Chapter 6 #2
“Not sure a mechanic can fix my problem…” I trail off, extremely aware of coming off hysterical or paranoid, and settle on just facts. “I think maybe, I mean I’m not sure, but … I think someone drilled a hole in my gas tank.”
Clarence clicks his tongue. “Well, no. A mechanic wouldn’t be able to help you with that problem. The sheriff, now. That might be an option.”
The idea of talking to a cop with Ripley by my side makes my skin crawl.
Growing up in trailer parks inhabited by people who are very, very poor and almost always marginalized in one way or several has instilled within me a healthy fear of, and deep anger at, the police.
Being in a crisis where I am afraid and Ripley is stressed and there’s a cop in front of us who’s probably in fear for his life for no good reason at all seems like a terrible idea.
I nod anyway. It’s the only option that might not result in Emma yelling at me. And honestly, what else am I supposed to do? This is what they’re supposed to be for, right? Maybe having Clarence with us will be enough of a shield to keep the situation from escalating.
Clarence gets up to retrieve a much-creased copy of the local yellow pages. He flips to the page with the sheriff’s number and turns it to face me. “You want to dial them? No speaker on this phone.”
I smile. I can’t help it. Clarence raises his bushy eyebrows in question.
“Felt pretty stupid not knocking on that house down the road. I’m glad I didn’t.”
He makes a face like he sucked a lemon. “I got no idea who woulda opened it. It’s a rental. People comin’ and goin’ all the goddamn time.”
I tell him he can dial, then listen as he speaks to someone about getting Sheriff Cory on the line, then to him breathing while he waits. Ripley finally relaxes enough to flop down on her side. She jerks her legs at me until I scratch at the soft skin of her belly.
Clarence hangs up and frowns out the sliding glass doors. “He’ll be down in thirty, an hour tops.”
“An hour?”
“That’s what he said. Never met a man of the law that I liked, but this one is something special. Even his daddy was better, and he had a mind like a bucket of rocks.” He fixes me a look, his eyebrows drawn down. “You want me to drive you up there so you don’t have to wait?”
“Maybe?” I knuckle my eyes. “I didn’t really want to talk to the cops in the first place. Do you have Wi-Fi? I could use your computer to message my friend?”
He shakes his head and pulls an actual flip phone out of his pocket. “No Internet out here. If I need it, I go to the library. They got computers you can use. I could take you there.”
I hesitate. I don’t know which is the right choice.
Clarence regards me. “How ’bout this. You lemme see if I got a charger for that phone. If I do, you plug it in, get your friend’s number, and then you make a decision. If I don’t got a charger or your phone don’t work, I drive you up to the library.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”
Clarence rises from the table like a creaky doll unwinding its parts. When he comes back, he has three different charging cables and a USB port in his hands.
“My daughter can’t keep a cord to save her life. She leaves and an hour later I get a call, ‘Daddy, is my charger there?’” He shakes his head, a fond smile on his mouth.
Once plugged in, my phone gives a buzz. The light in the corner blinks, but the screen remains black. There’s nowhere for the helpless frustration in my chest to go. I knew it was going to crap out eventually, but right now? It’s too awful of a coincidence to be real.
The sliding glass doors are very clean and provide a perfect view of the yard and the trees beyond. A thin sapling sways while everything else around it remains still.
“What?” Clarence asks.
“That house at the end of the road. The one that’s burnt?
My boss sent me down there to get pictures of it for an appraisal.
There was a coyote down there. It chased us.
I’m pretty sure it’s rabid. I haven’t seen it since, but I don’t know.
I keep feeling like it’s gonna pop out of the woods like Cujo or something. ”
He motions his chin toward the trees. “Couple days ago, I was walking the creek. Cuts through the McLaren property down the road. Got rushed by a skunk. Sucker didn’t even try to spray me.
Just wanted to bite. Lucky, I had this.” He reaches for an umbrella stand full of walking sticks.
He pulls one out that’s chunky and hand-carved.
“Took the body to the county sheriff’s office.
Told them it needed testing. They swore they’d get down there to check it out. ”
He peers outside. The sapling that was swaying is now still.
Everything is still in the stagnant, windless heat.
Wind chimes hung throughout the yard have been providing sweet trilling background music since the moment I arrived. Their silence only magnifies the feeling that something’s gearing up to come charging out of the trees to shatter the quiet.
Clarence frowns at me. “I’m calling Cory again. Got a woman being terrorized in my house, and he can’t hurry his ass up.”
He goes to the living room with the phone held up to his ear. I stare out the door until Ripley pushes her head under my hand.
I flinch when my phone vibrates, then powers on. I tap in my password and try to bring up my recently called list.
There’s a delay that makes me want to smash the screen on the kitchen counter.
Finally, Emma’s name pops up just below Ellis’s.
I tap on her name and … nothing. The screen has stopped registering any input.
I try Ellis and that won’t work either. I stare hard at the numbers below Emma’s name.
I run them through my brain three times before the phone goes black again.
“Good news and bad news,” Clarence says when he returns to the kitchen. “Shelley down at the station radioed Cory and he’s closer than she thought. Should be here in no time.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Same as the good news. You get the honor of meeting the self-satisfied prick in person.”
“That bad?”
“Thinks he’s John Wayne. That working?” He gestures to my phone. He sucks his lip when I tell him no, it’s not, but that I got Emma’s number.
He’s handing me the phone when there’s a knock on the door.
Clarence looks down at his watch and shakes his head. “Fastest that man’s moved in his entire life.”
At first, I think the feeling that spears through my chest at the sound is panic, but it’s not. It’s doom. It’s the sense that whatever’s on the other side of that door is bad, bad, bad and that we should hide, hunker down, stay safe.
I say nothing, and watch as Clarence opens the door.
Sheriff Cory walks into Clarence’s living room with his hand on his gun and a sunburn peeling the ridges of his cheeks.
He’s white, lean, and a little taller than my very average five feet seven inches.
The sheriff’s eyes are friendly in the way they usually are.
Brown and helpful until they crack your skull or shoot your dog.
Cops are only friendly up until the sudden and painful moment they aren’t.
“Place is looking good, Clarence.” The sheriff nods and looks around until his eyes fall on me in the kitchen. “Whatcha got there?”
“A hatchet.” I look at his hand on his gun. “What’s that?”
He pauses. On the fifth beat, he raises both hands and smiles wide. “Sorry! Habit. I used to work in the city. Dangerous place. Sometimes I forget to tone it down.”
Behind him, Clarence looks to the ceiling like he’s asking for patience. “Why dontcha sit, Cory. Lou’s having some trouble. Let her tell you about it.”
The sheriff sits on a floral couch so ancient I wonder if the house was built up around it. He says please when Clarence asks if he wants a glass of ice water.
“That dog under control?” The sheriff smiles in a way that can only be described as smarmy.
I look at Ripley, who is sitting quietly beside me, then up at the sheriff.
Are you? I want to ask. I want to tell him to go fuck himself, but I can’t.
Ripley is my responsibility, and the most important thing is to get her out of these woods alive.
Being polite is the straightest path to that destination.
“Yes. She’s very well-trained.”
He looks at the hatchet. “You gonna put that thing away?”
I don’t want to, but I slip it into its loop on my backpack anyhow.
Clarence brings in the requested water, then sits. The sheriff motions to the floral armchair opposite him. I sit with my hand on Ripley’s collar. She shifts, and I loosen my grip.
Silence draws out till it’s thin as a razor.
Clarence clears his throat. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Lou.”
“I work for a real estate appraisal company. My boss sent me here to photograph the McLaren parcel down the road. When I got back to my truck it wouldn’t start. Someone had drilled a hole in the gas tank.”
The sheriff leans back and looks between Clarence and me. “Anything else?”
Clarence tells him about the rabid coyote. “You get that skunk I brought to the station a few days ago tested?”
The sheriff rubs a hand across his face. “It’s the property owner’s responsibility.”
Clarence’s every word is enunciated with prejudice. “William McLaren is an eighty-six-year-old retiree living in Florida with his son. You expect him to fly up here? It’s a public health issue. You’re s’pposed to be the sheriff last time I checked.”
“Mr. McLaren sold earlier this year. I’m sure this is just some sort of misunderstanding. Frankly, I think you woulda been better off with a mechanic than me.”
Shame and frustration heat my cheeks. I want to crush his nose with my fist. When he stands, Clarence and I follow.
“Look, roads out here are rough. It’s easy to nick something when you’re not used to it. Still, I don’t want to dismiss your concerns and get myself canceled.” He lifts a sardonic eyebrow.
Smarmy.
“Why don’t you come up to the station with me, and we’ll get a tow for your truck. Sound good?”
“Cory—”