“Car!” both Tucker and Owen barked.
Susan hurried down the hall. “It’s Eddie! Put everything away!”
Just as Eddie entered the hall, Harry closed the large side drawer of the desk.
The cats and dogs sat with Harry and Susan as they had raced to the sunroom.
Susan and Harry waited for Eddie to find them.
“What are you two doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Susan fired back.
“Thought I’d see if G-Mom was here.”
“Eddie, you know she runs errands on Tuesday.” Susan fought to control her emotions, which worried Harry.
“What’s wrong with you? It’s not a crime to drop by and it’s not a crime to forget her schedule.”
“Bull, Eddie. And who are you to talk about crime?”
His eyes narrowed. “Susan, you’re off your nut.”
“I didn’t kill anyone, Eddie. You did.” Enraged, Susan had let the cat out of the bag.
Sitting on the back of the sofa, the two cats prepared to fight or flee.
Eddie waved off Susan as though she were a bug. “I don’t need to listen to this.” He turned to Harry. “I hope you don’t believe this nonsense.”
“What I believe,” Harry calmly stated, “is that your craving for power has warped you. The funny thing is, Eddie, I don’t think you believe half the stuff you’re saying. You’re throwing red meat to the reactionaries. You don’t care about women’s advancement, gay marriage, abortion, all that social stuff, any more than you care about cleaning up the toxic dumps we have in the state. You just want votes.”
His face reddened. “I do care. I care about giving away free money to people who sit on their asses. I care about all of it. And when I’m elected, you’ll see.”
Susan stood up to face him. “You will never be elected senator. You killed Barbara Leader because she knew G-Pop had sickle-cell anemia, not leukemia, and you have the trait as well.”
Shocked, he took a step backward. “How do you know that?”
“Research.” Harry stood up next to Susan.
Eddie backed up, reached a large umbrella stand by the sunroom door filled with umbrellas and a few canes. He pulled one out, then advanced on them. The big silver ram’s head would be lethal.
“Run!” Harry opened the door for Susan to bolt, then followed.
Eddie charged out the door after them. The two friends had a head start, but he was gaining.
“Susan, run to the cemetery,” Harry yelled. “We can dodge around the tombstones.”
“I think I can make it to the car.”
“If you don’t, you’ll be clubbed to death. We can keep him busy in the graveyard.” Now alongside Susan, Harry said, “He has that club, but it’s two against one. All one of us has to do is get behind him.”
Trusting Harry just as she trusted her to hand her the right club on the golf course, Susan put on the afterburners. The two women reached the cemetery, put their hands on the low stone wall, and vaulted over it. The cats followed suit. The dogs ran to the wrought-iron gate, where Owen lifted the latch. Just as the two corgis dashed into the supposedly peaceful last resting place, Eddie shot over the stone wall as though it was a high hurdle in track.
Susan and Harry split up. He moved toward Susan, swinging the cane like a maniac. She dodged just out of reach, but sooner or later he’d connect. Harry came back around. Knowing she was behind him, he whirled to swing at her. One close swing forced her to duck, hit the ground, and roll away. He jumped on her. Eddie tried to pin Harry with his left hand while raising his right hand with the cane.
Tucker leapt up, seizing his right arm in her powerful jaws. Owen grabbed his calf.
Screaming, Eddie didn’t let go of the cane. Instead, he tried to use it on the dog hanging on him.
Claws at the ready, Mrs. Murphy climbed up his back, ripping Eddie’s shirt, biting as she progressed. Pewter latched on to Eddie’s leg with Owen.
This gave Harry more time to roll farther away, and Eddie crashed down on the ground with the cane just missing her again. Even though Tucker hung on, Eddie was strong.
Susan, now behind her cousin, was angrier than she’d ever been in her life. She jumped on his bloody back as best she could, wrapped her right hand under his jaw and jerked as hard as she could. She heard his neck pop, but it didn’t break.
Harry, scrambling to her feet, ran up to Eddie, put both her hands together in a double fist, and smashed into his mouth. Jagged teeth came out.
Mrs. Murphy had crawled up on his head. She dug her claws in to stay aboard.
The two friends fought with all their strength. Finally, Eddie dropped the cane. Without a second’s hesitation, Harry snatched it up and swung over his head and down, straight into his skull. He sagged down. Susan slid off his back.
Yet another motionless body lay at the feet of the Avenging Angel.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Gathered at Penny Holloway’s were Susan; Ned; Susan’s mother, Millicent Grimstead; Harry; Fair; Cooper; and the cats and dogs. They sat in the sunroom.
Eddie was hospitalized with a cracked skull and was expected to live. It would take time to know if he would regain normal functions like the power of speech. He had suffered brain damage. There was already a movement to remove him from his state Senate seat.
His wife neither defended nor criticized him. She said nothing because she knew nothing except that his ambition had become ever-consuming. Chris felt that she and the two children had become mere props. She did confirm that Charlene, their daughter, had the sickle-cell-anemia trait. As Charlene was six, she was screened at birth for sickle-cell anemia and the gene. Chris had herself screened so she knew she did not transmit it. Eddie refused to be tested. As both were over thirty, they had never been screened. Anyone under thirty was tested as part of a state mandate. Governor Holloway got his facts right, as he usually did.
Chris told Penny that when Charlene was of age she would tell her, although Penny vehemently protested even thinking about it. To her way of thinking, what good would it do?
“G-Mom, you’ve been through a terrible time. I wish I could make it better,” Susan addressed her grandmother, sitting in her favorite chair, as Penny had recounted Chris’s conversation.
“Honey, you take what the Good Lord gives you,” Penny quietly replied. “I wish Sam had confided in me, but he probably wanted to sort it out for himself.”
“Cooper and I viewed the outtakes for Eddie’s website,” Harry began.
Penny smiled. “My, that was a day.”
“Eddie clearly infuriated his grandfather. I wonder if the governor had been tested for the sickle-cell trait. But whatever was going on between them, Eddie felt threatened.”
“I suppose he was. Think what a revelation sickle cell would be. It would undermine Eddie’s appeal to his right-wing base.”
“As for Sam, he considered his opposition to integration the worst thing he’d ever done. But you all are young, you don’t know how we grew up, what we were told. Segregation was a way of life. Most of us questioned it as we matured, then put those questions aside. White people were simply not ready, and it was Sam’s fate to be governor when everything exploded. Some people forgave him; others did not. He never forgave himself.” Sorrow filled Penny’s voice.
Millicent Grimstead quoted a line from the Bible. “ ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ ”
Feet on a hassock, Ned said, “The Bible is like the Constitution. People pick out what serves their purposes. My dolorous experience in the statehouse is that some elected officials and their constituents live to sit in judgment upon others.”