Matthew left and Karen rotated her desk chair to face the open window. Outside, a flock of sparrows concealed in the dense leaves of a sugar maple trilled and chirped in approbation of the clement afternoon.
Karen envied the sparrows. Matthew’s offer was worth considering. If she was going to be trapped inside on a day like this, doing stressful work, why not get paid well for it?
She inhaled deeply. The scent of the Russian olive blossoms eluded her.
“DUANE, IT’S SHARI. Arthur Winslow just left the hospital.”
“It’s only quarter to four. He shouldn’t be leaving for another hour. Rat fuck. You better go after him, find out where he’s going if you can.”
“I can’t just ask him where he’s going, Duane. I have to have some reason to stop him.”
“Tell him you need to meet at an earlier time. As early as possible.”
“Why?” said Shari.
“Don’t give him no reason,” said Duane.
“No, I mean why am I doing this, really?”
“So he doesn’t have time to get to the bank. Now get going.”
“Why shouldn’t he go to the bank?” asked Shari.
“So he has to pay with a credit card,” said Duane.
KAREN SAT IN a metal chair in the hallway outside Detective Lopopolo’s office, trying to think of something to say to Arthur, who was sitting next to her, looking at his watch at short intervals. Concluding the workday in this grim environment was a crushing blow to Karen’s hope of at least sampling the pleasure of the silken afternoon. This was the problem with having a job in the Midwest. You wait months for a warm day, then when you finally get one you’re stuck in a hallway with no windows, concrete block walls, dirty linoleum and the smell of a boys’ school gymnasium.
The unappealing atmosphere of the station house didn’t seem to bother Matthew, who was down the hall bantering with a female desk sergeant. While waiting for the detective, Matthew spent about five minutes looking over the documents Karen brought, the rest of the time in friendly conversations. He seemed to know everyone, even the elderly lady who was paying a parking ticket. He reminded Karen of a politician at a sporting event.
At twenty past four, Arthur clapped his hands on his knees and stood up. “That’s it,” he said. “I don’t have time to sit around waiting for this cop to show up. I have to go.”
“I recommend you stay,” said Karen. She turned to look for Matthew for support and found him standing right next to her.
“I have an appointment,” said Arthur to Matthew.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Matthew, giving Arthur a pat on the back. “We can take care of this for you.”
Karen struggled to stand, impeded by the file folders and purse on her lap and Matthew’s size-thirteen wing tips encroaching on her space. She looked up. The two men towered over her. “Do you think that’s a good idea? You said Lopopolo . . .”
“I’ll handle Lopopolo,” said Matthew. He grabbed Arthur’s wrist and gave him a vigorous handshake. “Trevor Van Dyke, Lyle Eddington and I have a 9:00 A.M. tee time Sunday at the Jefferson Country Club. We need a fourth. If this weather holds, it’ll be great.”
Arthur agreed to join them and hurried away, still looking confused and scattered. No sooner had he gone than Joe Lopopolo shuffled into the hall, his wrinkled poplin suit jacket flung over his shoulder, sweat soaking through his rumpled white shirt. He was hunched over, and his puffy eyes regarded Karen and Matthew from the threshold of his office.
“Where’s Winslow?” he said.
“He was here at 4:00 P.M. as you requested,” said Matthew. “When you failed to show, he left for another appointment.”
Lopopolo nodded slowly, a sardonic expression on his face. He shoved open the door to his office and gave a jerk of his head as an invitation for Karen and Matthew to enter.
The office was cramped and cluttered, with the same painted green concrete block walls as the hallway. The desk and chairs were gray metal with green vinyl cushions. Karen wondered if they reupholstered Depression-era government furniture or if somebody was still making the stuff.
“So Winslow needs two lawyers to answer a couple of questions,” said the detective.
“What do you need to know?” asked Matthew.
“Why was Winslow’s wife screaming last night, right around the time she got whacked on the head?”
“It might have been the result of her medical condition,” said Karen.
“What medical condition? They told me she had a broken arm. I guess you would scream if your husband broke your arm.”
“She broke her arm in a fall,” said Karen.
“What made her fall?” asked Lopopolo.
“That might also have been caused by her ailment,” said Karen.
“What ailment?” The detective looked skeptical.
“We can only share Lorraine Winslow’s medical information with you,” said Karen, “if you get a court order.”
“You need a court order to tell me somebody’s got a virus, for Christsakes?”
“She has Huntington’s disease,” said Matthew, jarring Karen with his decisiveness. “It can cause erratic behavior and loss of motor control. Your fisherman witnesses didn’t say anything about a male voice doing any screaming, did they?”
“No. But the report we got last Thursday said there were two different voices, screaming at each other.”
“A man and a woman?” asked Karen.
Lopopolo hesitated. “Both female,” he finally said. “Did you ask your client where he was last Thursday evening?”
“He worked late,” replied Karen. “His wife and daughter were asleep when he got home.”
“If you want to question the daughter,” said Matthew, leaning forward and handing Lopopolo a business card, “call me. We represent the entire family at this point.”
Karen regarded Matthew with wonderment. He had nerve. Matthew extracted another small white card from his breast pocket and handed it to the detective.
“Could you validate my parking?”
Lopopolo removed the stem of his eyeglasses from his mouth and scowled. He applied a rubber stamp to the card and handed it back. “Tell your client,” he told Matthew, pointing a finger at him, “I’m gonna personally keep an eye on him.”
JAKE HAYES GRUNTED as his lower back reminded him he was over forty. Lifting a Fender ’65 Twin Reverb onto a four-foot-high stage would soon be a thing of the past for him, but he refused to give up the warm sound of the vintage tube amplifier for the convenience of a solid-state Peavey. The original blues harp players had it right, with their little Pignose amps, small and light, that husky, down-home sound. But you couldn’t play a nightclub gig with a Pignose anymore. You needed an amp that could crank out mega decibels without distortion. Jake had been fighting a battle for twenty years against excessively loud blues, but that’s what patrons raised on hard rock expected.
At least he was able to keep the volume below ear-bleed level at weekday happy hour gigs, like the one his eponymous trio played at the Caledonia Club. Jake and his sidemen liked playing happy hour slots at the plush, retro ’80s suburban lounge with upholstered booths, a parquet dance floor and a rotating mirrored ball. The after-work white-collar crowd used the band as background music, giving the trio freedom to experiment with new material. Plus they finished early enough to play another engagement later. Two-gig nights were a windfall. Even better were nights like tonight, when the band stayed on and played a later time slot. That way, they got paid for two gigs but only had to set up and take down once.
“Not like you to be late, man,” said Jake’s drummer, a slender African American who sported a pencil mustache, a porkpie hat and suspenders.
“Karen had to work late. I had the kid.”
“Bring him to the gig, man! Be good for the little dude.”
The bass player was rotund and pale, with an Erroll Garner goatee and permanent black circles under his eyes from heavy drug use in his youth.
Both the drummer and the bass player were named Jimmy. Jimmy the bass player sat down on the edge of the stage and signaled with his index finger for Jake and the drummer to huddle up.
“You guys know Shari Billick?” asked the bass man.
“The name’s not familiar,” said Jake, “but that doesn’t mean I haven’t met her. I’m lousy with names.”
“You ain’t met her,” said the drummer. “If you had, you’d remember. That’s a fact.”
“Well, if you wanna get a look at the sweetest piece of ass in three counties,” said the bass player, “she’s in the booth farthest away from the bar, talkin’ to some suit. But don’t stare. The suit’s not her husband.”
Jake always kept a pair of dark glasses handy when he performed. The tradition of jazz and blues musicians wearing shades started because marijuana or heroin made their eyes sensitive to stage lights. It continued because even those who didn’t smoke pot or do horse thought they looked cool. Jake used them to hide behind, so he could close his eyes when he was deep into the music, without feeling self-conscious. He put them on now so no one could tell exactly where he was looking.
“Hey, man,” said the drummer, chuckling, “he told you not to stare at the lady.”
But Jake wasn’t staring at the lady. He was staring at the suit.
“HE INVITED ME to his house.”
“No good,” said Duane. “No witnesses. The Sleepy Time Motel. It’s only a block from the Caledonia Club, and I know the desk clerk there. Make sure he sees you. Have you talked about being bored with your receptionist job yet?”
“Yes. He offered to help. I told him I needed to move around more, that I wanted to be a runner. Like you said.”
“And being a runner is a lower rung than receptionist around there, right?”
“Yes.”
“He’s gonna wire it himself?”
“Yes.”
“Beautiful. I’ll leave the porch light on.”
In all the years Shari had been with Duane, for better or for worse, she had never doubted her husband’s ardor, until now. She returned the receiver of the pay phone to its cradle and used a knuckle to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.
CHAPTER
7
Karen was still awake when Jake got home, but she didn’t let on. She was amused by the way Jake tiptoed around as he disrobed, showered and brushed his teeth. He tried earnestly to be as quiet as possible, even though she knew that when he finished a gig he was invariably in the mood and would be hoping with all his heart that she was awake. She felt his weight settle slowly as he sat down on the bed, and smiled at his failed attempt not to make the box spring squeak.
“How was the gig?” she said.
“Interesting. I’m glad you’re awake.”
“I knew you would be. Some beautiful evening, huh?”
“Some enchanted evening,” he said.
A warm breeze billowed the curtains. The shades were up, and the night wind seemed to be carrying moonlight into the room along with the scents of lilac and freshly mown grass. Jake pulled the bedsheets back and slid under.
“You know,” he said, “it’s so warm a person wouldn’t really need to wear a nightgown.”
“So it is,” said Karen. She sat up and raised her arms so he could slip her nightgown off. They embraced and settled slowly back onto the soft, cool sheets.
Like an air raid siren, McKinley’s cry in the adjacent room shattered the stillness.
“Jake,” said Karen, “the baby’s awake.”
“What baby?” said Jake. His lips brushed down the side of her neck to her clavicle. Piercing wails emanated from the next room.
“C’mon, Jake, I’ve got to take care of McKinley.”
“Aww, let him get his own girl, the little son of a . . .”
“Jake!” said Karen. “You’re talking about your only begotten child.”
“Yeah, and at this rate, he’s gonna stay that way.” Jake flopped over onto his back and groaned. Karen sprang from the bed like it was on fire, grabbed her nightgown and sprinted out of the bedroom.
The walls of the baby’s room were painted sky blue, and everything else in the room—carpeting, crib, dresser, curtains, ceiling, changing table—was white. The effect, not intended by Karen and Jake, was that the room felt a little like being in the clouds. Karen lifted eight-month-old McKinley Hayes from his crib and moved him to the changing table. The baby had Jake’s brown eyes and hair, but the delicate curl of his upper lip and the pronounced dimple in his right cheek were definitely Karen’s. Before she even had his soiled diaper off, the baby’s crying stopped and he was gurgling and cooing happily.
Karen wiggled her finger in the dimple in her son’s cheek. “Oh, isn’t he a cute little one?” she said. “Yes, yes. Such a cute, cute little one.”
Jake padded into the room, scratching his stomach. He wrinkled his nose at the smell from the baby’s diaper. “Whew,” he remarked. “I’d better open a window in here.”
“Such a cute little one,” said Karen.
“You realize,” said Jake, “that you talk to the boy like he’s a cocker spaniel.”
Karen shot him a look. She pointed at the package of disposable diapers on the dresser. “Fetch,” she said.
Jake pulled a diaper from the plastic package and offered it to Karen. “I read in a magazine the other day that disposable diapers are really bad for landfills. Millions of little non-biodegradable bundles of fecal bacteria piling up all over the country.”
“True,” said Karen, sliding the old diaper out from under the baby, wiping the baby clean, wrapping the wipe in the soiled diaper and dropping the softball-sized parcel into the Diaper Genie receptacle, all in a deft, fluid motion that took about seven seconds. “Maybe we should switch to cloth diapers,” she said, having taped the fresh diaper in place in the length of time it took her to say the sentence. “Of course, cloth diapers are a little more trouble.”
Karen proceeded to explain to the wholly ignorant Jake the process of emptying, rinsing, soaking, laundering, folding and safety-pinning cloth diapers. “But,” she concluded, “they are better for the landfills.”
Jake considered the issue. During the four hours Karen was at the hospital each day, Jake usually had to change a diaper or two.
“Ah, well,” he said after a moment of reflection, “who hangs out at landfills?”
“Who indeed,” said Karen, rubbing the stomach of her gurgling infant with the tips of her fingers. “Not this little guy. Not my little snookum-wookums. Such a cute little one. So,” said Karen, before Jake could again critique her manner of addressing the child, “what was so interesting about the gig?”
“Your boss was there for happy hour.”
Karen looked up and cocked her head and an eyebrow. “Arthur? Arthur Winslow came to your gig?”
“I don’t think he came for the music. He didn’t even notice us.”
“You didn’t talk to him?” asked Karen.
“I didn’t want to embarrass him.”
“Why would it . . . oh,” said Karen, suddenly somber. “He was with someone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anybody we know?”
“She works at Shoreview Memorial, at the reception desk. The Jimmies both knew her. Her name’s Shari. She’s . . .” Jake made an “O” with his mouth, opened his eyes wide, and jiggled his hand in a gesture that translated as “extremely attractive.”
Karen crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. “And they were alone?”
“Yes.”
“Talking.”
“And holding hands across the table.”
“Jesus!” exclaimed Karen. “So that’s why Arthur missed his meeting with the police detective. I knew he was whacked out today, but I had no idea he was that screwed up. Pathetic.”
“Yes,” agreed Jake. “But for a guy who’s whacked out, screwed up and pathetic, he seemed to be having a nice time.”
THE GUEST ROOM at the Sleepy Time Motel
smelled like stale cigarette smoke and harsh disinfectant. The walls were paneled with gray wood-grained plastic, and the light fixture had a fluorescent bulb that flickered. It had been a long time since Arthur Winslow had set foot on shag carpeting.
He pulled a bottle of Mouton Cadet out of a brown paper bag and displayed it across his forearm like a wine steward.
“It’s French,” he said.
Shari put her hand around the back of his neck and pressed her mouth to his.
“So’s that,” she said.
Arthur swallowed hard and struggled to control his breathing. He set the bottle down on a small round table covered with chipped walnut veneer.
“I’ll get the glasses,” said Shari.
Arthur opened the wine with the corkscrew on a Swiss army knife he kept in his glove compartment while Shari removed the cellophane from the plastic cups she found in the bathroom. They toasted each other and drank.
“The liquor store was closed,” said Arthur. “This was the best they had at the pharmacy.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Shari. “I’m used to drinking Cribari.”
Arthur did not know what Cribari was, but she said the name like it was some sort of cheap domestic table wine. It struck him that Shari had not only pulchritude but also gracefulness and a pleasant charm. She could undoubtedly have married well, yet she was working as a receptionist—soon to be a runner—and she made frequent references to the severe modesty of her means. This reminded him that he had not yet explored the husband issue. Not easy to bring that subject up without spoiling the mood.
“I can’t believe,” Arthur ventured, “someone isn’t wondering where you are at this hour.”
“I’m on my own for the night,” she said.
“Me, too,” he said. They clicked their plastic cups together and drained them simultaneously. Silently, Shari stood up and moved to the side of the bed, which was covered with a loud polyester quilt. With Arthur watching, she kicked off her shoes, unzipped her skirt at the back, coaxed it over her hips and let it fall to the floor. Without a trace of self-consciousness, she undid the snaps of her leotard between her legs and peeled it off. It had not been concealing any figure flaws. She removed her pantyhose, then turned and pulled the ugly floral quilt off the bed and onto the floor.
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