They drove past a park that lacked trees. Shannon made a right, and then a left and another right and another left. She parked on the wrong side of the street in front of a white clapboard house, under the stark, twisted branches of a some kind of deciduous tree. Ross unbuckled, opened his door and got out, shut the door. Shannon’s house was the largest house on the block. The tree was the only tree on the block. He stood there on the wet, un-mowed boulevard, trapped in a spider web of shadows, listening to the rain bounce off his skull, while she got herself organized, gathered up her purse and keys, a bottle of wine she must’ve had hidden down there under her seat. Finally she pushed her door open and got out of the car.
Ross’s jaw dropped. There was a guy in the backseat, leaning back as if he owned the world. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth. He caught Ross’s eye, waved sardonically.
Shannon said, “That’s my big brother. Kelly. I’d ignore him, if I were you, unless he asks you for a loan.”
Kelly eased out of the car, slow but graceful. There sure as hell was a lot of him. More than six feet, and he was no beanpole. He lit his cigarette and then put the heel of his big black boot up against the Saab’s open door and gave it a firm push. The door thudded shut. He gave Ross a hard-eyed look mixed in with a sardonic smile, then turned his back on him.
Ross followed Shannon across the sidewalk and up the broad front-porch steps. He held the wine while she segregated her front-door key from many others on the ring.
She unlocked the door, said, “Take off your shoes,” in the same tone of voice she might use on a neighbour’s unwelcome wayward dog.
Ross kicked off his shoes. With the toe of his stockinged foot he lined the shoes up neatly to one side of the door.
He followed her inside. She told him in a sweet voice to shut the door. When he hesitated, she advised him not to wait for Kelly; her lamebrain brother wasn’t quite stupid enough to come inside before he’d finished his smoke. Ross shut the door. He suddenly craved a cigarette.
The house was cold and damp, as if the furnace hadn’t been on for a long time — two or three days, a week. The living room was to his right. Narrow stairs trudged into second-storey gloom. Shannon shucked her coat and hung it on a metal hook. He trailed after her, keeping a certain distance, as she wandered into the living room. She said, “Turn the thermostat up to seventy, would you mind?”
Ross did as he’d been told. She switched on the gas fireplace. For atmosphere? He glanced around. A rose-coloured patterned carpet with a tidy fringe floated on a sea of gleaming hardwood. A plump chocolate-coloured leather sofa had its back to the curtained window. A matching love seat squatted at a friendly angle. An antique cast-iron lamp in the shape of a leaping dolphin stood on an oak end table. A pine trunk that had been ruthlessly battered into premature antiquity now served duty as a coffee table. A standing lamp with a fringed, pumpkin-coloured shade cast a pool of light on a small glass-fronted bookcase.
Ross said, “Nice place you’ve got here.”
“It’s a rental. I share with two other women, but they’re both out of town for the next couple of weeks. Plus there’s a two-bedroom suite in the basement. Kelly’s staying there now, but he pays the same rent as anyone else. Even so, with the heat and light and everything, it’s a stretch. But I get by. Want a glass of wine?”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
“There’s a corkscrew in the kitchen, top drawer to the left of the sink. Glasses in the cupboard. I’m going upstairs to change. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Ross nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
She pointed. “The kitchen’s right through there. You’ll find it.” She gave him a reassuring smile, started up the stairs. He admired the delicacy of her ankles, flex of her calf muscles. She was no calendar girl, but there was a special word Garret had used to describe her that was dead accurate: vitality.
He imagined Garret standing where he was standing, thinking the exact same thought, the vitality word taking up space in his brain. But Garret would be thinking other things, wouldn’t he? He’d be thinking about what he was going to do to Shannon when she came hack downstairs. He’d be expecting to drink a glass or two of wine and then make love to her, stretch her out on the leather sofa in front of the gas fire, and do it.
Ross tried to imagine doing it on the sofa with Shannon. His imagination failed him. Man, his imagination didn’t even get out of the starting blocks. He went over to the front window and looked out. Kelly sat on a falling-apart wicker chair, his feet up on the porch railing, smoking and looking out at the rain.
The kitchen had dull yellow linoleum on the floor, cream-coloured paint on the walls, track lighting. The refrigerator was fairly new, but the stove had seen better days.
The double sink was stainless steel. There was no dishwasher. A bottle of red wine stood bolt upright on the counter in the shadow of the microwave. Ross opened white-enamelled cupboard doors until he found the glasses, four of them. He put two glasses down on the counter next to the bottle and shut the cupboard door. Then he swung open the door again and got a third glass, in case Kelly thought to join them. He opened a drawer. Stainless-steel cutlery rattled in a pale blue plastic bin. The furnace had kicked in, and the house was starting to heat up. He slung his jacket over a chair, used his shirtsleeve to wipe sweat from his forehead. Where in hell was the damn corkscrew?
“What are you doing, robbing me?”
Startled, he jerked upright and cracked his head against a cupboard door that he had failed to shut. The blow staggered him. He clutched at nothing, lost his balance and fell heavily against the counter. The kitchen turned red and then black and then nuclear-bright. The overhead neon flickered like sheet lightning. His head pounded. A clock ticked far too loudly, and far too swift. He took a deep, shuddery breath.
Shannon cried, “Oh my God!” She was right there beside him. She took a single faltering step away from him and stood motionless, clearly aghast.
Ross saw that the ticking sound was caused by fat drops of blood falling upon the yellow linoleum. He brought a hand to his head. His gently probing fingers touched something sticky and warm. Blood, blood, blood. He’d split his skull wide open.
He was… leaking.
“Don’t move.” Shannon gripped his arm. She thrust a fat roll of paper towels into his hand. Her bare feet spanked the linoleum.
Ross stood there with the paper towels pressed against the wound. He knew from several minor skirmishes in the prison showers that even superficial head wounds tended to bleed a lot.
The dizziness would soon pass. No way was he going to die. Killed by a cupboard door. It was an unimaginably bland fate. He looked down at the floor, at quarts and quarts of blood. Lightheaded and disoriented, he shut his eyes, and felt much worse.
Shannon had returned. She knelt beside him, wiped blood from his face with a damp washcloth. “You’re pale as a ghost. Are you okay?”
He shook his head, no. Big mistake. The kitchen wobbled on its axis.
She said, “You’re not going to throw up, are you?”
“I hope not.”
“Stand up.” She swung a wooden chair around. “Sit down.”
Ross sat.
“Tilt your head back. More to the left. My left.” She was no Florence Nightingale. The washcloth scraped like coarse-grit sandpaper across his head, the lightness of her touch about what you’d expect from a heavy-duty mechanic. She said, “Too bad your hair isn’t a little shorter, you’d be easier to clean up. Is that a prison thing, long hair?”
Ross shook his head. Ouch. He was going to have to learn, fast, to be more verbal. He said, “No, that’s just the way I happen to like it.”
“Me, too. It suits you. But I’d be able to see what I was doing a lot better if I cut it back a little. Would you mind? I always cut Kelly’s hair. Or I could drive you to emergency…”
Ross sat quietly, a dishtowel draped over his shoulders, as she snipped away at him. She was very fast. When she’d fini
shed she found a mirror and let him have a look at what she’d done — given him a kind of a go-to-hell look that suited him, in a way. But suited Kelly more. She said, “Did you see The Unforgiven?”
“Three times a day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For almost five years.”
Her laughter was relaxed, feminine. “No, I’m talking about the movie, the Clint Eastwood movie.” She patted his head with the washcloth, went over to the sink and held it under the running tap, squeezed out the blood. “Clint was on television, one of those late-night talk shows. He went on and on about how he’d had his hair cut with a pair of sheep shears, or something like that. For authenticity.” She resumed washing him. “So he’d look like guys looked back in those days.”
“Makes sense to me.”
She said, “You’ve almost stopped bleeding.”
“I’m probably running low.”
“D’you want to go to the hospital?”
“Not particularly.” He tilted the mirror so he could make eye contact. “Do I need stitches?”
“How should I know? Do I look like a nurse?”
That was a tough one. What did the prototypical nurse look like? His brain dredged up a faintly remembered watercolour from his schoolboy days.
Shannon said, “You could use a stitch or two, I guess.” She moved so she was standing directly in front of him, held up her left hand with her thumb and index finger separated by about a quarter-inch. “That’s how long the cut is.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Okay, that long.” She spread her arms wide as any fisherman. Ross smiled. She smiled back. He said, “They’d shave me, wouldn’t they? I’d look like a monk.”
“You? Don’t count on it.” She went over to the counter and yanked open the bottom drawer, rummaged around in there and soon came up with a plastic container. “These’re Melinda’s. Prescription drugs. For her migraine but she stopped taking them, because of the side effects. They’re pretty strong, so I’d only take one or two, if I were you.” She uncorked the wine, carried the bottle and two glasses and the drugs into the living room. She put everything on the pine trunk and made herself comfy at the far end of the sofa.
Leather creaked as Ross sat down. He said, “Want me to pour?”
“Please.”
The light from the gas fire warmed her face and lent it a healthy glow. Her eyes sparkled. Her hair gleamed healthily.
Ross poured without spilling. He handed her a glass. No touching of fingers. He drank some wine.
Shannon had traded her skirt in on a pair of faded jeans and a mostly unbuttoned black silk blouse that looked pretty good against her pale skin. She wriggled a little higher on the sofa, crossed her legs yoga-style. “So, tell me about Garret.”
“Well, uh…”
“He was so smart.”
Ross was smart enough to agree. He helped himself to the drugs, got lucky with the childproof cap. His head throbbed unpleasantly. He shook five small pills into his hand. The pills were black, banded with yellow stripes. They looked like denuded wasps. He tossed all five pills into his mouth and drained his glass. He glanced at Shannon as he reached for the bottle.
She said, “I stopped visiting him, after a while. It wasn’t that it was too far to go, or that I couldn’t be bothered, or didn’t care.” Her look was moderately defiant. “Or had a new boyfriend, because I didn’t.”
Ross filled his glass. There was one wasp left. He ate it.
“I stopped visiting him because I couldn’t stand to see him like that, so miserable and helpless.”
Ross had never thought of Garret as miserable and helpless. More like happy as a clam, though there were times, as with most cons, when something inside would snap and he’d suddenly turn short-tempered and violent. Garret had hardly ever talked about what he was going to do when he got out. The way he acted, the man might have been institutionalized. There was nothing he seemed to lack in prison except Shannon, and he spoke of her in the past tense, as if she were something that had been real important to him once upon a time, but not now. Ross didn’t blame him. It was hard, to wake up every morning and find yourself face to face with a life sentence. Among the inmates, a popular antidote for creeping insanity was to host an emotional garage sale, clear out all that stuff you cared about but that was forevermore beyond your grasp.
She said, “I sent him magazines almost every month.”
“I know you did. I read some of ’em.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Shannon said, “I didn’t think about him all the time, but I thought about him a lot. I could be doing almost anything, suddenly he’d be right there beside me.”
Ross nodded, drank some more wine. He noticed that somewhere along the line he had lost his sense of taste. He didn’t want to appear unsympathetic, but he hoped she wasn’t going to start wading around in the sordid details of life without Garret. His glass was empty. How long had that been going on? What a sorry state of affairs. He offered Shannon the bottle, but she waved him away. He poured himself a refill. No point in standing on ceremony. He realized, with a vaguely witnessed sense of alarm, that he was considerably more relaxed than the situation merited. Had the medication begun to toy with him? He suspected it was so. His suspicions were confirmed a moment or so later, by the sudden blossoming of fireworks somewhere deep in his gut.
“Don’t you understand what I’m talking about?” said Shannon.
Ross nodded. He said, “Yeah, of course I do.” His voice sounded as if it were coming out of Dr. Reynolds’ speakerphone. Shannon’s black silk shirt clung to her body. If he squinted, and tilted his head until his neck threatened to break, he could almost see her nipple. What a slug. But should he stop peeking, or was he expected to peek? He drank all the wine in his glass. A few drops trickled down his chin. He said, “I completely agree.”
Shannon reached out and took his glass. His head lolled forward. He said, “I’m tired.”
“Alcohol and pills on an empty stomach aren’t such a hot idea, are they?”
Ross yawned hugely.
She said, “Bedtime, Ross.”
“Uh…”
She brought him his shoes, helped him to his feet, and led him through the house, turned on the back-porch light and helped him out the door and down the alarmingly steep stairway. She told him that he’d be sleeping in the garage. Ross hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about. A chilly wind nibbled at him as they hurried, hand-in-hand, down the narrow sidewalk that bisected the backyard.
Shannon unlocked a door, flicked a light switch.
Inside, the garage was like a tiny one-room house. No, there was a door over there against the far wall, so there were two rooms. But this one must be the largest. Black-and-white photographs covered the walls. Shannon told him the sofa unfolded into a bed. She wished him a good night’s sleep, and turned to leave.
Ross said, “Hey, wait a minute.” He dug deep in his pocket, handed the skinny black guy’s fat gold chain to Shannon.
“What’s this?”
“Garret wanted you to have it.”
“This was Garret’s?” She held the chain, warm from the warmth of his body, against the swell of her breast. Crystalline tears poured down her pretty cheeks. He moved towards her, intending a friendly hug. She yanked open the door and bolted towards the house. Ross stood there under the overhang of the garage roof. He watched her hurry up the back-porch stairs, saw her in a shaft of light as Kelly opened the door to greet her. He saw Kelly put his muscular arm around her. Then the door slammed shut and the light was extinguished.
Was there something wrong with a brother giving his sister a hug? Nope. Not a damn thing. Rain gurgled down a nearby gutter. Ross was still a little dizzy, but the fresh air had revived him somewhat. He lit a cigarette. No matter how you looked at it, there was absolutely nothing wrong with a brother putting his arm around his grieving sister.
Another question: why had he told her the gold chai
n was Garrets?
An hour or so later, as he lay on the narrow sofa bed listening to the rain batter the roof, the answer came to him as in a vision. He had lied for one reason, and one reason only.
To keep in shape.
Chapter 12
Willows started the car. The headlights illuminated the flank of a dark blue dumpster. He turned on the heater. The windshield slowly began to clear. Parker yawned. She was tired, and a little bit tense.
The bright yellow rubber gloves had provided them with a solid, but inanimate, lead. It seemed to Willows — and Parker agreed — that Donald E. Mooney’s security-guard boyfriend was their best bet.
Parker pictured a would-be storm trooper in a sub-compact equipped with a spotlight and a radio, cruising expensive neighbourhoods in the dark and clammy hours of the night. Or maybe he was a mall cop, one of those tight-jawed, steely-eyed, buzz-cut guys who strutted around with all the panache of a free-range chicken. Or maybe, badass Doberman at his side, the boyfriend spent his nights guarding construction sites.
It had been a long day but now it had fallen into night. Willows and Parker, working separately, had canvassed the ground floor of Mooney’s complex, as well as the apartments on the opposite side of the alley that had a line of sight on the dumpster. Parker hadn’t been too happy about going over the same ground Orwell and Bobby Dundas had so recently trampled, but Willows easily persuaded her the work had to be done. As far as he was concerned, the murder of Donald E. Mooney was their sole responsibility, whether Orwell and Dundas were working the case or not.
Parker couldn’t help wondering why there weren’t any pictures of Mooney’s boyfriend on the walls of Mooney’s apartment. Another question: Why didn’t Mooney have a snapshot of his boyfriend in his wallet? Had the boyfriend insisted on anonymity because he was a cop? It was a possibility that couldn’t be ruled out. She said, “D’you know any gay cops, Jack?”
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