, but Cody had insisted, calling first thing this morning to make plans for tonight.
Melinda wants to meet you
. She'd been in bed with the sheets pulled up over her head trying to forget the fact Jennifer and McKenzie were leaving. She'd told him she couldn't make it, but he wouldn't take no for an answer, so here she was, barely functional, lids drooping like shutters.
The waiter brings Cody's steak and Lenise's stomach swims in acid. She glances at the girl's bowl of Mac n Cheese and sees the buttery rope of a spinal cord.
On and on, the Melinda girl prattles, managing to talk and shovel that macaroni into that big fat hole of hers at the same time. A smear of white sauce has collected in the crease of her mouth. What Cody sees in her, Lenise can't understand. The Americans have a name for her kind – trailer trash. Bad teeth. A mauve bow in her bleached hair. Gold-hooped earrings the size of bicycle wheels. Right now, Lenise wishes little Miss Hillbilly would just shut the hell up.
"When are you coming home Cody?" says Lenise, abruptly.
Melinda gawks at her and stops in midsentence.
"Ma, haven't you heard anything we've been saying?" says Cody.
"The house is too quiet without you."
"You need to listen, Ma."
She slams her hands palm down on the table.
"For the love of God, Cody, I'm trying to tell you I miss you. That's not something I say every day."
"We're having a baby, Ma. We're going to get married."
"What did you say?"
"A
baby
." He looks at her in the way he'd done as a boy. When he would glance over his shoulder to make sure she was watching before he did a big dive or went way up high on the swing or crossed the finish line first.
"Three months gone, today," says Melinda-the-mouth, hand hovering over her belly.
"Is that so?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
Lenise pushes back her chair and gets to her feet.
"Take me home."
"We haven't finished eating."
"Forget it."
She throws down some money and weaves through the other tables toward the exit.
"Ma!" calls Cody.
She collides with someone coming back from the bar and Coke spills all over them.
"Hey!"
"Go to hell," she says, but she's already outside and nobody hears her except the wind.
Jennifer finds McKenzie staring out her bedroom window at the cluster of activity in Pine Ridge Forest. Even from this far away, it's possible to make out search and rescue trucks, quad motorbikes, police cars, cadaver dogs, fluorescent vests. There are far more people than Jennifer had been expecting, and it looks like they're going to continue the search into the night because they've just erected a floodlight.
From this distance, Jennifer can't tell if they're searching the burial site but she knows they're close. Her heart skips at the thought that she and Lenise had left something behind. But they had been thorough and swept the area twice before leaving and rain would have washed anything else away.
"Come down for dinner," says Jennifer.
McKenzie refuses to take her eyes from the window. "I'm not hungry."
"You can't stay here all night."
Wind carries the faint rabble of voices, the clipped bark of a dog.
"Come on, hon."
"Where is he, Mom? Why doesn't he call?"
"I don't know."
"Marcus Goodfellow's Dad shot himself in the head because of a gambling debt. No one talks to Marcus now. They post mean things about him on Facebook."
"That's not going to happen to you."
"I don't care if it does. Those haters are jerks."
"Come on, let's go downstairs for awhile, take a break from all this."
Jennifer reaches across to close the curtain, but McKenzie stops her. "I want to see."
"It's not healthy, hon."
"I don't care."
For an instant Jennifer wants to tell her all of it, every last detail, like the smell and the unseeing eye and the weight of his rotting bones in her hands, the complete and utter sense of satisfaction she experienced as he slid into his sour and watery grave.
Instead, she says, "I'll get you some tuna."
*
It's after ten when the knock on the door finally arrives. McKenzie had long since fallen asleep at the window so it's just Jennifer and Ethan North in his blue puffer jacket and cargo pants.
"Come in," she says. "I've just made coffee."
Without waiting, she walks down the hall into the kitchen and his footsteps sound behind her. She pours him a cup and he holds up a hand.
"I've had enough to keep me going 'til Christmas."
Jennifer rests against the bench and folds her arms. "Well?"
"We didn't find him."
She nods. "I had a hang up call the other night. Maybe it was him."
Disappointment clouds his face, like a parent who's caught a child in a lie. Jennifer chides herself for being such an idiot. To her relief, he changes the subject.
"I saw the For Sale sign out front. I guess that means you're leaving soon," he says.
"There doesn't seem much point in staying. McKenzie's not doing so well."
"She's a great kid."
"Yes, she is."
He stares at her.
"Is there something else?" she says.
"Your bank records – there was a significant withdrawal awhile back."
Her mouth goes dry. "And?"
He shrugs. "It's your money and you're entitled to do what you want with it, but it was a large amount."
"I already told you, Hank drained our joint account. I needed money to live, pay bills, to eat."
"$10,000 sure buys a lot of ham and eggs."
"What? You think I hired a thug? Maybe a hit man?" she laughs.
He scratches his cheekbone. "I wouldn't blame you if you did. Some would even say he had it coming."
"Well, I didn't."
"Mind if I have some water."
"Help yourself."
She watches him rinse the coffee cup, fill it from the faucet and down it in one go. He places the empty cup on the bench next to hers and stares at it.
"Curious thing. The dogs went crazy in that old orchard – apple or peaches or some crop. We even found a hole that had been dug over. Stunk." He looks up and catches her eye. "You know the smell, when an animal is caught in a trap and left there to rot, except that animals don't bury themselves."
Her heart pounds like a freight train and she's sure he can hear it.
"I don't know what to tell you," she says.
"Oh, no reply needed. Just making an observation, that's all."
He turns to leave and she makes a move to follow him.
"I can see myself out," he says. "Finish your coffee before it gets cold."
It must have been after three when something wakes her. Jennifer blinks into the dark and waits for her eyes to adjust. For an awful moment she thinks it's police, come to raid the house, execute a search warrant, take her into custody.
A loud watery
ker-chunk
punctuates the silence. Then another. Maybe she's left the water running in the bathroom. She puts on her robe and goes to check but when it isn't that she heads for the landing and peers out the picture window overlooking the backyard below. A shadowy figure is lying on the sun-lounger hurling something into the pond.
Lenise
.
Didn't that woman ever stop?
Jennifer goes downstairs and yanks open the sliding door.
"It's the middle of the night – what the hell do you think you are doing?"
Lenise doesn't look up. She just throws another spiky, buck-eyed nut into the water. There's a whole bunch in her lap, and a half-finished bottle of bourbon on the table beside her.
"God damn it Lenise, answer me."
Lenise blinks slowly. "It's a party," she slurs.
"You're drunk."
"So what if I am? Not hurting anyone." Lenise guides the bottle to her mouth, swallows deep then lets out an exaggerated sigh.
"You're being an idiot," says Jennifer.
Lenise straightens up and throws another nut – this time hard and fast – and it ricochets off the planter box and bounces back under the sun-lounger. Lenise barks out a laugh, her elbow slipping from the arm rest, splashing bourbon all over the ground.
"Go home, Lenise. We'll talk tomorrow."
"I saw the sign."
"What sign?" says Jennifer.
Lenise purses her lips as if she's just tasted something sour. "Don't play dumb," she says.
"The For Sale sign? Is that what this is about?"
Lenise pats the seat beside her. "Why don't you sit down and have a drink. This can be your going away party."
Jennifer lets out a breath of frustration. "Quite frankly what I do with my and my daughter's life is not your concern. I want you to go now."
But Lenise just laughs. "Or what? You'll call the police?"
She staggers to her feet and the nuts tumble from her lap. "You're no fun. This whole fucking neighborhood is a no fucking fun. I should be the one to leave." Lenise takes four halting steps to the edge of the pond and stares into it. "Cody's having a baby. He's getting married."
"That's wonderful."
Lenise looks at her sharply. "Is it?"
"You'll be a grandmother, why wouldn't you be happy about that?"
"He's all I have and now he's going to belong to someone else."
"It's the natural order of things. Children grow up and make their own lives."
Lenise takes a long slug and tosses the bottle into the pond. "You're not going anywhere, Jenny." A slow smile forms on her lips. "I've got evidence."
Jennifer frowns. "What evidence?"
"Your clothes, the knife, your fingerprints on it."
Jennifer takes two steps back, nearly colliding with the sun-lounger. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Lenise eyes glow, triumphant. "I needed to protect myself. Turns out I had great foresight."
"But you'll have to implicate yourself."
Lenise shrugs. "I'll say I found it hidden under some bush."
"I'll tell them you were there."
"You have no proof, they won't believe you," says Lenise, cheeks flushed.
"You're enjoying this," remarks Jennifer.
Lenise moves closer. Jennifer can taste the ether on Lenise's breath. "Face it, Jenny, you've been out-played."
She turns to leave, gets as far as the gate then stops.
"Tomorrow night there's an event at the Gallery that I'm sure McKenzie will like. Tell her to drop by round six. I'll have her back by nine. And don't worry – you know she's safe with me."