Homer bit off the end of the Tums wrapper, spit it over his shoulder.
“Your Krispy Krunch friend here weren't so lucky.” He popped a pair of white tablets into his mouth, crushing them between his teeth. “Don't push it.”
And Pickett didn't, he remained silent.
Homer chewed slowly and thoughtfully for a moment. Then he swallowed hard, looked down at the ground and spat. “Where you staying?”
Pickett told him.
“Well you go on back there and stay. I'm tired of thinking bout you, right now—shoot, I'm tired of looking at you. Now get outta here.” Homer wheeled around and stalked off. Over his shoulder, he said: “Stick tight, Skeeter. We'll set up some shifts and get some relief out here later.” He stepped over the tape and disappeared into the shadows.
Skeeter stood in silence, looking at the dark space within the fluorescent tape. “Aint been this much action around here since that sink-hole. Swallowed up two blocks a down town and a Porsche dealership.” He was older than he looked from a distance. He was tall and wiry, but had the weathered face of a middle-aged farmer. He looked over at Pickett, who was looking down at the ground.
“He pretty rough on you, huh?”
“Nah. I probably earned it.”
“Don't pay Homer no never mind. He's just upset. Bout all this business, you know. Jeez, who aint.” Skeeter slid a couple of bony fingers into his shirt and scratched his stomach. “Two murders in a week. Shi-it.”
“Three.”
“Huh?”
Pickett glanced up at Skeeter absently. “Nothing. Forget it.” He stepped out of the ring of tape. “Who called it in?”
“Manager. The lady lives in one of the other units. She's at a movie or something and comes back late. Ol' Fido needs a walk, but it's raining by then so she watches herself a little Carson—till the rain stops, y'know—then she takes the mutt out for a leak. Well…” Skeeter was warming up to the good part.
“Yeah?”
“Well, her ol' dog goes bananas, y'know what I mean, and she damn near falls on the body. Then she high-tails it back to her place and calls the office. It's funny…”
Pickett glanced up as though it didn't sound funny to him at all. “What?”
“Well, the sheriff—he was up here right before the storm, y'know, looking for her. The corpse, I mean. Of course she weren't a corpse then. I guess. Anyhow, he got the address from the place she worked.” Skeeter smiled and shook his head. “Must've been right about when she was getting it out back. Never found the gun, though.”
Pickett shrugged. “Might not been one. A wound like that… Coulda been a lot of things. Won't know till after the post mortem.”
“Uh-uh. A gun. The woman saw a gun, a little silver one, laying next the body. Least she said she did.”
“Where is it?”
Skeeter chuckled and threw up his hands. “Who knows? In her mind, proly. Least there weren't no gun when Homer and Singleton got here.”
“She do anything with it?”
“Nah. She said the kid took it.”
“Christ. What kid?”
Skeeter laughed. “It's something aint it?”
“Goddamn it, Skeeter!”
Skeeter's face fell and he straightened like a buck-private.
Sheriff Beane puffed out of the darkness. “I gotta good mind to leave you here all night. Shoot. Think you can keep your eyes open and your mouth shut long enough for me to get Franklin back here? Huh, think you can handle that?”
“Yessir. I—” “Save it.” Homer pointed to Pickett. “You. Com'ere.”
Pickett followed the sheriff to the front of the bungalow.
“Wait here.” Homer went inside.
Only two cruisers were left now. A deputy leaned against the wall and smiled at Pickett knowingly. A moment later, another stuck his head through the door and motioned Pickett inside.
The room was just as he'd left it, except that the waitress uniform had joined the terry robe at the foot of the bed. Homer stood behind the bed, leaning with his back against the wall, looking at Pickett. A middle-aged woman with a puffy white face and unnaturally red hair sat primly on the bed. She smoothed a green print dress down over her knees as Pickett walked in, and looked back at the Sheriff.
Homer gestured toward Pickett with his head. The redheaded woman looked at Pickett, squinting a little, and shook her head. “No, Sheriff, I am quite certain. The man I saw was much younger—and not so tall. No, he couldn't have been much over twenty. If that.” She put two small white hands to her cheeks and closed her eyes. “Is there anything more, Sheriff. I'm very tired.”
“Just a minute more, Ma'am. Can you think of anything else? Like you ever see the kid before?”
“Well, I don't know… Perhaps. Yes. Yes, I think so. I saw someone a lot like him—could have been him—hanging around off and on for the last week or so.” She straightened primly and glared at the Sheriff. “I called your office about it, but they said you had other things to worry about.” She pressed her lips together and looked away.
Homer exhaled slowly and looked down at the floor. “Did he come to see anyone, Ma'am? That's what we need to know.”
“Well, no, not as far as I know. I sure didn't see him visit Miss Moses—least I didn't see him if he did. Only visitor she ever had was that girl.” Beane suddenly looked up.
Pickett hardly moved, but his eyes narrowed slightly.
Beane said: “Which girl would that be, Ma'am.”
“I don't know, really, some black-haired child. Cute, but a little too—oh, you know what I mean—grown up. More than she should be, I mean. Though come to think of it, I did see that kid talking to the girl. I don't know what about. He was hanging around once while she was with Millie. He didn't go in or anything. Just waited. He tried to talk to the girl when she came out, but she wasn't interested.”
“Whataya mean?”
“Well, she got mad, that's all. Didn't want anything to do with him.” She folded her arms over her breasted and shuttered. “Now I know why.” She sat in silence for a moment, unhappy with the thought.
“Anything else, Ma'am?”
“No, I don't think so—” She started, eyes wide and staring. “You don't suppose he's one of those—those junkies they've been talking about on TV do you? I really don't know what things are coming to, all these drugs and what not… In Wekiwa County, too.” She clucked and shook her head, looking down at her hands.
Homer exhaled and pushed wearily off the wall. “Well, thank you, Ma'am. We'll be back in the morning and take you over to the office for a statement.”
“Well, if it's absolutely necessary…”
“It's necessary.”
“You—you think he'll be back—tonight, I mean?”
“No, Ma'am, I doubt that he'd do that. But I'll have a man on duty just the same. Don't you worry none. You go on back home and get some sleep. And thanks again for your help.”
“All right, Sheriff.”
“Walk her home will you, Franklin?”
She walked past Pickett to the door. She stopped, turned, and smiled. Pickett's face was blank, but his eyes were sharp and wary. The redheaded woman left, followed by Deputy Franklin.
“What was that all about?”
“She runs this place. Saw a fella hanging round the body after she called it in. Went back out there to find her dog. Do you believe it? Lucky she didn't end up like her tenant. Anyhow, she seen this kid—sounds like a kid, anyway—standing over the body. He took off when she seen him.”
“And the gun was gone?”
Homer looked sideways at Pickett. “Yeah. When we got there the gun was gone.”
“And you figured it was me?”
“I don't figure nothing, boy. I just do a job best I know how.” He fell into a straight-back chair next to the small kitchen table, and leaned back against the wall. The chair gave off a loud crack in protest. “And you,”—Homer tossed his chin at Pickett—”you're worse than no help at
all.”
For a moment, both stared into the silence of the room.
Finally, Homer looked purposefully at his muddy boots, stretched and pushed himself up from the chair. He walked past Pickett to the door and yelled: “Franklin!” Then, he turned back. “Get outta here now, Bo. And stay outta this. It got nothing to do with you—”
Pickett opened his mouth.
“-- or your daddy. Nothing, y'hear?”
Homer glared at the taller man, daring him to speak. He didn't; chin bunched below a frown, brows raised, he stared back at Homer.
Franklin appeared in the door, short of breath. Homer turned to him, dismissing Pickett with a sharp movement of his chin.
Pickett followed the light out the door and across the lawn to the street and the Nova. He drove to the boat house and sleep.
18
The sun was high and bright, but the damp pavement was only just beginning to steam. Noon would obliterate the evidence of the night's rain and by mid-afternoon the clouds would mass at the horizon once again. If the rains came too soon the super-heated earth would have it back in the air by dusk and the night would be hot and steamy. That was the norm; the late night rain that remained was as rare as it was welcome. But in the end, it was always the sun that won out. Today would be no different.
Bodie Pickett raised his left hand again, but the door opened before he could strike.
“Bo.” It was a statement of fact, one that Roger Mooring seemed unable to assimilate. The two stared at each other for an instant; Pickett spoke first:
“May I come in?”
“Uh, yes. Yes, of course. God, what happened to your face?” Roger stepped back pulling the door with him. “Please come in.”
“Nothing that won't heal.” Pickett stepped into a small living room, a small kitchen through a door to the left. A table there was set for two; only one setting had been occupied.
“Please…” Roger gestured to a sofa against the far wall. It, like everything else in the room, was comfortably worn. Roger looked as worn, but a little less comfortable in suit pants, white short sleeve shirt, and navy tie. Roger waved a paper napkin in the direction of the kitchen. “I just finished breakfast.” It was as if an explanation were somehow called for. “Would, uh, would you like some coffee?”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
Roger disappeared through the arched kitchen door.
The living room was cool and dark. The venetian blinds cast bars of light across the hardwood floor. The shafts of light were visible in the dust particles stirred by Pickett's passage through the room. The dust looked as if it had been there forever; so did everything in the room—everything except the red jacket that lay across the easy chair next to the door. It looked new, stylish with a mandarin collar. It also looked out of place on the moth-eaten tweed of the easy chair—in bad taste almost, a boutonniere at a funeral.
Roger returned. The cup rattled as he handed it to Pickett, and coffee slopped over into the saucer. “Oh. Sorry.”
“It's okay. Smells wonderful.”
Roger wiped his hands on his pants and looked around the room. He crossed to the other side of the room and settled gingerly into a platform rocker. It creaked. He coughed in embarrassment.
“Is Amy up?”
Roger glanced at the jacket on the chair. “No, I don't think so.”
Pickett looked a question at him.
“She—well, we both were up late last night. I—” He hesitated. Some doubt at the tip of his tongue blocked the words. “You know about my—about Amy's mother?”
“Uh-huh. I didn't know who she was till last night, though.” Pickett sipped at the coffee, and squinted as he swallowed. “How'd you find out?” “Sheriff Beane called late. Seems she was going by her maiden name. Moses, I think it was. Homer found a driver's license and what-not in her room with Mooring on it. He remembered about the divorce, I guess.”
Pickett nodded. “It all makes a little more sense—”
“No,” Roger bridled, “no, it doesn't make any sense at all. Why did she come back? Hadn't she punished me enough? She had to turn my own daughter against me. She had to—to squeeze the last bit of joy out of me and take my Amy—”
“Did Amy tell you that?”
“I wouldn't have let her, you know. I wouldn't have let her do it.”
Pickett let his question hang, and said nothing. Roger's gaze wavered; his eyes fluttered briefly with embarrassment, and he looked to the floor, settling back into the rocker. It groaned. Roger coughed.
Pickett said: “Did you know that Millie was in town?”
“Know? No, I didn't know. I couldn't have stood it if I had. If I'd known she was here…”
“What, Roger?”
“It was a long time ago, and I just want to forget about it—her. Look, I've made my share of mistakes. But then I've paid for them by now, surely. But she had to come back, didn't she?” His eyes dared Pickett to answer.
“Did she?”
“Yes,” Roger replied sharply, but his anger had peaked. “Yes, I suppose she did.”
Roger relaxed back into the chair and began to rock. He let it groan away without comment. “You know, it's the way I met her in the first place. And the way she left, too—left Amy and me, I mean. I knew she'd come back. Eventually. I went through the divorce in absentia, hoping, I guess, that somehow it would keep it from happening. Keep her away.” Roger smiled down at his lap, still rocking. The chair squeaked in easy rhythm. “The spells and charms of modern man. That's what J.B. called the Law. He told me that when he drew up the papers for me. Spells and charms. I didn't know what he meant then.” Roger puffed once in a halfhearted laugh, as if to say that he knew now. Suddenly, he drew a long face. “Oh, I'm sorry, Bo.”
“For what?”
“I mean, your father being dead and all…”
“Forget it. When did she leave you and Amy?”
“A long time ago. Amy wasn't even one. So that makes it—what, fifteen, sixteen years?”
“How long had you been married before…” Pickett finished the sentence with his left hand.
“Not long. Long enough to have Amy, though. I was in my senior year at Jacksonville, I guess. Yeah. The accounting program, y'know. Man, that was one rough year.” He laughed self-consciously. “In more ways than one. Anyway, I met her in the Fall, and we were married by Christmas. Whirlwind romance, huh?” Roger looked at the other with a crooked smile, then to his hands. “She, well, was gone by the summer.”
“What about Amy?”
Roger ran a hand through his thinning hair, then laid his head against the back of the chair. He stopped rocking. “She came in February. February fourth. I'll never forget that day. God, she was beautiful—even then.”
“You were married before Christmas, and Amy came in February? Three months later?”
“Yup, old Rog to the rescue, huh?” He rocked lazily, absorbed in his own past. “Jeez—” Roger suddenly sat forward. “Look,—I've never told Amy about that. Christ, I've never told anybody. You forget it, okay? Please, Bo, I mean it. I—I don't know what got into me just now, I was—”
“Father?” came a sleepy voice from the hall. “Is anything the matter?”
Roger's eyes implored, begged.
Pickett nodded.
“It's all right, Amy,” said Roger warmly.
She leaned against the hall door without seeing Pickett. Her eyes were puffy from sleep. A housecoat once pink but now almost white with wear covered her slender form, falling open in the front, revealing a lavender night gown of some satin-like material that hung loosely down between her breasts in folds of white lace. Her eyes followed her father's to where Pickett sat. She started, caught the collar of her house coat with both hands. “Mr. Pickett! Oh, excuse me. I didn't know…”
“It's all right,” echoed Pickett.
“Bo came by to see if you were okay, honey.”
“And to talk to you for a few minutes—if you feel up to it.”
> “Of course I feel up to it. Why shouldn't I feel up to it?”
“Well, I thought that, perhaps, after last night…”
“What was last night to me?” She placed herself solidly in a straight back chair next to the hall door and stared at the tall man on the sofa. She couldn't help blinking the sleep from her eyes. She looked as if she might be blinking back more than that.
“Bo, I don't think Amy—”
“I'm not a child, Father,” Amy said with the petulance of a child. As if to prove her point, the housecoat fell away at the knee revealing a triangle of silky lavender beneath and the outline of a rounded thigh. It seemed to make Roger uncomfortable. Amy seemed not to notice. “I am perfectly capable of talking to Mr. Pickett myself.”
“I could come back—”
“No, I want to talk. Why shouldn't I?”
“Could you, then, tell me a little about your mother?”
“I have no mother.” Amy stared at Pickett defiantly.
“Could you tell me when she got in touch with you?”
“It was about a week ago. Maybe a little more.”
“What did she want?”
“Nothing.” Amy glared at Roger, daring him to assert the opposite.
Roger opened his mouth, but decided against it.
Amy turned to Pickett, waiting, her right hand pinning the left to her lap, knuckles white, blue veins coursing. The trapped hand squirmed, clawing at the worn cotton beneath. “She wanted nothing.”
“What did she say, then?”
“This is your mother. That's what she said. I believed her at first—I so wanted to believe her.”
Slow Fall Page 12