Scott saw Maggie’s head pop up from behind the counter and held his hand up to stop her.
“So Italians in Manhattan don’t own Italian restaurants?” he asked. “And there are no Irish pubs?”
“Touché, Todd, touché,” Gwyneth said. “Still, it’s such a primitive way to live, n’est ce pas? With murderous hillbillies roaming the streets, attacking innocent, civilized people.”
“As opposed to Manhattan, I guess,” Scott said, “where it’s so safe.”
“You’re one of a type yourself, aren’t you, Todd?” Gwyneth said. “The polite, dimwitted sheriff of a one horse town. Do you have a town drunk and a town whore as well?”
Scott hadn’t even seen Maggie approach the table, but there she was next to Gwyneth, cheeks a melt-down level of code scarlet, pulling the fragile blonde up by the shoulder of her expensive jacket and jerking her towards the door. Scott scooped up Gwyneth’s handbag and hung it over the frightened woman’s free arm. He didn’t want to stop Maggie, he wanted to help.
“Your brother was the town drunk, Gwyneth,” Maggie said, “so I guess that position is open; and although I’d vote for you as town whore, our men like a little more meat on the bone. Not that I’m joking about your obvious eating disorder so much as I’m pointing out what a dried up old rack of bones you’ve turned into. If you step one foot in this store ever again, so help me God, I’ll soak you in hillbilly cappuccino and throw you to one of our stereotypical dogs to gnaw on.”
Gwyneth protested all the way to the front door, using declarations that began, “Well, I mean really,” and “You can’t possibly,” and “What do you think you’re,” ending with, “I can’t believe you just…” as Maggie shoved her out the door, slammed it shut, and locked it behind her.
There were at least twenty people in the bookstore watching this happen, and they all applauded and cheered as Maggie strode to the banned customer dry erase board of shame, and wrote Gwyneth’s name in large block letters at the top.
Scott clapped and whistled. Lord, but he loved that woman.
As Scott walked back towards the station, Ed flagged him down and asked him to come back to the newspaper office for a chat. Once inside, he offered Scott some sludgy black coffee that Scott knew from experience he should decline. They sat at the solid oak worktable next to the gas stove, which kept the newspaper office snug and warm. Ed’s new black lab was sound asleep on Goudy’s old bed in front of the stove.
“What’s his name?” Scott asked.
“I couldn’t decide between Helvetica and Harrington, so I’m calling him Hank.”
“Looks like he feels right at home.”
“He’s doing great. Somebody must have worked with him at some point, because he already has good manners. I still can’t leave him alone with any food or garbage.”
“He learned some survival skills in the wild, huh?”
Ed nodded, looking down at the lab with warm affection.
“You know Tommy,” Ed said, changing the subject.
“Mandy’s boy.”
“Delivers my papers,” Ed said. “Tommy saw something the night Theo got killed and it’s worrying him. He said I could tell you about it.”
“What’s that?”
“He heard Theo and Phyllis’s son Billy fighting outside their trailer. He was asleep when the yelling woke him up. He saw Billy run off and Theo hit Phyllis.”
Scott sat back, and said, “Whoa.”
“Exactly,” Ed said.
“What time of night was it?” Scott asked him.
“He said his mom comes home at 2:00, and she wasn’t home yet. He thinks it was around 1:30.”
“It must have been right after Theo got kicked out of the Thorn. Did Tommy see anything else?”
“He says he didn’t,” Ed told him. “He’s really worried about Billy finding out he told, and about being in trouble with his mother for what he called peeping.”
“Meaning he often sees what goes on inside Phyllis’ trailer?”
“I think he probably does.”
“Well, that’s mighty interesting,” Scott said. “Do you think he’ll talk to me?”
“I think Tommy’s more afraid of getting beaten up by Billy or grounded by his mom than talking to the police. I could arrange for you both to meet here if it’s okay with you.”
“He should have his mother with him when I talk to him,” Scott said.
“I told Tommy he needed to let her know what was going on,” Ed said. “He said he would.”
Scott slapped his hand down on the table and said, “That’s settled then. You let me know when they can be here and I’ll stop by.”
“Will do.”
“Are you okay?” Scott asked him, pointing to the bruise on his head.
“Oh yeah,” Ed replied. “Gave me a hell of a headache. But you know all about those.”
Scott started to say he was sorry about everything that had happened, but someone came in so he left.
Later in the afternoon Scott got a call from Ed and was able to interview Tommy in the backroom of the newspaper office. Tommy said he told his mother about it and she said it was okay for him to talk to Scott if Ed was there.
Scott reassured the boy right away that he was not in trouble for seeing what was going on at Phyllis’s. Tommy hid his eyes under his floppy brown hair as he haltingly told him what he had seen. Scott looked over the gangly, skinny twelve-year-old and saw he was growing much faster than his mama could keep up with clothing-wise. His jeans were a good three inches too short and his skinny wrists stuck out way beyond his coat sleeves.
“What was the fight about?”
Tommy shrugged.
“Could you hear anything that was said?”
“Naw, just yelling. Theo was really mad, and he went after Billy, but Billy ran.”
“Then what happened?”
“He hit Phyllis in the face, and she fell down.”
“And then?”
“He yelled at her again and left.”
“What did he yell?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Down the alley.”
“Then what happened?”
“Phyllis got up and went in the house.”
“Where was Billy?”
Tommy shrugged.
“Did you hear Billy come home afterward?” he asked.
Tommy shook his head.
“So what did you do?”
“I went back to sleep.”
Scott doubted the boy was able to go back to sleep so quickly after seeing such a violent fight, but he didn’t want to traumatize him over his reluctance to admit it.
“Was there anybody with Theo you could see, besides Phyllis and Billy?”
Tommy shook his head.
“If you think of anything else, Tommy, you tell Ed, okay?”
Tommy nodded, his whole body leaning toward the door in his strong desire to go through it.
“Okay, you can go,” Scott said. “I appreciate your help.”
After the boy left, Scott said to Ed, “I think he might have seen more, but I’m afraid if I push harder he’ll just clam up.”
“Do you want me to pressure him?” Ed asked.
“No,” Scott replied. “I think if you let it go completely he will be more apt to tell you, given time.”
“Do you remember how I came to hire Tommy?” Ed said.
“Sorry,” Scott said. “I don’t remember the details.”
“Jane Anne Porter was the paper carrier when I came back after Dad died,” Ed said. “You remember her?”
“Pitcher for the girls’ softball team,” Scott said. “Wicked right arm and swore like a sailor.”
“That’s her. When Jane Anne graduated from high school and left for college, there must have been fifty kids who applied for the job. Fathers offered me bribes, kids brought me letters of recommendation, and their mothers baked me cookies and cakes. I took a couple weeks to decide
, and gained five pounds.”
“Smart move,” Scott said, and smiled at his friend, whom he knew had a sweet tooth.
“Tommy showed up every morning at 4:30 during those two weeks, and offered to help me out until I made my decision. He wasn’t pushy, he didn’t whine or beg, and no one called, wrote, or baked on his behalf. I took one look at the shabby clothes, the long hair, and the rickety bike, and I was not impressed.”
“He’s not exactly boy scout material,” Scott said.
“That’s an understatement. Goudy, on the other hand, who by that time in his life rarely left his bed over there unless it was time to eat or take a piss, jumped up and greeted Tommy like his long lost friend. So I decided to give him a chance. After the two weeks were up I decided the kid wasn’t too irritating and gave him the job.”
“Goudy always was a good judge of character,” Scott said. “I remember he used to wag whenever he saw Doc Machalvie but would growl at his brother Stuart.”
“He hated Theo too. Theo made all the hair stand up on Goudy’s spine. Not too many people got that reaction. There was one weird exception, though. Goudy really liked Willy Neff. I never could understand that.”
“Dogs do love bad smells, I guess.”
“Well, anyway, when Goudy got so he could no longer jump up into the truck cab, Tommy helped me lift him every morning. The morning Goudy did not wake up, we took him to the end of Possum Holler and buried him on the hill behind Lily Crawford’s barn. That fat old dog once caught a rabbit up there that was as surprised about it as he was.”
“He was a good dog,” Scott said, while Ed wiped his eyes and cleared his throat.
“I’ve been pining over that damn dog for months,” Ed said. “Then Hannah found me this one.”
“He looks like he’s recovered from surgery all right,” Scott said, wincing at the thought of what had been removed.
“He won’t even miss ‘em,” Ed laughed.
Things felt closer to normal between them and Scott was relieved.
“What are you going to do now?” Ed asked. “I know Tommy’s worried Billy will find out he told.”
Scott shook his head, saying, “That won’t be a problem. Phyllis and Billy live in a trailer park surrounded by nosy neighbors. Any one of them could probably tell me the same thing Tommy did. I’ll do a little trailer to trailer inquiry as a cover. You might want to let Tommy know.”
Scott left Ed’s office, turned right, and crossed the alley to look at the new antique store. He could see the people who purchased the building had been renovating the outside in preparation for a late spring opening. It looked as though they were pouring some serious money into it, installing new wrought-iron handrails and sprucing up the facade. The dumpster in the alley was overflowing with their renovation trash. Scott picked up a couple pieces of the old pipe handrail and some broken glass that had fallen out of the dumpster and threw them back in.
Scott walked the length of the alley to Peony Street, and then turned left and crossed Peony diagonally to reach the trailer park.
Built in the fifties, Foxglove Mobile Home Park consisted of a “U” shaped drive around which a dozen or so trailers were situated, with a garden space in the middle. Scott talked to all the trailer park residents who were home. All had heard the fight but were used to hearing Phyllis, Theo, and Billy carry on. This latest fight didn’t seem out of the ordinary to them. No one would admit to seeing anything; they didn’t want to get involved. Scott got the feeling they were all a little afraid of Billy, a bully who was known to break things when he got angry; the kind of frustrated, restless teenager who liked to torture younger kids, set off loud fireworks, or shoot out the streetlights with a BB gun.
‘Kind of like Theo used to be,’ Scott thought, uncharitably.
Billy’s mother Phyllis was a year older than Scott and had been a wild child in high school. A precocious girl who developed a woman’s body before she had the brains to manage it, Phyllis cut a wide swath through the male population of Rose Hill before and after the teenage pregnancy that resulted in Billy. She never named the father, maybe couldn’t have, and Phyllis’s mother Pauline raised her difficult grandchild as best she could. Phyllis and Billy bickered more like siblings than mother and son, and because both worked in the family owned diner, their frequent fights were like a floorshow for the customers.
Scott went to the back door of the diner, where he found Billy was as surly and belligerent as he remembered. Ian and Scott both had warned him on several occasions that he was now an adult and subject to the laws of the adult world, without much good effect. Ian always said it was just a matter of time before he was arrested for something.
Billy came out the back door to the alley with Scott, and immediately lit up a cigarette. He had a generous white apron wrapped around his body, but whether it was to protect the underlying black t-shirt and raggedy jeans or to protect everything else from them, Scott wasn’t sure. Billy was tall and brawny, one of those kids who’s nineteen but looks thirty.
When he asked Billy about the fight, the young man shrugged and said, “Yeah, so?”
“Your neighbors said it got pretty violent.”
Billy communicated what he thought of those neighbors using several profane words.
“Did Theo hit your mother?”
“Yeah, he popped her one,” Billy said. “Bitch deserved it.”
“That’s your mother you’re talking about,” Scott said.
Billy smiled slyly as he touched a nerve in the grownup, and loving the effect, pushed his luck.
“She’s a huge pain in my ass,” Billy said. “She’s always bitchin’ about something, raggin’ on me all the time. She did the same thing to Theo. When he got tired of it, he’d pop her one. They did it all the time. I think they got off on doing it.”
Scott had an urge to knock the smart-ass look off the boy’s face, but he didn’t give in to it.
“So you weren’t angry with Theo when he left the trailer that night? After the fight?”
Billy flipped his cigarette, and intentionally or not, it came pretty close to Scott as it sailed by.
“Theo was all right,” Billy said, “for an old guy.”
“And you weren’t angry that he hit your mom?” Scott said.
Billy laughed and showed the consequences of a chronic lack of dental hygiene when he smiled.
“No, man, she deserved it. I told ya. She was asking for it.”
“Did Theo ever take a swing at you?” Scott asked, and Billy immediately puffed out his chest.
“He wouldn’t a had the cojones, man! I woulda...” and then he seemed to realize what he was about to say and stopped mid-sentence, his mouth gaping open.
“Woulda bashed his head in with a baseball bat?” Scott completed the sentence for him.
Billy spread his arms wide, saying, “Hey man, don’t try to hang that crap on me. My mom’ll tell you, I was home with her when that shit went down.”
Scott wanted to drop kick the boy into the nearest snow bank but instead he said, “Great, I’ll ask her.”
He went in the back door, through the kitchen, and on into the dining room, where Phyllis was waiting tables.
“You do that,” Billy said from behind him, and Scott heard Billy’s grandfather tell him to shut up and show some respect. Billy was mumbling under his breath as Scott walked back through the kitchen with Phyllis, whose look shot daggers at Billy as she led Scott out the back door.
“What did you do now?” she hissed at her son in passing.
“Nothin’,” Billy grumbled.
Scott closed the door behind them and gave Phyllis his jacket. She thanked him and wrapped herself up in it. Scott could see the black eye which bloomed underneath the new bangs she had artfully arranged to dip over it; it showed through the heavy makeup she had spackled over it. The white of her eye was blood red at the side, which could not be covered up. In her mid-thirties, Phyllis was still an attractive woman, although she looked hard, wi
th her hair dyed a little too dark and her makeup applied heavily.
“I heard there was a little trouble outside your trailer on Saturday night. What can you tell me about that?”
She looked scared, and he could see her hands were shaking as she lit a cigarette.
“Oh, Scott, you know how Theo was,” she tried to laugh it off, but the fear in her eyes gave her away. “When he got few drinks in him he got a jealous notion and went off.”
“Who was he jealous of?”
“Well, you know me and men, Scott. I probably flirt a little more than I should, but like I told Theo, ‘if there’s no ring on this finger don’t try to lead me around by one through the nose.’”
She tried a girlish laugh but it turned into a smoker’s cough. Scott waited for her to catch her breath.
“Did he hit you?”
Phyllis unconsciously reached toward her eye, caught herself, and put her hand back down.
“No, of course not! I misjudged how far I was from the counter in there, bent over to pick up my pen and bam! I decked myself pretty good.”
“I heard Billy and Theo got into it.”
“Some friggin’ nosy neighbors I’ve got, huh?”
“Did they often fight?”
“Well, you’ve talked to Billy,” she said. “Every time that kid opens his mouth I wanna smack the snot out of him.”
Scott almost laughed because he agreed.
“So Theo, Billy, and you had a noisy fight in and outside your trailer the night Theo died.”
“Yeah, I reckon there’s no point in denyin’ it,” she admitted, “when ten outta ten nosy friggin’ senior citizens all agree.”
“Did Billy follow Theo when he left?”
“No,” Phyllis said quickly. “He came right back soon as he saw Theo was gone.”
“What time was it?”
Phyllis pretended to think about it.
“I don’t rightly know,” she said. “I’d had a few myself by that time, and I wasn’t exactly watching the clock. It was after midnight, I guess.”
Scott didn’t doubt Phyllis was too drunk to know what time it had been, which he now knew was between 1:15, when Theo was kicked out of the Thorn, and 2:00, when Tommy’s mother came home.
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