He ran to where Mary was standing with her shoulders slumped and her head down. “We have to carry them up there.” He pointed to the ladder.
“I can’t carry anyone,” she said, sounding like a whiny child. “I’m tiyy-erd, Jere!”
“I know. But you can manage Molly, she’s light. I’ll get her gram and my mother.”
“Why? Why do we have to?”
“Because those cops might be looking for us. My father said so.”
He expected her to ask why it would be bad for the deputies to find them, but she didn’t. Jared led her to the bedroom—the women were on the double bed, Molly reposing on a fluffy towel in the en suite bathroom. He picked Molly up and put her in Mary’s arms. Then he got Mrs. Ransom, who seemed heavier than he remembered. But not too heavy, Jared thought, and remembered what his mother liked to sing when he was small: Ack-sen-tuate the positive, elim-i-nate the negative.
“And don’t mess with Mr. In Between,” he said, getting a better grip on what remained of the old lady.
“Huh? Wha?”
“Never mind.”
With Molly in her arms, Mary began to mount the ladder one slow step at a time. Jared (imagining the prowl car already pulling up out front, Rangle and Barrows looking at the sign on the lawn reading COME IN AND LOOK AROUND) socked his shoulder into Mary’s butt when she stopped halfway to the top. She looked down over her shoulder.
“You’re getting a little personal there, Jared.”
“Hurry up, then.”
Somehow she struggled to the top without dropping her burden on his head. Jared followed, panting, pushing Mrs. Ransom through the opening. Mary had set Molly’s small body on the bare boards of the attic. The space ran the length of the house. It was low and very hot.
“I’ll be back,” Jared said.
“Okay, but I’m finding it very hard to care. The heat is making my head ache.”
Jared hurried back to the master bedroom. He got his arms around Lila’s wrapped body and felt his sore knee give a warning twang. He had forgotten about her uniform, her heavy workshoes, and her utility belt. How much did all that add to the weight of a healthy, well-nourished female? Ten pounds? Twenty?
He got her as far as the ladder, contemplated its steep incline, and thought, I’ll never be able to get her up there. No way.
Then the doorbell rang, four cheery ascending chimes, and he started to climb, not panting now but gasping. He made it three-quarters of the way up the ladder, then ran out of gas. Just as he was trying to decide if he could get down without dropping his mother, two slim arms appeared, hands open. Mary, thank God. Jared managed another two steps, and Mary was able to grab Lila.
From below, one of the deputies said, “Not even locked. Door’s wide open. Come on.”
Jared shoved. Mary pulled. Together they managed to get Lila above the level of the trapdoor. Mary collapsed on her back, yanking Lila over and in. Jared grabbed the top of the ladder and pulled. It came up, folding in on itself as it did, and he pressed against it, easing it the last couple of feet so it wouldn’t bang shut.
Down below, the other deputy called, “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?”
“Like some woman in a bitch-bag is going to answer,” the other said, and the two of them laughed.
Bitch-bags? Jared thought. Is that what you’re calling them? If my mother heard something like that come out of your mouths, she’d kick your country asses right up between your shoulder blades.
They were still talking, but moving toward the kitchen side of the house, and Jared could no longer tell what they were saying. His fear had communicated itself to Mary, even in her dopey state, and she put her arms around him. He could smell her sweat, and when her cheek pressed against his, he could feel it.
The voices came back, and Jared sent the cops below a thought command: Leave! The place is obviously empty, so just leave!
Mary whispered in his ear. “There’s food in the fridge, Jere. In the pantry, too. A wrapper I tossed in the wastebasket. What if they—”
Big cop shoes going clump-clump-clump, the deputies came up the stairs to the second floor. That was bad, but they weren’t talking about food in the fridge, or fresh trash in the can beside it, and that was good. (Ack-sen-tuate the positive.) They were discussing what to do about their lunch.
From beneath them and to the left, one of the cops—Rangle, maybe—said, “This bedspread looks kinda rumpled to me. Does it to you?”
“Yeah,” said the other. “Wouldn’t shock me if someone’s been squatting here, but more likely, people that come in to look at the place, prospective buyers, they probably sit down, too, sometimes, right? Or even try the bed. Natural thing to do.”
More footsteps, back out into the hall. Clump-clump-clump. Then they stopped, and this time when the voices came, they were directly below. Mary tightened her arms around Jared’s neck and whispered. “If they catch us hiding up here, they’ll arrest us, won’t they!”
“Shhh,” Jared whispered back, thinking, They would have arrested us even if they found us down there. Only they’d probably call it protective custody.
“Trapdoor in the ceiling,” the one who was probably Barrows said. “You want to go up and check the attic, or should I?”
The question was followed by a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out forever. Then the one who was probably Rangle said, “You can go up if you want to, but if Lila and her kid were in the house they’d be down here. And I got allergies. I’m not going up and breathing a lot of dust.”
“Still . . .”
“Have at it, buddy,” Rangle said, and all at once the ladder went flopping back down, spilling muted light into the attic. If Lila’s cocooned body had been even six inches closer to the open trapdoor, it would have been in view. “Enjoy the heat up there, too. I bet it’s a hundred and ten.”
“Fuck it,” Barrows said. “And while I’m at it, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Allergies. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The ladder came back up, this time closing with a loud bang that made Jared twitch even though he’d known it was coming. The big cop shoes went clump-clump-clumping back down the stairs. Jared listened, holding his breath, as the deputies stood in the foyer, talking some more. Low tones. Impossible to catch more than a word or a phrase. Something about Terry Coombs; something about a new deputy named Geary; and something else again about lunch.
Leave! Jared wanted to scream at them. Leave before Mary and me have fucking heatstrokes!
At last the front door shut. Jared strained his ears to catch the sound of their cruiser starting up, but couldn’t. Either he’d spent too much time listening to loud music with his headphones on, or the attic insulation was too thick. He counted to a hundred, then back down to zero. He couldn’t stand to wait any longer. The heat was killing him.
“I think they’re gone,” he said.
Mary didn’t answer, and he realized her formerly tight grip on his neck had slackened. He had been concentrating too hard to notice until now. When he turned to look at her, her arms fell limply to her sides and she collapsed to the board floor.