Rachel Gibson - Tangled Up In You

She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’ll put the ring away and forget about it.” She shook her head. “It’s just that sometimes I can’t turn it off.”

He pulled her to his chest and held her tight. “I know.”

“I get so afraid.”

He got afraid too. Afraid that she’d fall into the downward spiral that had claimed their mother and that she’d never climb out. Mick had always wondered if his mother had given a second of thought to him and Meg. If she’d thought about the devastation and loss she was about to leave behind on a barroom floor. As she’d loaded the gun that night, had it crossed her mind that she was about to leave her children orphans or that her actions would force them to live within the horrible fallout? As she’d driven to Hennessy’s, had she thought about them and not cared? “Have you been taking your medicine?”

“It makes me tired.”

“You have to take it.” He pulled back and looked down into her face. “Travis depends on you. And I depend on you too.”

She sighed. “You do not, and Travis would probably be better off without me.”

“Meg.” He looked deep into her eyes. “You of all people know that isn’t true.”

“I know.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “I just meant that raising a boy is so hard.”

He hoped like hell that’s what she meant. “That’s why you have me.” He smiled, even though he felt ten years older than he had before walking into the house. “I’m not going anywhere. Even though you do make the world’s shittiest meatloaf.”

She smiled, and just like that, her mood changed. Like someone reached into her head and flipped a switch. “I like my meatloaf.”

“I know.” He dropped his hands and reached into his pocket for his keys. “But you like old-lady food.” Meg cooked like their grandmother had. Like she was baking a casserole for a potluck at the senior center.

“You’re evil and a bad influence on Travis.” She laughed and folded her arms across her chest. “But you always make me feel better.”

“Good night,” he said and headed for the door. Cool night air brushed across his face and neck as he walked to his truck, and he took a deep breath and let it out. He’d always made Meg feel better. Always. And afterward, he always felt like shit. She’d have a breakdown, and when it was over, she’d be fine. Never seeming to notice the broken bits and pieces she’d left in the wake of her unpredictable moods.

Having been gone for twelve years, he’d almost forgotten what those moods were like. Sometimes he wished he’d just stayed gone.

Maddie reached for a bottle of Diet Coke sitting on her desk and unscrewed the cap. She took a long drink, then returned the cap. The instant she’d opened her eyes that morning, she’d known where the book had to open. In the past, she’d always opened each book with chilling facts.

This time she sat down and wrote:

“I promise it’s going to be different this time, Baby.” Alice Jones glanced at her young daughter, then returned her gaze to the road. “You’re going to love Truly. It’s a little like heaven, and it’s about damn time Jesus drop-kicked us into a better life.”

Baby didn’t say anything. She’d heard it before. The excitement in her mother’s voice and the promises of a better life. The only thing that ever changed was their address.

Like always, Baby wanted to believe her mother. Really she did, but she’d just turned five. Old enough to realize that nothing ever got better. Nothing ever changed.

“We’re going to live in a nice trailer house.”

She unfolded her arms from across her chest as she looked out the windshield at the pine trees whizzing by. A trailer house? She’d never lived in a house.

“And a swing set in the front yard.”

A swing set? She’d never had a swing set. She turned her gaze to her mother and the sunlight shining in her blond hair. Her mother looked like an angel on a Christmas card. Like she should be standing on top of a Christmas tree, and Baby let herself believe. She let herself believe in the dream of finding heaven. She let herself believe in a better life, and for five months it had been better-right up until the night an enraged wife pumped a set of.38 hollow points into Alice Jones’s young body and turned the dream into a nightmare.

Maddie pushed her chair back from her desk and stood. The sleeves of her cotton pajamas slid to her elbows as she raised her arms over her head and stretched. It was a little after noon and she hadn’t showered. Her good friend Clare showered and put on makeup every day before she sat down to write. Not Maddie. Of course, that meant that occasionally she got caught by FedEx looking like complete crap. Something she really didn’t worry about.

She jumped in the shower and thought about the rest of her day. She had a list of names and addresses with respective relationships to the case. First on the list was a visit to Value Rite Drug, where Carleen Dawson worked. Carleen had been a waitress at Hennessy’s at the same time as Maddie’s mother. She wanted to set up a time to interview the woman and asking in person had advantages over asking on the telephone.

After her shower, she rubbed almond-scented lotion into her skin and put on a black dress that wrapped around and tied at the side of her waist. She pulled her hair back from her face, applied a little mascara and a deep red lipstick. She wore red sandals and slid a notebook into her slim leather briefcase. Not that she planned to use anything in the briefcase, but it gave the right impression.

Value Rite Drug was located a few blocks off Main Street next to Helen’s Hair Hut. Potted geraniums and yellow awnings gave the outside of the store splashes of color. The inside was stuffed with everything from Band-Aids and aspirin to wooden statues of elk, moose, and bear carved by locals. She asked at the front register where she might find Carleen and was pointed to the snack food aisle.

“Are you Carleen Dawson?” she asked a short woman wearing a white blouse and blue and red apron, and who was bent over a cart of marshmallows and Pop Smart.

She straightened and looked at Maddie through a pair of bifocal lenses. “Yes.”

“Hello, my name is Madeline Dupree and I am a writer.” She handed Carleen a business card. “I am hoping that you’ll give me a few moments of your time.”

“I’m not on break.”

“I know.” Carleen’s hair was processed within an inch of its life, and Maddie wondered briefly what was up with some of the locals and bad hair. “I thought we could set up a time when you’re off work.”

Carleen looked down at the black and silver card, then back up. “True crime? You write true crime? Like Ann Rule?”

That hack. “Yes. Exactly.”

“I don’t know how I can help you. We don’t have serial killers in Truly. There was one in Boise a few years ago, a female one, of all things. If you can believe that.”

Actually Maddie could believe it, since her friend Lucy had been a suspect, and since Maddie planned to write about the murderous rampage in the future.

“Nothing ever happens around here,” Carleen added and stuffed a bag of marshmallows on the shelf.

“I’m not writing about a serial killer.”

“What, then?”

Maddie’s grasp on her briefcase tightened and she placed her other hand in the pocket of her dress. “Twenty-nine years ago you worked in Hennessy’s Bar when Rose Hennessy shot and killed her husband, a cocktail waitress named Alice Jones, then turned the handgun on herself.”

Carleen stilled. “I wasn’t there.”

“I know. You’d already gone home for the night.”

“That was a long time ago. Why do you want to write about that?”

Because it’s my life. “Because not all interesting true crime stories are about serial killers. Sometimes the best stories are about real people. Normal people who snap and commit horrible crimes.”

“I guess.”

“Did you know Alice Jones?”

“Yeah, I knew her. I knew Rose too, but I don’t think I should talk about that. It was a real sad situation and people have moved on.” She shoved the business card back at Maddie. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

Maddie knew when to press and when to take a step back. For now. “Well, think about it.” She smiled and kept one hand in her pocket and the other wrapped around the handle of her briefcase. “And if you change your mind, give me a call.”

Carleen slid the card into the front pocket of her blue apron. “I won’t change my mind. Some things are better left buried in the past.”

Perhaps, but what Carleen didn’t know but would find out was that Maddie rarely took no for an answer.

“No. I can’t help you.”

Maddie stood on the pockmarked porch of Jewel Finley, a second cocktail waitress who had worked at Hennessy’s at the time of Alice’s death. “It’ll just take a few moments.”

“I’m busy.” Jewel’s hair was in pink rollers and Maddie thought she detected the aroma of Dippity-do. Lord, did they still sell Dippity-do? “Rose was my good friend and I’m not goin’ to talk against her,” Jewel said. “What happened to her was a tragedy. I’m not goin’ to exploit her misfortune.”

Her misfortune? “My purpose is not to exploit anyone, but to tell everyone’s side of the story.”

“Your purpose is to make money.”

“Believe me, there are easier ways to make money.” Maddie felt her temper rise, but she wisely held back. “Is there a better time for me to come back?”

“No.”

“Perhaps when you’re not quite so busy.”

“I’m not goin’ to talk to you about Rose, and I doubt anyone else will talk to you neither.” She stepped back into her house. “Good-bye,” she said and shut the door.