Chapter Eleven
Things were quiet at the Oaks of Stableford Manor. Too quiet. It wasn't even ten o'clock yet and it was practically deserted. I only passed two cars headed out of the neighborhood and I didn't see anyone out walking. Almost all of the houses were dark. A light on here or there and an occasional blue flicker from a big screen TV was about it. Talk about boring lives.
Vanessa's house was dark, too. Not even a blue flicker, and at first, I didn't think she was home. I hit the doorbell twice and drummed my fingers against the door frame. Some of the paint flaked off and fell to the porch. I was definitely going to have to get Tim over to help her. Those ONAG folks can be a real pain.
ONAG has this whole booklet full of do's and don'ts. I'm a big don't. They told Charli to tell me I couldn't park my Mustang on the street in front of her house. Said it was an eyesore. I don't know why. I know it has a little rust, and, okay, so one of the fenders isn't quite the same color as the rest of the car. That's still no reason to call it an eyesore.
The porch light blinked on and the door creaked open. Vanessa had on an old pair of gym shorts and the same t-shirt she'd worn at the park. A pink towel was slung around her shoulders. Her hair was wet and about six inches shorter on one side than the other. She had a pair of wicked looking scissors in her hand.
"Hey, Marty, what's up?" She looked surprised to see me.
"You're home. Can I come in? I need to talk to you."
Laughter came from a house somewhere down the street. A car door slammed and the engine roared to life. The headlights came on as it pulled out of a driveway and turned onto the street. Vanessa stared after it.
"Well, I'm right in the middle of cutting my hair." She held up the scissors. The damn things were big enough to cut down a small tree.
"I really hate to bother you, but it's important." I smiled nervously.
She still stared at where the car had been. "But if it dries, I'll have to start all over again."
Start all over again? Don't ask me what the hell she meant by that one. Maybe the aliens got tired of waiting for the new golf course/landing pad and had already landed. Maybe Vanessa was now one of those pod people. Heck, maybe everybody in Glenvar was. It sure would explain a lot of things.
"Please. Just let me come in for a few minutes."
She opened and closed the scissors. They looked sharp. Real sharp. "I don't know. I'm really tired and the house is a big mess and I have to get up early."
A dog barked and several others answered back.
"What if I promise not to look at your mess?"
She clicked the scissors open and closed a couple of times. Hard. "You're going to keep bugging me until I do. Aren't you?"
I nodded. She motioned me through the door.
The last time I'd been to her house, right before her husband died, it had been decorated as elegantly as Charli's house. Maybe even nicer. In those few months, things had changed radically. The living room was completely empty. So was the formal dining room.
We passed by the empty rooms into the family room. It was furnished. Well, sort of. The sofa in there was just plain ratty. Rattier even than mine, and that was saying something. Two mis-matched wing chairs faced each other over a scarred cocktail table. Wedged in between the fireplace and the door to the kitchen was a white laminate dinette table with chrome legs. Four brown vinyl-covered chairs were pulled up to the round table. All of the furniture looked like she'd picked it up down at the landfill. Or, maybe my apartment.
Vanessa glanced around the room. "I'm getting ready to redecorate," she said. "I thought it might help me and the kids get over losing O'Del."
"I see." I didn't, but what the heck. I dropped down into one of the wing chairs. "Kids sleeping?"
"No. I mean yes, but not here. I just got home from Beth's a little while ago. Since it was so late, Charli said I should just let them spend the night at her house." She took the pink towel off of her shoulders and tossed it over the back of one of the vinyl chairs.
"Is she doing okay? Tim said she took it real hard."
Vanessa stood beside the white dinette table click, click, clicking the scissors. "I guess she's doing as well as can be expected."
I forced myself not to roll my eyes. The teeth gritting, I couldn't help. "As well as can be expected?"
Vanessa pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Click, click, click. "You know, crying, angry, feeling guilty. The poor kids are so confused. They're too little to understand what's going on."
"Guilty? Why guilty?"
"Well, because of the separ...." She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Shoot. I wasn't supposed to say anything. Well, I suppose it's all going to come out now anyway. See, Beth and Warren had been separated for a couple of weeks. Beth feels guilty because the kids didn't get to spend that time with their daddy, and now, he's gone for good."
"Separated?" I thought Mom knew everything that went on around here. If she'd heard anything about that, I know she'd of told me. She always does.
"It was supposed to be a secret. They didn't want Wart's parents to find out. You know how they are about stuff like that."
Warren's folks are the pastors at Church of God of the Living Truth's Holiness Fellowship of Man, about as fundamental and conservative as a church can get. Rumor has it that they’re one of those snake handling denominations. "How are the Turners doing?"
"As well as can be expected."
My dentist wasn't going to like all this wear and tear on my teeth. "Have they decided when the funeral's going to be?"
"Thursday morning. Visitation's Wednesday night at the funeral home. Seven, I think."
She was still clicking those damn scissors. It was really getting on my nerves. "Want a soda?" she asked.
"Sure, sounds good."
She took a dented can of cheap generic soda out of the refrigerator, poured it into two glasses, and brought one of the glasses to me. She took a sip out of the other glass, eyeing me cautiously. After she sat back down at the dinette table, she picked up those damn scissors again.
"So, what's this important stuff you need to talk about?" Click, click, click.
I took a deep breath. "Well, it's um, it's hard for me to ask you this, but, um." I took a big drink of the soda and started again. "Vanessa, it's about that watch."
She spilt some of her drink. The scissors clicked faster. "Watch? What watch?"
"Warren's. When I found the body, I know I saw a watch.
She stared at me, her eyes blinking rapidly. The color drained from her face. She stood up, scissors still in hand and started pacing back and forth between the table and the fireplace.
I took another drink of my soda. "When she got there, Mom insisted on looking at the body and I went with her. It didn't register at the time, but the watch wasn't there anymore. I didn't take it. Neither did Mom. You're the only other one that looked."
Her eyes were still blinking, the scissors fiercely opening and closing. I went over, took them out of her hand, and laid them on the table. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. She was hyperventilating. I remembered something about needing a paper bag, so I dashed into the kitchen and looked for one. All I found were the plastic ones you get at the grocery store. I didn't think they would work.
I slammed the cabinet door shut and dashed back to the family room, trying to remember what else you were supposed to do when you hyperventilated. Vanessa was sitting on one of the wing chairs, and had her hands cupped over her nose and mouth, taking slow breaths. After a few seconds, she began breathing more regularly. She moved her hands away from her face, which was blotchy. Her eyes looked dead.
"Vanessa, are you all right?" I asked.
She shook her head slowly from side to side. "No. I'm not okay. I'm scum. I can't believe I've sunk to this."
I hugged her. "No, Honey. You aren't scum. You're one of the kindest people I know."
She just kept shaking her head and repeating the word 'scum', over and over
again.
My head felt like it was going to explode. I went back in the kitchen to look for some ibuprofen or something. There was a bottle sitting next to the sink. I took some out, two for me and two for Vanessa. When I went back in the family room, Vanessa was standing by the fireplace holding the scissors up next to her chest, the evil looking blades pointing toward her neck.
"No!" I screamed. "Don't!"
She started. The blades scraped against her throat.
"Don't do it, Vanessa, think about your kids!" I tried to think of a way to distract her so I could get the scissors.
"Marty, what on earth are you screaming about? I'm just going to finish cutting my hair. I've got to do it before the police come to get me." She grabbed a handful of hair and savagely cut it off.
"Vanessa! Stop that! Put the damn scissors down! You're butchering your hair."
She grabbed another handful and chopped it off. Then another. Gobs of hair flew all over. I grabbed her hand.
"Give me the scissors! Now! The police aren't coming for you. I didn't say anything about it to them," I said. "Stop it! Please, you're scaring me!"
She glued her eyes on mine, like she was trying to decide if I was telling the truth. Finally, she relaxed her grip on the scissors. I took them from her and put them on the fireplace mantel. Tears poured down her face. When I hugged her, she wrapped her arms around my neck, practically choking me.
"Oh God, Marty, oh God. I think I'm losing my mind!" She cried and cried for what seemed like hours.