17
Annie's larder looked more like a survivalist's bomb shelter than a pantry. He guessed that some of this hoarding was a simple nod to the realities of her situation: she was a woman alone living in the high country, where a person might reasonably expect to spend a certain period - maybe only a day, but sometimes as long as a week or even two - cut off from the rest of the world. Probably even those cockadoodie Roydmans had a pantry that would make a homeowner from another part of the country raise his or her brows… but he doubted if the cockadoodie Roydmans or anyone else up here had anything which came close to what he was now looking at. This was no pantry; this was a goddam supermarket. He supposed there was a certain symbolism in Annie's pantry - the ranks of goods had something to say about the murkiness of the borderline between the Sovereign State of Reality and the People's Republic of Paranoia. In his current situation, however, such niceties hardly seemed worth examination. Fuck the symbolism. Go for the food.
Yes, but be careful. It wasn't just a matter of what she might miss. He must take no more than he could reasonably hope to hide if she came back suddenly… and how else did he think she would come? Her phone was dead and he somehow doubted if Annie would send him a telegram or Flowers by Wire. But in the end what she might miss in here or find in his room hardly mattered. After all, he had to eat. He was hooked on that, too.
Sardines. There were lots of sardines in those flat rectangular cans with the key under the paper. Good. He would have some of those. Tins of deviled ham. No keys, but he could open a couple of cans in her kitchen, and eat those first Bury the empties deep in her own overflowing garbage There was an open package of Sun-Maid raisins containing smaller boxes, which the ad-copy on the torn cellophane wrapper called “mini-snacks”. Paul added four of the mini-snacks to the growing stash in his lap, plus single-serving boxes of Corn Flakes and Wheaties. He noted there were no single- serving boxes of pre-sweetened cereals. If there had been, Annie had chowed them down on her last binge.
On a higher shelf was a pile of Slim Jims, as neatly stacked as the kindling in Annie's shed. He took four, trying not to disturb the pyramidal structure of the pile, and ate one of them greedily, relishing the salty taste and the grease. He tucked the wrapping into his underwear for later disposal.
His legs were beginning to hurt. He decided that if he, wasn't going to escape or burn the house down, he ought go on back to his room. An anticlimax, but things could worse. He could take a couple of pills and then write until he got drowsy. Then he could go to sleep. He doubted if she would be back tonight; far from abating, the storm was gaining strength. The idea of writing quietly and then sleeping with the knowledge that he was perfectly alone, that Annie was not going to burst in with some wild idea or even wilder demand, held great appeal, anticlimax or not.
He reversed out of the pantry, pausing to turn off the light, reminding himself that he must (rinse) put everything back in order as he made his retreat. If he ran out of food before she came back, he could always return for more (like a hungry rat, right, Paulie?) but he must not forget how careful he must be. It would not do to forget the simple fact that he was risking his life every time he left his room. Forgetting that would not do at all.
18
As he was rolling across the parlor, the scrapbook under the coffee table caught his eye again. MEMORY LANE. It was as big as a folio Shakespeare play and as thick as a family Bible.
Curious, he picked it up and opened it.
On the first page was a single column of newsprint, headed WILKES-BERRYMAN NUPTIALS. There was a picture of a pale gent with a narrow face and a woman with dark eyes and a pursy mouth. Paul glanced from the newspaper photo to the portrait over the mantel. No question. The woman identified in the clipping as Crysilda Berryman (Now there's a name worthy of a Misery novel, he thought) was Annie's mother. Neatly written in black ink below the clipping was: Bakersfield Journal, May 30th, 1938.
Page two was a birth announcement: Paul Emery Wilkes, born in Bakersfield Receiving Hospital, May 12th, 1939. Father, Carl Wilkes; mother, Crysilda Wilkes. The name of Annie's older brother gave him a start. He must have been the one with whom she had gone to the movies and seen the chapter-plays. Her brother had been Paul, too.
Page three announced the birth of Anne Marie Wilkes, d.o.b. April 1st, 1943. Which made Annie just past her forty-fourth birthday. The fact that she had been born on April Fools” Day did not escape Paul.
Outside, the wind gusted. Rain tore against the house.
Fascinated, his pain temporarily forgotten, Paul turned the page.
The next clipping was from page one of the Bakersfield Journal. The photo showed a fireman on a ladder, silhouetted against a background of flames billowing from the window of a frame building.
Five persons, four of them members of the same family, died in the early hours of Wednesday morning, victims of a smoky three-alarm fire in a Bakersfield apartment house on Watch Hill Avenue. Three of the dead were children - Paul Krenmitz, 8, Frederick Krenmitz, 6, and Alison Krenmitz, 3. The fourth was their father, Adrian Krenmitz, 41. Mr Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old. According to Mrs Jessica Krenmitz, her husband put the youngest of their four children in her arms and told her, “I'll be back with the others in a minute or two. Pray for us.”
“I never saw him again,” she said.
The fifth victim, Irving Thalman, 58, was a bachelor who lived on the top floor of the building. The third-floor apartment was vacant at the time of the fire. The Carl Wilkes family, at first listed as missing, left the building Tuesday night because of a water leak in the kitchen.
“I weep for Mrs Krenmitz and her loss,” Crysilda Wilkes told a Journal reporter, “but I thank God for sparing my husband and my own two children.” Centralia Fire Chief Michael O'Whunn said that the fire began in the apartment building's basement. When asked about the possibility of arson, he said: “It's more likely that a wino crept into the basement, had a few drinks, and accidentally started the fire with a cigarette. He probably ran instead of trying to put the fire out and five people died. I hope we catch up with the bum.” When asked about leads, O'Whunn said, “The police have several, and they are following them up hard and fast, I can tell you.”
Same neat black ink below the clipping. October 28th 1954.
Paul looked up. He was totally still, but a pulse beat rapidly in his throat. His bowels felt loose and hot.
Little brats.
Three of the dead were children.
Mrs Krenmitz's four brats downstairs.
Oh no, oh Christ, no.
I used to hate those little brats.
She was just a kid! Not even in the house!
She was eleven. Old enough and bright enough, maybe, to spill some kerosene around a cheap liquor bottle, then light a candle, and put the candle in the middle of the kerosene. Maybe she didn't even think it would work. Maybe she thought the kerosene would evaporate before the candle burned all the way down. Maybe she thought they'd get out alive… only wanted to scare them into moving. But she did it, Paul, she fucking did it, and you know it.
Yes, he supposed he did. And who would suspect her?
He turned the page.
Here was yet another Bakersfield Journal clipping, this one dated July 19th, 1957. It featured a picture of Carl Wilkes, looking slightly older. One thing was clear: it was as old as he was ever going to get. The clipping was his obituary.
Carl Wilkes, a lifelong Bakersfield resident, died shortly after being admitted to Hernandez General Hospital last night. He apparently stumbled over a pile of loose clothing, which had been left on the stairs earlier, while on his way down to answer the phone. Dr Frank Canley, the admitting physician, said that Wilkes died of multiple skull fractures and a broken neck. He was 44.
Wilkes is survived by his wife, Crysilda, a son, Paul, 18, and a daughter, Anne, 14.
When Paul turned to the next page, he thought for a moment that Annie had pasted in two copies of her father's obituary out of sentiment or by accident (he thought this latter the more likely possibility of the two). But this was a different accident, and the reason for the similarity was simplicity itself: neither had really been an accident at all.
He felt stark and simple terror steal into him.
The neat handwriting below this clipping read Los Angeles Call, January 29th, 1962.
Andrea Saint James, a USC nursing student, was pronounced dead on arrival at Mercy Hospital in North Los Angeles last night, the apparent victim of a bizarre accident.
Miss Saint James shared an off-campus apartment on Delorme Street with a sister nursing student, Anne Wilkes, of Bakersfield. Shortly before eleven P.M., Miss Wilkes heard a brief scream followed by “terrible thudding sounds”. Miss Wilkes, who had been studying, rushed onto the third-floor landing and saw Miss Saint James lying on the landing below, “sprawled in a very unnatural position”.
Miss Wilkes said that, in her effort to render aid, she almost fell herself. “We had a cat named Peter Gunn,” she said, “only we hadn't seen him for days and thought the pound must have gotten him because we kept forgetting to get him a tag. He was lying dead on the stairs. It was the cat she tripped over. I covered Andrea with my sweater and then called the hospital. I knew she was dead, but I didn't know who else to call.” Miss Saint James, a native of Los Angeles, was 21.
“Jesus.” Paul whispered it over and over. His hand w s a shaking badly as he turned the page. Here was a Call clipping which said that the stray cat the student nurses adopted had been poisoned.
Peter Gunn. Cute name for a cat, Paul thought.
The landlord had rats in his basement. Tenant complaints had resulted in a warning from building inspectors the year before. The landlord had caused a ruckus at a subsequent City Council meeting which had been lively enough to get coverage in the papers. Annie would have known. Faced with a stiff fine by councilmen who didn't like being called names, the landlord had sown the cellar with poisoned bait. Cat eats poison. Cat languishes in cellar for two days. Cat then crawls as close to his mistresses as possible before expiring - and killing one of said mistresses.
An irony worthy of Paul Harvey, Paul Sheldon thought, and laughed wildly. I bet it made his daily newscast, too.
