Darkness was on the countryside when she parked in the garage, an addition she’d had built in the last six months. Always wishing she had a place to park and store her police gear, she had about given up, until the man who had lived in her rent house volunteered to build it in exchange for rent. She always felt she got the best end of the deal, because it took him six weeks to finish it and she only lost that much rent. Since then he had moved away, to live with his eldest son in another state. She was sorry when he left. The rent house was currently occupied by a couple from the East Coast. They had decided to get away from the cold and wet winters, but Maude didn’t think they would last through the heat of a Texas summer. They ran the air conditioner most of the time, and she was thankful they had their own meter. Nice folks and good neighbors, she hoped they would stay for a while.
Inside her own home, the familiar walls greeted her, even though the atmosphere in the house seemed charged with tension. Silly, she knew; her house couldn’t respond to the feelings she had, but things did seem different. Maybe it was not having a drink for almost thirty-six hours. A frightening thought that she could count the hours since having her last binge. An evening cigarette was still to come, something she had begun to look forward to without the past ache of need. It had been six months since starting the four a day. The only reason for the number was four goes into twenty-four evenly, and it seemed to work. Sitting on the porch with her feet up, she gazed across the yard as she smoked, admiring a cloud bank lit from underneath, its mass glowing orange-pink as the last rays of the sun exploded across the horizon. God I love a Texas sky, she thought.
Reaching in her pocket to move the bulk that punched her in the ribs, Maude found the small book given to her by Frank Campbell. She laid it aside, not believing she needed a book of its sort. She knew that once her mind was set on a plan it was just a matter of doing it. She could do this by herself. Besides, she hadn’t decided to quit drinking, had she? Last night was just a test to see if she could, and it was obvious she had it under control. The thought of food was suddenly on her mind, since she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d eaten. She got up from her rocking chair and went inside, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out two frozen burritos and lettuce for a salad. In the window were two small tomatoes from the market, their skins rosy from sun ripening. Humming a little, Maude put the burritos in the microwave and began tearing the lettuce and slicing one of the tomatoes. Five minutes later the food was ready and she sat down at her table and began eating, at the same time reading the field notebook she kept in her shirt or blazer pocket.
The man Marge Campbell had seen could have been Buzzcut, the blond man who had kidnapped her niece Lilly Ann some months back. The man was a mystery, but he seemed to have a connection with Robert Dawson. She and her partners had chased the man for years in Chicago, finally ending it all in Madison. The thought of Dawson unnerved Maude. Not that she was afraid of him—on the contrary, she had no use for the man—but he had formed an early attachment to her and had made it his business to hurt one of the people she cared about.
Standing after her quick meal, she automatically went to the refrigerator for ice and tonic, knowing exactly how much to put in the glass. A little bit would be all right, maybe help her sleep. The bottle of Gilbey’s was one of three in the liquor cabinet—all full, for Maude was the type of drinker who didn’t want to run out of her chosen beverage. Considering her options, she decided to wait a little, maybe see how long she could go not taking a drink with it in front of her. The dials moved slowly on the Elgin watch, from 8:00 o’clock to 8:05, ticking so loudly it seemed unreal. All the fingers on her right hand trembled, wanting to pick up the glass, to stop the calliope music playing in her head, ticking off the seconds on her watch. Without another thought, she poured the gin into the glass and took a long drink, her mouth burning with the familiar taste. So good, but just one. She could do that, drink just one. Her head was hurting, but not like it had been, the noises finally shutting down as she poured the second drink. No ice this time, no need for tonic. Just the cool fire of the alcohol singeing her lips, her brain. Two and that’s all. “No more,” she said. “No more.”
At 4:00 a.m. the neighbor east of the sunset view turned his car lights on, splaying their beams through her window. Across the table, her head lay face down in the paper plate with burrito residue from the night before. The empty gin bottles lay side by side in the middle of the table, their missing caps on the floor near her feet, where she had flipped on the fifth drink. Maude awoke, groggy and drunk, unsure of where she was, talking to herself as she moved to the bathroom, holding on to the walls along the way. She fell across the bed afterward, passing out again as her face hit the pillow.
At 6:00 she woke again for a few minutes and buried her head in the pillow for another two hours. The phone was ringing, its sound going straight to the brain, bringing her back to the world of the living. Sitting up in the bed, she saw the offending noisemaker on the floor, where it had fallen sometime during her nightly exercises. Crawling from the bed to pick it up, she saw the name Joe Allen printed across the silent screen, his smiling face indicating a message was waiting.
Maude sat on the floor trying to get her bearings, the urge to vomit strong as she crawled to the bathroom, still unable to stand. Finally getting herself together, she ran the shower for a few minutes on cool then climbed in after stripping off the clothing she had worn the day before. The effort took all the strength she had in reserve. Leaning against the wall, she held on to the hated showerhead, hoping her body weight would pull it down. The water was cold, sending pin prickles down her body. Shivers started down her back as the relentless showerhead pounded her with its spray. Finally, after turning the water off, Maude climbed out, her joints screaming from the night before. A hard-back kitchen chair had been her bed for almost eight hours, and she still felt every slat.
The mirror showed a bedraggled, red-eyed woman, with stringy wet hair, a droopy mouth, and bent back. She didn’t yet have it together. Finally the smell of old, burned coffee got to her brain, and she headed for the coffee pot, thinking the black stuff inside had boiled for three hours, staying hot. One of the benefits of habit was she had loaded the pot before going to work yesterday morning and set it to be ready at 6:00 a.m., the time her alarm went off in the mornings. Sitting on a chair in the bedroom, she slurped the strong, burned coffee, not caring about anything except feeling human again.
She picked up the phone again and called the Cop Shop. Joe was there and answered the phone.
“I’m sick,” she told him. “Be in to work within a half-hour. I’m okay, just feeling bad. A little more coffee and everything will be fine. How did you get to work?”
“Walked. The weather’s not bad. Muggy, but okay. You sure you’re okay?” He knew her too well. Maude Rogers didn’t voluntarily show up late for work.
“Yeah, Joe, quit worrying about me,” she said angrily. “I’m not doddering yet.”
Joe got quiet. His feelings were hurt, and she knew it. “Okay, Maude. See you soon,” he finally said before hanging up.
Hanging around the house a few more minutes, she tried to recall the night before. She remembered pouring the third drink, but nothing after that. The bathroom was heavily fumed with the smell of vomit and stale gin. Maude knew enough about alcohol poisoning to look in the toilet and see if there was blood across the rim. She breathed a long sigh that none was there.
“What have I done to myself?” The words sounded strange spoken aloud, as though they came from another mouth located somewhere to the left of her. She trembled, the near miss of overdosing-a frightening consequence of binge drinking-ramping her heartbeat. She called the Cop Shop again and asked to be transferred to Captain Patterson. Once he was on the line she told him she had a virus and was staying in for the day and could get some work done from her house. He grumped and told her to do that; the rest of them didn’t need her germs.
Lying about her health w
as a new symptom of how far she had fallen. The Traditions book lay where she had pitched it the night before. Groaning some with the pain in her body, Maude picked up the book and began reading. She was taken aback by the first sentence, the part that spoke of powerlessness over alcohol. Gritting her teeth from the simplicity of the statement and its summation of alcohol abuse, she had to admit it was the truth of her situation.
“I can’t live like this,” she said to the walls. “I need help.” The book became her reading material for the next two hours, and several things became clear to her. She couldn’t do it by herself. She had already proven that much. Moving slowly, Maude went about gathering the bottles of liquor together from the different parts of her house. When they were all standing in a row at the sink, she grimaced at the waste and began pouring their contents into the sink, one after the other. When they were all empty, there was no turning back. Her clear liquid escape had gone down the drain.
Two hours later, she was dressed and ready, her head aching and the burning in her belly starting again as it had the day before. A quick trip to the bathroom to wash her face seemed to help, and allowed her to drive from the house to the small church she had visited the day before. That time she sat in the circle and listened to the stories told by the people there. When it came around to her, all she could do was nod, and pass it on to the next person to talk. Maybe after a while she could do it, but not at that minute.
A smart-looking woman sitting left of her gave Maude a sympathetic look and came to her after the session was over. She introduced herself as Claire M. and said, “If you have a problem with drinking and want to stop for twenty-four hours, you can call me. I’m an alcoholic, but by the grace of God, I haven’t had a drink for two years.”
Maude stood quietly, watching as the woman turned to leave. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth. Finally, before Claire was out of hearing, Maude spoke up.
“Yes. Please, I need help. I…think maybe I’m an…alcoholic.”
Claire turned back and smiled at Maude. “That wasn’t too difficult, was it?”
At the end of their conversation, Maude left the church with a book of instructions on how not to drink, and a few pamphlets pointing her toward recovery. She also had Claire’s phone number and permission to call when the need got out of hand. Maude breathed a little easier, knowing there was someone she could call who wasn’t part of work. She knew that Bob Eberhart was due an apology for her attitude, and intended to tell him so when she saw him next. The people she had seen at the meeting were strangers, but in the back of her mind, she rationalized that someday, she would see someone she knew from the streets.
Maude went home and spent the rest of the day meditating, thinking about her life and how it was going to be without the ever-available half-pint of gin she kept next to the bed. Grateful she hadn’t died the night before, Maude did some praying in thankfulness.
The night was long and need-filled, but she didn’t give in, just read what they called the Big Book, and found the stories within them similar to her own. She called Claire once when it became more difficult and talked a little about her difficulty, but she made it. The next morning was like the other, so she called and talked to her captain and said the virus was still bad and another day ought to fix it. He grumbled, but agreed. The most difficult chore she had to do was to call Joe. She asked him if he had time for a cup of coffee after work; that she could pick him up if he needed a ride. He still had his feelings hurt and was a little cool to her. He said he was riding with one of the street patrol officers, who could drop him at the Donut Shop after work.
Pride was a strong part of being Maude Rogers. Humbling herself by admitting she was a drunk meant some of that pride had to go. She also knew she owed Joe an apology for snapping at him. Jeez, I guess I really screwed up this time, she thought. But she also needed to talk to Joe about the murder of Eve Devine and what Marge Campbell had seen.
During the second day she spent at home, Maude made more notes about the scene and was convinced that it was all set up, even down to the murder of Henry Fonda. They had to prove it, though, to put the facts together in a workable scenario. The need for a drink came often, and each time she fought it down and picked up the Big Book, reading more and more through its pages. With each reading, some peace would come to her in bits, not enough to kill the need, but enough to get through. She went to another meeting at the church and sat quietly again, listening to what others had to say. The only thing her sponsor mentioned was she should own her addiction. When it came time for her to speak, she introduced herself as Maude, an alcoholic, and passed to the next person. Claire sat across from her and smiled with encouragement.
That evening at five o’clock she went to the Donut Shop and sat down with the largest coffee they served. She laced it with sugar, for the sweet taste helped the craving. Looking up from stirring the cup, she saw Joe come in and motioned him back to the table. He took one look at her and his face dropped. She thought she must really look rough.
“I’m okay, Joe. Or at least, I’m going to be okay,” she said. “Get a cup and have a seat.”
He was back soon and sat down, holding the cup of coffee in front of him while munching a donut. She smiled, glad to see his appetite had survived. The story came out of her, all of it, from her mother’s death and a drink at night to ease the grief, all the way to the recent blackouts. It took a while to tell it all, but Joe listened quietly, sipping his coffee, not making any remarks.
“I’m a stubborn old woman and don’t like admitting I’m a drunk. But I owe you an explanation of what’s been going on the past few days. I’m sorry, Joe, for being a jerk. I hope you won’t hold it against me.”
Much to Joe’s credit, he didn’t try to pretend it was nothing. He listened to her and seemed to consider what she had said.
“Of course. You’re my partner, Maude, but you’re a friend too. I’m hurt you didn’t trust me with the truth, but I think I understand. The important thing is you’re going to be okay. I was afraid you were really sick, maybe dying from cancer. I’ve known a long time about the booze problem you have. I have some of it myself sometimes. If I can help, tell me how. Just don’t shut me out again. Okay?”
“Okay.” She sighed with relief. “Okay. Now we need to talk about work a little.”
“Sure, what did you find out?”
“The night we found Eve Devine on the tracks, someone saw a man run across the parking lot and get in a car parked alongside the tracks. He had a dog with him. The description of the man fits Buzzcut. The witness, a woman named Marge Campbell, said the man wasn’t trying to hide. She thinks he wanted to be seen.”
Joe sat quietly for a few minutes. “Do you think Dawson is really awake and scheming again?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going back out there tomorrow. I intend to see him for myself.”
“Don’t even consider going without me,” he said, and started on another donut. “I blame myself for not going with you before. We might have discovered the truth back then. By the way,” he said hesitantly, “Sheila wasn’t sincere. Her reason for wanting to meet me was to put restrictions on where I worked, get me to move to California, and make me believe we could become a happy couple again. Now, I expect she will take revenge by asking for more child support, since I don’t want her back.”
“Damn,” Maude said, breaking her no-cussing rule. The coffee cup was empty, but it was time for decaf. After making a trip to the counter, Maude turned to Joe and shook her head. “I’m sorry, partner. I was hoping she might have rethought her life some. She’s a foolish woman to let you go without making a few changes of her own.”
The coffee eased her headache, but she needed sleep more than anything. After making her excuses to Joe, she made her way home. In the car she recalled her confession, the memory sending a tinge of red climbing from neck to cheek. Thinking of the blackouts made her wonder what kind of ass she’d made of herself when the booze was doing her
thinking. Imagining the worst, she spoke to herself. “You didn’t live this long by running away from your problems, Maude Rogers. Face it down and admit it. You’re a drunk. No pretty words necessary. Tonight is going to be bad. May have to give that girl Claire a call.”
Chapter 10
The worst came around midnight, with sweat that poured from a fever dream, wetting her hair and skin, leaving a driving need for a drink. Finally the morning slugged its way through the darkness, bringing a hope of more life to come. Rising from her wet pillow, Maude dragged her tired body to the bathroom, ran water through the hateful shower, and dunked faded curls into the pulsing water. Coffee’s rich smell wafted across the steam, adding courage to an almost defeated body. She was tired and felt beaten by the need for gin. A few tears of self-pity rolled down her cheeks, mixing with the streams of water as she continued to ready herself for the day to come. Afterward, when all was silent, a careful step onto the bathroom floor led to a fluffy towel, which cuddled her headache. She wrapped herself in its warmth and comfort as the fogged mirror waited to accuse her of many past sins. Wiping a corner of the glass, she gazed into red-rimmed blue eyes. The bright light from the fixture above seemed overly harsh and unflattering. Where did all the time go? When did I get so old and cantankerous? Her thoughts were self-flagellating. She was, after all and always, her worst critic.
A few hours later, sitting at the desk alongside Joe, looking over the reports from the day before, Maude read fingerprint identification taken from the countertop of the pawnshop where the suspected murderer Phillip Mason had leaned, the swirls and lines unique to him imprinted upon on the glass. They had him there, no longer his word against Avery’s. Also, a report told her the bullet that killed Henry Fonda was shot through the barrel of an M40A3, a precision-fire weapon used by military snipers. The mystery shooter was an excellent marksman, taking out the ticket master through traffic, trees, and structures between the rifle and the train station. Maude felt it in her gut, the slight rumble produced by the weird and the crazy, the insane killers who were more than good at their job, those practitioners who honed their craft until becoming perfect. She knew the feeling; she had felt it before.
The 6:10 To Murder (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 3) Page 10