Dead Weight (6 page)

‘Yes!’ I yelled back. ‘I’m saying the window was broken by someone else! And that’s the truth!’

There was silence for a moment. Then he yelled, ‘I’ll be right back!’ and left.

It was a quiet ride home. Until I said, ‘Can you swing by Berta’s house? My car’s still there.’

‘Your car was towed to impound. That’s a hundred dollars we could have used towards Graham’s education.’

I laughed. ‘A hundred dollars one way or another will have no effect on Graham’s education. Stop trying to make me feel guilty for something I didn’t do. So where’s the impound?’

‘It closes at six. It’s now nine o’clock. I lost two hours of work, plus the hundred dollars plus the doctor bills for this ulcer you’re giving me!’

‘You gonna yell at me some more?’ I asked, rubbing his thigh.

‘Jeez, don’t tell me yelling at you turns you on now.’

‘That would be unfortunate,’ I said. ‘I’d stay horny constantly.’

‘I don’t yell at you that much,’ he said, his voice softening.

‘Yeah, you do,’ I said.

‘You yell back,’ he said.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘The kids are all home,’ he said.

‘Too bad we don’t have the minivan,’ I said.

‘I sorta know the guy who runs the impound,’ Willis said. ‘Maybe I can get him to open it.’

I continued to rub his thigh. ‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard all night.’

An hour later I was following Willis’s truck home in my minivan. It was true that I was slightly turned on, not so much by the yelling, more by being out of jail. Willis never needed to know that the real reason I wanted the minivan out of impound was to protect Berta Harris’s laptop. I’d moved it from her office to the van while waiting for the police to show up. Somehow, I think it might have hurt his feelings.

‘So what’s on it?’ Trisha asked. We were sitting in my office under the stairs while Megan watched
Sesame Street
with Trisha’s two daughters.

‘Nothing yet,’ I answered. I was trying to peruse Berta Harris’s laptop but was having no luck. I can write a book on a computer, find the internet, and turn it on and off. Other than that, computers are not my friend.

‘Let me try,’ Trisha said, shooing me out of my chair. She found a few more things than I did – mainly Berta’s email account. Her password had been simple: her first name.

There were emails to and from Kerry Killian.

The latest one from Kerry had a long history of former emails to and from. We scrolled to the bottom to the start of the message, which began in early November of the previous year, and ended about a month ago:

Berta: I’m scared. I heard someone walking on the sidewalk in front of the house! What am I supposed to do?

Kerry: Bert, honey, sidewalks are public property, remember? It’s OK if someone walks on it. You need to just calm down. Drink some warm milk and get some sleep, OK, sweetie?

Berta: OK, I slept OK last night. I took one of those sleeping pills you gave me. They’re the only thing that helps. Sometimes I feel like I’m coming out of my skin. I don’t think your plan is working! Nothing is coming to me. I went to a new group last night, MADD, but I don’t think I hurt anyone while driving drunk. I sure didn’t feel guilty when I went there. Nervous, but not guilty.

Kerry: Great! That’s something else we can mark off the list! Have you checked your weight? Gained a few more pounds?

Berta: Up to 145. Yea!

Kerry: You betcha yea! I’m proud of you.

That one ended. I looked at Trisha. ‘“Up to 145? Yea”? Since when do women go “yea” over gaining weight?’

Trisha shrugged. ‘Not in my lifetime,’ she said.

‘She joined MADD to see if she felt guilty?’ I pondered.

‘Yeah, to see if she’d run over somebody while drinking,’ Trisha said, wrinkling her pretty brow. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she said.

‘No, you’re right, it doesn’t. None of this makes sense. Kerry seems very close to her from these emails, yet Ken barely knew of her existence. What’s that all about?’

Again the shrug.

‘Can you get anything else?’ I asked.

‘There’s older email threads,’ Trisha said.

We looked and they were all basically the same. Berta frightened or upset, Kerry trying to settle her down. Berta conceded she probably wasn’t an alcoholic because she didn’t crave liquor, but she might keep going to AA because she thought one of the guys there was, as she put it, ‘super hunky cute.’ She liked going to Weigh In because she discovered lots of new places to go eat where she could, as she put it, ‘pig out like a real oinker.’ None of this made a lick of sense, and Trisha and I were about to give up when I heard Graham and the girls come in from various summertime activities.

‘Graham!’ I yelled.

‘What?’ he yelled back.

‘Get a snack and come to my office. I need your superior tech skills!’

‘Whatever,’ he yelled back.

‘He’s good?’ Trisha asked.

‘Yeah, got a couple of hundred bucks last year for changing the grades of half the football team. Of course, he got caught, and we made him pay the money back. But still.’ My turn to shrug.

‘It does show skill,’ Trisha conceded.

‘That’s all I’m saying.’

Graham wandered into my office with an apple between his teeth and a bagel in his hand. ‘Waa?’

‘We got the emails off here, but what else can we get that will tell us something about the owner?’ I asked.

Graham took the apple out of his mouth. ‘Who does this laptop belong to?’ he asked.

‘Does that really matter?’

‘Is it stolen?’

‘That doesn’t concern you. I just need you to—’

‘Does Dad know about this?’ Graham asked, hands on hips.

I stood up. ‘You are
not
playing that card, young man! How much stuff do I have on you that I haven’t told your dad? Or Luna next door, for that matter?’

‘So,’ he said, leaning over the laptop. ‘You want to see the history of where the owner’s been on the internet?’

‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ I said.

‘Ma’am,’ my respectful son said to Trisha, sliding her out of the chair and himself into it. He fiddled for a while, said, ‘
Voila!
’ and turned to me. ‘We’re even.’ He stuck out his hand and I shook it.

‘Even,’ I said.

He stuck the apple back in his mouth, picked up the bagel and left my office.

‘You have a strange relationship with your family,’ Trisha said.

I sat down in my office chair. ‘True, but it works for us.’

FOUR

W
ith only a fourteen-inch TV and a couple of chairs, I didn’t blame Berta Harris for spending inordinate amounts of time on the computer. Her user history was long and varied. Everything from Tour Excursions of Madagascar to brain maladjustments, with even weirder stuff in between, like symptoms of rickets, Bollywood movie posters, the history of venereal disease – you name it, Berta Harris looked it up. That didn’t seem to get us anywhere.

‘Should we give this to the police now?’ Trisha asked, indicating Berta Harris’s laptop.

‘And how are we supposed to do that? “Oh, Luna, I forgot this was in my van. How did it get there? Gee, I guess the guy who broke in must have waited around and put it there.”’ I gave her a look.

‘Don’t get snippy with me! Remember, I’m a volunteer!’ Trisha said, hands on hips and lines forming between her brows. Did I really want to be responsible for giving Trisha McClure wrinkles?

‘Sorry, Trisha,’ I said and sighed. ‘I’m worried about the same thing. And I obviously don’t have a good answer.’

‘What if we take it back to Berta’s house and, like, I don’t know, put it in her backyard? Under a bush or something? Like the thief dropped it? After we wipe our fingerprints, of course,’ she suggested.

I had to admit it was better than anything I’d been able to think of. I wouldn’t admit it to Trisha, but the scenario I’d offered so sarcastically, about approaching Luna with the story of the thief putting the laptop in my car, had been the best one I’d come up with.

So we made plans to sneak out that night after our families were asleep and take the laptop back. And maybe make an anonymous call from a pay phone (if we could find one), telling the cops that the laptop had been spotted.

The evening went as expected. Whenever I have nefarious plans, I can always count on my family to screw things up for me. Megan and Graham got into a fight that got very close to the physical, on Megan’s part, at least. This lasted until eleven, causing everyone to stay up way past their bedtime. Then we had to have a cooling-off period, which involved all three girls, three spoons, and a half gallon of Blue Bell peaches and cream ice cream. Graham convinced his father he needed a light beer. I know, I should have said no, but I’ve decided to pick heavier battles to come, rather than one light beer in the living room. When I finally got everyone into their own bedrooms and myself into mine, Willis wanted to discuss the kids’ fight, the origins of which I knew nothing. So I had to act like I was interested for another half hour. Trisha’s plan had been to stay in her living room until I called to tell her that the coast was clear. I woke her up at one-thirty. She’d fallen asleep on her couch.

Unfortunately, as we headed outside, we discovered it was, and I’m serious here, a dark and stormy night. Black clouds had rolled in to cover the moon, and lightning flashed in their depths. I hoped it wouldn’t get too close because close thunder could wake up Willis, who might notice I wasn’t in bed. Of course, with all the talk of drought, he might be so excited about the possibility of rain that he wouldn’t notice I was missing. If I was a really good wife and mother, I’d wake the whole family up so they could share the wonder of wetness (which we hadn’t seen in these parts for several months) with me. Thank God I’m not that good a wife and mother.

We parked the minivan three houses down from Berta’s house and, both wearing black, slinked our way to Berta’s backyard, feeling lucky that the rain hadn’t started yet. Just as we put the laptop under a nice droopy bush, I glanced at the house and saw a light. It wasn’t a steady light either; the light was moving, like someone with a flashlight moving from place to place.

I grabbed Trisha’s arm. ‘Look!’ I whispered.

She turned, and saw what I saw. We squatted there with our arms in a fireman’s square, like we were going to carry someone out of a burning building. Finally we let go and I whispered to Trisha, ‘Should we go check it out?’

‘No!’ she whispered loudly.

‘Yeah, I think so too,’ I whispered as I duck-walked toward the back door of Berta’s home.

The sliding glass door was open and I went inside. Someone was in the family room going through papers on a table next to Berta’s stuffed recliner. I turned my flashlight over and, using the smaller side, stuck it in the small of the person’s back.

‘Put your hands up slowly,’ I said.

The person screamed. A very feminine scream. She whirled around and hit my supposedly gun-toting arm with her flashlight, fortunately not very hard; I used my own flashlight, still clutched tightly in my hand, to hit her back. We were standing there in the dark – her flashlight bulb broke with her first blow against my arm – whaling away at each with our flashlights when the overhead light came on.

‘E.J.?’ said the person with the feminine scream.

‘Berta?’ I said.

Trisha stood by the overhead light switch, the laptop under one arm. ‘I think I’m confused,’ she said.

‘You and me both,’ I agreed.

‘Trisha?’ Berta said. ‘What are you two doing here? Is that my laptop?’

‘What are
you
doing here?’ I asked. ‘You’re supposed to be dead. Trisha, why’d you bring that in?’ I asked, indicating the laptop.

Berta sank to the floor.

Trisha sank down next to her and I followed suit. ‘It was starting to rain. I thought that might ruin it,’ she said, setting down the laptop.

Berta picked it up and hugged it to her chest. ‘This is the only reason I came back.’

‘My first question,’ Trisha said, ‘is why were you happy to gain weight?’

‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘“Yea! I’m up to 145 pounds!” What’s that all about?’

Berta was shaking her head and looking confused.

‘Your emails to Kerry.’

‘Oh!’ she said, and I could almost see the light bulb shining over her head.

Then she sighed. ‘It’s a very long story,’ she said. ‘Besides, y’all have no right to be looking at my laptop!’

‘We’ve got the time,’ I said, giving her a harsh look. ‘But before that why the hell did you have a memorial service for yourself? That’s just creepy.’

‘Yeah!’ Trisha said, imitating my look, as best a blue-eyed blonde with dimples could.

‘Do you know about Kerry?’ I asked.

Berta lowered her head and nodded, tears beginning to fall in her lap.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know y’all were friends.’

‘Best friends,’ Berta whispered. ‘My only friend. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,’ she said. Then she looked up at me. ‘I mean, really. I have no idea what to do without her!’ And then she began to bawl. And bawl. And bawl. And as she did, she just got louder. And louder. And louder.

I finally put my arms around her, more to get her to shut up than because of any feelings of sympathy (bitchy, but I was still pissed), since she still hadn’t told me what was going on, and said, ‘You have me. And Trisha. You can count on us. We’re going to help you.’

Sometimes I say the dumbest things.

‘Someone’s trying to kill me,’ Berta finally said. ‘I think they killed Kerry to find out where I was. Maybe they tortured her; I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean someone’s trying to kill you?’ I asked.

‘Have you seen my bathroom?’ she asked.

‘The broken window, yes,’ I said.

‘Someone threw one of those small electric space heaters through the glass while I was taking a bath about two weeks ago. I guess the dumbass didn’t realize how short the cord was. It was unplugged when it came through. But the glass cut me. I fell out of the tub and grabbed my robe and my purse and ran to my car.’ Her voice became shrill, the words coming out in short staccato sentences. ‘I drove to Kerry’s office. I had a key. I went in there and called her. She had a couch in her private office. I stayed there that night.’