Once upon a crime.
Who will get begrimed?
All is neat and tidy here. Outstanding over each furniture are the cream doilies. Not a single noises but the felty gait of an animal used to sulk into the shadow of the apartment. The cozy place is that calm at this early hour of the morning. A breathe, a furtive ruffle, betrays the presence of a sleeper in the room. The mobile element is below the knee height. Muffled, the song of a tintinabulla is emitted as the mover gets out the corner, jumping to land with a thump on the window sill. The form moves between the taffeta curtain and the glass of the window tightly closed behind. That is a fat cat licking its whiskers lazily. The side on the window's glasses is flattened by the surface while it stroll back and forth a couple of time, only stomping to lick one paw, gape or get a look outside. It is waiting for something.
As soon as one feeble sun ray filters to where it is standing, the cat initiates a game with its paw trying to catch a panel of the drapery. It does so for a time till it manages to succeed. The panel is brought to the yap and delicately holds in between the fang. It hauls it open. The gray morning fill up the room instantly, giving a sepia tint to everything as the sun is rising behind the clouds. The crystal flowers of frost blooming on the window surface are slowly wilting as they melt, wiped over by the gray and white fur of the animal. There is a growling, a deep inhalation then a human voice builds up over the silence, breaking it.
"You think it is The time, Timothea?" The granular inflection is slowly smoothes up more the elderly speaks.
The cat meows then purrs, switching the weight of its front from one paw to the other. There is a thud. The woman does not even twitch at it. It is part of their normal routine. Some crumpling noises as the cat lightly stroll between area rugs, lifting some accidentally so the wall-to-wall carpet they cover up shows by patch.
The old lady passes behind and straitened them till they are back to their perfectly square prior state.
The gray and white ball of fur circles the bowl of food placed on a pedestal at the exact distance from the floor that it needs to eat from them. Seeing that it is not about to get what it asks for, it gathers himself in a sitting position.
It watches her.
"Hannah is coming, sweet hearth." She repeats, exposing the bawdy nightdress a short moment while dressing in the worn out pink housecoat.The shape of the human stands in front of the feeble light. The arm elevates itself, the hand reaches out and the flannel clothed lady pulls on the taffeta curtain.
She becomes suddenly quite agitated. "My my, look at that Timothea. I don't need my glasses to see that one aside the newsstand. It is obvious, I can't believe it. Do you saw what I see, Timothea?" She calls to the cat that pays only attention to her when she moves again from the window.
It meows again, but a more sustained one. It parades it front of its bowl in a
"Pay attention to me, I am starving." way.
"Oh, hear that. You are all worry now. Of course you saw it. They let that freak comes out. Tut tut tut…" she shakes her head. "That will end up pretty bad, Timothea. He will kill more little girls. You know, he is the one doing it. You know that." The grimalkin pitters to the cat's ears, finally kneeling aside the fat has-been mouser.
She pecks its head and it rolls his back, closing its yellow eyes and pushing on the lips with the head.
"Yes. You are a gentle kitty. You love being kissed." She stands anew, taking a commercial wet towel out it sash and wiping her lips off with it. As soon as she has finish with it, she pulls on a ring attached to a thread. The pulley where it runs squeak and the trash can open to allow the wipe to be discarded. Then she unfolds another and wipes her hands. It has the same destination than the first.
The ring is also wiped off then released. The trash can closes.
She pulls on gloves and get the dry food container out the cupboard.
But the old maid is far than finished with the 'freak' s case. She continues to mumble over the actions she is doing.
"In my time, I swear, Timothea, freak like this guy were not free to go everywhere or to work in anything. Lets more being educated." She declares with a chortle of disdain. "They have no brain, they are beast. We were placing them in institution. That is their place, with mentally low brain people. Or in a circus. The best was the freak show. We were going there to have a good fear. Because they are monsters. That is where they belong. They are frightening. Don't you think?"
Hannah pours room temperature water in the dry food for Timothea. The cat gets impatient and meows again.
"That is it. You are right. In any adventure, his parents chose a quite honest name for him. I would not have done better. Enan." She laughs, satisfied of her latest discovery. "You get it?"
But the cat is devouring its meal, far from minding of anything the lady said or would say.
It is five thirty and suddenly, all the automated machines that fill-up the kitchen start on their tasks.
Still wearing the gloves, Hannah cranks the cuckoo and put it at the right hour according to the radio station. The silence is definitely dead.
She passes in front of a wall where there are pictures displayed. The entire frames are of the same shape and shade. Even recent pictures have been edited to be black and white. Color photos are too much yearning for your attention.
Hannah takes each of them in her hand, then replace them precisely where they were. One wedding picture is overlooked and placed backward on the wall. The elderly bang on it with a very aggressive attitude and discontented feature.
"Shame on you to have taken off the dream of my eldest daughter. Caught with five children on her own, what were you thinking to died like that!" she comments, banging on it again.
A whack answers to hers and she frowns.
"What was that?Echo?" She asks, looking to the delighted cat now sitting at her feet.
The sound is heard again.
"I don't answer this soon in the morning, go away" she shouts out angrily.
"But, it is me, mother…"
"Ellen?My girl…my what are…"
She opens the door after all the locks are dragged out. That is quite a long thing to do, one after the other, but the hands have experiences.
The chains are halted in their course so all of them are motionless when she ultimately open the door with a pleasantly surprised smile.
Timothea heads out and she looks its way, claiming its return boisterously.
"One second Ellen…come here…Timothea, my sweetheart…here…come here."
She removes one of the gloves and sure thing the cat heads not only back, but it nests on her shoulder. Its tail pendulates on the front of the nightdress, bringing some frill up then down.
When her glance crosses who ever were behind her door at first, the one she thought was Ellen, her expression change from day to night abruptly.
"Oh, Fonda, what are you doing here? I told you the last time to no more come to visit." She comments, displeased. The head is craned over the dark haired woman and the attitude change for one of a stone.
"Specially not with your little ones. They look too much like her. You are going to awake suspicion and gossip on your account."
"We know mother, but we had to come. At six thirty, it will be the eight anniversary of our husband’s death." The daughter articulates without a trace of emotion, neither physically nor in the tone used. “It is on our duty list. We cannot allow you to be alone on that day. Too risky.”
Her mother nods. "Then hop in, the four of you. You don't want to attract any more attention that you already did."
"Five, we are five." Precises the daughter.
Hannah doesn’t mind it. "So, it miss two if you. Where are the two others? You left them at home without proper surveillance, again? I told you, Fonda. That isn’t doing any good to them that you hide them there."
"Five, we are five." the daughter repeats, pushing the girls in. Again, she is unemotional.
The elderly shrugs. "Makes that regiment remove their shoes, I don't want to clean behind them. And please, make them sit on the ground. They do less ravage that way."
The girls comply and move on the living room, tight to each others without protesting.
"At least, Ellen has two boys. You can’t even achieve the simplest thing. Five girls. That worth nothing, more on a farm. Ah well, all is in the blood. You are not a good American. If I had not adopted you, you would have been a bastard somewhere, begging. So I guess you just can’t have turned out otherwise. Look at them; they are as pitiful as the one you see on TV for that fund raising show."
After she discharges her venom, she paces toward the cupboard, adding to it: "Five in the same womb, that makes them weaker individually, I hope you keep them grouped?" She takes a bowl with pink peppermints so old that they fused one to the other. She leans to offer of it to the girls that politely declined them.
"They snob my candies now?"
"No. We teach them to refuse candies. Too much sugar and after we are the one having to bear their discourteous behavior in the car, mother." Speak evenly the daughter.
Hannah emits an offended sound. "You will learn, my daughter, that my candies are special. They have to be eaten up."
Fonda inclined her head and blankly, she commands the girls to eat them up."And don't let one left."
Fed up after the first one, they persisted and did eat them all. Hannah is ecstatic, then a second after, she outcries a : "Pigs." Giving a blow behind Fonda’s head. This one reacts no more than she did previously and with her impassive tone she asks: "Do we have time for a coffee, mother. It is not six thirty yet."
“And why should I want to drink coffee with you, the one that ruined my life, huh?” The oldest mother requests, the arms crossed on the chest. Timothea jumps off, briefly unbalancing the lady. But of that, she comments not. Her icy glance is weighting over Fonda.
Stoic, the mid-thirty woman justifies the acts and saying of the other. “You just doesn’t support that us and Father were so close. So superior to yourself.”
“Could you stop talking like that? You are reminding me of him, of course, just before he killed your husband and himself.”
“Sits down, mother, we must have that coffee.” The daughter insisted.
The little girls are silent; their heads follow the direction of the conversation. Some interest depicted in their eyes, but the emotions are alike the Mother, concealed and hard to read up.
The tom meanders around them, sniffing at all it can. Once aside Kamla, though, it halts, sniffs then places its ears back with dilated pupils and arched back. A second before hissing and fleeing to hide under the davenport, the poor beast looked thrice big; so much all its hairs were erected in all sense.
Hannah shakes her head.”Change of tone, or you would be better to be on your way to the farm. You are getting crazier each time I see you. Where this will stop, once you’ll have killed all your daughters? Please, promise me for their sake that you are still taking your medications?”
“We do no more need those. We taught it is better without. They were drugging us to control us. That was a conspiracy. They would have killed us like they did with Father.”
Suddenly, a shouting is emitted. A male voice, deep in distraught, come from the alley. Hannah runs toward the corner-side window and lift open the panel. A gust of wind blows her night dress and the taffeta curtain upward.
“What’s all that noise?” The aged maid yells in reaction to the squall. She leans between the glass framed panel and the window sill. Her eyes narrow to precise her sight and she hollers over:”Stops acting up, freak!”
In the alley, the giant is immobilized. One hand is on the garbage can’s cap, the other near his throat. He aspires more than he expires, at each turns: gasping for air and coughing. “Please…Call…call…9…” he splutters.
“To what avail…dye freak!Dye!” she shout before returning to chat about all that commotion with her invitee. To neither the left nor the right does she find anyone in the kitchen. Only the cat, head first in the candy jar.
She gets to it and helps it out the constraining position. The door is closed back, the locks refasten one after the other.
She mumbles about what Enan is doing outside, the breathing sound giving that the man is moving toward Hannah’s window. So once she is certain the door is well locked, she is compelled and return to her vantage point.
“What do you want from me?” she shouts again.
The ‘freak’ is holding to the wall, advancing toward the corner where the newsstand is, but he is not near enough, yet. His knees give up and soon, he sits, leaning back on the same wall where Hannah is.
“Go dye somewhere else at least.” She abruptly utters.
“If… not… for me… Little girl.” He manages to say.
The hands searches the shelves of the unit aside the window, the glasses are put on. An authentic surprise is painted on her face. ”I knew you were killing them… I knew it!”
And the elderly becomes very agitated.
Enan gaze gradually gaze on the end of the alley. He summons his strength and, of a strong but distressed voice, he calls:”Oriel!Help!”
“No!No!No!I must be the first one to call…I am the one that was right.
She takes the phone and dial.
“Yes. That is to report a murder. The murderer is just under my window. Yes…that is right, that is my address. Right there, in a garbage can. No, I am on the second floor.Thanks.”
And she hangs up just has she witness Oriel near Enan.
“They are coming to capture him and put him into a cage, like he deserves to be…” she crows.
“He found the little missing girl and he is dying.” Supplicates Oriel, tearing up and tighten her fist.”I swear that if he doesn’t survive to that one, I am going to make your life so miserable that you would have wished he was there to defend you.”
Hannah laughs more.”So be it!” she expresses, closing the framed panel and the curtain tight as the policemen invade the alley, like on the hunt for a dangerous and armed suspect.
All they see is a blonde lady patting a giant that wheezes for air, holding to a garbage can’s lid.
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