FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #7

"She's a local. Born and bred wherever her parents decided to indulge their raging hormones.” Mildred said with a sigh in her voice. “It’s a shame no one knows who they are.”

The little girl across the street was jumping up and down in the almost foot deep puddles, her stringy black hair flying up and down, leaving tiny red welts where it slapped her face. She didn’t laugh, or smile, just jumped up and down in the same place, over and over again. Every once in awhile she would throw up her arms and the gold charm bracelet on her small wrist would catch the light, its reflection glinting in the water below.

“She really is a pretty child, if I knew her parents I would give them a piece of my mind about how filthy they let her get. It doesn’t seem like they care at all about her.” Mildred continued, her voice sharpening a bit as her eyes narrowed to take in the girl. Nostrils flaring in distain, laugh lines deepening to harsh wrinkles, Mildred’s face seem to extend forward as she shrewdly studied her.  “I wonder why she jumps like that. Up and down in one place, she never laughs. I wonder if she really enjoys it, I can’t remember ever seeing the poor child smile.”  Mildred’s face softened into a thoughtful frown as she turned away from the window and back to her coffee. “That’s really all I know about her, I’m afraid.”

“She’s a local?”

“She’s a local.” The tone that crept into Mildred’s voice made it clear that she was through talking about the little girl, and she sipped her coffee, making an obvious effort not to look at the child again. She listened as the man’s footsteps slowly faded away from her and waited for the bell over the door to ring before she looked out the window again. The girl had stopped jumping for a minute, she was looking intelligently at the man, a curious fear in her face, her eyes turned to Mildred, and the older woman quickly looked down. When she looked up again, the child was gone.

Caroline watched as the man in the black jacket left the donut shop. He bothered her, made her hair stand on end. She turned to look at the old woman he was talking to. She looked away, but it didn’t matter. Everyone knew who Mildred Rampart was, she was money. She wasn’t flashy, but she wasn’t nice either. Caroline pulled one small, dirty hand through her sopping wet hair before looking down at her torn and tattered clothing. No shoes. Her feet looked almost clean in the puddle water, but she knew that they would be covered in new, squishy mud when she pulled them out. She also knew that she probably shouldn’t be ruining her last pair of jeans this way; she didn’t have any more that fit. If it was summer, she would be okay; she could cut all of her old jeans into shorts. But it was spring, and spring in Minnesota was cold and wet.  She turned and ran up the sidewalk towards home, wet feet slapping loudly on the concrete. She stopped at the corner and looked back towards the donut shop. He was standing there, the man in the black jacket, watching her. Caroline shivered and ran around the corner. She didn’t look back again.

“It’s always so much harder when they’re known around town.” Gerard sighed to himself as he watched the wraith-like child run around the corner. He looked to his left and right before trudging across the rain soaked road to stand in the puddle she had been jumping in. A glint of gold in the water caught his eye; it was the charm from her bracelet, a ballerina shoe. He picked it up and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, forehead furrowed as he contemplated his next move.

Caroline stood facing the tall kitchen cabinet, trembling, goose bumps visibly forming in waves across her skin. She raised her right hand and ran her index finger down the door. A tear forming in her eye, it slid down her cheek as her hand reached and hovered over the handle.

“Mama” she whispered and tucked one foot behind the other, bending her toes to the floor. The bottom of her foot was dotted with tiny bruises, little pinpricks of purple, yellow and green with dark centers.

“Mama? Is it bad in the cupboard? Are you and Daddy really in a place that is too bad for me? A place worse than out here? Mama….? Mama….?

Caroline dropped her hand to her side and hugged herself. Silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She jumped when she heard the car door slam. A small whimper of fear escaped her lips and she turned to face the hallway that lead to the front door.  She shook her head slightly to allow her stringy hair to fall in a broken curtain across her eyes as the door creaked open.

Mildred flared her nostrils in disgust before covering her face with a kerchief as she surveyed the desolate child in the kitchen from down the hall. She understood that to the little girl this wretched place would always be home, but she couldn’t fathom how that brat could stand the stench in here. Her eyes narrow as she took in the girl’s appearance. Those jeans were only a week old, bought to replace the last pair that she had worn to tatters in less than a month. She snapped fingers and the little girl shuffled to her side, just by hear heel, as if she were a well trained dog. This, in truth, was a fair comparison, the training methods were much the same.

Gerard paced off the sidewalk in front of the house with its fading and peeling blue paint. Something in his gut told him that this was one of those cases that was much more than it appeared. When that guy had tracked him down and begged him to come out of retirement and find out what happened to his sister and her family, he had written it off as an easy paper trail kind of job. The money was too good to pass up for a job that easy, but that had been over a month ago, and there was no paper trail. By all appearance the three people that lived in this house should still be in it. Going to work, the grocery store, school.  They weren’t doing any of those things though, not for almost six weeks now. The car just sat in the driveway, not moving, the doors stayed closed, windows dusting over, and it had taken him too long to figure it out. He should have gone in there two weeks ago when he arrived, but he hadn’t. His guy churned at the thought. Now he would have to go in, that little was in there, so was the woman from the donut shop. She was going to be a piece of work to get. She made his skin crawl, one of those too-good-to-be-true rich, community minded women. Which meant she was a busy body, knew everything that happened in town, but she was well liked. He had no patience for nosy old women himself. He sighed, straightened up and took a step toward the house. The door opened.

Two hours later, Mitch paced in the police stations lobby, hoping against everything that things weren’t as bad as they looked. When Sandra and her husband Dan had disappeared with their daughter Caroline a couple months ago, he had been sure they were just on vacation. When they never seemed to come home, he had gotten worried and called a favor with Gerard, the local Private Investigator. Gerard had taken the case, and Mitch thought things would turn out alright. Now, he had two funerals to plan and a child to take care of. Will I be able to love the girl after what she’s done? Mitch ran the question through his head over and over while the desk phones rang in the background, making a strange rhythm for his feet to pace to.

Mildred sat in the cold interrogation room, waiting calmly for it to begin. She knew that by now they would have raided her home, tore everything apart like animals and found it all. She knew in her gut that it was over. She sighed and drummed her fingernails over the metallic surface of the table as she thought back to how it all went out of control.

She had been a pillar of the community, everyone looked up to her, came to her when they had need, she was rich in a small and poor town and she had always helped. She gave away and loaned money to the people in need without a second thought, and then it had run out. She remembered so clearly the horror when the bank had called to tell her that she was out of money, her accounts closed. She would have lost everything, her home, her friends, and her reputation. After all, in a town as poor as hers, no one would be able to help her. About two days after that call, her doorbell rang; it was a stranger, a flighty looking man, who needed a place to sleep for the night. She had opened her home to him as she always did. He told her, that he couldn’t pay her in money, but if she was game, he could give her a sellable fortune. Mildred had been desperate, so she had poured the coffee and listened to the man.  He never gave her his name, but he did leave her a list of names and phone numbers and key words. As well as around three thousand dollars worth of uncut heroine.  Mildred made the calls, she made the sales, and she had money again. She would be ok. Then about two months ago, Caroline had dropped by, she was a bright girl, a little hyper but bright and she often came over to chat. Mildred had let her in, not thinking about the piles of powder on her table. Caroline was an inquisitive girl, and she had tasted it. Undiluted, uncut heroine. Mildred had panicked.  She put the little girl in her car and taken her home. If she had known what would happen, she never would have taken her there, but she didn’t know.

The next morning, Mildred had gone to check on Caroline, she had slept poorly and was afraid the little girl had died. Some days, she thought it would have been easier if the child had passed on. But, that was not the case, what she found in that house was a tragedy and a horror and she blamed herself. The girl lay quietly in the kitchen, eyes open but unfocused, still pools of congealed blood lay around her head like a ghastly halo. The metallic scent of it made Mildred gag as she slowly approached the room.  The child lay with one parent at her feet and the other at her head, they were both dead. Stabbed to death by the look of it.  A wave nausea rolled over Mildred and she caught herself on the wall rather than sit in the mess. My fault, she thought, over and over again.  It’s all my fault. She was not consciously aware when she made the decision to clean up the mess. But in her memory she watched herself drag the bodies to the broom cabinet and shove them in there, and clean the kitchen with bleach. She picked up the girl and bathed her in scalding hot water, which woke up the child, Caroline had screamed then, until Mildred had slapped her.  When the girl was clean, she dressed her, and carried her to the car. Caroline had spent the next three days trying to run away, and Mildred had almost lost her mind, with trying to contain her. Finally, she decided to do something about it. So she had taken the girl home, and showed her the cupboard, let her take in the smell.

“Your parents are in there.” She had said “They were bad; they have gone to a place that is bad, a place you can’t go.”

“Mama?” Caroline had asked quietly “Daddy?” and then she had cried. After that Caroline had begun throwing tantrums, breaking things in the house. In an attempt to keep her behaved, Mildred began to drug the child. This had worked, quite well, until about three days ago, when her shipment was late, and Caroline got away. She was gone, and Mildred was a mess. What if the child was found by police? Should she run? No. That would only look suspicious. So she had stayed, and then this morning, she had finally found Caroline. Then that man had walked in, asking questions. Mildred knew it was time for them to go. Leave town. She would get Caroline, and they would flee.

The door to the interrogation room opened, interrupting Mildred’s thoughts.  It was that man again, the one who had found her, arrested her, and he looked at her with disgust in his eyes. She hung her head, and waited for him to sit down, and then she began to speak. She told him everything, before he even had a chance to ask.  When she finished she looked up, with tears in her eyes.

“What will happen to Caroline?” she asked

“She is being put in rehabilitation facility. Then she will go to her uncle.” Gerard answered coldly. “I’ll have your statement printed up, and then have you sign it.” Mildred nodded and he left.

Caroline watched the road go by from her restraints in the van. She felt funny, bad, kind of hot, but more cold. She was sweating, she began to cry.

“It’s ok.” The lady next to her said “Don’t cry honey, it’s all going to be alright, we’re going to make you better.” But Caroline cried anyway.

back to Contest #7