An Arm and a Leg (13 page)

Happy with her handiwork, she worked in her herb patch until the sun went down. The smell of sage and basil wafted into the air as she pruned the plants. Warmth from the compost she’d nurtured into dark, rich soil sent waves of earthy fragrance into the air as she turned it with a pitchfork.

The newly planted perennials would, hopefully, erupt after a winter during which they’d sink long, healthy roots. In the spring, she’d sow seeds for the annuals.

She slapped her gloved hands together to dislodge the dirt in which she loved to dig and headed into her house. She’d just engaged the barking dog and was in the process of slipping the Katy bar into its brackets when her conscious mind registered something her subconscious had been screaming from the time she walked in.

She threw the bar onto the floor, grabbed her purse off the kitchen table, yanked the door open and ran back outside. As advertised, the barking dog machine kicked into high gear the instant the back door opened. Her eyes darting around the yard, she fumbled in her purse for her phone.

“Someone’s in my house,” she said to the emergency operator. Holding the phone so tightly her hand began to cramp, she made her way around the house, let herself out the side gate, and walked to the front. Her eyes surveyed the dark street for any sign of movement, she stepped onto her driveway. Her front spotlight flashed on, momentarily blinding her in its intensity. At that point, she’d have been unable to see anyone, even if he’d been standing on her foot.

The female voice asked some questions and told Frankie to stay on the line, offering assurance that someone would be there soon. Within a few minutes, a police cruiser pulled up, its red, white, and blue lights flashing like Fourth of July fireworks. A couple of neighborhood doors opened just wide enough for the occupants to watch the goings on.

“You’ve had a break in?” the young officer said.

Frankie nodded and pointed to her house. “I live there. Someone must have come in while I was working in the back yard.”

“Did you see the intruder? Can you describe him?”

“No, but I did smell him.”

“You smelled someone?” The officer’s voice sounded puzzled, but he maintained a carefully neutral expression on his face.

Frankie blushed. “I…I don’t wear perfume. I’m allergic, so my nose is sensitive to fragrances. I smelled men’s cologne.”

“I see.” The officer slowly nodded his head while studying her face. “Okay. Please stay right here.” He unsnapped the strap on his sidearm and turned toward the front door.

“You can’t get in that way.” Frankie pointed her index finger and made a circular motion with her hand. “You’ll have to use the back door. Um…the front’s locked.”

Double-bolted and barred. All but sealed with pine pitch.
Tim’s playful voice teased.

“Not funny,” Frankie muttered.

“Pardon me?” the officer said.

“I was just saying it was funny that whoever got in knew to avoid the spotlights.”

In a few minutes the officer returned with assurances the house was empty as well as odor free. “At least it was empty except for a cat that nearly got itself shot. Scared the bejeezus out of me. Jumped right on top of my head.”

“Sorry. I should have warned you about Collette.”

The officer nodded. “And the huge dog I never saw.”

“It’s not a real dog.” Frankie pasted what she hoped was a guileless smile on her face. “It’s a digitized recording, supposed to be a deterrent.”

“I see.” The officer nodded his head as if what Frankie said made perfect sense. But she had a feeling he could hardly wait to get back to the station and tell his pals about the ditzy woman and her Alcatraz cum apocalypse prepper security.

“Did you open a bedroom window after you went back inside?”

“No. Why?”

“The window screen is still in place but the window is open. No way to know if someone used it to gain entrance because of the xeric rocks under it.”

“I guess I forgot to close it.” Frankie avoided the policeman’s eyes.

All that high powered security she’d put in place, and she blithely leaves her window wide open. A side window—the only spot that wouldn’t light up like the sun in the face of an intruder.

A door slammed somewhere down the street. Frankie jerked at the sound, her hands flying to her face.

“The lights are not a bad idea.” The officer spoke in a gentle voice. “But you may get complaints from your neighbors, especially the nearest ones.” He suggested she accompany him through the house to determine if anything was missing, had been moved, or if anything had been left behind that didn’t belong. The two headed toward the back yard.

Once inside the house, Frankie turned off the dog. With the officer walking ahead, they made their way through the house while Collette eyeballed them threateningly from atop her usual perch.

Nothing out of place. Nothing missing. In spite of herself, Frankie felt a bit disappointed. If something had been taken, she’d not look like such a looney toon.

Another thought blossomed like a mushroom cloud. Maybe her illness had metastasized and her sick brain was no longer satisfied with merely sending out voices. Maybe it had decided to throw olfactory hallucinations into the mix. She chewed on her thumbnail.

“We’ll check with the neighbors,” the officer was saying. “Maybe someone saw something.” Pretending not to see the deadbolts and the Katy bar as Frankie unblocked the front door, the officer handed her the usual business card with a case number on it and left.

As soon as the patrol car was out of sight Frankie nearly ran to her pantry. She pulled open the doors and touched each of the cans, boxes, and bags of food three times. She ran through the ritual again and again, until her panic began to subside. Then she added an extra time for good measure.

Once her breathing returned to near normal, she went to her bedroom and flung herself onto her bed. She grabbed up the canister of pepper spray kept on the nightstand, placed her thumb lightly on its pressure trigger, and clasped it to her bosom. For several minutes she lay staring up at the ceiling.

What if she wasn’t in the process of losing her mind, what if she’d already lost it? What if her body was actually sitting in some institution rocking mindlessly back and forth while her alive-and-well uncle Mike and brother Tim shook their heads and said how sad that Frankie had gone completely mad?

Tears ran down the sides of her face and onto the satin pillowcase.

****

Larry listened to Frankie cry from the shadows outside her bedroom window. He wanted to go to her, to hold her and stroke her hair.

“Don’t cry, Beauty,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

He lifted his treasure to his nose and breathed deeply of its lavender fragrance. At the right time, he would return the blue satin hair ribbon he’d just taken from her bureau. He’d offer it to her, and she would look at him with eyes full of gratitude.

Chapter Seventeen

Frankie sat in a forest green leather chair across from Dr. Demaris. The therapist, sitting with her long slender legs crossed at the ankles, pushed the red button on a small digital recorder on the coffee table, folded her unexpectedly strong, square-shaped hands in her lap and looked into Frankie’s face.

“Tell me about the name you’ve given the voice. Have you ever known anyone named Jenny?”

Frankie shook her head. “I don’t think so. It just seemed like a good name for her.”

“How would you feel about asking her to tell you what she wants?”

“You mean ask her to talk to me?”

“That seems a good place to begin.”

“No offense, but that sounds whacked out. I mean, the whole reason I’m here is to make her go away. Besides, she doesn’t really exist, right? She’s a product of my imagination.”

“No offense taken.” Angela smiled. “But our imagination stems from our subconscious. And your subconscious is trying to get your attention by using a child’s voice. A child in obvious distress.”

“You’re saying Jenny’s voice is me talking to myself?”

“Pretty much.” Angela dragged an empty chair over and placed it in front of Frankie. “Pretend Jenny is sitting in this chair. What would you like to ask her?”

Frankie looked into her therapist’s eyes. “I’d want to ask her—”

Angela held up her hand. “Don’t ask me, ask her.”

Frankie turned her head toward the chair and tried to envision a seated child. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”

At the therapist’s instruction, Frankie then sat in the empty chair and pretended to be Jenny. But after a couple of minutes she shook her head. “How can I answer my own questions? I’m sorry, I’m just not getting anything other than what I’ve already told you.”

“It’s okay. We’ll try something else next time.” Angela crossed to the door and held it open. “Your assignment is to get into a dialogue with Jenny. Ask her what she wants from you. Write down whatever she says and bring it to your next appointment.”

Feeling like she’d failed an important exam, Frankie left the office.

****

Next morning Frankie awoke out of a troubled sleep. Although she’d heard it was possible to consciously control what takes place in one’s dreams, she’d never been able to achieve that state of lucid dreaming. Instead, she awoke in sweat-soaked pajamas with the feeling that things were spinning out of control.

“What do you want from me?” she said into the dawn-lit room.

No answer.

“So you’re only going to torment me when you feel like it, is that it?”

Silence.

“I hereby give Jenny permission to tell me what’s going on.” The volume of Frankie’s voice had risen a couple of notches and the familiar tightness in her neck was kicking up.

“Then bite me.” She stepped out of bed and headed for the kitchen pantry. After reviewing her food stores, she slipped into her jogging outfit and slid her socked feet into her gel heeled walking shoes.

The walks relaxed her, and today her thoughts suggested it was time to go through Uncle Mike’s papers. Other than his will, she’d been emotionally unable to handle seeing his notes and private papers. And she’d already put it off too long. Besides, maybe touching his papers would help her feel closer to him. At least it would take her mind off Tim’s murder and her inability to find his killers. And maybe a break was just what she needed.

She headed for the door, opened it and stuck her head out. As if it were an oscillating fan perched atop her neck, her head swiveled back and forth as her eyes strained for a glimpse of the Chevy. But the guy had apparently been smart enough to stay indoors on this chilly morning.

Relieved, Frankie stepped through the door, pulled it closed behind her, and engaged the deadbolt. She stuck the house key in her pocket along with a canister of pepper spray and headed toward the street.

The icy air teased its way through the fabric of her knit mittens. Its frigid fingers searched for a way under the headband protecting her ears, while the moisture from her breath curled up around her cheeks and disappeared over her head.

The neighborhood dogs remained quiet in recognition of the small human who passed through their domain each morning. She waved at her neighbor Lola, a sweet elderly woman who’d brought food when Tim died.

Deep in thought, Frankie barely glanced at the vaguely familiar young jogger who approached her from the opposite direction. He nodded at her, his slightly pockmarked face smiling and friendly. She absently nodded back.

At the end of her walk, she pulled her house key from her zippered pocket, unlocked the thick wood front door and stepped into the entryway. Collette, true to form, hurtled out of the semi-darkness, caromed off her right thigh and disappeared again into the unlit hallway.

“Okay,” she said to the cat’s retreating backside, “you’ve made your point.”

She opened a bag of gourmet dry cat food, measured one third cup into the cat’s food dish, and set it on the floor in front of the feline. Collette threw a withering look of reproof over her shoulder, the look as articulate as any words as to how she felt about the small portion.

“Don’t pull that look at me. The vet says you need to lose some weight. No one’s going to adopt a fat kitty.”

After she’d showered and dressed, Frankie put the teapot on. She selected a jar of chocolate mint tea from her stash of homemade teas, dropped a teaspoonful into the infuser of her porcelain teapot, and poured not-quite-boiling water over it. She steeped the tea for exactly three minutes, filled her insulated travel mug with the brew and headed for the garage.

For the next three hours she went through the two drawer metal filing cabinet containing Uncle Mike’s important papers. She made two piles: one to keep and one to trash.

Schooled in the art of making do on very few resources, Uncle Mike had never thrown anything away. The discovery of an electric bill from twenty-five years ago stiffened Frankie’s resolve to go through her own papers and throw out anything over three years old.

In the second drawer she spotted a manila folder with the words
Documents - in case of need
written in her uncle’s nearly illegible scribble. She opened the folder and pulled out a pile of legal papers, some of them brittle and yellowed with age.

At the top of the stack she found an original death certificate for someone named Jonathan Christopher Stanton dated thirty-two years ago. Behind that were two birth certificates, one for a female named Colleen Frances Stanton, and another for a baby boy named Peter Timothy Stanton. The father for both was listed as Jonathan Stanton, the mother a Kelby Jean Stanton. Both births took place at Llano Estacado Memorial Hospital in Plainview, Texas.

Although Uncle Mike had never come right out and said so, he’d led Frankie and Tim to believe they were born in Albuquerque. Why would he lie about that?

Adoption papers behind the birth certificates indicated Michael James O’Neil in Hale County Texas had adopted a girl three years old and a boy age eight months. At the bottom of the final page were the signatures of her mother, Uncle Mike, Uncle Mike’s attorney, and a judge. Each signature was followed by a date.