Seven Stories. Story One, Part 4.
Editor’s Note: We are pleased and excited to introduce our newest Hummingbird Guest Contributor, Beth Kalet. “Trouble” is one of 7 short stories included in Beth’s book Seven Stories, published in 2012. Hummingbird will be publishing “Trouble” in parts, one per week over the next few weeks, so please check out Parts 1 - 3 and stay tuned for the rest of the story as it unfolds here.
Beth is an accomplished writer and editor. Her work, and her own story are what encouraged us to reach out to her. Please give a warm reader’s welcome to Beth, and feel free to comment at the bottom of the page.
Let’s dive into “Trouble.” I assure you, you will not be disappointed. Welcome Beth!
Photo Credit: Diane Pell
Trouble’s Always Just Around the Corner. Part 4.
I was still taking it all in when I began to wonder what led them to me and what Harry had done since I’d known him. Nothing I could remember seemed criminal.
“Detective Grindhart will be here soon,” she said. “Are you feeling okay?”
“No. I am not,” I told her. “I am definitely not. I don’t know if I want to go home to my place tonight.”
Just then Grindhart showed up. He and Farris shared a meaningful look, and then he sat down beside her. I wondered just for a second whether he was the man she was engaged to.
“Hello Miss Barnes,” he said, stiffly. I felt his formality unwarranted at this point.
Driving home I could not help myself from checking my rear view mirror every 10 seconds to make sure the detective was still behind me. I was also getting more and more agitated and I had to keep telling myself to calm down. Did Harry steal anything from me? Could he have hurt me? Did he just pick me to have a girlfriend beside him while he plotted his next crime? The answer to that one, I had to believe now, was yes.
It was like this: freak out; force myself to take a deep, slow breath in; exhale deliberately; check mirror; start over.
Grindhart walked with me to my door and stood silently as I fumbled with my key. We went inside and I waited in the kitchen while he checked around for me. I was afraid that Harry might be there, and Grindhart indulged me by looking behind all the doors. Then he told me I had to come with him to make sure nothing was missing. I didn’t like having this cop shadow me as I checked my secret hiding places, nudging aside underwear to see if my grandmother’s pearls were still in the velvet sack; hunting deep in my linen closet for the old shoe box I’d covered with wallpaper as a Girl Scout where I now hid a small stash of fifty dollar bills. Everything was there. I didn’t have much. And I didn’t think I’d ever told these secrets to Harry.
But I wouldn’t have had to, would I? Was it the diner coffee making me shake now? I really just wanted to curl up on my bed under a fleece blanket maybe with a cup of tea. I wanted Grindhart to keep watch from outside my door.
Over on the TV table a stack of DVDs about four inches high caught Grindhart’s eye. On top, a copy of “White Christmas,” one of my favorites, would be just the sort of thing to soothe me tonight. Grindhart walked over and tapped it with his index finger.
“These new?” he asked me.
“Sort of,” I said. “We got them at a flea market last week. Harry and me.”
“You mind if I look at them?”
“Help yourself,” I said, trying to imagine what he was thinking. He picked up the stack, and opened each one, popping the disk out and turning it over. He inspected the case and positioned the DVD back in its niche. He didn’t say anything.
“I need a glass of water,” I said. “Do you want one?”
“Sure,” he said, following me back to the kitchen. “So, Miss Barnes, did ‘Harry’ leave anything behind?” Again, he emphasized the name as if it was an alias and he, Grindhart, refused to play along.
We were leaning against the kitchen counter. I had two bar stools and I waved him to sit down as I took the other. We sat.
I just wanted to get this behind me now. How would I know when it was over? So far as I knew nothing had actually happened to me but I needed to get to the next stage, which might start with the detective telling me everything would be okay. That he’d put on a 24-hour guard at my door until Harry was caught.
“Why were you looking at those DVDs?” I asked him.
“You didn’t say whether Harry left anything here,” he said. “Have you noticed anything of his or did he keep things here or leave them here when you were dating?”
I couldn’t think of anything Harry had left in my apartment. “Now you make me wonder,” I said. “I feel like I should take a good look.”
“We’ll do it together,” Grindhart said.
Now, with my permission, he poked into every cabinet, cupboard and shelf, underneath each piece of wooden and faux-wood trim, where the dust collects; inside every drawer and above, around and under every other place in the entire apartment. He found a small receipt above the bathroom medicine cabinet mirror. I’d never seen it before. He took it with him, jotting something in a notebook about it. I had stopped asking questions.
Before he left, he asked me about the paintings we’d sold at the flea market. I felt guilty that I hadn’t brought them up at the start of this whole thing. Is there such a thing as guilt by omission? Yes, I told him, we found them on the street and we sold them at the flea market. Yes, the same one where I’d gotten the DVDs. He asked me how we came to sell them at that flea market and if Harry and I had watched the DVDs together.
Funny how something that seems so natural and so random… you find something wacky on the street, do a little online research, go to the place Harry recommends to sell them and exult over a little “found money” … can turn into questionable – no, sinister – behavior.
I dreaded telling my friends about all this. I hadn’t even told them how Harry and I had ended or that we had. I mean, it had only been three days. I didn’t think I could stand all their questions. Not now, especially. On the other hand, Grindhart had told me to call him if I remembered anything else. They, my friends, probably noticed a whole lot of things I had not. But who knows if they would amount to anything. Marla, for one, could probably offer up a list, but she’s so flaky. Better to avoid the subject for a while.
Grindhart said I was not under suspicion for anything. (I had to ask him if I was a suspect.) At some point in my life I might have thrilled to be a “suspect” or involved, even inadvertently, in a mystery. But guess what? It wasn’t thrilling. It gave me the creeps to know that someone I had innocently spent time with, had, you know… been intimate with, had used me for nefarious purposes. Crime novel stuff, there. Grindhart said not to worry. That it didn’t look like I had anything to worry about.
I meant to ask him if they’d let me know when it was all over but I’d forgotten. I just wanted him out of my apartment. After he’d looked everywhere and found basically nothing, I didn’t feel better, I felt a little worse. When you see someone going through your stuff, even if it’s meant to help you, that’s when you feel exposed.
Part 5 to follow.
Story One, Trouble’s Always Just Around the Corner, Unfolds
Story One. Part 1.
Story One. Part 2.
Story One. Part 3.
Story One. Part 4. (This one.)
© Beth Kalet
To learn more and to purchase Beth Kalet’s book, Seven Stories, please click here. You may also contact Beth through Hummingbird by clicking here.
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