Most on the block are not yet home from the church. Malina would have normally stayed until the last dish was washed and packed and the tables folded and stowed in the storage closet, but when Mr. Herze said he’d be making a final run through a neighborhood north of Alder and that one of the men would drop him at the house, Malina had said she’d be happy to drive the car home. She had taken the keys, smiled, and only then noticed how closely Mr. Herze watched her.
“You’re not concerned about the glare?” he had asked.
“How can I be concerned with my own fears when our poor Elizabeth has yet to be found?”
Mr. Herze had stared down on her for so long that the ladies standing nearby drifted away. When finally he left with the other men, Malina excused herself, trusting the rest of the ladies to do the cleaning.
She drops her keys and the large brown handbag on the entry table. The house is dark. Leaning to peek outside, she sees one of those twins running up the street toward Julia Wagner’s house. It’s the first Malina has seen of either one of them this summer. She leans out the door, looking for the other one and thinking she might scold them for running about at this inappropriate hour, but she hasn’t time for such matters.
Checking the street one last time and seeing no sign of Mr. Herze, Malina closes the door and opens her handbag. It was a terrible embarrassment to be carrying this monstrosity at the church, being out-of-season as it is, but she had needed the large bag again if she was going to tend to the things that needed tending. Now she’ll hurry up about it before Mr. Herze comes home. From the bottom of the handbag, she pulls out the hammer she purchased from Simpson’s Hardware earlier in the day to replace the one she dropped down on Willingham.
Making her way across the driveway and toward Mr. Herze’s garage, Malina holds the hammer with both hands, and as she walks she tests the weight and feel of it. Much like the other hammer, as best she can remember. At the sound of a car engine, she stops and listens, but the engine continues on past her house and fades as the car drives down Alder. Not Mr. Herze. If she had the time, Malina would count to twenty to try to slow her heart and quiet the tension that has settled in her neck and shoulders. The nerves have traveled as far as her stomach tonight, and she might need to chew a sliver of ginger root before slipping into bed. Dr. Cannon says there’s always time for a few deep breaths, but he’s wrong. There’s never time for counting and breathing when a lady is truly in need.
Inside the garage, Malina tiptoes through the boxes and bags scattered about the floor, all of them donations for the thrift store that the other ladies have dropped off with her to be sorted and delivered, and once she reaches the center of the room, she stretches overhead and tugs on a small chain. She squints in the sudden brightness. The breeze that followed her through the door stirs up the single bulb that dangles from the ceiling and light rolls around the small room, aggravating her already-queasy stomach. The thin silver chain swings from side to side and eventually hangs motionless.
There is always a certain smell in the garage, like sawdust, though Mr. Herze rarely runs a saw, particularly in the summer. He prefers to tackle his projects in the autumn and early spring. But some odors are like that-always sticking to things and making a nuisance of themselves no matter how many weeks or months have passed.
In Malina’s hand, this new hammer’s wooden handle is smooth. She can’t remember if the other one, the one she dropped in that dark alley, was also smooth. And wasn’t the other handle red? But the hardware store hadn’t had a red-handled hammer. Only this brown-handled one. It isn’t as if she regularly touches Mr. Herze’s tools, but she is quite certain the head of the hammer she carried down the factory’s alley was forked on one side. She is quite certain of that. How much more could matter about a hammer?
Edging toward the wooden slab that Mr. Herze uses as a work surface for his gluing and sanding, Malina reaches out with both hands and gently lays the new hammer in two metal hooks hanging from a pegboard. The board is a result of careless neighbors. So many times Mr. Herze has loaned out a tool only to find it missing when he later discovered a need for it. By that time, he often forgot to whom he had loaned the tool. Now, with one glance at the black outlines on his pegboard, he can know which tool is not in its proper place and he no longer forgets. The rest of his equipment-fishing rods, a shotgun handed down from his father, a black pistol, filet knives, and an ax or two are locked up in a cabinet alongside the pegboard because Mr. Herze must worry the neighbors will make off with those things too. Oddly, not as many neighbors ask to borrow tools anymore.
The night she took the hammer and dropped it in her handbag, she had briefly, only for a moment, considered unlocking the cabinet and taking the black pistol for her protection. A gun, however, would require a certain degree of skill, and she didn’t begin to know about bullets and triggers and such. Mr. Herze once mentioned he kept the weapon loaded. In an emergency, a man wouldn’t want to be fooling around with boxes of ammunition that might spill or, worse yet, be misplaced. But Malina had no way of knowing for sure if it was loaded or not, so she had settled on the hammer.
Tilting her head first to the right and then to the left, Malina reaches out with one finger and adjusts the hammer upward a quarter inch until it slips inside the black outline. Even with this adjustment, the head of the new hammer is much smaller than the head of the hammer she lost, and the outline no longer fits.
If it weren’t for Mr. Herze’s sudden questions about her nightly driving habits, Malina wouldn’t have concerned herself so with the hammer she lost in that alley. But eventually, Mr. Herze will make his way into the garage and will notice his missing hammer with only a glance. First, he will ask Malina if she has seen the tool. Next, he’ll stomp from neighbor to neighbor, accusing them along the way. He does so hate it when people borrow his things. Eventually, he’ll think it odd his hammer disappeared so mysteriously, and he’ll give thought to something he might otherwise dismiss.
If someone has told Mr. Herze that Malina was driving that night, perhaps the same person will tell him she carried with her a red-handled hammer. It would do no good for Mr. Herze to learn Malina was at the factory. He has never tolerated a wife who asked questions or poked about in his business. Malina learned this in the early years. And for all the years that followed, she’s remembered. If only she had gone back for the hammer or, better yet, if only she hadn’t worried so about an empty driveway and a ruined supper. If only she had gone back, there would be no proof. If only she had gone back, she would have no need for red-handled or brown-handled hammers or any type of hammer. If only she had gone back, Mr. Herze would never know for certain she had been on Willingham. He’d never know for certain she lied.
At the garage, Grace had set aside the garbage can and reached down to grab the heavy wooden door’s handle. Taking out the garbage had definitely been a sign the evening was drawing to a close. James would come home soon enough and they would go to sleep for the second night knowing Elizabeth was not yet home. With both hands wrapped firmly around the small metal handle, Grace gave a good yank, slipped her hands under the door’s bottom edge, and shoved it overhead. It was harder for her now that the baby had grown so large.
Inside, the garage was dark. James’s car was parked in its usual spot. Howard Wallace drove him to the church, or was it Al Thompson? James had his maps to study and his notes to make. The others wanted him thinking and planning, not driving. Two silver garbage cans stood next to the car in their usual spot. She dropped a tissue over the handle of the first trash can so as to not soil her fingers. That can was full, so she dropped the silver lid, and as she lifted the second, a tissue still protecting her from the grimy handle, a hand slapped over her face.