Lucky Stiff

by Elizabeth Sims

  Their place never changed, except that the footpaths in the shag carpet got deeper and smoother over time. Ever deeper and smoother. That's shag for you.

  To my astonishment, I beheld Duane Sechrist lying limply on their living room couch. His clothes were filthy, as if he'd been digging a trench. Mrs. McVittie was in the act of applying a damp washrag to his forehead.

  "Duane!"

  He was barely able to speak. "Li—Lillian?"

  He tried to sit up, but Mrs. McVittie murmured, "There now, there now."

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "He got arrested," Mr. McVittie explained briskly, "and we bailed him out. Five hundred dollars it cost. Come in, lemme shut the door, I got the air conditioning running."

  "What?"

  Clutching his damp cloth, Duane struggled to a sitting position. "It's true," he said. "When I got back from Vegas I—I sort of lost it. You said to see what I could dig up. So I did."

  For the second or third time that day, my mouth fell open. "Duane. You didn't."

  "I tried to, last night. I didn't get all the way down before morning, though. So I got caught."

  "Oh, my God."

  "I couldn't stand it anymore! I had to know!"

  "Were you—by yourself? Or—"

  "Yeah. That money—that $2,000—that was the last of my ready cash. I used it to buy a shovel and an axe—for when I—got there, and to bribe the night watchman. He was only too glad to—"

  "And then you started digging up the grave of Patricia Lynn Hawley."

  "That's right."

  Addressing me, Mrs. McVittie said, "I baked some gingerbread, dear, would you like some?"

  "No, thank you, Mrs. McVittie."

  "Duane's already had some, haven't you, Duane?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "I'll have some," said Mr. McVittie.

  "Something to go with?"

  "Glass of milk."

  "All right, coming up." Mrs. McVittie made her unsteady way to the kitchen. The both of them were getting up there agewise. Mrs. McVittie's tremor had become more pronounced in the last year or so. And she had to inject herself with insulin every day, not to mention forego the heavenly gingerbread that was her specialty.

  Duane repeated, "I had to know. Something inside me…When I got off that plane I felt like a complete failure. Then something just went bang! inside me, and I went and did it. You'd mentioned Mt. Olivet, so I knew where to go."

  I said, "But how were you going to—"

  "I knew what was…there…I knew I wasn't going to be able to recognize…a person, OK? I knew that. I had a plastic bag. I was going to get a piece of…something that would…have DNA in it. They can tell, if you give them a sample from a body, and blood from you, they can tell if you're related."

  I sank into an armchair. "But morning came before you got done."

  "Yeah!" he said passionately. "The day crew showed up and found me asleep on the grass. I was exhausted!" His voice rose to a wail. "Just look at my hands!"

  They were torn up all right, raw and blistered. Mrs. McVittie returned bearing gingerbread and milk for her husband. Mr. McVittie set the milk on the coffee table, then balanced the plate on his knee and dug in. There was something so effortlessly matter-of-fact about the McVitties.

  Duane went on, "So I got arrested for desecrating a grave. I knew you were still in Las Vegas. Like I said, my cash was gone."

  "Why did you call the McVitties?"

  He touched his sore fingertips to his muddy hair. "Lillian, I didn't want my friends to…to know about this."

  "But you'd never met these people."

  "I remembered their name. I remembered you speaking well of them."

  I turned to Mrs. McVittie, who was watching Mr. McVittie chomp his gingerbread. "And you two just…you just…"

  Mrs. McVittie said, "He explained that he was a friend of yours. That was good enough for us. He has no family, you know. So we got the money together and went on down."

  I turned to Mr. McVittie, who nodded grudgingly.

  I was about to say something about the bail money when I sensed Duane gazing at me intensely. I turned my attention back to him. There was fear in his face, dread in his eyes, yet I also perceived a question. Yes, there was a question, the question he wanted to ask, the final horror. He wanted to know.

  I gave him a steady look, just to make sure. His expression didn't change. He was ready.

  I said, "It's her in there. You almost reached her. Your mother's body is down there in Trix Hawley's grave. Trix told me how they worked it—very close to the scenario that had occurred to me. Your dad got your mom plastered on booze and her meds. While she was passed out, he brought her into the bar, put Trix's ring on her finger, and started the fire. And that was the end."

  His eyes spilled over and a moan came out of him, from deep in his gut.

  I said, "You know it's true. I'm sorry, Duane." Sinking back into the cushions, my friend sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

  Chapter 22

  I went upstairs, dropped my gym bag, and phoned up Billie. It was Monday, her day off.

  "How's Mr. Todd?" I asked.

  "Fine, but he misses you."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, he's been kind of listless."

  "Well, I'm coming right over."

  In her living room I picked up my good, calm, intelligent furry friend and looked him over.

  "He does look a bit peaked," I said, feeling his body through his thick silky fur.

  "How the hell does a rabbit look peaked?"

  "Well, like this. See him? I think he's losing weight."

  "He didn't eat much, at that. How old is he?"

  "Eight and a half."

  "Mm, Lillian, you know, they don't live all that long."

  "Yeah, I know. I think I'll get the vet to look him over."

  While Todd didn't look quite exactly right, he had the same effect on me as he always did: tranquilizing, reassuring. I fancied he was glad to see me.

  Billie reminded me that I'd promised to explain to her what the hell I was up to these days.

  "Oh, Billie, it's a long one."

  She folded her arms and stood stolidly on her career-waitress legs, ropy with varicose veins. "Why don't you sit down and tell me?" she said.

  "I can't, I gotta go. You know, this—investigation I'm doing isn't over, so whatever I tell you wouldn't even make any sense yet."

  "Don't you trust me?"

  "I trust the hell out of you, Billie!" I did, too. "It's—this is a family matter."

  "About Uncle Guff?"

  "No, he's not involved at all. This is from a long time ago."

  "Your mom and dad?"

  "Yeah."

  "I wondered. Other than the bruises you had the other night, there was something I'd never seen in you before. You were somewhere else. Like there was something…about mortality in your face. Look. I love you."

  "I love you too, Billie."

  "I don't have to know the details, but…just…can you just tell me if you're really all right?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

  "Is there anything I can do?"

  "You're doing it."

  "All right. Go on now. I'll call you. We need to eat together. Soon."

  "Yeah. Let's break some bread."

  "Soon!"

  "OK."

  I loaded Todd into the Caprice's passenger seat and we began the drive home, twenty minutes from Billie's house in Warren.

  "Gonna get you an appointment with Dr. Gatz," I told him. "Gonna get you checked out, buddy, OK?"

  I flipped on the news radio station and we listened along.

  Part of being home in Detroit is hearing the familiar voices on the radio, the announcers with their well-worn nasality or chestiness, the intimately annoying advertisements, the excruciating jingles, the traffic reports on the notorious expressways with their potholes and bottlenecks. It's a year-round challenge to drive in Detroit. In winter the ice and snow make tre
acherous the smallest trip, and in summer half the expressways are under repair from the ravages of winter. The expressways all have names, and each calls up a different feeling and image. The Lodge with its sheer concrete canyons, the soaring skyway of the Fisher, the dismal grittiness of the old Davison.

  The radio reminds you of the reality of Detroit. It's a hard-luck town, what with the struggles of the automobile industry in the last few decades. But perhaps because of that, it is, thankfully, a totally unpretentious town. You don't pay extra for jicama garnish because there is no jicama garnish. You get a ham sandwich and you pay for a ham sandwich because ham sandwich is on the menu. Your UAW windbreaker coordinates with jeans or a skirt. A six-pack of Stroh's is a nice companion for a Red Wings game on TV or while you give out candy on Halloween night. Adventure travel means riding the Gratiot bus line. You've got an uncle in the furniture business.

  It was 5 in the afternoon; drive time was heating up. I listened to the national report at the top of the hour: a slow news day. Congress couldn't make up its mind about a bill affecting agriculture policy, the Federal Reserve wasn't about to lower interest rates after all, a Third World government had been found to be more corrupt than most. On the local front, a coalition of downtown businesses was raising money to pay for extra street cleaning, a suburban drug bust had nailed ten rich kids, and then there was another item.

  "A Novi woman turned herself in to police this morning in connection with the murder of her husband. Robert N. Hawley, 61, was found dead yesterday in the bedroom of his home in Novi. WWJ reported that a family friend discovered Hawley, who had been stabbed repeatedly. According to Novi police, at 8:30 this morning the victim's wife, Adele C. Hawley, walked into the police station and confessed to the murder."

  I pulled into a Farmer Jack parking lot and listened.

  The station cut to a reporter at the Hawleys' home, where news of the arrest had brought out the neighbors. The reporter put his microphone to one of them.

  "She told me she did it!" the man said excitedly. "She came out yesterday morning to get the paper? I was walking the dog and we spoke? I finally killed the SOB, she says. And I'm like, 'What'? An' she says Robert, that's her husband, she says, It was just a matter of time. An' I go, Adele, are you all right?' She says, Never better. I thought it was a joke, so I just kept walking. I had no idea. He was a nice guy, a real nice guy. I never knew what a monster she was, though. You never know about people."

  The reporter asked, "Why do you think she did it?"

  "I don't know. I always thought she was a nice lady. All the neighbors here, we're all stunned, just stunned."

  I sat listening, panting. "Holy hell," I whispered. "Holy everloving hell."

  The reporter said, "Novi police are investigating, and a statement is expected from the Oakland County prosecutor's office later today."

  She killed the bastard. Oh, my God, she did it. She said she was going to do it, and she did it. I remembered sitting with Adele Hawley at her kitchen table, I remembered her face with its flattened nose and the look of shame in her eyes. I'd watched that shame turn to rage, those eyes shooting needles of fury as I talked with her about her husband, and as the light of realization came to her. Well, Robert Hawley had been a piece of dung, a hateful batterer. And that was the end of him. I switched off the radio, swallowed, and got back on the road.

  My guess was that Robert slapped her around pretty bad after I fled with the letters from Trix. Adele had been mad then, that day, but had she found strength in her anger right then? No; Robert surely would have gotten the best of that match. Perhaps, though, it was for the last time. Perhaps that very night Adele began laying her plan, began honing that carving knife; began, already, the process of giving up her freedom. Of course, she had traded away the freedom of her soul long ago, having remained married to a batterer. Now, having committed murder, she was merely exchanging one kind of incarceration for another. I wondered what she had done in the twenty-four hours or more between the murder and her trip to the police station. Why didn't she flee? Why didn't she feel she deserved freedom, albeit with a bastard's blood on her hands? There was a terrible honesty to what Adele Hawley had done. She had overcome her fear, had gathered her guts to attack and kill, most likely in cold blood. She had gathered herself to plunge a knife into human flesh, pull it out, plunge it in again and again, hear the sounds he would have made—certainly she would have attacked as he slept. Did he wake and struggle, did he fight for his life, or did he sink in shock to oblivion without knowing what was happening and why?

  .

  At home I released Todd into our flat, where, as always, his careful habits entitled him to the run of the place. It was stuffy, so I opened all the windows wide, letting in a nice warm breeze. Then I went down and brought Duane upstairs. The McVitties stood together in their doorway.

  "Thank you," I said fervently.

  "Thank you for your love," Duane added.

  Upstairs, he drew back when he saw Todd. "Does he bite?"

  "No, don't be afraid of Todd. He's my closest male friend—since you, anyway."

  "I bet he sheds."

  Todd bumped up and sniffed Duane's muddy shoes.

  I said, "I keep the place clean. Why don't you take those shoes off?"

  "Are people allergic to rabbits?"

  "I don't know. I guess some might be."

  "I've never been tested."

  "I wouldn't worry about it."

  "Otherwise, this is a nice place."

  "Why, thank you, Duane."

  "Kind of ghetto chic," he mused. "No, not ghetto—which is not an insult, by the way, but…more like military base dumpster aesthetic."

  "Yeah, I guess it's pretty utilitarian."

  "Books warm up a room, though. Even if they're just stacked up against the wall like that."

  "Yeah. Look, why don't you take over the bathroom for a while? Strip off those clothes and get in the shower? I bet you'd fit into a pair of my jeans and a T-shirt. You'll feel better. Or would you like me to draw a bath for you?"

  "OK. Not too hot."

  I set Duane up in the tub with a glass of ice water handy, then called the animal clinic and made an appointment for Todd for next Thursday. I'd left his food and water dishes clean and had only to fill them. He nibbled up some bunny chow and drank readily enough. "You're OK, Toddy boy. I'll get you some raspberry leaves in a little while. I'm glad to see you. Hang in there with me, OK?" I needed all the friendship I could get. I was so ashamed of how I had failed him in the parking garage. I couldn't imagine going on without him. I sat with him and patted him and let him hop around. We played Follow the Finger, one of our quieter games.

  I thought about Bill Sechrist. I got out my notebook and wrote down everything I could think of. My brain was starting to really take hold of this one.

  When Duane emerged from the bathroom in a pair of my blue jeans and my black Zildjian Cymbals T-shirt he looked like a new man. A shaky man, a troubled man, to be sure, but renewed nonetheless.

  "Hey, cutie," I said. "Feeling better?"

  "Yes, lots. I feel so butch in this T-shirt."

  "Yeah, well, I want it back. Listen, you want to stay here for a while? You need a friend, you know."

  He smiled sadly. "Oh, Lillian, thank you. You're the best. And I would stay, except that it's just so hot up here. Look, I'm sweating already." He blotted his upper lip with the back of his hand. "I have central air in my place."

  "Well, OK."

  "Could you run me over to the cemetery to pick up my car? It's still there. I mean, I hope it is, I parked outside the gates." He stood expectantly.

  "Sure. What about a lawyer? Do you have a court date?"

  "Yeah, I guess I'd better talk to a lawyer. Do you know a good one?"

  "Well…no. Not really. But I can ask around."

  "I'm pretty broke right now."

  "That's two of us. But you're going to pay back the 500 dollars to the McVitties, right?"

  "They'll
get it back. I mean, I'm gonna show up in court."

  "All right. What about work? You've got a job, right? In some architect firm? Like, do you have a steady paycheck from that place, or do you get paid on some kind of…" I stopped because he wasn't listening to me.

  "Lillian, I feel…I feel that my life has changed. And is about to change more."

  "Yeah?" I waited for him to explain. He gazed into the middle distance. I said, "You mean because of all…this?"

  "Yeah. Lillian, I need some time and space to deal with it."

  "OK, but I was hoping I could get you to help me find your dad. Because I'm sorry, but I'm going to hunt down that son of a bitch if it's the last thing I do. And I mean that, I really mean that."

  Duane sighed miserably. "You want him to pay for what he did?"

  "In one way or another."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "To tell you the truth, right this minute I don't know what that means. All I know is, I'm not through with this. I have not yet come to the end."

  "Well…I think maybe I have."

  "You don't want to find your dad?"

  "I'm…I…my dad…"

  "I want to make him acknowledge what he did, if only once."

  Duane's lean jaw worked side to side. It looked painful. At length he said, "The last person in the world I want to see is my dad. Lillian, he'll never give you what you want. I know him."

  I saw how empty Duane felt.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I would never get a feeling of finality about it all. Maybe I was delusional. But I sure as hell had made a tremendous amount of progress. I'd gone from point zero to knowing what had happened that night and why it happened.

  My friend spoke again. "Lillian, are you after vengeance?"

  "No!" It came out automatically. But in fact, I wasn't sure. Was the hot-cold feeling pure hatred? I was sorrowful and obsessed, that much was true. Did I want to take Bill Sechrist's life? Actually kill the bastard? I couldn't be sure, right then.