I spent the next few hours surfing the Internet, looking at names. Jimmy Z. Landry, Zeke Stenner, Shayna Barnes, Billy Caldwell, Benny Barnes, Odell Barnabas. Resulted in a handful of nothing.
I was just getting off the computer when I heard the front door open.
Julianne was standing there, smiling at me. “Hello, househusband.”
“What are you doing home?”
She tossed her briefcase on the sofa. “Funny. I expected to hear ‘Wow. What a great surprise that you are home, instead of slaving away to support my big butt.’”
“That is what I meant to say.”
“I f igured.” She shed her suit jacket. “I just assumed you might need some moral support before the big showdown tonight.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not easily frightened.”
“I remember that one time you wouldn’t kill the spider in the shower.”
“That was a big freakin’ spider.”
“The size of a quarter, as I recall.” She kicked off her pumps. “Nonetheless, I thought a little relaxation before the meeting might help.”
“Okay.”
She stood there, amusement in her eyes as she stared me down.
“What?” I asked.
“Were you this lame when we first started dating?”
“That feels like some sort of trick question.”
She started undoing the buttons in the middle of her blouse as she backpedaled toward the stairs. “I came home early from work. To seduce my husband. Because I felt like it.” She popped open the last button, pivoted, and started up the stairs. “Problem with that?”
“None whatsoever,” I said, finally getting over my lameness and moving at double time toward the stairs.
46
“Seriously. Why did you take the afternoon off ?” I asked.
We were still lying in bed, naked and twisted in the sheets like a couple of pretzels.
She brushed the brown locks of hair away from her eyes. “I needed a reason?”
“Usually you do. Don’t get me wrong. This is way better than a phone call. But sometimes I can’t even get you on the phone.”
She wrapped her fingers into mine. “I had an appointment outside the office. I decided not to go back. And I wanted to make sure you weren’t getting yourself into some sort of trouble.”
Good thing she hadn’t come home a couple hours earlier, then, when Victor and I were playing detective.
“Plus, I was afraid of what might happen to you if I sent you to the meeting by yourself again,” she said, grinning.
“Thinking I might wear a helmet.”
“Oh yeah. One of those Viking ones, with horns. Make a statement.”
“That way I could impale Sharon Ann.”
“I’m totally getting turned on by this.”
We both laughed.
It was good to see her in the middle of the day, rid of the stress that went with her job. She was undertaking a huge sacrifice for our family by agreeing to be the breadwinner. Not just the working part, but missing out on spending the entire day with Carly. There were days where I felt guilty, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to rectify it. We’d grown accustomed to a lifestyle that I didn’t have the earning capacity to support. I knew that, realistically, we were doing the right thing for Carly and the three of us, but some days it felt more right than others.
That afternoon it felt about as right as it got.
“I saw Billy this morning,” she said, stretching her long legs and pointing her toes like a cat.
I kissed her neck. “That is a mood killer.”
“He wanted to know if we wanted to settle.”
I stopped in midkiss. “I got the same offer.”
“I offered him a dollar,” she explained. “But then I rescinded.”
“Nice work.”
“He’s gonna need a little more proof that you are a psycho to get any money out of me,” she said.
“My mother told me something interesting.”
“What’s that?”
I told her about Shayna’s alleged make-out fest with Billy.
“I don’t really find that surprising,” Julianne said.
“I didn’t either,” I said. “Makes me feel badly for Benny, though.”
“The guy who permanently damaged you and then got blood all over our van?”
“Come on. When he hit me, it was clean. Part of playing football. And I don’t think he had any say in wherever who killed him placed his body.”
“He chose Shayna,” Julianne said. “He knew what he was getting.”
She was right, of course. But it didn’t mean that a small part of me didn’t feel some sympathy for the guy. I didn’t know what had been going on in his life, but it seemed clear that none of it had been good.
“Both of them hate you, Deuce,” she said. “And Benny probably did, too. I couldn’t care less about any of them. I’m sorry someone killed Benny, but you didn’t do it and you have nothing to be sorry about.” She tapped me on the chest. “And their retarded little restraining order is just one more thing for the WORMS to throw at you.”
I cut my eyes sideways toward her. “Think things will be thrown?”
Julianne pushed up toward my ear. “Count on it.”
47
I wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening right where we were, but Julianne convinced me that missing my own hearing would not be beneficial.
That’s why she’s considered to be the smart one in our family.
So we showered and dressed. My stomach began to do flip-flops as we left the house, and I was surprised. I didn’t think I’d be nervous, and I certainly didn’t want to be nervous. But I’d had a bad week, and I knew most of it was going to be put on display for all to see. I didn’t like that, and as much as I wanted to play it cool, the anxiety was hammering away at me.
“Could you speed it up?” I asked Julianne.
We were in her little Lexus SC. It was the antithesis of the minivan. Sporty, fast, and cool. The car was the one completely selfish and irresponsible gift Julianne bought herself when she made partner. She’d grown up driving old pickups, and she’d promised herself that when she was able, she’d buy any car she wanted, and she settled on the Lexus.
The only uncool thing about the car was the way she drove it. About five miles under the posted speed limit at all times, keeping approximately 670 feet between her and the car in front of her, barking at anyone that dared to close within that distance from behind. She might as well have had the hazards on all the time. I wanted to replace the speedometer with a sundial, but I wasn’t handy enough to know how to do it.
As usual, she ignored me. “Don’t let them goad you into an argument up there, all right?”
A horse and buggy passed us. “I’m not going to get into an argument.”
“Just stay with what we’ve talked about,” she said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I’ll keep my mouth shut until it’s time for me to get involved.”
“How will I know when that is?”
“When I start talking.”
“Right.”
Two cars swerved around us and sped past, one saluting us with a middle finger.
“So rude,” Julianne said.
“Well, if you actually pressed down on the accelerator. . .”
“You are rude, too.”
“Rude is holding up traffic.”
“Rude is not being polite to your wife after she’s just spent the afternoon in bed with you and is coming to support you at a public flogging,” she said.
Incredibly tough to argue with that.
After she’d turned a fifteen-minute drive into a thirty-minute cruise, we finally pulled into the Rettler-Mott parking lot. As far away from all the other cars as was physically possible. Would probably take us another half an hour to reach the building.
She reached for my hand. “Don’t be nervous. You are the best Room Dad ever.”
“We should’ve wo
rn shirts that said that.”
“And I won’t let anyone crack you over the head until we get inside tonight.”
I thought I saw a glimpse of a smile on her face as she slid out of the car.
I was staring at the ground, thinking about what I wanted to say, when Julianne came to a halt and gripped my hand tight. “Who is that?”
I looked up. Parked in the row of cars closest to the school, leaning against an old station wagon, was Odell Barnabas.
“Oh. That’s Odell,” I said.
“You actually know him?” she asked, pressing in closer to me. “Seriously? My God. What is on his head?”
Odell saw us and pushed himself off the wagon. He yanked the toothpick out of his mouth and tossed it on the ground. He stuck his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans and lifted his chin in our direction. “What’s goin’ on, y’all?”
“Hey, Odell,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Lookin’ for you, Ace. Heard you had a little deal here tonight,” he said, his eyes making their way toward Julianne. “This your lady?”
“No, this is my wife,” I said, glancing at Julianne. Her eyes were firmly ensconced on the toupee.
Odell chuckled and wrinkled his nose. “Sure, sure. Looks like a cool chick.”
Julianne was too entranced by the fake hair to realize he was speaking about her like she was an inanimate object.
“So,” Odell said, moving his eyes back to me. “You make up your mind yet?”
“Make up my mind?”
He rolled his eyes like I was the most forgetful human being he’d ever encountered. “On Killer Kids, Ace. Killer Kids.”
“Ah, right,” I said. “Think I’m gonna have to pass, Odell.”
His hopeful expression crashed. “Come on. You don’t wanna do that, Ace. It’s gonna be huge.”
“Gonna have to be huge without me, Odell. Just not my thing.”
His lips twisted in disappointment. Then he raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you could be a silent partner. You know, just invest, but not do anything? Like I said, I’ve already got a couple of those. Then you’ll still get rich when we all get rich.”
His ignorance was almost sweet.
“Afraid not, Odell,” I said, pulling on Julianne. She stumbled a bit, her eyes still examining his hair. “I think I’ll just have to watch you and everyone else get rich.”
He looked like a six-year-old who had all of his toys taken away.
“We’ve got to get inside,” I said, motioning at the building. Julianne slowly moved her feet forward, but her eyes stayed put. “But I did want to ask you something.”
Odell shrugged, as if he could care less now that I had removed myself from his plans.
“You told me the other day you had something going on with Shayna,” I said. “Did you sleep with her?”
He bit down on his upper lip, and color flushed through his cheeks. “Hey, man, you know. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, okay, Ace? I told you the other day—”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, staring at him. “You didn’t tell me anything. You wanted me to think you and Shayna had something going on, but you never explicitly said you did. So I wanna know. Did you?”
He chewed on the lip a bit more urgently and started cracking his knuckles. “Hey, Ace, if you—”
“Odell. I want an answer. Yes or no. Did you and Shayna sleep together?”
I thought I heard Julianne whisper, “It can’t be real,” but I wasn’t sure.
Odell shuffled his feet and mumbled something I couldn’t understand.
“What did you say, Odell?”
The feet shuffled again, and he let out a sigh. “No. We didn’t sleep together. She turned me down.”
Finally. Something made sense. I didn’t care how crazy or drunk Shayna was, I knew she and Odell Barnabas had not slept together.
“But she was sleeping with that other fella at the store,” he said with the tone of a defiant teenager.
“Yeah, Odell. That would’ve been her husband. Because she was married to him.”
Julianne pulled me toward the building. “We’re going to be late.”
Odell frowned and shook his head. “No, Ace—”
“We gotta go,” I said, cutting him off and continuing to move with Julianne toward the school. I didn’t want to be late to this thing, and I’d had enough of Odell. “We’ll see you around.”
48
The auditorium at Rettler-Mott School was almost full by the time Julianne and I walked in. Our presence set off a buzz inside the room, as row after row of heads turned back in our direction.
“I’m going to have questions about that guy when this is over,” Julianne whispered.
I wasn’t sure I had the answers. Everyone who was anyone in Rose Petal was there. Sally Meadows was tucked back in a corner with several of her fellow teachers. Detective Willie Bell was leaning against the back wall. Darlene Andrews was in the second row, poured into some sort of velour outfit, her hair teased approximately six feet into the air. Mitch McCutcheon gave a short wave from his seat in the first row. Lots of other faces that I knew.
I didn’t think that the room was choosing sides. This wasn’t that kind of showdown. They were there simply to see what happened and to report back to the others who weren’t fortunate enough to attend in person.
Sharon Ann McCutcheon was whispering into Deborah Wilbon’s ear from a row of folding chairs behind a podium. Several other of the WORMS filled the remaining chairs, Sharon Ann and Deborah sitting in the middle of them. Sharon Ann noticed us, said one last thing to Deborah, which caused her to turn her head in our direction, stood, and approached us.
“Hello, Deuce,” she said through a forced smile, as if someone was pinching her rear end. “Hello, Julianne.”
The dynamic between Sharon Ann and Julianne had always been strange. Julianne had attempted to be friends with her when Mitch first brought her back to Rose Petal, because Mitch and I were friends. But it became immediately clear that Sharon Ann had no intention of taking up that friendship, at least not in a sincere form. I was never sure exactly what Sharon Ann envied the most about my wife—her looks, her career, her family—but it was as obvious as a horse on roller skates. Sharon Ann was jealous of Julianne.
“Sharon Ann,” said Julianne, looking past her at the other women sitting near the podium. “That’s it?”
Sharon Ann ran a hand down her blouse, smoothing it out, though it was tough to smooth out that kind of plastic surgery. “That’s it what?”
“I only count five of your little friends,” Julianne said. “You’re going to need more than that.”
Sharon Ann bristled. “I think we’ll be f ine.”
Julianne stared at her for a long moment, then gave a little shrug. “All right. Your choice.” She looked at me. “This is going to be easier than I expected.”
Sharon Ann’s lips fastened together in an irritated grimace. I couldn’t tell whether Julianne was being serious or if she was just trying to stick it to Sharon Ann and get inside her head. If I knew my wife even the tiniest bit, it was probably a little of both.
Sharon Ann’s eyes narrowed, in much the same way I assumed a shark’s did before it attacked its prey. “I’d like to get started. Are you ready?”
I looked at Julianne, who was returning the narrow-eyed shark stare at Sharon Ann. Her head tilted forward in a tight, confident nod.
I was glad someone was confident.
“Okay then,” I said, taking another long look around the room, wondering who, if anyone, was rooting for me. “I guess we’re ready.”
49
When I was a kid, my parents served as copresi-dents of the parent-teacher association at my elementary school. At their final meeting at the end of their two-year term, my father put a man named Charles Spillner in a headlock because he’d had the poor idea to say that he thought my parents had done a lousy job. As my father brought him to the front of the room in the headlock, my mother
presided over the swearing in of the new officers.
The Spillners’ daughter, Andrea, never spoke to me again.
So when I thought of any type of parent-teacher school meeting, I couldn’t get the image of my father locking up Charlie Spillner out of my head. As I watched Sharon Ann up at the podium, I hoped that headlocks would not be necessary on this night.
Sharon Ann cleared her throat and tapped the microphone attached to the wooden podium. Her face morphed into a sea of warmth and friendliness, all the Botox in her face coagulating its way into a gigantic smile.
“Good evening, friends,” she said, letting her eyes sweep the room, as if each and every person there was her personal friend. “We all appreciate your attendance here this evening in regard to this important matter.” She shuffled through several sheets of paper in front of her. “As most of you know, Mr. Deuce Winters serves as the Room Mother... .”
She pursed her lips together and again let her eyes sweep the room, feigning embarrassment. “Excuse me. I meant to say Room Father.”
She, in fact, meant to say exactly what she said. It was her subtle way of letting the room know that I was miscast in the role from the get-go.
“And he has served admirably in that role for the majority of the school year,” Sharon Ann continued. “We all certainly appreciate his efforts on behalf of the children in room nine.”
A slight murmur arose from the room, and I couldn’t tell if it was positive or negative.
“But at this time I feel it is my unfortunate duty to request that Mr. Winters be replaced in his current position,” Sharon Ann said, adopting a seriousness normally reserved for funerals and beauty pageants.
She cut her eyes in my direction. “Unless, of course, Mr. Winters would prefer to save us all the trouble and resign his current position.”
I had to hand it to Sharon Ann. She knew how to work a room.
I stood and faced the room. “I have no intention of resigning my position.” I turned, smiled at Sharon Ann, and sat down.
Stay At Home Dead Page 15