The Deepest Cut

by Dianne Emley

  “You think I’m going to get in your way. I won’t.”

  “Nan, please. Honor my feelings about this. My instincts.”

  He got up from the dinette table and stretched. He half walked and half shuffled to the TV room, where he collapsed onto the Lay-Z-Boy with a groan. He reclined the chair and laced his fingers across his belly.

  She stood over him. “You said that you’d tell me everything.”

  He closed his eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. Just this morning, after I opened my soul and told you everything.”

  “Is that why you lured me here, to needle me?”

  “I’m not that conniving.”

  He had a small smile on his face.

  “I’m glad you came, Jim. I like having you here.”

  He began breathing heavily. Shortly his face went slack and he began snoring a little.

  She sighed as she looked down at him. She picked up the chenille throw from the floor and draped it over him. He was still wearing his shoes, but she didn’t want to risk waking him by taking them off.

  She needed to get to bed herself. She always rose before Emily did, so she’d get him out of the house before Emily found out. Nothing had happened, but given her and Em’s argument earlier that evening …

  She stood, watching him sleep. She rubbed her hands over her arms in the thin cotton robe. The heat of the day had finally dissipated. While it was poised to rear up again in another couple of hours, it was cool right now. The sliding glass door was still open and she left it that way.

  She went into the kitchen to finish cleaning up. She unloaded her Glock, stashing the magazine behind the tea towels and the gun in the empty cereal box in the cabinet. His jacket was askew on the back of a dinette chair. She picked up the shoulders to straighten it and spied the spiral binding of his notepad peeking from the breast pocket.

  Resting her hands on the jacket’s shoulders, she looked at the coiled silver wire. She knew she shouldn’t.

  His snoring in the next room grew more resonant. She could tell he was exhausted, because he didn’t snore otherwise.

  She argued to herself that she had a right to know everything he’d learned. If it wasn’t for her hard work, sacrifice, and the risks she’d taken, he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he had. She was peeved, and his notepad in which he always took meticulous notes, was right there.

  She darted in her fingers and slipped it from the pocket. Standing beneath the overhead light, she flipped to his most recent notes. Sometimes struggling to make out his scrawled handwriting and to fill in the gaps in his shorthand comments, she was able to build a story about Marilu Feathers. She learned a critical name: Bud Lilly.

  She reached the last page. He’d written: “Turquoise = December?” Then she reached the last line: “Mother has necklace.”

  The three short words were heavy with meaning, but there was no further information. She madly flipped through the remaining pages. Their blankness seemed to scream, “There’s nothing for you here!”

  Frustrated, she turned to the page where he’d written Marilu’s mother’s address and telephone number. She tore a sheet from the end of the pad and slipped her hand into the inside jacket pocket where he always kept a pen. When she did, she noticed that one of the outside pockets was bulging a little. She knew he had her pearls, so she kept her emotions in check when she reached inside that pocket and felt them in their satinette bag. But there was something else there. Her heart beating, she pulled out what she surmised was Marilu Feathers’s necklace.

  The gemstone in Marilu’s was turquoise. Vining knew that Marilu had been murdered on Christmas Eve. Turquoise must be the birth-stone for December. That’s what Kissick’s note had meant. Now there were three confirmed victims of T B. Mann: her, Feathers, and Alwin. Nitro’s four drawings had provided a map. There was only one left to confirm— Colina Vista police officer Cookie Silva.

  She jotted down Marilu’s mother’s contact information and the information about the pedophile Bud Lilly. She put the necklaces and notepad back where she’d found them. She decided to make her betrayal complete and go through the rest of his jacket pockets.

  In the other outside pocket, she found two small paper bags printed with Susan Sells Seashells, Morro Bay, California, and drawings of shells. Each held a pair of earrings with polished abalone shell. One pair was cute, with shell in a silver setting shaped like a daisy. The other was more sophisticated. The setting was also silver, but a dangling style.

  He’d bought souvenirs for Emily and her. His girls. Now she really felt like a rat.

  VINING WOKE UP TO BRIGHT SUNLIGHT STREAMING ACROSS HER FACE through a crack in the blinds. Realizing the sun was too bright, she quickly rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. It was after seven. She’d slept later than she’d wanted. She let her head drop back onto the pillow and gathered the sheet around her neck.

  She sniffed the air. The delicious aroma was unmistakable. Bacon. There was more. Coffee. She rose from the bed, as if the scents had wrapped around and were pulling her, like slithering tendrils in an old-fashioned cartoon. Possibly Emily was cooking bacon, but Vining didn’t think she’d ever made coffee in her entire life. Course, she was learning new things about Em … Then she wondered … Jim wasn’t still here, was he?

  She put on her robe and slippers. She brushed her teeth and her hair, just in case. Halfway down the hall, she had an answer when she heard Jim and Em in the kitchen.

  “Messenger representative,” Emily said. “O, E, Y, V N.”

  “Envoy,” Kissick said.

  “Right. Envoy. Okay … Normal. L, G, E, A, R …”

  Vining stood in the doorway. Emily was standing, leaning on her elbows against the kitchen table, filling out the Jumble word puzzle in the newspaper with a pen. She was dressed for school, wearing the daisy earrings. The table was already set. A bowl of sliced cantaloupe was in the middle.

  Kissick was next to the stove, breaking eggs into a bowl, his back to Vining. He was dressed for work. There was a gingham bow at the back of his waist. He was wearing Granny’s apron that she kept here. An open carton of eggs was on the counter. He reached to start the toaster which he’d already loaded with four slices of wheat bread.

  “… U, R. Regular,” Em said.

  “Excellent.” Kissick turned to open the refrigerator and saw Vining. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  Vining sheepishly waved. “Look at the wonderful feast.”

  “Hi, Mom.” Emily arched her neck. “See the earrings Jim bought me?”

  Vining moved to get a closer look. “Aren’t they pretty?”

  She was delighted to see that Emily had toned down her makeup. While the girl was wearing black cropped pants and black high-topped sneakers, she had chosen a light blue, short-sleeve vintage blouse with a Peter Pan collar that she’d proudly brought home from a thrift shop.

  She smiled as Kissick handed her a mug of coffee. “That was sweet of you.”

  He let his fingers brush hers. “I’m just a sweet kinda guy.”

  “He bought you something too, Mom.” Emily picked up a small bag from the kitchen table.

  “It’s just a little something.” He poured milk into the eggs, added salt, and began beating them with a whisk.

  She took out the earrings and tried to look surprised. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

  Neither of them knew what to do, so they stood awkwardly.

  Without looking up from the Jumble, Em let out an annoyed huff. “Kiss, please.”

  Vining shot a wary look at Em’s back, but Kissick set down the bowl, slid his hands into her hair and pulled her toward him for a kiss that might have been several degrees hotter than brotherly, but was still appropriate for the situation.

  Her back still to them, Emily said, “But we have to talk about this whole issue of having guys in the house.” She tsked, shook her head, and said, “Seems like a double standard to me.”

  Kissick use
d the excuse of the toast popping up to disengage from the conversation. After he buttered it, he poured the eggs into the hot pan.

  Vining went to her daughter, put her arms around her from behind, and gave her a wet smack on the cheek. She received a hint of a smile in return.

  Leaning on her hand on the table, Vining looked over Emily’s shoulder at the Jumble bonus question.

  “Escape clause,” Vining said.

  Emily turned to look with exasperation at her mother. “Mom! I always do the clues first, then I do the bonus.”

  Vining shrugged. “It just came to me.”

  “Okay, you two. Breakfast is ready.” Kissick began untying the apron. Looking at Vining’s smile, he said, “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that this is nice.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE MAN WHOM NAN VINING CALLED T. B. MANN TOOK HIS NORMAL route home from work. On the freeway, he drove his six-year-old Ford Focus sedan at sixty-five miles per hour, the precise speed limit. Faster drivers sped around him. Some even had the gall to tailgate him and flash their high beams, even though there was plenty of room to pass. Such foolish aggressiveness raised his blood pressure, but it wasn’t worth getting too upset over it. He just licked his lips and made sure his foot on the accelerator didn’t budge. Occasionally, some guy would tail him like that for miles. Didn’t matter. Sixty-five was the speed limit.

  He wasn’t as concerned about adhering to the law as he was saving money. He’d run a test in the Focus. For a month, he drove like everyone else. Then for a month, he stuck to the speed limit and avoided jackrabbit accelerations. The latter strategy saved a lot of money each month, especially the way gas prices were these days.

  He exited the 10 at Citrus and crossed into the city limits of Covina. After a few blocks, he made a turn and drove alongside the railroad tracks. He’d lived in lots of places. Many were much more scenic than the San Gabriel Valley bedroom community of Covina. But at this stage of his life, he found he liked the area’s nondescript landscape, where the largest attraction was the mall, which wasn’t even in Covina, but was next door in West Covina. He’d come to appreciate the even blocks of 1950s and 1960s housing developments of neat three-bedroom, one-bath homes, all identical except for small stylistic flourishes like crossed beams on the garages that made them look like barns or folksy cupolas with wind vanes on the roof. The streets were well organized, laid out in square grids. He liked the lonely whistle of the freight trains that rumbled down the Southern Pacific tracks. He liked the abundance of mobile-home parks.

  He drove into his mobile-home park, Country Squire Estates, adhering to the twenty mile per hour speed limit beyond the gates. It was unlikely that children or anyone else would be in the park’s narrow streets at this hour, but one never knew. It was still no reason for him to go tearing around, even though he felt that familiar yearning that egged him to go faster. That warm lure of the treat that awaited him.

  At space Q-5, he pulled the Focus into the carport behind the thirteen-year-old pickup truck. It needed to be driven. He vowed to do it when he got up after sleeping. He had a long list of errands to run and he’d use the pickup.

  He got out of the car and went around to the trunk from which he grabbed a couple of plastic shopping bags from the hardware store. He’d replenished his supply of duct tape, rope, green garbage bags, an awl, and other things he liked to have on hand at all times. He paid cash, as always. He’d pick up bleach and Microban disinfectant later.

  Closing the trunk, he noticed a For Sale sign on a vehicle in his neighbor’s carport that was adjacent to his. The 1962 Chevy Nova belonged to the son of the widow who lived there. The son’s name was Enrique and he had shown up a few months ago to live with his mother. The Nova had been modified for street racing. The roaring engine and blubbering muffler often woke his neighbor who usually slept during the day.

  He hadn’t liked Enrique from the moment he’d set eyes on him. Enrique had been in jail for having run over an elderly man while street racing. Now free, he was unrepentant. He’d talked his mother into buying the Nova. He and his buddies wasted long afternoons working on it, playing their music loud, drinking beer, and smoking pot. This would go on until the wee hours of the morning, moving to the widow’s porch or finally inside, if the neighbors complained.

  While that behavior upset the tranquillity of T. B. Mann’s evenly laid out, square grid life, it wasn’t Enrique’s worst offense. Enrique’s worst transgression was mockery. He and his buddies loved to make fun of their neat, quiet, unassuming neighbor, calling him Egghead to his face, asking if he’d gotten laid lately, laughing like drunken hyenas.

  He set his shopping bags on the Focus’s closed trunk and stepped across the row of potted geraniums that separated his carport from the widow’s. Walking to the Nova, its immaculate black finish glistening beneath the widow’s porch light, he read the hand-printed details on the For Sale sign. He pulled back a corner of his mouth and sorrowfully clucked. She’d never get what she was asking for that car. Maybe she didn’t really want to sell it. Maybe she couldn’t accept that Enrique wasn’t coming back.

  He wasn’t. That was for double damn sure. While Enrique and his buddies were laughing and farting and getting wasted on the porch, T B. Mann was working on a home project on the other side of the slab. He’d removed part of his floor and had dug a hole beneath his mobile home. Enrique was buried there, in pieces eroding in lye.

  The police had come around, of course, and conducted a lackluster investigation, in his view. Who could blame them? Why would they care about a loud-mouthed, parole-violating ex-con who’d gone missing? Enrique didn’t garner a scintilla of the investigative attention garnered by say, Johnna Alwin or Marilu Feathers.

  He’d seen Enrique’s mother crying, but she’d be better off in the long run. Sometimes, people needed to learn lessons the hard way. After all, she was the one who’d given birth to the asshole.

  Retrieving his bags, he unlocked the several bolt locks on his reinforced door and entered his single-wide mobile home. It wasn’t anything lavish, but it was more than sufficient for a man of modest needs.

  It was pitch-black inside. He never left lights on when he was gone. It was a waste of money. He had sufficient money to cover his living expenses and to have some left over. Anything extra, he preferred to spend on his ladies. Lately, that hadn’t amounted to much. He was socking away a lot of money. He found himself in a holding pattern not of his choosing. He was in a rut and couldn’t seem to find his way out. He was stuck in Covina, saving money and thinking about his next move.

  He was a good, steady employee and had never had trouble holding on to a job. He didn’t steal or lie and he was respectful to his superiors and co-workers. He had a life outside of work that some might find … exotic. But that was his business. As long as he showed up on time and put in a full day’s work, who cared?

  He entered the small kitchen, flipping on the switch for the fluorescent ceiling lights, and set the bags on the counter. He went into the hallway and switched on the central air conditioner. Heat built up inside the flat-roofed, thin-walled mobile home during the day, but the air conditioner cooled things off quickly.

  From the refrigerator, he took out a bottle of Coors beer, twisted off the top, and drank half of it while he leaned against the sink and thought about his day. He had what he supposed were typical frustrations with his job. Probably less than most people because he chose to work in the middle of the night.

  Still, when tensions threatened to spill over, he found a great deal of release by taking care of small problems like Enrique. It helped him maintain his equilibrium so he could focus on his larger goals.

  From a cupboard, he took out a bag of Laura Scudder potato chips. He used to buy the Granny Smith brand, but started buying Laura Scudder when he learned that she was buried not far from where he lived. He had visited her grave. He was impressed with how it was marked. A stately granite stone was engraved si
mply: SCUDDER. Flat markers for the different family members interred there were beneath it.

  The headstone was so elegant in its simplicity. T. B. Mann decided right then that he wanted a large granite stone like that, with just his family name on it. He was saving money for that, too. Death comes to everyone and if you don’t make plans, who knows how you’ll end up. Could end up like Enrique, who was disintegrating about six feet below where T. B. Mann was standing right at that moment.

  The open bag was two-thirds empty. The top was neatly folded down and held in place with a bright-pink plastic Chip Clip. He carried the bag of chips and the beer to the dinette set that was in the living room, but positioned close to the pass-through to the kitchen. The rest of the room was furnished with a leather swivel rocker-recliner, an end table on each side, and the largest flat-screen TV the room could accommodate. When it came to the few luxuries he enjoyed, he didn’t scrimp.

  There were no accommodations for guests, but he never had guests, except for Bob. For Bob, he had found a perfectly good easy chair that someone had left beside the Dumpster. The mobile-home park had also provided the old aluminum and Formica dinette set. An elderly woman had died and her daughter was selling her furniture.

  The daughter was nothing more than a lumpy, frumpy hag herself. She impressed him as someone who hated life, and thus, everything in it. She poured her animosity into her negotiations about the price of the dinette set. He’d remained preternaturally calm, knowing his equanimity would further aggravate her. She finally gave him the price he’d originally offered, from which he wouldn’t budge. She’d made a rude parting shot, “Now you and your boyfriend can have intimate dinners together.”

  It would have been so easy for him to have taught her a lesson. He could have grabbed her during one of her trips to the Dumpster and strangled her in the shadows. He would have enjoyed the paranoia the murder would have sent whipping through the park like a brushfire in love with the Santa Ana winds. But he realized he’d actually be doing her a favor. A more appropriate fate would be for her to live out the days of her miserable life, finally dying after years of suffering from a degenerative disease that, given her shabby physical condition and poor attitude, she was bound to contract.