Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey (23 page)

I thought about all this. Finally, I told Regina I was thirsty, and she jumped up to bring me some water in a plastic cup. There was a sink on the wall, stained and ugly and old, but functional. Regina slid a hand under my head so I could raise it enough to sip from the cup.

“What’s wrong with my head?” I asked, staving off the inevitable. Besides, I did want to know.

“I guess Luke hit you with the stock of his rifle. Margaret says you jumped him! That was kind of crazy, Aunt Roe.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Anyway, you have this big bruise and swollen place on your forehead, it goes up into your hair, and a little blood dried on your face. So, have you seen Craig? When’s he coming to get me? Did Rory get sick in Lawrenceton? He sure was acting awful funny.”

“What do you remember about that night?” Hard to believe it had only been five days.

Regina looked down at me doubtfully. She was sitting on the floor beside me now, the cup still in her hand. I became aware I was lying on yet another sleeping bag, and she was crouched on the cold concrete. Her black hair was a mass of tangles and her eyes were puffy.

“After you guys left to go to that dinner, I was in your house fixing up some supper, one of those Healthy Choice microwave meals you had in the freezer.”

I would have nodded if my neck wouldnt’ve snapped.

“Then I heard a car pull up, and I knew it wasn’t you because you guys were gonna be gone longer. So I look out, and it was a black kid. He was real polite, said a friend had brought him out to get his dad’s truck. I thought I saw something fall out of the back of the trailer as he was turning it around, but I didn’t tell him. I figured I’d go pick it up later. After he’d driven the truck out of your backyard, and the guy who’d given him a ride had followed him out of the driveway, Craig and Rory turned in. They came into the house with me, and we started fighting almost right away. I was mad. I’d left because I needed time to think, and here he was right on my tail.

“I began to get a little nervous, alone with the guys, them being so mad at me. Course Craig would never hurt me, but he was really furious, it was the worst fight we’d ever had.” Regina’s face softened. “He’s usually so sweet,” she said almost tenderly. “It was one reason I almost kept the baby.”

I had my serious doubts that Craig had been the baby’s father. In my secret brain compartment where I keep a lot of thoughts I want to hide from myself, I’d stored the idea that the baby looked much more like Rory. Rory’s baby picture, framed in his sister’s house, had been the spitting image of Hayden. “So Rory began feeling bad?” I asked weakly.

“Yeah, he was acting really strange. He said he was so sleepy he couldn’t stand up, and I told him to go lie on the couch. He said some blonde-haired woman, some older gal in a fancy car, had asked them to help her in the liquor store parking lot, and she gave them a couple of beers to say thank you, I think her car had gotten stuck in a dip or something, and they’d helped her rock it out. Rory thought there’d been something in the beer; he said when he got through there were some speckles in the bottom of the bottle.”

“So you went over to the garage apartment?”

“Yeah, actually, Craig and I...” And here Regina turned coy. In between quarrels, they’d wanted a passionate reunion, apparently.

“You took Hayden?”

“Yeah, sure, we couldn’t leave him in the house over there, with Rory out of it! On the way over, Craig picked up something from the yard. It was a hatchet, from the back of the guy’s pickup, and he put it on the steps so the guy would see it if he missed it and come back.”

That was where the hatchet had come from. One small question explained.

“So you took the baby over to the apartment.”

Regina turned a dull, unbecoming red. “He was asleep,” she said defensively. “We didn’t have time to put up that crib thing, so I laid him in his infant seat in the recline position.”

“Then?”

“Well, before things got. . . serious, you know . . . we heard
another
car pull up, and Craig said, ‘Hey, what is this place, Grand Central Station?’ and I looked out the front window and it was the Granberrys!” Regina shook her head. “I said, ‘Craig, you’re not gonna believe this!’ and he says, ‘Hey, we’re not letting them have our baby, cause here they are following us!’ and I said, ‘You’re right, let’s keep Hayden.’ ” Regina sighed, offered me some more water.

I started to shake my head no, then realized that was a very bad idea. “No,” I said. “Thanks.”

I wondered if Regina had ever made a reasoned decision in her life.

“While Craig was zipping up, getting ready to go down the stairs, I took the baby and kind of slid him under the bed. He was so sound asleep, he didn’t even peep. He’s so good! I didn’t want them to walk in and see him and get all grabby, like they did once before. I told Craig what to say.”

“Why didn’t the Granberrys get there when Craig and Rory did?”

“Well, they’d stopped to eat. At the last gas station they’d stopped at, Craig and Rory had asked for directions to Lawrenceton, so Margaret and Luke knew where they were going. When they were talking later about following Craig, they said they’d been scared to follow too close.

When they got to Lawrenceton, they just looked in the phone book for familiar names, came up with Bartell in five minutes.”

“So, what happened then?” I closed my eyes, listened to Regina’s voice wash over me. She was glad to have someone to talk to, so glad she hadn’t noticed I hadn’t answered any of her questions.

“I heard Craig yelling at them, telling them he’d decided they couldn’t have his boy after all.

That he’d been willing because a deal was a deal, but now they’d tracked him down from Ohio and he didn’t like that at all. So after a while, Margaret came in the room, she said Luke was down there talking to Craig, where was the baby?”

“And you told her—?”

“The same thing I’d told Craig to tell Luke. That you and Martin had the baby, that you’d taken him riding with you so he would go to sleep, that you wouldn’t be coming back for a long time.”

“She want to know where Rory was?”

“I told her he was over in the house.”

“So?”

“So, she wrote him a long note and stuck it under the windshield wiper of their car. I don’t know what it said, not everything, cause she had pulled a gun on me by that time. You could have knocked me over with a feather, Margaret Granberry pulling a gun on me! So I was sitting there, quiet, and I couldn’t fight, because Hayden was there under the bed and who knew what would happen to him? And I was scared to death he’d wake up and make a noise.”

“But he didn’t.”

“She looked around the room, but she never thought of looking under the bed,” Regina said.

“So she told me to get in my car, we were going to drive some.”

“And you went down the stairs?”

“Yes. It was hard to leave Hayden, but I knew once we left, Craig and Rory would search for him; Craig knew for sure he was in that room!” Regina beamed fondly.

“Where was Craig when you left?”

“Oh, he and Luke were still arguing. Craig didn’t say anything when he saw me coming out without the baby, and I knew he’d take care of Hayden and come after me.”

I took a deep breath, and my head throbbed as though it were splitting.

“Aunt Roe,” she said suddenly, “what are you and Uncle Martin doing in Corinth? Every now and then if Margaret and Luke are talking in this room right overhead I can hear them through the gap around the dryer vent, and I heard that you were at the farm. Doesn’t anyone know where I am? Aren’t Craig and Rory looking for me? Why do you have Hayden?”

I had to tell her about us bringing the baby and Rory back to Corinth, about what had happened before we’d brought them here. It wasn’t kind to let her ignorance go on any longer, though I still had lots of questions.

“So when you and Margaret drove off in your car,” I began, “Luke was still arguing outside with Craig?”

“Yeah, they were standing on the steps.”

Where Craig had left the hatchet. While the note to Rory began to disintegrate in the rain.

What had Regina imagined the note said? Why hadn’t Regina figured the Granberrys had no reason to leave Rory a note if they planned to leave Craig there alive?

“Regina,” I said, trying to sound gentle, succeeding only in sounding weary, “after you left, Luke killed Craig.”

Regina stared down at me. “Why would he do that?” she asked finally. Her voice had a tremor in it.

“I guess they fought,” I said. “Craig didn’t want Luke to have Hayden. You both had gone back on your agreement. Luke was mad.” Regina didn’t seem to have much grasp of consequences.

“What about Rory? Did Luke go in the house and kill him too?”

“No. Luke needed him to stay, get the baby back, and return him to Corinth. I suppose in the note . . . Margaret promised him more money if he brought the baby to them. But we brought the baby, and we wouldn’t have given him up to Rory. All Rory was, was a problem. So today, Luke shot Rory.”

I could see the whites all around Regina’s irises.

“Both gone,” she whispered. “Then why am I alive?”

That was a good question, and unexpectedly astute of Regina if she’d meant it literally. While she sat in disbelieving silence, I gave her the bare bones of our trip to Corinth, of what had happened at the farm this afternoon.

And I had to tell her that Margaret and Luke had the baby.

Regina began to cry, but I had no comfort to offer her. My own problems overwhelmed me. I couldn’t move without waves of pain and nausea, and I could no longer put off my fear for Martin. I didn’t have enough energy to worry about Karl Bagosian, too; I thought, obscurely, He’s got plenty of family, and I did my best to dismiss him from my mind.

My thoughts wandered away from the chilly cellar and the stupid young woman beside me. I fantasized that maybe Martin had managed to make it to the road and was flagging down some passing car. That was the least taxing way to get help I could imagine. Even then, the struggle down the snowy driveway, the long cold wait... I remembered how sick Martin had looked, and I wondered what was wrong.

After a while, I admitted to myself that I figured it was his heart.

I recalled Martin’s hesitance when I asked him about his physical, in what seemed the long-ago past. I suspected that Martin had learned then that something was going wrong inside him.

But with the troubles of his family, and the troubles of my family, he’d thought it best to put off having that explored; that was what I would have done, and I was sure Martin would think that way.

“You think Uncle Martin will get us out?” Regina asked, in a voice worn limp with tears.

I lay there and hated her. “He didn’t look good when I last saw him,” I said. “Over at the farmhouse.”

“We’re on our own?” Regina sounded as if that was unbelievable. All her layers of backup, gone. I could sympathize. “Have you heard from my mother?”

“Not a word.”

“So she’s still on her cruise,” Regina said. She sat for a long time in silence, which I welcomed. When she finally spoke, it was hardly reassuring. “So they’ll kill us, now that they’ve got the baby,” she said, and I whispered, “Yes.” She’d reasoned herself to the end of the line.

We fell silent. We waited.

Later, I thought of asking Regina if the Granberrys kept any dogs.

“No,” she said, obviously thinking I was an utter loon.

“Good.” Any idea of escape would be complicated by dogs.

Once we heard Hayden crying upstairs, and both of us twitched as if we were going to rise and tend to him. (In my case, that meant my arm moved.) I knew that sooner or later I was going to have to get up and go to the bathroom, and I dreaded it... when I had any dread to spare.

Margaret and Luke didn’t put in an appearance. Probably totally wrapped up with their new baby, I thought bitterly. Though I wanted them both to die in agony, if they were going to live I wanted them to bring me some Extra-Strength Tylenol.

I slept some, though it wasn’t like normal sleep; it was suspiciously like falling unconscious.

Regina moaned and wept. I couldn’t blame her, but the noise grated at the terrible sore ache in my head. Finally my bladder couldn’t hold out any longer, and I talked my niece into helping me up.

The trip to the little room at the foot of the stairs was about as much fun as I thought it’d be.

At least I emptied myself completely in one trip, since I threw up. I knew I had a concussion, but people survived concussions—right? In mystery novels, the hero always checked out of the hospital when he had a concussion, and went on about solving the case. I knew what books I would throw across the room in the future, providing I had a future.

Also, detectives in books seemed to take as many aspirin as they wanted, without regard for the recommended adult dosage. Was I the only person in the world who watched the clock so I wouldn’t take my pills too close together? Though at the moment, I would take anything anyone handed me. Please, knock me out.

You can see the quality of my thinking was not high. And those were only the good parts.

I tried to concern myself about escaping. I tried to pretend I was well, and resourceful, and determined. The truth was, I was sick in body and heart, and desperate.

There was an outside door to the basement, the kind I’d only seen in movies before now; almost fiat to the ground, barred on the outside. No windows. Regina assured me she’d tried that door many times, and it was of course always barred. There was nothing like a saw in the basement; the Granberrys had removed the tools. What they’d left was extra stores of canned goods, luggage, and a pile of odds and ends of lumber.