What Strange Creatures (33 page)

Zach stared at his hands as he wiped them with a napkin. “Do you know his work hours pretty well?”

“Sort of. He works till eleven most weekdays, I know that. Much later on Saturdays.”

“You’re forgetting my roots, Theresa. I’m pretty good with locks and that sort of thing.”

“Like . . . picking them with a credit card?”

“Uh . . . that general idea. Don’t you think I learned anything up there in juvie?”

“That’s a crazy idea.”

“Is it? If it helps Jeff?”

I watched Zach as he collected our paper plates. He wouldn’t look at me. Did he think I was a wimp? That I didn’t care about my brother enough to do something crazy? I had already hopped into bed with someone I barely knew, just for a glimpse at a stash of amateur video footage. The issue was not how low I was willing to go but whether I wanted to drag someone else down with me.

“That’s a, um . . . a sweet offer. I’m gonna have to think about it.”

“Yeah,” he said, finding my trash under the kitchen sink and tossing the plates. “Think about it.”

“I think you should think about it, too. I’m gonna give you a little time to come to your senses.”

“I’m not going to.”

There was something defiant in his posture that I hadn’t seen in his office or at the student center. It was easy to forget that years and years ago, in a remote and peculiar past, Zach had been some kind of a badass kid.

“Why are you trying to do this for me?” I asked, rising to rinse our glasses in the sink.

He studied me for a moment, then turned back to the table to clear the silverware. “Two reasons. One is that this isn’t what people like Donald Wallace are supposed to do with the power they’ve been granted. Like I said. If this is really happening, it’s too evil
not
to do anything. I mean, I can’t believe this was someone I was about to
vote
for.”

“What’s the other reason?” I asked. There needed to be more. Maybe it was just the way I was raised, but political outrage rarely felt real to me.

Zach glanced at my kitchen floor. “Actually, there are three reasons. The second is that it annoys me that there was a story here all along and I didn’t see it when Kim came to me.”

He took both glasses from me and set them on the counter resolutely.

“And the third?” I asked.

He leaned forward and kissed me. A quick, soft kiss at first. And then—presumably because I didn’t pull way—a longer, stronger one. It was just short of aggressive, which I liked.

“Zach?” I said.

He didn’t reply at first. He seemed to be holding his breath.

“You don’t need to help me break into someone’s house to get me to kiss you.”

Zach shook his head and exhaled.

“You look like you’ve shocked yourself more than me,” I said.

He smiled. “I guess I never thought I’d kiss a medievalist.”

I laughed and led him into the living room, where he sprawled on the couch. Boober apparently picked up on his sheepish expression and jumped into his lap to comfort him. Zach gingerly put his hand on Boober’s little head.

“Do you have any pets?” I asked.

This seemed an important question—if we were going to be kissing and all.

He shook his head again. “No. I’ve been thinking of getting a dog. But I go away too much. For my book research and everything. It might not be a good idea.”

“Did you have any pets growing up?”

“Yeah. We had a Samoyed.”

“Those are such beautiful dogs. Aren’t they really expensive, though?”

Zach was quiet for a moment. Boober leaned his head back and made eyes at him as Zach scratched behind his ears. “Oh. Sometimes, I guess. My mom got him from her boss, who decided he didn’t want him. Barked too much. He was a sweetheart, though. We called him Licky Mick.”

“Licky Mick?” I said.

He nodded. I watched him pet Boober down his back and wondered if we could really work as a couple. I’d grown tired of Brendan’s drive and Brendan’s accomplishments as my own had diminished. And Zach was so goddamned optimistic, too.

I wanted to be that way. I never would be. But I supposed it couldn’t hurt to kiss someone who was. I sat next to Zach and kissed him again.

It was different from kissing Nathan. Nothing left my head. Marge didn’t start singing or weeping. Nor did Jeff Buckley. When it was over, we were both still here.

It didn’t go any further than that kiss and a few more. I sort of wanted it to, and I think Zach did, too—but the little bit of Catholic still left in me drew the line at two different men in less than a week.

I rested my head on Zach’s shoulder, and he said softly, “Tell me about the house.”

“What house?”

“Nathan’s. Do you remember anything about the doors or the windows? Oh—is there a garage?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. That might be the ticket, then. Unless he’s super security-conscious, garage is the way to go. Most people don’t know how easy it is to break into some garages. Does the garage have windows?”

“I think so.”

“I can’t promise it’ll work. I wouldn’t want to fiddle around for long, but we could try it. If it’s the right kind of garage, it won’t take more than a minute. If it’s not, it won’t take long to make that determination and leave.”

“You learned this in juvenile detention?”

“No. Not this. I saw this on a news report about how easy it is for burglars to get into your garage. But juvie’s where I first started being interested in this kind of thing. The weaknesses of various security systems and different ways people can get into your shit. It can make you sort of paranoid, once you know a little bit about it. You can be sure
my
garage door has a security clip on the safety latch.”

“Do you miss . . . ?” I started to ask a question, but I was unsure quite how to formulate it.

Sometimes I wished I’d had something more specific to overcome in my youth than general inertia. I’d been driven to get into and stay forever in one of the country’s top universities, just because it was there in my hometown, waving itself in my face. It wasn’t actual ambition. There had never been much need to be fierce or lawless or brave.

“Do you ever miss being in survival mode? In do-whatever-it-takes mode?”

Zach looked surprised by the question. “All the time,” he whispered.

That was when I knew we were really going to do this.

The plan was relatively simple. We’d park my car on Nathan’s street, but not in front of his house. It had been parked on that street a few times this week and wasn’t likely to be noticed among all the student cars anyhow. Zach would go check out the garage door. If it was a no-go, he’d come back to the car and we’d be off on our way. If the safety latch was easily seen, he was ready with a wire hanger that we’d fashioned into a hook and a ready-to-send text message that said
I’M IN
if it all happened correctly and the door to the house was unlocked. We were dressed to look like students at a glance—Zach with a baseball cap on, me in a ponytail bun, with a backpack. We both happened to be wearing jeans anyway. Zach had readied a memory stick from his briefcase. He’d work on the computer, saving any video files that looked useful, while I’d go through all the VHS tapes and pack up any unmarked or promising-looking ones.

The moment he left the car, I began to regret what I’d set in motion.

“‘There is no gift so holy as is the gift of love,’” I whispered to myself. It was from the Book of Marge. I repeated it again and again, reminding myself that this was a demonstration of faith. I had faith in Jeff. Even if I shouldn’t. Even if it did not make logical sense. That’s how faith worked.

“‘There is no gift so holy as is the gift of love.
Thereisnogiftsoholyasisthegiftoflove.
’”

I must’ve said it thirty times before my cell phone jumped:
I’M IN.

My heart pounded as I opened the car door. I closed it quietly but casually. I didn’t rush till I was at the end of Nathan’s driveway and saw his garage open about one third of the way. Zach was waiting for me on the inside. He put his finger to his lips as I ducked in, then closed the garage door.

The bulb at the back of Peaches’ cage allowed us to tiptoe through the living room without turning on any lights.

“See, there’s his snake,” I said softly.

Zach nodded and whispered, “Office?”

I led the way.

Just as I flipped the light switch of the office, an awful shriek came from the room.

“Jesus!” I screamed.

“Shhh!” said Zach.

“That wasn’t me!” I whispered loudly. “The first scream, I mean.”

We both peered into the room. In front of the computer desk was a black, arch-topped cage that was almost as tall as me.

“You didn’t tell me about that,” Zach said.

There was another, louder scream. Inside the cage was a cauliflower-colored bird nearly as big as a toddler, with a yellow curl on the top of its head. Its freaky eyes looked like tiny black marbles poking out of a poached egg white.

“This wasn’t here when I was here,” I whispered.

“Well, it’s here now,” Zach said, sitting at the computer. “Let’s just do this as quick as we can.”

I leaned over him, rummaging quickly through the overhead cabinet where I’d found the VHS tapes. The first said “Stark-DeFransciso.” A wedding, clearly. I put it aside. An unmarked one. I put that in my backpack. “Our Beautiful Wedding.” Put that one aside. The next one had just a number on the side, typed. The next was the same. Both of those went into my backpack. There weren’t many that were unmarked, but some had cryptic titles. None had obvious labels like “Andrew Abbott.” Anything that could potentially be Kim’s, I stuck in the backpack—and ended up with seven tapes.

“There’s a file named ‘KG Backups,’” Zach said. “Have you looked at that stuff yet?”

“No!” I answered. “That sounds promising.”

“Okay. I’m saving that along with the stuff in the Kim file.”

“Awww,” whispered the bird.

I watched its black mollusk tongue move up and down in its sharp black beak.

“He loves animals,” I whispered, opening the door to the room’s small closet. “Nathan, I mean.”

“You’d have to,” Zach said, tapping Nathan’s mouse. “That thing is heinous.”

Surely Zach was wondering about my judgment. It was one thing to hang out with guys who owned snakes. Guys with birds—maybe. But guys with both? Not so much.

The closet had mostly clothes in it—a couple of suits and an obnoxious-looking black cowboy shirt with red roses across the chest. On the floor were a few packages of printer paper from Staples.

“I’m done,” I said. “Are you?”

“Almost,” Zach murmured.

Then I heard a squeak. And not from the bird.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

“No. What?”

I heard it again. It was the storm door of the house opening. Then there was a noise that sounded very much like a key.

“Oh, God,” I said.

Zach pulled the memory stick out of the computer and stuck it in his back jeans pocket.

“Out the window,” I said, trying to yank my backpack’s zipper closed.

“What?” Zach whispered.

“AWWWW!” screamed the bird.

“You go out the window,” I whispered, yanking the shades all the way up. “I’ll greet him at the door. I’ll tell him I wanted to surprise him or—”

I pulled up the window, and Zach pulled up the screen with the finger tabs.

“Surprise him?”

“Go!” I said.

“You can make it, too,” Zach whispered as he climbed out. “Come on!”

I could hear the shuffling make its way down the hall.

“I don’t think so.”

In that split second, I decided it was better for me to make my presence look like a casual drop-in. I could tell Nathan I’d come to talk to him and found the door open. If I made it to the bedroom before Nathan saw me, it would be more believable.

And Zach was already no longer visible from the office. If he could get out of the yard, we’d probably be okay.

I slammed the window shut and jumped into the hallway. There I nearly ran smack into a man who wasn’t Nathan. He had a giant belly, only half covered by an orange Thin Lizzy T-shirt.

“Who are you?” he demanded. He smelled peculiarly like baby powder.

“Hi. I’m Nathan’s friend. Who are you?”

“I’m his
best
friend,” Thin Lizzy said, so possessively that I expected him to put a haughty hand on his hip.

“Oh,” I said softly.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked.

“Nathan wanted me to meet him here.”

Thin Lizzy scratched the back of his neck, below his stubby blond ponytail. “Nathan’s not getting back till one. That’s why he called me to check on the new bird.”

“That’s funny. Nathan asked
me
to check on the bird, too. She’s cute, isn’t she?”

It was the smell of talcum powder that had me taking chances like this. Between that and his belly sticking out, Thin Lizzy seemed nonthreatening, like a giant bouncing baby boy.

“It’s a he. Not a she. Are you Theresa?”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“I don’t think Nathan would’ve asked you to come here.” Thin Lizzy gave me a hard stare. “He told me about you.”

One of the VHS tapes chose that moment to tumble from my overstuffed backpack. When I reached down for it, two more fell out.

“Oh,
damn,
” I said. It came out so fake that I knew I was doomed.

Thin Lizzy took a cell phone from his pocket, pressed a button, and put it to his ear.

“Who are you calling?”

“Nathan,” he said. “But he’s not answering.” He hit a few more buttons on his phone. “Hello, yes. I want to report a break-in.”

October 29, 2013

Thompsonville Courier