Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (22 page)

I wasn’t paralyzed by the tires crashed into the shelves of headlights and windshield wipers and slashed into jagged ribbons of rubber. Or even by the fingers of glass clawing out from the window frame that had once separated Maharry’s workshop from the showroom—or the shards of pottery from the potted plant, now lying in soil that reeked of urine. Not even the remains of the window to the office, still sparkling from Zelda’s last shining and now lying on the floor in shattered bits—not even that rooted me to the floor. It was the lower half of the walls that froze me there.

All the price lists and faded posters of outdated custom jobs had been stripped from them. Soapy water from the now overturned bucket had been thrown against the naked space, but I could still see parts of the misshapen faces that had been painted there. One mouth was twisted in pain. A pair of eyes were wild, beyond frightened. One cheek was pinched with the same terror that was strangling me.

The painter had done his work in blood.

There was no mistaking it. Its metallic taste seared my tongue, and the odor alone was a brutal assault, even above the smell of urine. Sherry had obviously been trying to scrub it off, but some of it oozed the few feet to the floor and brought with it the slow, ugly realization that I knew those faces.

I turned to Sherry. Her skin was gray, her eyes colorless. She was holding the half-empty bucket in one hand and the scrub brush in the other as she looked right through me and headed back to the wall.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m getting rid of this—”

I snatched the pail from her and smashed her against me with my forearm so that she faced outward. She swore into the mess in a voice raucous with panic.

“Turn loose of me! I got to get rid of this!”

“It’s evidence, Sherry. The police will need to see it.”

She let go of another barrage of profanity in the midst of which I heard, “No cops!”

I pulled her closer. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You haven’t done anything wrong. They can find out who did.”

“It was just vandals. You think you know this neighborhood, Miss Angel, but you don’t. We just wash away vandals around here and move on.”

“This wasn’t no vandals.”

We both looked up to see Zelda standing behind the counter with her bag still over her shoulder. Sherry wrenched away from me, her expletives now pointed at Zelda.

“I told you on the phone not to come in today!”

“And I tol’
you
that you sounded like somebody done strangled you. I don’t just leave my Sister soundin’ like that.”

“Go home,” Sherry said.

It was too late for that. Zelda was already out from behind the counter, moving closer to the walls. I knew the moment she registered what she was seeing. Her knees gave way and she slithered onto the floor. I felt the pain shoot up my own arms as her hands came down hard on the broken glass. But the guttural scream that tore from her throat had nothing to do with the shrapnel she was crawling in toward what was left of the gruesome portraits.

“That’s you, Sherry. And Mercedes—and Miss Angel. Oh,
Lord
! That’s me! Somebody done drew me in
blood
!”

Zelda caved into the fetid potting soil and buried her forehead in the rubble.

“I’m sorry, Sherry,” I said, “but we are
getting
the police. I’ll call Nick Kent.”

“Please, Miss Angel—”

“This is a threat—”

“They’ll say it was just somebody on drugs.”

I didn’t say this wasn’t merely someone having a bad trip. I didn’t have to. She couldn’t meet my eyes because she knew it too.

“Just don’t wash any more of it off,” I said. “Okay? Help Zelda.”

Sherry shook her head at me, but she set the bucket down and went to Zelda who had covered her face with two bloody hands. I turned to Maharry. He had managed to get to his feet, but he was shocked into stillness where he stood.

“What do you want me to do, Maharry?” I said.

“I’m through,” he said.

“No you’re not.” I touched his hand. His skin was dry and cold. “In the first place, you didn’t have anybody else’s car in here, so you’re not liable. Your insurance will cover this. But they’ll need a police report—”

“I don’t have insurance, you silly woman!” The old voice split. “In this neighborhood, it would have eaten up all my profits. I was about to get some. Things were looking up and I was going to get some.”

He was slipping. Police or no police, I at least had to get him medical attention. And probably Zelda, too.

“Sherry,” I said, “bring your dad some water. Get his pills. Zelda? Can you hear me?”

Zelda nodded as Sherry left her rocking on the floor to go to the back.

“How badly are you bleeding?”

“That’s blood on the walls,” she said.

“I know, but let’s talk about
your
blood. Let me see your wrists.”

She held up both hands as if they belonged to someone else. The blood wasn’t spurting. By some miracle she hadn’t severed a vein, and yet I felt a wave of nausea that nearly knocked me down.

“Somebody that knows us did that, Miss Angel,” Zelda said.

There was no point in arguing with her.

The eyes in the drawing belonged to Mercedes, though I had never seen them that terrified. Nor did I tear out handfuls of my own hair the way a sick somebody had portrayed the remaining portion of me. As for Zelda, that mouth was hers. She was out of her mind on that wall, too far out to ever come back.

But the strangest of all was unmistakably Sherry. Her thin hair had been painted away from her face in cruel slashes, but what shot through my soul was the patch drawn over her right eye.

These weren’t distorted depictions of Zelda and Sherry and Mercedes and me as someone saw us. They were precise portrayals of the way someone wanted us to be.

A net of fear dropped over me.

“Here, Daddy.”

Sherry was there, pressing pills into Maharry’s shaking hand. I pulled Zelda up and walked her gingerly among the fragments of glass to the counter, as if that could keep this whole ghastly scene from breaking down any further.

Behind the counter the file cabinet lay against Sherry’s desk chair like a startled assault victim, its lock still stubbornly intact. It occurred to me that the lock on the front door was also still in place. Had this person broken in the back door, then? He had to be hard-core, because that door had four different dead bolts on it, one for each time a crime had been committed on Maharry’s property.

Zelda wiped her seeping hands on the seat of her jeans and opened a drawer in the other desk, just beyond the small, now-broken window between Sherry’s area and Maharry’s office.

“They didn’t take the money,” she said.

“There’s money in there?” I said. “What was Maharry thinking?”

“A customer paid cash yesterday, and Maharry, he finished up too late to go the bank, so he put it in the desk. Sherry was gon’ deposit it this morning.” Zelda looked up at me, eyes almost as wild as they were in the painting. “There’s a gun in here too, Miss Angel.”

“Don’t touch it,” I said. “Just come back out here.”

Zelda pushed the drawer closed and stumbled for me. I caught her against my chest and held on. Her fingers latched on to the back of my vest which was by now saturated in sweat.

“Did you come in the back just now?” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Were the locks broken?”

Zelda shook her head. “The door wasn’t locked at all. That’s how I got in. You know that ol’ man ain’t gonna give me no keys.”

“Okay. How are your hands? Is there any glass in them?”

She pulled back and looked at her palms as if she’d forgotten she had been crawling through debris. The odor of blood and urine from the potting soil was almost suffocating. Whoever did this couldn’t just leave the bodily fluids at blood?

“Okay,” I said. “We need to wash those. You want help?”

Zelda shook her head again, but she stayed there, close to me.

“What?” I said.

“I liked workin’ here. That old man was in my business all the time, but I was makin’ a difference here. Now that’s all gone.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. Lied. “Come on, Zel, let’s get you cleaned up so I can see if you need stitches.”

I had to steer her into the bathroom, but she did let me run warm water over her hands. Dirt and blood washed down the drain, leaving several angry contusions in view on her creamy palms, but remarkably, none of them was deep.

“It’s not bad,” I said.

“Not this time.” Her still-wild eyes met mine in the mirror. “Only one person I know hates me enough to do somethin’ like this. And he hates you, too, Miss Angel.”

I waited. I didn’t want to put anything into her head that wasn’t already there.

“This have Marcus Rydell all over it,” she said. “You remember me and him was together.”

“Oh, I remember,” I said. “But I didn’t know Marcus was an artist.”

“He design his own tattoos. And mine.”

I didn’t ask her where it was on her anatomy.

Zelda shivered. “You know what really creepin’ me out about this, Miss Angel?”

“All of it?” I said.

“No. Where did he get all that blood?”

That was a thought I’d been shoving aside ever since I realized that was this sicko’s medium. As I knew it would, it chilled me to the marrow.

“It’s probably not human, Zel.”

“Miss Angel!”

It was Sherry, screaming from the showroom. I pushed past Zelda and flew through the door and around the counter, skidding as I went. Sherry was kneeling on the floor next to a half-bald push broom and a rusty metal dustpan and her father. Maharry was motionless and ashen.

“He’s not breathing!” she said.

I virtually threw the phone behind me at Zelda. “Call 911,” I said, and then flung myself at Maharry.

“What are you doing?” Sherry said.

“CPR.”

“What can I do?”

“You pray,” I said. “Pray hard.”

CHAPTER TEN

Somewhere between the paramedics taking over and Maharry threading his way back to life, the police arrived. By then Sherry didn’t seem to notice, or care, that within ten minutes C.A.R.S. was being sifted by two crime-scene investigators and a pair of officers. She sat by her father’s head, rocking back and forth and whispering, “Please, God, don’t take my daddy,” until a female paramedic with soulful eyes led her to the front seat of the ambulance. Even then, Sherry leaned out the window and reached for me. Her hands were icy between mine.

“God won’t take my daddy now, will he, Miss Angel? Not right when he started to trust me again?”

“If your daddy leaves us now, Sher,” I said, “I’m not sure that’s God’s doing.”

“Then it’s mine.”

Her face crumpled, but there was no chance to take that further. The paramedic slid into the driver’s seat and patted Sherry’s leg.

“Let’s get your dad to the hospital,” she said.

“This is not your fault, Sherry,” I whispered.

But she couldn’t have heard me over the sudden shriek of the ambulance, warning everyone in its path that this was a crisis worth getting out of the way for.

Nick Kent pulled up just as they were leaving. Without him there, I wasn’t sure I could have gotten either Zelda or me through the questioning by the investigating team. Their biggest concern seemed to be why Sherry had tried to wash away evidence.

“Wouldn’t you freak out if you saw your portrait in blood on the wall?” I said to a particularly scoffy boy-man who already had a minigut on him.

“What makes you so sure those are portraits?” he said.

I didn’t answer.

“You got everything you need?” Nick said to him. “The paramedics said Miss Zelda needs a tetanus shot.”

“I’d get about three of them,” the other officer said. “Somebody took a leak in the plant.”

My precious, freckle-faced Nick gave him a searing look.

“We’re going to need to question”—Boy-Man glanced at his notebook—“Sherry Nelson.”

“She’s with her dying father,” I said.

“It’ll keep, Hickson,” Nick said.

I didn’t hang around for the rest of that discussion. Zelda was back to staring at the grisly gallery and melting toward the floor, and I needed to get her out of there. On the way to the bike I called Liz. She was the only person who could keep Zelda from tumbling over the precipice she was looking over.

Liz arrived at the hospital the same time we did, hair askew and eyes blinking, but able to soothe Zelda almost at the sight of her. Still, it took two of us to keep her from curling into a fetal position when the nurse produced the syringe. Most of the Sisters had used more needles than the average person saw in a lifetime, but break out the legal injections and they were like preschoolers facing their vaccinations. Maybe it simply stirred the memories from their graves.

When Liz left to take Zelda back to Sacrament House, I went to check on Maharry. They were still working on him in the ER, but I found Sherry in the same small, stark waiting room where I’d spent a tortured hour five months ago when Chief was hurt. She was spending hers with Officer Boy-Man.

“You couldn’t give her a minute?” I said to him.

Hickson stood up from the faux leather couch, leaving a damp imprint behind him. “We don’t like people’s memories to get cold. We’re through for now.”

“For now?”

“She’s a little foggy on a few of the details.” He looked down at Sherry, who was staring at the knees she was knocking into each other, over and over, faster and faster. “Where can I reach you if I have any more questions?”

“Through me,” I said.

I extracted a card from the back pocket of my jeans and handed it to him.

“Sacrament House.” He looked at me in midscoff. “Oh. Yeah.”

I could see him dumping the case in the Pointless Investigation file, the same way he shoved the card into his shirt pocket. I would have said, “
Oh, yeah
what?
”
if Sherry’s thighs hadn’t threatened to shake her right off the chair. I might have said it anyway if Hank hadn’t come in just then, bringing her endless supply of calm with her.

She nodded at Hickson and we all watched him saunter out “like a bad dude,” as Desmond would say.

“Liz told me what happened,” Hank said. “You okay, Sherry?”

“He didn’t believe anything I said.”

I sat on the magazine table to face her. “What did you tell him?”

“That I was trying to wash that stuff off the wall so my daddy wouldn’t have a heart attack when he figured out what it was.” She jerked her head. “I guess I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Did he get on your case about destroying evidence?”

“He just said I made it harder for them to find out who did it.” She glanced at me with eyes that still hadn’t regained their color. “I told him it was probably taggers. Things have gotten worse since just about everybody left the block.”

“Why did you tell him that, Sherry? This was clearly done by someone who knows us. Zelda thinks it was Marcus Rydell—”

“You’re as bad as that cop!”

Sherry shot out of the chair and crossed to the wall under the television flickering soundlessly above her head. She stood with her rickety back to us, clutching at her sides.

“I can’t talk about this while my daddy is in there dyin’ and nobody will tell me anything.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. Let’s focus on Maharry.”

“Ms. Nelson?”

A nurse in blue scrubs swung into the doorway. Sherry turned and froze.

“You can see your father now. But just for a few minutes.”

Sherry went for the door and I started to follow, but she shook her head at me and said, “I can do this on my own.”

When she hurried off with the nurse, I sank against the door jamb.

“Nicely done, Allison,” I said.

Hank touched my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. She doesn’t know what to do right now.”

“Evidently neither do I.”

“You want a sandwich or something while we wait?”

“Good grief, what time is it?” I looked at my watch. “It’s after noon. Flannery’s still over at Sacrament House.”

“Why don’t you go get her? I’ll stay with Sherry.”

“You sure?”

“This is family, Al. I’ll keep you updated. Go on, get out of here.” Hank waggled her fingers at my chest. “And, uh, I suggest you clean up a little before you show up at the house.”

I looked down at myself. The front of my vest was like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. And so, I knew, was my soul.

When I finally got to Sacrament Two, Gigi was serving a salad to Liz and Zelda that must have emptied out Owen’s entire crop. Rochelle sat at the table with them, still wearing her gardening gloves. Flannery’s were nowhere to be seen.

“This just torques my jaw,” Owen said from the front window where he was peeking out between Ophelia’s curtains as if the C.A.R.S. vandals might be heading up the driveway and he was going to be ready for them. “It gets my dander all the way up. I’m telling you, it jars my preserves.”

“It does
what
?” Gigi said.

Flannery tugged at my sleeve and put her lips so close to my ear I was sure my lobes were being glossed. “Can we go? If I have to be around him one more minute, my head is going to explode.”

I couldn’t say I felt that much different. As much as I loved him, the day had frayed my nerves beyond Owen toleration.

Liz assured me she’d stay with the group for the rest of the afternoon until Mercedes got home. Flannery didn’t register her usual complaints about having to ride on the Harley. She donned Desmond’s helmet almost before I got to the curb. But I was more surprised when she said, “So does everybody always just, like, drop everything when something like this goes down?”

“We do,” I said. “Nobody can get through this kind of thing alone.”

Her chin came up, tilting the too-big helmet backward. “I’ve gotten through plenty of stuff by myself.”

“I guess that depends on your definition of getting through. You can either stuff it and keep going and not let anybody know it’s getting to you. Or you can deal with it, and that usually takes more than just you.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

I looked into the eyes that questioned me through the smoky visor. At least for that moment, she didn’t appear to be throwing down the gauntlet, so I pieced the fragile words together.

“If you don’t let somebody in to help you face it, a place in you is wounded. We’re about healing wounds here.”

Flannery looked away as if someone had tapped her on the shoulder and reminded her to stay buttoned up.

“I was just curious,” she said. “So don’t bother asking me if I’ve got any wounds.”

“I don’t have to,” I said.

I left it at that and swung onto the bike. She stood there for another few seconds before she climbed on behind me. As we pulled away from Sacrament Two and eased around the corner toward West King, I wondered whether it was my wishful imagination, or if she really was holding onto me less like a terrified spider monkey than usual.

Until we got halfway down the block of West King where the Magic Moment Bar was losing the battle for survival. Without any provocation that I could see, Flannery suddenly grabbed my left arm and sent the bike wobbling. I gave it some gas and focused on straightening the wheel until I could steer it into the pockmarked parking lot in front of what was left of Titus Tattoo.

“You don’t have to stop!” Flannery said.

“Yeah, I do. We almost lost it.” I twisted to look at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, though judging from the terror in her eyes she was anything but. “Let’s just go.”

“Not until you promise you’re not going to grab my arm again.”

“I’m sorry, okay? You don’t have to lecture me.”

It was perfectly obvious the possibility of a lecture wasn’t the thing making Flannery dig her fingernails into my ribs and all but push the Harley forward with her feet. I could feel her heart beating against my back.

I added that to the stack of Things to Get Out of Flannery Later. I was a little freaked out myself sitting there a block from C.A.R.S. My own fear was overtaking the need to simply get things under control. Maybe one too many inhuman things had happened on old Maharry’s property. And if he couldn’t make it, what hope was there, really, for the rest of the neighborhood?

For once I was grateful for Flannery’s clinging. It kept the fragments of me from flying apart as we rode home to Palm Row.

Flannery spent the rest of the afternoon up in her room, and so, for that matter, did Desmond after I brought him home from school. I didn’t know what Flannery was doing, but Desmond was sulking. I’d seen that lip-like-a-foldout-sofa thing before.

I didn’t interrogate him because I needed a chance to call Chief from the side porch and bring him up to speed. He was with a client so Tia connected me with Kade, who said he would hit the high points with Chief.

“Mind if I come by tonight to go over a couple of financial things with you?” he said.

“That would be great.” I slouched into an Adirondack and propped my feet on the rail. It was the first time I’d sat down that day without somebody’s terrified face in front of me. I had a flash of normal. “Come for supper?” I said. “It’s nice enough to eat outside, actually. I’ll light some tiki torches for the bugs.”