“What is it about Italian men having to find it elsewhere, Boyd? I swear, fidelity and Italian do not mix.”
“It’s the culture. And don’t be an asshole. Not every Italian man is that way.”
“Name one who isn’t.”
“I’ll get back to you on that. It could take a while.”
“Yeah, call me next decade, Boyd.”
“Anyway, the lady says she wasn’t in the car and she doesn’t have any family with blond hair. So maybe we need to start checking with the hookers.”
“We have hookers in Black Stone Bay?” Danny was waking up, his smart-ass was showing.
“What about the college girls?”
“We got Veronica Miller, and we got Danielle Hopkins . . .”
“Yeah, those two. Any news?”
“Witnesses say one of them was talking to a kid in the park, named Ben, but no last name.”
“Physical description?”
“He’s allegedly ‘really cute.’ ”
“Can we just once not interview only the cute college students?” Boyd rolled his eyes.
“Umm. That was a guy, smart-ass.”
“Of course.” The woman at the next booth was making fish faces. She could go screw herself; which, he decided, was about as close as she ever got to lucky.
“Are we seeing a pattern yet?”
“Aside from what I said yesterday, no.”
“And then we have Freemont’s wife.”
“I’m telling you, he’s up to something.” Boyd scratched at his chin and continued to glare at the fish woman. “You know what? I want you to go over the car in the Veronica Miller case.”
“We already did that.”
“You said her purse was in there?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, I want you to personally supervise taking fingerprints off her wallet and her photo ID. What the hell, let’s go for broke here. I want you to go over her insurance card and her registration, too.”
“Why, you think a cop did something?”
“I got twenty dollars that says Freemont was the cop on duty when her car was pulled over.”
“You seriously think he did something to her?”
“You said it yourself yesterday.” He started ticking off points on his fingers. “He had an hour of radio silence. He had a chance to do it and he was in the area. And I don’t trust that slimy little prick.”
“Will you please watch your language?” The church lady was making even more fishy faces as she stood up.
“You know what? Why don’t you sit your ass down and mind your own business, lady, before I book you for interfering with official police business.”
He took great satisfaction in watching her do exactly that.
V
It was almost sundown, and the day had dragged on for what seemed like a dozen or so eternities. Kelli sat back in her favorite seat on the porch, nestled in a coat and staring at the leaves on the trees.
The Listers were not having a good day and, as a result, neither was she. Despite her best efforts to remain strong and to be supportive for Teddy’s parents, she was ready to scream.
How is it that two people can live their lives together, have a child together, and not love each other at all? That makes as much sense as peanut butter and tuna fish salad egg rolls.
They were breaking, or they had already broken. Kelli wasn’t sure which, only that she was just now noticing the situation. Every time she’d seen them they seemed like the perfect couple. It was only now, with Teddy out of the picture, that she saw how little they had to say to each other. The only common denominator in their lives was their son. With Teddy gone, they were barely civil to each other, and most of what they had to say revolved around their mutual desire to make the hospital suffer as much as they were suffering.
They were inside the house, which was why she was outside. What had started as a nice, simple discussion about whether or not they were going to hire a private investigator to check on the possible incompetence of the hospital staff had exploded around the same time that Bill suggested using an agency he had hired previously from Boston. It seemed that Michelle’s firm had used the detectives before and found them wanting.
Right after that, the screaming match began. She hadn’t heard any of the conversation beforehand; it wasn’t in her nature to eavesdrop under most circumstances. But when the argument started growing, she really didn’t have a choice. The neighbors were probably hearing the damned fight a half a block away.
Bill started the actual yelling: “What the hell does it matter, Michelle? So your fucking boss had a bad experience with the Harkers! I don’t care! They’ve done damned good work for me for over ten years!”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the little bitch you keep hiring, too! Who do you think you’re kidding, Bill? How long have you been fucking her on the side?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve never done anything with Denise and you know it, Michelle. She’s a fucking detective who does work for me. I can’t believe you’d even make an accusation like that.”
“Really?” she asked. “Are you really having trouble with this after what happened at the goddamned New Year’s Eve party back in 2000?”
“Oh, give it a rest already!” He was really cooking after that comment. That was about the time Kelli left the house. “That was five years ago, Michelle! Five damned years, and nothing happened!”
“I don’t call a pregnancy scare nothing, you bastard. You’re lucky you didn’t get AIDS from that skank!”
She did her best to ignore the words that the Listers threw at each other. It might have been easier to do if they weren’t throwing more than just words. When she heard the fighting escalate to Michelle Factor Four—the point where breakables were normally hurled through the air—Kelli decided it was time to take a walk.
The woods were beautiful, of course. The colors of the leaves were brilliant and almost explosive. But that didn’t do a damned thing to cheer her up. The more she thought about Bill and Michelle fighting, the less she wanted to return to their home.
By the time she finally did return, the silence from inside the house was almost worse than the earlier screaming match. The tensions were high enough that she wanted a chainsaw to cut through the oppressive atmosphere.
So she sat here, on the porch, and watched as the sun fell lower. The trees finally obscured her view after a few minutes. Bill Lister stepped out of the front door and lit a cigarette. He sat down on the far end of the couch, ignoring the wicker’s creaking protests. Kelli smiled in his direction and he smiled back, a little shamefaced by what he suspected she’d heard.
“It’s safe now, if you want to go inside. We’ve reached the I’m-Not-Talking-To-You stage.” He tried to keep his voice light, but she could hear the strain.
“Oh, it’s all good. I’m just enjoying the dusk.”
“It’s a beautiful night. Or it will be.”
She looked away and was surprised to feel her eyes threatening tears. “Teddy should be here. He liked to sit in my lap and have me read to him when he was younger, and lately he’d just sit right where you are and read his own stuff.”
Bill looked away, and she could tell by the way he was swallowing in rapid gulps that he was trying not to lose it.
After almost a full minute he nodded his head. “Yeah, he should be here.” He looked at Kelli and she could see the ghost of Teddy’s future looking back. In that light, with that expression, Bill looked exactly like she thought Teddy would look when he was done growing up. “Do you think he’s alive, Kelli?”
She drank in the sight of him, not only because he was a handsome man and a crush she knew she would never act on, but because he was Teddy’s father and the closest link she had to a kid she cared for more than she expected to.
Handsome. Teddy would have been a very handsome man someday. He would have gone on dates and the girls would have swarmed around him. He would have probably kept playing sports, maybe even football, and he would have been good at it. But he’s dead. I know he is. I can feel it. Death feels like autumn; cold and sad and so very lonely, even in a crowd.
“All we can do now is hope, Bill.”
She got up and went inside, because if she didn’t she could feel that things were going to go where they shouldn’t between her and Teddy’s father. She didn’t want to be the straw that broke the Listers’ marital back, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be the one Michelle referred to as a skank.
VI
And what the hell was he thinking? He watched Kelli stand up and had to make himself stand still. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him, look into her dark blue eyes and run his fingers through her long chestnut hair. He wanted to hold her and comfort her the way he was supposed to take care of his wife and he was ashamed of himself for these feelings.
Kelli was half his age: it would have been close, but he was old enough to be her father. But she had exactly the sort of body he’d always loved—lean with small, shapely breasts and wide hips—and she was always so sweet. In the back of his mind, he played over another fantasy where she had her long legs wrapped around his body and her fingers locked in his hair and her mouth was bruising his lips.
He crushed out his cigarette and stood up, heading away from the house. The sun was down now and the air was getting colder, but he didn’t go back in for his jacket; he was pretty damned sure that if he saw Kelli in the next few minutes he would do something incredibly stupid.
Like kiss her and ask her to run away from all of this with me, and just for one time in my fucking life it would be so nice to forget everything but the freedom to do whatever I wanted. When the hell did I grow old and bitter?
He chuckled to himself as he lit another cigarette.
Around the same time I married Michelle, I guess. The same time I couldn’t just be free to go where I wanted and do all the things I kept meaning to do.
There had been college and then law school and then interning for a group of self-righteous bastards who knew their business and knew a good thing when they saw it. And damn, they’d paid him handsomely as soon as he graduated. But he sometimes wondered how different everything would have been if he’d decided to learn something other than corporate law when he was studying for the rest of his miserable life. Because there were days, and they were coming around more and more often, when he hated his job and he could barely stand to look at his wife.
Teddy had made it all worthwhile. The days when he and Michelle could barely stand each other, all his son had to do was walk into the room and they both remembered why they loved each other and why they’d been struggling to stay together for so long. All of the old clichés seemed to be true: he loved his wife, but was not sure if he was in love with her; she was his wife and his mate, but she wasn’t really his friend. She didn’t understand him, and he loathed himself for having those oversimplified, miserable excuses filling his head constantly. They were all easier to ignore when Teddy was there and filling not just the room but the whole fucking
house
with his sweet, silly smile and his endless childhood energy.
And now he was missing from the equation and it was painful to be in the same room with his wife, because they were both hurting, both desperate to lash out and not really much in the mood to be forgiving.
Teddy peered around a tree and looked at Bill, his eyes flashing with merriment and an impish smile on his face. He wore clothes that were unfamiliar to Bill, and his hair was a little wild, but oh, dear God, how sweet he looked; an angel made flesh, alive despite everything Bill had allowed himself to think.
“Teddy?” It felt like his heart had stopped when he saw his son.
Teddy didn’t answer. Instead his boy ran into the woods, laughing, moving with the sort of wild abandon that Bill had almost forgotten existed. Almost forgotten because, right then, seeing his sweet boy’s face after three days without him in the world, Bill was like a child again. He was angry, to be sure, but he was so very happy too, and he felt like he could run a thousand miles and easily, if he could just catch up with his son.
“Teddy!” In that one word he cried his joy to the universe and released himself from the bonds that kept him anchored to the world. With each step he took, he felt younger and stronger, and he gave chase, pushing himself hard to catch up to the most important person in his entire existence.
He ran, and Teddy ran before him, almost dancing with each movement as he looked over his shoulder and smiled back at Bill. The leaves on the ground exploded away from them, leaving wakes in the mulch as surely as a clipper cuts through waves on a mild sea.
Bill felt like he’d grown wings; his feet knew just where to touch and exactly how to push off from every obstacle that should have tripped him. His hands stretched out in front of him, closing in on his sweet boy and coming closer to catching him, holding him, loving him fiercely.
He caught his son in his hands and Teddy giggled. And then he had Teddy in his arms, and was holding him tightly enough to practically crush his wonderful, crazy, beautiful boy. He pulled his son closer still and smelled the charnel scent on his ten-year-old hair and thought it surely the sweetest perfume.
And then Teddy was hugging him back and his son was so unbelievably strong. His precious, lovely boy was smiling in his face; Teddy’s skin and eyes seemed the wrong color and his hair was rippling in a wind that Bill had not expected.
And then his son was killing him.
Despite the pain, Bill Lister died happy, reunited with his boy in the end.
VII
Tom Pardue waited patiently. He was good at being patient. It was one of the things that set him aside from the others of his ilk. He didn’t need to beat information from his girls, he just had to watch and wait.
He was watching Maggie when she went into the Methodist Church. It took some doing, but he was watching when she went into the minister’s office, too. He spent a little over an hour watching her fuck the middle-aged pastor four ways to Sunday, leaving him gasping and red-faced when she was done with him. His only real regret was that he didn’t have a camera to film the entire fuckfest, because she could have been teaching the rest of his whores a trick or two and he could have sold the resulting video for fifty bucks a pop to every college boy in town that wanted a piece of her sweet, little ass.