Letter From Home (26 page)

Tommy was climbing the ladder to the diving boards. He went to the very top. From the shore, Wilma shouted, “I'll get you, Tommy Krueger, you wait and see.” Gretchen ducked under the rope separating the diving area. The water was deep here, maybe twenty feet. She treaded water, shaded her eyes against the sun. Tommy came out to the end of the high dive, stood with his toes at the edge. He bounced and curved into a smooth dive. The water scarcely rippled as he entered.

As his head bobbed to the surface, his hair tight and slick against his head, Gretchen swam fast. She came up beside him. “Tommy.” He would help her.

His head turned toward her.

She looked at a stranger, blue eyes that slid away, lips pressed together, no trace of a smile, no warmth. It seemed impossible that her lips had touched his, that she'd felt the beat of his heart, the long hard line of his body.

“Tommy? What's wrong?” The sun blazed down, spilling hot golden light, but she felt cold as winter. “Is it last night? I didn't come to the movie because I had to work.”

“No.” It was a mumble, scarcely heard.

“Then what's wrong?” If Tommy wouldn't help her . . .

He stared at her with those stranger's eyes as they treaded water. “I saw your story on Mrs. Tatum. You made her sound like she was somebody wonderful—instead of a cheating whore.”

She knew the word. She'd only heard it in whispers before. She'd never heard anyone she knew called that. “Tommy, Barb said she just wanted to dance. That's all.”

“Oh, sure.” His voice was ugly with sarcasm. “Some guy was sneaking in their house late at night just to talk about dancing, I guess.” He threw out his hands like he was pushing away garbage and the water rippled away. “She was a whore. No wonder he killed her. He ought to get a medal. Just like I'd kill the guy who took my mom away. If I could. She ran away with a guy.” His face squeezed with pain, he ducked down, and all that was left was a flurry of movement in the dark water.

Gretchen turned and swam away from the deep, didn't stop until she was in the middle of a group of little kids and then she hunkered down, well hidden from shore, the mud of the lake bottom squishy against her knees.

The big clock over the concession stand read 10:07.

Gretchen pressed her hands into the cold mud. Tommy hated her. And all because of what she wrote. But couldn't he understand? The answer was clear and cold. No, he didn't want to understand. He wanted to hate. Hate . . . that's what the mutter of the crowd had meant last night. Hatred and fear. She'd hoped Tommy would help her, go with her to save Clyde Tatum. But she couldn't count on Tommy. Not now. Not ever. And Clyde Tatum was still in danger. But he was safe as long as he stayed at the cabin. Surely he wouldn't go out during daylight. He'd told Grandmother he would turn himself in to the chief after Friday night. At least, he'd said he hoped to see everyone he wanted to see by then. Those lists on the old wooden table—were those people he hadn't yet talked to? If so, his time was running out. If he skulked around town, looking worn and rumpled and dirty and dangerous, some people were ready with their guns.

Gretchen pushed up. She swished her hands, and mud swirled into the dark water. She shaded her eyes. Mother would help. Maybe Gretchen could make up a story, say Tommy had heard that Barb had run away and might be at the Purdy cabin. . . .

Gretchen's gaze darted across the water. There they were! Mother and Sam swimming side by side on their way out to the wooden float. It was a long way out. Not many people swam out to the float, the older boys sometimes, but usually only if a pretty girl had gone there first. Gretchen dived, swam fast. She didn't pause until she reached the square wooden raft bobbing in the water. She came up beside it, held on to the warm wood. The float rocked gently, pulling her up and down. She looked around, seeing no one. She pushed away, swam completely around the float. Mother and Sam had come out here but nearby she saw only the Jenkins twins, squabbling over an inner tube. Mother and Sam must have dived down and come up underneath the float in the gauzy, brownish green, two-foot space between the platform and the water. Gretchen took a deep breath, curled down. She kicked and rose in the water, a hand outstretched to grip the rough edge of one of the barrels supporting the platform. Her head came out of the water. She blinked the water from her eyes. Her mouth opened but no sound came. In the wavering moss green light, Lorraine and Sam embraced, their bodies melded into a single form, her hand, the fingernails a glossy red, tight against his neck, drawing down his face to her uplifted lips.

The water closed over Gretchen's head as she dived down, down and away.

CHAPTER 9

WAS IT JEALOUSY that caused me to run away from the lake that day? Of course. Jealousy and fear. I didn't want to lose Mother. I didn't want to share her. I knew—I needed no one to tell me though I was yet to experience passion—that the embrace beneath the float signaled a connection I didn't want to accept. I never had a chance later to ask her if she knew why I left the lake. There was so much I never told her, never told anyone. Perhaps it was only now that I understood what that summer cost me. I felt abandoned by my mother and by my friends and by Tommy, the first boy I'd kissed. Years later as we sat on the terrace of a hotel in La Jolla, my husband of a few weeks—Edward, whom I'd married after years as a divorced single mother—looked at me with brooding, puzzled eyes when I deftly deflected a gentle question about my past. “Don't you trust me, G. G.?” My response was quick. “Of course, Edward. But it's too lovely a morning to be solemn. And all of that was so many years ago.” I'd flung down my napkin and jumped to my feet, pointing out to sea. “Look, there's a whale. Look out beyond the headland.”

Look away, look away. . . .

 
GRETCHEN STOPPED RUNNING. She gasped for breath. Her lungs ached. Her heart pounded. Tears mixed with sweat, stinging her flushed face. Mother only met him a week ago. How could she kiss him like that? But he was going to go away soon. Everything would be all right when he left.

She moved forward, her swimsuit uncomfortable beneath her blouse and shorts. She'd grabbed her clothes from the backseat of the car, pulled them on, slipped her feet into her sandals, used a borrowed pencil to scrawl a note on a napkin from the concession stand, placed the message on the front seat:
Gone home. Gretchen.
All she thought about was escape, escape from her mother and from the girls she'd thought were her friends and from Tommy. But every step on the road took her nearer the trail to the Purdy cabin.

She hesitated, almost turned back to the lake. She didn't want to go into the woods. But someone had to warn Clyde Tatum. Only three people knew where he was, Gretchen and Grandmother and the woman who'd called Grandmother to ask for help for Clyde.

Gretchen forced herself forward, one reluctant step after another. Soon the sweat didn't matter. She didn't think about her mother and Sam or the lake or the girls or Tommy. There was nothing in the world but the hot, dusty road and the inner coldness of fear.

She came around the bend and stopped, staring at the faint gap, almost indistinguishable in the tangled undergrowth of the woods. Birds chittered. Cicadas whirred. Leaves sighed in the breeze. Alone. She was all alone. There was no one to walk with her.

She had to go down that trail.

The thought glittered bright as the sun. No matter what happened, no matter how terrible it was to walk in the dim, silent woods, she had to warn Clyde Tatum.

Abruptly, she hurried across the road, plunged into the murky half-light, moving fast before she could change her mind. She didn't try to be quiet. She slapped away at the branches of the honey locust, broke twigs, scuffed against the dirt. If she let the silence of the woods slip over her, fear would balloon inside until she dropped to the ground and hid.

She brushed against wild hydrangea. Bracken ferns clutched at her. Vines and branches whipped against her bare arms and legs. She plunged into the overgrown clearing. The cabin almost seemed a part of the woods, heavy branches of a post oak crowding against the roof, eight-foot-tall gooseberry shrubs banked against the walls. Waist-high grasses wavered in the breeze. Ivy masked one end of the porch. The rotten steps sagged. The dirt-grimed windowpanes were as blank as dead eyes.

“Mr. Tatum!” Her voice wavered, high and shrill. “Mr. Tatum, Mr. Tatum . . .” He wouldn't be afraid of a girl's voice. “It's Gretchen Gilman, Barb's friend. Mr. Tatum . . .”

Despite the sounds of summer and the rustle of the woods, silence flowed over her thick and quiet as fog rising from a pond. Gretchen's breathing slowed. She reached down, rubbed one ankle. She was eaten up by chiggers. “Mr. Tatum . . .” She broke off. He wasn't here. She'd come all this way, been scared to pieces, and he wasn't here. Gretchen ducked her head, used the collar of her blouse to mop sweat from her face. She stared at the cabin, the silence thick and heavy in the clearing. Maybe he'd already gone to turn himself in. The thought lifted her for an instant. But if he hadn't, if he was coming back here . . .

She took a deep breath, remembering the dirty rough table and the scraps of paper from grocery sacks. He'd written down names with a thick-leaded pencil. She would have to leave a note, warning that people were looking for him and they had guns. She'd print in block letters and be careful not to leave any fingerprints.

Gretchen made no effort to be quiet. She strode briskly through the tall rippling grass, silencing the rasp of the cicadas for an instant, and climbed the shade-dappled steps. The old wood planks on the porch creaked under her weight. The door was open. She was in a hurry now, eager to leave a message and be gone.

She reached the doorway, stopped.

“Oh . . .” The voice, scarcely audible over the renewed crescendo of the cicadas, was hers, a faint moan of sound. “Oh . . . oh . . .” She backed away. She carried with her an indelible memory of the dim, crowded, junk-filled cabin and the body of Clyde Tatum slumped over the table.

She jerked about, clattered down the steps, thrashed through the grass, flailed into the woods, tearing through creepers and vines. She stumbled over a log, fell, scrambled to get up, and knew she was lost. Trembling, she stared around the forest. She needed to retrace her steps, find the path to the road. She had to get help somewhere. She felt sick with horror. Barb's dad was dead, dead, dead. . . .

“You are surrounded.” The deep heavy voice boomed through the woods. “Come out with your hands up. We are armed. Come out . . .”

Gretchen ducked behind a white ash, pressed against the thick trunk. The shouted commands continued, loud and menacing. Cautiously, she slipped back the way she'd come, wormed her way among the low-slung branches of a magnolia, dropped to her knees behind a branch with huge glossy leaves, the scent of the flower sickeningly sweet, and peered into the clearing.

Sheriff Moore stood at the bottom of the cabin steps, a bullhorn in one hand, his big black service pistol in the other. A shaft of sunlight pierced the canopy of the trees. The brim of his cowboy hat shadowed the upper part of his face, but the harsh summer light exposed the taut muscles of his cheeks, the jut of his chin, the ridged cords in his neck. The gun in his hand moved back and forth, slowly, gently, like the head of a swaying cobra.

Gretchen scarcely breathed. She'd never seen a man poised to kill. There was threat in every line of the sheriff's tall, angular body. Fanned in a semicircle behind him were Chief Fraser, Sergeant Holliman, Sergeant Petty, and Donald Durwood.

Chief Fraser stood a few paces in front of his officers. The chief's bulbous, seamed face was alert, his rheumy eyes mournful. He leaned forward, head to one side, big shoulders bunched as if straining to hear. Sergeant Holliman's hat was tilted over his bandage. He crouched like a linebacker ready to bull across the line. Sergeant Petty, bright red lips pressed together, legs braced, held her gun in both hands like she stood on a firing range. Sweat beaded Donald Durwood's face. He was empty handed.

Durwood watched the doorway, eyes wide, staring, puzzled. “Maybe the note's a hoax. This place doesn't look like anybody's been here in years.”

“Quiet.” The sheriff thrust down the hand with the bullhorn, as imperative as the finish flag at the racetrack. The sheriff cocked his head, listening. He took a slow step forward. “Come out of there, Tatum.” Another careful step. “Or I'm coming in to get you.”

“Wait a minute.” Chief Fraser strode forward.

Sheriff Moore remained rigid as a lamppost. He didn't turn his head. His eyes never left the gray oblong of the open doorway. “I'm going to count to five. And then I'm going to start shooting. One—”

The chief gripped Moore's elbow. “Christ, man, he could have gunned us all down by now. Give me a chance. Let me go up there.” He took a deep breath. “Let me try.”

“And have him grab you? Use you as a hostage? I'm telling you, Buck,” the sheriff said, dropping the words like dirt clods on a coffin, “the man's got a gun.”