Chapter 6
THE BAD ONE
TEN YEARS EARLIER
Sixteen-year-old Ronnie sat in her pickup truck outside the faded white Queenslander with the tiny greenhouse in the overgrown yard, smoking a cigarette with trembling fingers.
She was still warm and tingly from almost being shot in the face by a stranger half an hour ago, and could smell her own stale sweat.
She wondered if this was how her girlfriend Maude and Maude’s clients, subordinate dealers, and drug-trapped working girls felt when they got high here in front of her.
It was two in the morning but the inside lights were still on and a truck she didn’t recognize sat beside her girlfriend’s car.
Maude wasn’t really her girlfriend—Ronnie realized that now.
Ronnie had been so stupid.
She should return in the morning to grab her things, but fuck it.
This ends now.
Maude wouldn’t like what Ronnie had to say, and was probably drunk or high, but Ronnie had to get this feeling off her chest and break up with her now before she forgot the words she had rehearsed in the truck and chickened out.
Her stomach burbled. She stubbed out the cigarette in the ash tray before slowly unfolding her large frame from the truck, clumsy from the baby bump stretching the waistband of her gym shorts, and climbed the front steps two at a time, cricket bat hanging loosely from her left hand behind her.
Not all monsters hit people. Some make others do their dirty work for them.
Bashing a house full of innocent people was too much. What if there had been kids inside? Shaking down criminals who owed Maude money was one thing. Being tricked into committing an actual crime was another.
The baby didn’t deserve that.
No one deserved that.
Inside, Maude slumped on the couch watching Braveheart with a tall man more than twice her age, his arm around her narrow shoulders making her look like a child.
When Ronnie froze in the kitchen doorway, wondering why she was here instead of at her dad’s house, fear flickered in the tiny eighteen-year-old’s eyes and Maude pushed the man beside her away.
“Leave.” The man took one slow glance up at Ronnie filling the kitchen doorway, stood, picked up his hat, nodded politely, and wordlessly let himself out the back door.
Ronnie grabbed a trash bag from under the sink and jogged up the stairs to the bedroom, snatching her clothes from the dresser.
Maude screamed up the stairs at her. “You fucked up, didn’t you?”
Ronnie pawed through the pile of dirty laundry on the floor, separating out what was hers.
“If you steal from me, I will send Shaky-eyes after you, and you won’t like it!”
Ronnie shuddered, stuffing into the bag unfinished homework assignments from the high school she would never graduate from. “I’m not stealing! Don’t call Shaky-eyes!”
“You owe me two thousand dollars! I need that money tonight!”
Heart racing, she shoved soccer cleats she hadn’t used since the coach kicked her off the team into the bag. “I don’t owe you anything! I didn’t collect! Do you hear me? I don’t have the money! I quit!”
Everything that belonged to her went in, no matter how cheap or replaceable. She was tired of starting over with nothing. Her shit was coming with her. She might be human garbage, but her daughter wouldn’t be.
“You can’t quit, you’re fired! Get busy, because if you don’t find the money you owe me by tomorrow, Shaky-eyes will become your problem, not mine!”
The last person Shaky-eyes had caught, a working girl, had been found dead in a dumpster. If Maude sent him to rough up Ronnie, there was no chance the baby would survive.
“I’m sorry, okay? I would have collected if you sent me to the right address!”
“What are you talking about? Where did you go? You retard! Please tell me you didn’t bash the wrong house!”
She was used to that word, but it still bothered her. Ronnie would never call anyone that, ever. “Fuck you! I nearly got shot! I don’t owe you money! Stop threatening me! I can’t do this anymore!” No more of Maude’s lies. The gaslighting made her feel insane.
When everything she owned was in the bag, she jogged down the stairs carrying it over her left shoulder, cricket bat tucked behind her in her right hand, dread tight in the pit of her stomach, armpits sweating in anticipation of the confrontation awaiting her below.
White noise murmured on the television and the house smelled like pot cookies baking in the oven.
Fog near the ceiling. The house smelled like burning cookies. Pounding on the outside of the front door, a neighbor shouting.
Breathing hard, Ronnie dropped the cricket bat and felt lighter.
Now that she was free to go, she found she couldn’t.
Her legs wouldn’t obey her brain, perhaps because her reason to run had evaporated.
She rubbed her face and leaned against the wall, trying to slow her racing heart by slowing her breathing.
Sirens outside. Flashing lights.
She opened the oven door, releasing a cloud that set off the smoke alarm.
In a daze, she turned off the oven, stepped over the motionless body that was too horrible to look at and the wreckage of a silverware drawer upended across the floor, found a loaf of bread, opened the fridge and made herself a sandwich.
She couldn’t remember whether she had eaten breakfast and she knew she hadn’t had lunch or dinner.
Cops beat the locked front door and back door. They would break one or both down this time, for real. This wasn’t a rehearsal. This was the last one.
Holding the side of her stomach made it hurt less. Hopefully it was only a muscle sprain, not something to do with the baby. She rubbed the sharp pain under her belly button.
Time stopped. The trash bag with everything she owned waited hopefully beside the front door like a dog that didn’t know its owner had died. She felt bad for it.
Focused on eating the sandwich, she walked away as the front door splintered and flew off its hinges like in a movie.
Cops piled in with guns drawn—semi-automatic handguns, she noticed, Glocks.
She liked those. Her mother had an illegal one.
The van was more of a gun cabinet than a camper, didn’t even have proper beds.
She walked to the bathroom, locked the door, sat on the toilet and continued eating the sandwich.
Turkey, ham, and cheese, with lettuce, tomato and mustard. It tasted bloody good.
“I don’t mind shaking down drug dealers who owe you money, I mind being tricked into doing evil shit to innocent people! You sent me to the wrong house because I wouldn’t have sex with that guy!”
She wondered what juvie would be like, wondered if it would be like television.
“You need to apologize to me and admit that sending me to bash a random house was fucked up!”
The ultrasound tech had said the baby was a girl.
“You know I’m pregnant! Why the fuck did you send me to get my head blown off? I could have lost the baby! You would sic Shaky-eyes on me and my baby?”
Sitting on the toilet, she wiped her cheeks with cold hands, cradling her burning stomach and the welt that would be a bruise tomorrow.
She took another bite of the sandwich. Maude had been her last vestige of a social life. There had been so many red flags. Maude would have pimped Ronnie’s daughter out to pedophiles and convinced her it was her own idea.
Ronnie’s life didn’t matter now. If they locked her up, her daughter would be safe, escape this place and grow up anywhere else. That was all she could think of to do, to protect her kid. She could get her out of this bloody house.
Reg would be so disappointed. Ronnie’s phone had cracked in spiderwebs, but miraculously still worked. She dialed with shaking hands, then leaned forward on the toilet, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. The line rang.
A policeman opened the bathroom door and stared down at her. Ronnie held up her finger, then pointed to the phone.
Her dad answered, sleepily. “It’s the middle of the night.”
The officer shouted something back to the other officer.
Ronnie’s eyes burned as she swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Dad, I fucked up.” She hid her eyes with her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not mad, baby. I’ll come get you. Where are you?”
“Maude’s house. Gordonvale. The police are here. I’m in trouble. I’m sorry.”
“Remember what we talked about. Stay calm, do what they tell you, and ask to speak to a lawyer.”
“I will. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Brum. I promise it’ll be all right. Just try to stay calm and think happy thoughts.”
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“Do you remember my phone number?” He recited it.
She recited it back to him, voice quivering. Now three police officers were in the doorway staring at her, talking to each other in low voices.
“Good girl! You memorized it! See! You are so smart! All that practice we did paid off. You can do hard things. I’m so proud of you, baby.
Remember what we talked about. If they take you into custody, I probably won’t be allowed to call you since I’m not legally your dad.
They won’t let me call you. You’ll have to call me. Call me.”
“I remember. I will.”
“If you forget my number, you know my name. They can look it up.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t be scared. They’re not going to hurt you.”
“I think I killed Maude.”
The three officers in the doorway had been talking to each other but fell silent and looked at her when she said that.
Reg swore. “It was self-defense. Tell them it was self-defense.”
“I don’t know. I think I blacked out.”
“It was self-defense. Whatever happened.”
A female paramedic pushed between the three police officers to crouch in front of her. “Are you hurt?”
Ronnie nodded.
“Where?”
She pulled up her shirt to show the red mark on her stomach. The paramedic looked at it, then left.
One of the officers tapped his wrist. “Time’s up. We’re arresting you now.”
“Is she dead?”
“Stand up slowly with your hands above your head.”
Ronnie stood up but kept the phone pressed to her ear. Standing up hurt—cramp low in her belly. She steadied herself against the top of the doorframe. “I gotta go, Dad. They’re booking me or whatever.”
“That’s all right, baby. You’re safe, and that’s the important thing. Remember to call me. I will always answer your calls. I will never stop fighting for you. You are so smart. You are strong.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll call you, when I can.”
“We’ll fight this in court.”
In the kitchen of the old house, paramedics carrying a body on a stretcher out the front door pushed silverware out of the way with their boots. “I’m pleading guilty, Dad. They’re definitely charging me with something.”
She held the phone to her shoulder while a police officer patted her down. “Can I have my own ambulance? I think I might be going into labor.”
“We’ll take you to get checked out. Turn around.”
She tried to stand still while they patted down her back. “Sorry, Dad.”
“I love you, Brum. This was my fault. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad. If I had known, I would have been more proactive. I should have parented harder.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Now he was blaming himself.
She didn’t deserve him. The wall in front of her blurred and disappeared.
She pressed the phone to her shoulder and turned her head away as an ugly sound leaked out of her mouth.
She needed a hug. Suddenly the loneliest she had ever been, sensing she wouldn’t see him again for a long time, she covered her mouth with the back of her forearm.
“Shh, baby, it’ll get easier. One day at a time.
I’ll find you as soon as I can. I promise you’ll be all right without me.
If you don’t see me, it’s because they physically stopped me at the door.
I’m never giving up on you, so you can’t give up on yourself, right?
You’re a good kid and you have a bright future.
No one can take that away. Remember that. This is not who you are.”
A short, heavy-set officer with buzzed hair stepped forward. “State your name and address for me, please.”
“Ronnie Peterson.” She gave Reg’s address, the purple house on Pademelon Road. “My dad is Reg Madonna. I’m sixteen. I don’t have a legal guardian. If you need to call someone, call my dad. This is him.” She held out the phone. “Do you want to talk to him?”
The officer shook his head. “I’m arresting you for assault and attempted murder. Do you voluntarily surrender?”
“Yes.”