SAFELY BURIED Chapter 12: Dark Hallway

“Where are you?”

“Indianapolis.”

“Where in Indianapolis?”

“That don’t matter.”

I heard a woman in the background say, “Tell him we’ll bring it back today.”

“Who’s that?” I said.

“My mom. If she can get off work this afternoon, we’ll return your car today. If not, it’ll be tomorrow. I could do it today, but she don’t want me driving with a broken leg again.”

Her mother said, “Tell him we’ll fill the tank up.”

“Cool it, Mom,” Paula said.

“Don’t worry about the gas,” I said. “Just tell me where you are.”

“Why? So you can have me arrested?”

“No, Paula. I just want to talk to you.”

“We’re talking now.”

“I want to see you. You don’t have to drive the car back. Your mother doesn’t have to miss any work. I’ll come and get it.”

“You can’t drive both cars back by yourself.”

“I’ll deal with it.”

I heard her inhale, hold it, exhale. Then she covered the phone and said something I couldn’t catch. But I heard her mother say, “So let him come if he wants to. You owe him that much.”

Paula came back on the line and said, “Let me and her talk. I’ll call you back in a little while.”

Click.

Suddenly everything seemed sharper, more vivid. I saw a small reflection of myself in the TV screen across the room. Birds chirped loudly in the trees out front. Bright late-morning sunlight streamed through my grimy windows. I wondered if the two old ladies on the porch across the street could see me standing in my boxer shorts in the middle of the living room.

I went back to the bathroom. Staring at myself in the mirror, I sent a telepathic message: Call back, Paula, call back. I brushed my teeth and gargled some Listerine. While I waited for the phone to ring again, I finished dressing and pulled the sheets off the bed. The “few minutes” turned into half an hour. Then it rang.

“All right,” Paula said, “if you want to come, I’ll tell you how to get here. But you have to promise me you won’t bring the cops.”

“That’s a deal,” I said, “but I’ll have to bring someone to drive the other car back.”

“Mom can drive it back.”

“You said she had to work.”

“She traded shifts with somebody. Now here’s what you do. You get off I-65 at the Washington Street exit. Go left and then turn right on College Avenue.” She gave me an address on College and said, “It’s a big blue house.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Remember—no cops.” Her voice was bossy yet pleading.

“How could I forget?”

It was a few minutes past eleven. There’d be less traffic on I-65 today. I should be at Paula’s by 12:30.

My apartment was in a one-story brick duplex on Sycamore Street, between Adams and Jefferson. Not until I stepped outside did it occur to me that I had walked home from work last night. I’d have to walk back to the office to get a car. It would add ten minutes to my trip. But I could use the exercise. I walked fast. The bright air felt good in my lungs.

The newsroom was deserted on Saturday. I had my pick of cars, so I took the keys to the newest one, an ’09 Ford Focus. Naturally it was low on gas. I drove a few blocks to the Swifty station, where the Gleaner had an account, and filled the tank. I figured this was a business trip, and besides, I put in plenty of unpaid overtime. Then I headed for Brickton and I-65.

All the way to Indy I worried that Paula would change her mind and vanish before I got there. It wouldn’t surprise me if my car was waiting for me in the street, but no Paula. At least her mother might still be there. I could try to talk her into telling me where Paula had gone. I occupied myself by dreaming up depressing scenarios like this one. I kept my speed in the low seventies. I did not need another ticket. I already had two within the past two years. I had to stay clean for another four years before they’d both be off my record. I turned on the radio to help me stop thinking depressing thoughts, so what did I get? Glen Campbell singing “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Was Glen Campbell still alive?

At exactly 12:30 I was on the Washington Street ramp, but I still had another forty or fifty blocks to go on College. That was several miles, with a mess of traffic lights.

Between Lockerbie Square on the south and Broad Ripple on the north, much of College Avenue was in a state of decay, with closed stores and boarded-up houses.

One of the houses had the address that Paula had given me. The three-story frame structure had a bare patch of lawn in front, with concrete steps leading to a wide porch. Except for the slate roof and the slabs of plywood that covered the windows, every inch of the house was painted bright blue. It looked like a giant Easter egg.

I parked across the street. My guess was that Paula and her mother were watching from another house to make sure I had not brought the cops with me. I looked up and down College. Two houses from where I had parked, a black woman with melon-sized breasts and legs like logs sat on the edge of her porch, while two barefooted kids took turns jumping off a tire into a puddle of water to see who could make the biggest splash. I walked down and asked the woman if she knew where Paula Henry lived. She stuck her tongue in her cheek and shook her head.

I dodged a few cars and crossed the street. In the house to the left of the Easter egg, hip-hop seeped out of an upstairs window. A white-haired black man was sitting on a sofa and talking to himself. At the next house down, a pit bull that was tied to a pole bared its teeth and lunged at me. A horn beeped twice. I turned around and saw a woman waving at me from my Civic, which had pulled up behind the Focus. I ran back across the street.

“Phil?” she said.

“That’s me.”

“Hop in. I’m Paula’s mom. I hope you don’t mind if I drive.”

“Go ahead. Where are we going?”

“Not far.”

I went around the car and got in. It felt odd to be on the passenger side of my own car. Paula’s mom stuck a hand in front of my chest and said, “It’s good to meet you, Phil. I’m Edna Mae Boofey.”

“Boofey?” I said as we shook hands. “There’s a Walter Boofey who owns the house where Paula’s friends were killed.”

“I know. He rented them the house. He’s my brother-in-law. I married his brother Norval. I was just a kid. It lasted less than a year. He was a real hell-raiser, always getting in fights. Paula was born while we were still together.”

“So Walter would be her uncle,” I said.

“Yeah, Walter’s her uncle. Me and him still get along. I’ve not seen him for a while though.” She turned sideways to add, “I hope you don’t think he killed Wayne and Cheryl.”

She was in her mid-forties and a little chubby—pleasingly plump was once the phrase. Her wide lips were bright red, and she had large wide-set eyes. She wore white jeans and a sleeveless turquoise top that revealed a lot of cleavage. Strands of tangerine-red hair blew around her face as she gunned the engine and cut into traffic.

“I have no reason to think he killed them,” I said.

“Good.”

“What line of work is he in?”

“He drives a truck, a big eighteen-wheeler.”

We drove two blocks north and turned right, went three or four blocks, then left, then left again. Edna Mae kept glancing in the rear-view mirror as we zigzagged through the blighted area.

“You don’t have to worry,” I said. “Nobody’s following us.”

“I’m just making sure.”

“How do you know I’m not wearing a transmitter?”

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Damn, I should have thought of that—I watch enough television. I guess I ought to frisk you.” She laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

The zigzagging stopped, and once again we drove north, parallel to College, which was a few blocks west of where we were. The neighborhood began to improve as we got closer to Broad Ripple.

“So tell me,” I said, “how did Paula get the name Henry? Was she married? Is she married?”

“No. She’s never been married. But she had a boyfriend—Ladainian Henry was his name. A real good-looking black guy. He was in the Marines.” She began choking up. “He was killed in Iraq a few years ago. One of those lousy IEDs got him. Paula and him were planning to tie the knot, but he didn’t want to get married till he was out of the service. He was afraid he might get killed and leave her with a kid to raise by herself.” She sniffled. “He was a good guy, always considerate and respectful. She uses his name to honor his memory.” Long tears ran down her cheeks and fell on her chest.

I almost felt like crying myself.

We parked in front of a drab white house with a faded roof that sloped low over the front porch, giving the place a cool, shady look.

Edna Mae handed me the keys to my car, and as we walked to the house, I said, “Tell me something. How’d you know who I was when you picked me up?”

“I was watching for you from the bar on the corner. As soon as you got out of the car, I knew it was you.”

I followed her up a few steps to the porch, which looked freshly painted. Two white plastic chairs stood on a blue grasslike all-weather rug. “This is where we live,” she said. “It ain’t much, but it’s home.”

The front door opened as we approached, and I saw Paula backing away.

“I got him,” Edna Mae announced.

I walked into a delicious aroma of soup. A small air conditioner throbbed in the window. The television was on, but Paula immediately turned it off. The room was neat and clean, but the furniture—a green wingback sofa, a black vinyl recliner, and an oversized rocking chair—looked shabby. A braided rug that was coming apart covered half of the painted hardwood floor. A pair of stereo speakers served as end tables for the sofa, and a lamp whose shade looked like a frilly squaredance skirt was on top of one of the speakers.

Paula stood with her left elbow cupped in her right hand and her left hand patting her right side. She seemed edgy, ready to bolt. She wore a calf-length denim skirt, which hid most of the cast, and a gray cowboy shirt with yellow trim. Without the cast, I would not have recognized her.

Edna Mae said, “Have a seat, Phil,” and gestured toward the sofa. She took the rocker in front of the air conditioner. “Paula’s real sorry for taking your car, ain’t you, baby?” Her eyes went to Paula, then back to me. “We want to give you something. Where’s that envelope, Paula?”

“Where you left it—in the kitchen,” Paula said.

“Get it for me, please, will you, hon.”

Paula made a face and hobbled away.

“I filled up the gas tank this morning,” Edna Mae said, but we want to give you something to cover your time and trouble too. I don’t want you thinking Paula’s a car thief. She doesn’t do things like that.” She leaned toward me and whispered: “She was scared real bad. That’s why she took it. She didn’t really steal it.”

Paula returned and handed me the envelope, which I held on my lap.

Her mother went on: “Phil, I’m hoping you won’t press charges against her.”

“I won’t,” I said. “But it may not be that simple. I believe the prosecutor can still go after her if he wants to.”

“See, Mom. I told you!”

“So you reported it stolen already?” Edna Mae said.

“Sure I did. But you’ll be happy to hear I didn’t accuse Paula of taking it. I saw the car being driven away, but I couldn’t see who was driving.” I looked at Paula. “I assumed it was you, but I didn’t know for certain.”

“But now you do,” Paula said.

“Uh-huh. Thanks for telling me.”

“I should’ve just drove it back to Campbellsville and left it at Wal-Mart or someplace.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. “I’d still be looking for you.”

Edna Mae said, “She only took it yesterday. It’s not even been a day. She ain’t damaged it.”

“Mom, you’re saying dumb things. I’m screwed.” She glowered at me. “Why’d you have to leave your car there like that? It was almost like you wanted me to take it.”

I had to laugh. “Where were you—in the house?”

“It’s all because of you and your damn car,” Paula said.

“Sit down, hon,” Edna Mae said.

“Shit, if you hadn’t given me a ride the other night, then hung around and went inside with me, and if you hadn’t left your stupid car there, just begging to get ripped off, I wouldn’t be mixed up in any of this. I could’ve got out of that hell house and nobody would know I’d even been there.”

“Right,” I said, it’s all my fault.”

“Sit down, babe,” her mother pleaded. “Don’t get yourself excited.”

“Oh, Mom, stop telling me to sit down. I’ve been sitting all day. What else can I do with this damn cast on?” She thumped across the room and stood in front of the air conditioner to cool her chest. “What an ass I am.”

“Don’t say that. If you and me hadn’t got into an argument, you wouldn’t have stormed out of the house and went down there like you did.”

I tried to calm things down. “Look,” I said, “I’ve got my car back. I don’t have to tell the police who took it. I’ll just say I went outside and there it was, parked in the street. And that will be the truth, because that’s where it will be parked as soon as I get home and park it there.” My Jesuitical training in high school was finally paying off.

Instead of rejoicing at this, Paula went on ranting: “I’m just sick about Cheryl and Wayne. If it wasn’t for me, they never would’ve moved down there to that godforsaken place.”

Edna Mae said, “I’m the one that told them about the house, Paula.”

“You mentioned it to Cheryl, but I asked you about it first, after they said they wanted to live in the country. I said what about that old house that Uncle Walt owns. Remember?”

“Yes,” said Edna Mae, “but it was me that told Wayne how to get in touch with him.” Her lips tightened sadly, and she shook her head. “It’s not your fault they were killed, Paula. You have to stop blaming yourself.”

Paula clomped back across the room to the recliner and finally sat down. She pushed back halfway, raising her cast with the footrest. She left her other leg dangling to the side. She hung her head and rubbed her temples with her fingertips.

I said, “I’d like to talk to your brother-in-law about the Garths. Do you have a phone number for him?”

“It’s in my bedroom,” Edna Mae said. “I’ll get it for you.”

A minute later she returned with a slip of paper. “I wrote it down. It’s his cell phone.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “What did Wayne and Cheryl do for a living?”

“Cheryl worked in a supermarket,” Edna Mae said. “Wayne sold stuff on his computer.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“All kinds. Him and Cheryl went to flea markets and yard sales all over the place looking for bargains. Then Wayne resold it on eBay.”

Paula put her head back and closed her eyes. She looked as though she wanted to fall asleep and never wake up.

I said, “Paula, I have to tell you something.”

Her eyes stayed shut.

“The police want to talk to you.”

Her eyes popped open. “You got your car back. Why don’t you just take your money and leave us alone.”

“Paula!” her mother said, “Phil’s just trying to help.”

I laid the envelope on the sofa. “They probably would have found you by now if they knew your real name is Boofey.”

“As long as it stays that way, I’m safe.”

“Why are you afraid of the police?”

She grunted softly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.” I waited a few seconds. “Your mother’s right—I’m trying to help you.”

“You just want a story.”

“What is your problem? Why won’t you trust me?”

She sneered without answering. In the dim light her face had an ashen pallor and her eyes seemed lifeless. She sat very still, staring blankly, with her lips slightly parted. Then her eyes met mine, and a pale fire came into them. She pulled on the arms of the recliner and sat up.

“You want to know why I’m scared?” she said. “Okay, I’ll tell you why.” She hung fire a moment, seething. “When I was fifteen, I got put in some kind of foster home.” As she began her story, her mother made a face, got up, and left the room. Paula waited until we heard a door close, then she went on: “She don’t like to hear about it, and I don’t blame her. What happened was she got in a fight with my father—they was still together then, more or less—and he ended up in the hospital. I saw it with my own eyes. He had both hands around her neck. He had her down on the bed choking her. I yelled at him to stop. I even tried to pull him off her. She reached out and grabbed the first thing she could get a hand on and hit him on the head with it. It was a heavy metal picture frame, and one corner of it went a half inch deep in his head. They said it could’ve killed him. He ended up in the hospital, and she ended up in jail. They kept her there for months because she couldn’t make bail. The judge turned me over to juvenile protection, and they put me in the damn foster home.”

“Where did this happen?” I said.

“Where do you think? Meridian County. We’re talking about why I’m afraid of the cops there, remember?”

“I didn’t realize you used to live there.”

“Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?”

“Sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to talk.”

“Christ. Mom sat in jail till her trial came up, and they stuck me in that lousy home all that time. It was a big brick farmhouse that a man and his wife owned. They called themselves our foster parents, but they acted more like jailers. They made the older kids—like me—do all the chores around the house and even work out on the farm. They treated us like slaves. And if we mouthed off about it or cussed or something, we got our mouth washed out with soap. And if that wasn’t enough, we got locked in the cellar overnight or we got paddled till our backsides burned. Most of the kids was little. When I was there, I was the oldest one. Kids came and went, but while I was there, there was always five or six of us in the house.”

As she told her story, the words came faster and her voice grew bitter. “It was the little kids that had it the worst. Some of them went through hell. They truly went through hell. It took me a while before I figured out what was going on. You prob’ly won’t believe it, but I’m not making it up. It’s true.”

She paused to catch her breath, then pushed on. “Every week or so a cop in a brown uniform would come and pick up one of the kids. He’d take some of the kid’s clothes with him. At first I thought the kid was lucky, because I thought he was going home, but most of the time they came back the next day. I remember this one girl—her name was Candy Apple. Who would give their kid a name like that? Maybe it was a nickname, I don’t know. She was just six or seven years old. After she came back, she just laid on her bed, curled up sucking her thumb. I told her she was too old to be sucking her thumb, but it was like she was in a trance. I asked her what was the matter, but she just laid there. She wouldn’t talk.”

A door squeaked open, and Edna Mae came back wiping her eyes.

Staring at the floor, Paula said, “Another kid started having nightmares. I didn’t sleep in the boys’ room, but I could hear him crying all night long. They just let him cry. The next day I asked our ‘foster mother’—Mrs. DeLong was her name—what was wrong with Rickie. The bitch said there was nothing wrong with him and I’d better mind my own business. That night she made me clean up somebody’s puke with my bare hands.”

It made me shiver. “God, how could you stand it?” I said.

“I don’t know. I just did. I can still smell it. I was afraid she was gonna make me eat it. But one thing I did not do was mind my own business. One night when Rickie was having one of his nightmares, I snuck over to his room and tried to calm him down. The old hag and her husband was snoring down the hall. I didn’t care what they’d do to me if I got caught. I crawled under the covers with Rickie and started rubbing his back. I told him he had to be big and strong and not be afraid. I told him I’d be his friend. He snuggled up against me. I stayed with him awhile, till he fell asleep and didn’t have any more nightmares. I went to him a few more times after that.” She paused and looked up at me. “That’s how I found out what was going on.”

“What was it?” I said.

“The kids was being taken out for sex. Rickie told me he had to play with a big man. They’d play games and watch TV and eat pizza or ice cream, and then the man would take him to his bedroom and they’d ‘play’ some more in bed. Rickie said the man made him play a game called Lollipops. . . . You get the idea.”

“Paula,” I said, “was it always the same cop who came for the kids?”

“I can’t say for sure. Like I told you, sometimes a kid did get to go home to his family, but usually the cop brought them back the next day. I never knew what was going to happen to this one or that one—they didn’t announce it over a loudspeaker. Different cops came to the house. But it seems to me like when some boy came back with that look in his eyes like he’d been through a buzz saw, I think it was always the same cop.”

“Do you know his name?” I said.

“You’re damn right I do.”

Edna Mae said, “Paula, you don’t have to talk about that.”

“Yes I do, Mom.” She raised her head and stared at me. “There was a little plastic name tag on his uniform. One day he took me for a ride. He said it was so I could get out of the home for a while. We went to the state forest, and he parked by the lake. At first he acted nice and sweet. He wanted to know what kind of music I liked, and what was my favorite movie—crap like that. Then he said I was pretty. He asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said no, and he said, ‘A pretty girl like you should have a boyfriend.’ I began to get scared. I knew where this was going. He said, ‘Want to see something special?’ and he unzipped his fly and pulled his thing out. As though I was a little girl, he said, ‘This is Herman. Get it? Her man.’ I tried to get out of the car, but he grabbed my hand and put it on his prick. It looked as big as a rolling pin to me. He squeezed my hand around it. I told him I knew what he was doing with the little boys. I said if he didn’t take me back to the home right away, I’d tell my mom about it. He just laughed. He said nobody would believe me. He called me a feisty little fillie.” Then he grabbed me by the hair—”

“Paula, stop it now,” her mother said. “That’s enough.”

Paula ignored her. “He grabbed me by my hair and said, ‘You look thirsty, honey.’ Then he pulled my head down and forced me to open up my mouth.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but she did not cry.

Her mother sat on the arm of the recliner and put an arm around her. “Men are pigs,” she said. “Present company excepted.”

Paula said, “When he was done, he stuck a bottle of water in my mouth and made me rinse out. I was choking and gagging and crying. He told me to knock it off. He said I was a woman now. Then he examined what I was wearing to see if any of his stuff got on it. I guess he wanted to make sure he didn’t leave any evidence behind. While he was checking my clothes and feeling me up, he said—and I remember his exact words—‘If you say one fucken word to anybody, I will put a fucken bullet in your pretty little head.’ He sounded perfectly calm. Then he smiled and patted me on my leg.”

I felt as if bugs were crawling through my veins. “Do you know who he was?” I asked her again.

She spat out the name as if it were poison: “It was Chuck Martin, that’s who it was, God-damned fucken Chuck Martin.”