The Long, Long Afternoon

by Inga Vesper

  Ruby lifts Lily up and unbuttons her clothes, but she screams even louder and starts kicking. The diaper comes off in a wave of stink. Ruby flings it to the side and wipes Lily down with a cloth. She is just fastening a fresh diaper when Barbara enters and sits down on the floor. Her lips are trembling, and her eyes are full of tears.

  ‘Barbara-baby, what’s up?’ Ruby tries to prop the screaming Lily up on her feet, but Lily punches her in the chest. ‘Where’s your mommy?’

  ‘They’re not here,’ Barbara says. ‘They made a mess.’

  Ruby frowns and tries to think. Maybe Joyce had an emergency. Maybe a friend called her away. Maybe she forgot the pork chops for dinner. But her car is still in the driveway, so where—

  She’d better leave. Something’s wrong, but it ain’t her problem. Plus, if Mr Haney comes back and finds his kids alone with the help, he’s gonna have a coronary.

  ‘Listen, Barbara,’ she says. ‘I’m going to call Mrs Kettering and ask her to come over. She can take care of you until Mommy’s back, OK?’

  Barbara does not answer.

  ‘You’re going to come downstairs with me, baby?’

  Barbara shakes her head.

  ‘OK, then.’

  Ruby hoists Lily onto her hip. It feels weird being in the house alone, and now she’s sure she is alone. In the hall, she picks up the phone and flips through the little address book with the golden corners until she reaches K.

  Later, she can’t remember Barbara slipping past her. But all of a sudden, the girl appears in the kitchen door, her chin bobbing, terror in her eyes. She stretches out a soiled hand.

  ‘Whoobie,’ she says. ‘I can’t clean it up.’

  ‘Don’t worry, baby.’ Ruby shifts Lily from one hip to the other and receives a kick in the guts for her troubles. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  Then she sees Barbara’s hands and the floor tips over, sending her into free fall. The child’s palms are caked in red.

  Blood.

  She yanks Barbara out of the way and throws open the kitchen door.

  There is blood on the floor. Blood and paper towels and a crumpled cloth soaked in crimson. The sun beams through the curtains and paints the ghosts of daisies on the tiles. Blood on them, too, smeared and sticky, dreadful as the devil’s tongue.

  Ruby clenches Lily to her chest and screams as loud as she can.

  Chapter Three

  Mick

  M

  ick mops beads of sweat from his brow with his sleeve. Serves you right, Detective Blanke, fresh from the Big Apple, so excited about getting the corner office. The southwest corner office. The chief must think it’s a big tickle to give the hottest room to the new guy. When he received the keys and carried them proudly to his door, some of the boys had been snickering. That should have set his alarm bells ringing.

  At ten in the morning, the place is already stifling. He sticks a finger into his collar to loosen it; it comes out wet. With heatstroke looming, he opens both windows and the door. But open doors let in strays, and soon enough Chief Murphy pops his head around the frame.

  ‘Already at work, Blanke? It’s only ten past ten. What about your beauty sleep?’

  ‘Aw, Murphy. You need it more than me.’ Mick grins. ‘I work late, sir. I’m putting in the small hours.’

  ‘Small as in few, right? Well, today’s your unlucky day. Case for you down in the ’burbs. Missing woman, possible home invasion. Blood trail and all that jazz. Here are the files. Get your ass down there to check it out. Sergeant Hodge is waiting for you. G’day.’

  Mick takes what Murphy calls the ‘files’, three flimsy sheets of typewriting, with a couple of notes scribbled in the margins. He puts his feet up on the desk, one of these modern ones made from wood laminate. Its legs are splayed like those of an East Tremont hooker. Swanky, better than his beat-up office in Brooklyn, which he misses more than he cares to admit. With his back to the window to escape the sun, he begins to read.

  Police called to 47 Roseview Drive at 5.30 p.m. by a neighbor. First patrol car arrived to find the neighbor, the help and two children waiting at the scene. The help said that the children were alone in the house when she arrived. She discovered blood smears in the kitchen. The wife was missing, and still is. The husband is away at a conference in Palmdale. The children were placed with the neighbor and the help arrested.

  Arrested?

  He reads the woman’s statement. She arrived at 5.15 p.m., went upstairs to find the younger girl and change her diaper, then came back down and found blood in the kitchen. She alerted the neighbor and waited until two officers arrived. The officers promptly arrested her.

  Why?

  He looks at her information. Ruby Wright, aged twenty-two, of 1467 Trebeck Row, South Central. Negro.

  Ah. That’s why.

  ‘Chief.’ He shuts the door behind him and strides down the hallway. ‘Chief. The boys made an arrest on this?’

  ‘Just as a precaution. Until we’ve checked out her story.’

  ‘She’s a witness. Not a suspect.’

  ‘Yeah. But she might be involved. First on the scene, always suspicious.’

  ‘I want to speak to her.’

  ‘Don’t you need to get down to the crime scene first?’ Murphy pulls a fold of belly fat from his pants. ‘Come on, Blanke, move it. Do some detecting, Mr Detective.’

  ‘All right, Murphy. Don’t flip your wig.’

  Mick knows when he’s lost a battle. The chief doesn’t like him, and for good reason, too. He is a favor placement. The boss in Brooklyn pulled a few strings, and all of a sudden Santa Monica Police Department needed its own detective. Now he is stationed in California’s most boring town. Where the sunshine makes him woozy every time he steps outside, and the worst crime committed until now was when someone stole little Timmy’s brand-new Schwinn.

  *

  He gets lost twice in Sunnylakes. Curse the names of these streets. Hillview Crescent, Berrywood Road, Grand Park Street, Meadow Hills. The main joint is called, kid-you-not, President Avenue. Maybe Mr Eisenhower opened the damned place personally. It looks like something from an election poster. The tidy houses, the flags, the mailboxes glinting in the sun. The streets are so neat you could eat your dinner off them, but of course nobody would, because everyone here has a dining table and china plates mail-ordered from Wards.

  On Roseview Drive, there is not a rose in sight. Number 47 is at the end, flanked by a pink house close by and a bigger, two-story home just about visible through the trees. Cars are parked up along the road, and people are milling about by the larger house in the distance. Must be the first search party.

  Mick pulls up in front of the driveway beside a red Chevrolet Bel Air. When he gets out, the curtains move in the pink house. He’s being watched. Which is interesting. In this quiet place, there is no way a stranger could drive up to a house and steal away its occupant without the neighbors noticing.

  The door to number 47 has been taped off, but the tape is ripped. A loose end is hanging across the front steps. Mick looks around, feeling slightly furtive, and steps into the house.

  It’s . . . modern. The linoleum in the hallway has a purple square pattern and the lamps are made from chrome. He finds a family photograph displayed prominently on the sideboard. Joyce Haney, with the children on her lap. The little one is a baby still, the older has her hair in pigtails and smiles like she’s in a Sunbeam Bread ad. Frank Haney, loving husband and proud father, stands behind them, his arms wrapped around his family in a way that is both protective and possessive. He has blond hair, blue eyes and a square jaw that screams former high school football quarterback. A face like a fire alarm, Mick thinks – you just want to smash it in.

  Joyce’s beauty is as much the result of careful pruning as it is natural. Brown, perfectly set hair, thin lips brightened with lipstick, brownish eyes, not very large, with the dreamy look of a movie star. It doesn’t suit her, he thinks, that put-on look and the tender, tired smile. Somehow, she
strikes him as a woman who cracks a good joke.

  The kitchen is the only thing in this house that’s out of whack. Brutally so. Mick stands in the doorway and takes his time memorizing the scene. There is blood on the floor. It runs from the sink toward the door in one long spatter. A half-unraveled roll of paper towels is lying in a corner, and in the middle of the blood puddle is a blue piece of cloth. The blood has congealed into a dirty brown. There are pieces of crumpled tissue where someone tried to wipe up the mess near the door.

  He checks the bloodstain. During his former life in Brooklyn, he encountered the results of gang stabbings and Italian revenge torture and the crazy Japanese grandpa who plunged a knife into his abdomen and then disemboweled himself. Compared to that, there isn’t a lot of blood here. But its presence in this suburban kitchen, with flowers on the windowsill and a child’s drawing taped to the refrigerator, with tins for sugar, coffee and oatmeal lined up on the counter – now, that’s eerie.

  Upstairs there isn’t much to see. A tidy master bedroom, the king-sized bed perfectly made and covered with a frilly spread. A lavender vanity sits in one corner, arrayed with cosmetics. A quick rifle through the drawers produces lots of underwear, all neat, nothing kinky. The husband lords over a harem of dress shirts folded away in the closet. His suits are ironed with pleats. Nothing’s disturbed, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s packed anything, either.

  The children’s room is messier. The older girl’s bed is made but the bedding in the crib is piled up at one end. There’s a brown stain on the changing table and a soiled diaper lies on the floor, sulking in its stench. The bathroom and guest room are unremarkable.

  On the terrace, Sergeant Hodge is sitting in a striped lawn chair overlooking a pool and the most meticulously manicured lawn Mick has ever seen. Hodge is holding a bottle of soda and looking like a man at one with his world.

  Mick sneaks up to him. He slaps the sergeant on the shoulder, so hard he nearly spills his drink. ‘Hope you brought your own Coke, Hodge.’

  ‘’Course, Detective.’ Hodge scrambles from the chair. ‘Wouldn’t help myself from the refrigerator. Just putting my feet up. Damn hot to be standing around.’

  Mick resists the temptation to sit down himself. The sun flares from the tiles marching around the pool. Not a single weed dares to rear its head through the cracks. A pot of geraniums on the terrace is the only nod to exuberance.

  ‘Apparently the husband likes to garden,’ Hodge volunteers.

  Mick scoffs. ‘Husband is neurotic, most likely.’

  ‘Beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So, what’s your theory, Detective?’

  Mick grins. ‘Don’t got none, yet.’

  ‘But aren’t you . . . ?’

  ‘Keeping an open mind. It’s too early to jump to conclusions.’

  ‘All right.’ Hodge nods as if he’s understood, which he very clearly hasn’t.

  ‘So, what’s the situation?’ Mick asks. ‘I mean, I got the files this morning, but I want to hear it from you.’

  ‘First officer on the scene was Murray. He saw the blood and called headquarters. They’re just a misdemeanor division in Sunnylakes. You know, drunk driving, domestics, and all that.’

  ‘This wasn’t a domestic?’

  ‘Well, the husband wasn’t home. He left on Sunday night for Palmdale. The wife was seen by witnesses throughout the morning. She went to the mall around 9 a.m. and left the older girl with the neighbor, Mrs Nancy Ingram. She came back at 11 a.m. and picked up her daughter, all in good spirits. Mrs Ingram had a chat with her before she went to work, they talked about lunch. Nothing unusual. Then . . . who knows?’

  ‘The older girl was discovered outside?’

  ‘By the help, yes. She was meant to be here at 5 p.m., but was running late. She’s a Negro, you see? She found the girl, took her inside and changed the younger kid. When she came into the kitchen, she saw the blood.’

  ‘So, you arrested her.’

  Hodge shrugs. ‘Sounded like a fishy story to me.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘She went to change the baby without checking if her boss was home.’

  ‘Maybe it was normal for Mrs Haney to leave the kids with the help. Did you question her?’

  ‘She was . . . agitated.’

  ‘Did you try to calm her down?’ Mick can taste something sour in his mouth. He can just imagine the scene. The blood, the screaming children, Sergeant Hodge yelling. Agitated. Hell, he’d be rattling his cage like a rabid monkey.

  Hodge shrugs. ‘You should have been here, sir. The baby was wearing only a diaper. She was kicking the help and screaming. Tells you something, doesn’t it?’

  Mick raises one eyebrow. ‘It does?’

  ‘The help was yelling at the older girl to stop touching the mess in the kitchen. You see, the little dear was trying to clean up her mommy’s blood. Then the neighbor, that Ingram lady, came over and slapped her, and—’

  ‘The neighbor hit the little girl?’

  ‘No, the help. Just slapped her. We—’

  ‘Didn’t you close off the house?’ Mick groans. ‘Didn’t you remove the witnesses from the scene? Who else was here? How many people have been stomping through this place?’

  ‘Well, not many.’ Sergeant Hodge holds up his fingers to count. ‘There was me and officers Murray, Stanwitz and Anderson, and the help and the kids and Mrs Ingram. That’s about it, really. Oh, and the milkman.’

  ‘The milkman?’

  ‘Showed up just before 6 p.m., sir. Said he’d forgotten the butter.’

  ‘Christ in a cardigan.’

  ‘But then we put some tape up. No one got in today. And them folks outside, they’re planning to search the neighborhood. They’re not here to gawp.’

  Mick rubs the bridge of his nose and waits until he’s calmed down enough to level his voice. There’s no point in lecturing. It’s too late.

  ‘Evidence recovery and the photographer are coming this afternoon,’ Hodge offers. ‘We searched the surrounding properties and the lakeshore. No body. The car’s still here, so she hasn’t left in that.’

  ‘Have you heard from the husband?’

  ‘We had a little difficulty getting hold of him. He didn’t return to his hotel until late last night. He’s on his way back and should be here this afternoon to pick up the kids from Nancy Ingram.’

  ‘Is there no other family? Grandparents, uncles and such?’

  ‘The husband’s folks live in Philadelphia. And the wife’s . . . well, we’re waiting for him to confirm who they are.’

  ‘So, you’ve got no leads.’

  ‘Not really.’ Sergeant Hodge looks like a puppy when the treat bag’s empty. ‘We’ll have more when we find the body.’

  ‘We don’t know she’s dead, Sergeant.’

  ‘Sure. But think about it: she’s a mother. No mother in her right mind would abandon her kids.’

  Mick decides he’s going to leave it there. He follows Hodge’s gaze toward the fence, and they stare at it for a moment, as if there’s a chance that Joyce Haney will peep over it any moment now and wave a dainty, gloved hand. Hello, boys, I’m back.

  Hodge pulls his shoulders up toward his ears, then lets them fall. ‘Imagine putting up a fence like that. It’s like they didn’t want to look out.’

  ‘Or perhaps they didn’t want anyone to look in.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Keep an open mind, Hodge.’ Mick lifts his hat. ‘Never good to make assumptions.’

  *

  Back in the kitchen, he opens a couple of cupboards, but finds nothing out of the ordinary. There is a shopping list taped to the refrigerator, written in practiced, slender handwriting: eggs, mayonnaise, corn flakes, rice, cocoa, Spry . The refrigerator is nearly empty.

  He steps carefully over the blood, and his eyes catch on the blue cloth. A patch of white fabric is stitched onto one end. It has little rodeo cowboys on it, jumping over fences and fallin
g off their horses. He pulls and the cloth, stuck to the floor with blood, comes away reluctantly. He lets go; no need to further mess up the scene.

  It’s not a cloth, it’s a baby’s sleepsuit. Soft blue fabric, tiny white feet, a bright collar and stomach patch with more cowboys, now stained brown. Mick tries to remember Sandy and Prissie when they were that size, but his memory is a haze filled with milk smell and sleeplessness and fingers so tiny he was scared to crush them in his hand.

  He peels open the label. Yep, this sleepsuit is for a newborn.

  Chapter Four

  Mick

  N

  ancy Ingram has been expecting a visit from the police. You can always tell with women. The hasty attempt to tidy the lounge, the lipstick, troweled on like insulation paste . . .

  Now Detective Michael Blanke is sitting in a brand-new easy chair. Drinking a soda from a yellow-tinged glass with ice cubes clinking at the rim. Staring into Mrs Ingram’s blue-green eyes, framed by lashes in which tiny mascara drops have curdled into chunks.

  She bends her upper body across the coffee table, a move that makes her yellow sweater stretch across her breasts. Mick instinctively leans back and swirls his soda as if it were a whiskey, which he really damn well wishes it was.

  ‘I’m sorry, I had no time to make things more presentable,’ Mrs Ingram says with a darling flourish of her hand. ‘But I’ve been looking after the kids. Barbara had three nightmares last night. And I’ve just rushed over to speak to Laura Kettering across the road while the girls were watching TV. No one has heard from Joyce. Did you see all these people? They want to start a search and . . .’ She swallows. ‘I might take the children out later. Or perhaps not. It might scare them. Oh, God, I don’t know what to do.’

  Mick takes the chance to get a word in edgeways. ‘Have you been in contact with Frank Haney?’

  ‘He’s driving down from Palmdale right now. The poor man is beside himself. Have you found out anything? Has she called?’