She set the snifter on the table and knelt to look in her duffle bag. Jokes aside, something was definitely going on in the Reese household. It felt like Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, with Early American props. Here, though, the husband took the orders. And the doll—very fit, with streaked-blond hair and preppy clothes—seemed almost conscious of playing a part.
Brenda got her beige crewneck from the bag and pulled it on. She took the drink from the table and stepped into the hall. At the garage entrance, she stopped and listened. A woodworking machine was screeching again inside. She had intended to throw away the drink but on impulse opened the door.
Wearing coveralls and goggles, Brian Senior was cutting plywood with a table saw. Seconds passed. Now he sensed her, looked up and shut off the saw.
“Hi.” He dusted off his hands and raised the goggles.
“Hello, Brian. I brought you something.” She stepped down, smelling pine. “What are you making?” There was a pack of Marlboros on his worktable. Instantly the craving was on her. She hoped he would follow her gaze.
“Thanks.” He took the snifter and pointed. “It’s a sleigh.”
She looked at it. Half finished, it made her think of a buckboard on runners. “I see, just like Santa’s. Will you use a snowmobile or an actual horse?”
“For what?”
“To pull it. You said it’s a sleigh.”
“Oh, no. It’s for flowers. It’s a planter.”
“Of course, silly me.” Again she glanced at the box of Marlboros.
“Heather sees us using it at Christmas, too,” Brian said. “Maybe on the roof. You aim floodlights, fill it with gift-wrapped boxes. She saw it in a magazine.”
“I see.”
“Then, in summer, you line it with polyethylene, fill it with dirt. Plant geraniums or whatever. We had a little Amish gig, but she decided to go with the sleigh this year.”
“What happened to the gig?”
“Pardon?”
“The Amish gig.”
“The annual community rummage sale. Heather is more or less the permanent chairperson on that. She put it up for auction. I think someone bid three hundred for it.”
For no reason, Brenda felt sorry for him. She could tell his sleigh was going to be beautiful and authentic, but never serve its real purpose. “I think Heather must keep you pretty busy out here,” she said and smiled.
“She does, that’s true. Lays on the lash, keeps me out of trouble.”
“Well, okay, I’m on my way out to get some air. I’ll let you get back to it.” She turned, but swung back and stared at the Marlboros. “I sure would like one of those.”
“What? Oh, sure, sorry.” He got the box open and held it out. “It never occurred to me to ask. No one smokes anymore.”
She took one, hesitated, and took another. “For later. Thanks a lot.”
“Here, take the box.” He handed it to her, then a book of matches. “And if you would, please, be sure to light up outside. Smoking’s a no-no in the house.”
“Will do.”
“I smoke out here when Brian Junior’s not home. I use a smokeless ashtray.” He pointed to it.
Brenda waved again and let herself back into the house. The saw started up as she opened the front door. She stepped out and moved away from the front windows. On the walk she readied a cigarette and struck a match. A whole year, she thought. Why start again now? She saw herself behind the wheel of the Suburban. Folding the fax from Drew, Marion now put it in her pocket.
Brenda lit up and inhaled. She felt momentarily dizzy, always the same when she fell off the tobacco wagon. The night was chilly and clear. Stars were out.
Smoking, she studied them.
If you were thirty-three and had no partner or husband, no child, you faced doubts often enough. But Heather and Brian Reese made going solo look better. Still, looking up and hearing distant traffic, Brenda knew this was too easy. No, if she were honest, what was here—the kids and committees, the make-work projects and country-cute decorating—it was full of connections. Meaning. She thought of her condo on the eighth floor of her high rise. No pickle crocks or hockey sticks there. Just gray walls and unfinished furniture, a frayed couch left over from college days. No Molly Pitcher Bordello or power tools.
She looked from the sky to the driveway. At some point, Brian Reese had hitched his trailer and fishing boat to the Suburban. Fixed above the garage door was a large eagle, held captive in static flight. Maybe Brian would take it down for the next auction.
The bungalow next to Doreen Taylor’s was in foreclosure. The aluminum siding had been stripped off, and someone had bolted sheets of plywood over the windows. The house on the other side was lit up, the blinds down. Heavy Metal thudded through the dark.
If it was the same hippie renters as before, they would be stoned by now. Lomak listened to the music, standing in the side entrance to Doreen’s garage. Minutes before, a patrol car had crept past but kept going.
The music stopped, and a dog began barking. There were lots of dogs in Hazel Park, just north of Eight Mile Road. That was the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs, whites to the north, blacks to the south. On the Detroit side was all the crack and black hookers you could dream of. And on the north side…Hazeltucky. That’s what people called Hazel Park, from the Kentucky and Tennessee rednecks who lived here. They were so proud of the name Hazeltucky, they used it themselves. Most of the rednecks took care of their property, but none of them had any class. They used fake sandstone on the front of their houses. Covered the porches with shit-green indoor/outdoor carpeting. If you had any class you moved out of Hazeltucky as soon as you could. That had been the plan before Doreen got herself caught.
“Before you screwed me,” Lomak said softly.
Light came from her own covered windows. It fell on the fallow section of the backyard, where he’d put in the garden. At the Ross house, Lomak had seen huge, neatly-edged flower beds waiting to be planted. When he slipped out the patio door and crossed the dark yard, he wondered what she usually planted. With beds that big, you were talking hundreds of dollars in annuals.
As he drove, Lomak’s sense of betrayal had given way to the image of the cleaning woman on the basement floor. Why had she come back? She done it to herself, he decided. When she pushed you. Pushing back was just a reflex, completely natural. But once the Ross house blew up, they would find the maid and say it was all his fault.
“Just like they claim I brainwashed you,” Lomak said.
Facing Doreen’s small house, he reached down and hefted the five-gallon can of gas. It had been waiting for him on a shelf in her garage. Except for her Ford Focus, nothing was left now. They had taken the outboard motors he stored there. The boat. Even the cottage had been seized.
He was just taking care of business, tying up loose ends. Because there were two sides on the scales of justice. Not the fake scales on Court TV, real ones. Scales of inner truth that was still true, even after some woman lawyer in a pinstripe pantsuit and a moron like Doreen Taylor screwed you over. To re-balance the scales of justice, both of them had to pay.
The music started up again next door. Lomak tightened his grip on the can and glanced at his watch. 10:50, Friday night. If he wasn’t showing Doreen how to act in a decent restaurant, he’d be inside with a tall one, in the Barcalounger, watching Law and Order.
But what made Jerry Lomak most angry and now led him forward with the heavy can was the outline of the addition. Almost finished, it arched out from the back of Doreen’s bungalow. It had floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows, and because it was a clear night, he could see inside. Twin sets of wires were still hanging down. They had belonged to top-of-the-line ceiling fans, with blades just like real palm leaves. Those had been the last thing he’d installed. Like everything else, the fans were gone, seized and sold at auction.
As he neared the back of the house, Lomak tripped and dropped the can. Hearing gas slop inside, he straightened and listened. No noise came
from the house. The music next door was still going. He looked down and now saw the garden hose. It was just like Doreen to leave the hose out all winter. He righted the gas can, then walked down the driveway. At the front, he stopped and looked in the side window. A single floor lamp was on; otherwise, the living room was empty. No projection TV, no Barcalounger.
He turned away, moved back along the house, and stopped at Doreen’s bedroom window. She had the Venetian blind closed, but bluish light flickered in the slats. A woman’s shrill TV voice. The Home Shopping Network. Totally broke, Doreen was still watching that crap.
But like with the lawyer, the point of justice with her wasn’t death. In fact, it would be better if they both lived. The point was, they should be humiliated. Humbled. Neither woman should be allowed to keep the life they had before. Not after what they had done to him.
Lomak went back to the gas can, bent, and began unscrewing the top. Fridays, her kid Ben went to his aunt’s house for the weekend. Ben wasn’t part of it. You made it nice for him, Lomak thought. Put a dropped ceiling in the basement, laid down a quality piece of carpet. Took him to Tigers games.
He hefted the can and walked back along the house, pouring as he moved. When the smoke reached her bedroom, Doreen would wake and run out the front door. As she watched the fire, she would know who had done it. And after, every time she took the bus. Every time she had to wait up on Eight Mile with pond scum for the bus, she could think on what she did. Lomak kept pouring. Dumb as she was, maybe she would realize the size and weight of her betrayal. Her crime against the only person to ever give her the time of day.
Sloshing gas around the unfinished addition, smelling the sharp odor, he couldn’t look inside. All that work. Cherry wood for both the built-in cabinets and the floor. Skylights with louvers you could open.
The house and garage were both made of wood and would burn fast. He moved with the can, slopping as he worked his way around the far side. Checking the hippie house, he re-crossed the yard to the garage. He reentered and slopped the remaining gas around her car. Saving just enough, he trailed the last of it across the yard to the house.
Music was still pounding next door. He got matches from his pocket, lit one, then the whole book. When it was going, he dropped it and moved quickly to the drive. As he passed along the house, Lomak slowed to glance once more in the front room.
His shadow leaped before him. He turned away and loped now, down the incline to the sidewalk.
“Knock knock. Still awake?”
“Come in.”
Brenda was propped in bed with Elmore Leonard’s latest novel. The book’s pages were tinted pink from the bedside lamp. Marion stepped in, closed the door, and moved to the Boston rocker in the corner. She sat and leaned forward.
“Listen, you can back out,” she said softly. “We’ll make up something. You can pretend to call WDIG. You can say they need you back in the studio right away.”
“Relax, Mar. Everything will work out. Heather’s not that bad.”
“Isn’t she?” Marion looked around the room. “Okay, she’s always been over the top about home and hearth. That’s fine. But in the two years since I was last here, something’s happened. The way she went on about hockey. Then all these loony collections, it’s…” She shook her head. “I’m serious. You don’t have to go.”
“She’ll be all right,” Brenda said. “Plastic knives and forks. Peeing without a hardwood toilet seat. Maybe it’ll do her some good. She’ll be fine.”
Marion looked to the door and back. “Plus, there’s an actual problem. Her friend Tina has MS.”
“You told me.”
“Yes, but Heather never said anything about a wheelchair. I just assumed Tina could still walk.”
True, that could be tricky. But paraplegics bungee-jumped, even went waterskiing. Except Marion Ross was a lawyer. “You’re thinking litigation?”
“Four women who know nothing about it,” Marion said. “On a houseboat. In the Boundary Waters. One of them in a wheelchair. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“Okay, then. Just tell Heather her friend needs to sign a waiver.”
“I feel guilty, but I’m thinking about it. Drew has this big deal on. That’s why he and Jay went to England. All our assets are positioned for it, he’s been setting it up for months. This is my party, which makes me liable. But I hate meeting someone for the first time and handing her a waiver. That’s exactly why people hate lawyers, isn’t it? How would you like it?”
“If I wanted to see the great out-of-doors, it wouldn’t bother me a bit.”
“You mean that?”
“Anyone who wants to go fishing in a wheelchair will sign on the dotted line.”
Marion nodded. “One of your great gifts is not being another goddamn lawyer.” She stood and again looked around the room. “Mine has a Victorian pram full of Beanie Babies. My lamp has a blue bulb.”
“Very chaste.” Brenda picked up her book. “In here, it’s rape and plunder. See you in the morning.”
The door closed. She changed her mind, put her book on the table, turned out the light and lay back. In the dark, something about moonlight on the room’s ceiling related to the scene with the rancher. They were in his barn. He was a survivalist, and stacked high along the inner wall were sacks of rice and flour. For the coming apocalypse—that’s what he’d said. The barn door was open, the air busy with flies drawn by the two skinned mustangs.
They were hanging from their hind hooves. Roped, then drawn up alive, they had been killed that way the day before. Tendons and muscles were exposed, the skinless heads grinning with big teeth. Saved a couple rounds doing it that way. It’s a hard world, missy, and sure to get harder. That’s why I had my boys do the cutting, one each. So they can learn and be strong.
She could still smell the blood. It had been sluiced away, but not the awful smell. Feeling her nails cutting into both palms, she closed her eyes and relaxed.
SATURDAY, MAY 5
8:20 A.M.
Lomak woke facing the room’s other bed. It was unmade, the covers mussed. “Rohmer?”
He threw back the blankets and listened. Hearing no click of computer keys, he got up and crossed to the open entry. The front room stood empty.
Rohmer was gone. He had learned about the fire at Doreen’s and split in his float plane. In his mind’s eye, Lomak saw it taxiing away from the marina dock, out into Lake St. Clair. He felt hot and clammy, watching as the plane rose off the water.
Time out. No way. He needs you, Lomak thought. Besides, there were dozens of fires every night not worth putting on the morning news. Plus, Louis Rohmer wasn’t dumb. He wasn’t someone you would want to drink or hunt with, but he was not dumb. He was just out buying supplies. Dicking around with his laptop in the lobby. If you broke in and robbed his house, a computer freak like Rohmer wouldn’t know until he went to the kitchen and found the microwave was gone.
Lomak liked this. Getting his pants from the chair beside the bed, he saw Rohmer using the laptop. Behind him, people were lugging shit out the door as he typed away, in a room with no furniture. Lomak smiled and zipped up.
“Motherfucker—”
He hopped from foot to foot, holding himself, eyes watering. At last he stopped. With great care, he unzipped his twill pants. He waddled to the bed and sat heavily before pulling down his briefs.
No blood this time.
“Jerry?”
The suite’s outer door closed. Still seated, Lomak pulled up his pants and stretched to look casual as Rohmer came through the bedroom entry. He crossed and held out a paper sack.
Lomak took the bag. “Where’d you go?”
“I fueled the plane. I have some email to send, then we’re off.”
“What’s this?”
“Egg McMuffin.”
“We got time to eat in the snack bar. McDonald’s sucks.”
“We don’t have time, Jerry, and we don’t need another scene in a restaurant.”
Rohmer went back into the front room. Lomak reached in the sack and brought out the sandwich. He unwrapped it, took a bite, and chewed. It was somehow both soggy and dry, but he quickly wolfed down the rest, then stood to button his pants. Clicking started in the front room as zipped up with care, and moved into the bathroom. His blue MichCon shirt hung from the door.
“Last night?” he called. “The waitress in Brownie’s?” He shook out the shirt. “That wasn’t my fault. She was coming on to me.”
He put it on and did the buttons, feeling for stickiness where the waitress had spilled the daiquiri. Brownie’s was on the lake, where the plane was tied up It was where he and Rohmer had arranged to meet. Hold it now, Lomak said to the waitress as he wiped his shirt with cocktail napkins. This was a banana daiquiri. You sending me a message? When she left, Rohmer told him the waitress had spilled the drink on purpose. Stop bothering her, he said. Don’t draw attention. In Costa Rica, do what you want, not here.
He ran the cold water, drank some, then straightened and ran both hands through his hair. He checked his teeth in the mirror, turned off the tap, and walked into the front room.
“Take that dolly to Mario’s; it’s a done deal,” he said of the waitress. “Feed ‘em, fuck ‘em, forget ‘em. If I followed that advice with Doreen, everything would still be cool. Move in with ‘em, they screw you every time. This is a known fact.”
Rohmer went on typing at the dinette table.
“Treat ‘em right, they turn on you.”
“You told me cooking the books at Damon Plumbing was your idea.” Rohmer didn’t look up.
“It was my suggestion. Doreen never had an idea more advanced than taking a pee. I gave her confidence. If she left it alone with just the boat and remodeling, they’d of never caught her.”
“I thought buying the cottage was also your idea.”
“Well, shit, Rohmer, if you do something, don’t fart around. Make an investment. Something that builds equity. Without me, she would’ve pissed it all away on the Home Shopping Network.”
Deep North (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 2) Page 3