Stay At Home Dead

by Jeffrey Allen

  Well, that was good to know.

  “Shayna, I don’t—”

  “Oh, just shut up and get over here,” she said, running the words together. “My husband’s dead. It’s the do you can least.”

  “The what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, sounding like she might fall asleep. “I’m just sad and want to see an old friend. Is that so bad?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that.

  She cleared her throat. “Plus, I have a crap load of vodka to share with you.”

  Who can resist vodka at midmorning?

  10

  Before I could smack myself in the back of the head, I pointed the new minivan in the direction of Shayna Barnes’s house.

  I hadn’t seen her in months, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know where she lived. That was a common thing in Rose Petal. We didn’t need the Internet or Google to find each other. Those of us that had been around long enough, word just got around. I couldn’t think of anyone that didn’t know that we lived in one of the newer subdivisions within Rose Petal. Likewise, it seemed as if I always just knew that Benny and Shayna lived out on the west end of town, right before Rose Petal gave way to the rolling farmland that checkered the landscape out toward Fort Worth.

  And I was curious why she had called me. I was sure the vodka was part of it, but it was the rest of the motivation behind her call that was gnawing at my brain, knowing that it was her husband that had been found in my van. Coincidence?

  No way.

  The Barnes house sat on a corner lot at the entrance to their subdivision. The red brick the house was built from had faded to a dull pink, and the paint around the upstairs windows was peeling and cracked. The lawn was a mixture of brown grass and green thistle, dying of thirst. Weeds snuck out of the cracks in the driveway. The entire home appeared sad.

  I turned off the engine and sat there, staring at the big oak front door. I had no business being there. I was there out of selfishness, to try and figure out what had happened to Benny so I could extricate myself from the entire situation. Shayna called me, but I was there for my own reasons.

  And that was probably wrong.

  I put my hand on the key, ready to turn the car back on and leave, when the front door opened and Shayna walked out.

  Actually, she stumbled out.

  Her long blond hair appeared dirty, unwashed, sticking out at odd angles. Mascara clung to the edges of her eyes, smeared and blotchy. She wore a wrinkled yellow blouse, untucked from the black, wrinkled slacks on her legs. One foot was bare; the other stuck in a black pump.

  She stumbled out of the door and righted herself just before teetering off the front porch. She braced herself against the brick facade. “What do you want, buddy?”

  I took my hand off the key, pulled it out of the ignition, and stepped out of the van.

  I came around the front of the car and stood on the sidewalk. “Hey, Shayna.”

  She squinted at me, like I was standing in a fog. “Deuce?”

  I nodded.

  “Wow. Didn’t think you’d actually come over.” She stood up a little straighter, put her hands on her hips, looked past me, and smirked. “Nice minivan. Come with a diaper bag?”

  “Haven’t checked the trunk yet.”

  She squinted at me again, trying to see if I was serious. She was my age, thirty-six, but she looked about fifty.

  “Benny’s dead,” she said.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She snorted. “Sure.”

  “I am, Shayna. I’m sorry.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Please. Benny was an ass.” She lifted a hand off her hip, shot a thumb over her shoulder toward the house. “You wanna drink?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  “Well, I do.” She turned toward the house. “Guess I’ll have yours, too.”

  I followed her inside and shut the door behind me. The house smelled like a bar, stale alcohol and cigarette smoke smothering me. The entryway opened up to an expansive living room, and Shayna plopped herself on a long leather sofa, the coffee table cluttered with a couple of vodka bottles, several glasses, and an ashtray.

  She held up a half-empty bottle. “You sure?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Excellent.” She unscrewed the top. “Don’t even have to use a glass, then.” She held the bottle to her lips and took a healthy gulp. She swallowed, smiled, and set the bottle down. “Bet I look good, huh?”

  She looked like someone had parked a boat on her for several days and she had just finally managed to crawl out from under it. In high school she took pride in looking better than every other girl in town. It wasn’t an arrogant thing, but she knew how attractive she was and she took the job seriously. Long blond hair, a face carved in porcelain, features that had been drawn with a steady and exacting hand that was clearly a fan of the curvy women you’d find in comic books. Sexy emerald eyes. She was the one girl that caused all the boys at Rose Petal High to shake their head wistfully as she walked by, knowing that she wasn’t just out of their league.

  She owned their league and banned them from playing in it.

  Unless, you know, you were a football star bound for supposed greatness.

  “You look fine,” I said.

  She laughed much too hard and smacked her knee with her hand. “You always were funny, Deuce.” Her laughter came to an abrupt halt, and she eyed me with suspicion. “Why’d you kill Benny?”

  “I didn’t, Shayna.”

  “They found him in the back of your station wagon.”

  “Minivan. I found him. I didn’t kill him.”

  “Everyone says you did.”

  “Everyone is full of it.”

  “He was gonna sue you.”

  “I know.”

  “So is that why you killed him?”

  “I didn’t kill him, Shayna.”

  She shrugged and took another swig from the bottle, keeping her eyes on me. She set the bottle back down. “Our marriage sucked.”

  Uncomfortable was an understatement for how I felt at that moment.

  “Shayna, look, I ...”

  “He got fired from his job,” she said, ignoring me. “From the stupid rug store. Who gets fired from a rug store? Is that even possible?”

  I figured her questions were rhetorical, so I kept quiet.

  “Spending all his time on his big plans to get rich,” she said with contempt. “Didn’t do anything but get him fired and us poor.” She grabbed the bottle by the neck and took a hard pull.

  “When did he get f ired?” I asked, more to get her mouth off the bottle than to make conversation.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Two weeks ago. Got caught using the computer at the store for personal business. Working on his business plan.”

  “Business plan?”

  She stared hard at me and folded her arms across her chest. “Why did you break up with me?”

  “You broke up with me, Shayna. Believe it had something to do with me not being a football player anymore.”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “Oh. Right. Great move, Shayna. I’ll bet you wouldna got fired from the rug store. Not Deuce Winters.”

  I wanted to tell her that I most likely never would’ve taken a job at a rug store, but it didn’t seem appropriate.

  “What business plan, Shayna?”

  She stared at me like I was crazy. “What?”

  “You said Benny was working on a business plan. That’s why he got fired?”

  “Yep.” She licked her lips and made a sound like a balloon losing its air. “So stupid. All those kids running around in some big old gym. Shoot. Benny didn’t even like kids. We didn’t even have kids. But he was gonna dump all of our money into some freakin’ rec center.”

  She was making no sense. “Shayna. What are you talking about?”

  She polished off the bottle and dropped it on the sofa next to her. “Killer Kids.”

  11

  “Excus
e me?”

  She rattled the windows with an enormous belch. “No. Excuse me.” She giggled, then made an exaggerated attempt to sit up straight and smooth out her clothes. “Killer Kids.”

  “I’m not following.”

  She let out a big sigh, like I was the dumbest person she’d ever spoken to.

  “Killer Kids,” she annunciated very slowly. “A place for the little snots to play.” She saw the confused look on my face and sighed again. “Jeez, Deuce. Don’t you have a little kid to ride in that minivan? Okay. Do you know that place Tough Tykes? Over near the high school?”

  I nodded. It was, in fact, all the rage. It was like one-stop shopping for children’s activities. Gymnastics, swimming, martial arts, sports, parties. You name it, they offered it at Tough Tykes. We got the big, glossy mailer each month, giving the rundown on all the classes they were offering. It was all housed in a giant warehouse the size of a supermarket, and the classes were outrageously priced. Judging by their usually full parking lot, though, I was in the minority in my opinion on their prices.

  “Benny wanted to build one just like it,” Shayna said. “A competitor. He thought he could do it better and make us rich.” She shook her head. “He and Odell had big plans.”

  “Odell?”

  “Odell Barnabas. One of his partners in the whole stupid thing,” she said, disgusted. “He used to work at the rug store, too.”

  “He doesn’t work there anymore?”

  “Hell, he got fired before Benny.”

  “For using the computer?”

  “No.” She waved a hand in the air. “And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you why he got fired. Just believe me that Odell is a freaking moron.”

  Sounded like an ideal business partner. “Anyway, Odell and Benny met a few times with Jimmy to find out how to run one of these places,” Shayna said.

  “Who’s Jimmy?”

  “Jimmy Z. Landry. He owns Tough Tykes.”

  That didn’t jibe. “Why did they go talk to the guy who would be their competitor?”

  Shayna’s face screwed up in agitation. “I don’t know, Deuce. If he wasn’t dead, I’d ask him for you, all right?” She paused, seemed to reorganize her thoughts. “If you hadn’t killed him.”

  There was no conviction in her voice when she said it. She was just trying to provoke me. I didn’t want to make it worse. But it did irritate me just to hear her say that I killed him, as if the more people said it, the more people might believe it.

  “Why’d you call me Shayna?” I asked. “Why did you want me to come over?”

  “I wish you hadn’t killed him,” she repeated.

  “Shayna. Why did you call me?”

  “It was mean of you to kill my husband.” Between the alcohol and the grief, it was clear I wasn’t going to get an answer from her.

  “I need to go,” I said.

  She picked up the empty vodka bottle, spun it in her hands, and mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

  “What?” I said.

  “I shouldn’t have broken up with you,” she said, her eyes filling up.

  Eighteen years ago I felt the same way. She shouldn’t have broken up with me. I was dumb and in love with her then. Couldn’t see beyond her pretty face. She cut me loose three nights after the surgery, me standing on crutches in her driveway, she explaining that she just didn’t have feelings for me anymore. Like the stitches in my knee somehow made me less attractive.

  It had taken a while for me to get over it, but when I did, I laughed about it. The superficiality of our relationship, past tense, embarrassed me, and I was glad to be out of it. And then I finally met up with Julianne, because I’d been too stupid to notice her in high school and never thought about being with Shayna or any other woman ever again. I found the best, and once you find the best, you don’t look back.

  “I’m sorry about Benny,” I said, heading for the door. “I really am.”

  She was sobbing now, but she pushed herself up from the sofa and staggered around the table. “I know. Thank you.” She looked at me through her tears. “I really wish you wouldn’t have killed him, though.”

  I got out of Shayna’s house before she could say anything else to me.

  12

  After spending the next hour cruising in my new ride all over town to get a feel for it and burn off my frustration over my visit to Shayna’s, I went back to the school to pick up Carly. Despite the whispering and stares that emanated from Sharon Ann and Deborah and their little coven, I made it out alive.

  Carly was less than thrilled with the new van.

  “Where’s my green van?” she asked as I strapped her into her car seat.

  “The green van is gone. But now we have a new one. A blue one. You like blue, right?”

  She looked around the interior. “Yes. But I really like green. Does Mommy know?”

  “Mommy’s the one who asked me to buy the new van.”

  She considered that, then nodded. “It’s good to do what Mommy says.”

  And how.

  I slid into the driver’s seat, dropped the shifter into reverse, then slammed on the brake as a car came to a stop behind us, blocking our path. I waited for a moment, thinking they were stopping briefly, maybe letting someone cross the parking lot. But after nearly a minute, I turned the van off and got out.

  Detective Willie Bell popped out of his Crown Victoria and pointed at me. “Stay right there.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said, but staying where I was.

  “Stay right there, Mr. Winters.”

  Carly was trying to twist around in her seat to see what was going on.

  Bell was wearing a starched, white short-sleeve dress shirt and a navy tie. Looked like a clip-on. His khaki slacks were split in half on each leg by a sharp-looking crease.

  He yanked his mirrored sunglasses off and stuck his nose against the window of the van. “New car?”

  “No, it’s a new plane.”

  He shifted his eyes in my direction. “That supposed to be a joke?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  Carly waved from inside the van. I waved back. Bell removed his nose from the window and stood up. “Why’d you buy a new car?”

  “Because you have my other one.”

  “We’ll give it back. Eventually.”

  “Yeah, well, my wife doesn’t want it back.”

  He slipped the sunglasses back on his face. “Why’s that?”

  “Why do you think?” I asked, exasperated with his television show theatrics. “She’s not real keen on keeping a car we found a dead body in.”

  His lips trembled in something resembling a chuckle. “Found. I like that.”

  I looked away from him because I feared my irritation with him would cause me to deck him, and no matter how stupid I found him, hitting a cop would not do me any good.

  Unfortunately, moving my gaze from Bell to the growing number of mothers near the front of the school who were staring in our direction did nothing for me, either. Sharon Ann and Deborah stood in front of the group, shading their eyes with their hands against the sun, trying to get a good look.

  “Heard you were out at the Barnes home this morning,” Bell said.

  “I was,” I said, moving my eyes back to him.

  “Trying to coerce Miz Barnes?”

  “No. Telling her I was sorry about her husband. That’s all.”

  “Right,” he said, clearly indicating that he didn’t believe me.

  “Are you here to arrest me?” I asked.

  “Just following up on things. Miz Barnes called us to let us know you stopped by.”

  I found that odd, but diving headfirst into a bottle of vodka at midmorning would cause you to do odd things. “Then she would’ve told you that I just came by—after she called me—to give her my condolences.”

  “She called you. Another good one.” He smoothed the clip-on tie. “I’d suggest staying away from her for the time being. She didn’t appreciate the
visit.”

  I doubted she even remembered the visit, given how drunk she was, but I wasn’t going to win an argument with Detective Bell.

  “You aren’t here to arrest me, then get out of my way,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  “We’ll talk later,” Bell said, backpedaling to his car. He caught his heel on the pavement and fell to the ground, smacking his head on the wheel of the Crown Vic.

  I thought about offering him a hand up but decided I’d do a good deed elsewhere later in the day.

  He scrambled to his hands and knees and jumped up. His sunglasses were askew, attached only to his left ear now, hanging across his nose. He attempted to straighten them, and one of the arms broke off. He threw the arm at the ground and stalked around the front of his car.

  “I will see you later, Winters,” he muttered.

  “Have a nice trip,” I said.

  He froze and glared at me.

  “Day, I mean,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

  13

  On school days, I usually dropped Carly off at my parents’ house in the afternoon. With Julianne’s parents having retired to Arizona, they were enjoying their role as her sole grandparents in town and Carly thought going to their place was a bit like going to Disneyland. I generally took those afternoons off to work out or to do the running around I couldn’t do with Carly in tow.

  My parents still lived in the house I grew up in, a sprawling ranch house on three acres on the north end of town, near the lake. My father had made lots of noise about getting out of town, going somewhere where they could retire and he could play golf year-round, but my mom just waved him off like an annoying fly. She’d been born in Rose Petal and she intended to die there, with or without my father.

  They were sitting on the front porch, my mother with a novel and my dad with his head tilted back, napping. Carly began squealing as soon as she saw them. My mother reached over and smacked my dad in the stomach, and he jerked awake in his chair.

  Carly unclicked her belt as soon as I turned off the van and leapt out the second I opened the door. She scrambled up the stairs.

  “Grammy!” she yelled. “We got a new van! It’s blue!”