The Deepest Cut (25 page)

At the counter, Vining paid for a large sausage pizza she’d ordered over the phone. She thought she’d surprise Emily with her favorite. She knew Granny enjoyed a slice of Tarantino’s pizza even though she’d been having problems with her dentures lately. Vining thought there was a bag of prewashed spring salad greens in the fridge. Dinner was going to be later than she’d wanted, but she was happy she was going to be able to sit down at a table with her daughter and grandmother. When she was overly tired, she had a tendency to become sentimental
and vulnerable. She needed the anchor of the two relatives who were most precious to her. Her grandmother was a tie to her past. Her daughter was her hope for the future.

She adored her younger sister Stephanie, but their bond had weakened over the past years as stay-at-home-mom Stephanie’s life became focused on her husband and two little boys. Vining appreciated Steph’s commitment to her family but wondered if she was using it as an excuse to distance herself. Vining felt her attempted murder had damaged a fragile equilibrium and Steph was now circling the wagons around her husband and kids. While Vining was recovering from her injuries, Steph had done and said the right things, but Vining sensed she was doing it more from obligation than from love and a heartfelt desire to help.

Now, over a year later, Steph was often unavailable to meet for shopping and lunch, just the two of them. As their grandmother became frailer, Steph had become nearly invisible. Vining doubted Steph was as busy as she claimed, but had convinced herself she was. Vining felt like telling her that life was hectic, complicated, and it frequently stank, but that was no reason to wash her hands of familial responsibilities. She was going to have that conversation with her sister, once her own life stopped being so hectic and complicated.

Their childhoods had been a sea of upheaval and unsettledness. Products of different marriages of their perennially rainbow-chasing mother, Patsy, each sister’s father had abandoned her when she was a toddler. That was Patsy’s explanation. Vining suspected that Patsy had chased them away, but an abandonment story carried more drama. Vining was four years older than Steph and had dim memories of her sister’s father, but none of her own. In a way, both sisters felt their lives were held together with duct tape, paper clips, and dreams of building better lives and sounder families.

They didn’t much resemble each other physically. Steph was fair and petite, like their mother. Brunette, statuesque Vining had always been told she resembled her father.

As for their mother, Patsy Brightly, the sisters maintained a respectable level of contact, yet kept a reasonable distance, as one would
do with a stingray, tiger, tarantula, or any other beautiful but potentially destructive creature.

VINING HEADED HOME, TRAVELING WEST ON COLORADO BOULEVARD AND
going over Suicide Bridge. She reached Mt. Washington from the opposite direction she usually went, taking San Rafael up the hill, then going down the other side, turning left onto her cul-de-sac, Stella Place. The aroma of the pizza sitting on the passenger seat made her stomach rumble.

A car she didn’t recognize, a brand-new white BMW convertible that still had the dealer plates, was parked in front of the house. She assumed it belonged to a guest of her new, unfriendly neighbors who had constructed a modern behemoth with a gated entrance after razing two boxy 1960s-era homes from the original housing development.

Vining drove up to
her
boxy 1960s home. It looked small from the street, as most of the house extended off the hillside, supported by cantilevers. Sure, she worried whenever there was a significant temblor or when El Niño came and the ensuing rains seemed as if the heavens had opened, but Mt. Washington’s cliff-hanging houses had been secured into solid rock and built with care not given to the slapdash, newly constructed homes built too close together on unstable hillsides that seemed to be always slipping away. That’s what she told herself when the earth shook like hell or the mountain seemed to be melting into mud. Brush fires had not presented a significant problem so far.

Granny’s baby-blue Oldsmobile Delta ’88 was parked in the driveway. The lights in the front of the house were off, although she could see the flickering of the television through the drapes. The darkness was Granny’s doing; she had never shaken the WWII-era mentality of pinching pennies wherever she could, even if they were her granddaughter’s pennies.

When Vining entered the driveway, a motion light turned on, illuminating the small front yard. The yard had a patch of grass that she or Emily occasionally mowed, hearty shrubs next to the house, and
equally hearty old rosebushes planted by the previous owner, which bloomed defiantly with the smallest amount of care.

She always waited until she could see the garage before clicking the automatic opener, making sure no one sneaked in. She’d adapted her life in many ways since T. B. Mann had become a part of it. Her precautions had done little good, as he’d gotten inside her garage to deliver the bloody shirt, but the garage wasn’t alarmed like the house. She and Em were fastidious about setting the alarm.

If he did get inside the house, Vining’s weapons were close at hand. Emily was well trained on Vining’s Glock .40 and her backup Walther PPK, as well as the arsenal in the locked gun case. Em knew that under pressure she should grab the Mossberg 500. She didn’t need perfect aim, as it would stop anything within twenty feet of her.

Vining parked the Crown Vic next to her aging Jeep Cherokee in the two-car garage. She was counting the months, and there were not many, before Emily would get her driver’s license. Her ex-husband Wes’s too-young, too-thin, and too-involved wife, Kaitlyn, wanted to give Emily a new car for her sixteenth birthday. Vining thought that Kaitlyn had too much disposable income and time on her hands, even with two boys aged five and three— the distraction of which was mitigated by ample paid help— and was too concerned with appearances. They would need another car, as Vining took home one of the Crown Vics only when she was on call, but Em didn’t need something brand-new.

Vining viewed this transition with both relief and trepidation. Emily being able to drive would simplify things, but would bring a new set of concerns. She had nurtured Emily’s self-respect and sense of right and wrong and had imparted tools to navigate life’s murky waters. She no longer knew, every minute of the day, where Emily was and what she was doing. She had to trust Em to do the right thing, while always reminding the girl that her mother was remaining ever-vigilant to insure that she did.

Emily was relishing this journey. Her new school had brought new challenges and friends. Watching Emily break out of the dark shell that had kept daughter and mother so tightly bound made Vining’s heart soar. It was time for Emily to break from the past.

Vining felt the need as well. Her thoughts again trailed to Kissick. Her cheeks burned when she thought of the impulsive phone message she’d left him. Oh, well … She’d meant what she’d said. In spite of the recent prickly edges between them, she wanted him, and she wanted him here.

She threw her purse over her shoulder, grabbed her jacket, and hoisted the pizza with one hand. Beside the door into the house were the washer, dryer, and the laundry basket in which Emily had discovered the bloody shirt.

Vining opened the dryer door and saw that the clothes that Em had gone to retrieve that night were still inside. Vining decided that even though they were clean, she’d wash them. Maybe she’d throw away that laundry basket and buy a new one. The handle was cracked and about to break anyway.

Suddenly, Vining was overwhelmed with the desire to move on with her life. Lately, she’d often felt fed up and ready for a change, but now the yearning was almost physical, like a blow to her guts, or like someone compressing her heart between his hands.

Again, like all the times before, her helium balloon of hope grew a lead coat and dragged her crashing back to earth. She could not move on as long as
he
was still out there. T. B. Mann had broken her down and remade her. To get back her life, she had to repay the favor. She’d break him down, all right, and grind him into pulp.

TWENTY-SIX

V
INING OPENED THE DOOR FROM THE GARAGE INTO THE KITCHEN.
The prealarm sounded. She was barely able to hear it over the blaring television. Granny still wasn’t wearing her hearing aid.

She set her purse on the kitchen counter and dropped her jacket onto a dinette chair. Turning the oven on low, she shoved the pizza inside.

She heard the television in the next room broadcasting that Celine Dion song from the movie
Titanic,
but a woman other than Celine was singing. At the song’s final note, a wave of whimsy hit Vining and she closed the oven door with a flourish, doing a half pirouette and posing with her hand in the air. The television audience applauded thunderously.

Walking from the kitchen into the adjacent television room, she saw Nanette Brown, her grandmother, reclined in the Lay-Z-Boy, covered with the chenille throw, dead asleep, snoring vigorously.

The television was broadcasting
Dancing with the Stars.
Vining picked up the remote control from Granny’s lap, taking a moment to marvel at the indestructibility of the old woman’s set-and-comb-out, which she had done once a week by the same hairstylist she’d gone to for decades, ever since she’d closed the beauty parlor that she had run
out of her home. Vining and her sister had spent many an after-school afternoon there.

Vining looked at her grandmother’s lank hand atop the throw. Granny was wearing, as always, her diamond wedding set. Her husband, Wade, the foreman of a local machine shop, deceased for fifteen years, had added baguettes and round stones at each ten-year anniversary of their fifty-year marriage. Ever-present on Granny’s arm were the heavy gold bangles Wade had given her over the years. Nanette and Wade had lived modestly, raising two girls and a boy in the Alham-bra home where Nanette still lived. Vining’s mother, Patsy, was the problematic middle child. Jewelry was Nanette’s indulgence, and Wade loved spoiling her. A friend who worked in downtown L.A.’s jewelry district finagled discounts.

Other than her jewelry and perfectly coiffed hair, Nanette’s indulgence was manicures, also a legacy from her beauty-shop days. She had her nails polished pink during spring, coral in summer, burgundy in fall, and red for the holidays. As it was early September, her nails were coral.

Vining shook her head at the expensive jewelry. She’d told Granny a million times not to wear it when she was going around town by herself. All Granny would say in response was “These old things?”

She clicked off the television.

Granny bolted upright, pushing down the recliner’s footrest and snapping it into place, flinging off the throw, and was about to spring from the chair before she turned and saw Vining.

“Granny, it’s me.”

“Heavens to Betsy.” Granny put a hand to her chest. “You scared me within an inch of my life.”

“I’m sorry I startled you, but the television’s so loud, you couldn’t hear the prealarm.”

“Say again?”

Vining repeated what she had said, almost yelling, ending with, “Where’s your hearing aid?”

“The battery’s dead.”

Vining released an annoyed sigh.

“I’ll get one tomorrow.”

“I don’t want you driving like that.”

“Stop worrying about me.” Granny grabbed Vining’s hand and patted it, grinning broadly. Her false teeth looked oversize in her mouth. She was shrinking, but the teeth remained the same size.

“We’ll go to the drugstore tonight after we eat. I picked up a pizza. I know it’s late for dinner.”

“I like pizza anytime. The crust is a little hard for me to chew, but I can eat the toppings.” Granny scooted to the front of the chair seat, put both hands on the chair arms, and hoisted herself up, rejecting the hand that Vining offered. “I can get up by myself. I’m not that decrepit yet.”

Vining thought she looked thinner. “Why can’t you chew pizza crust?”

“My dentures are bothering me.”

“Why don’t you get them fixed?”

“I need to have new ones made.”

“So … ?”

“My insurance only pays for part of it.”

“Granny …”

She walked past Vining and through the doorway into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about me so much. Your old grandmother can still take care of herself.”

Vining wasn’t so sure. Granny had been a mountain in Vining’s life, a forceful, dependable, larger-than-life figure. While her mind was still sharp, over the past year, she’d become frail. Vining felt guilty. Had the stress of her attempted murder sucked up the last of her grandmother’s vitality?

Granny leaned into the doorway off the kitchen that led to Emily’s room downstairs. With her bejeweled hand against the side of her mouth, she shouted, “Emily, your mother’s home.”

Now that the television was off, Vining could hear hip-hop music emanating from downstairs.

Before Granny could yell again, Vining halted her with a hand on her arm. She unhooked her cell phone from her belt and pressed the
speed-dial combination to call Emily’s cell phone. “Hi, sweet pea. I’m home. I picked up a Tarantino’s pizza.”

Granny shook her head and went to the cupboard. “Kids today.” She took out four plates and set them around the dinette table. Then she took out four place settings of flatware.

“Granny there’s just three of us.”

Emily stepped from the staircase into the kitchen. Since Em had started her new school, she’d taken to wearing black. The outfit she wore now had to have been enabled by her stepmother, Kaitlyn, who loved to take Em shopping. Her black, skintight, cigarette-leg jeans were crumpled where the hems reached her black tennis shoes. On top, she wore a sheer black T-shirt with a lacy purple camisole beneath it. Both were lower-cut and tighter than anything Vining had seen Emily wear before. Emily had the figure for it. That was the problem. When Emily had started her new school, Vining had allowed her to start wearing a little makeup, but today Em was wearing copious black eyeliner and smoky eye shadow.