Witness Rejection

by David R Lewis

  Because they were riding inside a boxbed truck, the girls didn’t get the full effect of viewing Ivy’s manse from afar. Stitch did exercise his flair for the dramatic, however, backing the vehicle up so the rear door faced the fifty-foot covered flagstone walkway that terminated in Ivy’s massive oaken front door, its aged patina reflecting flickering light from the two six-foot wrought iron sconces that bracketed the entryway beneath the arch of weathered stone.

  Clete helped Satin down out of the truck. “Jesus,” she said.

  Carson was next. “Wow,” she whispered.

  Clete grinned at Crockett as he clambered out of the truck. “Never fails,” he said.

  “You should see the big house,” Crockett said, as he straightened up. “Makes this place look like an Alabama single-wide.”

  Carson and Satin stood and gaped, nearly mesmerized by the three and a half story opulence that loomed before and over them. Stitch broke the spell, dragging luggage to the rear of the truck. “You guys get this stuff down. I’ll go get a cart, man.” He loped off to the door and disappeared inside.

  “It’s after midnight,” Clete said. “No staff this late and everbody has gone to bed. I told Stitch to ask them not to wait up. I didn’t know what time we’d be gettin’ in. It’s just us.”

  Stitch arrived with the wheeled luggage cart as Crockett closed the truck’s rear doors. “Thought we’d put you guys all on the second floor,” he said. “Crockett, we’ll put you in the men’s club as usual. We’ll stick Carson next door in the whorehouse, ah, like, sorry, ya know? The Peach Room. An’ Satin’ll go across the hall in the Maroon Harpoon. Should keep everybody close together and pretty comfortable.”

  They crossed the immense entryway, Clete pushing the cart as Stitch led them to the elevator. He, Crockett, and Clete all resisted smiles as they watched the two women gawk at their new surroundings. On the second floor, Stitch led the group to the Peach Room, dubbed by Ruby the first night she stayed there as the whorehouse. Carson looked at the fourteen-foot ceilings, the pale peach walls, the massive bed atop a three-foot high dais, and the opulent marble tub and canopy.

  “Good grief,” she said, as Clete carried her bags inside. “Crockett, I trust you completely.”

  Stitch then opened the door to what he’d called the Maroon Harpoon. The room’s complicated tin ceiling nearly disappeared in the haze overhead. The walls were covered in maroon velvet down to gray wainscoting about six feet tall on three walls. The forth wall was paneled in gray, punctuated by an immense marble fireplace, flanked by French doors on each side that soared to twelve feet and opened onto a granite balcony. The carpet was maroon and deep enough that balance was necessary. Gray couches and maroon armchairs were strewn about in well planned disarray, and the bed, canopied in shimmering gray satin and covered in a maroon silk spread, was separated from the rest of the room by a section of the floor done in the same marble as the fireplace.

  “Holy shit,” Satin said, watching Stitch carry her luggage into the room.

  “Your closets are, like, off the bathrooms,” he said. “You and ol’ Crockett both got steam rooms, Satin. You got a shitload of towels and stuff. Big terry robes are on the house. Each room’s got a small fridge that’s stocked and ready to go. If anybody wants a sandwich or somethin’, you can go to the kitchen if you want. I’m goin’ to bed. See you dudes tomorrow, man.”

  “Me, too,” Clete said, and followed Stitch down the hall.

  Crockett looked at the ladies. “Anybody hungry?” he asked.

  “I need, like a cookie or something,” Satin said.

  Carson nodded. “I could use a bite of something sweet or salty.”

  Crockett led them to the kitchen and rummaged around, finally finding some cheese Danish left from that morning, doubtless baked by Goody himself. He was chuckling as he dished two up for the girls, and got milk out of the fridge.

  “What’s so funny?” Satin asked.

  “These pastries were, most probably, baked this morning by a resident of this house, Sir Thoroughgood Henley-Walhs.”

  “Sir who?”

  “Goody,” Crockett said. “That’s what he’ll want you to call him. Goody doesn’t stand much on ceremony. He’s a Knight, a winner of the Victoria Cross, and probably many other things he’ll never mention.”

  “How do you know him?” Carson inquired.

  “Clete knew him from years and years ago. He contacted Goody when he and I needed some help and very specific instruction.”

  “Instruction in what?” Satin asked.

  “How to shoot people from far away,” Crockett said.

  “Probably shouldn’t ask unless I really want to know, huh?”

  Crockett showed the girls the way to the atrium, left them both in the kitchen, and headed upstairs to let Nudge out of the carrier. The Men’s Club hadn’t changed a bit. Still the heavy overhead beams, the dusky green wallpaper above the dark wood wainscoting, the deep Persian rugs, the ponderous paintings graced by gilded frames, the same feeling of cumbersome permanence. He smiled at the sensation, nearly glad to be back, and turned in for the night. Two hours later, unable to sleep, wishing he’d had one of Goody’s Danishes, Crockett strapped on his leg, threw on some sweats, ponytailed his hair, and headed downstairs.

  In the kitchen he found one remaining Danish. He heated a stale cup of coffee in the microcave and, Danish and java in hand, wandered into the atrium, enjoying the familiarity of being back at Ivy’s. He finished the pastry and was about to return to his room, when he noticed a seated figure outside the atrium wall. Closer inspection revealed butterscotch hair draped down the back of a white terrycloth robe. Smiling, he eased the door open and stepped outside. The night was humid, but pleasantly cool. A rare summertime gift from Lake Michigan. Carson was seated, looking at the sky about ten feet to the left of the door.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself,” Crockett said, taking a seat next to her. “It’s awfully late, young lady and tomorrow is a school day. You stargazing?”

  “The house I was raised in,” Carson said, “was two story with an attic. Every now and then I’d sneak up into the attic in the middle of the night, open one of the dormer windows up there, and crawl out onto the roof. Steep roofs in Michigan ‘cause of all the snow. I’d lay down to get lots of traction on the shingles and just stare at the sky. I thought that the stars were little lights that God put up there to guide people home.”

  Crockett smiled into the dark. “Maybe they are.”

  “I’m not so sure now, Crockett. I don’t think I know where home is anymore.”

  “That doesn’t seem to stop you from looking,” he said.

  “Oh, no,” Carson said, her voice dropping into a whisper. “Can’t stop looking. My star’s got to be up there somewhere. Yours too, you know.”

  “I find that a very comforting thought,” Crockett murmured. “Thank you.”

  “After all the comfort you’ve brought to me, it’s nice to pass some on to you for a change.”

  They sat quietly for a few moments, looking toward the heavens.

  “Well,” Carson said, shifting in her seat, “I’m off. All this activity has about worn me out.”

  Crockett stood as she did and faced her.

  “I want a hug and a kiss,” Carson said.

  Crockett obliged her, and it was more consolation than passion.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better all the time,” Crockett said.

  “Good. I want to see your room sometime soon, Crockett.”

  Crockett smiled. “Nothing special. Walls, a floor, you know, pretty standard stuff.”

  Carson kissed him lightly on the lips and stepped back. “I especially want to spend some time looking at your ceiling.”

  “Oh, my,” Crockett said.

  Carson turned away to go back to the atrium.

  Crockett sat, looking at the stars for the next three hours, occasionally dozing, but a long way from true sleep. When
the sky began to lighten in the east, he gave up, got up, and ambled into the kitchen. He found some pretty good dark roast Columbian in the cabinet, ground the beans, loaded the coffeemaker, and went into the pantry to try and find some donuts, or cookies, or something. Moments later he walked back into the kitchen, a box of cinnamon rolls in hand. Ruby LaCost was standing at the counter, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She looked at him and smiled.

  “Hi, Crockett,” she said.

  Time nearly stopped. There was Ruby, calmly holding a coffee cup, standing fifteen feet away, smiling at him. She was thinner than he remembered, smaller almost, and her beauty was altered, now more chiseled than before. She had been handsomely beautiful. Now she was beautifully handsome.

  She was wearing light blue Levi’s in a relaxed fit, a blue broadcloth man’s shirt at least three sizes too big with the tail out and the cuffs rolled up her forearms, low key tennis shoes of some type, an eye patch that appeared to be the same material as her shirt, nearly no makeup, and her hair was dark blond in a short pageboy cut.

  Crockett, almost immobile, stared.

  Ruby cocked her head to one side. “Hello?”

  Crockett’s trance snapped. “Hi, LaCost,” he said.

  They peered at each other for a moment, then both laughed at the combined silence. Ruby began the small talk.

  “You’re up early,” she said, pouring him a cup of coffee and setting it on the table between them.

  “Couldn’t sleep. How ‘bout you? You always up and around at this hour?”

  “Only on Saturdays,” Ruby answered. “I spend Saturdays at the shelter. I like to get there early so I can watch the women at breakfast.” She glanced at the cinnamon rolls Crockett still clutched in his left hand. “You can learn a lot about people by what they have for breakfast.”

  Crockett snapped the cupcakes behind his back and looked around the kitchen. “Any quiche on hand?” he asked.

  Ruby grinned and glanced at her watch. “I gotta hit the road,” she said. “I get back around three. Maybe we can visit for a while. You gonna be available?”

  “Count on me.”

  “Always could, Crockett,” Ruby said, and headed for the door.

  Crockett watched her go and, nearly dizzy, sank into a chair. As he reached across the table for the coffee she’d poured for him, he noticed his hand was trembling.

  Ruby. No eight hundred dollar silk suit. No plunging neckline. No five-inch heels. Nearly no makeup.

  Ruby. Baggy jeans, oversized shirt and tennis shoes, leaving the house shortly after dawn to better understand people who weren’t even paying her.

  Crockett ripped open a wrapper around a cinnamon roll and took an immense bite. The frosting felt abrasive, nearly burning his throat on the way down. He chased it with coffee and shoved another bite in his mouth, needing that sweet cinnamon rasp again.

  Christ, he was tired.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ruby

  Crockett grinched his blurry way back to the kitchen a little after ten, less than fresh from not enough sleep, with a headache that would have dropped Babe the Blue Ox. Clete sat at the table with a glass loaded with coffee, cream, crushed ice, and a shot of chocolate syrup. Crockett peered at him bitterly, got a cup of fresh coffee, and flopped into a chair. Clete chuckled quietly, shaking his head.

  Crockett grimaced. “What?”

  “Lord, son,” Clete laughed. “When’s the autopsy?”

  “Yours or mine, asshole?”

  “Ha! Pard, I seen a corpse or two in my time. Ain’t one of ‘em looked near as bad as you do.”

  “Only pussies drink iced coffee, you wimp.”

  “Hurtin’, ain’tcha?”

  “A little.”

  “That ride in the back a that truck didn’t do ya a lotta good, did it?”

  “Not much.”

  “You git any sleep?”

  “Couple a hours.”

  “The girls just went shopping. Goody’s takin’ a nap. Ivy’s at the beauty shop for a while. Why don’t you crawl back upstairs, take a steam, and git into that big assed Jacuzzi tub in the whorehouse for a spell. I’ll gitcha up, say about two-thirty?”

  Crockett sipped his coffee. “Marry me,” he said.

  Clete grinned. “That ain’t the only offer I ever had, but it sure as hell is the scariest.”

  Crockett lurched to his feet. “Sorry,” he said. “Moment of weakness.”

  When Crockett left the steam room off his bath, he felt a lot like Gumby. He wobbled into Carson’s room on crutches, eased himself into the big marble tub he’d enjoyed so many times before, and turned on the water, gradually growing weightless as the tub filled. He set the thermostat for two degrees below body temperature, flipped on the overhead TV to a rerun of a great old Tommy Lee Jones movie, Nate & Hays, sank ‘til the water touched his earlobes, and promptly went to sleep. Ten seconds later Clete was tapping him on the back of the head.

  “Quarter after two, son. Time to wake up and stretch out some a the wrinkles. You been soakin’ for almost three hours. I gotcha a couple a big towels on the rack, but that’s as far as I go. I don’t wanna give ya no false hope.”

  “Thanks, Texican,” Crockett mumbled, trying unsuccessfully to stop a yawn. “Be down in a few minutes.”

  Crockett opened the drain and the water began to flow away. With the return of weight came the return of aches and pains, but to a much lesser degree than before the steam and soak. Crockett toweled off, put on his robe and crutched his way into his room. Just as he sat on the bed, there was a knock on the door followed by Satin’s voice.

  “Ya decent?”

  “More or less.”

  The door opened and in she came, armed with a tube of something that purported instant relief from every aliment from gout to shingles. Satin grinned.

  Ah,” she said, “almost naked. Just the way I want ya.”

  “Oh, shit,” Crockett said, and let it happen.

  The ointment smelled like a combination of horse liniment and kerosene. As Satin was slathering it on his bicep and ribs, she spoke up.

  “Ruby’s nice,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Ruby. She seems nice.”

  “You met Ruby?”

  “And Goody, and Ivy. We came home about noon and everybody was here. Ruby showed up about half an hour before you got out of the tub.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “What? You wanted to be all dressed and downstairs when everybody came back so nobody would know how much you were hurtin’?”

  Crockett didn’t answer.

  “Everybody here is your friend, shithead. Lighten up.”

  Satin patted his cheek and rubbed her hands with one of his bath towels. “You’re done, Crockett. I hope that helps, ‘cause you smell like a herd a koalas. Hurry downstairs. Goody’s making ham salad for a late lunch. He’s a sweetie.”

  As Crockett got dressed he realized that Ruby must really have changed. He knew that if Ruby had behaved toward Satin the way she behaved toward Mazy, for instance, Satin would have probably punched LaCost out after spending five minutes with her. Instead, she twice mentioned how nice Ruby was. He walked into the hall and started downstairs, wondering how Ruby and Carson were doing.

  When Crockett entered the atrium, festivities were in full swing. Goody was the first to notice him. “Would ye look at that then?” he said. “As Lazarus from the grave, we have a Scot among us. Saints be praised.”

  “Goody! It is great to see you, Sir Thoroughgood.”

  “Aye, laddie. It’s a fine judge of character ye are.”

  Ivy rose from her seat and held out her hands. Crockett approached and took her hands in his. She kissed him on both cheeks.

  “Crockett, my very dear,” she said. “It is well to have you return to within these walls. Once again you labor selflessly for the benefit of others. Once again I am blessed to offer some small assistance. What joy you give me, what worth you bring into my days, what wonderful peopl
e you bring into my life. I celebrate you David. Welcome home.”

  “Aw, Ivy,” Crockett said, feeling his ears get warm. “Again you honor me with kindness and compliment far above what I deserve. I celebrate you, Ivolee Minerva Cabot, and the light that flows from you that brightens my life.”

  “Good Lord,” Clete groaned.

  Ivy laughed. “You must forgive us, children,” she said turning to Satin and Carson. “David and I do sometimes shamelessly flaunt both emotion and eloquence. It has become nearly a contest over the years, I’m afraid. I can only beg for your understanding and tolerance. My inspiration is such that I may suffer no choice other than to wax rhapsodic.”

  “Far out,” Crockett grinned in his best Stitch impression, and the table broke into a round of chuckles. He took a seat between Ivy and Carson.

  Goody slid a platter of sandwiches his direction. “Ham salad, Crockett?” he said. “I made it myself, you know.”

  The last line was repeated in unison with Goody by Clete, Stitch, Ruby and Ivy. Laughter overtook the group again and, all of a sudden, much more was right with the world than was wrong with the world. Crockett accepted a sandwich and potato salad, and let the fellowship wash over him, cleansing away everything else, at least for a time.

  Nudge sat on a chaise fifteen feet away and slow blinked at all of them.

  When the late lunch was over, everybody except Crockett and Ruby seemed to vanish into thin air. Crockett looked around.

  “Where’d everybody go?”

  “Conspicuous by their absence,” Ruby said, smiling at him.

  “It would appear that we are the victims of a plot.”

  “Nefarious and furtive,” Ruby said. “Why don’t you take your aches and pains over to the comfortable area by the glass, arrange yourself fetchingly on a chaise lounge, and I’ll put the potato salad in the fridge and get us drinks.”

  After only a few moments, Ruby approached carrying two tall glasses of mysterious golden brown liquid.