Deceived

5

The house where Rosanna Helms’s husband, Dwight, had been born, and where his mother had been born, resembled a tobacco barn on pilings that, for a hundred years, had been jettisoning the junk that now surrounded the place. Oil drums, trailers, crab traps, pieces of Mica’s Harley-Davidson scattered around a hot-water heater, rusting near a satellite dish, and a bicycle frame perched trophylike atop a sheen of glass fishing net-Crystal’s bike, I remembered the pink streamers.

Crystal and I had played in this yard as children. She had been a shy, big-boned girl who enjoyed Barbie dolls, which I’d tolerated out of boredom more than politeness. But she was also game enough to paddle a canoe I’d found in the mangroves, then patched with roofing tar. We had never been close, but childhood is a powerful link, so it felt strange to be here alone, an adult woman sent to check on a playmate’s mother, a mother who had chosen to live amid the wreckage of her own shattered family. I had never liked the feel of this place. I didn’t like being here now.

Like a few other outposts on the coast, the Helms property had prospered when commerce was conducted by water, but the first roads had bypassed it, and better roads had left it as isolated as an island, the acreage not worth much because it was the only high ground in a tract of mangroves now protected by law. Yet the house remained as I remembered, a resolute structure two floors high, wood black as creosote, with four small holes cut for windows and a fifth added for a door.

From the truck, I could see that the front door was open now, hanging lopsided on its hinges-unusual in a place where mosquitoes swarmed.

I considered getting out to check but was reluctant. Instead, I honked the horn to get attention, then honked again, expecting Mrs. Helms to appear in the doorway. She didn’t.

After another minute, I hollered out the window, “Miz Helms? It’s Hannah Smith!”

Overhead, an osprey whistled. A mosquito found my ear, whining the good news, while trees filtered a gust of wind, then clung to the silence that was my answer.

It made no sense. Rosanna Helms’s car was parked beneath the plywood shed-an old Cadillac as swaybacked as a horse but still hinting at the wealth her family had enjoyed during the pot-hauling years. She was a competent driver-better than Loretta, anyway-and had no trouble getting around. Unless the car wouldn’t start, which was possible considering its age and the years of abuse dealt to it by Pay Day Road.

I recalled the fresh tire tracks I’d seen on the way in. Maybe that explained the woman’s absence. Even so, the possibility didn’t excuse me from checking inside the house-but what about the pit bulls I remembered? They hadn’t come running at the sound of my truck, which suggested I had nothing to fear. On the other hand, the dogs could be a hundred yards away, where the shell road dead-ended, enjoying sunlight and water on the commercial-sized dock that had been rotting there since Dwight Helms had died-shot by drug dealers, most believed, even though the murder had never been solved.

No… it was safer, I decided, to try dialing again from my cell and hope the woman answered. At the very least, I would hear her phone ringing through the open door, which would have been a comfort because my mother had used the absence of an answering machine as evidence her friend was in trouble.

Twice I hit Redial before realizing the problem: No service. I moved the phone around, touched it to the windshield, even held it out the window, before finally giving up. No way around it, I had to go inside that house.

Please, God, don’t let Loretta be right about this. That’s what I was thinking when I slid out of the truck and hurried across the yard to the porch. Every step, my eyes were moving, worried about those dogs. When I got to the door, I had something new to worry about. The door was leaning on its hinges because someone had used a crowbar to shear the doorknob off, then rip the dead bolt free of the framing.

No… not a crowbar, I saw when I looked closer. The door, which was plain but solid, had been split down the middle by a single blow, only weather stripping joining the two pieces.

An axe, I thought. A strong man with an axe did this.

I took a step back. Where was the man now? Where was the axe?

“Miz Helms! Pinky! Are you there?” I had never used the woman’s nickname before and embraced the absurd hope it would shock her into responding. It did not.

The house was as dark inside as it was outside, just as I remembered. Through the open doorway, in the shadows of the living room, I could see a mix of antique furniture and modern appliances, a wide-screen TV that was on but muted. A game show, one of my mother’s favorites, same with her bingo partners. A topic they squabbled about on the phone.

Eyes scanning the trees to my left, to my right, I backed to the porch railing and checked my cell. Still no service-but why was the Helmses’ satellite dish working?

Does it matter?

No, it did not. My brain was avoiding the real question, which was: Should I bolt for the truck and get help or go inside the house to see if Mrs. Helms was hurt?

What if it was Loretta in there? my conscience argued. Your own mother injured, maybe dying? Then it asked a more painful question: What if it was you thirty years from now? A helpless widow unable to cry out!

My pounding heart urged Run! Get out of here now! but I couldn’t do that. Why is the most difficult choice almost always the right choice in a tough situation? The good and decent person in me ignored a final reproach-You have only yourself to blame!-then took charge of the situation. I had to find a weapon. Something I could swing or throw to fend off a strong man carrying an axe.

Propped against the porch steps was a shovel I hadn’t noticed until now. It seemed a handy discovery until I hefted it and saw that the blade was soiled with dog feces. Which caused me to notice other unseen details in the yard: a bucket nearly empty of water; a galvanized chain clipped to a tree where the earth had been trotted into a circle; a second tree and another chain where there were mounds of dog spore fresh enough to draw bluebottle flies. Midway between the two dog runs was a cushion that had been shredded and a bone the size of a steer’s leg that had been gnawed in two.

My hands began to shake. I held the shovel tighter to steady them, then cleaned the blade by jamming it in the sand. Pit bulls. Mrs. Helms still owned pit bulls. She had lost her husband, Dwight, to drug dealers, and her children to drug dealing, but the progeny of the family’s dogs had survived it all.

Where were they?

Not in the house. I was certain of that-they would have charged me by now. Suddenly, the house seemed a safer choice than standing alone on the porch.

I slipped past the door and went inside.

MRS. HELMS used snuff, Peach Blend, which wasn’t uncommon for women her age. “Rubbing snuff,” Loretta calls the practice, and believes it relieves menstrual cramps and gives energy, which is why the odor was familiar when I entered the living room. But why so strong?

The muted television darkened the room, so I flicked the wall switch and my question was answered. A can of Peach Blend lay open on the floor, the sweet tobacco spread on a shattered coffee table. Within easy reach was the woman’s vinyl recliner. The recliner had tumbled over backward hard enough to crack the wood floor, landing amid a litter of what looked like pamphlets. Glass from a china closet crunched beneath my feet-its walnut facing showed the divot from a single blow of an axe. Mrs. Helms had used a frozen orange juice can as a spittoon. It was there, too. Or was that sticky black mess beneath the can blood? I couldn’t be sure, and the possibility caused me to freeze for a moment.

A crime scene, I thought. Don’t touch anything.

I had finished three semesters toward my A.S. degree in law enforcement before Loretta’s stroke and had at least learned the basics. But then I ignored my own counsel by hurrying across the room to retrieve the telephone, which was also on the floor.

Nine-one-one. I hammered the buttons with an index finger. The signal tones suggested the phone was working, but it was dead when I put it to my ear. My god, Loretta had been right about the significance of no answering machine! I was already frightened, but this realization pushed me close to panic.

Pinky’s hurt, maybe dying! my mother had said, or something similar. I couldn’t escape to the truck; not now, I couldn’t, because what my mother had feared might be true. I had to continue searching the house.

“Miz Helms! You here?” How unnerving it was to hear my own voice tainted by the coward that is in me. It caused me to take stock. I am an oversized woman, fitter and stronger than most. Poor, tiny Mrs. Helms was in her seventies, had survived family tragedies and cancer yet continued to live her life with a woman’s energy, still fussing over clothes and her looks. If an intruder was in this house, Mrs. Helms was the one who had a right to be frightened, not me!

I picked up the shovel, noticing the pamphlets when I knelt. Dozens of the things on glossy paper, all the same:

PRESERVE OUR HERITAGE

JOIN FISHERFOLK of SOUTH FLORIDA, Inc.

The words were printed in white over an old-timey photo of a pioneer woman stirring a cauldron. Below it was an architect’s drawing of a modern building-it appeared to be a museum.

A charity project, I thought. Had I seen the same pamphlet among my mother’s magazines? If not, there was something similar, which was no surprise. Elderly women were easy targets for solicitors seeking donations. Loretta, because she was lonely, took every automated phone call just to hear a human voice. Same when a solicitor came to the door. Pinky Helms would have been no different. I dropped the pamphlet and continued on through the house, flicking on lights as I went.

In the hallway was a heavy metal floor lamp with twin globes, milky white, that came on when I hit the wall switch. The staircase to the second floor was there: wood beneath carpet worn bare by the passage of children and time. Crystal’s room was up there. Mica’s, too. Mica was three years younger but already taller than me when he entered middle school, and already smoking cigarettes and weed. By then, Crystal and I were strangers, separated by interests and school districts, since the village of Sulfur Wells was on the line that separated Sematee County from Lee County. I hadn’t been up those stairs in twenty years. I didn’t want to go up them now. Wasn’t it smarter to search Mrs. Helms’s bedroom first? A woman in her seventies, even if fleeing for her life, wasn’t likely to charge up the stairs.

There was a door, though, that separated the stairs from the rest of the house-typical of old houses that had been pieced together before air-conditioning. I knew the woman’s bedroom was somewhere off the kitchen, which meant I would have to open the door before continuing: a cheap door, painted green, with a white ceramic knob. I stood staring at it for several seconds, aware that the dread I felt was irrational. A man with an axe would have bashed the thing to pieces; at the very least, would not have closed a door behind him. But an elderly woman on the run might have.

A competent investigator searches buildings systematically, always clearing one room before proceeding to the next.

Textbook training from the degree I had failed to complete. Competence, I realized, could also be a handy excuse for cowardice.

I turned away from the door and went up the stairs, wood creaking beneath my weight with every slow step, my eyes focused on lace curtains white with sunlight at the top of the landing. They streamed with dust beams that pulled me forward as if on a tightrope while I used the shovel for balance. Even so, it was a clumsy weapon to carry. Halfway up, when I turned to glance behind me, the blade clunked against the banister so loudly, it startled me and I almost fell. Then I dropped the shovel, which made even more noise when it sledded down the stairs, banging each step like a cymbal.

To steady myself, I leaned against the wall, my heart pounding again. Should I retrieve the shovel? Or continue without it?

To postpone the decision, I used my voice again. “Anyone up there?” Then added a lie in case I had cornered an intruder. “The police are here! We’re worried about you, Miz Helms.”

The silence I expected was jolted by a new sound coming from outside the house; a distant noise that touched my ears as the random snaring of a drum. Then the sound deepened and took form, and I thought, Barking dogs! Dogs coming toward the house at a run; a slathering chorus I recognized from hunting with my Uncle Jake in the Everglades as a girl. It was the bellow of catch dogs that had picked up the scent and were on the heels of game.

Pit bulls. The Helms dogs had returned.

Dear god, I thought, remembering: You left the front door open!

The oversight had left me unprotected. Nothing at all to slow those animals if they struck my scent and came after me-me, a stranger, not only on their property but inside their owner’s home.

Run!

Because I panicked, that’s what I did. Hand on the banister, I vaulted down the steps, but then hesitated, the green door to my right, the living room to the left. The door offered protection, but only temporary. The living room exited to the porch, then my truck, which was the only sure means of escape. Drive half a mile on Pay Day Road, I would have a cell signal again and could call the police. But the wild barking of the dogs was so close now-would they catch me as I crossed the yard?

Not if I hurried! So I turned left. Stumbled over the shovel, hesitated again before picking it up, then sprinted down the hall toward the living room. The pine floor was slick. A shovel is also an awkward tool to run with. I had to slap a hand on the wall to make my final turn, skidded on the broken glass, and then continued more cautiously. I kept my eyes on the open doorway. It was a beacon, an airy rectangle bright with daylight and freedom, that, oddly, had muted my own hearing as abruptly as the wide-screen TV, where, on the game show, a young woman was weeping, whether for joy or in despair I neither knew nor cared. Three strides from the door, though, I stopped, my head tilted, straining to hear.

The dogs-they had stopped barking. Why?

I wasn’t deaf. I banged the shovel on the floor to prove it to myself. The thunk of metal on wood registered in my ears, but my attention was already riveted to a more chilling sound: claws clattering on gravel; a heavy, wolfish breathing so close that the slap of a panting tongue was unmistakable. I took a step back when the panting stopped. It was replaced by the rumble of a dog growling.

No… two dogs. Their silhouettes trotted across the lighted doorway. Both pit bulls, their heads the size of concrete blocks, stubby horns for ears, on dwarfed bodies of brindle-yellow fur and muscle, drifted past unaware of my presence. I pressed my back against a wall and didn’t move, didn’t breathe. It didn’t save me. The odor of my skin, my clothing, the odor of my fear, was in the air, and one dog stopped, lifted his nose to taste my scent, then returned to the doorway and looked inside. Soon, he was joined by the other dog, both animals alert, intense, their tiny eyes now so focused on me that the flooring vibrated when they began to growl in unison.