Skewed

by Anne McAneny

  CHAPTER 22

  The morning after my unexpected visit from Hump Banfield, Jack and I paid a quiet visit to the hospital. Not wanting to mention Grady’s name in front of Grandpa, I dragged Jack into the hall to talk.

  “Listen,” I said, grabbing his phone from his hand as he tried to check a text, “I need to say something.”

  “Not like you to preface anything you have to say, Janie. I can’t imagine.”

  His snippy attitude wouldn’t make this easier, but I wasn’t entirely sure I deserved an easy go of it. “You might have been right.”

  “Hold the phone!” Jack yelled, and then he glanced at my hands. “Oh wait, you already are. But do tell. What was I right about, and to what do I owe this miraculous turn of events?”

  I explained to him about Sophie’s work. He looked surprised and impressed.

  “So you actually believe Grady now?”

  I shook my head. “There’s still a lot that needs to be figured out, but, uh”—my mouth went dry and my head felt hot and woozy—“I did go visit him.”

  Jack’s face showed a true, unfiltered, unrehearsed reaction. “Damn” was all he said, and I felt our gap shrinking a few precious millimeters. Until he ruined it with, “You know, the timing of this could be awesome. I could work it into my stump speech.”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said, firmly entrenched on my side of our chasm. I handed him his phone.

  “Wait, I need more details.”

  “I don’t have time right now. Why don’t you call Grady? He loves hearing from his precious John.”

  I returned to Grandpa’s bedside to kiss him good-bye. “Hey, Janie,” Jack said as I reentered the hall and strode past him, “you’ll call me if you need help, right? Or if you just want to talk?”

  I harrumphed and looked back. “I wish I could, Jack.”

  The slight change in his posture betrayed his disappointment. “Well, at least don’t do anything dangerous.”

  The huge, messy can of worms I was about to open filled my mind. “I’m afraid I already have.”

  I left the hospital and drove straight to the police station to ask a favor of Detective Wexler. I found him crouched beneath his desk.

  “Hiding?” I said.

  He glanced up, not the least bit startled by my sideways appearance or my ponytail nearly brushing the floor.

  “My sister had a toy horse like that,” he said. “Your hair, I mean. She cut it off one of her dolls and glued it to her horse’s butt.”

  I threw my ponytail behind me as I stood back up. “Thanks?”

  “Well,” he said, crawling out from his protective lair, “your hair would have made that horse envious.”

  He dusted off his jacket and held up the tiny screw he’d retrieved from the floor. “Dropped something.”

  “Yeah, his pants,” shouted a passing senior detective I despised. “Dropped ’em to his knees, then crawled under there to take care of business.”

  “Lovely, Detective Schwank,” I said. “But not everybody conducts their love life the way you do—cowering in a dingy corner, alone and afraid.”

  Schwank flared with anger; I’d clearly struck a nerve. “Yeah, Perkins? Why don’t you let me show you how I do conduct my love life? Maybe knock you up with some twins—like your mom.”

  Detective Wexler slowly reattached the screw to his three-hole punch. Without raising his eyes to Schwank, he spoke in a clear voice no louder than the hum of a ceiling fan. “Detective Schwank, if I ever hear you speak to Ms. Perkins like that again, I will not only file sexual harassment charges against you on her behalf, and drag your ass through Internal Affairs for all the laxity in your recent investigations, but I will give you ample reason to bring me up on assault charges. Of course, you’ll be doing the latter from your hospital bed.”

  Schwank sucked in a bitter gulp of air, letting his chest puff up almost as big as his gut. It gave him a moment to make sure he’d understood Wexler correctly, but he still didn’t look too sure about what had just transpired. He stood a good four inches taller and forty pounds heavier than Wexler, but the meat on his bones was discount ground chuck, while Wexler sported Grade A filet mignon.

  “Listen here, newbie,” Schwank wheezed—his asthma tended to act up when his facial capillaries bulged—“I’ll say what I want when I want, to whoever I want when I want.”

  The lameness of the comeback made me smile and I didn’t attempt to hide it.

  “Excellent,” said Wexler, taking a seat and gesturing for me to have one, too. “I look forward to more of your profundities. Now be on your way.”

  Schwank kicked the garbage can of the clerk whose desk he was passing. Papers flew everywhere, and it occurred to me that a wastebasket would be a fine place for my brother’s paperweights.

  “Well, well,” I said to Wexler as I glanced at his matched set of bulging biceps and sculpted shoulders through his white, button-down shirt. “Look at you, going all Dirty Harry over li’l ol’ me.”

  “I do what needs to be done,” he said, brushing off the front-and-center display of chivalry. “What can I do for you, Janie?”

  “I had a heck of a day after we left Sophie’s yesterday and I’m on a serious mission today. Since you’ve become my unwitting ally in the mysterious photo caper, could you lend a little detective help?”

  “Name it.”

  “Any way to find out who mailed the photos?”

  “You have the envelope?”

  I laid it on his neat desk.

  “Ridge, West Virginia,” he mumbled. Tapping his computer, he called up information on Ridge’s lone post office. He picked up his phone and got the postmaster on the line. The man’s loud, choppy voice came through clearly. After a short conversation, during which they mentioned surveillance cameras and two mailmen, Wexler gave the postmaster his phone number and hung up.

  “He’ll get back to me this afternoon.”

  I grinned. “I feel like I could have done that.”

  “But you didn’t. Had I realized ten years ago that most detective work is dialing a phone, I might have reconsidered my career choices.”

  “Which would have been . . . ?”

  “Chef or pilot.”

  “You’ve thought that through.”

  “Hasn’t everyone? I’m halfway to becoming either/or.”

  The comment hit me like a sneaky slug from a smart bully. Wexler hadn’t intended anything by it, but a sadness washed over me. I barely had a plan for the next week, let alone alternate career paths mapped out with courses on standby to launch me on the way.

  “Janie, you okay? You look . . . confused.”

  “I’m fine. Can I trouble you to do something else for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Could you look into a guy named Humphrey Banfield and make sure he’s on the up-and-up?” I explained about my two encounters with Hump. “I keep getting mixed signals, and now I’ve lent him my brother’s book.”

  “Why?”

  “Long story, but I knew I’d be busy today and figured it wouldn’t hurt to have another pair of eyes helping me out. Plus, he kind of pleaded for it. I think he fancies himself a detective with a unique perspective.”

  “Don’t we all?” he said with an implied wink. “And yes, I’ll check him out for you.”

  I scooped up my bag and turned to go, but spun back around, leaning one hand on the far corner of his desk. “By the way,” I said with a nod toward the still-red Detective Schwank, “could you?”

  Wexler grabbed a triangular paper clip and spun it slowly between his fingers. “Absolutely. He’d need stitches above his left eye, a reset of his broken jaw, lots of bendable straws since he wouldn’t be able to eat solids for a week, and a year to heal his inexplicably huge ego.”

  I smiled, believing every word. “Bigger ego, bigger
target.”

  “It’s what brings them all down,” Wexler said. “Eventually.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Lucinda Lowry, a waitress who had worked with my mother, lived with another woman she referred to as her buddy. After a string of abusive boyfriends, Lucinda had wised up and married the innocuous Ned Farting, a diner regular with a steady job as a traveling salesman and enough money to set her up in a three-bedroom ranch house. She had two daughters with him before a woman showed up on her doorstep one day with two boys who bore a striking resemblance to old Ned. The woman arrived with three bits of news. The first: her marriage license was dated two years before Lucinda’s. The second: Ned Farting’s last will and testament left everything to his legal spouse. And the third: Ned was killed the night before when a tractor trailer overturned and squashed his Volkswagen like a bug. The last bit was delivered with a sinister grin.

  Lucinda had mourned like a real wife, given thanks that she’d been persuaded by a Helen Reddy song to keep her own last name, and took over Ned’s sales route. She’d made good money, met up with her buddy somewhere along the way, and retired a happy woman with two lovely daughters. She welcomed me with open arms.

  “Look at you, darlin’! Haven’t seen the likes of such beauty since your mama and I worked together for that disgusting Mickey Busker.”

  “Sorry I haven’t been in touch much, Lucinda,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Nonsense. We both have lives to lead. Tell me, you got a man in yours? What’s his name, what does he do, and are you sure he doesn’t come with a ball and chain already attached?”

  I laughed or groaned or some combination of the two. “More men in my life than I care to mention. Some of them coworkers, one of them my brother, and most of them corpses.”

  “Oh, Lord, don’t tell me this visit has to do with police work. You still workin’ those crime scenes?”

  “Yup, and I pick up freelance work on the side.”

  “For the life of me, Janie, I don’t know why a pretty thing like you gets involved in that stuff.”

  Was it just me or did pity cloud her gleeful expression? It passed quickly. “I made us some sandwiches and tea,” she said. “Come on in.”

  We settled into her cozy kitchen and I realized I hadn’t eaten a homemade meal in ages, even if it was just sandwiches. Turkey, Gouda, tomato, and avocado on rye with a dollop of mustard hit the spot. When she pulled out a concoction called Cocoa Bomb for dessert, I about exploded, but it tasted so good, I asked for seconds.

  “Good to see you eat, Janie. You could use a few pounds. Now tell me, to what do I owe this visit?”

  I apportioned the story into digestible chunks and let her take her time with it. It had surely been a while since she’d thought about the events of that night.

  “I remember it like it was yesterday,” she said, surprising me. “Your mom was the closest thing I had to a sister, even if she didn’t feel the same way about me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. Your mom was sweeter than anyone else at that diner. We’d laugh and make fun, and she’d let me ramble on about whatever. And heck, I’d confide things to her I never told another living soul, but she never let me get too close. Played her cards close to her vest, and, well, she knew I was itchin’ to find out who your daddy was.” Lucinda glanced down apologetically. “I was a tad nosy in those days.”

  Where was that understatement plaque I’d planned to give Grady? Everybody in Caulfield knew Lucinda was still unduly curious about others’ personal lives, but she was so open about it—and not a spreader of acquired gossip—that it actually endeared her to folks.

  “Lucinda, do you have any idea how my mom might have gotten her hands on a haiku?”

  “Oh, Lordy, no. It was busy that night. How truly frightening to think that a killer might’ve been in the diner.”

  “Any customers stand out in your memory?”

  “Let’s see. We had a soccer team in from Goodland. Their coach was odd, but mostly ’cause he collected dead animal tails; he died in a boating accident years ago—engine sucked up a beaver tail, believe it or not. And we had a lot of old folks in, some families with kids. I remember it being loud, and your mom was late ’cause her car broke down.”

  Lucinda strummed her fingers on the table. “The thing I remember most is when Grady McLemore came in, unannounced and all. Course, it makes sense now, knowin’ about the two of them, but it was unexpected then. He chatted it up with the customers. A couple ladies asked him to sign autographs and one even asked him to sign a cheap dinner napkin!” Lucinda giggled. “That man had such a pull on people.”

  “So I’ve heard.” I’d swear she blushed.

  “And then he went over and made a big to-do about some shy customer who worked for him. I tell you, that poor man turned the same color as his name.” She slapped the table in amusement.

  “What was his name?”

  “Rusty! Least that’s what Grady called him. Said this Rusty fella had fixed up some stuff at Fourth and Eastman, the makeshift campaign office. Humble little thing. Thin brown hair, pale, and he sure didn’t like bein’ the center of attention. He was in your mom’s section.” Lucinda nodded as details flooded back. “Yup, she gave him a free piece of pie. I remember ’cause we were almost out and he got the last piece.”

  I jotted down notes. Grady, Rusty, repairman, pie.

  “Any other customers my mom interacted with?”

  “Well, sure. She had a nice chat with Mrs. Murphy about her flower garden, but that old biddy kept glancing from your mama’s belly to her left hand, which bore no ring, of course, and I wanted to go over and slap that three-chinned wonder ’cause I knew good and well some secrets about her that wouldn’t cast her or her late husband in too fine a light.”

  Lucinda took a big breath after that one while I wrote down Mrs. Murphy’s name. Hard to imagine a jiggly widow wreaking havoc around town, plus I had a vague recollection of reading her obituary.

  “Anyone else?”

  “There was a chatty, older couple who Grady sat down with, and, oh, Abner Abel, of course.”

  “Mr. Abel, my neighbor?”

  “That’s the one. He’d come in now and again when he got back from a long haul. Parked his meat truck across the street from the parking lot ’cause Mickey would yell at him for hogging up spots otherwise. And you know what I heard?”

  She waited for me to answer, so I shook my head.

  “Heard he was a different man out on the road, driving all through the state and up and down the East Coast, delivering fresh kills to butchers and grocers. Friends at every stop.”

  It jumped unbidden into my head that Mr. Abel might have been enjoying other forms of fresh meat out on the road, considering what was waiting for him at home. The Mrs. Abel I knew had spent most of her life pregnant or miserable—or both.

  “And he would chat nonstop on his CB radio,” Lucinda continued. “Can you imagine? I heard tell his CB handle was Big Ham.”

  “Good Lord, no,” I said, unable to conjure a more disappointing serving of ham than Abner Abel on a plate. Junior Burger or Veggie Pattie, maybe, for a man who floated through Caulfield like a bedraggled ghost, but not Big Ham.

  “It’s true,” Lucinda continued. “Here’s the best part. Apparently, he was some sort of CB counselor, dolin’ out advice to other truckers. Can you imagine?” Lucinda lifted an imaginary CB radio to her mouth. “‘You’ve got Big Ham. What can I cure for ya?’ That’s what he used to say! I swear!”

  Seriously? A CB counselor with a specialty in meat issues and a penchant for puns? I could only imagine the calls. Hey, Big Ham, I just overpaid for some diesel. You think I have a bone to pick?

  The new image made me shudder. Did Mr. Abel, in hammy advice mode, speed up his verbal delivery from his syrupy fifty words per minute to t
he standard hundred and ten? Or were those truckers so bored, they’d hang on for ten miles to get a four-sentence answer from the guy? I tucked the information away and hoped never to retrieve it.

  “And my mom waited on him?”

  “She sure did. And you know, they had some kind of fallin’-out.”

  My ears perked up, pleasing Lucinda. She loved an attentive audience. “Go on.”

  “Well, I always sat Mr. Abel away from the kitchen so he wouldn’t hear any of the cursin’ or carousin’ back there. Told me once he didn’t approve of the devil’s music they played. And I sure didn’t want him overhearin’ any of Mickey’s tall tales. That Mickey would lie to Saint Peter himself without battin’ an eye.”

  Mickey—pathological liar, I wrote.

  “Your mama about handed me my head later that night, tellin’ me never to put Mr. Abel in her section again. I don’t know what all went on. I would’ve asked her the next day, but, well, you know.”

  Yes, comas put a serious damper on gossip. And this story put a serious footnote on Mr. Abel.

  I wondered if Mr. Abel was the local who knew about my mother and Grady, the one Sam Kowalczyk had investigated and dismissed. If so, maybe there were more layers to that man than seemed possible for his slight body. Would he have considered my mother’s sin so vile, so contemptible, that he’d have taken it into his own hands to do something about it, to clean up a little mess for the Lord?

  Lucinda and I chatted for another twenty minutes before her buddy, a genial woman who ran a history-tour company, arrived home. She was lovely and it warmed me to know that at least one of Mickey’s waitresses had attained happiness. Unfortunately, though, based on what Lucinda had said, I now had to seek out a much less happy duo: the vile Annelise Abel and her upstairs tenant—that humping bastard, Abner Abel.

  CHAPTER 24

  Bridget Perkins, 30 Years, 90 Minutes Ago

  Grady McLemore walked into the diner, all shoulders and swagger, power and charm, a grand grin showing everyone the miracles that fastidious orthodontic care could accomplish. In a weird occurrence that Grady probably considered normal, the diner went silent upon his entry. Not even the clink of a spatula against the grill in the back. Bridget knew instinctively that the underpaid kitchen workers were poking their heads through the order window or pressing their noses against the greasy panes of the swinging doors. There was just something about Grady.