“Patty?”
“Tim’s wife. His second, actually. Wait till you meet her. She’s absolutely stunning and smart as a whip. Tim doesn’t appreciate her at all. She even calls herself his tarnished trophy wife. She and I have become pretty good friends. She’s the chairperson of the homecoming committee. Patty’s worked her ass off to make this weekend a success.”
“Nevertheless,” a woman said, as she came into the shelter, “it’s still far too big.” She placed a file box on the table next to Rachel’s laptop.
“It is like hell,” Rachel said with a smile. The woman was attractive, with fine, even features, medium-length blonde hair, and an excellent figure, albeit perhaps slightly too long-waisted. Rachel and she exchanged quick kisses. “Patty, meet my brother Joe. Joe, meet Patty Dutton.”
“Joe,” Patty Dutton said, taking Shoe’s hand and gazing up at him with cool green eyes. “Pleased to meet you. Rae talks about you all the time.” She held his hand a little longer than necessary. “What do you do for a living, Joe? Crush rocks with your bare hands?”
“Not quite,” Shoe said. His hands were large and strong, like Shoe himself, but he’d been doing a lot of masonry and carpentry work on the marina and motel lately and his hands were harder and rougher than usual.
Patty smiled and released his hand. “Rae wasn’t exaggerating about your size. How tall are you?”
“A fraction over two metres,” he said. Patty Dutton crossed her eyes comically. “Six-six and a bit,” he translated.
“You’re what, Rae?” Patty said. “Five-four, five-five? You got shortchanged.”
“There wasn’t enough fertilizer left over for me after Mum and Dad grew Hal and Joe,” Rachel said.
“It’s quality that counts, eh, Joe? Not quantity,” Patty said.
“That’s right,” Shoe said.
“Speaking of quality,” Rachel said, grasping Patty by the shoulders and turning her around. “Tell her that her ass is just fine.” Patty blushed and laughed and waggled her backside at him.
What could he do? “It is fine indeed,” he said.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Patty said, placing a finger under her chin and performing a quick curtsy.
“Where’s Tim?” Rachel asked. “He was supposed to bring some stuff to hook up the laptop.”
Patty lifted the lid off the file box she’d placed on the table. “I brought it, but I haven’t a clue what to do with it. How about you, Joe? You’re a guy. Guys know about these things.”
“Not this guy, I’m afraid,” Shoe said. “I’m a Luddite when it comes to computers.”
“Modest, as well as handsome. How come you’re not married?” She smiled. “Tim should be along soon. When I left the house this morning he was still going on about that man who was killed in the woods the other night. Tim says he used to live where the Tans live now. He was a pedophile, Tim said. Is that true?”
“It’s shit,” Rachel snapped. Patty Dutton’s eyes widened. “Sorry,” Rachel said. “No, it’s not true. Marvin Cartwright was not a pedophile.”
“You knew him?” Patty said.
“Yes,” Rachel said. “He — ”
She was interrupted as a burly elderly man and a strikingly handsome middle-aged woman came into the shelter.
“Hullo,” Rachel said brightly. “Welcome to the Umpteenth Annual Black Creek Weekend-in-the-Park.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, smiling.
She was in her mid-fifties, Shoe guessed, slim and elegant. The man was older, in his late seventies, grizzled and bear-like. They both looked familiar, but Shoe couldn’t place them. Rachel handed them each a photocopied list of events and map of the park and asked them if they’d like to sign the guest book. The haunting strains of Carlos Santana’s guitar introduction to “Samba Pa Ti” began to wail out over the park from the boom box by the first aid tent. Patty Dutton half closed her eyes, hummed softly to herself as she arranged material on the table. Her fine backside began to sway with the music.
The kitchen shelter was getting crowded, so Shoe went out into the hard, hot sunshine and purchased a bottle of water for two dollars from a Girl Scout sitting beside a plastic wading pool of ice in the shade of a beach umbrella. Most of the ice in the pool had already melted. He was standing in what shade there was outside the shelter when the man and the woman came out. The woman looked at him and smiled. He felt he should recognize her, but he didn’t.
“You’re Joseph Schumacher, aren’t you?” she said. She had a faint British accent. “I thought so. You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Suddenly, he did recognize her. Something in the way she’d spoken his name. He didn’t recall that she’d had a British accent when she’d been his ninth-grade English teacher, however.
“Miss Hahn,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you, Joseph,” she said. They shook hands, his hand engulfing hers. She turned to the older man standing quietly beside her, whom Shoe had also recognized. “Jake,” she said, “you remember Joseph Schumacher, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” the man said in a rough, gravelly voice as he and Shoe shook hands. “But my memory isn’t what it used to be. My apologies, Mr. Schumacher. I assume you were one of Claudia’s students.”
“Yes, sir, I was.” Jacob “Nine Fingers” Gibson had been the principal of Black Creek Junior High School when Shoe had been a student there. He had been called Jacob Nine Fingers because he was missing the ring finger of his left hand. The legend was that he’d lost it during a school fire drill when he’d fallen on the stairs and his wedding ring had caught on a railing.
“There were so many students, Mr. Schumacher. And only one of me.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Joseph,” Miss Hahn said. “Perhaps we could get together later and talk. Catch up. I expect you’ve led an interesting life.”
“I’d like that very much,” he said.
“Good,” she said. She took Mr. Gibson’s arm and walked him toward a craft table featuring hand-painted ceramic figurines.
Rachel came out of the welcome tent and stood beside him. “That’s your old junior high school English teacher?” she said. “No wonder you had a crush on her. She’s beautiful.”
chapter thirteen
Patty had taken the Navigator, so Tim Dutton drove the Audi to the store. The heat and humidity had put him in a crappy mood, which wasn’t made better when he saw the Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked by the employee entrance. He didn’t especially like motorcycles, or generally have much use for people who rode them. He made a mental note to find out who it belonged to and tell him to park it somewhere else. Better yet, not to ride it to work at all.
Marty Elias was at her desk in the outer office when he went upstairs, pounding away at the keyboard of her computer. Even on a bad day she typed ten times faster than he did, and he was no slouch, if he did say so himself, but she was death on keyboards. How many had she gone through in the two years since they’d put in the new system? Three, at least. Still, it was worth it; she did the work of three people. She understood the business, too. Her father had been a general contractor and it had rubbed off. In the three years she’d worked for him, she’d become almost indispensable. She had other talents, too. She didn’t usually work Saturdays, though.
“What’re you doing here?” he said.
“Tim,” she said, snatching off her reading glasses as she swivelled her chair to face him, as though she were embarrassed to be caught wearing glasses. “I thought you were supposed to be setting up Rachel’s laptop at the homecoming this morning.”
“I came to pick up the manual for the solar charger.”
“I’ve got it here,” she said. She rummaged through the papers on her desk, found what she was looking for, and handed Dutton a small booklet.
“Thanks,” he said. He hesitated, then said, “Did you hear the news?”
“What news, Tim?” she said. “I don’t have time to listen to th
e news, you’ve got me working all the time. Don’t tell me they’ve finally repealed indentured servitude.”
He scowled. “About Marvin the — about Marvin Cartwright?”
“Marvin Cartwright? No. What about him?”
“He was killed in the Dells the night before last.”
For a moment, Marty stared at him, expression blank, then her eyes went wide and she raised her hand to her mouth. “No,” she gasped. “Killed? How?”
“Beaten to death,” Dutton said. “In the woods behind his old house.”
“My god,” she said. “That’s awful. Why would anyone want to kill him? He was so nice.” She took a breath. “He used to make Rachel and me and the other kids hot chocolate after skating.”
“Oh, come on, Marty,” Dutton said irritably. “He was a rapist and a murderer and a child molester, for Christ’s sake.”
The heat rose in her face. “He didn’t rape anyone, Tim,” she said angrily. She was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry,” she said meekly, looking at her hands as they rested in her lap, fingers toying with the earpieces of her glasses. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Forget it,” he said.
“Just don’t let it happen again, eh?” She smiled tentatively.
“Yeah,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry. I forgot. He raped you too, didn’t he?”
“It wasn’t him,” she said insistently. “Anyway, I wasn’t raped. Just … ” She shrugged.
“Just what? Molested? Never mind. Look, I’m sorry I brought it up, okay?”
“Sure, Tim.”
She was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and jeans that looked as though they had been washed ten thousand times. He had a rule about employees wearing jeans to work, just as his father had, but he didn’t say anything; it was Saturday, after all, and if Marty wanted to wear jeans to work on Saturdays, it was fine with him.
The jeans didn’t bother him half as much as the tattoos, a band of barbed wire encircling her upper right arm, and a blue spiderweb on the back of her left shoulder. She knew how he felt about them and usually kept them covered up. He was about to tell her to put a shirt on when he noticed the shiny black motorcycle helmet on the floor beside her desk and the motorcycle jacket on the coat rack by the door. He remembered the motorcycle parked by the employee entrance.
“Did you buy a new bike?” Marty had a smelly old Triumph, but he wouldn’t let her bring it to work.
“The Harley?” Marty said. “I wish. No, it’s Joey’s. He lets me use it when he stays at my place.”
“Your place? What the hell’s Joey Noseworthy doing at your place?”
“He usually stays with me when he’s passing through. You know that.”
“The hell I do.”
“There’s no reason for you to be like that, Tim,” Marty said.
“Like what?”
“You know. Jealous.”
“I’m not jealous, for Christ’s sake. I just don’t think letting him stay at your place is a very good idea, that’s all.”
“What’s wrong with him staying with me?”
“Besides him being a worthless drunken bum and ex-con, you mean? What if I wanted to come by?”
“You never have before,” she said. “You don’t own me, Tim. You have no right to tell me who I can be friends with. Or who I sleep with, for that matter.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Are you sleeping with your wife?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“If you say so.”
“Okay, look, never mind, all right?”
“Sure, Tim.”
She stood up. She was only an inch or two shorter than him, a little thick-figured, but not too thick, with heavy, pendulous breasts, low on her chest. Although she’d been around the block a time or two, she was still a good-looking woman, wore her forty-six years well, but wore them nonetheless. Her hair was dyed an inky black and raggedly cut, as though it had been styled with a hedge trimmer.
“Is there something the matter, Tim? You aren’t worried the police will think you had something to do with Mr. Cartwright’s murder, are you?”
“What? Don’t be stupid. Why would they think that?”
She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Because maybe someone will tell them about the jokes you used to play on him? You and Hal Schumacher and Dougie Hallam.”
“I never played jokes on him,” Dutton protested. “That was Ricky Marshall. He hung out with Hal and Dougie. I was friends with Joe Schumacher.”
“I remember some of the stuff you used to do, Tim. They might not have been as bad as the things Dougie and Hal did, but they weren’t very nice, either. I never understood why you boys teased him the way you did.”
“Because he was a pervert.”
“He wasn’t like that at all,” she said. “Maybe some people thought he was different, because he stayed home and looked after his mother, but he was nice. You and Hal and Dougie made him mad, but he never said anything bad about you, even when one of you pooped in his living room when he was visiting his mother in the hospital.”
“Come on, Marty,” Dutton said. “It was thirty-five years ago. You were just a little kid.”
“I’ve got a good memory, Tim.”
She did, too. She remembered how much of a particular item was in stock, who was behind on their payments, what they’d had for dinner on any particular day when they were at trade shows, and the name of every motel they’d ever shacked up in.
“Anyway,” he said pointedly. “I was home all Thursday evening, except when I had to come here because someone didn’t close up properly and that fucking alarm went off again in the middle of the goddamned night.”
“Everything was fine when I left,” Marty said with a sigh. “And if you aren’t happy with the way I close up, stay and do it yourself for a change.”
“All right, never mind. Forget it.” He went into his office. She followed. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he said.
“Trying to get caught up on some paperwork. Which reminds me … ” She returned to the outer office, took a handful of printouts from the printer beside her desk, and came back into his office. “Since when did Dougie Hallam have an account with us?”
“Eh? He doesn’t.”
“Then maybe you can explain these.” She handed him the printouts.
He took them, glanced at them, said, “Oh, these,” and dropped them onto his desk. “Don’t worry about it.”
“They’re six months overdue.”
“It was a special order. A sort of favour. He paid cash. I guess I just forgot to enter it. I’ll take care of it.”
She retrieved the printouts from his desk. “Look at this stuff. Pumps. PVC piping. Electrical fixtures. What was he doing, anyway?”
Tim took the printouts out of her hand. “He was renovating an old greenhouse for some guy. Under the table. You know Dougie.”
“Yes, I know Dougie,” Marty said. “I also know that it’s — ”
He cut her off with an angry gesture. “I said I’d take care of it.”
She flinched. “Okay, Tim.”
“I should go set up Rachel’s computer,” he said.
He didn’t make a move to leave, however. He just stood in the middle of the cluttered, windowless room, facing his desk, which was as messy as the office. Marty looked good in her jeans, a lot better than she did in the frumpy skirt and blouse she usually wore to work. They made her look younger, and it was sexy the way they rode low on the slight roundness of her belly and how the crotch seam emphasized her sex. He pulled the big executive chair out from behind his desk, dropped into it, and swivelled to face her.
“Close the door,” he said, unzipping his Dockers.
chapter fourteen
Shoe was at loose ends, and trying to decide how to rectify the situation, when Maureen brought his parents to the park. Despite their ages and his mother’s arthritis, both were still fairly spry, but they tired easily and after a
short while were content to sit quietly in the shade of the big tent shelter.
“Hal didn’t come with you,” Shoe said to Maureen.
“He’s out shopping for that Porsche,” she said. She was wearing a lightweight wraparound floral skirt that hung below her knees and a loose raw cotton peasant blouse. Her flamboyant red mane was tied up off the back of her neck with a twist of yarn the same colour as her hair.
“He told me he was thinking about buying an RV,” Shoe said.
She snorted. “I’d rather it was a Porsche. At least I could drive it.” She smiled. “He had to go into the office. Something about quarterly performance evaluations. Maybe he’s having an affair with his secretary, after all.
If it helps him get whatever’s bugging him out of his system, I’m all for it. He thinks I’m in love with you, you know.”
“Pardon me?”
“And that the feeling’s mutual. We argued about it on the way home last night. Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“Yes, indeed,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I can be a bit too forthright sometimes. Let’s change the subject. Last night you started to tell me about Marvin Cartwright. I get the impression that he was something of a neighbourhood character. A recluse or something.”
“I wouldn’t call him a recluse,” Shoe said. “He just didn’t mix much with the other folks in the neighbourhood.”
“Did he have any friends at all?”
“I’m sure he must have,” Shoe said. He moved closer to his father, who was watching some kids pitching rubber horseshoes while Shoe’s mother dozed in a lawn chair. “Dad?”
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