Chapter IV

IV

Ten minutes later Kevin Mahoney and Mark helped Joe into my living room. None of them were sober, but Joe was absolutely shitfaced. “Okay,” he said, once in the door, “Let’s go. Back to my place.”

“What? Are you nuts?” Mark demanded. “You think I’m scraping your remains off the street, you are nuts. You can’t drive and you can barely walk. Go to bed here.”

“I can’t stay here,” he said. “I’ll sneeze.” He looked around for the cats.

“Excuse me?” Kevin laughed.

“He’s allergic to her cats,“ Mark laughed as Joe pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He let go a massive sneeze.

Kevin laughed, and pushed him backwards into the sofa. “Stay put. I’m going home, while my wife is still at her mother’s.” He waved at me. “Annie.”

“Kevin.”

Mark stopped for a quick kiss on the cheek and then ran off. Joe curled up on his side, and I went for a blanket and pillow. He sneezed before I re­turned, and again before I covered him. “Annie,” he called.

“Huh?”

“You still love me?”

“Yes.”

“Even when I’m drunk?”

“Even when you’re drunk. Just don’t make a habit of it.”

“Right. Too expensive.” He rolled to his back as Duffy walked the back of the sofa. My little black cat with the flatulence problem, sat down above Joe’s head, and watched. “I hate cats,” he said, before closing his eyes.

I e-mailed. And then I cooked. When Tom Koehler called I was eating Dean’s Moose Tracks directly from the carton. “I got it,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I thought you couldn’t handle this anymore.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m finishing off my ice cream now and looking for­ward to the pan of brownies cooling on the stove.”

“Where did you get the diary?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Same place I get all my leads.”

He paused for a long moment. “You can substantiate it I hope?”

“Oh, yeah. You got anything else to ask me? Or can I get back to my junk food?”

“Fine. Eat.” He paused again. “Annie?”

“Yeah?”

“The drought is over. I don‘t want to read about your kitties for a long time to come.”

Yep, the drought was over. With my work done and turned in, and Joe asleep on the sofa, I had time to myself. To eat, to straighten the photos on the wall, or to wash the slip covers that I had spilled ice cream on, or even to start that novel that never seemed to materialize. God help me if I could go to sleep too early.

Joe spent the night on the sofa. He awoke before me, sniffling and sneez­ing, sounding one sneeze short of a full blown case of pneumonia. I woke when the open paper landed on me. “Where did you get this crap?” he de­manded.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do, too.”

“Brenna and Rose.”

“When did you see them?”

“Yesterday. At Bobby’s funeral.”

He paled.

“You guys took off,” I explained, trying to sit up. “And the reporters took off after you. No one stayed around without you.”

He sprinted onto the bed and pinned me down. He shook it, and growled, and suddenly wrapped his arms about me. His breath, smelling of sour beer, came hot and quick in my ear. “Damn it,” he cried. “Do you have any idea what you’re dealing with? You can’t do shit like this! You can’t! You just don’t get it!” He ran his fingers in my hair, stroking it and the back of my head. “I love you. I can’t let you get hurt. You will. You keep this up.”

“Joe,” I whispered. “Stop.”

“No, you stop. No more stories.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“You should be scared. My God. You have no idea what happened yester­day.”

“What happened?” I managed to push him back enough to provide me with some breathing room.

“Never mind.” He pulled me against him again, this time tenderly, and held me there for a long moment. “Promise me.”

“I will.”

“No. No more stories. Promise me. And this time, keep your promise.” Reluctantly, I crossed my fingers and agreed. Again.

Over breakfast I reread my story. There’s only so much space, and so many elements that make up a newspaper. I’d hate to be an editor, and have to make those calls. Some­times it comes down to cutting up an article and putting it back together again, using less words, and making it make sense. That’s editing. Cut and snip, cut and snip. Like a jig­saw puzzle. It breaks my poetic heart when my words are tampered with and refuse to flow as they did when I first typed them. It surprised me that day the only deletion was a name. “Hannah Schreoder is the cheerleader Lisa protected,” Joe ex­plained.

“She’s alive?”

“She’s at Robbinson Memorial. I think I heard she’s in serious condition.” I pictured the blonde that nearly fell off the back of the pick-up truck when Bobby snapped her picture over and over again.

Terry O’Malley had a story on page two about several explosions that tore up the inte­rior of Roosevelt the night of the game. “’The lower floor has sustained enough dam­age,’” I read aloud, “’That one expert went as far as to question the structural integrity.’” I looked at Joe. “I wonder where he’d get something like that?”

“Saw him last night at Pinkies’ Tap. Cheap skate actually bought a round.” He wiped his nose and refilled his coffee cup. “Are you ready yet?”

“I need a shower.”

“So do I. Take your clothes back to my place. My head is killing me.” He set his cup down and blew his red and raw nose. Duffy must have decided that he either likes Joe or likes teasing Joe. I wouldn’t put either past Duffy. My small black cat stretched, and rubbed up against Joe’s pants leg. Joe sneezed.

We returned to his place long enough for him to shower and change. It wasn’t until I returned to the window where my camera still rested, that I realized something had changed. Joe, fixing his collar and buttoning his shirt, stepped in next to me. “What now?” he asked.

“Congratulations.” I smiled at him. “You’re no longer front page news.”

He snorted. Then he sneezed.

He insisted that I join him at school that day. I did. An hour after we left my place, his head began to drain. Administrators and police officers met in the faculty lunchroom to make plans over coffee and sweet rolls. This is a smaller version of the cafeteria where we waited to be interviewed. The ta­bles are round rather than long, and the chairs are more comfortable.

As Joe helped himself to two cups of coffee, one for him and one for me, I looked around. I think I expected to find walls on the verge of collapse or the ceiling caving in. I couldn’t find a crack in the paint even. He pulled up to the same table where everyone sat, and set the cups down just in time to catch a sneeze in his handkerchief.

“Catching cold?” Kevin asked.

“I told you last night. I’m allergic to cats.”

Kevin nodded at Jack Harnett. “I didn’t see any cats at Pinkie’s last night.”

“Dumb ass. Her place.” Joe nodded in my direction. “You saw them when you dropped me off.”

“Imagine that,” Kevin bated. “He finally gets up the courage to ask her what’s she’s doing with the rest of his life, and she has cats.” He nodded at me. “When you guys get married, will you get rid of the cats?”

“I’ll decide if he ever asks me,” I said, glancing up at Joe. He blushed to a deep red.

“I was under the impression she asked you,” Kevin continued.

My cheeks caught fire. “I remember asking you to pay my rent if I got fired. I don’t remember asking anything else.”

“After this, I doubt you’ll get fired,” Art Weber commented as he tore into the room. He set the paper down in front of me. “Tell me something.”

“What’s that, Chief?”

“Is this O’Malley as much of a moron as I think he is?”

“Terry? I thought you’d be screaming at me about the front page story.”

“You’re right,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Remind me to call you a moron later. I need to talk to you now,” he demanded nodding at the outer cafete­ria. I nodded and stood. Joe tried to follow, but Chief Weber stopped him. “Her. Not you.”

“If it concerns her, it concerns me.”

Art held up his hand. “Joe, back off. Now.”

He turned away. “Fine. You need me, I’ll be in my office.”

“No,” Art said slowly. “Stay here until we’re done. If we have to evacuate again, I want to know exactly where everyone is.”

He led me back into the cafeteria. It was empty and footfalls echoed fero­ciously. The orange chairs had been pulled away from the tables, and stacked. Art loudly dropped his paper on a table, and pulled two chairs from the shortest stack. The noise of him dragging them across the floor grated on my nerves. I took one from him and sat while he examined his chair. At last, he sat on one cheek, and struggled to pull himself in.

“Why are you worried about evacuating?” I asked him.

“My question first. Is O’Malley the moron I think he is?”

This is what I hate about working with Terry. He screws up and I’m called on to rectify his mistakes. I nodded and spread out the paper. “Terry doesn’t know the difference be­tween journalism and creative writing.”

“He’s scaring the hell out of people.” Art tapped the paper. “This. This is crap.”

“I don’t have any control over editing.”

“Maybe not. But at least your stuff is accurate. Although I’m not crazy about giving up the little bit of leverage I have here.”

“You mean the diary?”

“What diary? It doesn’t exist.”

“Is that the official line?” I asked turning to glance out the closest win­dow. Outside a single maple, with a broomstick trunk grew there. The leaves were an in­credible array of reds and golds.

“Was. You blew that to hell this morning.”

“Okay, I’m a moron.”

He paused. “Annie, I need your help.”

“Me?” I said coming about again.

“Yeah. You.” He pushed the paper back. “First off, I want this jackass out of Portland. You got that?”

“Art? I can’t control that.”

“You get back to your editor, and you tell him I’ll hit O’Malley with any trumped up charge I can think of next time he sets foot here. If he farts, I’ll get him for high emissions. You tell Koehler I have three words for him.” He leaned in. “Trench coat mafia. What comes out of this town is going to be accurate. If for no other reason than to make sure no one panics, thinking there’s one more nut wandering around with a high tech assault rifle. That crap from yesterday made CNN last night.”

“Carmen isn’t going to like that,” I said, reminding him about the feud between the Mayor and myself.

Art rolled his eyes. “Carmen isn’t any happier with me.”

Okay, he had me. “Okay, so tell me about evacuating the building.”

“Yesterday. And I’m sure O’Malley heard this when those airheads in there met him at Pinkie’s. Warren Devers’ locker was rigged with an explo­sive device. We set it off when we tried to search it. Got dogs going through the building right now, looking for more. We finish that and we do the grounds. Joe said something about doing the memorial out­side. I’ll be damned if someone trips over something out there and blows their toes off.”

“Who’s Warren Devers? I don’t know him.”

“According to Linc, he’s a slug. The other kids hated his guts. Spit on him. Beat him up regularly. Add that to the crap some of these kids take at home, you have problems.”

I thought back to the kid who tried to buy a split-the-pot ticket from me prior to the game. He sure was goofy. “I think I met him.” 

That made me think about the raffle. The winning ticket was supposed to be drawn during the half time of the varsity game. I wondered what happened to the pro­ceeds. We sold quite a bit that night.

“So, structural damage. How bad?” I asked, glancing at the pristine walls.

“A couple of lockers, a classroom door. How much more do we need?”

“No structural damage?”

“No.”

“Injuries?”

“Ed Sonchek cut his hand when the explosive went off. A few stitches and he’s home today.”

I nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll call Ed. So, did someone get away?”

“Nick Romaro hopped the back fence. Didn’t get very far.” He folded his arms and shifted his weight onto the other cheek. “One more thing. Your in­formation only. I want Rob Boyle. Medical examiner took traces of semen from Bobby’s rectal area. I find Boyle and I order DNA tests. I only wish it oc­curred to any of us that Megan was pregnant with his baby when she died.”

I closed my eyes momentarily. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

“Yep. Thought it belonged to Tony.” He picked up the paper and tapped it against the tabletop. “I find out where they got the weapons, I’ll let you in on that, too.”

I smiled at Joe when we returned to the faculty lounge. “You promised me,” he growled. “No more.”

I shrugged.

He turned on Art. “I don’t know what you two are up to, but I don’t like it. Get your wife out there and find out how it feels.”

“I am not your wife.”

He pulled me roughly against him, and kissed me hard on the lips. “Damn it,” he said, holding on. “You promised me.”

Link to Chapter IV *