I drove out into the country, stopped and got the grip out of the trunk and took the bloody rags out of it and threw them into the woods, then I drove down a ways and threw the grip into a creek that had a little wooden bridge over it. The water wasn’t deep, but I figured it was highly unlikely anyone would think the grip had anything to do with murder.
I had kept the crowbar. Somebody was doing real detective work, somehow found out I had bought the tarp and crowbar, I could explain a paint-covered tarp being thrown away pretty easy, but why would I throw out a perfectly good crowbar?
When I unlocked my apartment door, the phone was ringing.
It was Nancy.
(36)
I miss you,” she said.
“You too. You all right?”
“I think so. I want you in my bed or me in yours.”
“You know we can’t. Not now. In a month or after you get the money, depending.”
“Walter was asking about Frank. He asked where he was. I told him he’d gone fishing.”
“Why was he asking?”
“I don’t know. I think he likes me. I mean, it’s like a little boy liking a girl in grade school. But he wonders about Frank because he thinks if I’m alone, maybe he’s going to get lucky.”
The way she said that, it sounded very rote. I guessed she was still in shock. Probably we both were. “I don’t think I like that,” I said.
“You shouldn’t. If you’re not a little jealous, then what am I worth to you?”
“Tomorrow, you call the police and report him missing. Say he was going to go fishing down at Marvel Creek. There’s a lot of Marvel Creeks, so they’ll ask where is that, and you say, ‘Not the town, the creek. He said it was nearby.’ But you don’t give them directions. You don’t know nothing, but you’re worried, because he had been drinking and you told him not to drive, but he got his gear together and went anyway. Took some beers with him. You got all that?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
“Then they’ll go look, and I bet they find the car right away and probably him too.”
“After they find him, you sure I should wait a month to get the insurance?”
“It makes it look like you’re so upset, you’re not thinking about the money. That you’re mourning, and then one day you realize you got to find out about it, and you go in and see your insurance man.”
“Yeah. I’m up at the drive-in on Friday nights lot of the time, and my insurance man, Mr. Rose, his daughter and her boyfriend come in. I see them, I always think about that insurance money and how it’s waiting there if something should happen to Frank, and now it has.”
“He had a car accident. He was drunk and drove off the bridge.”
“Right.”
“I’d say call the police pretty early tomorrow. You can tell your story about the fishing but say you thought he might not come straight home, fishing or not, ’cause he liked to do the honky-tonks, but now you’re worried. It’s been too long. That shows why you weren’t on this right away. He has some habits, like drinking late, staying out. You weren’t really concerned, because that was just his way. We got to create a story, but it needs to be simple and tied to things he really does. That way you can keep up with it.”
“I miss you.”
“You too. Just follow the script, baby, and we’ll be farting nickels through silk pajamas.”
(37)
That night I had a few drinks of the hard stuff, to take the edge off, and when I said that to myself, I remembered that’s what Mama always said: “I’m having a few just to take the edge off.”
I figured if that was true, she had liquored that edge down until it was so dull, you couldn’t cut hot butter with it. Still, I took some drinks for just the same reason, and then I went to bed.
I had a hard time sleeping even though I was so exhausted I could hardly stand up. In my head I put the Korean I had killed together with Frank, and sometimes Frank spoke Korean, and in my sort of awake/asleep situation, he would ask me something in Korean, and I kept hitting him with the crowbar saying, “What? What’s that? What you want?” Frank was just standing there taking it, and sometimes it was the Korean standing there taking it, wearing Frank’s clothes, and the Korean would say in English, “You know this is fucked up, don’t you?”
I’d say, “Yes, I know that,” and keep hitting him, holding a rifle now, using the stock, sometimes the crowbar.
When I quit thinking about that, I’d think about Dash and the birth certificate and hope that would get done, and then I’d think, Shit, this is all so stupid. I ought to get my sister and mother and go someplace far away. But what place, and how far away, and what about that goddamn insurance money and the drive-in and that fucked-up plot of land with a horse buried on it?
Then I thought about how I hated the idea of those animals just thrown out in the woods, and that was exactly what me and Nancy had done with Frank. We had thrown him out in the water in the woods, and he was a human being.
I had never felt so miserable. The Korean I had been able to justify, that was war, and it was him or me, and Frank might have had it coming, but no matter how much I told myself that, it didn’t satisfy me.
I found that I was thinking about how Nancy had spoken with me and how we talked about missing each other, but there was something dry in her voice. I chalked that up to fear. Sure, she missed me, but she missed me because she was scared. I missed her for the same reason. We were the only two people in the world that knew the terrible secret of what we had done.
My stomach did a lot of churning, but at least I didn’t throw up my cheeseburger.
(38)
When I got to work the next morning, there was a car parked out front of the office, and when I got out, the driver got out too.
I had never seen him before. He was a thin little man in a too-big but expensive suit, and he had on glasses that made his eyes look like marbles underwater. His hat hung over his face like an awning.
He was carrying a piece of paper. He smiled at me, but it was the kind of smile a frightened kid gives a grown-up he doesn’t know.
I walked over to him.
“Are you Ed Edwards?”
“I am.”
“I have some bad news and maybe a bit of good news.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Dave. He didn’t make it.”
“Didn’t make what?”
“He went in for a checkup, and they found something bad with his heart, sent him right away to the emergency room, and then he got sick when he was there, and it all got worse…and, well, he didn’t make it.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“I have this for you.”
It was a piece of paper and I read it, but it was like my eyes wouldn’t register it. Part of that was the shock of his death, part of it was dealing with the night before. “Just tell me.”
“He left you some money, and he sold the car lot.”
“Sold it? He just went in the hospital. How could he do all that?”
“It was a deal in motion. The lot over on Margin Street, the owner there, he bought it. They been hammering out the deal for a few weeks.”
“Dave was already selling out? He didn’t mention it.”
“Thought he’d be around longer. It was so quick. Family was taken care of, though. I’m sure he was going to tell you.”
I thought maybe not. Dave had been playing the game with me, working it right up until the end. I might have been like a son to him, but if that was so, he damn sure didn’t mind steamrolling his son. And then, that could have just been his line of patter, his salesmanship to keep me on to the last minute, maybe in case he got sick. Hell, he knew how bad he was. That son of a bitch.
“He left you a thousand dollars.” He handed me the paper. “You can give me the keys to here and take this paper to the bank and they’ll pay it out. It’s all set up.”
I took the paper without really thinking about it and gave the little man the keys. He ha
dn’t even said his name, and frankly, I didn’t care what it was. A thousand dollars was all right, it wasn’t chicken feed, but I felt blindsided.
I went over to the bank and cashed the check and then I went home and got gloriously drunk and went to bed, and this time I knocked that goddamn edge off good.
I slept deep.
(39)
I didn’t go to Dave’s funeral. I sent flowers.
About a week went by, and I hadn’t even looked for a job. It occurred to me the new owners of the car lot might take me on, seeing as I’d been there for so long and had so much experience and a highly successful sales record.
I figured I’d go see them about a spot on the lot, but with a thousand in the bank along with what I had already stashed, I wasn’t in any hurry. I was thinking about the insurance money.
I visited with Mama and Melinda, but I didn’t mention I had lost my job at the lot. I’d save that for when I got a new job or got taken on by the new owners at the old one until I could get the drive-in business under mine and Nancy’s new management.
I visited with Dash a lot, got Melinda’s reimagined birth certificate from him. Other than that, me and him sat around and talked about this and that and drank a lot of beer.
When I wasn’t doing that, I sat home waiting for time to go by. I thought about Nancy. I thought about big, stupid Frank and how he’d come close to killing me.
It unnerved me a little.
(40)
Two weeks out from the murder, bright and early one morning, Nancy called.
“I spoke to the police.”
“Go on, tell all of it. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“They found him.”
“Oh.”
“Someone saw the car first and then they found him down the creek, not far from the car, called it in. Cop I spoke to, a detective named McGinty, said when they saw Frank’s body, it looked as if he had crawled part of the way up the creek before he played out and died.”
“Damn. I’ll give him this. He was one hell of a beast.”
“They asked me the questions I thought they’d ask. But they asked me pretty early if I had an insurance policy on him. I told them I did, of course. They asked to look around the house, and I let them. I didn’t want to cause suspicion.”
“They’re just sniffing. Husband dies, could be the wife set it up somehow. They’re right, but that doesn’t mean they know for sure. It’s part of an investigation. They’ll eliminate you. We took care of everything pretty well.”
“Should I get a lawyer?”
“Hell no. Don’t give them any reason to think anything. You get a lawyer, they start wondering what you need one for, and then things heat up.”
“I just wondered.”
“No lawyer.”
“They said they doubted all that happened to him was a car accident. They think someone got into it with him out there, and maybe Frank was trying to get away, ran off the bridge, and whoever it was went down there and hit him with something.”
“I don’t think Frank would have tried to get away.”
“They said it could be that way, and then McGinty said, ‘Could be that someone killed him and put him in the car and tried to make it look like an accident.’”
“He said that?”
“You think I’m just fucking with you? Yeah. He said that.”
“All right. Let’s say he does think that—that doesn’t mean you had anything to do with it. It could be someone he got to dealing with out there, like the detective said. Frank could be a bad drunk. You tell them that?”
“I did.”
“Don’t give them anything new, don’t give them an excuse or a scenario of some kind. They got to work with what they have, and what they got is he’s dead and pretty apt to stay that way. They can’t pin anything on you or me.”
“They don’t know about you at all. You’re golden.”
“I don’t like the way you said that.”
“It’s the truth. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Sorry. I’m just nervous. Listen. Stick with what you know, which isn’t much. He went fishing, and he might have gone to the honky-tonks, and that’s all you know. He was all right when he left.”
“I could say he said he’d been having trouble with someone but say I don’t know who.”
“No way. That’s what I mean. Don’t start trying to fix it, because you’re trying to fix something that isn’t broken. You stick to the simple story. It’s easy to remember and it doesn’t open any doors for them. You hear?”
“Don’t make it an order.”
“It’s not an order, it’s a life-or-death fucking suggestion.”
“Okay.”
“We’re both nervous. A little snappy. But we’re all right. We are completely all right. Stay with the story, don’t embellish. They know you have an insurance payout, but don’t act like you’re all that interested in it. Let time go by, like you’re grieving and too consumed by it to think about that kind of business.”
“I do think about it.”
“So do I. But they want to see how much you’re thinking about it.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“Good. Stay with it.”
“I miss you.”
“And I miss you.”
“Sure we can’t see each other? I really feel lonely.”
“You know as well as I do that isn’t a good idea.”
“I don’t like being lonely. That’s how I got interested in you, and then it turned to something more. But it started because I was lonely.”
I thought there might be a message in that, but I tried to keep her focused. “It’s not a great way, but it’s the right way. We have to wait.”
“One other thing, Ed. Way the body looked, they aren’t going to let me cremate it. Not right away. They say the body is evidence. They got it down at the morgue.”
“All right. Nothing we can do about that. Just let them think it’s murder. As long as they don’t think you had anything to do with it, it’ll be all right. Besides, it’s not what they think. It’s what they can prove.”
“Okay, Ed. Sure. Kisses,” she said, and we hung up.
It wasn’t more than two days later when she called again. I always let her call me, not knowing who might be at her home, people wanting their animals buried or some such.
I had been on pins and needles since her last call, but I was glad to hear from her until she said, “They’re not going to pay out.”
“What do you mean?”
“The insurance people. I know you told me to wait, but what’s the difference between two weeks and a month?”
“About two weeks, Nancy. It’s two more goddamn weeks.”
“I made a decision. Two weeks was long enough, and I played it the right way. I told the guy runs the insurance agency, my agent, Rose, told him I no longer had Frank’s checks coming in from the encyclopedias, and I needed to hire someone to help me run the drive-in, the cemetery. I had to start thinking about the money.”
“Damn, Nancy.”
“Don’t be mad.”
I was mad, but I knew it was pointless. It was done, and I didn’t want to make Nancy think I wasn’t on her side. That could ruin things for me and her. Mostly me, I figured. “Tell me what they said.”
“I told them I had to check on the policy, and it turns out it wasn’t a regular life-insurance policy. It was a death-or-accident policy.”
“Well, he’s dead, and for all they know, it was an accident.”
“They don’t quite see it that way.”
“How do they see it?”
“The insurance man, Esau Rose—and there’s something about that guy. I hate that prick. Who names their kid Esau?”
“I guess his mother. Tell me what he said.”
“Rose says that the death part of the insurance means if Frank just keeled over, it would be paid out. You know, natural causes. And the accident part meant just that. Had to be an accide
nt.”
“That’s what it was. You and I know different, but they don’t.”
“They might.”
“How’s that?”
“Told you the cops thought Frank might have been murdered, and Rose thinks so too. And he controls the money. The policy is pretty specific, and he says he doesn’t think murder is considered an accident.”
“He said that?”
“He did. Went to the cops with it, the cheap bastard. Said it was the cops that were suspicious. But it’s him too. The little weasel. I hope his tweed suit itches his ass.”
“He smelled a rat?”
“He smelled us. He doesn’t know there’s an us, but he smelled us anyway. I know he doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t know about you, but I could see the wheels turning. He’s thinking a woman like me, my size, I couldn’t have done what was done to Frank. He’s thinking I had some man to help me out.”
“You don’t know any of that.”
“Don’t snap at me, Ed. It’s been a bad morning.”
“Sorry. But he doesn’t know any of that. You’re feeling guilty is all. I’m feeling that way too, but we did it and it’s done, and we have to play it cool.”
“While we’ve been playing it cool, the cops came over again. McGinty said Rose said the whole thing didn’t smell right. Rose was all smiles with me, saying how he had to check a few things out, but he’s telling the cops a different story. He’s saying to them he thinks I had something to do with it, not some outsider. I can tell by the questions the cops ask.”
“They can’t prove anything, and even if Frank was murdered, that’s an accident, by God. They’ll have to pay.”
“If they figure us out, they won’t.”
“Guess we have to worry about that later. Right now, we don’t need to concern ourselves with it. They didn’t accuse you.”
“Yeah, but the cops are asking how me and Frank got along. I lied, said okay, though we’d had a bit of trouble here and there, but didn’t all couples? That kind of stuff.”
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