Broken Angel

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Michele was fifteen years old, looking forward to the last week of school, when the workload would lessen and softball season would begin. Softball wouldn’t last long; the Clearwater team never made it to the post season. There wasn’t a big enough talent pool to build a good team. Still, it was fun, and a great excuse to hang around the diamond after their games to watch the boys from visiting teams.

She knew almost every girl her age in Clearwater, but she didn’t know the girl sitting alone in the corner booth. The girl who appeared to be sleeping with her eyes open. Except for the slow, rhythmic movement of her chest, she could have been dead.

“Don’t stare, Michele. It’s not nice.”

Michele turned to face her mom, but her eyes flicked back to the girl. “There’s something wrong with her, mom. Look at her.”

“Michele!” Her mom’s lips pulled into humorless lines, her eyes widened and scanned the tables around them, almost hoping, Michele thought, that she wasn’t the only one incensed by her daughter’s rudeness. “You can be such a little monster sometimes.”

Michele rolled her eyes and dipped one of Canyon Jack’s limp fries in catsup. “She’s been sitting there since we walked in, and I haven’t seen her parents once. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“They’re around somewhere,” her mom said, but she sounded unsure. She looked around the dining room, as Michele had earlier, but saw no strangers she could match with the girl; just Jack working the kitchen, the waitress, Darla, and a few townies. She looked out the dining room window, scanned the half dozen cars, and frowned.

The strange girl just sat there, staring into the nothing.

Then her head turned and she looked at Michele.

Michele felt a sudden, electric shock of fear. Those dark, bottomless eyes seemed ready to swallow her. Giving way to the fear was a loathing she didn’t understand for the strange girl. Her stomach gave a sudden, slippery roll. Her throat burned, and she had just enough time to duck beneath the table before her dinner came back up.

“Michele,” her mom shouted, and tried to pull her back up. “My god, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, then wiped her mouth. “Let go, I’m fine.” She opened her eyes and saw the pile she’d left between her feet. Not much there, she hadn’t eaten much, but what was there was tinged with red. Michele almost screamed, then realized it wasn’t blood, but bile-thinned catsup.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” It was Darla, standing at the table with a pot of coffee in one hand and a bar rag in the other. She frowned at Michele, then the mess under the table.

“Do you know who that girl is?” her mother interrupted.

Darla followed her mother’s pointing finger and flinched when she saw the girl. “Oh m’god! I didn’t know she was still here!”

“You know her?” Michele ventured. She chanced another look at the girl, bracing herself for another wave of sickness. There was none, just her natural curiosity and a creeping pity.

“No,” Darla said. “She was here when I came on shift. Sitting with her friends.” She looked thoughtful for a second, an almost alien expression on her face. “They left about the same time you came in.”

While Darla and her mother spoke, Michele looked around at the other patrons. Not many, especially not for a Friday night. They’d arrived about the same time as usual, just ahead of the normal Friday rush, but tonight that rush hadn’t come.

There were a few kids, stopped over on their way to some Friday night party or other, a few mill workers from down-river.

Old man Wallen sat at the bar, nursing what was probably his twentieth beer of the afternoon. He’d come in earlier, already half toasted, bitching about the Damn Punk kids foolin’ around his salvage yard again.

He was the only one, besides her, her mother, and Darla now, who seemed to notice the strange girl. He watched her, blood-shot eyes unblinking, muttering.

“Maybe you should check the restroom,” her mother said to Darla. “I’ll look around outside. They have to be here somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Darla said, then set the coffee pot on the edge of the table and wandered toward the rest rooms.

“Stay put. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Yeah,” Michele said. “Sure.”

Her mother pulled out her pack of Saratoga’s, the vice she usually kept well hidden in view of other people, and lit one on her way through the door. When the door swung shut behind her, Michele got up and walked over to the lone girl’s booth.

“Hey,” Michele said, and stopped in front of her.

She didn't respond, not even a blink of the eyes or a turning of the head in the direction of Michele’s voice.

“Where are your friends? Did they leave you?”

Nothing from the girl.

Michele heard footsteps from behind and turned to find Old Man Wallen approaching, his cane leading the way like an arthritic third leg.

“You best get now,” he said to Michele, but his eyes remained fixed on the unresponsive girl. “Get on back to your table and let me deal with her. You don’t want to get mixed up with her lot.”

Michele was suddenly scared of him. He’d always been just the cranky old junk man, but she felt something coming off of him, a stink that was more than beer or whiskey. There was something very wrong with him.

Michele backed a little closer to the booth, standing in front of the girl. “She didn’t do anything wrong, Mr. Wallen. She’s just lost, I think.”

Now his eyes did find hers, locked onto them, held them in an electric grip. What she saw in them was worse than his irrational drunk talk, worse than the stink that seemed to ooze out of his pores. What she saw in his eyes was a simple, brutal rage.

He dropped the cane. It hit the tile floor with a wooden clatter, then he limped forward a step. His right hand flew at her, and before she could duck it slammed into her face.

She heard the shocked gasps that came as one from the other diners, then felt the dull, metallic pain as her head hit the floor. She tasted blood, and spit it onto the tile in front of her.

She tried to scream for her mother, but her traumatized lips wouldn’t cooperate. They were fat, rubbery.

“I’m going to do this,” Wallen said. “Oh, you little bastards I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago!”

Michele pushed herself up from the floor; there was a lot of blood on it.

That all came from me, she thought, amazed. That ass-hole hit me!

“Ass-hole,” she said, but it came out blubbery through her swollen lips. More blood spattered the floor.

She began to cry.

From the other side of the dining room, Darla screamed.

Wallen was laughing.

Michele turned her head, looked up.

He was choking the girl.

Michele couldn’t see the girl, only Old Man Wallen, bent over her, arms thrust out, tendons standing under the skin like strands of bailing wire.

“Help her,” she said, but no one did. They just stood around, watching, faces ashen, eyes big.

Michele stood, slipped in her own blood, fell to her knees. She saw Wallen’s cane lying on the floor and picked it up. Before she even knew she meant to do it, she was standing behind him, cane upraised like a club.

“Michele, no,” she heard her mother scream from somewhere behind her, but she was already in motion.

The cane came down on the top of the old man’s head with an almost comical bonk sound.

Wallen grunted, lurched forward, but didn’t release the girl. Her face had gone a pretty shade of lavender.

Michele raised the cane again, held it with both hands, and brought it down as hard as she could.

The bonk sound was less comical this time. It was accompanied by a brittle cracking sound, like an eggshell breaking on the edge of a mixing bowl. He fell to his knees without a sound, leaned forward onto the booth’s seat, then slid onto the floor under the table. This time the blood staining the tile floor was his, and there was a lot more of it.

His eyes were open still, but he didn’t see Michele. They were not accusing as she might have expected, like a dead person’s eyes sometimes were in the books she read. They were like the eyes of a mounted deer head.

Michele dropped the cane, turned away from him. She found the strange girl lying on the seat of the booth. There was an ugly red ring around her neck; a raw red peppered with grime from Wallen’s ever dirty hands.

She was breathing though, drawing air in ragged gasps. Her eyes were red, leaking silent tears.

Michele began to bawl. She dropped next to the strange girl on the seat, lifted her up and wrapped her arms around her, fists locked behind her back, and cried for both of them.

Deputy Danny Grey allowed Grim to sit in the front passenger seat of the old Jeep that served as deputy sheriff’s patrol rig for Clearwater, instead of the back seat. Being a lawman’s brother rated that much at least.

Not a real brother, Grim supposed, but close enough. They’d both been raised under the same roof, by the same woman. Clara Grey, Clearwater Post-mistress, President of the local chapter of The Sisters of Mercy, and foster mother. Clara Grey, Clearwater’s resident saint.

Grim’s arsenal was zipped up snug in his backpack again and stashed behind the Jeep’s back seat, where it would likely remain until Danny decided he’d been punished enough. He’d replaced his paint splattered shirt with a spare he’d packed for afterward.

“It had to be the salvage yard, didn’t it?” Danny said, trying to sound stern but not quite accomplishing it. The salvage yard had been a favorite playground to the kids of Clearwater since time out of mind, and he’d heard stories about Danny’s exploits in his younger years. Not a serial rapist by any means, but he’d got up to his own mischief.

“You knew we were going,” Grim said. “If you’re so concerned about Wallen’s property rights why didn’t you stop us?”

“Hell, I don’t care what you do in that old crap-yard, so long as you keep it low key.” He frowned at Grim, gave his head a little shake. “It was those damn spud-guns. Sounded like you were beating war drums. Wallen was damn near frothing when he called.”

They rolled slowly along the dirt path from the salvage yard to Wallen’s shack. Grim’s heart played a little tango in his chest when it came into view.

“You’re going to make me apologize to him, aren’t you?”

“That would be a sight,” Danny said, then laughed. “No, I told him to be gone before I got there. Said I didn’t want to have to worry about restraining him and a gang of juvenile delinquents at the same time.”

They passed Wallen’s cabin and found smoother ground. Grim noted with some relief that the old man’s green International was gone.

“Didn’t know you could do that.”

“Can’t, but I did anyway. He was probably too drunk to question it.” Danny pointed at Grim as they turned the next narrow corner, almost running them into a tree. “Tell your friends the next time I get a call from Wallen I won’t give them a running start. You’re lucky as hell it was me instead of Everett.”

Everett Johnson was Clearwater’s daytime deputy, the main reason they’d planned their game for the evening, rather than the middle of the day. “He’d just love to bust you.”

“I know,” Grim said. “He’s had a hard-on for me from day one. Thinks I’m a bad apple.”

“You are a bad apple,” Danny said, but not without another hint of a smile. “Incidentally, you want to duck down when we get to Jack’s. Wallen’s waiting there for a full report.”

“What’re you going to tell him?”

Danny screwed his face up into a sour mime of Wallen’s and croaked, “I’ll tell him the s**t-lickin’ bastard punks were gone when I got there.”

“Thanks,” Grim said. It wasn’t the first time Danny had covered for him. Most likely wouldn’t be the last.

“Don’t mention it. Especially not to Mom. She’d kick my ass.”

They rounded the last corner through the trees and the road to town came into view. As they turned onto it Danny’s radio blared static, then a voice. “Danny, have you been to Wallen’s place yet?” It was Lydia, the volunteer dispatcher. When the office was empty all calls routed to her.

“Just leaving now,” Danny said, then held a finger up to pursed lips, a little be quiet or we’re both in for it gesture.

“Good, you need to get over to Jack’s, ASAP.”

“Copy,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Tell Wallen to keep his pants on.”

“Wasn’t Wallen that called, it was Darla.”

“Come again,” Danny said.

“Darla called. I couldn’t understand most of what she said, but she’s pretty upset. Sounded like she said Michele Kirkwood just killed someone right there in Jack’s dining room.”

Grim gawked at the radio, then at Danny. He knew Michele Kirkwood, not well, but well enough to doubt what he heard.

No f*****g way, he mouthed to Danny.

Danny didn’t believe it either, and indicated his doubt with a little shake of the head.

“You have got to be mistaken,” Danny said. “Michele wouldn’t kick a dog if it was chewing her leg off.”

“I know,” the radio squawked back at them. “Dear God, I hope I am mistaken.”

Danny had seen dead bodies before, mostly on the highway. Truckers run off the road by exhaustion, and a few town folks that had been t-boned pulling onto the highway by Jack’s without looking first. This was his first murder.

Well, not exactly a murder. Wallen had attacked Michele first, then the strange, silent girl sitting alone in the corner booth. A fifteen year old girl that he knew from town, a nice girl, a good girl, had busted Wallen’s old head wide open with his own cane, and had saved the other girl’s life.

So really, she was a hero, not a murderer.

She was hysterical when he arrived, crying and clutching the strange girl. Grim had to help him pry them apart.

Grim sat with Michele now, holding her, trying to comfort her while Danny took a statement from her mother, Evelyn Kirkwood.

Jack had closed the place down and left for home after giving his statement. Not much help really, since he was in the back cooking when it had happened. The other patrons were gone too, having given their individual statements and perspectives.

The consensus was that Michele had been damn brave and acted before any of the others had a chance to.

This didn’t feel right though. Wallen had backhanded Michele out of the way, and a damn wonder she wasn’t out cold after the hurting he’d put on her, then attacked the girl in the booth. The girl's throat was swollen, and there were ugly purple imprints where his fingers had closed around it. That had taken more than just a second to inflict.

And Michele had hit him twice before his skull caved in. Twice. There should have been plenty of time for someone else to step in and help.

What it looked like, though Danny didn’t quite dare say it, was that the others had just stood around and watched.

That didn’t make any goddamn sense either. He knew these people, thought he did anyway.

“Thanks, Evelyn.” He closed his notepad, he wasn’t going to get anything new. “Would you like us to take her to the hospital? She took quite a shot.”

There was a lump on her head where she’d hit the floor, and her split lip dribbled blood, but he thought she would be fine. No concussion, nothing broken. The emotional shock seemed to be the worst of it.

Evelyn glared at him.

“Well, no s**t? Where ever did you get your spectacular grasp of the obvious?” She turned away from him, purse clutched to her chest and nose in the air. “I can take care of her.”

Let it slide, he thought, face burning with equal parts embarrassment and anger. She’s having a shitty night too.

Shitty night or not, that kind of antagonism was what you expected when dealing with Evelyn Kirkwood. She was a b***h on her best days.

He watched her approach Grim and Michele and willed her to keep a civil tongue with Grim at least.

“Let’s go, baby,” she said, holding out a hand to Michele. To Grim she said, “Thanks.”

At least her mouth said thanks. Her tone said stay away from my girl.

“Take care, Michele,” Grim said, and didn’t even acknowledge Evelyn, just stood and walked past her like she wasn’t there.

Just let it slide, as Grim liked to say.

Little brother? Kind of. Troublemaker? Definitely. But, sometimes that kid impressed the hell out of Danny.

Grim waited until the door swung shut behind Evelyn and Michele, then said, “How did such a nice girl ever come out of that b***h?”

“Shut up,” Danny said, even though he’d been thinking close to the same thing.

It was just them, Darla sitting alone in the employee’s break room in back and waiting for the state police and coroner to arrive, and the girl.

And Wallen of course, laying where he'd fallen, covered with one of Jack’s red and white checkered tablecloths.

Danny had an idea why no one else had helped. It was his job, and he didn’t want to. The thought of touching this strange girl made him cold.

The girl had settled back into the far corner of the stall, hugging her knees to her chest, then gone away again. Not comatose, not a vegetable. It was almost like she was sleeping with her eyes open.

“Shouldn’t the ambulance be here by now?” Grim asked.

“Naw,” Danny said, a little disgusted. “They’re all tied up right now. There was a pileup on the highway. That’s why we’re still waiting for a state police and the meat wagon.”

“We taking her then?” The nearest hospital was fifteen miles east, in Orofino. The girl seemed to be breathing fine, so there was really no huge rush, lucky for her.

“I am,” Danny said. “You can go back home if you want, but I won’t stop you if you want to come along.” He gave the girl a sideways glance, barely a flick of the eyes, and shivered. “Tell the truth, I could use the company.”

“No sweat,” Grim said.

For a moment neither moved, neither spoke.

“What the hell do you make of her?” Danny asked. He supposed it was silly, him asking a garden variety juvie what he thought of anything, but he’d spent his whole life here, and Grim had lived in Seattle most of his life, a street kid until he’d found his way to Clara. He had seen things, experienced things that Danny never had.

After a brief pause, Grim said, “E-Z-Lay.”

“What?”

“Roofies,” Grim said. “I’ve seen what they can do.” He looked away from her, must have seen the disgust that Danny felt and looked at the floor. “She’s probably so drugged up she can’t remember her own name.”

Danny was still trying to take it in. “Roofies? The date rape drug?”

“Yeah,” Grim said.

She was just a kid, looked about the same age as Michele, maybe younger.

Grim sat down next to her, “Hey there, can you hear me?”

No response, no acknowledgment.

“My brother and I are going to take you to the hospital.” He reached out and gave her shoulder a light shake. “Don’t be scared. We’re going to take care of you.”

A small response that time; she raised her head from her chest, just a little, rolled her eyes toward him. Then she shifted toward him and laid her head against his shoulder before blanking out again.

Grim put an arm around her narrow shoulders and held her.

“We better let Clara know where I am. She’s probably passing a stone by now.”

“Yeah,” Danny said.

He saw a black and white pull into the mostly empty lot as he walked around the counter to use the telephone and felt s little of his tension ease. It was the state’s scene now. He’d give this bull his collected statements and let him babysit Walden until the coroner arrived.

The ride to Orofino was quick and quiet. Neither Grim nor Danny spoke more than a word at a time. The girl spoke not at all. She sat buckled in next to Grim, slouched against her restraints.

The only time she showed any life was when they passed the pileup on the highway. Danny turned the flashers on as they approached it, and the State cops waved them by.

Only one ambulance remained on scene, waiting for the extraction crew to peel open the last of the vehicles involved. An old car, mustard yellow, looked like it might have been a Buick, California plates.

The girl turned her head and watched the crew working to open it up. When they were past it she twisted around in her seat, still watching. She didn’t settle back into her seat until the next bend in the road put it out of sight.

A sound in the blustery, star dappled night. A sound that made dogs whimper and hide under porches. A sound that roused men and women stumbling zombie-like from beds to lock doors and latch windows. A sound that made children pull blankets over their heads and bunch pillows over their ears.

The gusting wind picked up the pace and dark clouds snuffed out the starlight.

Then the sound came again, louder.

Outside, somewhere in the deserted streets of Clearwater a voice called out. A loud schizoid wailing that sounded like laughter, or maybe laughter disguised as wailing. Crying.

Then a scream.

“Oh no!” A woman’s voice.

Her silhouette moved against the Old West Style false front of the Post Office, dragging something behind.

She stopped, dropped what she dragged behind her. A bag.

“Oh my god, oh-my-god, ohmygod!” She held her hands up and looked at them. Then down at the bag.

Then she ran away into the darkness, leaving the bag where it lay.

The sound that followed her, like the heartbeat of the night, the squelching sound of footsteps in blood.

The night crawled on, the darkness endured. Total darkness. The sky was dead.

Canyon Creek grumbled past at full flow. A deep gash carved into the earth by a thread of water over the long years.

Splashing feet disturbed the water, and the ragged breath of runners cut the wind.

He caught her in the underbrush on the other side, the wild side of the Creek, and threw her down.

There was a struggle, but it was brief.

Ripping cloth, the wet smack of flesh on flesh.

Slobbering, grunting, yowling, painful pleasure. Animal. Organic but unnatural, like a monkey f*****g a cat.

Only one returned.

The night grew old, bleached out like something dead. The stars returned, but they were pale, weak.

The darkness was not finished yet, the darkness endured.