An Affair to Dismember (33 page)

Julie handed me a red envelope. “Here. You’re supposed to read it in private. She said not to show it to anybody.”

“She?”

“Yeah, an old blond lady. There he is. Finally, my cake.”

I found a corner and opened the letter. The handwriting was familiar. It was the same as the blackmail letters.

I WAS supposed to come alone, the letter said, or else Grandma’s life would be in danger. I had to hurry, but I searched for Spencer on the way out. In the fog and the crowd, I couldn’t find him, but I stumbled on Uncle Harry.

“Tell me, Uncle Harry. Randy Terns didn’t actually say he was being blackmailed by Jimmy the Fink and Chuck Costas. You just assumed he was because he said he was being blackmailed and he was looking for them.”

Uncle Harry blinked. “Yes, I guess you’re right. I never picked up on that.”

“It’s okay. It’s what I figured.”

“Are you all right, Gladie? You look out of sorts,” said Lucy.

“I’m fine. I just have to go do something.”

“Can I help?”

“Not this time.”

Back at home, my car started on the second try. I gripped the steering wheel and willed my hands to stop shaking. It was hard to see the road through the fog, and it took me longer than I wanted to get to Cannes Center Park. I didn’t know what I would do once I got there, but I had to get there fast, before it was too late.

I parked on the street. Even the crickets were silent. The whole town was at the ball. If Cannes Center Park was isolated to begin with, it was desolate in the fog at night. I took a deep breath and made my way to the gazebo. My heels dug into the soft earth with every step.

I almost missed the gazebo, but I found it after a few minutes of stumbling through the trees and brush. After decades of neglect, the gazebo was decrepit. The first step creaked loudly when I put my foot on it. I hesitated, waiting to be attacked or shot. When nothing happened, I ran up the rest of the way.

“Grandma. Grandma,” I hissed, searching the spiderweb-infested corners. Nothing. No one. “What an evil joke,” I said under my breath. “Scared me to death.”

Behind the gazebo, there was the sound of a twig breaking underfoot. I froze, listening for more sounds.

“Who’s there?” I called. “Betty, I know it’s you. Just come out and stop this whole thing before it escalates out of control.”

Nothing. Then another twig snapped.

“Betty, don’t get to the point of no return. I know you’re angry, but there are other ways of resolving your issues,” I said.

“Then you don’t know my mother.” I jumped in surprise. Jane Terns appeared on the steps of the gazebo, a gun in her hand pointed directly at me.

“Jane? What are you doing here?”

“I begged you to figure it out,” she said. “Didn’t I? Didn’t I ask you several times to figure it out?”

“Jane, I tried to look into your father’s death, but—”

“You didn’t look in the right place! I gave you hints. I practically steered you to where you were supposed to go.”

“I can try again. Jane, please, where’s my grandmother?”

“You can’t try again. It’s too late. You made my mother mad. Don’t you see?” Jane’s hair was wild. She spit when she spoke, and the gun shook with each syllable.

“I’ll tell your mom I’m sorry,” I said. “We’ll go for tea and scones. She liked it when we did it last time.”

“No, she’s mad, and when she’s mad, it never goes away. She’s my mom, and I’ve always looked after her. I’m her good girl. She needs me. She’s always needed me. That’s why I did things for her.”

I inched backward. “Like what? What have you done for her?”

“Lots of things. I wrote letters, terrible letters to a woman who made her mad.”

“You wrote the letters to Lulu?”

“I tried to tell you. I tried to talk to you. You were always busy, always running around, and you went in the wrong direction. I went to talk to you, but you weren’t there. I tried to get your attention, but it wasn’t you. It was your grandma.”

“You threw the knish,” I said.

“I was trying to get you to listen to me,” she yelled. “I told you to follow the trail to the end. It was like you didn’t want to see. Just like Dad. He didn’t want to see.”

My head was swimming.

“What didn’t your dad want to see?”

“My mother gets mad. It’s not her fault. She’s had a
very hard life, and she depends on me. I have to help her.”

I couldn’t help but wish for a straitjacket. Jane was the queen of loop-de-loo. Her potato was half baked. Her pancake had flipped. Her milk had turned, and her brownie was all nuts. In other words, Jane was crazy, and despite being in a life-threatening situation, I was hungry.

“Jane, we all want to please our parents,” I said reasonably. “But a loving parent only wants her children to be happy.” Except for my mom. The last time I spoke with her, she was living with a biker gang in Wichita, and she gave me a lecture about my life choices and how I would wind up pregnant, on welfare, singing old Loretta Lynn songs in bowling alley bars.

“Your mother doesn’t need you to protect her,” I continued. “She’s a grown woman, and so are you. Live your own life, Jane. Live your own life.”

I looked to see if my rational words had gotten through to her. Nope. The light of crazy still shined bright in her eyes.

“I tried. I tried to tell you, to stop her before it got too late. You don’t understand anything,” she said. “My mom needs me.”

“Why, Jane? What did you do for her? What do you know about your father, Jimmy the Fink, and Chuck Costas?”

“What are you talking about? You’ve gone in the wrong direction again.”

“No, Jane. I understand now. I’m sorry I didn’t before. You were trying to warn me about your mother.”

Jane smiled. Her face relaxed, but she didn’t lower her gun. “Yes. What a relief. You understand. I tried to warn you before she got mad, before I needed to help her. Now it’s too late.”

“Jane, please tell me where my grandmother is. I
didn’t bring anyone here with me, just like you told me in the note.”

“That’s good, because I would have killed your grandmother right away if you had. No police.”

“I did just what you said,” I said.

“It’s a shame I have to kill you. I thought we could be friends.”

Jane cocked the gun.

“Wait,” I cried out. “You didn’t tell me about your dad. You didn’t tell me why you killed him.” I felt around behind me for any loose wood, something to defend myself with.

“You’re right. I killed him. It was my fault. Dad refused to pay. He wrote back to Lulu, telling her that he didn’t care anymore if she spilled the beans about the affair. He didn’t give a shit what my mom thought. He didn’t care how mad he made her. I wrote another letter, but it still didn’t work. He didn’t care anymore. By then it was too late. He had to die. Just like now. Too late.”

“But it’s not too late, Jane. We can find help for you. We can be friends just like you wanted.”

Jane stomped her foot hard on the step. “That’s not true! It’s too late. Now, come on. I’ve got to do this.”

I clutched the rail.

“No, you can’t make me go. You’ll have to shoot me here,” I said.

Jane tried to pry my fingers off the rail with her gun-free hand.

“I can’t shoot you here. I have to make it look like an accident. You and your grandma are going for a swim in your car.”

I gripped the rail for all I was worth. “No. You are going to have to shoot me here,” I said. There was a method to my madness. I hoped that Jane would get
tired and some shred of sanity would pop into her head and make her realize what she was doing.

“You’re going to make my mom so mad,” Jane complained.

Now that she was close enough, I grabbed for the gun, but Jane was quicker and meaner than I was. She pulled back and swung the gun into the side of my head. I slumped sideways and gulped air in an effort to stay conscious.

I was half aware of her shoving me across the gazebo, and then I was off-balance, trying to right myself as I was thrown down the stairs. I hit my arm with a crack, rolled over, and landed on my hip.

“Get up or I’ll hit you again. You don’t have to be in one piece when you drown in the lake.” That was a good thing, because I wasn’t in one piece. I was reasonably sure my left arm was broken, and blood was trickling down my face from the gash on my head. I saw stars floating in the fog. I fell a couple of times as I struggled to stand up. One of my shoes was missing, and my dress was torn completely up one side. Jane grabbed my purse and threw it over her shoulder.

I kicked off my other shoe. I willed myself not to go into shock, but I needed to see a doctor. Formulating a plan to overpower Jane and save my grandmother was hard in coming, especially since I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything at all.

Twigs and rocks scraped my feet as we made our way across the park, but the pain was nothing compared to my arm, which sent spikes of agony through my body with each movement. My head throbbed, too, like my brain was swelling and pushing against my broken skull. Maybe it was.

“Here,” said Jane. We arrived at her car, a nice silver sedan. She opened one of the rear doors, and Grandma tumbled out. She wore her nightgown and slippers, and
there was duct tape hanging from the corner of her mouth.

“I want to go home,” she cried, her voice fragile, cracking.

“Grandma, it’s going to be fine. I’ll get you home,” I said.

“No, you won’t. Don’t fib.”

Jane pushed us forward, threatening us with the gun.

“Gladie, I’m not in my home,” Grandma said to me, choking on her own tears.

“I’ll get you home. I promise. I have a plan.” It was a terrible lie, but I didn’t want Grandma to panic any further.

“I picked a hell of a day to be blind,” said Grandma. “But I did tell you they were all losers.”

“Here,” said Jane. We had arrived at my car.

“You’re going to drown us in my own car?”

“You’re going to go missing. Poor Zelda and Gladie Burger. Vanished.”

“No one is going to believe we vanished,” I said.

“You never stay in one place for more than a couple months,” Jane explained to me. “You can’t keep a job. Everyone knows that. So you got tired of matchmaking and Cannes. You moved on.”

“My grandmother would never have moved on. She hasn’t left her house in nearly twenty years,” I said.

“She changed her mind. She wanted to go with you. She loves you. Who cares? Besides, they can find your bodies in the lake later. It won’t matter by then. This is the way it’s going to happen. We play it this way.”

She opened the rear door and waved the gun at Grandma. “Get in.”

I followed her, my feet fumbling over the plastic owl on the floor. Jane kept the gun pointed at us as she walked around the car to get in the driver’s seat.

“When I tell you, get out of the car and run like the wind to Burger Boy,” I whispered to Grandma.

“But—”

“Just do it. Don’t look back. Get Spencer. Get ready to run.”

Jane opened the driver’s door and sat behind the wheel. “Go!” I screamed and picked up the owl and shoved it as hard as I could one-handed into the back of Jane’s head, pushing her headlong into the dashboard. Grandma was already across the street. I rolled out of the car and ran for all I was worth.

“Dammit, Gladie,” Jane yelled not far behind me. “I have to kill you!”

I ran for the trees. I doubted she could shoot accurately in the fog at night, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I heard Jane running full out behind me, crashing over branches. Barefoot and broken, I was no match for her. My only chance was to hide. I made a quick left into a thick grove of trees and was hit by a familiar smell.

Someone was having a party with illicit drugs of the smoke variety. I followed my nose.

“Oh, dude, you so scared me. I’m buggin’ now.”

The skateboarders from Burger Boy were sitting in a circle on their skateboards, passing around a joint. They were dressed exactly as they’d been the first time I saw them, on Thursday.

“Help,” I hissed. “Help, there’s a woman with a gun. Help.”

“Hey, it’s the owl lady,” said the guy with the beer bong T-shirt. “Did you stop by to partake in our friendly smoke? It’s killer.”

“No, a woman is trying to kill me,” I whispered.

“Hey, dude, like, that owl flew away and never came back to Burger Boy,” one of the skateboarders commented.

“Yes, I know. A gun. A gun,” I said.

“What happened to your arm, man? It looks like a buffalo wing that’s kind of broke.”

“My arm is kind of broke. The bad woman with the gun kind of broke it.” My desperation hit record levels.

“That shit is rough,” said the beer bong guy, finally catching on.

“Why would she do that?” asked another.

“She’s crazy, she has a gun, and she’s coming this way. Will you help me?” I asked.

“Help you?”

“Like how?”

“Like karate and kung fu and all that?”

“Oh, man. It’s
Matrix
cool, man. And we’re like Keanu Reeves or something.”

“Cool,” said another.

“Get me out of here,” I ordered. “Now.”

“Sure, dude. We have a quick escape path for, like, when the cops or our moms are around. There’s a bitchin’ path right back here. You’re gonna love it.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna love rollin’ tonight. The fog makes it like riding on clouds.”

“Yeah, dude, kinda like rollin’ in heaven.”

I was teetering on a skateboard with the beer bong guy pushing one-legged behind me when the first shot rang out.

“Was that thunder?” asked one of the skateboarders.

“That was a crazy woman trying to kill us,” I said. Another shot tore off a piece of a tree next to us. “This is not going to work. Plan B.” We stopped and hid behind trees. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”

Jane came ripping down the path, waving her gun and screaming, “Come out, come out wherever you are, Gladie. Hurry up! I have to kill you.”

I signaled to the beer bong guy just as Jane made it to
our tree. He held his skateboard like a baseball bat, and just like Babe Ruth, hit a home run against Jane’s head.

“Dude, I think you killed her,” said one of the skateboarders.