by Egon Grimes
“And who is this?” Edi asked.
“Lou Hill, I’m Moe’s, Detective Genner’s partner.”
“Oh, hello, Maurice won’t talk to anyone, not even his family. He just sits outside. Last night he didn’t even come in, just sat in that darn chair. He isn’t taking this well, but I know in my heart God will see him through.”
Lou thought a moment. “Do you think it would be all right if I stopped by?”
“I think that would be good, are you a man of faith?”
“Huh?”
“Do you believe in God? Right now the Lord needs a messenger to get through to him.”
“Isn’t Moe a bit of an Atheist?”
“That is why he needs a messenger from God.”
Lou didn’t know how to answer, he was an Agnostic, unless of course his mother asked.
“Mr. Hill, you there?”
“Yeah, tell Moe I’ll stop by as soon as I can.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Hill,” Edi said, her voice lame and antagonizing.
The answer wasn’t that difficult, but it opened a spot in Lou’s head. He’d always had a very healthy sense of humor and waged a war against better judgment to crack wise. Judgment won. “Yeah sure, of course, Jesus is my personal shepherd and saviour.”
“God be with you,” Edi said and then hung up the phone.
Lou looked at the receiver. “What a bitch.”
“Who’s a bitch,” Dale Troop asked, a cowboy on the task force.
“Your wife,” Lou said with a smile.
“You better watch it or I’ll take your daughter to prom.”
“I have two sons, shitwipe.”
“Then I’ll take one of your boys, I’m not prejudiced.” Dale smiled big, showing off his crooked under bite. “I’ll make a man out of him.”
“Get fucked.” Lou tossed a phonebook at the young officer. “Do me a favor and cover for me. I’ve got some stuff to take care of.”
Dale made a kissing face at Lou. “What no love?”
6
Neil Crane, reporter (loose title) with Raw Daily, called his boss from the car. He’d been on Genner family detail since the announcement of the impending death. The country really dug its claws into the freakish tragedy and Neil had to get the full scale of emotion felt by the family. The world needed to know and, more importantly, he had to be the one to break the juiciest moments.
“Anything happening?” Chester Clark asked, editor-in-chief of Raw Daily.
“Yes and no, the father spent the night outside in a lounge chair. I think he’s losing it. Yesterday he attempted to go back to work too, they sent him home by the looks of it. A real nutcase,” Neil said.
“Any updates for the site?”
“I could pop off a few shots of Dad sitting in the backyard, maybe catch him pissing in the hedges, but I think that would give away the hiding in plain sight thing I have going. I can’t believe I’m the only one here.”
“Everyone else has that annoying little voice telling them what’s right and what’s wrong.”
“Consciences is for holy men. Wait strike that. No group has a conscience, maybe a few individuals. I think the others think the story is in the town coming together.”
“But you know different?”
“That’s right. The public deserves to know what is going on everywhere.”
“You don’t believe that, the public doesn’t deserve half the work we put into this,” Chester said.
“But we do it because we’re nosey by nature.”
“Maybe we’ll start a rap band; Nosey by Nature. Where was I?”
Neil laughed. “We’re naturally nosey, and it pays to be nosey.”
“Bingo. I give you permission to break cover if he blows his head off.”
“If he put his revolver in his mouth, I’ll sense it and be on him like a junior cheerleader on the quarterback. I’ll wear his brains.”
“All right, check in tomorrow.”
“That reminds me, any way you could get me a better room? That place you put me stinks.”
“Busy man. Talk to you tomorrow.” Chester hung up.
Neil dropped the phone onto the passenger’s seat.
One of Indianapolis’ finest pulled in the driveway, Neil slunk low and snapped off some shots, nothing useful yet, but it was only a matter of time.
7
Knowing Maurice was likely in the backyard, Lou avoided the main entrance and walked around to the side to the brickwork path. Much of the green took a heavy shade of brown in the last week. The sun had dried out everything and it was obvious Maurice was little too preoccupied to water the grass or pull weeds.
Maurice was right where Lou suspected, but he barely resembled the partner of the days before Rosalind’s heart resumed its faltering. Made obvious by the bags under his eyes and the vapid expression that he hadn’t ate or slept in days. The sun battered the pale skin of his arms and face into a tomato hue. He looked worse even than he had the day before. Lou pulled up and chair and the smell almost staggered him.
“How ya doing, buddy?”
Maurice shifted his eyes without moving his body to look at his partner and then focused back toward his neighbor’s yard. Typically when Moe was doing the quiet man show, Lou gave up and sat in silence, but the situation called for a proactive approach.
“Too sunburnt to talk?”
Maurice didn’t even look at his partner, ran a tongue over cracked lips.
Lou decided to take a page from the young officer Dale’s book of stupid shit to say. He sighed and said, “I am here on official business, Moe. I went to the doctor and turns out, I’m HIV positive. I have to inform all of my partners. Do you remember that stake out we were on, the one with the convenience store bandit? That night I drugged you and had a good old time. Sorry, you’d best go to the doctor.”
“Jesus,” Maurice muttered attempting to quell a smile fighting for land on his face.
“Hey now, if it is any consolation I had a great time. I guess I owe you a dinner. McDonald’s or Taco Bell?”
“What do you want, Lou?” Budding smile gone.
“I told you, here to tell you about the test.”
“Come on, what do you want?”
“I get it, you want space and you want everyone to leave you alone, but sitting out here all day and night isn’t helping anyone.”
“Isn’t hurting anyone either.”
“The hell it’s not. What do you think is going through Ruby’s head? Her dad is sitting around in the backyard all day, feeling sorry for hisself. She probably thinks you went nuttso.”
Maurice sat up. His eyes flashed and gazed deep into Lou. “And why the hell not? I think I deserve to feel sorry for myself. I deserve to go a little nuts. Besides, Ruby’s got that old bitch in there to tell her all these stories of the afterlife. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ruby asks if she can die too, so she can see her sister. The way I see it, I am saving a life out here. If I listened to that woman any longer, I might rip her arms off and beat her to death with the flabby fucking limbs.”
So much anger. This had Lou worried, really worried, for the first time since they’d been partnered together years ago.
“So kick her out.”
“You ever try to kick your wife’s mother out of your house?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, isn’t that how it goes?”
Maurice scoffed and tossed his hands into the air, sinking back into the chair. Lou followed the example and the men sat in silence, both thinking, but of different ends of the spectrum. Lou wondered how he’d get Maurice back inside and Maurice juggled remembered fury, particularly the times he’d lost it with the girls. He’d slapped them both, once, and instantly regretted it, relinquishing punishment duties from then on.
Lou said, “I’ve got to get to the station. I’ll be back after.”
“Why?” Confusion and annoyance in the single syllable.
“My partner is living in his
backyard ignoring his family. I’m going to join him until he stops.”
“Don’t come back.”
“You wish, see you in a couple hours,” Lou said starting to walk away.
“Fine, but really, don’t come back,” Maurice said, standing from his lawn chair.
“Don’t forget to take a shower. You smell like ass.”
Maurice shook his head and went into his home through the backdoor. Edi stood in the small kitchen, peeling potatoes, Maurice looked at the clock and then back to the woman.
“What are you doing?”
“He lives,” Edi said. “Did your friend help you along? I trust he spoke about what I asked him to.”
“You talked to him?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t have allowed him to come if he didn’t have faith in the good Lord, Jesus Christ. So he spoke to you about the importance of faith in times like these?”
“No, he told me he gave me HIV during a stakeout.” Maurice almost laughed saying this to the old prude. It felt good to hate her. Her eyes widened and Maurice continued, “I asked you what you were doing.”
“I am peeling potatoes for supper. What does it look like?”
“It is only after two.”
“Well, scalloped potatoes take sixty minutes, and I like them to soak for an hour and a half.”
“We eat at six, not a second earlier,” Maurice said.
“I didn’t realize you’d be eating with us.”
“It is you who is eating with us. This is my home and we live by my rules, if you don’t like those rules you can leave right now.”
“Excuse me!”
“Shut your stupid old mouth. Rule number one, no God talk. Our daughter doesn’t need that junk polluting her head so young. If she wants to, she can believe in a god once she is old enough to know what it means. Rule number two, we eat at six, or seven, or midnight, not fucking earlier. Rule number three, anyone older than thirty-three can stay only two hours at a time. By my calculation,” Edi started to walk away, wiping her hands on a tea towel as she walked, “you’ve been here for about thirty-two hours, meaning you aren’t welcome back for sixteen days. Now hit the road!” The pair stood at the front door.
Rhoda came halfway down the stairs hearing bits of the argument. “What’s going on?”
“Your husband is kicking me, and the Lord, out of your house,” Edi said, smug and cocky.
Rhoda looked at her husband and then her mother, shrugged her shoulders and went back up the stairs.
Edi looked after her daughter with pleading eyes. “Rhoda? Honey? Are you going to let him kick me out? You need Jesus at this trying time.”
“Out! Out! Out!” Maurice yelled, and Edi finally cooperated taking her defeat in sullen silence. Maurice turned around and noticed Ruby just sitting on the couch coloring. “Sorry I yelled at your grandma.”
“She made me do beans,” Ruby said.
“Do beans?”
“Yeah, made me pull ends off beans and I don’t even like beans.”
“That devil,” Maurice said and sat down for the next three hours before ordering a couple pizzas and then dumping the potatoes and skins into the compost heap.
8
In an effort to get the business behind not just the family, but the entire town, Kinderlos Funeral Services agreed with the Genners to an evening burial. After the wake, there was a five-hour break until burial service began, allowing all of the strangers to pay respect to a closed casket, an aspect Maurice acquiesced to—the public had their demands.
Outside the Genner home, Neil Crane sat awaiting an outbreak of hysteria, or at minimum, a quiet break for digital capture to feed a country’s greedy computer monitors. Tears were like gold, violence was like platinum. The reporter saw no other watchers and foresaw his byline under a photo shared across the globe, all he needed was for Genner to tip his cart.
Ivan Radmanovic drove by the home four times since the wake, it was boredom mixed with giddiness. The tongue was worth five figures. A good day’s pay for anyone. Neil didn’t notice him and Ivan didn’t notice Neil.
9
For the first time in many days, Maurice thought he might be able to sleep. He lied down and blinked at the white, stalactite finish on plaster ceiling. Rhoda was asleep next to him and down the have was Ruby. Ruby dreamed in flashes of television programming and classmates, intermingled, her mind jumbling memory with imagination. It was light and playful, following no storyline or pattern. The sleeping pill-riddled brain of Rhoda got a break from the usual nightmares and unwelcome visions to sleep soundly in a black space of fleeting partial thoughts. Maurice’s dreams continued in high gear, roaring down the highway, no seatbelts, flashing images of his daughters; times they shared and times they could have shared, but didn’t. His body jerked and kicked in bed, sweat seeping through his dress shirt and suit slacks. Afterwards, he wished he’d changed before succumbing to exhaustion.
The dream followed a trail, quite literally. Ruby wasn’t part of it, not even in thought and Maurice chased after Rosalind down a bright green path through the woods. Sun shot through the huge canopied trees. Maurice had shrunk to half his size and stood eye to eye with his deceased daughter.
“Keep up, Daddy,” she taunted and out-paced him easily.
His legs trudged, the grassy floor of the trail becoming a thick black mud.
“Come on, Daddy,” she called from a distance beyond his sight.
The mud continued to sink his feet, up to his knees. He worked hard against the suction. “Wait, please wait for me,” he called, his voice squeaky and quiet.
As soon as he lifted one foot above the mud, the other sank deeper. The weight of the viscous surface put pressure on his thighs, then his hips, then his stomach, and finally his chest. He tried to call out, but the weight against him was too strong; it was as if the universe placed a small automobile onto his chest. He struggled and the mud floor gave way further.
“Ros…al…ind,” he gargled before his head dropped below. He swallowed mouthfuls of the murk as his chest heaved in panic.
“Don’t be silly, Daddy, keep up,” Rosalind said.
The mud had disappeared and Maurice opened his interior eyes. He ran, his feet smacking hard against hot asphalt. Rosalind was only a yard ahead of him. Gaining, gaining, constantly gaining on her little body, his body doubling to normal size the further he chased. Her body was weightless in his arms when he scooped her from behind, propping her on his shoulder. She giggled in pleasure and he followed suit. It was peace and happiness and perfection balled into a moment.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m fine, you can let me go,” she said.
“I can’t.” His eyes poured a sea of salty tears, all the tears that refused to fall in the waking world.
“I’m all right.”
“No.”
“Let me go, Daddy.” She crawled from his shoulder and glided to the ground like a shed leaf.
Maurice fought against the hot tears blurring his vision, she wiped his face, completely satiating his sadness and bringing forth relaxation and realization. She smiled and her body vaporized into a light pink cloud, floating into the sky.
His eyes flashed open and he rolled toward Rhoda’s side of the bed. She was gone, but he could hear her in the washroom. The clock showed five past six. He had fifty-five minutes to repair the composure of his suit after he’d soaked it with sweat and wrinkled it as he rolled about during his lively dream. He looked at himself and laughed, felt okay for the first time in about a month, long before Rosalind finally died.
—
Maurice still looked a man that needed to sleep a long restful night. Grey showing through below at his temples and the white in his eyebrows made him feel old. He hadn’t bothered to notice until that evening while he stared at the man in the dresser mirror.
Rhoda popped her head out of the washroom that connected to the master bedroom. “So glad you slept.”
“I had a drea
m about Rosalind.”
“I’ve been having those. Breaks my heart every time.” She fanned her eyes with still fingers on flattened hands, attempting to fight off another spell of tears.
“This dream was good. She told me to let her go and that she was all right, do you believe that?” Maurice said slipping off his clothes to change his shirt, socks and underwear.
The dams and no amount of fanning could dyke the flow. “Maurice, that is so nice. I’m a little jealous.”
—
The short trip to Pine Wood cemetery—on the outskirts of the one of the more prominent sections of middle-class Indianapolis—took longer than it should’ve. The place was a quiet zoo, the crowd looking through the wrought-iron fence remained respectfully hushed. Both Neil and Ivan stood watching the action, one from the west and one from the south, both with tasks, neither aware of the other.
Mel Brinkman sat in a chair next to the casket. He was obese in a way that brought to mind questions of health and mobility. He fidgeted with papers. It would be soon time for him to shine.
Funerals could be a real fix, like a hot poker to belief systems. Maurice looked at the man, knowing he wouldn’t agree with anything he said, knowing long before Mel finished that he’d want to bash the man’s head. A repeat fantasy impending.
Edi sat a few seats down, gazing at the fat man next to the casket. She wore a self-righteous smile. She had arranged for Mel’s appearance. To save the day, Rich Weber the funeral director acted as middleman between the family and the preacher,
Maurice knew Rich well enough, dealt with him concerning the public over the years—Rich offered some specialty services to those who couldn’t afford much, and made a good impression on the entire department.
Lou appeared right on time and would help Maurice carry the little casket from the back of the Cadillac hearse. The casket was pearl white with brass handles, likely tinted stainless steel, and had very little weight to it. The familiar sound of an orchestra chiming out bland, typical funeral music began. It was time to walk. Maurice wondered who in the hell invited a band.
