"Yes."
"I don't enjoy the idea of you working on your own agenda, Jonathan. How do you expect to protect me when you keep me in the dark?"
"That's not true. I've told you nearly everything, there just hasn't been much."
She took a sip of her tepid tea and coughed and placed the cup down roughly. Tea spilled onto Anubis's back and he got up and sat behind her wheelchair, sick of getting things dropped on him. "Clarify it for me, Jonathan, if you feel that I'm not quite sharp enough to be told the full extent of what's occurred."
"You don't want it clarified."
She stared flatly at me. "What are you insinuating by that?"
"Nothing."
"Another safe, pat answer."
I reached over and held up The French Powder Mystery. "It's not as cut and dried as this, Anna. On the one hand, you're the strongest, smartest person I've ever known, but on the other you allow yourself to allow your natural nosiness to turn awful events into charming entertainment. It's not about solving riddles and puzzles. It's about digging into lives and raking muck and dealing with somebody who could put a twenty-two in a lady's ear and pull the trigger, and maybe finding out that somebody you cared about is capable of killing your parents. Yes, I want to watch over and protect you. You say Broghin being frightened disturbs you—well, how's it make you feel that I'm on the cusp of being fairly terrified myself?"
She enunciated quite carefully. "Jonathan, it is a part of life."
"Ah, only if you're lucky."
"I believe you are in sore need of clarification yourself. I read mysteries because I enjoy them. I do not spend my days fantasizing that I am a detective, or that you are my sidekick, for that matter. Do not put such emphasis on my attitude." She wheeled forward. "Rather accept your own." Almost as an afterthought she added, "And in case you've forgotten, I do happen to know something of death."
"I haven't forgotten," I said. "I'd just like to get some distance."
She kissed me on the cheek, took my dirty plate and cup and put them in her lap, then went to the kitchen. She filled the sink with soapy water and began washing the dishes and pans while I stared at her back wondering if anything had been resolved. There was a knock at the door.
I looked outside; the window was too thick with rime and snow to see anyone. I called Anubis with a firm order. Even in his most temperamental moods he'll do what I say when I use that tone of voice. He shot up and stood beside me. For perhaps the hundredth time I wished I didn't hate guns so much that I didn't own one. I opened the door.
Two adolescent girls with snow shovels stood at attention just a hair less rigid than a pair of marines. They were ready to work. One wore a perfectly fitted pink ski suit that would have made an Olympic skier proud, and the other had on white ear muffs, a powder-puff coat, cross-threaded boots and tight leather gloves. They had stern faces and red cheeks.
The first girl said, "We're going to shovel the walk for Mrs. Kendrick now, okay?"
"Okay," I said.
"It's still snowing so we might be back later to go over it again, okay?"
"Okay."
They looked confused and didn't move. The weight of the economic recession bore down on them.
"Do you want money now?" I asked. I didn't know what kind of an arrangement Anna had established with them, whether she prepaid them for the season or what.
"Yes, please," the one with ear muffs said.
I opened the storm door, took out my wallet and gave them ten bucks. The girl held it by the corner as if it were actually roadkill with a picture of Alexander Hamilton on it.
"More?" I asked.
"Yes, please," she said.
They were polite extortionists. I handed the girl in the pink ski outfit another ten. They each put the bills in identical change purses that contained no change but lots of wadded bills. The lowest denomination I saw was a twenty. The girls started shoveling the porch and ramp. They were a great deal more skilled at the job than I was, hurling shovelfuls of wet snow over their shoulders and chopping down to crack four-inch layers of ice. If they'd heard what had transpired last night they didn't let it impede their performance.
"Cripes, kids are serious nowadays."
I hopped up and sat on the kitchen counter the way I used to when I was a boy; perhaps I was trying to regain my youth when I did not have to pay two girls twenty bucks to shovel the walk, when I myself did the same to the tune of only fifty cents and felt helplessly ripped off.
"At least we now have a definite course of action," Anna told me.
"Yeah, to sell the shop and start shoveling driveways for a living."
She grinned. "Christine and Josepha do attack their chosen profession with a great deal of verve."
"They can afford to. So what's our course of action?"
"The letter may be nothing, as Deputy Tully suggested, but he admits he did not read its entire contents. Something within that note may shed a new light. We have to read it."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
She pursed her lips. "In this instance I truly believe honesty is the best policy," she said. "I will ask him. And I am confident he will tell me what he's been hiding. He was prepared to do so last night, but I couldn't help him get over the initial hurdle." She gave me a puzzled frown. "Why you decided to let Lowell wait is beyond me. I don't share your patience."
"But you've got conviviality."
"Barrels of it."
I got down from the counter and put on my coat.
Anna raised a soapy hand and pointed at me. "I suggest you let me speak with the sheriff alone, Jonathan. If you two start irritating one another even more than usual we'll never get anywhere."
"I'll leave that part of it to you, Anna. I admit you can handle Broghin much better than me. But I still have to go talk with somebody."
Maybe we'd managed to get a handhold on enough threads of the tapestry—now I had to use them, tie knots, and set a snare. It was time to start pushing harder and shove the killer out into the open, and hopefully be nowhere near when it happened.
"Who?" she asked.
"Lisa Hobbes might know if Karen was having an affair with Richie or if they had some other tie." I opened the front door and Anubis raced forward, and when I pressed him back he gave me a hurt look of betrayal. "If Lisa doesn't know then I suppose I'll have to go ask Mary Jean Resnick."
ELEVEN
Lisa and Doug Hobbes's house sprawled at the top of Saint Gabriel Court, not far from the Corner Convenience. It was a split-level ranch with intricate brick work trim, wood pattern shingles, and high tech aerials to nab cable channels from Buenos Aires. Lisa's yellow El Dorado sat shining in the driveway.
When they were newlyweds they started out in the basement of Doug's father's house and eventually bought the place from his Dad when the old man moved to Florida. Doug's father had been our Little League coach for our worst season: one and nineteen. We even lost against the Prospect County Indians for the first time in twenty-five years; Doug's dad got into a couple of brawls with steel mill workers who didn't take losing to the Prospect County Indians too well, and much to our relief that ended his dubious career as a Little League coach.
Lisa liked cats. There were three in view, wandering the yard, slinking over the chain-link fence and poking through the small doorway of the shed, straw and detris clinging to their whiskers. They lived outdoors all year round and grew thick layers of fat and fur in the winter.
I rang the bell and could hear a faint ding dong within. As I waited, two of the cats sauntered up the stoop and made figure eights around my legs, mewling loudly. I rang the bell again and only more cats came. Four of them now. I stopped ringing the bell. They smelled badly, not dirty but strangely clean, antiseptic. I didn't dislike cats but I hated to see whole packs of them. It reminded me of the unbalanced elderly ladies in the city who take in dozens of strays until the health department is finally forced to remove them.
I turned and started back to the Jeep
and the front door opened. It took Lisa about ten seconds to focus on me. Her mouth gnarled into a stunted smile. She wore baggy jeans and an incorrectly buttoned white blouse, and she looked like a brick wall had toppled on her. Her eyes were extremely red, with brutal dark circles under them. She had her hair pulled back in a messy pony tail that left as many tufts out of the rubber band as tucked in.
"Johnny," she said.
Seeing her, it hit me how wrong I was to come here and churn questions. Lisa and Karen had been close friends since before kindergarten. For them it had always been a case of opposites attracting—hushed and loud, small and tall, extrovert and introvert. Now Lisa seemed halved. They had been a proper pair counterbalancing each other. Karen had once almost knocked Doug on his ass in study hall because he'd been too shy to ask Lisa to the homecoming dance. When he finally did ask, she'd been too timid to say yes. Karen wound up having to connive a ride from Doug and virtually flinging them together on the gym floor.
Lisa watched over Karen too, who enjoyed playing devil's advocate far too much for her own good. Before she'd married Willie, her flirting had on occasion tempted too many rednecks into the fold. The summer after graduation, she cut out the back of Jackals to smoke a joint in some guy's car and a half hour later came running in bleeding from her nose and mouth, naked from the waist up. I didn't know the guy and she didn't press charges and he supposedly split for greener pastures soon thereafter. She settled down with Willie that autumn, but being the center of attention meant a lot to her. She always said she wanted to be a comedienne. And she couldn't forgo the thrill she got from wiggling smoothly under male noses and laughing so loudly the whole room was forced to turn and look.
Had she done it that night at Raimi's?
My voice was thick, the words inane. "How are you doing, Lise?"
"Come in," she said, and I walked in and shut the door. "You look full of intent. What can I do for you?" Her bottom lip gave out immediately and she started crying. We stepped close together in the foyer and hugged, and her whole body shook as though she would shatter in my arms. I muttered worthless sentiments and she nodded and sobbed. We stayed like that for a long time.
She sniffled and said, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"It's just that…"
"You don't have to explain."
It smelled antiseptic in the living room, too; she'd been dusting, mopping with detergent, polishing, washing dishes, keeping herself busy. Housewives in pain had nowhere to go but deeper into their houses. A vacuum leaned against the coffee table. Her wedding album and high school yearbook lay open on the couch. There was a box of tissues on the table. She took one and wiped her eyes and blew her nose softly.
"I want some tea," she said, laughing the way people will after choking on tears. "Would you like a cup?"
I couldn't think of anything I wanted less at the moment than tea, except maybe for decaffeinated coffee. "Yes," I said. "Please.”
“I only have herbal.”
“Whatever you're having is fine.”
“Chamomile it is."
She put on the pot, and I paged through the wedding album. I liked her gown but thought the bridesmaid dresses were garish. Only Karen looked good in hers. I opened our yearbook and scanned some of the comments Lisa's friends had written. Most of them had so many inside jokes and high school jargon they were unintelligible. I read my own remarks and didn't remember any of the things I'd been referring to.
Lisa entered with a tray of cookies, pie, and tea. She tried pouring me a cup, but her hand shook and the hot water splashed. I took the kettle from her.
She glanced down at the albums and said, "Lot of memories in those.”
“For me, too.”
“You didn't come to my wedding, did you?”
“I couldn't." She'd been married somewhere in the middle of my three-month jail term.
"Yes, that's right." She pushed some pillows aside and sat. She shoved the plate of cookies at me. "I hope you like chocolate chip. Doug doesn't, but I'm addicted and they were on sale. There are some Oreos, too, in the cupboard, if you'd like.”
“No, Lise, thanks. Please, relax."
She smiled and frowned at once, features tugging. Too much, too soon. "Well, you start on those. I'd like to freshen up, Johnny, and then we'll talk.”
“Okay," I said.
She was gone ten minutes and returned more in control of herself. The blouse had been buttoned properly and she wore a fashionable blue belt. She'd let her hair loose and brushed it into her usual style. She had on light makeup, and the color was back in her face. "I felt even more horrendous than I looked, which is really saying something. People have been calling and dropping by all morning but I didn't want to see anybody, really. I've been cleaning all day, everything. I grouted the upstairs bathroom, can you believe it? I've never bothered, and now I know it's even worse than I thought. Doug is the neatness fanatic."
"Where is he?" I asked.
"Over in Buffalo," she said. "He left yesterday afternoon to wine and dine some valuable clients."
"I thought he was manager of the men's retail store over at the mall in Prospect."
"No, Willie got him a job at Syntech eight months ago. Don't ask me what he does. He's told me but I don't understand any of his computer jargon, and I should because I'm getting left at the wayside. It started off as a hobby a couple of years ago and now he could be building a space station for all I know." She grinned. "He called twice yesterday afternoon. He usually calls in the afternoon, but not yet today. I never thought to ask him for the name of his hotel or room number. I mean, I never needed to reach him before. You're always supposed to have the name of the hotel in case of an emergency, but who actually thinks that way?"
I could think of about a million people with beepers who never liked to be out of contact for an instant.
"Lowell called and said he and that other deputy, Roy, were going to pick him up at the airport this morning. There's a blizzard in Buffalo and the flights are probably either canceled or delayed." She absently ran her fingers along the edge of the tissue box. "He's due tomorrow, and I'm sure Willie could use lots of friends soon. Not right now, but soon. I haven't phoned him yet. To tell you the truth, I'm afraid I won't be able to say anything. I'm afraid I'll make it worse."
"You won't, but I can understand." I took a sip of tea. It was like drinking diluted cough syrup.
"You're so sweet, Johnny." Her voice took on the same sense of importance it had the other night. "We're all proud of you, you know. I've never had a chance to say it to your face before, but the way you've handled yourself since your parents were killed . . . we admire what you've done, how you caught that man, and a few others like him over the years, and I know the DeGrases owe you everything."
"Lise . . ."
"You don't like talking about it, I'm sorry. So tell me, outside of the obvious, why are you here?”
“I wanted to ask some questions about Karen."
“Why?"
How to answer that: Because your murdered best friend might've been screwing a kid burglar who may have caused the death of Margaret Gallagher and...? Two people had been killed in less than a week and left on my lawn and more lives might be on the line, not the least of which being Anna's and my own. I just didn't know. The extent of how much I didn't know was intimidating. Proper etiquette and tactfulness went out the window. "It's important," I said.
"All right. What do you want to ask, Johnny?”
“You know Karen was found on my grandmother's yard."
"Yes. My God, it's terrible. Just like that boy."
I nodded. "His name was Richie Harraday. Have you ever heard of him before?"
"No."
"Karen never mentioned him?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"It's not a difficult question," she said. "I'm sure she never mentioned him." Lisa frowned. "Unless you mean after this Richie guy was already dead. Then, well, you heard her, she wa
s talking about your dog eating him and stuff ..."
"I meant before. I was just wondering if she knew him. If she ever mentioned him."
"No, never. But why would… ?" Lisa paused. She reached for a cookie and absently nibbled off a few crumbs and then looked at it as if she'd been eating raw sewage and put it down. Her voice shrank further and tears filled her eyes but tenaciously held on and didn't fall. "Why would he kill her? And like that, in the same manner? On your lawn?" She stared at me. "What do you have to do with this, Johnny?"
~ * ~
Anna's van was gone and Anubis was still giving me dirty looks. I put on my sweats to take him to the park when I decided to try Jim Witherton again. He was the only person somehow related to Richie Harraday's murder who I hadn't spoken to. Out on the lawn, Anubis sniffed at the spot where Karen's corpse had been found so close in time and place to Richie's and then searched my face for answers. He kept hoping, and when he realized I had none he went back to sniffing. I tugged him on and we jogged up the block. I rapped sharply on Jim's storm door, and it nearly fell off the same way the Bubricks' had. The windows were dark with heavy drapes and yellowed shades, the kind of decor only a confirmed bachelor would ever choose, or not having chosen, still live with because it didn't matter enough.
Jim answered the door wearing a burgundy terrycloth robe and insulated white socks with holes in them. His toenails were sharp enough to fend off a wolf. His black hair hung in lengthy ringlets to the middle of his back. He was freshly shaven and smelled of Aqua Velva. He had a half-eaten piece of buttered toast in his hand—edges daintily cut off—and after he finished swallowing said, "Jon."
"Sorry to bother you, Jim."
He had one of those small smiles that started and ended at one corner of his mouth. "No bother at all, believe me. I'm kind of glad you stopped by. I was just wasting the day before my shift. Come on in. I don't think that dog likes me."
The Dead Past Page 12