She slapped away at the paint, her body responding to every sensation of wind and sun as if they were loving hands on her skin. By the time she had showered and dressed, she felt as though her body was made up of vibrating strings.
Schultz banged on the door for the third time. “Open up, son, it’s me,” he said loudly. Finally he heard the snick of the safety bolt, and the door opened to the width of a security chain. Rick, bleary-eyed, peered through the opening.
“Oh, it’s you, Pop. Come on in.”
The apartment smelled of stale beer and staler pizza. There was clutter everywhere, from old newspapers and magazines to empty beer cans. An old TV was playing but the sound was turned off. Schultz shook his head in disgust. He came into the living room, looked around for a place to sit, and ended up shoving a pile of dirty laundry off the couch and onto the floor to make room.
“Didn’t I tell you to get this place cleaned up?”
“Some of this stuff belongs to Frank. He’ll come back for it sometime, so I’ve got to leave it here.” Frank was the roommate that Schultz had kicked out.
“Put it out in the hall. Christ, you could at least take the trash out.”
“Yeah. Well, I’ve been busy.”
Schultz didn’t respond to the provocation. He was here to deal with something more important than sanitation. “So how’s the job going?”
“OK, I guess. I don’t see what good it’s doing me, though. The pay is really crappy.”
Rick’s trial was two months away. In the meantime, released on bond, he was working as a dishwasher in a downtown restaurant, on the evening shift, from six until midnight. Schultz had insisted that he get a job to pay his own way as a condition of bailing him out. Rick had decided that he would rather be a dishwasher and live in his own apartment than accept the hospitality of the state of Missouri until the trial date. Now that Rick’s mother was out of the picture, he didn’t have a lot of choices. She had been forking over a substantial part of Schultz’s take-home pay so that her little darling didn’t have to get a job. That had left him with enough leisure time to get himself in trouble. Since she had split, apparently the little darling was going to have to fend for himself.
“Of course it’s crappy. The good it’s doing is getting you to show some responsibility for yourself.”
Rick clearly didn’t have a good opinion of that novel concept, but at least he kept it to himself.
“Want a beer?” Rick said. “How’s Mom? Have you talked to her lately?”
“I’ll take a soda, if you’ve got anything that isn’t diet. Your mom is living with your Aunt Claire in Chicago. She doesn’t have a whole lot to say to me. Or to you, either. It looks like your cash cow has dried up.”
“I guess you two aren’t going to get back together.”
“Nope.”
“Mom doesn’t want to talk to me?”
“Nope again. Actually, you were the one thing we managed to talk about on the phone. She said that she had made plenty of mistakes with you in the past, covering for you, sticking up for you, and accepting your excuses. She thought she was doing the right thing by you, but you repaid all of her tolerance and support by getting in serious trouble with the law. She said it was my turn to see what I could do with you.”
Rick took this complacently, as if he expected it. That led Schultz to think he must have known that Julia would eventually realize that she was doing more harm than good with her approach. Perhaps there had already been the rumblings of trouble between them.
Rick opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer for himself. “Cream soda’s all I have. Frank used to drink that stuff.”
“Now you see why I kicked him out. I’ll pass.”
“What’s new on my case?”
Here it comes. “Nothing.”
The tension in the room moved up a notch, to somewhere just below open warfare.
“Did you talk to that guy Ricardo? Maybe he didn’t see what he thought he saw?”
“Ricardo’s a good officer. He saw you peddling dope, and that’s exactly what you were doing.”
Rick smiled ingratiatingly. “You know it and I know it and Ricardo knows it, but the judge, he doesn’t have to know it, right?”
“Wrong. You’re getting sent up for this, son.” The muscles in Schultz’s shoulders tensed. Rick was twenty-five years old, fast and strong. His chest and arms would frighten away all but the most determined mugger. He had a narrow waist and a flat abdomen, and he liked to show it off by wearing cutoff T-shirts that bared his belly. His hair was brown and thick as Schultz’s had been up until about the age of thirty, when his hair had thinned drastically and turned mostly gray—a double whammy, all in the space of a single year. Rick had the same brown eyes, too, so that looking into his eyes was like looking into a mirror for Schultz, except for the difference wrought by years of experience with the sadness and madness of the world.
Schultz wasn’t sure he could take him, not with his legs like this. He studied his son’s face, saw disbelief.
“You’re kidding, right? You don’t mean I’d actually go to jail?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. You’ll do a few months, maybe six.” Schultz kept his voice level and calm. Rick was starting to raise his, as anger spread over his face like a summer thunderstorm over Kansas prairie.
“My dad’s a cop, and I’m going to jail,” he said, sarcasm twisting his mouth. “You don’t even care enough about me to fix this, to keep me out of prison. You bastard!”
Rick swung his arm, and Schultz started to rise from the couch. Too slow. Too slow. The beer bottle that Rick had been holding went flying by Schultz’s face and crashed into the wall behind him. His face livid, Rick aimed his fist at Schultz’s midsection just as Schultz got to his feet. Schultz took the punch, yielded to it, absorbed it, felt himself double over as pain shot through his gut. He braced his legs and came up fast, flexed his right arm, then punched it forward so that the heel of his hand connected squarely under Rick’s chin. Rick’s head snapped back and he struggled for balance. Schultz drew a deep breath and moved in close, grabbing Rick’s arm and twisting it forcefully behind his back. From years of experience, he knew exactly how much pressure to apply to keep the pain going without popping the shoulder joint. He leaned close, his lips a couple of inches from Rick’s ear.
“You listen to me, you little shit,” he said in a cold whisper, “Papa’s not going to fix things for you anymore, and Mama’s not going to kiss it and make it better. It’s over. You break the law, you pay. When you get out, I’ll still be here and I’ll make sure you behave like Joe Citizen.” He pushed Rick’s elbow a little higher, eliciting a groan. “I’m gonna ride you. I’ll sit on your ass for as long as it takes. You may not know it now, but that’s what caring about you means.”
He shoved Rick away from him, hard, and the young man fell to the floor. “Damn, that felt good,” Schultz said. “I should have done that ten years ago.”
“You bastard!” Rick spat out. “You bastard.”
“Well, son, at least your stay in jail will do wonders for your vocabulary.” Schultz turned and left, slamming the door behind him before Rick could see the tears building in the corners of his eyes.
CHAPTER 26
PAULEY MAC DROVE HOME from the diner, stopping once at a grocery store for some fresh green beans. He wondered where the poor limp things were grown. He wouldn’t have real fresh green beans from his garden until the end of July.
At home, he opened a piece of newspaper on his kitchen table and prepared the green beans, snapping off one end, pulling the string down the length of the bean like a little zipper, and then snapping off the other end with the string attached. He removed the strings from all the beans first, then methodically went back and broke them into one inch pieces. It had been one of the first chores he did for Ma, and he was good at it, patient and precise. When he finished, he gathered up the corners of the newspaper and carried it out to the compost can. There
Pauley Mac, with his eye for detail, noticed something unusual.
There were some maggots outside the can, on the ground. Most of them were already dried up from exposure to the afternoon sun, but some were still wiggling. He wondered how that could be. Maggots didn’t leave their dark, wet, food-rich surroundings easily. They were not the type of creatures to make pilgrimages. Shrugging, he lifted the lid and inspected the maggots crawling on the under surface. Experimentally he shook the lid gently. The maggots clung on securely. He tapped the lid against the side of the can, and some fell onto the ground. Dog smeared them into the pavement with his shoe.
So someone had opened his compost can. Why? Today was trash day in the neighborhood. There were empty rolling trash cans at the curbs of most nearby houses. Maybe the trash collector had walked down his driveway and opened the can, had seen that it wasn’t regular trash, and had replaced the lid. Doubtful. He couldn’t imagine a trash collector going out of his way, actually walking down a driveway, to get at the cans. In the South, maybe, but not in the St. Louis area.
Puzzled, he dumped the contents of the newspaper into the can, put the lid on tightly this time, and started back inside. Abruptly he returned and yanked the lid from the other can. The inside looked ordinary to him, but something was off about it. The trash was sort of fluffy, not settled the way it should be. He distinctly remembered pressing down with the bottom of the wastebasket the last time he took out the kitchen trash. What could anyone be after in his trash? It’s not like there were any heads in there or anything.
Pauley Mac boiled his green beans and ate a huge bowl of them with about a half a stick of butter melted on top. He sat at his table, shoveling in the beans in large forkfuls and thinking about his trash cans. He let his thoughts drift, let other voices have their say, and nearly gagged when something occurred to him.
He had seen Millie and the bitch talking, leaning together like two stalks of corn in a shock, their voices too low to overhear. Then there was the way Millie looked at him after the bitch left. Something was up. He knew with certainty that the bitch had been here, to his house. She had looked in his trash cans, looked at his private things, even if they were cast-offs.
Play time, slay time, ditch the bitch, chop off her head, good and dead.
He had to get rid of her, and soon, no matter how risky it was. He took his bowl to the sink and scrubbed it over and over, listening to an internal chorus of suggestions of what to do with Doctor Penelope Fucking Gray. Underneath the babble, he felt a quiet presence, a strength, and he knew it was the Armor woman, damn her to hell and back.
CHAPTER 27
PJ ADMIRED THE BACK yard of the house. The flower bed looked cheerful, and in a few weeks the transplanted marigold, phlox, and vinca plants would be covered with blooms. There was still a section of the rear of the house that needed painting. Because of her trip to Hampton’s house, she hadn’t had time to finish the rear wall. The ladder and paint supplies were neatly stowed, waiting for her next effort. Now that the letters painted by the killer were gone, she could get Thomas to help her with the rest of the work. She hadn’t wanted to involve him in the cleanup.
She got in her car, checked the map for the third or fourth time, then pulled out of the driveway. There was a stop she needed to make before hopping on Highway 40 to West County. She went to a neighborhood drug store, the kind that was supposedly driven out of business years ago but still thrived in South St. Louis. Mrs. Bell was working the counter today; Mr. Bell waved at her from the stock room. Mrs. Bell greeted her by name and didn’t blink an eye when she checked out her purchase, a package of condoms. PJ wondered what other secrets the Bells kept and whether they went home at night and traded gossip about the neighborhood residents: who’s buying hemorrhoid cream, denture powder, men’s hair coloring, pads for incontinence. Now PJ’s sexual exploits were fair game, but only between the two of them. The Bells knew they would lose customers if they blabbed.
The fact that she was wearing a dress, and a dressy black one at that, surely had not escaped the Bells’ notice. PJ had three evening dresses, but two of them wouldn’t accommodate the extra twenty pounds she carried around since the divorce. She thought back over her coffee cake breakfast, the bacon and milkshake she had eaten for lunch, and shook her head in resignation. She was eating to fill an emotional need, and she knew that sometime she would have to stop it and get back to exercising. It wasn’t her appearance which worried her but her health. She knew Merlin would say that she should live with it. But she did want to make a change, just not right this minute. She wasn’t ready to give up the comfort that food provided and let it go back to being just nourishment.
The dress had thin straps and a silk sheath with a loose layer of chiffon over it. The sheath draped loosely from the bust line, just slamming her hips. Her chestnut hair fell in large waves to her shoulders and felt like an herbal-scented cloud around her face. When she had checked the mirror before leaving, she thought that the gray mixed into her hair was not very noticeable—not tonight. Her day’s work outdoors had left her face with pleasant rosy accents. Underneath the dress she was wearing black panties and no bra or slip. Her breasts had not yet given in to gravity, and were the best feature of an otherwise unremarkable body. She took one hand off the wheel and rewarded each of her nipples with a few slow circles of her fingertips.
It might turn out to be an interesting evening.
When Mike opened the door, she could see the surprise on his face as he took in the way she was dressed.
They worked side-by-side in the kitchen, preparing dinner. She washed and tossed the salad, he layered the lasagna, stacking noodles, sauce, spinach, and ricotta and parmesan cheeses. As she tore the lettuce with her hands, she studied him surreptitiously. His strikingly bald head shone under the track lights over the kitchen counter. He was dressed more casually then she, wearing gray cotton slacks, the easy-fitting kind with pleats in the front, and a white cotton short sleeve shirt. There was that softness around his middle that she had noticed before, but who was she to complain?
When the lasagna was in the oven, they relaxed with a glass of red wine. Mike sat at one end of the couch and she took the other. Kicking off her shoes, she sat sideways, stretching her legs out on the couch toward him. They talked lightly of things from their past, drawing upon their common experiences with computers to draw them together in other ways.
Mike had prepared a beautiful table, with a white linen tablecloth, candles, and flowers in a small crystal vase at each place setting. The meal came off perfectly, with the scents of freshly-baked rolls and garlic and basil serving as an appetizer.
PJ guiltily realized she hadn’t thought about the murders in hours. She wondered what the results of the blood test would show. Thinking about it now, surrounded by good food and wine and excellent company, it seemed unreal to her that she had actually gone to Hampton’s house, had seen the maggots, and stood exposed in his driveway going through his trash. She had been in a different level of awareness then, with danger whispering in her ears and throbbing in her blood—not something she ordinarily experienced in front of her computer. She thought of Schultz, and wondered how he could contain all those moments in his own life. He was actually a far larger person than he seemed, like a kitten whose long, frightening shadow at sunset revealed the true nature of the wild feline inside.
They piled the dishes in the sink and Mike said he would clean up just a bit and leave the rest for later. He suggested she go into the living room and relax, he would join her shortly.
That sounded good to her. She liked a man who knew his way around the kitchen.
On the couch, she leaned back and closed her eyes, fantasizing, letting a fantasy play out as though it were projected on the insides of her closed eyelids:
They sat side by side, thighs touching. He reached up to stroke her cheek. His gentle fingers felt as though they were leaving glowing tracks on her skin.
>“Penny…” Mike said. His voice see
med to come from that place deep inside where both love and desire dwelled in a man’s body. She turned her face up to him, and he pressed his lips against hers gently, then covered her eyes, her cheeks, her chin with soft kisses. “Penny, I…”
>“Sshhh,” she said, placing her finger across his lips. “It’s all right, I want you too.” She kissed him fiercely, and felt his passion igniting under her questing hands and tongue. He tentatively reached for her breasts, moving his hand lightly over the black chiffon. His touch released the cravings that had been building in her all day, and her body was flooded with longing, her skin felt as though it were radiating sparks. Murmuring his name, she pulled away from his embrace and rose to her feet in front of him. She grasped the hem of her dress and lifted it up and over her head, and stood before him in her black panties.
>He reached for her, putting his hands on her waist, and pulled her closer to him as he sat. Then he leaned forward and rested his forehead lovingly and gratefully against her bare stomach.
The phone rang, yanking PJ rudely out of her sensuous cocoon. Mike answered it in the kitchen. She couldn’t make out what was said, but the conversation was short. He came into the living room wiping his hands on a dish towel. She could tell by the look on his face that something was up. She sat up straight.
“Anything wrong?” she asked. His face was serious.
“That was my daughter Carolyn on the phone. I need to go pick her up. We’ve got this contract.”
“Contract?”
“If she ever gets into something she doesn’t like, at a party or on a date or anywhere, I’ll come and get her immediately, no questions asked. And we won’t discuss it until the next day.”
“That sounds like a wonderful way to handle things. Gives her a safety net and keeps communication open, too.”
“She’s only called one other time, and that one was pretty bad…” He was already heading for the kitchen again, evidently to go out the door to the garage and leave in his car. Then he turned and came back to PJ, who was standing in the living room. “I’m sorry about this. You’re welcome to come along if you want.”
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