"So as far as you know," Delilah pressed, "Johnny wasn't having an extramarital affair?"
"You mean was he cheating on me?" She raised her voice loud enough that it might have been heard over the SpongeBob cartoon on TV in the other room.
Delilah waited.
"No, officer. My husband was not cheating on me. I would know if he had been. Women know these kinds of things." She got out of the chair. "That all you wanted to know?"
"I'm sorry," Delilah said, rising. "I had to ask, because of the note left. You understand."
"What I understand is that there's some crazy bastard runnin' around out there who murdered my husband"—she gestured with her cigarette, leaving a trail of smoke—"and you're sitting here on your ass asking me if he was screwing some other woman." She started down the hall toward the back of the house. "Why don't you go do what you're supposed to be doing, huh? Catch this guy and leave us alone!"
Delilah glanced in the direction of the patio and through the doors she saw Snowden looking at her. He must have heard Stacey raise her voice. Delilah pointed and drew her finger around, signaling for him to meet her out front at the car.
She walked out of the dining room, past the living room where this time she saw the two Leager children in pajamas watching TV. At the front door, the mother came up behind her.
"You ought to be 'shamed of yourself," she hissed. "Asking a widow if her husband was cheatin' on her."
Delilah opened the front door to let herself out. "Just doing my job, ma'am."
Chapter 7
"You're late. Shoes." She pointed.
Snowden closed the door behind him and slid off his polished, black police-issue shoes, leaving them in the mud-room. No matter how old he got, how successful he was in his career, his mother could still make him feel like he was ten again. She could still make him feel guilty, even when there was no earthly reason for him to feel guilty. "Mom, I'm not late. I told you, eight o'clock. It's seven-fifty-five."
She was seated at the kitchen table, a chrome and red leatherette dinette set that had to be from the 1950s. But there wasn't a single tear on the seat covers or an inch of chrome that wasn't polished. The entire house, a tiny two-bedroom, white clapboard bungalow at the end of Holly Street, was like the dinette set. Time seemed to have ceased to pass here. As far as Snowden knew, nothing had changed in his grandparents' house since 1955.
His mother offered her cheek and he leaned over, kissing her. She was a petite woman with short brunette hair, still attractive for being in her mid-fifties. Not that it mattered. He had never known his mother to ever have a date. Not once.
The only proof she had ever known any man intimately was his existence.
"You work too much." She removed her reading glasses, allowing them to swing on the plastic jeweled cord around her neck, and folded her Baltimore Sun newspaper precisely on the folds before rising from her chair. "It's not good for a man to work so many hours a week. How's a man like that supposed to have time for a wife and children?"
Seeing that his place was already set at the table, with a laminated place mat, fork, knife, and paper napkin, he went to the refrigerator and removed a Tupperware pitcher of orange juice. "That's why I don't have a wife and children, Mom." He took a glass from a cabinet, one of those jewel-colored tin kind that were very retro now. Tillie's were original. He poured himself some orange juice.
She opened the white microwave he had bought her last Christmas, which still seemed out of place in the old kitchen, and loosened one corner of the plastic wrap before closing the door and punching the keypad to reheat his dinner. "How are you going to find a wife if you don't date? You can't date if you work until eight o'clock every night and never ask anyone out. Wife material doesn't just fall out of the sky into your lap, Snowden. You have to seek them out."
"Mom, we've had this discussion before. Many times before." He leaned back against the counter and took a drink from the glass. Meatloaf. He could smell his dinner reheating in the microwave. He hated meatloaf, particularly his mother’s. "Not a lot of women in Stephen Kill suitable for me to date. How many fathers or brothers in this town do you think would approve of me as a suitor?"
"Because you're half African American?" she scoffed. "I'm tired of that excuse, Snowden. Where did you get that chip on that big shoulder of yours? Certainly not from me!"
He took another sip of juice. "Thanks for the dinner, Mom. I appreciate you saving me a plate. This Johnny Leager murder investigation is taking up every minute of my time. I'm not sleeping much. Certainly not eating much."
The microwave beeped, and she crossed the kitchen to retrieve his plate. She was wearing blue sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and scuff slippers, the only thing she ever wore around the house. He smiled to himself. If there was one thing Tillie Calloway was, it was predictable, which made his presence on earth all the more remarkable. At thirty-eight years old, Snowden still knew nothing of his father. Absolutely nothing except that he had been a black man. A product of an illicit affair Tillie's freshman year at the community college? A product of rape? He guessed he would never know, because his mother made it clear to him years ago that she intended to take that information with her to her grave.
"You should come every night for dinner," she told him, carrying the Corningware plate to the table. "It's foolish for you to cook for one and me to cook for one, living only a few blocks from each other."
"Mom, I'm a big boy. I can cook for myself." He pulled out his chair and sat his juice glass on the table. He didn't have the heart, or the energy for that matter, to tell her that two or three dinners/lectures a week was all he could really stand right now.
"I know you can. I'm just saying there's no need for it. Sit. I'll start my tea and then sit with you while you eat. No need for your dinner to get cold waiting on me."
Snowden sat in the chair that had been his for as long as he could remember. He folded his hands, bowed his head, and silently gave thanks for the meatloaf in front of him. Before his amen, he prayed for Johnny Leager's family, prayed he'd find the killer. Prayed he was up to the task he'd spent his whole life working toward while others denied his ability and merit.
"Amen," Tillie finished for him as he lifted his head. She sat in the chair across from him and realigned the already straight newspaper in front of her. "How's that sweet girl working out? The new one from down south?"
He rose to grab a bottle of ketchup from the refrigerator. He knew it would be the generic brand and taste like watered-down crap. It always was, always did, in Tillie's kitchen. "Sergeant Swift? She's working out well. Bright. Very conscientious. What she doesn't know, she seems willing to learn."
"I hear she's not married."
He let the ancient refrigerator door swing shut. She had to be the only person in Stephen Kill who still had the avocado-colored appliances. "No, I don't believe she is." He resisted a smile. Any encouragement and Tillie wouldn't let up on the subject.
"Never been married, Cora Watkins could tell me."
Snowden returned to his chair, flipped open the ketchup bottle, and squirted a healthy portion over the lump on his plate that had to be the meatloaf. "I wouldn't know, Mom. We don't talk much about personal things."
She fiddled with the edges of the newspaper. "Very attractive young woman. Smart, obviously has the same interests you do. You should ask her out."
"Mom, she works for me. I'm the chief of police. It would be inappropriate." He cut off a piece of meatloaf with his fork, tasted it, and dipped the rest in the runny ketchup.
The teakettle whistled and Tillie rose. "You don't think she's attractive?"
He stuffed some mashed potatoes into his mouth. "Whether I think she's attractive or not is a moot point. She works for me. I can't date Sergeant Swift." He frowned. The mashed potatoes were still cold in the middle and a little lumpy. He liked his mashed potatoes smooth, preferably with garlic and butter. Tillie Calloway didn't cook with garlic. "Besides, Mom, I'm ten years older than she is."
"Aha, so you do think she's attractive." She fished a tea bag from a canister on the counter and dropped it into her teacup.
“Can we change the subject? Did you bring me any new books from the library?"
"Got the one on Genghis Khan. I read it. Fascinating how many ways the Mongols changed the face of Europe." She removed the teakettle from the gas burner, and the whistling ceased. "Of course I suppose I should have picked up a copy of Dating for Dummies. Do you more good."
Snowden pushed in another mouthful of meatloaf, vowing to pass on the next dinner invitation.
* * *
Pam walked down the hallway of the 1989 single-wide mobile home, hoping that was the last time she'd have to tell Amber to go to sleep. The four-year-old was having bad dreams and thought she ought to be allowed to sleep with her mother.
Ed was having no part of that, though, and Pam understood why; Amber wasn't his kid. He didn't want anyone thinking he was some kind of pervert or something. Pam just wished he'd be a little more understanding; Amber was only a little girl.
Of course, she wished Ed would be more understanding about a lot of things. He'd moved in three months ago, and things had been pretty good at first, but she was beginning to wonder if she'd made a mistake. Even though he did help pay the rent and he bought a share of the groceries, he wasn't the easiest man to get along with. That wasn't to say he wasn't easier to get along with than Charlie, Amber's father, had been. Ed didn't get drunk and smack her around, she'd give him that. And he said he wanted to marry her, which was more than Charlie had ever offered. Pam thought several times about saying yes to Ed, but somewhere in the back of her mind she kept thinking she deserved better.
"I think she's asleep this time," Pam said, walking into the living room.
"I don't know why you don't just paddle her butt. That's what my mother would have done," Ed grumbled from the couch. The dark room flashed with light and shadows as he pushed the channel button on the remote control again and again.
Pam walked in front of the TV, around the coffee table, and Ed leaned one way and then the other so he could see around her. She plopped down on the end of the couch and dragged the laundry basket of clean clothes on the floor toward her. "Washer's not working again. I had to go to the Laundromat." She pulled a pair of his boxers from the basket.
"Think your dad can fix it again?" He didn't look at her.
"Maybe." She looked away, tearing up. She felt stupid, but she'd been like this for the last two weeks, ever since Johnny was killed. Crying over the stupidest things. She had really liked him, probably loved him. Certainly loved him more than she loved Ed. She just couldn't imagine why anyone would have killed Johnny. He was such a sweet guy. He was even nice to her after he quit coming over. She was upset when he said he couldn't cheat on his wife anymore and wreck his marriage, but a part of her had admired him for that. Shoot, she'd been in labor at the hospital with Amber, and Charlie had been off screwing some chick he met at a bar. Guys who did right by their women were few and far between, at least in this town.
Pam breathed deeply, glad the lights were out so Ed couldn't see that she was upset. He didn't know about her and Johnny, no one did, and she had no intention of telling him. That was the way Johnny had wanted it, and she had felt it was the least she could do. Especially now. "I was thinking maybe we could get a new washing machine," she said when she could find her voice.
"We don't have the money for a new damned washing machine." Ed threw down the remote and got up. "Any beer in the fridge?"
She reached for another pair of boxers and folded them in her lap. "Not a new new one. One of those rebuilt ones they've got out back of Burton's."
She heard the refrigerator open and light from the kitchen spilled onto the stained carpet of the living room floor. He popped the top on his beer can. The light disappeared.
"You buy what you want, I'm not buying a damned washing machine."
She watched him walk back into the living room, cross in front of the TV, and drop back onto the opposite end of the couch. Beer in one hand, he reached for the remote.
She took one look at him sitting there with his beer and his TV remote, and she just couldn't stand it. Not a minute longer. She'd rather live alone than put up with this crap. "Fine!" She threw his boxers at him and got up off the couch. "You wash your own friggin' underwear, and while you're on your way to the Laundromat, why don't you stop at the bank and get me that six hundred dollars you owe me?"
"I don't owe you six hundred dollars." He grabbed the boxers from his lap and threw them on the floor.
"Yes, you do. You borrowed the money two weeks before you moved in here. To fix your bike, remember?" She walked around the coffee table, putting herself between him and the Comedy Hour on the TV screen.
Ed craned his neck, but she didn't budge.
"We're together now, honey. We don't do my money and your money," he said. "It's all together now."
"All together when you want it to be!" She pushed a lock of brown hair behind her ear. "What about when you stopped for subs last night for dinner? First thing you did when you walked into this house was tell me how much I owed you for a six-inch meatball!"
"Jeez, do we have to do this right now?" He finally looked up at her.
Ed wasn't a bad-looking guy. His hair was thinning a little and his belly was pudging more than it used to, but he really wasn't bad looking and he wasn't a bad guy. She was just sick of his crap. "I'm tired of me doing all the work around here, Ed. I wash your clothes and I cook and I take care of Amber, and I'm still working and I'm trying to go to school." She rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I could use a little help around here."
Ed slapped the remote down on the table and got up, moving toward her. For a minute, she thought he was going to hit her. But if he did, God help him. She'd kill him. A long time ago, after Amber was born, after she'd called the police on Charlie for the third time and ended up in the ER with a broken nose, she'd decided no man would ever hit her again. No man would ever have that kind of power over her again.
Luckily, he just stomped by her. Lucky for him.
"I don't need this shit."
She turned around. "Where you going?"
"The hell away from here!" He jerked open the door and stepped onto the concrete block steps.
"Fine," she hollered after him. "Go! And you can stay gone for all I care!" She slammed the door so hard that a picture of Amber when she was a baby rattled against the paneling on the wall.
"I don't need this crap," she muttered as she walked over to the couch, sat down, and picked up the remote.
Outside she heard Ed start his Harley. There was still something wrong with the exhaust, and it was even louder than usual. "Be fine with me if you never came back," she said aloud. And with a satisfying click she changed the channel to something she wanted to watch, for once.
* * *
Ed sat on the barstool at The Pit just outside of town, beer in his hand, and laughed at his buddy's joke. Only he wasn't really listening. He was on his second beer, but it wasn't going down as smooth as they usually did.
Country music played through the scratchy speakers bolted to the ceiling over the bar. He thought about the Toby Keith song Pam liked. "It's all about you, you, you," she'd sing in the shower all the time. It was kind of cute, really, because she couldn't sing worth a damn.
He heard the clatter of balls hitting each other on one of the pool tables in the back as someone broke. Someone had asked him if he wanted to play, but he hadn't felt like it tonight. Just wasn't in the mood.
He felt bad about his fight with Pam. Felt bad he walked out on her. It was a stupid thing to do. He really liked her, maybe loved her. He didn't want to screw things up with her. She had been right about most of what she said, and he had acted like the asshole that he was.
He did tend to take advantage of her with money sometimes, and he certainly didn't do his share of work around the house. Pam, she worked like a
dog at the plant, then she went to classes at the community college, and she still tried to be a good mother.
Wasn't any trying to it. She was a good mother, certainly better than his had been. She was so patient with Amber. She hardly ever lost her temper and hollered. And she was always teaching the little girl things like how to count and how to say her ABCs. Amber was smart, just like her mother.
Ed set his beer down on the bar. His buddy, Ham, was still talking, something about pulling one over on his old lady. Ed checked the mirrored Bud clock over the bar. It said eleven, but it ran slow so it was probably closer to eleven-thirty. He'd only been gone an hour, but Pam usually simmered down pretty fast.
He pulled his wallet on the chain out of his back pocket, left cash on the bar for his two beers, and walked out. Far as he could tell, Ham never saw him go. Probably wouldn't miss him until the next round.
He approached his Hog, thinking what a good-looking bike she was, but not as good looking as Pam. Not as important to him as Pam. Once, maybe, his bike had meant more to him than his woman, but he was getting older, maybe a little smarter. Things were different now. Pam was different than the other women.
Ed mounted his Harley, turned the key in the ignition, kicked her into gear, and headed home.
* * *
Azrael cut the headlights a hundred feet before the end of the driveway and eased the car off onto the shoulder.
"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death," the Angel of Death murmured. "Thou shall not commit adultery. Thou shall not commit adultery."
Checking for the lighter, Azrael got out of the car and removed a gas can and a wooden baseball bat from the backseat. The angel did not know how the things had gotten in there, only the task that had to be performed the order laid down by God that had to be carried out.
It was not Azrael's place to judge. Only God could judge.
The walk up the drive to the trailer was short, and though it was dark, moonlight guided the Angel of Death to the front door. Flickering light glowed behind the curtain in the window, and voices could be heard. Late-night TV. Azrael set the gas can down on the ground climbed the wobbly cinder block steps. Without hesitating, Azrael knocked on the door.
Unspoken Fear Page 9
