Black Cat Weekly #25

A GOOD, SAFE PLACE, by Judith Green-2

“Uh…yes, sure.”

Celeste patted the bedspread, signaling Lisa to sit next to her, and pulled a photograph album off the lowest shelf of the bookcase. She opened it, spreading it across both their laps. She pointed to a blurry snapshot of a tiny baby in a carriage, so bundled up that nothing showed but a button of a nose. “This is Ted. The one who called. And here he is holding Billy, my other son,” she added, pointing to another snapshot. “I remember when that picture was taken. He was so afraid he’d drop the baby and break him.”

The page crumbled slightly at the edges as she turned it. Tiny fragments of black paper slid into her lap, and she brushed them off onto the floor. “And this is Margery. Here she is when she was four. Look at those fat little legs! This is her with her favorite doll. You know, I haven’t had this album out for years! Now, here’s Billy with his first bicycle. Doesn’t he look—”

“Beautiful children.” Lisa smiled brightly. “But, oh, my, look at the time! Shouldn’t we be getting you ready for bed?”

“Oh, sit still, dear. You’ve been working far too hard, and we’ve got lots of pictures to look at still. Now, here’s Margie with her 4-H calf. Didn’t she love that calf! I swear—”

* * * *

“I couldn’t help noticing…” Lisa said as she brought Celeste a cup of tea the next morning. “There’s a tax bill lying on your table.”

“Oh, my. Is that due already?” Celeste stirred her tea, watching the sludge of milk slide into the amber liquid. Why wasn’t she having coffee?

“Well, we should get it into the mail for you this morning. Just tell me where—”

Celeste looked up at her. “Where what?”

“Um… Where you keep your envelopes and stuff. And…um…we’ll need a money order. I’ll go to the post office.”

“Oh, thank you, dear.” Celeste looked around the kitchen. Her gaze wandered to the lighthouse salt-and-pepper set sitting on the counter, to the cupboard under the sink, to the knife rack beside the stove. “I’ve just got to think where I put—”

“Put what?”

“Hm?” Celeste looked up at Lisa. The poor girl’s skin looked pasty in the early-morning sunlight.

“Put what?” Lisa asked again.

“Lisa, dear, I’m worried about you. Look, you’ve got dark circles under your eyes. I don’t think you’re getting enough sleep.”

* * * *

Cupboard doors slamming out in the kitchen. Drawers being yanked open and whacked shut. What on earth was Lisa looking for?

Celeste hoisted herself out of her armchair and hitched herself through the kitchen doorway. She found Lisa on her hands and knees, her blue-jeaned rear in the air, her head poked into the cupboard under the sink. “Heavens!” Celeste said. “Can I help you find something, dear?”

Lisa backed out of the cupboard and slammed the door shut. “No, thanks.”

“Lisa, dear, I’m afraid you’re just wearing yourself out. Why don’t you sit down and rest, and I’ll make us all some lunch.” She parked her walker by the kitchen table and shuffled over to peer into the refrigerator. “I could do up some grilled-cheese sandwiches…. Well, perhaps not. This cheese has gone a bit green around the edges.”

Lisa scrambled to her feet, stalked across the floor, and snapped open the cellar door so hard that the satchel of shopping bags flew off the doorknob and thumped against the wall. She stamped down the cellar stairs, and Celeste could hear her talking to her husband. Sounded like she was pinning his ears back. Oh, dear.

Well, a little lunch would be just the ticket. Celeste shuffled across the kitchen and bent slowly down to pick up the shopping-bag satchel. She ought to send Lisa to do some grocery shopping—give her a bit extra and tell her to get whatever she wanted—but it didn’t seem to be a good moment, if they were arguing down there. She hung the satchel back on the doorknob and poked about in the cupboard, looking for a candidate for lunch.

Ah. A can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. If she added some water, it would serve the three of them. But Lisa’s husband… Men always wanted more to eat. Hm. Maybe if she cut the edges off that cheese. Humming to herself, Celeste put a pot on the stove, then dug in the drawer for the can opener.

The phone rang. She laid down the can opener, hobbled over to the phone on the wall, and lifted the receiver, holding onto the door frame for balance. “Hello?”

“Mom? It’s me, Margery.”

“Well, hello, sweetheart. How is everything in… Ohio, isn’t it?”

“Wisconsin. Everything’s fine. The graduation’s this afternoon, and it looks as if the weather will hold. But listen… Ted just called from California. He’d been trying to reach me since last night. He says someone’s in the house with you.”

“Well, of course, dear. Your friend Lisa, and her husband, too. They’ve been keeping me company while you’re gone. Of course, you really didn’t need to arrange for—”

“But I didn’t arrange for them to come, Mom. I don’t even know them!”

“Of course you do, dear. Why, Lisa’s known you for years! We’ve been looking at the old photo albums. She’s a good girl. She tidied your father’s desk, and all those boxes of papers in my bedroom closet. And her husband’s been kind enough to go through all that old stuff in the attic and the cellar, and now he’s working on the garage!”

“Mom— Mom— Listen, let me talk to Lisa.”

“To Lisa? She’s down cellar. No, wait, she must have gone out the bulkhead door. I hear them outside. I’ll call her.”

“No, wait. Um…look out the window. Are the Johnsons at home next door? Is their car in the driveway?”

“Why, no, dear, they haven’t been home all weekend. I think—”

“Okay. Look, we’ll be home tomorrow. We fly out first thing in the morning, and we’ll come straight—”

“Oh, now. We’re fine.”

“Well— Oh, Lord. I’ve got to go, Mom. The graduates are lining up. I’ll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, don’t give them anything. Okay? Don’t give them anything. Goodbye.”

Celeste sat looking at the dead receiver. Don’t give them anything? It wasn’t as if they’d asked for anything! And after all that Lisa had done to help. Why, Margery had been promising to clean the attic for years!

She peeked out the window. Lisa stood in front of the garage door, hands on hips, looking weary. Perhaps some lunch…

Celeste yanked up on the window, then bent down to halloo through the crack. “Lisa? Come in for lunch. Oh, and Margery was on the telephone. She wanted to talk to you, but she had to go.”

She turned to face the kitchen again. Let’s see…

The can opener lay on the counter. Oh, yes, soup.

Better hurry. The burner on the stove was already glowing red under the empty pot. She shuffled over to fetch the can.

* * * *

She was dozing in her chair when a hammering sound woke her with a jolt. “There’s someone at the door,” she called. “Hello? Lisa? Lisa, dear, someone’s knocking!”

Now the front door slowly opened and a head poked through the gap—a man’s head. As it pushed farther into the house, Celeste saw that it was attached to shoulders clad in police blue. “Mrs. Laidlaw? Are you here?” rumbled a pleasant baritone voice. “Oh, hello, ma’am. Officer Theriault, ma’am.”

The policeman came in and shut the door behind him. He was on the short side for a policeman, Celeste thought, but reassuringly clean-shaven and middle-aged. His eyes roved over the room’s furnishings and stabbed through each of the doorways—into the kitchen, the dining-room-turned-bedroom, the study—and up the staircase, as if he were actually moving through the house, searching for… For what?

“Is everything all right?” Celeste asked. She wished Lisa would come in. The girl must be still out in the garage.

She and her husband hadn’t yet touched the lunch Celeste had prepared for them. When she’d called them in, Lisa had promised just a minute. Then the car had pulled away—probably the husband going out for more trash bags or some such. But Lisa must be somewhere about. Lisa wouldn’t leave her alone. Lisa was good like that.

“Well, ma’am,” the policeman said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, “we had a call from your daughter.”

“Margery?” Celeste’s hands clutched at each other in her lap. “Is Margery—”

“No, no, ma’am, your daughter’s fine. Fine. She was worried about you, is all. She called the station and— She felt that there might be someone in the house who doesn’t belong here.”

“Well!” Celeste drew herself up in the chair. “There’s no one here but me, and of course Lisa, who Margery hired to look after me. Not that she need to have bothered. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, but Lisa is very good company. And there’s her husband, whose name escapes me at the moment, but he’s gone off somewhere just now in the car.”

The policeman raised an eyebrow. “Your car?”

“No. My daughter, Margery, saw fit to take my car away from me. Though I always did just fine as long as I had my friend Gladys Whitman with me to watch the side streets and warn me if anything was coming.”

The policeman winced. “Do you mind if I have a look around?”

“Suit yourself. But if you bump into Lisa, tell her that her soup is getting cold.”

* * * *

After the policeman left, Celeste sat for a long time with her hands clasped in her lap, listening for the slap of the screen door in the kitchen and the familiar clatter of Lisa’s feet across the linoleum. What could be keeping that girl so long in the garage? Perhaps she’d gone with her husband to the store.

Celeste waited, listening for the car to pull into the driveway, passing under the living room windows to park out back, the thud of the car door.

Had something happened? A car accident? If they were both hurt— Well, no one would know to call, would they?

Or…had the husband got annoyed with Celeste for not wanting him to park in the backyard? It was all right. Really. He hadn’t hurt the grass. In fact, you couldn’t tell where the car had been. Really. It was all right.

The sun dipped behind the ridgepole of the Johnsons’ roof, and the living room grew shadowy around Celeste. In the kitchen, the refrigerator switched on and hummed companionably for a time. When it switched off, the silence was like a blow.

Out on the street, a car went by. Kept going.

Celeste leaned a little to the left so that she could see the clock on the kitchen wall. Quarter past six. Time for supper.

She didn’t want to go into the kitchen. She didn’t want to face the two bowls of soup on the table, each centered neatly between a folded paper napkin and a spoon. The soup would be no good anymore, in this summer heat.

Celeste shivered. Her family seemed very far away. Both of her sons out there in California all these years—she hardly knew her grandchildren. And now Margery haring off to Wisconsin, and taking her whole family with her. Gladys was right. Things in this country were going to hell in a handbasket.

She’d never had a policeman come to the house! He’d poked his nose into every room, even the attic and the cellar and out in the garage. And then he’d gone away and left her all alone.

And her with all this money in the house! She wished she’d never let Gladys convince her into drawing her money out of the bank a few days ago. All this talk, talk, talk about the bank failing—

Imagine! A policeman! In her house! Had there been break-ins in the neighborhood?

Celeste caught herself plucking at the legs of her trousers. Now, stop that.

Well, she couldn’t do anything about being alone. But she could take care of the money. Celeste hauled herself to her feet and hitched herself into the kitchen. She took the satchel of folded paper shopping bags off the cellar doorknob and reached down to the bottom for the one bag that was just a little thicker than the others. She peeked into it. Yes, the money was still there. Everything she’d taken out of the bank, a neat block of hundred-dollar bills.

Abandoning her walker, she pushed open the screen door and lowered herself gingerly down the back steps, leaning heavily on the railing. She scuffed over to the garage—the big overhead door was standing open, for heaven’s sake—and found a shovel. She leaned on the shovel as she made her way across the backyard to the old oak tree.

She picked out a spot where a big root twisted across the grass. She was pleased with how well she handled the shovel, considering. It was the work of a minute to pry up a chunk of sod under a curve in the root.

She bent down and tucked the block of bills into the hole, then patted the sod back into place. Perfect! No one would ever know the ground had been disturbed.

When Lisa got home, Celeste would explain about the money. Lisa’s husband could go out and dig it up again and take it back to the bank. In the meantime, it was safe.

Celeste pressed the switch to close the garage door. Then she shuffled toward the house and pulled herself slowly up the steps.

* * * *

She wasn’t hungry for supper. She sat in her chair for a while, trying to read. At last she just turned off the lights and went to bed.

Somehow she didn’t want any breakfast either. Or perhaps it was lunch she didn’t want.

She was sitting in her chair, looking out the window at the sun going down behind the Johnsons’ house, when Margery came in.

“Mom—” She still had the front door key in her hand as she crossed the floor. Her husband and younger daughter hung in the doorway as if they were afraid to come in. “Mom,” Margery asked, “are you okay?”

Celeste looked up at her. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said. “How was Melanie’s…thing?”

“The graduation went fine. But, Mom— Have you eaten today? Have you taken your pills? Mom, have you been sitting here like this all day?”

Celeste looked down at her hands. She watched them plucking, plucking at the folds of her nightgown. Her nightgown? At this time of day? “I don’t know,” she said. “It seemed awfully quiet in here.”

“I’ll get you something to eat so you can take your pills.” Margery trotted into the kitchen. “Mom! What’s with these bowls of soup? Yuck!” Celeste could hear water running in the sink, then the refrigerator opening. “Mom,” Margery called, “there’s nothing to eat in here! Didn’t Gladys take you shopping?”

“She went away,” Celeste said. “To…up north somewhere.”

Margery reappeared in the doorway, her face hollow with concern. “And what about those people?”

“Which people?”

“You said someone was here, someone named Lisa, and her husband.”

Celeste stared down at her hands, plucking, plucking at the fabric of her nightgown. “I don’t know. They— I don’t know.”

Margery sighed. “Okay. Let’s get you dressed and gather up your medicine and some clean clothes. You’re coming home with us for the time being. Oh, I know you don’t want to live with us way out in the country, but you’ll just have to make do until we can find you a place in assisted living here in town. You can’t stay here alone anymore.”

Celeste allowed Margery to dress her, then waited while she went through the bathroom shelves for toiletries and the kitchen cabinet for her pills. “Here’s your pocketbook, Mom,” she said. “But I don’t see your checkbook. You didn’t give it to Lisa, did you?”

“Mm? My checkbook? Oh, no. I threw it away after Gladys took me to close my checking account. The banks aren’t safe anymore, you know.”

“You took out all your money?”

“Yes, dear.”

“But where is it? Where’s the money?”

“Mm?”

“Oh, my God, Mom, they took all your money?”

“Who?”

“Those people? That Lisa person?”

“Lisa?”

Margery sighed again. “Okay. First we get you home and fed. Then I’ll talk to the police. See what we can do. I expect it’s too late, though.”

She and her husband helped Celeste negotiate the front steps and climb into the car parked where it ought to be, right next to the front porch. But Celeste kept thinking they should have gone out the back door.

There was something she needed in the backyard. What could it be?

Oh, well. She’d think of it later.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Judith Green is the sixth generation of her family to live on her hillside in rural western Maine, with the seventh and eighth living nearby. While Adult Education Director for her eleven-town school district, she wrote twenty-five high-interest/low-level books for adult students for several publishers. Her mystery stories have appeared in multiple anthologies; “A Good, Safe Place,” published in Level Best Books’s Thin Ice, was nominated for an Edgar.

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