Stay At Home Dead

by Jeffrey Allen

  “You ever plan on telling me why you were following me?” I asked. “Who was running some background check on me?”

  He removed the fedora and tossed it like a Frisbee onto the passenger seat. “Look, I know you’re curious. But part of what I get paid for is to keep my mouth shut.” He held a stubby finger up. “For instance. When I run down whoever Stenner is—and I will run him down—if he and I get face-to-face, he’s gonna wanna know who hired me.” He pointed the stubby finger at me. “Even though I just gave you and your unbelievably stunning wife a sweet deal, it’s still a deal. That guy won’t get your name from me, I promise you that. That’s the way it works.”

  Cedric told me that he’d heard that Victor Anthony Doolittle was good at what he did. I didn’t like him sneaking into my backyard, and I sure as hell didn’t like him flirting with my wife, but until that moment I hadn’t seen him as anything more than an arrogant little person. He was, in fact, a professional.

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “I know,” he said, crawling into the seat of the MG.

  I could see blocks on the pedals, and the driver’s seat appeared to have been customized to his height.

  He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine fired to life. He gunned it for a moment, letting it rev high.

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “Tomorrow. I’ll call you.” A sneaky smile spread across his face. “And then I’ll let your wife thank me.”

  I jumped at the car and it screeched away from the curb, his weird little snorty laugh echoing back at me as he drove away.

  38

  Julianne and I went to bed early, feeling tired and groggy from the staccato rhythm of the previous night’s sleeping schedule. When I woke the next morning, my headache was gone and the lump on the back of my head seemed to be receding.

  I drove over to my parents to pick up Carly and take her to school.

  My mother had her dressed and sitting on the sofa, waiting for me, when I walked into their living room.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “Do what?” my mother said.

  “Get her to sit still.”

  My mother chuckled the laugh of a mother who knew all the tricks. “I just asked her.”

  “Can I go hug Daddy now?” Carly asked, already inching off the sofa.

  “Of course,” my mother and I said at the same time.

  She bounced over to me, and I bent down so she could grab me around the neck. She clutched onto me like I’d been gone for six months, her damp hair cold against my cheek. I would face a thousand Doolittles, Caldwells, and WORMS for one of those hugs any day.

  She pulled back, her pink lips pursed together tightly in concern. “Grandma said you hit your head.”

  “I did, but I’m okay now.”

  “Papa said there wasn’t anything in your head to hurt,” she stated. “Is that true? Is your head empty?”

  My mother shook her head and let out a disgusted sigh.

  “My head is just fine,” I said. “Papa is the one with the empty head.”

  “Deuce. Don’t encourage it.”

  “We’re all fine,” I told Carly before she could ask more questions about her grandfather’s faculties.

  My mother followed us out to the minivan. “Buckle her in. Wanna share something with you, Deuce.”

  I got Carly situated in her car seat, shut the door, and turned to face my mother.

  “I heard something yesterday,” she said, waving at Carly on the other side of the window. “I took Carly over to the park and ran into some of the ladies.”

  Some of the ladies could have meant just about anyone, as my mother was probably better known throughout Rose Petal than I was. She’d never held a job her entire life, but she’d spent every free moment volunteering on just about every committee she could possibly find. As a result, if there was a lady she didn’t know, it was either because she was new to town or she’d just been born. She used the phrase “the ladies” to simplify the process of telling a story, because if she had to stop and explain to me who specifically she was speaking about every time she referred to a female friend, we’d never get to the point in the conversation.

  “They, of course, wanted to know what the story was with you,” she said, moving her eyes from the van to me. “I set them straight, that none of this was your doing.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I would’ve lied if needed.”

  “Uh. Thanks again?”

  “Anyway,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, “there was some scuttlebutt about Shayna.”

  “When isn’t there scuttlebutt about Shayna?”

  “Well, I thought once you found the good sense to break up with that girl, we would’ve been free of the scuttlebutt.”

  “Mom, she broke up with me. And it was twenty years ago.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And, yet, it still hangs around our necks like an albatross we can’t get rid of.”

  While my father tolerated Shayna when we dated, my mother would just stare at her, attempting to turn her into dust. She never bought into the whole glamorous couple of Rose Petal High idea. Shayna rubbed her the wrong way from the first day she met her, and that enmity had only grown over time.

  When Shayna broke up with me, my mother told everyone that I broke up with her. She just couldn’t stand the idea that her son had been dumb enough to not get out of a relationship with Shayna first.

  “Anyway,” she said, brushing the truth aside, like always. “There was some discussion about Shayna.”

  “Why would I care about this, Mom?”

  She glanced in the window and wrinkled her nose at Carly, who giggled inside. “Because it would appear that Ms. Barnes wasn’t exactly faithful to her husband. I know that’s about as surprising as finding out that water is wet, but there it is.”

  I thought of Odell Barnabas’s insinuations and nodded. “I heard that, too. Nothing concrete, though.”

  My mother cocked an eyebrow. “Well, Lillian Vardan saw something concrete.”

  “Lillian Vardan has glasses thicker than a bank vault.”

  “Watch your mouth,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “She saw them over in McLinney several weeks back. Some Italian restaurant. In a booth, where they could paw at each other.”

  The thought of Shayna pawing at Odell’s hair was somewhere between laughable and disgusting. I didn’t get it, but I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

  “Mom, I don’t need the details on this,” I said, squeezing the car keys. I kissed her on the cheek. “I could care less what she and Odell do.”

  She pulled back, her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together. “Who is Odell?”

  “The guy,” I said. “With the big, fake hair. Who may or may not have been having an affair with Shayna Barnes.”

  “I have no idea who the man with big, fake hair is.” The headache was returning at breakneck speed. “I thought you just said Lillian saw Shayna and Odell over in McLinney. I already heard that maybe she had something going with him.”

  “Lillian did see her over in McLinney,” my mother said. “But not with someone named Odell.”

  “Then who was she with?”

  My mother smiled triumphantly. “She had her mouth all over Billy Caldwell.”

  39

  The image of Billy’s mouth all over Shayna creeped me out the entire drive to Carly’s school.

  It wasn’t that I thought either of them was above having an affair. In fact, they both seemed exactly the type. While I thought Odell’s remarks about sleeping with her were a bit odd and I would never see why anyone would be attracted to Odell, never for a moment did I think he was lying.

  And Billy was just the sort of guy to overlook a marriage license when pursuing a woman.

  I just hadn’t figured that they would be doing it together.

  So to speak.

  As I unbelted Carly and helped her jump out of the van, I tried to expunge the image from my h
ead.

  Carly skipped all the way to the front door of her classroom. I hoped she would feel the same way about school when she was sixteen, but knew that was wishful thinking.

  Sally Meadows sidled up to me as I signed Carly in. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you ready for tonight?”

  I set the pen down on the clipboard. “As ready as I’m getting, I guess.”

  “Those women are frothing, waiting to get at you. Just keep your wits about you and you’ll be f ine.” She swept her eyes over the classroom to make sure no one was in a headlock. “I’ve been putting the good word out for you. You’ll have some support in the room.”

  “Thanks, Sally. I appreciate it.”

  “Just try not to get knocked out tonight.” She made a beeline for a little boy who was about to snack on some finger paint.

  I stepped out of the room and nearly knocked over Detective Willie Bell.

  He puffed out his chest. “Mr. Winters.”

  “Detective.”

  “Wanted to ask you about the other night.”

  “I answered questions for one of your guys at the hospital.”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir. Just wanted to get my own take.”

  I moved over to the window. Carly was jabbering in another little girl’s ear. “Okay.”

  “See anything?”

  “No. Got hit from behind.”

  “Hear anything?”

  “Yes. My wife on the cell phone, telling me to look out.”

  “So she saw something?”

  Carly and the girl she was talking to dissolved into laughter. “Not really. It was dark.”

  He stood next to me at the window, his posture ramrod straight and his eyes solely on me. He was like a dorky robot.

  “Wanna know what I think?” he asked.

  “Not particularly.”

  “I think you’re making it up.”

  I let his words burn slowly through my head. It shouldn’t have surprised me or made me angry. But it did both.

  I turned to him. “You what?”

  “I think you made it up,” he said, smiling like he knew something I didn’t.

  “You’re insane,” I said.

  “Staged the whole thing,” he said. “You were even smart enough to have your wife call so there’d be a record of the conversation.”

  “And then what? I took a bat to my own head?”

  “Maybe you didn’t even get hit,” he suggested, shoving out his bottom lip. “Not hard to fake a concussion.”

  I turned and pointed to the lump on the back of my head. “What do you think that is? A tumor?”

  I whipped back around. I knew the lump was clearly visible. For a moment, his resolve wavered.

  Not for long, though. “Maybe your wife hit you. If she made the call, she was already in on it.”

  Carly and the other girl were now chasing each other, their hands covered in paint. Sally was attempting to corral them.

  “And tell me exactly why I would allow my wife to take a swing at me,” I said. “Because I’m missing that part.”

  “You didn’t wanna go to your big meeting last night,” Bell said. “You knew that you were going to lose your position, and you thought you’d postpone the proceedings, maybe make people feel a little sorry for you.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You can run, Winters, but you can’t hide.”

  “That makes no sense,” I said. “If you’re gonna speak in clichés, at least use ones that fit the bull your spewing.”

  Pink splotches blossomed across his forehead. “You know what I mean.”

  The door to the classroom swung open, and Carly and the other girl charged out, screaming with glee, their painted hands up in the air. Sally spilled out into the hallway behind them. “Girls!”

  “Daddy!” Carly said, making a beeline right for me, her palms up.

  Her pal followed right on her footsteps.

  I stepped to the side and caught Carly around the waist before she could plant her hands on me. The other little girl had no one to stop her, and she planted her hands on the first thing she ran into.

  Detective Willie Bell’s pants.

  Two bright purple handprints right on his groin.

  Their screaming died off immediately, the way it does when kids know something has gone awry and punishment may follow. Sally covered her mouth, her expression a mix of consternation and amusement. Detective Bell looked down at the fresh coat of paint on his pants, the pink splotches growing on his face by the second.

  I smiled at Carly’s friend. “And who are you?”

  She tucked her chin down to her chest, a shy grin on her face. “Charlotte.”

  “Her name is Charlotte, Daddy,” Carly reiterated, in case I missed it the first time around.

  “Charlotte, I think you and I are gonna be friends,” I told her.

  She giggled.

  “Girls, let’s go back in our room and clean up,” Sally said, taking each of them by the wrist. She looked at Bell. “I’m very sorry.” She herded the little artists back inside her classroom.

  Bell’s face was turning into a tomato as he looked from his pants to me and back to his pants.

  “You know what I think?” I asked him.

  “What?” he said between clenched teeth.

  “Purple on you,” I said, pretending to think about it. “Purple on you is just nuts.”

  40

  Victor Anthony Doolittle was pacing between his MG and my minivan when I stepped out into the parking lot.

  He looked up as I approached, his forehead wrinkled in thought beneath the fedora. “What took you so long?”

  “I was in there maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Normally takes you seven.”

  I hated that he knew my life better than I did. “I didn’t know we had an appointment this morning.”

  “We didn’t.” He rubbed his chin. “But something’s come up, and I knew you’d be here.”

  Several cars drove past us, out of the lot. “Okay. What’s up?”

  He took the fedora off and scratched the top of his head. “Well, I’m not exactly sure.”

  I leaned against the van and let him work it out.

  “See, things have kind of crossed paths,” he f i-nally said. “I did not anticipate that, and it’s rare that I don’t anticipate things.”

  “Do you anticipate me driving away if you don’t start making sense?” I asked.

  “I anticipate you staying right there and listening to me.”

  “Then quit talking like someone who just learned a bunch of new words.”

  He held his hands out, indicating that I needed to settle down. “Easy, Stilts.”

  I kept my mouth closed.

  “I did some looking on our guy,” he explained. “Stenner?”

  “Right.”

  “Found him.”

  “Great.”

  His nose twitched. I resisted the urge to make a rabbit joke.

  “But some of what I found on Stenner ...” His voice trailed off.

  “Victor, you’ve got five seconds to spit it out or I’m outta here,” I said, exasperated. “I’ve got things to do.”

  “Like what? Laundry?”

  As a matter of fact.

  “Stenner,” he said. “He’s a college kid. Twenty years old.”

  “All right.”

  “He teaches martial arts part-time,” Victor said. “Lives over in Duncan. Just a kid.”

  I nodded, not that any of that made sense. We didn’t know for certain that he was the guy that hit me. But why was some part-time karate guy flying out of the Rettler-Mott parking lot after I’d eaten the pavement?

  “Okay,” Victor said, holding up a short index finger. “I’ve made a decision.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m gonna tell you something,” he said. “But I need your word that it stays between us.”

  “You have it.”

  He held out his hand.
“Shake on it. That way I’ll know you mean it.”

  I shook his warm, clammy, action figure–like hand. “You have my word.”

  He glanced around, as if someone might be eavesdropping. I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d want in on a conversation between a disgraced Room Dad and a dwarf private investigator.

  “The guy who hired me,” he said, convinced we were alone. “To do the background check on you? Guy named Jimmy Landry.”

  “The Tough Tykes guy?” I said.

  “One and the same.”

  All along, I had just assumed it was Billy Caldwell that hired him. Hearing Landry’s name really surprised me.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Victor shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t ask why when I take a job. If it’s something I do, then I just do it. Less I know, the better.”

  I expected a weird, shady vibe from Landry when I went to Tough Tykes, but ended up walking away impressed. Not just with the facility, but with him. He was nothing like I expected. So why was he interested enough in me to hire someone to check me out?

  Which led to another question.

  I looked at Victor. “Why are you telling me this? I thought it was against your code or something.”

  “It is against my code,” he said. “Ethically, I’m doing the wrong thing by telling you this. Could ruin my reputation, if it gets out that I haven’t protected a client’s privacy.”

  “So why tell me?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched, and he again scanned the lot before letting his eyes settle on me again. “Because this Zeke Stenner? He works for Landry.”

  41

  “That’s where he teaches martial arts,” Victor said. “At Tough Tykes.”

  I watched the parade of minivans and SUVs continue out of the school parking lot.

  “The kid also has a record.”

  “A record?”

  “Nothing big,” Victor said, waving his hand in the air. “But he was charged with a misdemeanor last year. Some sort of fight and assault.”

  “So it could’ve been him that hit me,” I said.

  “All of it sorta fits together,” Victor said, nodding his head. “Him being here, you getting whacked, then him leaving.”