Lifeline

by Gerry Boyle

  Safe sex.

  I lay on my back so that I wouldn’t bump my stitches. Roxanne was gentle as a nurse and then not so gentle, her body moving above me in the shadows. And then she lay beside me and said she loved me even though I was as scarred as an old tomcat.

  “But that’s where the similarity ends,” Roxanne whispered.

  “That’s right,” I said, but even at that moment, I thought of Donna and wondered if I really was capable of straying.

  “No,” I said to myself.

  “No what?” Roxanne said.

  “No way,” I said.

  Roxanne left early the next morning. It was Friday and she had to be in Cumberland County District Court at nine for a custody hearing for some poor little kid who didn’t get fed much, or often. Roxanne said she’d come back that night, that I needed her. I didn’t disagree. We said good-bye and she held me again, briefly, and then I watched her from the window as she got in her car, adjusted her skirt and seat belt, and pulled out, her face already full of resolve.

  She was tougher than me in a lot of ways. But I had more scars.

  I turned from the window and the house already seemed empty. It occurred to me that I needed Roxanne more than I admitted, that this separation was not going to work out. Then I tried to see myself sitting on the deck at Roxanne’s condo, waving to passing cabin cruisers. That would not work out either. I decided to think about something easier, like breakfast.

  It was another warm sunny day, and I ate out on the bench. Toast with Mary Varney’s homemade apple butter. Orange juice and Irish tea and the rifle leaning in the corner. I sat and sipped and then a shadow went over and I got a glimpse of a hawk, big with bands across the tail. It disappeared over the trees, heading in the direction of the marsh.

  “Red-shouldered or broad-winged?” a voice said.

  I turned.

  “Red-shouldered, because the bands are dark,” I said.

  “When I was a kid, farmers around here used to shoot them on sight,” Clair said. “It was all small farms around here then. They grew vegetables for canneries, had a few cows. It was a nice life and then it just disappeared.”

  “That’s sort of a shame.”

  “Like a lot of things.”

  “You got that right,” I said. “But then there’s always Mary’s apple butter to look forward to.”

  “Not if she gives it all to you,” Clair said.

  He stood on the edge of the deck and looked out at the woods. There were wood chips at the top of his boots and blotches of sweat on the back of his shirt.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been cutting alone,” I said.

  “Just bucking up some wood right behind the house. If anything happened I’d have time to crawl in and draw up a will.”

  “I’ve been thinking along those lines myself.”

  “Strange doings in the big city?” Clair asked, still looking away.

  “A little bit.”

  I told him about quitting the job. The bar and the porn shop. My ride with Leaman and his aides. I asked him if he wanted to see my stitches and he said no.

  “Sounds like a full day,” Clair said.

  “I was ready for a beer.”

  “Where’s this Leaman guy now?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Don’t you want to find out?”

  “I suppose I’d better.”

  “Before he finds you. If you’re all that stands between him and a twenty-year prison term, he might want to renew your acquaintance.”

  “We have a lot to talk about,” I said, finishing my tea.

  “I’d shoot him on sight.”

  “There’s something to be said for the direct approach. And Roxanne’s coming back. At least for the weekend.”

  “Come up to the house,” Clair said. “Why don’t you stay at the house? Mary’d like to cook for somebody besides me.”

  I thought of Leaman and Jeff. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of them as much last night. It was all becoming too normal, and that was dangerous.

  “Might take you up on that,” I said.

  “What are you going to do today?”

  “Go into town and wander around.”

  “Must be nice,” Clair said. “A man of leisure.”

  “It has its moments.”

  “So who should be here while you’re off gallivanting?”

  “Roxanne tonight. State cops might stop by. Last night it was detectives in an unmarked black Chevy. Leaman and his buddies had an old beater, loud exhaust, mostly primer black. This reporter kid, Archambault, he drives a beat-up red Toyota. I guess that’s about it.”

  “I’ll keep a weather eye out,” Clair said.

  “Don’t shoot the Fuller Brush man.”

  “Just a warning shot over his head.”

  “Promise?” I said.

  Clair went back to work and I did too, putting the rifle in the trunk and the cartridges in the glove box. It was eight thirty when I pulled into the parking lot behind the Kennebec police station, took a quick look around, and went inside. The dispatcher was peering at a computer screen. I knocked on the bulletproof glass and she didn’t look up. I banged harder and she jumped. I smiled and asked for Officer Lenny.

  “On the road,” she said.

  “North or south end?” I asked.

  “South, out to the interstate. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “No,” I said. “Unfortunately, no.”

  l went back out to the car. There was antifreeze on the ground under the front bumper, a small greenish puddle. I made a mental note to buy a gallon and top off the radiator. I made a mental note to ask the state cops about my truck, too.

  The interstate ran along the west side of Kennebec’s outskirts, through the last vestiges of dairy farms, past dreary prefab warehouses. There was a shopping center out there, a couple of car dealers. The road was pocked with mini-malls, where businesses came and went as they exhausted the demand for things like five-dollar T-shirts and cheap tools. But it was a long, straight stretch, and the cops sat and nabbed drivers as they sped from mini-mall to mini-mall in pursuit of one more piece of junk.

  I figured I’d find Lenny here someplace, radar gun in hand. And I did, beside a sign for a water-bed store that was going out of business. I pulled in beside him. He motioned for me to come over and get in. I did.

  “I just tried to call you,” he said.

  “What about?”

  “We haven’t found Leaman.”

  “Were you thinking he might speed by?” I said.

  Lenny looked at me.

  “Oh, we have to do this. A half hour a shift. But everybody’s looking for him.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

  “This isn’t going to make you feel better either. We found one of his old girlfriends. She said he told her he wasn’t going back to prison, and if he did, he’d take you down first.”

  “Does that follow? Logically, I mean?”

  “Not really,” Lenny said. “But you’ve got to remember this isn’t any rocket scientist we’re dealing with here.”

  “But he has a doctorate in sociopathy. Should I be worried?”

  “If you’re the worrying type. Anybody at home to worry about?”

  “Yeah, sometimes,” I said. “You think he’d come all the way out to Prosperity?”

  “Doubt it. But I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it.”

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  “Yeah,” Lenny said.

  “I had two state police detectives over last night. I should have asked them to stay.”

  “What’d they want?” Lenny said, perking up.

  “To tell me to get out of the way. They said they could nail Jeff Tanner without me.”

  “Yeah, off the record, I heard they’re really focusing on him now. I guess he admitted trying to choke her.”

  “So what are they waiting for?”

  “I heard he says she was fine when he left
. They’re waiting for the ME’s report on something. Time of death, I think. They’ll work on him some more and he’ll go away for a long time.”

  “Why not arrest him now?”

  “ ’Cause then he gets a lawyer. Right now he’s just going around town shooting his mouth off. And he won’t run. He’s a homeboy too.”

  I looked out the window at the passing cars and trucks. Thought for a minute.

  “What if he’s telling the truth?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if Donna was fine when he left? What if somebody else killed her after he left?”

  “Hell of a coincidence. Two people trying to strangle the same woman on the same night?”

  “But what if they did?”

  “Then Jeff has to hope that the real murderer feels guilty and turns himself in.”

  “And that’s a long shot,” I said.

  “Your theory is even longer.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And I thought you wanted to nail this guy.”

  “I do,” I said. “I really do.”

  Our conversation killed the last of Lenny’s half hour, and he sped off in the direction of town. He had my number, he said. He’d call if anything happened. I said I’d do the same. He said he hoped I heard from him first, and I think he meant it. I thought about that for a minute and then, when his cruiser was out of sight, I pulled out and went the other way.

  I drove out to the shopping center by the interstate ramps, where the signs stood sixty feet high to lure unwary motorists off the highway. I turned in under the sign that said LINCOLN/MERCURY in ten-foot letters and pulled my heap around to the side of the building.

  This was the only place in town where a car salesman, like Donnie, would be driving a thirty-thousand-dollar Jeep. The showroom was carpeted and dark, with country-western music coming from somewhere in the ceiling, and cars parked here and there with their doors open, trunks propped up like coffin lids. I felt as though I should kneel before one of the gleaming idols, but before I could, a young blond guy hurried from one of the little rooms off to the side, his hand out and his smile open wide, like an incision in his face.

  “Hi there,” he said.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Which of these cars can I interest you in?” he said, grinning madly.

  I turned toward the lot.

  “That gray Lincoln out there, but I promised I’d talk to Donnie.”

  His smile hung limply.

  “Donnie. Oh, sure. Donnie is . . . Donnie is with somebody right now. If you’d like to look around a bit, he’ll be—”

  “Is that Lincoln unlocked?”

  He looked.

  “Should be. Yeah.”

  “I’ll just sit myself down in there, then. Enjoy the leather.”

  “Oh, it’s got that,” Blondie said. “That automobile is loaded. And I mean loaded.”

  I smiled at the thought.

  “I’ll be out there.”

  “I’ll send him right out.”

  I sat in the front passenger seat of the Lincoln and looked at all the buttons. There were many of them, and the seat was very comfortable. Not only that, but this car probably didn’t drip antifreeze.

  By the digital clock on the dash, I waited six minutes. The showroom door swung open behind me and then the driver’s door. I opened the glove box and fiddled with the makeup mirror long enough for him to get in the car and close the door.

  And then I turned and looked into Donnie’s smiling face.

  “How’s the vacuum cleaner business?” I said.

  23

  Donnie’s smile did a little flip and turned into a scowl.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’d scowl too if I had to wear that silly pink jacket,” I said. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  “What’s this? Hey, I don’t have time to waste on—”

  “I know. You’re very busy. There’s a line fifty yards long of people who want to buy this thirty-eight-thousand-dollar car. And then there’s me, who just wants to talk.”

  Donnie reached for the door handle.

  “And if I don’t get to talk, I’m going to go in and ask for the manager and demand to know why that salesman refused to talk to me about this car. And when you try to explain, he’s going to say he wants his people to leave their screwed-up personal lives at home. And I’ll say I’m going to go across the road and buy a Cadillac.”

  I looked away from him.

  “Start this boat and let’s go,” I said.

  Donnie paused for a moment and then slowly turned the key. The motor was out there somewhere, and it started softly. He put the car in gear and we went through the lot and out on the main drag. I pointed to the interstate ramp and he turned onto it, accelerating up onto the highway.

  “This thing sure is quiet,” I said. “How’s the gas mileage?”

  He pursed his lips.

  “So talk,” he said.

  “You weren’t too happy last time I saw you. You were angry and threatening. Of course, it was hard to take you seriously in those elevator cowboy boots.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to continue that conversation we had. I believe you said something like, ‘That bitch isn’t going to bleed me dry.’ Other things that might be construed as threatening to your ex-wife.”

  I looked at him.

  “Construed by the police, I mean. The ones who are trying to decide who killed Donna.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. What the hell are you trying to pull? And who the hell—”

  “I told you,” I said. “I want to talk. About Donna.”

  “I got nothing to say about her.”

  “Not even to express your condolences? A little regret?”

  “Who the hell—”

  Donnie choked it back. Gave a disgusted little snort.

  “What the hell do you want to know, anyway?”

  “I just want to chat,” I said as the car cruised along silently. “Did you talk to Donna after we met?”

  “No, and she never called me back, either. If she got the message.”

  “She got the message. I told her some jerk had stopped by, but the good news was that he’d left.”

  “You got an attitude problem,” Donnie said. “‘I don’t know what your problem is, but—”

  “So you didn’t see her?”

  “Nope.”

  “You didn’t call her?”

  “No. I got other things to do, you know? I can’t just chase her all day.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He stared straight ahead.

  “So what were you going to do to her? You were pretty hot that day.”

  “Yeah, well, you’d be hot too. Goddamn state attached my wages. And then the goddamn IRS gets in on it. They want their piece, too. I mean, jeez. They’re gonna destroy me for eighteen thousand bucks. Lien on my house. I’m gonna have to sell my boat, my snowmobiles, or something to get these guys off my back. I mean, for this one little kid.”

  “Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  “No, and you know what’s—”

  He caught himself. I grinned.

  “So what were you gonna do about it?”

  “To Donna, you mean? Wasn’t anything I could do. Something happens to Donna, I still pay. Don’t make no difference. As long as the kid is around, I have to pay.”

  “So what were you going to do about it?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe I was just spouting off,” Donnie said.

  “Maybe you weren’t.”

  “Listen, McMorrow, or whatever the hell your name is. I’m not some numbskull. I got a lot to lose if I get in trouble. Job, car, insurance.”

  “You won’t need a car if you were the one.”

  I turned and watched him closely, especially the eyes.

  “You think I’m gonna throw all this away on her? That bitch was nothing but trouble from the day—”
/>
  “Don’t call her that,” I said. “Don’t call her that again.”

  “What are you gonna do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Now, tell me what you were doing that night.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I asked. Because maybe when I told the cops about you stopping by I didn’t get into all the gory details. Maybe I need to go over it with them again.”

  The Lincoln sped across the bridge over the Kennebec River. I didn’t look. I didn’t take my eyes off Donnie’s face.

  “Myself and my girlfriend, we had dinner at my place, out on the lake. We went out on the boat, had a few drinks, whatever. Then came back and watched part of a movie.”

  “What movie?”

  “Lethal Weapon. The second one.”

  “How was it?”

  “Not bad. I mean, I like all that kind of stuff.”

  “What about your girlfriend? What’s her name?”

  “What’s her name? Angie.”

  “She likes that kind of movie?”

  “She don’t care,” Donnie said. “I mean, she’s agreeable.”

  “Which is why you have her around.”

  He looked at me.

  “One of the reasons,” he said slowly. “She’s a whole different ball game from Donna. I mean, whining about everything I did.”

  “Angie lets you call the shots, right?”

  “Yeah,” Donnie said, his hands on the wheel, rings on his fingers. “I mean, I got a right. I pay the bills. I got her driving a brand-new Jeep, power goddamn sunroof, CD, the works. She don’t have to do nothing.”

  “Which is what you wanted Donna to do, right?”

  “Right. But she had to get in my face about every little thing. I mean, who was she when I met her? Some little blonde who couldn’t even keep a checkbook.”

  “So you married her.”

  “Hey, she was good in the—”

  “Don’t even say it,” I said. “So you watched your movie with Angie and then you went to bed and that’s all you did.”