He worked his battered jaw, and she held the frying pan higher as a threat.
“So, tell me, you little creep,” Agnes said, “why were you trying to kill my dog?”
“I weren’t tryin’ to kill the dog,” the boy said, outraged. “I wouldn’t kill no dog.”
“The gun, Creepoid,” Agnes said. “You pointed a gun at him.”
“I was just gonna take him,” the boy said. “There weren’t no call to get mean. I weren’t gonna hurt him. I wouldn’t hurt nobody.” He touched the sauce on his face and winced.
“No, you just broke into this house to terrorize me with a gun,” Agnes said. “That’s not hurting nobody, that’s victimizing me. Do I look like a victim to you? Huh? You wouldn’t have tried this crap on Brenda, would you?”
He frowned up at her, the raspberry sauce crinkling on his face. “Who’s Brenda?”
“Everybody knows who Brenda is,” Agnes snapped.
She took a deep shuddering breath and reached for the phone again, and he rolled to his feet and lunged for her. She yelped and smacked him hard on the head with her pan, and he staggered, and then she hit him again, harder this time, just to make sure, and he fell back onto the floor, blood seeping down the side of his face, and lay still. She felt aqualm about that, but not much, because it was self-defense. Brenda would be proud of her, he’d broken into her house andshe’d defended it, he’d scared the hell out of her and-
Violence is not the answer, Agnes.
That depends on the question, Dr.Garvin.
– and she was not out of control, she was not angry, she was calm,she was shaking, but she was perfectly fine, and anyway it was a nonstick pan, not cast iron, so she was fairly certain she hadn’t done any permanent damage.
Fingers crossed, anyway.
Beside him, Rhett collapsed, overcome by the number of cupcakes still on the floor.
“I hate you,” she said to the unconscious boy. Then she picked up her phone and said, “Joey?”
“Don’t do anything, Agnes,” Joey yelled, the sounds of traffic in the background. “I’m on Route 17. I’m almost there.”
“That’s good,” Agnes said, realizing her voice was shaking, too. “He’s just a kid, Joey. He said he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody-”
The kid lunged to his feet, and Agnes screamed again and dropped the phone to swing the pan again, but this time he was ready for her, ducking under her arm and butting her in the stomach so that she said, “Oof!” and fell backward against the counter. He tried to backhand her, and she swung the pan again and hit him in the head, and then she couldn’t stop, she hit him over and over, and he yelled, “Stop it!” and grabbed for her while she swung at him, driving him back toward the hall door, screaming, “Get out, get out, get out of this house, get out of this house!” as he lurched back, and stepped in Rhett’s water dish and fell back against the wall and then through it, screaming.
Agnes froze, the frying pan raised over her head as he disappeared, and then the wall was solid again, and she heard a thud, and the screaming stopped, cut off.
She stood there with the pan over her head for a moment,
stunned, and then she lowered it slowly and clutched it to her chest, warm raspberry sauce and all, her heart beating like mad. She stared dumbfounded at the wall, waiting to see if he’d come rushing back through, like a ghost or something. When nothing happened, she went over and pushed cautiously with the pan on the place where the kid had disappeared.
It swung open and shut again, the hideous wallpaper that had covered it now torn along the straight edge of a doorframe.
“Oh,” Agnes said, caught between amazement that there’d been a swinging door behind the wallpaper and fear that there was also a crazed moron behind there.
“Agnes!” Joey yelled on the phone.
Agnes took a deep breath and stepped back to the counter and picked it up. “What?”
“What the fuck happened?”
“There’s another door in my kitchen, right next to the hall door.” Agnes went back and pushed it open again, avoiding the rusted, broken nails that lined the doorway edge, and peered into the black void. “Huh.”
“Where’s the kid with the gun?”
“Good question.” Agnes dropped her skillet on the counter, yanked open the utility drawer by the door, and got out her flashlight. She turned it on, shoved the door open with her shoulder, and pointed it into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” Joey yelled.
“I’m trying to see what’s behind this door. I didn’t even know it was here. Brenda never mentioned-”
“Agnes, you can explore that goddamn house later,” Joey said. “Take Rhett and get the hell out of there.”
“I don’t think the kid’s a problem anymore.” Agnes held the phone with one hand and peered down into the pool of light the flashlight cast on the floor below as Rhett came to join her, pressing close to her leg so he could peer, too. “He fell into a basement. I didn’t even know I had a basement back here. Brenda never said anything about one.
Did you know-?” She had been playing the light around the floor, and now she stopped as it hit the moron. “Uh-oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?”
The boy was splayed out on what looked like a concrete floor, and he did not look good.
“I think he’s hurt. He’s definitely not moving.”
“Good,” Joey said. “He fall down the stairs?”
“There are no stairs.” Agnes squinted down into the darkness as the light hit the boy’s face.
His eyes stared up at her, dull and fixed.
Agnes screamed, and Rhett scrambled back, stepping in the raspberry sauce, which he began to lick up. “Agnes?”
“Oh, God,” Agnes said as her throat closed in panic. “Joey, his neck’s at a funny angle and his eyes are staring up at me. I think 1 killed him.”
“No, you didn’t, honey,” Joey said around the traffic noise in the background. “He committed suicide when he attacked an insane woman in the stupid house she bought. I’m almost there. You stay there and don’t open that door for anybody.”
“He’s dead, Joey. I have to call the police.” This is bad. This is bad. This is not going to look good.
“The police can’t help you with this one,” Joey said. “You stay put. I’m gonna get you somebody until we figure this out.”
“Some body. Right.” Agnes clicked off the phone and looked back down at the dead body in her basement.
He looked pathetic, lying there all broken and dead-eyed. Agnes swallowed, trying to get a grip on the situation.
How are you feeling right now, Agnes?
Shut the fuck up, Dr. Garvin.
Don’t say “fuck,” Agnes. Angry language makes us angrier. Gosh darn, Dr. Garvin, I’m feeling… She put the beam on the boy again. Still dead.
Oh, God.
Okay, calm down, she told herself. Think this through. She hadn’t killed him, the basement floor had. You hit him many times in the head with the frying pan-try explaining that one.
Okay, okay, but he’d attacked her in Brenda’s house. No, in her house. So it was self-defense. Yes, he was young and pathetic and heartbreaking down there, but he’d been a horrible person.
Why do you always hit them with frying pans, Agnes?
Because that’s what I always have in my hand, Dr. Garvin. If I were a gardener, it’d be hedge clippers. Think how bad that would be.
She punched in 911 on her phone, trying to concentrate on the good things: Rhett was fine, her column would be finished soon, Maria’s wedding was still on track for that weekend, Two Rivers was hers-well, hers and Taylor’s-pretty soon she was going to be living her dream, and her cupcakes were burning but she could make more-